How does a group of people signal its displeasure? With whatever it has to hand. Sometimes, with the hand itself. The precise method is less important than the numbers. If a crowd can raise a salute or a wooden spoon or a plastic toy, this tells the authorities that other forms of resistance are also possible.

Anything, it seems, can be freighted with rebellion: in 2014 police in Bangkok began arresting demonstrators who turned public sandwich-eating into an anti-authoritarian gesture (when protests were banned, pro-democracy activists took to holding sedate picnics instead).