For some of us, young people are, by default, radical. The Arabic word for youth is shabab; a group using the word as its name gunned down over 60 people in a Kenyan shopping mall last week.

However, stereotypes are generalizations, or assumptions, which people make about the characteristics of all members of a group, based on an image (often wrong) about what some people in that group are like. Some believe they know our young people, but in all likelihood they are wrong.

Our city's youth do not yield to stereotype. The majority of them were born locally, but quite a few were born abroad or on the mainland. The lucky and talented go to private schools. The less fortunate grow up in public housing, go to public schools and have higher dropout rates. Between what they are and what others think they should be, a spectrum of dispositions exists to guide their outlooks and actions.

Our youth are responsible for rejecting any action that will damage the rule of law, according to Wang Zhimin, deputy director of the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the HKSAR. This means that they have to stand up against the "Occupy Central" quasi-movement.

"Hong Kong is now at a crucial moment in its economic and democratic transition," Wang said in the opening speech of an anniversary event for the Hong Kong United Youth Association. "It is the responsibility of the youth to treasure and safeguard Hong Kong's stability and to reject and prevent chaos that will damage and trample on the rule of law." He also called on young people to "stay united" and become "a new force" to support Leung Chun-ying, but he also said that some younger people had complaints that society should address.

The United Youth Association is headed by Kenneth Fok Kai-kong, a very talented young man. Other leaders of the association are equally hard-working and modest. They are the sort that takes a keen interest in the city's rule of law. In fact, I am certain they share many other concerns of Deputy Director Wang's too.

What remains inexplicable, as far as the association's leadership is concerned, is the apparent uniformity in fashion taste. None of them seem to groom their hair in a combination of mullet/comb-over or apply makeup to imitate hedgehogs. Where are all the young people who walk the streets in Mong Kok late at night? Don't they ever, by sheer probability, join the Hong Kong United Youth Association? Do they ever have the good fortune to meet Wang and be taught their proper role in society?

I wonder if people practicing the "Mong Kok-style" have an association of their own. How about our city's Hikikomori (the reclusive adolescents or young adults who withdraw from social life, often seeking extreme degrees of isolation and confinement) who are growing in number? To reach them, someone has to post the message about the youth's responsibility in online forums.

We have a youth that have participated in Occupied Central I. That movement lasted from Oct 15, 2011 to Sept 11, 2012, where a camp was set up at a plaza beneath the HSBC headquarters. These young people are said to be different from previous generations. Their parents fought for "bread and butter" when they were young; they fight for their rights not to have bread. They don't want bread: they are anti-materialistic. By camping outside HSBC, they showed the city they are not submitting to mainstream values.

We also have a youth that seems unable to defy social expectations. They feel they have no choice but to spend, on average, HK$260,000 on their weddings. Gucci for themselves or their loved ones is an obligation. Then they complain about the unaffordability of owning a house, as if this piece of material possession is also a must-have.

It would be amusing if these youth are in fact the same people. Even if they are not, I am afraid the materialist conformist type and the anti-materialistic radical type will both still find their respective reasons to be ungrateful for our city's prosperity and rule of law.

The author is a current affairs commentator.

(HK Edition 09/28/2013 page6)