In 1997 the British handed control of Hong Kong back to China, marking the end of British rule after more than 150 years. In accordance with the One Country, Two Systems principle agreed between the United Kingdom and the People's Republic of China, the socialist system of People's Republic of China would not be practiced in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), and Hong Kong's previous capitalist system and its way of life would remain unchanged for a period of 50 years.
Everything you would want to know about this history can be found here: Wikipedia page
Naturally, this has lead to some insecurity amongst Hong Kong residents that they may lose many of the democratic and other benefits that they are accustomed to. There is a great sensitivity amongst the public here that has risen to the surface in recent months. The Chief Executive elections held earlier this year were a catalyst for protests, as there is fear that pro-China (ie. non-pro-Democracy) leadership in the country will begin infringing on the rights and benefits that people have become accustomed to.
Thousands of pro-democracy activists filled Hong Kong’s streets over the weekend, adding momentum – and no small amount of vitriol – to the most colorful political contest the city has ever seen.
“This is the most exciting election that’s ever occurred in Greater China, outside Taiwan,” says Richard Cullen, visiting law professor at the University of Hong Kong.
“Election” is a bit of a misnomer, as Hong Kong’s future chief executive will in fact be chosen on March 25 by a so-called election committee — a 1,200-member group dominated by pro-Beijing political and business elites. Although China has promised that Hong Kongers will have universal suffrage beginning in 2017, the government hasn’t offered a roadmap for what that will look like.
Brandishing yellow “People Power” banners, helium balloons and signs opposing the “small-circle” nature of the city’s elections, thousands of protesters surged into the city’s Chater Garden on Sunday afternoon after marching from Causeway Bay in an event sponsored by People Power, a pro-democratic coalition. Police estimated that 3,200 people protested.
“Everyone elected under this system is cursed,” said Vincent Cheung, an information-technology professional who turned out on Sunday to show his support for universal suffrage. “They will not be able to accomplish anything,” he says, because “they are only elected by a group of privileged people and are just representing the interests of those small groups.”
Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang also found himself in the crosshairs, with protesters demanding his resignation over scandals that revealed he had accepted favors from local tycoons, including luxury yacht rides. Sunday in Charter Garden, protesters chanted antigovernment slogans and tossed fistfuls of fake paper banknotes — an offensive gesture suggesting that Mr. Tsang and other government officials’ souls are destined for the underworld.
One local writer and activist, Wong Yeung-Tat, waved an upright paper effigy of Mr. Tsang, so that protesters could “burn it and send him to hell,” he said.
“He should step down and go to hell,” he said. “He destroyed Hong Kong’s values and he needs to apologize for giving advantages to big businessmen.”
Mr. Tsang, who is under investigation by the city’s Independent Commission Against Corruption, is scheduled to retire from office this June.
In the meantime, the candidates vying to replace Mr. Tsang “just represent the election committee’s 1,200 people, not us,” says Mr. Cheung. “We want a real election, not a fake one.”
While Hong Kong lacks the popular vote, fierce public outcry against Beijing’s originally favored candidate — local business favorite Henry Tang — has nonetheless managed to clip the one-time front-runner’s wings, following a spate of scandals that left his approval ratings hovering around 16%.
In the coming weeks before March 25, there will still be “a lot of turbulence, a lot of uncertainty,” says Regina Ip, a Legislative Council member and former secretary for security whose bid to join the chief executive race fell short of the needed nominations last week. “This small-circle election is not proceeding according to script.”
With all this in mind, it was not surprising that it upset people when the Government of Hong Kong announced that they were planning to impose a "National Studies" curriculum. This would not be the biggest deal if it were a 1 year course - but it is a grade 2 to grade 12 requirement.
The two sides of the coin are as follows:
Hong Kong residents: This is Chinese propaganda. They are poisoning the minds of our children.
Hong Kong government: Hong Kong is part of China now - it only makes sense that Hong Kong citizens learn about China and learn to feel pride for Chinese accomplishments.
Hong Kong protest over school 'brainwashing' by China
Thousands of protesters surrounded Hong Kong's government headquarters on Monday over a plan to introduce a pro-China school curriculum that they describe as an attempt to brainwash students.
Chanting "No to brainwashing education. Withdraw national education", some 8000 people denounced a Hong Kong government-funded booklet entitled "The China Model" they say glorifies China's single Communist party rule while glossing over more brutal aspects of its rule and political controversies.
One hunger striker was taken away on a stretcher on the third straight day of protests after fasting for more than 40 hours.
The protests represent a challenge for Hong Kong's new pro-Beijing leader Leung Chun-ying, who took office in July, and who has come under pressure for policies that have highlighted underlying tensions as the financial hub becomes increasingly intertwined, economically and socially, with China.
Polls suggest Hong Kong public distrust towards China is at a record high some 15 years after the former British colony reverted to Chinese rule in 1997, with many fearing Beijing's hand encroaching increasingly into the city's cherished freedoms and political affairs.
Many of the protesters were young students who flocked to the demonstrations straight after their first day back at school, some heckling Leung to scrap the scheme or step down.
The most recent development, and the one which has spurned me to create this topic, is that University students are planning to mass protest the curriculum change. It was just announced on the news that the Chinese University of Hong Kong students unions/bodies are the first to officially agree to protest. I do not know where an english article is.
I am from Canada, where student protests recently lasted for many months in Quebec causing the cancellation of the school year, and I am recently arrived in Hong Kong to study at the Chinese University of Hong Kong on exchange. I have no real interest in this protest, and am worried that if it escalates to the same level that the Quebec protests did, this could compromise my ability to take classes while I am here, and ultimately force me to take another year of school in Canada as I will not have the exchange credits I need.
Does anyone know what the heck is going on? Is the position of Hong Kong residents legitimate enough to potentially escalate to serious student protests? Could class cancellation ever be on the table, or would the government rather let the protesters fail their classes?
All I know is: -People from Hong Kong dont seemt to like the rest of China that much (you prolly figured that out as well) -China isn't exactly known for political subtlety, and if I recall right they had no problem with enforcing rule upon Hong Kong before.
Hong Kong for me as always been a sort of exemplar of what China may look like decades down the line with a couple of steps in the right direction. Horrifying to think that the reverse process may be occurring. As a chinese who spend most of his grade school in China, I can honestly say that the amount of brainwashing that goes on in the classroom is... well, unsavory.
There have been many tensions, with Beijing enforcing Putonghua, so Hongkongers protest to keep Guandonghua; etc. These protests won't change anything, HK is part of China and won't be SAR forever.
They're in the unfortunate position of having sovereignty in their state essentially handed over to a foreign nation with a totalitarian government. They're fucked. They're right to protest, their history is one of a liberal colonial western system and being told they need to learn to conform with the antithesis of that is horrible.
On September 06 2012 18:12 B.I.G. wrote: All I know is: -People from Hong Kong dont seemt to like the rest of China that much (you prolly figured that out as well) -China isn't exactly known for political subtlety, and if I recall right they had no problem with enforcing rule upon Hong Kong before.
So that leads me to conclude: bad luck Hong Kong
If that is the case, do you have any insight into whether students are willing to protest this seriously? I would imagine that since CUHK is so challenging to get admitted to, and since the culture is very academically oriented, that the student protests either a) won't pick up much steam, or b) won't last that long.
On September 06 2012 18:18 KwarK wrote: They're in the unfortunate position of having sovereignty in their state essentially handed over to a foreign nation with a totalitarian government. They're fucked. They're right to protest, their history is one of a liberal colonial western system and being told they need to learn to conform with the antithesis of that is horrible.
A "foreign nation"? That's certainly a British way of looking at it lol. I don't support the HK government's decision but "handed back" would be a lot more accurate than "handed over" in this case.
On September 06 2012 18:18 KwarK wrote: They're in the unfortunate position of having sovereignty in their state essentially handed over to a foreign nation with a totalitarian government. They're fucked. They're right to protest, their history is one of a liberal colonial western system and being told they need to learn to conform with the antithesis of that is horrible.
A "foreign nation"? That's certainly a British way of looking at it lol. I don't support the HK government's decision but "handed back" would be a lot more accurate than "handed over" in this case.
Hey, none of this B.S. That debate was resolved 15 years ago.
Thats not a valuable thing for Chinese, they value conformity above all else. It pains them to see, something "theirs" to be so different. Its like a cancer You know, it might spread.
And Honk-Kong was barren low populted island when British took over, look what it is now.
On September 06 2012 18:18 KwarK wrote: They're in the unfortunate position of having sovereignty in their state essentially handed over to a foreign nation with a totalitarian government. They're fucked. They're right to protest, their history is one of a liberal colonial western system and being told they need to learn to conform with the antithesis of that is horrible.
A "foreign nation"? That's certainly a British way of looking at it lol. I don't support the HK government's decision but "handed back" would be a lot more accurate than "handed over" in this case.
It's been one hundred and fifty years. China today would be unrecognisable to the China that HK was previously a part of. I don't dispute that the initial seizure was an illegitimate act of imperialism and I have no desire to defend the 19th Century British record in China. However the people for whom it would be "handing back" are long dead, as is the China they would be "handing back" to. My concern is with the people alive today for whom modern China is an alien system.
Hey OP what is your opinion on what is happening in Quebec? IMHO the protest is unnecessary. Quebec have the lowest tuition rate in all the province of Canada - even after the tuition hike. And it is like $1000~ increase over the course of 4 year. Instead of getting a job to pay for the thing they want, they decide to protest and complain unfair. The fun thing is some of them claim they're not spoil brat because they protesting in RL and not on the internet. Oh their stupidity...
On September 06 2012 18:18 KwarK wrote: They're in the unfortunate position of having sovereignty in their state essentially handed over to a foreign nation with a totalitarian government. They're fucked. They're right to protest, their history is one of a liberal colonial western system and being told they need to learn to conform with the antithesis of that is horrible.
You say colonial western system like its a good thing. As if colonialism was some gift from the great Brits. You know what? I hope China fucking crushes the protests from these faux fucking Brits. There isn't a country or culture in the world more scummy than the British and if it will take a massive act of oppression to destroy the British influence in a region, its completely worth it.
the main concern about it at the moment is that the government set up a 'model' textbook guideline for the schools to follow. Now since HK education doesn't really promote any free thinking, so this is especially worrying since the debatable areas will be just stated as facts.
Some people think this event means that we aren't proud/ready to be part of China yet, but the way I see it is that we just don't want our independance to be affected by these propaganda and we want us to accept the Chinese nationality by studying the 'real' history
The protest group mainly hoping to change some of the points in that guideline books. government won't back down and forcefully to put forth this program, and so parents etc are extremely angry about it and now they want a full cancellation of this program rather than reeditting it
Not all against this program are pro-uk colonialism though (one major hong kong TV channel labeled the pro group as constructive party and those against, the destroyer who wants nothing but chaos in Hong Kong to show China cannot rule Hong Kong well)
On September 06 2012 18:01 Gnial wrote: Is the position of Hong Kong residents legitimate enough to potentially escalate to serious student protests? Could class cancellation ever be on the table, or would the government rather let the protesters fail their classes?
Any insight people have would be awesome.
It's definitely a legitimite concern. Encouraging people to understand and appreciate your country is one thing, but forcing them to do so is something else entirely, especially if the curriculum is decided by the country, and not individual education boards. I mean, I completely understand where China's coming from, but you can't force acceptance of your history and culture, the history of which is already highly controversial (I mean seriously, the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward completely fucked the country over, both culturally and economically). They already stated that the curriculum is meant to make people appreciate China; that already implies that the material's going to be heavily biased towards favoring China and less towards actual facts, i.e. nationalistic brainwashing.
Sadly, we don't have any power over what out own government does whatsoever, both due to the fact that our government's already in China's pocket and the fact that we're going to lose our sovereignty in 2047 anyway. China's basically got us by the balls.
However, most crucially, China wants Hong Kong due to it's vast economic value; if they fuck us over too much, we're just going to mass exodus the fuck out of here and leave the place to rot. Stability is key in ensuring that HK stays economically beneficial, so (hopefully) they'll try and change their current plan.
On September 06 2012 18:18 zdfgucker wrote: There have been many tensions, with Beijing enforcing Putonghua, so Hongkongers protest to keep Guandonghua; etc. These protests won't change anything, HK is part of China and won't be SAR forever.
Incorrect, Hong Kong is a soverign (though arguable, considering that our politicians are basically China's bitches) nation, as was agreed by both Britain and China until 2047. It's a cultural issue; even when we join back with you guys, we won't be 'part' of China, because we don't want to assimilate and lose our identities. Saying that the protests won't change anything is true, but having the attitude that we're part of China period is what's causing the tension in the first place.
You guys threw away Hong Kong to the British because you thought we were a valueless fishing village - a "barren rock" - , and we developed it together with the British to make it one of the freest and most successful economies in the world. Now you guys want us back because you want not just a piece of the pie, but the entire thing, and expect us to sacrifice our distinct national and cultural identities, our freedoms of religion, speech, and basic human rights? Surely you can understand why some of us don't want that? I'm all for unity with China, but the shit they're doing right now and the attitudes that seem to be held by a lot of mainland Chinese aren't helping the situation at all.
@ epicanthic: Thank you very much for the response - it is exactly what I was looking for, although I have mixed feeling about what it means. If the students are willing to protest this intensely, this could have a big impact for me. However, you are right: Hong Kong has serious leverage. While the trade aspect of Hong Kong is something that could be preserved even in the event of a mass exodus, the financial industry is not. I hope some agreement may be found.
On September 06 2012 18:48 800800 wrote: Hey OP what is your opinion on what is happening in Quebec? IMHO the protest is unnecessary. Quebec have the lowest tuition rate in all the province of Canada - even after the tuition hike. And it is like $1000~ increase over the course of 4 year. Instead of getting a job to pay for the thing they want, they decide to protest and complain unfair. The fun thing is some of them claim they're not spoil brat because they protesting in RL and not on the internet. Oh their stupidity...
This is off topic, so I won't give you an opinion. However, I will correct you because you do not understand the issue properly.
The Quebec students consider education to be an inalienable right - as does most of the world. In the rest of Canada it is considered the right of every person to have free education up until grade 12.
Imagine if the government all of a sudden forced all high school students to pay $1,000 per year. It is not much, but I bet you everyone would be angry because education for all is a value that we hold dear to our hearts, and it is a right that we want to bestow upon all people.
The Quebec students simply believe that it is the duty of society is to provide for post-secondary education. Thus, ANY increase is in violation of their right to education. They want it to be $0, and they are happy to pay for it with increased taxes when they are older.
For that reason, an argument comparing Quebec tuition to other tuition is not relevant. You must argue that the right to free education should end at grade 12 and not go further.
I've been hearing about this from relatives who live in HK.
This whole thing according to what I have gathered seem to be blown out of proportion. National education is just a history course about China much like how other countries in the world promote history of their own country. It's based off the same curriculum in China so I don't see much problem with this. The arguments proposed in the protests were that China is trying to take away freedom off the people of HK via brainwashing methods. Which is absurd in itself.
I think this entire ordeal is just more crap the people of HK do every year. Note: the people of HK protest a lot about every little thing almost every day of the year
Judging from HK relatives and friends of mine. The reaction pretty much says "/facepalm, not again... don't they have jobs to do?"
On September 06 2012 19:08 Gnial wrote: The Quebec students simply believe that it is the duty of society is to provide for post-secondary education. Thus, ANY increase is in violation of their right to education. They want it to be $0, and they are happy to pay for it with increased taxes when they are older.
For that reason, an argument comparing Quebec tuition to other tuition is not relevant. You must argue that the right to free education should end at grade 12 and not go further.
That is not an easy argument to make.
It seems pretty simple to me. A democratic society decides what its obligations are to its people by electing governments to pass laws based upon their manifesto promises. If the students would like the government to grant them what they view are their rights then they must elect a government to do so. Simply complaining to the current government that you think you have the right to something when they disagree is a fundamental misunderstanding of the way things work.
If they truly wish to repay the cost of education when they are older then I believe there is a system already in place whereby an individual can pay for something now and then make payments over time in the future.
This is not to say I disagree with them about public funding of education but rather that demanding rights that the government does not recognise is a waste of time. Instead you need to elect a government to enshrine those rights.
On September 06 2012 19:08 Gnial wrote: The Quebec students simply believe that it is the duty of society is to provide for post-secondary education. Thus, ANY increase is in violation of their right to education. They want it to be $0, and they are happy to pay for it with increased taxes when they are older.
For that reason, an argument comparing Quebec tuition to other tuition is not relevant. You must argue that the right to free education should end at grade 12 and not go further.
That is not an easy argument to make.
It seems pretty simple to me. A democratic society decides what its obligations are to its people by electing governments to pass laws based upon their manifesto promises. If the students would like the government to grant them what they view are their rights then they must elect a government to do so. Simply complaining to the current government that you think you have the right to something when they disagree is a fundamental misunderstanding of the way things work.
If they truly wish to repay the cost of education when they are older then I believe there is a system already in place whereby an individual can pay for something now and then make payments over time in the future.
This is not to say I disagree with them about public funding of education but rather that demanding rights that the government does not recognise is a waste of time. Instead you need to elect a government to enshrine those rights.
Funnily enough protests are a perfectly good way to demonstrate your political wishes. Voting is not, like you try to make it sound, the only way to make your voice heard. Not in theory and not in practice.
In this case the students would be a minority of the voting population as a whole making it an impossibility in the first place to just vote on any particular goverment they themselves would actually want. That means that they will have to make their voice heard to whichever government is actually elected.
Edit: As far as this relates to the Hong Kong situation the students seem to be well in their right to protest this change. IT doesn't seem to have been part of any election platform to begin with. They should also write to politicians, write open letters in newspapers, try to appear on debates and so on. Again, voting is not the only option for political change in a democratic system.
On September 06 2012 18:01 Gnial wrote: Is the position of Hong Kong residents legitimate enough to potentially escalate to serious student protests? Could class cancellation ever be on the table, or would the government rather let the protesters fail their classes?
Any insight people have would be awesome.
It's definitely a legitamite concern. Encouraging people to understand and appreciate your country is one thing, but forcing them to do so is something else entirely, especially if the curriculum is decided by the country, and not individual education boards. I mean, I completely understand where China's coming from, but you can't force acceptance of your history and culture, the history of which is already highly controversial (I mean seriously, the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward completely fucked the country over, both culturally and economically). They already stated that the curriculum is meant to make people appreciate China; that already implies that the material's going to be heavily biased towards favoring China and less towards actual facts, i.e. nationalistic brainwashing.
Sadly, we don't have any power over what out own government does whatsoever, both due to the fact that our government's already in China's pocket and the fact that we're going to lose our sovereignty in 2047 anyway. China's basically got us by the balls.
However, most crucially, China wants Hong Kong due to it's vast economic value; if they fuck us over too much, we're just going to mass exodus the fuck out of here and leave the place to rot. Stability is key in ensuring that HK stays economically beneficial, so (hopefully) they'll try and change their current plan.
On September 06 2012 18:18 zdfgucker wrote: There have been many tensions, with Beijing enforcing Putonghua, so Hongkongers protest to keep Guandonghua; etc. These protests won't change anything, HK is part of China and won't be SAR forever.
Incorrect, Hong Kong is a soverign (though arguable, considering that our politicians are basically China's bitches) nation, as was agreed by both Britain and China until 2047. It's a cultural issue; even when we join back with you guys, we won't be 'part' of China, because we don't want to assimilate and lose our identities. Saying that the protests won't change anything is true, but having the attitude that we're part of China period is what's causing the tension in the first place.
You guys threw away Hong Kong to the British because you thought we were a valueless fishing village - a "barren rock" - , and we developed it together with the British to make it one of the freest and most successful economies in the world. Now you guys want us back because you want not just a piece of the pie, but the entire thing, and expect us to sacrifice our distinct national and cultural identities, our freedoms of religion, speech, and basic human rights? Surely you can understand why some of us don't want that? I'm all for unity with China, but the shit they're doing right now and the attitudes that seem to be held by a lot of mainland Chinese aren't helping the situation at all.
I disagree with your position. Name a single piece of history which isn't biased? There is no such thing as objectively sound history, because it is always going to be the interpretation of the person writing it. Secondly, it is hard to avoid other opinions of what happened in China, because information is as free in HK as it is in the rest of the Western world. So your opposition of the scheme being brainwashing doesn't really make too much sense in a place like HK.
Also your prediction that people in HK will just flee China when the time came to completely convert the city into the Chinese system. It already happened prior to the 1997 handover, and what happened was people from the mainland coming down to fill the positions. Economic stability didn't change as Hong Kong is still the Asian centre for financial and accounting activities. You could argue that HK is worse off than it was prior to the handover, but I would point you towards the 1972 and 1988 stock crashes that severely lowered wages and increased unemployment that HK is still trying to recover from.
This is just news turned fox news turned pitchfork witching hunting
On September 06 2012 19:08 Gnial wrote: The Quebec students simply believe that it is the duty of society is to provide for post-secondary education. Thus, ANY increase is in violation of their right to education. They want it to be $0, and they are happy to pay for it with increased taxes when they are older.
For that reason, an argument comparing Quebec tuition to other tuition is not relevant. You must argue that the right to free education should end at grade 12 and not go further.
That is not an easy argument to make.
It seems pretty simple to me. A democratic society decides what its obligations are to its people by electing governments to pass laws based upon their manifesto promises. If the students would like the government to grant them what they view are their rights then they must elect a government to do so. Simply complaining to the current government that you think you have the right to something when they disagree is a fundamental misunderstanding of the way things work.
If they truly wish to repay the cost of education when they are older then I believe there is a system already in place whereby an individual can pay for something now and then make payments over time in the future.
This is not to say I disagree with them about public funding of education but rather that demanding rights that the government does not recognise is a waste of time. Instead you need to elect a government to enshrine those rights.
Funnily enough protests are a perfectly good way to demonstrate your political wishes. Voting is not, like you try to make it sound, the only way to make your voice heard. Not in theory and not in practice.
In this case the students would be a minority of the voting population as a whole making it an impossibility in the first place to just vote on any particular goverment they themselves would actually want. That means that they will have to make their voice heard to whichever government is actually elected.
You make it sound as though a minority interest never holds sway in a democratic contest. The opposite is generally true, that when two roughly equal political blocks form (as in most two party systems) it is a small number of contested votes that generally decide the election. By campaigning, lobbying political parties and raising awareness of the issue they could influence the manifesto of a political party.
Protesting that something that is not the case is the case is absurd. A claim of "I have a right to free education" can be denounced by a simple "no, you don't, I checked". "I should have a right to free education" is a much more useful thing to claim and that can be framed as an argument and an argument can be put to the people and to political parties.
China needs to back the fuck off. Nobody wants them here.
I'm sick of China calling us "British dogs", who have lost "our sense of what it means to be Chinese", yet at the same time every mainlander I know wants a piece of Hong Kong (for reference, mainlander is a Chinese from China). They buy tons of property from their "government-approved spending money", essentially turning the city into their own game of monopoly, without caring about what makes Hong Kong the city that it is.
If China really sees us as "paperdoll Chinese" (quoted from CCTV), then why are there hundreds of women crossing our border everyday, waiting to give birth so their children can have HONG KONG PASSPORTS? Why do so many mainland families want to move to Hong Kong, even today? Mind you, we're talking about the RICH and the ELITE families, the 1% (or in China, the 0.001%).
I haven't seen a single star in the sky for over 10 years in Hong Kong because of pollution from China. I haven't gone one day outside without seeing a mainlander spit in the street, or pick his nose and wipe it on bus/train railings. I haven't had one lunch or dinner at a restaurant where there's a mainlander and he or she isn't yelling over our table when he's on the freakin' phone. I haven't been able to shop at a EUROPEAN BRAND store without having to line up because all these mainlanders come to Hong Kong to spend all their dirty money. Sorry, but there's no way you can convince that the mainlanders I see every single fucking day aren't barbaric. They have no respect for people around them, they are uneducated, they have no shame, no tolerance, no common manners (like putting your hand over your mouth when you cough or sneeze), they don't follow public order whatsoever.
I challenge anyone who doesn't believe me to spend ONE day in Hong Kong, and you will see what I mean. I've had friends from all over the world (Africa excluded :\) and when they visit, they all say the same thing. "Hong Kong is a class A world city, like London, Paris, but the mainlanders are really fucking things up".
On September 06 2012 18:18 KwarK wrote: They're in the unfortunate position of having sovereignty in their state essentially handed over to a foreign nation with a totalitarian government. They're fucked. They're right to protest, their history is one of a liberal colonial western system and being told they need to learn to conform with the antithesis of that is horrible.
A "foreign nation"? That's certainly a British way of looking at it lol. I don't support the HK government's decision but "handed back" would be a lot more accurate than "handed over" in this case.
On September 06 2012 19:08 Gnial wrote: The Quebec students simply believe that it is the duty of society is to provide for post-secondary education. Thus, ANY increase is in violation of their right to education. They want it to be $0, and they are happy to pay for it with increased taxes when they are older.
For that reason, an argument comparing Quebec tuition to other tuition is not relevant. You must argue that the right to free education should end at grade 12 and not go further.
That is not an easy argument to make.
It seems pretty simple to me. A democratic society decides what its obligations are to its people by electing governments to pass laws based upon their manifesto promises. If the students would like the government to grant them what they view are their rights then they must elect a government to do so. Simply complaining to the current government that you think you have the right to something when they disagree is a fundamental misunderstanding of the way things work.
If they truly wish to repay the cost of education when they are older then I believe there is a system already in place whereby an individual can pay for something now and then make payments over time in the future.
This is not to say I disagree with them about public funding of education but rather that demanding rights that the government does not recognise is a waste of time. Instead you need to elect a government to enshrine those rights.
Funnily enough protests are a perfectly good way to demonstrate your political wishes. Voting is not, like you try to make it sound, the only way to make your voice heard. Not in theory and not in practice.
In this case the students would be a minority of the voting population as a whole making it an impossibility in the first place to just vote on any particular goverment they themselves would actually want. That means that they will have to make their voice heard to whichever government is actually elected.
You make it sound as though a minority interest never holds sway in a democratic contest. The opposite is generally true, that when two roughly equal political blocks form (as in most two party systems) it is a small number of contested votes that generally decide the election. By campaigning, lobbying political parties and raising awareness of the issue they could influence the manifesto of a political party.
Protesting that something that is not the case is the case is absurd. A claim of "I have a right to free education" can be denounced by a simple "no, you don't, I checked". "I should have a right to free education" is a much more useful thing to claim and that can be framed as an argument and an argument can be put to the people and to political parties.
When was the last time you heard of this being a major factor in elections? I mean students specifically not other interest groups. Regardless, my point wasn't that voting was irrelevant, my point was that it's not the only option and in the case of Hong Kong it doesn't seem to be an option at all.
On September 06 2012 18:18 KwarK wrote: They're in the unfortunate position of having sovereignty in their state essentially handed over to a foreign nation with a totalitarian government. They're fucked. They're right to protest, their history is one of a liberal colonial western system and being told they need to learn to conform with the antithesis of that is horrible.
You say colonial western system like its a good thing. As if colonialism was some gift from the great Brits. You know what? I hope China fucking crushes the protests from these faux fucking Brits. There isn't a country or culture in the world more scummy than the British and if it will take a massive act of oppression to destroy the British influence in a region, its completely worth it.
western colonialism, and specifically British colonialism, has done nothing but good for the world; out of all the nations to come from the Commonwealth/under British colonization, the only major country to falter has been Zimbabwe.
Canada, South Africa, India, and Malaysia/Singapore are all major economic powers, but the British didn't directly craft them into the financial strongholds they are today. Because all of these nations retained or modeled off their British-influenced educational, financial, judicial, and legislative systems, they were able to develop their nation well after they'd left the British sphere of influence.
The foundations that the British gave these nations is nothing to scoff at when you consider nations that have no official ties to the Commonwealth, but draw heavily from British influences such as the United States and Hong Kong, are central pillars of economy and culture in their respective parts of the world. This is why your blind hatred has no place, and why it's especially important for citizens in HK to recognize that an underlying portion in their formula for continued prosperity is being forcefully altered.
from what I hear, people are wary of the implications national education might carry, and that a milder form of the devastating Cultural Revolution might take place again. For a lot of citizens, excessive PRC influence or impression has been something that they've dreaded ever since the 1997 reunification. A lot of them would have preferred to stay under British sovereignty.
As someone who has spent quite a bit of time in China, and has truly been a part of the higher-level education system (that is, not as a foreign teacher, not as someone doing business, not even as someone just studying Chinese), I've seen and been a part of quite a few things here that worry me. And while anyone who's never been to China may view Hong Kong as a Chinese place, someone who has lived the way I have for a long time, visiting Hong Kong is like a breath of fresh air, a whole new world that, while Chinese, is free from many of the things that slowly eat away at you in the mainland. It's truly a great place, and despite whatever political agreements are in place, Hong Kong is anything but "Chinese" as we know China today.
I have a lot of faith in Hong Kong and the people there, and I would gladly support them in their protests. Hong Kong is a special place, and they're doing the right thing. Giving in without one hell of a fight would cause Hong Kong to lose much of what makes it so great and unique. They have a history far different from China, and it would truly be a shame for that to slowly disappear and meld with that of the mainland. I shudder to think of what could happen to Cantonese, as it's already being slowly pushed away even in Guangzhou. I shudder to think of what could happen to the citizens and their understanding of morals and manners, which are unquestionably more developed than those in the mainland. I don't want to think about those things, because for me, Hong Kong is a wonderful place. And by not protesting these changes, by not doing anything about it, Hong Kong would be on the start to some very far-reaching changes that would forever change such a unique place. Even if the protests may not accomplish much, they really owe it to themselves to at least try.
Hong Kong may be Chinese in a sense, but truthfully it's a wonderful blend of Chinese and Western culture, and there's really nothing else quite like it. It should be preserved, in my opinion, and not forced to adhere to China's ways. Instead, China should be proud of the role they played and hopefully will play in making Hong Kong what it is and continuing to improve it, not destroying the very things that make it different and special from China in the first place. They should be teaching Chinese to appreciate Hong Kong, not Hong Kong to appreciate China. Hong Kongers will always be Chinese, and they're not blind. They know what to appreciate, it's in their blood and their history. It's the mainland Chinese that I worry about. Without a doubt, I support all those Hong Kongers who are willing to protest this.
Also, I'd like to leave this valuable quote here, just for reference sake:
Freedom of Assembly in Hong Kong
The freedom of assembly is protected under Article 27 of the Basic Law and Article 17 of the Bill of Rights.
Article 17 of the Bill of Rights provides:
The right of peaceful assembly shall be recognized. No restrictions may be placed on the exercise of this right other than those imposed in conformity with the law and which are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, public order (ordre public), the protection of public health or morals or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.
Although there are no official figures in the number of protests, an analysis of newspaper reports has shown that the reported number of protests increased from under 100 before 2000 to 210 in 2004, and stayed at around 200 cases up to 2006, signaling the maturation of civil society. It has also been argued that the 1 July march in 2003, in which half-a-million residents took to the streets to protest the proposed national security bill and express strong general dissatisfaction with the government, halted the legislation of the proposed bill and allowed civil society to recognize its strength and potential in the policy-making process. The 1 July march is organized every year.
On September 06 2012 18:18 KwarK wrote: They're in the unfortunate position of having sovereignty in their state essentially handed over to a foreign nation with a totalitarian government. They're fucked. They're right to protest, their history is one of a liberal colonial western system and being told they need to learn to conform with the antithesis of that is horrible.
You say colonial western system like its a good thing. As if colonialism was some gift from the great Brits. You know what? I hope China fucking crushes the protests from these faux fucking Brits. There isn't a country or culture in the world more scummy than the British and if it will take a massive act of oppression to destroy the British influence in a region, its completely worth it.
western colonialism, and specifically British colonialism, has done nothing but good for the world; out of all the nations to come from the Commonwealth/under British colonization, the only major country to falter has been Zimbabwe.
Canada, South Africa, India, and Malaysia/Singapore are all major economic powers, but the British didn't directly craft them into the financial strongholds they are today. Because all of these nations retained or modeled off their British-influenced educational, financial, judicial, and legislative systems, they were able to develop their nation well after they'd left the British sphere of influence.
The foundations that the British gave these nations is nothing to scoff at when you consider nations that have no official ties to the Commonwealth, but draw heavily from British influences such as the United States and Hong Kong, are central pillars of economy and culture in their respective parts of the world. This is why your blind hatred has no place, and why it's especially important for citizens in HK to recognize that an underlying portion in their formula for continued prosperity is being forcefully altered.
from what I hear, people are wary of the implications national education might carry, and that a milder form of the devastating Cultural Revolution might take place again. For a lot of citizens, excessive PRC influence or impression has been something that they've dreaded ever since the 1997 reunification. A lot of them would have preferred to stay under British sovereignty.
That's arguable. Many of the people are wanting British sovereignty ONLY because there are recent political scandles and the media are going all crazy about it. But in fact, when we were under British goverence, it was really bad as well but we didn't have that much of a concern simply because we had a great growth in economy.
The main reason why so many Hong Kong people are missing the old times are mainly due to the: economic environment: Hong Kong was extremely fast growing, where if you are willing to put an effort, you will be successful (except you are extremely not likely to be as successful as the foreigners). Unlike nowadays where uni grads can barely find any jobs, not to mention land price etcetc
Hong Kong recent years has more Chinese tourists and immigration coming in and some are living on the unemployment benefits, or posing some serious poor reputation for Chinese people (such as letting the Kids shitting in front of a shop in one of the luxury shopping centre in Hong Kong) other events such as rushing borders to born in Hong Kong region for citizenships, buying off all the milk powder because China brand had problem
I can clearly say the British colonization isn't all good. The wealth that generated were mainly benefiting the british who lived in Hong Kong at the time. There were lots of briding going on as well, especially within the police force (My granddad worked there, but he wouldn't take brides and eventually got kicked out)
And actually quite a lot of Hong Kong people are not aware of (or choose not to be awared of) the fact that the economy in Hong Kong is strong during the GFC is mainly due to its connection to China. Now that Chinese economy is slowing down and transforming (no longer only cheap manufacture focused) and price level rising, we are suffering from the higher living cost and we start to blame on China lol
On September 06 2012 19:07 epicanthic wrote: However, most crucially, China wants Hong Kong due to it's vast economic value; if they fuck us over too much, we're just going to mass exodus the fuck out of here and leave the place to rot. Stability is key in ensuring that HK stays economically beneficial, so (hopefully) they'll try and change their current plan.
Are you serious? HK is highly dependent on mainland China already and the port of HK is losing the battle against the fast growing ports everywhere in mainland. Yes, HK is rich and has a strong economy but that empty threat of yours is not going to scare anyone.
On September 06 2012 18:18 zdfgucker wrote: There have been many tensions, with Beijing enforcing Putonghua, so Hongkongers protest to keep Guandonghua; etc. These protests won't change anything, HK is part of China and won't be SAR forever.
Incorrect, Hong Kong is a soverign (though arguable, considering that our politicians are basically China's bitches) nation, as was agreed by both Britain and China until 2047. It's a cultural issue; even when we join back with you guys, we won't be 'part' of China, because we don't want to assimilate and lose our identities. Saying that the protests won't change anything is true, but having the attitude that we're part of China period is what's causing the tension in the first place.
First off, you are not disagreeing with me, you are a SAR just like Macao. And tell me about losing identity, have you heard about people in Shanghai trying to preserve their language? You are not alone in losing your language and identity. "We" can't change it and neither can you. C'est la vie.
I'm all for unity with China, but the shit they're doing right now and the attitudes that seem to be held by a lot of mainland Chinese aren't helping the situation at all.
That's coming from both sides. I've spent an exchange semester in HK and got quite a lot of flak for being from mainland, professors were making fun of "China" (HK is part of it but that they would not acknowledge) and Putonghua was not very welcomed by people. Likewise I met many nice and helpful people who treated me as a person.
On September 06 2012 19:07 epicanthic wrote: However, most crucially, China wants Hong Kong due to it's vast economic value; if they fuck us over too much, we're just going to mass exodus the fuck out of here and leave the place to rot. Stability is key in ensuring that HK stays economically beneficial, so (hopefully) they'll try and change their current plan.
Are you serious? HK is highly dependent on mainland China already and the port of HK is losing the battle against the fast growing ports everywhere in mainland. Yes, HK is rich and has a strong economy but that empty threat of yours is not going to scare anyone.
First off, you are not disagreeing with me, you are a SAR just like Macao. And tell me about losing identity, have you heard about people in Shanghai trying to preserve their language? You are not alone in losing your language and identity. "We" can't change it and neither can you. C'est la vie.
I'm all for unity with China, but the shit they're doing right now and the attitudes that seem to be held by a lot of mainland Chinese aren't helping the situation at all.
That's coming from both sides. I've spent an exchange semester in HK and got quite a lot of flak for being from mainland, professors were making fun of "China" (HK is part of it but that they would not acknowledge) and Putonghua was not very welcomed by people. Likewise I met many nice and helpful people who treated me as a person.
Riiiight, so how about you tell all these mainland families rushing their pregnant women to our already-full hospitals, taking advantage of our healthcare (unlike China, doctors in Hong Kong get their salaries from the government, not by squeezing the families of the injured dry), just so their children can have HONG KONG IDENTITIES AND PASSPORTS. Tell them to give birth in a Chinese city with a "growing port".
And I'm truly sorry for the good folks in Shanghai, but those Shanghainese don't share a border with the rest of China. They don't have Shanghainese passports, or Shanghainese identity cards.
Again, I might sound hostile, but you have to realize, China is the big dog. I'm sorry that you had bad experiences in Hong Kong, but can you blame us? You sound like an intelligent individual, put yourself in our shoes.
On September 06 2012 18:18 KwarK wrote: They're in the unfortunate position of having sovereignty in their state essentially handed over to a foreign nation with a totalitarian government. They're fucked. They're right to protest, their history is one of a liberal colonial western system and being told they need to learn to conform with the antithesis of that is horrible.
A "foreign nation"? That's certainly a British way of looking at it lol. I don't support the HK government's decision but "handed back" would be a lot more accurate than "handed over" in this case.
The PRC of 1997 has no claim to Hong Kong, except territorially. Thing is, Hong Kong is a worthless little island without the people living on it. Thus the only people who had any claim to Hong Kong were the citizens of Hong Kong.
Handing it back/over to the PRC is the worst travesty the UK has committed in about a century now.
Man sometimes I wish China will just let HK go and develop Shanghai to be the commercial entry way into China, maybe set up a special business zone in Shanghai with it's own mini government with lower taxes and waive the partnership with local Chinese firms condition to enter the market if they set up offices there.
They clearly don't like us, I've been given much more respect by Australians than by fellow Asians in HK. I've been to HK in the past and boy do they look down on you if you speak Mandarin but instant respect when you start speaking fluent English, it would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic. Granted it's changed now but they only want the revenue, the attitude hasn't changed.
On September 06 2012 18:18 KwarK wrote: They're in the unfortunate position of having sovereignty in their state essentially handed over to a foreign nation with a totalitarian government. They're fucked. They're right to protest, their history is one of a liberal colonial western system and being told they need to learn to conform with the antithesis of that is horrible.
A "foreign nation"? That's certainly a British way of looking at it lol. I don't support the HK government's decision but "handed back" would be a lot more accurate than "handed over" in this case.
The PRC of 1997 has no claim to Hong Kong, except territorially. Thing is, Hong Kong is a worthless little island without the people living on it. Thus the only people who had any claim to Hong Kong were the citizens of Hong Kong.
Handing it back/over to the PRC is the worst travesty the UK has committed in about a century now.
China was willing to invade to take Hong Kong over and threatened Thatcher at the time so I would think handing it over is better than losing it in an invasion.
On September 06 2012 18:18 KwarK wrote: They're in the unfortunate position of having sovereignty in their state essentially handed over to a foreign nation with a totalitarian government. They're fucked. They're right to protest, their history is one of a liberal colonial western system and being told they need to learn to conform with the antithesis of that is horrible.
A "foreign nation"? That's certainly a British way of looking at it lol. I don't support the HK government's decision but "handed back" would be a lot more accurate than "handed over" in this case.
The PRC of 1997 has no claim to Hong Kong, except territorially. Thing is, Hong Kong is a worthless little island without the people living on it. Thus the only people who had any claim to Hong Kong were the citizens of Hong Kong.
Handing it back/over to the PRC is the worst travesty the UK has committed in about a century now.
If we'd handed it to Taiwan and argued that they technically were the government of the nation from whom we leased it the PRC would have sulked forever.
On September 06 2012 18:18 KwarK wrote: They're in the unfortunate position of having sovereignty in their state essentially handed over to a foreign nation with a totalitarian government. They're fucked. They're right to protest, their history is one of a liberal colonial western system and being told they need to learn to conform with the antithesis of that is horrible.
A "foreign nation"? That's certainly a British way of looking at it lol. I don't support the HK government's decision but "handed back" would be a lot more accurate than "handed over" in this case.
The PRC of 1997 has no claim to Hong Kong, except territorially. Thing is, Hong Kong is a worthless little island without the people living on it. Thus the only people who had any claim to Hong Kong were the citizens of Hong Kong.
Handing it back/over to the PRC is the worst travesty the UK has committed in about a century now.
If we'd handed it to Taiwan and argued that they technically were the government of the nation from whom we leased it the PRC would have sulked forever.
On September 06 2012 19:25 Williammm wrote: I disagree with your position. Name a single piece of history which isn't biased? There is no such thing as objectively sound history, because it is always going to be the interpretation of the person writing it. Secondly, it is hard to avoid other opinions of what happened in China, because information is as free in HK as it is in the rest of the Western world. So your opposition of the scheme being brainwashing doesn't really make too much sense in a place like HK.
Also your prediction that people in HK will just flee China when the time came to completely convert the city into the Chinese system. It already happened prior to the 1997 handover, and what happened was people from the mainland coming down to fill the positions. Economic stability didn't change as Hong Kong is still the Asian centre for financial and accounting activities. You could argue that HK is worse off than it was prior to the handover, but I would point you towards the 1972 and 1988 stock crashes that severely lowered wages and increased unemployment that HK is still trying to recover from.
This is just news turned fox news turned pitchfork witching hunting
You're right, there is not such thing as truly objectively sound history, but there's value in having information as objective as possible, isn't there? History is meant to be objectively seen and interpreted by the recipient - it's only been manipulated by both individuals and governments to be used for their own agendas, which in this case is to ensure favorable unity with China. Arguing that history shouldn't be objective just because it generally isn't is not exactly solid.
Yes, it is hard to avoid other opinions of what happened in China, but those opinions aren't being forced upon us. We don't have to go on wikipedia or google to see what really happened, we do so out of choice. In this case however, there will be no choice - and that is what is the problem here.
Imagine this situation: Hong Kong is forced to learn about China from information that will obviously be entirely pro-China. We then get handed over to China in 2047 and then we suddenly fall under the same censorship laws - censoring of the media, literature, and of the internet, thanks to the Great Firewall of China and direct government involvement in forums and search engines. Where then can we learn about the truth? Nowhere. That's where this all leads to. And don't claim it won't happen, it's still happening within China as I type this very sentence.
The thing is, the 1997 handover wasn't actually a full transfer of sovereignty, it was just the creation of an SAR, to be left alone for 50 years. Laws were created in tandem with the British to ensure continued economic and social freedom. The situation here is different; we're going to be handed back to China and our current SAR laws are going to be scrapped in favor of the Chinese government's, because we'll officially, legally, be a part of China. Our economy will change. China isn't even on the list of the top 30 in the Index of Economic Freedom. We don't like government intervention in our economy; it's what's made us so successful. When we rejoin, shit will hit the regulatory fan, businesses will fall under the laws and regulations of the Chinese government. Like I said, the situation is different - instead of heading to an era of economic uncertainty, we're headed towards an era of economic certainty; certain in terms of the fact that businesses are not going to be able to conduct business in the way they have been for the past century, free and (mostly) government free.
This is news that has been turned into opposition to such news, that's it. I don't see any witch-hunting taking place, nor any sensationalism. It's just our opinion of what is going to happen, supported with evidence so gracious given by China's lack of freedom and legacy of propaganda and censorship, both historical and ongoing.
And to clarify, I'd love for there to be a day where the people from both Hong Kong and China can get along. It's just that it's impossible given the inevitability of assimilation,with a government that is absolutely fucking batshit insane. The people are great, everyone living in China are amazing individuals, but the Chinese government itself can go fuck itself (and then censor it out!). No offense to the people, plenty of offense to the government.
On September 06 2012 19:25 Williammm wrote: I disagree with your position. Name a single piece of history which isn't biased? There is no such thing as objectively sound history, because it is always going to be the interpretation of the person writing it. Secondly, it is hard to avoid other opinions of what happened in China, because information is as free in HK as it is in the rest of the Western world. So your opposition of the scheme being brainwashing doesn't really make too much sense in a place like HK.
Also your prediction that people in HK will just flee China when the time came to completely convert the city into the Chinese system. It already happened prior to the 1997 handover, and what happened was people from the mainland coming down to fill the positions. Economic stability didn't change as Hong Kong is still the Asian centre for financial and accounting activities. You could argue that HK is worse off than it was prior to the handover, but I would point you towards the 1972 and 1988 stock crashes that severely lowered wages and increased unemployment that HK is still trying to recover from.
This is just news turned fox news turned pitchfork witching hunting
You're right, there is not such thing as truly objectively sound history, but there's value in having information as objective as possible, isn't there? History is meant to be objectively seen and interpreted by the recipient - it's only been manipulated by both individuals and governments to be used for their own agendas, which in this case is to ensure favorable unity with China. Arguing that history shouldn't be objective just because it generally isn't is not exactly solid.
Yes, it is hard to avoid other opinions of what happened in China, but those opinions aren't being forced upon us. We don't have to go on wikipedia or google to see what really happened, we do so out of choice. In this case however, there will be no choice - and that is what is the problem here.
Imagine this situation: Hong Kong is forced to learn about China from information that will obviously be entirely pro-China. We then get handed over to China in 2047 and then we suddenly fall under the same censorship laws - censoring of the media, literature, and of the internet, thanks to the Great Firewall of China and direct government involvement in forums and search engines. Where then can we learn about the truth? Nowhere. That's where this all leads to. And don't claim it won't happen, it's still happening within China as I type this very sentence.
The thing is, the 1997 handover wasn't actually a full transfer of sovereignty, it was just the creation of an SAR, to be left alone for 50 years. Laws were created in tandem with the British to ensure continued economic and social freedom. The situation here is different; we're going to be handed back to China and our current SAR laws are going to be scrapped in favor of the Chinese government's, because we'll officially, legally, be a part of China. Our economy will change. China isn't even on the list of the top 30 in the Index of Economic Freedom. We don't like government intervention in our economy; it's what's made us so successful. When we rejoin, shit will hit the regulatory fan, businesses will fall under the laws and regulations of the Chinese government. Like I said, the situation is different - instead of heading to an era of economic uncertainty, we're headed towards an era of economic certainty; certain in terms of the fact that businesses are not going to be able to conduct business in the way they have been for the past century, free and (mostly) government free.
This is news that has been turned into opposition to such news, that's it. I don't see any witch-hunting taking place, nor any sensationalism. It's just our opinion of what is going to happen, supported with evidence so gracious given by China's lack of freedom and legacy of propaganda and censorship, both historical and ongoing.
And to clarify, I'd love for there to be a day where the people from both Hong Kong and China can get along. It's just that it's impossible given the inevitability of assimilation,with a government that is absolutely fucking batshit insane. The people are great, everyone living in China are amazing individuals, but the Chinese government itself can go fuck itself (and then censor it out!). No offense to the people, plenty of offense to the government.
What happens in 2047 is still anyone's guess. There's still guarantee HK will convert to Chinese law overnight. Your claim of 'learning about the truth' is extremely subjective. Every country has biased versions of what they want to teach as history. The US does it, Australia does it, pretty much every country does it. I don't see the issue here honestly when it is just implementation of a history course.
Also there is absolutely no basis on your claim that lack of intervention made HK so successful. I would also argue that the lack of government intervention and planning, and letting corporate giants manipulate the market destroyed Hong Kong's economy in 1988 and 1998 asian financial crisis. You can't condemn a model of economic control as being the doom of a country based off bias. Various countries in the world have systems where the government intervenes with economic situations like Australia, and there isn't a problem.
Also I don't think you actually know how businesses run in China. Little to no government intervention besides health and safety regulations (lol I know, they exist though). This is based off personal and outside experience with HK and Chinese business.
On September 06 2012 19:26 Xpace wrote: China needs to back the fuck off. Nobody wants them here.
I'm sick of China calling us "British dogs", who have lost "our sense of what it means to be Chinese", yet at the same time every mainlander I know wants a piece of Hong Kong (for reference, mainlander is a Chinese from China). They buy tons of property from their "government-approved spending money", essentially turning the city into their own game of monopoly, without caring about what makes Hong Kong the city that it is.
If China really sees us as "paperdoll Chinese" (quoted from CCTV), then why are there hundreds of women crossing our border everyday, waiting to give birth so their children can have HONG KONG PASSPORTS? Why do so many mainland families want to move to Hong Kong, even today? Mind you, we're talking about the RICH and the ELITE families, the 1% (or in China, the 0.001%).
I haven't seen a single star in the sky for over 10 years in Hong Kong because of pollution from China. I haven't gone one day outside without seeing a mainlander spit in the street, or pick his nose and wipe it on bus/train railings. I haven't had one lunch or dinner at a restaurant where there's a mainlander and he or she isn't yelling over our table when he's on the freakin' phone. I haven't been able to shop at a EUROPEAN BRAND store without having to line up because all these mainlanders come to Hong Kong to spend all their dirty money. Sorry, but there's no way you can convince that the mainlanders I see every single fucking day aren't barbaric. They have no respect for people around them, they are uneducated, they have no shame, no tolerance, no common manners (like putting your hand over your mouth when you cough or sneeze), they don't follow public order whatsoever.
I challenge anyone who doesn't believe me to spend ONE day in Hong Kong, and you will see what I mean. I've had friends from all over the world (Africa excluded :\) and when they visit, they all say the same thing. "Hong Kong is a class A world city, like London, Paris, but the mainlanders are really fucking things up".
Dude chill the fuck out. You think New Yorkers don't feel the same way about the denizens of the Bronx? Do they stage protests telling the government of New York to kick out all the Bronx kids off Manhattan island so they can enjoy Central Park without having to deal with anyone not of a socioeconomic status different from them? Do you think a New Yorker gets pissed when a rich Texas oilman buys up luxury penthouses in triplicate?
And to flip your rant back on its head:
I haven't seen one white-collar Hong Konger that doesn't somehow profit off of the backs of Chinese sweatshops. I haven't seen one Hong Konger who walks doesn't wear Prada eyeglasses or talk on their iCon of Steve Jobs worship. I haven't gone one single day without seeing a Hong Konger complain about having to learn Mandarin, or scream high-pitched Canto at their subordinates for the slightest typo on page 34 of a 120 slide deck and then go on to smile at me, the client, and pretend that I didn't just see what happened. I have never been able to walk into a mall and talk in Mandarin in peace, because when I do, Hong Kong salesladies swarm me trying to sell everything from Hugo Boss neckties to Bottega Veneta bags to entire overpriced apartments which I have no interest in buying. I haven't been able to walk on the right side of a Hong Kong street without tripping over some 50 year old Hong Kong lady in half an inch of makeup, and who's wearing a Burberry jacket in spite of it being 90 fucking degrees and 85% humidity, stabbing her pink parasol into my eyes because she's so short. I haven't been able to head into a club in LKF without some guy decked in Triad tattoos offering me and my date MDMA pills. And I haven't ever dated a Hong Kong girl who sleeps in anything less stylish than an Armani t-shirt.
I could go on, but I won't, since stereotypes aren't just stupid, they make you stupid, even if you came out of one of those overpriced Hong Kong private schools with a three-letter acronym and make a living laundering money for those rich mainlanders you profess to hate so much.
On September 06 2012 18:18 KwarK wrote: They're in the unfortunate position of having sovereignty in their state essentially handed over to a foreign nation with a totalitarian government. They're fucked. They're right to protest, their history is one of a liberal colonial western system and being told they need to learn to conform with the antithesis of that is horrible.
You say colonial western system like its a good thing. As if colonialism was some gift from the great Brits. You know what? I hope China fucking crushes the protests from these faux fucking Brits. There isn't a country or culture in the world more scummy than the British and if it will take a massive act of oppression to destroy the British influence in a region, its completely worth it.
western colonialism, and specifically British colonialism, has done nothing but good for the world; out of all the nations to come from the Commonwealth/under British colonization, the only major country to falter has been Zimbabwe.
Canada, South Africa, India, and Malaysia/Singapore are all major economic powers, but the British didn't directly craft them into the financial strongholds they are today. Because all of these nations retained or modeled off their British-influenced educational, financial, judicial, and legislative systems, they were able to develop their nation well after they'd left the British sphere of influence.
The foundations that the British gave these nations is nothing to scoff at when you consider nations that have no official ties to the Commonwealth, but draw heavily from British influences such as the United States and Hong Kong, are central pillars of economy and culture in their respective parts of the world. This is why your blind hatred has no place, and why it's especially important for citizens in HK to recognize that an underlying portion in their formula for continued prosperity is being forcefully altered.
from what I hear, people are wary of the implications national education might carry, and that a milder form of the devastating Cultural Revolution might take place again. For a lot of citizens, excessive PRC influence or impression has been something that they've dreaded ever since the 1997 reunification. A lot of them would have preferred to stay under British sovereignty.
That's arguable. Many of the people are wanting British sovereignty ONLY because there are recent political scandles and the media are going all crazy about it. But in fact, when we were under British goverence, it was really bad as well but we didn't have that much of a concern simply because we had a great growth in economy.
The main reason why so many Hong Kong people are missing the old times are mainly due to the: economic environment: Hong Kong was extremely fast growing, where if you are willing to put an effort, you will be successful (except you are extremely not likely to be as successful as the foreigners). Unlike nowadays where uni grads can barely find any jobs, not to mention land price etcetc
Hong Kong recent years has more Chinese tourists and immigration coming in and some are living on the unemployment benefits, or posing some serious poor reputation for Chinese people (such as letting the Kids shitting in front of a shop in one of the luxury shopping centre in Hong Kong) other events such as rushing borders to born in Hong Kong region for citizenships, buying off all the milk powder because China brand had problem
I can clearly say the British colonization isn't all good. The wealth that generated were mainly benefiting the british who lived in Hong Kong at the time. There were lots of briding going on as well, especially within the police force (My granddad worked there, but he wouldn't take brides and eventually got kicked out)
And actually quite a lot of Hong Kong people are not aware of (or choose not to be awared of) the fact that the economy in Hong Kong is strong during the GFC is mainly due to its connection to China. Now that Chinese economy is slowing down and transforming (no longer only cheap manufacture focused) and price level rising, we are suffering from the higher living cost and we start to blame on China lol
How can you blame Britain for the problems Chinese cause..?
Are you serious? HK is highly dependent on mainland China already and the port of HK is losing the battle against the fast growing ports everywhere in mainland. Yes, HK is rich and has a strong economy but that empty threat of yours is not going to scare anyone.
It's not a threat, and it wasn't intended to be. I'm simply stating the facts: the only value Hong Kong has to China is it's economy, and it would be literally easier for China to not disrupt the way things are here in order to sustain it. How is that a threat?
First off, you are not disagreeing with me, you are a SAR just like Macao. And tell me about losing identity, have you heard about people in Shanghai trying to preserve their language? You are not alone in losing your language and identity. "We" can't change it and neither can you. C'est la vie.
Yeah, that's true. We can't change it. The difference here is that we're allowed to complain about it without worrying about going missing in the middle of the night or getting crushed underneath a tank in broad daylight. I haven't heard about the situation in Shanghai, but if what you're saying is true, it's a complete travesty, and I sympathize with you. But having a defeatist perspective like that is exactly why things will never change within the Chinese government.
That's coming from both sides. I've spent an exchange semester in HK and got quite a lot of flak for being from mainland, professors were making fun of "China" (HK is part of it but that they would not acknowledge) and Putonghua was not very welcomed by people. Likewise I met many nice and helpful people who treated me as a person.
I'm sorry that people acted that way towards you, they were fucking idiots. I'd ask you to understand where they were coming from, but I can't justify them taking out their anger at you like that. They just see people from the mainland as holding the same beliefs as the Chinese government's and therefore take out their anger at you instead of supporting you. And that's an absolutely stupid thing to do, and again I deeply, truly apologize for what they did. Please don't have the impression that everyone in Hong Kong hates mainland Chinese - it's just stupid, misdirected anger, caused (and supposed to be directed towards) by your oppressive government, not towards your actual people. Friends?
On September 06 2012 20:16 alffla wrote: im so sad about the situation here in hong kong ..watching our little city slowly fall apart to the chinese communist party is terrible
I also find it interesting that whilst mainlanders act rather uncivilized in HK (that I am sad to admit) it's the reverse once both parties travel overseas. From my experience at Uni and work it's the HKers screaming their Cantonese across campus and talking like a fucking sound blaster in the computer labs, the only other race that even approaches this is the Koreans. Also they always open their food which stink the rooms/trains up without any regard to the other occupants. Lastly I can't seem to talk with a HKer without the conversation degenerating into money (ffs for the last time no one cares you got a shitty accounting job at a big4 firm, also no one cares or believes you will make partner before 30 at GS and own a lambo)
It's funny how most of the shit that HKers accuse mainlanders of (greed, obnoxious loud voice, doing shit without consideration for others) they do themselves when their in another country.
Sorry just like Xpace I had to get that off my chest. The behavior of HKers in Oz makes me rage sometimes. No idea why mainlander migrants generally stay below the radar, maybe because they perceive themselves as second class or not the top dogs anymore...beats me.
On September 06 2012 19:25 Williammm wrote: I disagree with your position. Name a single piece of history which isn't biased? There is no such thing as objectively sound history, because it is always going to be the interpretation of the person writing it. Secondly, it is hard to avoid other opinions of what happened in China, because information is as free in HK as it is in the rest of the Western world. So your opposition of the scheme being brainwashing doesn't really make too much sense in a place like HK.
Also your prediction that people in HK will just flee China when the time came to completely convert the city into the Chinese system. It already happened prior to the 1997 handover, and what happened was people from the mainland coming down to fill the positions. Economic stability didn't change as Hong Kong is still the Asian centre for financial and accounting activities. You could argue that HK is worse off than it was prior to the handover, but I would point you towards the 1972 and 1988 stock crashes that severely lowered wages and increased unemployment that HK is still trying to recover from.
This is just news turned fox news turned pitchfork witching hunting
The people are great, everyone living in China are amazing individuals, but the Chinese government itself can go fuck itself (and then censor it out!). No offense to the people, plenty of offense to the government.
I beg to differ, I encounter a great many mainlanders who are rude, loud, lacking in social graces, boorish, tasteless, ignorant, and see the need to wear brand name clothing head-to-toe that shove logos in your face. Obviously not all of them are like this, I have a couple of mainland friends they are very decent people (although hardly average - they're more bohemian folks), but there are so many of the former that they tend to eclipse the latter.
On September 06 2012 18:18 KwarK wrote: They're in the unfortunate position of having sovereignty in their state essentially handed over to a foreign nation with a totalitarian government. They're fucked. They're right to protest, their history is one of a liberal colonial western system and being told they need to learn to conform with the antithesis of that is horrible.
You say colonial western system like its a good thing. As if colonialism was some gift from the great Brits. You know what? I hope China fucking crushes the protests from these faux fucking Brits. There isn't a country or culture in the world more scummy than the British and if it will take a massive act of oppression to destroy the British influence in a region, its completely worth it.
Not only is that entirely irrelevant, not supported by evidence in any way, AND completely stupid in every sense, but you're also saying that it's okay to ruin the lives of countless numbers of people because you disagree with the influence a country had on it 150 years ago, really?
On September 06 2012 19:25 Williammm wrote: I disagree with your position. Name a single piece of history which isn't biased? There is no such thing as objectively sound history, because it is always going to be the interpretation of the person writing it. Secondly, it is hard to avoid other opinions of what happened in China, because information is as free in HK as it is in the rest of the Western world. So your opposition of the scheme being brainwashing doesn't really make too much sense in a place like HK.
Also your prediction that people in HK will just flee China when the time came to completely convert the city into the Chinese system. It already happened prior to the 1997 handover, and what happened was people from the mainland coming down to fill the positions. Economic stability didn't change as Hong Kong is still the Asian centre for financial and accounting activities. You could argue that HK is worse off than it was prior to the handover, but I would point you towards the 1972 and 1988 stock crashes that severely lowered wages and increased unemployment that HK is still trying to recover from.
This is just news turned fox news turned pitchfork witching hunting
The people are great, everyone living in China are amazing individuals, but the Chinese government itself can go fuck itself (and then censor it out!). No offense to the people, plenty of offense to the government.
I beg to differ, I encounter a great many mainlanders who are rude, loud, lacking in social graces, boorish, tasteless, ignorant, and see the need to wear brand name clothing head-to-toe that shove logos in your face. Obviously not all of them are like this, I have a couple of mainland friends they are very decent people (although hardly average - they're more bohemian folks), but there are so many of the former that they tend to eclipse the latter.
Maybe it's just that the people who flock there are the ones with cash to splash. Recently rich aren't known for their sophistication don't matter where they come from.
On September 06 2012 19:25 Williammm wrote: I disagree with your position. Name a single piece of history which isn't biased? There is no such thing as objectively sound history, because it is always going to be the interpretation of the person writing it. Secondly, it is hard to avoid other opinions of what happened in China, because information is as free in HK as it is in the rest of the Western world. So your opposition of the scheme being brainwashing doesn't really make too much sense in a place like HK.
Also your prediction that people in HK will just flee China when the time came to completely convert the city into the Chinese system. It already happened prior to the 1997 handover, and what happened was people from the mainland coming down to fill the positions. Economic stability didn't change as Hong Kong is still the Asian centre for financial and accounting activities. You could argue that HK is worse off than it was prior to the handover, but I would point you towards the 1972 and 1988 stock crashes that severely lowered wages and increased unemployment that HK is still trying to recover from.
This is just news turned fox news turned pitchfork witching hunting
The people are great, everyone living in China are amazing individuals, but the Chinese government itself can go fuck itself (and then censor it out!). No offense to the people, plenty of offense to the government.
I beg to differ, I encounter a great many mainlanders who are rude, loud, lacking in social graces, boorish, tasteless, ignorant, and see the need to wear brand name clothing head-to-toe that shove logos in your face. Obviously not all of them are like this, I have a couple of mainland friends they are very decent people (although hardly average - they're more bohemian folks), but there are so many of the former that they tend to eclipse the latter.
I gotta say, having spent a grand total of 3 weeks in China and 10 days in Hong Kong, that I've found everyone I've met in both countries to be quite polite! Well... at least very courteous, as I don't really know how to define polite.
If I held either Hong Kong or China to the standards of Canada, I'd say you all slurp a lot when you eat. So rude. But then Canadians would be rude because of how insensitive we are with the last piece of food on a dish, or for ladies always barging onto elevators first.
On September 06 2012 19:26 Xpace wrote: China needs to back the fuck off. Nobody wants them here.
I'm sick of China calling us "British dogs", who have lost "our sense of what it means to be Chinese", yet at the same time every mainlander I know wants a piece of Hong Kong (for reference, mainlander is a Chinese from China). They buy tons of property from their "government-approved spending money", essentially turning the city into their own game of monopoly, without caring about what makes Hong Kong the city that it is.
If China really sees us as "paperdoll Chinese" (quoted from CCTV), then why are there hundreds of women crossing our border everyday, waiting to give birth so their children can have HONG KONG PASSPORTS? Why do so many mainland families want to move to Hong Kong, even today? Mind you, we're talking about the RICH and the ELITE families, the 1% (or in China, the 0.001%).
I haven't seen a single star in the sky for over 10 years in Hong Kong because of pollution from China. I haven't gone one day outside without seeing a mainlander spit in the street, or pick his nose and wipe it on bus/train railings. I haven't had one lunch or dinner at a restaurant where there's a mainlander and he or she isn't yelling over our table when he's on the freakin' phone. I haven't been able to shop at a EUROPEAN BRAND store without having to line up because all these mainlanders come to Hong Kong to spend all their dirty money. Sorry, but there's no way you can convince that the mainlanders I see every single fucking day aren't barbaric. They have no respect for people around them, they are uneducated, they have no shame, no tolerance, no common manners (like putting your hand over your mouth when you cough or sneeze), they don't follow public order whatsoever.
I challenge anyone who doesn't believe me to spend ONE day in Hong Kong, and you will see what I mean. I've had friends from all over the world (Africa excluded :\) and when they visit, they all say the same thing. "Hong Kong is a class A world city, like London, Paris, but the mainlanders are really fucking things up".
Dude chill the fuck out. You think New Yorkers don't feel the same way about the denizens of the Bronx? Do they stage protests telling the government of New York to kick out all the Bronx kids off Manhattan island so they can enjoy Central Park without having to deal with anyone not of a socioeconomic status different from them? Do you think a New Yorker gets pissed when a rich Texas oilman buys up luxury penthouses in triplicate?
And to flip your rant back on its head:
I haven't seen one white-collar Hong Konger that doesn't somehow profit off of the backs of Chinese sweatshops. I haven't seen one Hong Konger who walks doesn't wear Prada eyeglasses or talk on their iCon of Steve Jobs worship. I haven't gone one single day without seeing a Hong Konger complain about having to learn Mandarin, or scream high-pitched Canto at their subordinates for the slightest typo on page 34 of a 120 slide deck and then go on to smile at me, the client, and pretend that I didn't just see what happened. I have never been able to walk into a mall and talk in Mandarin in peace, because when I do, Hong Kong salesladies swarm me trying to sell everything from Hugo Boss neckties to Bottega Veneta bags to entire overpriced apartments which I have no interest in buying. I haven't been able to walk on the right side of a Hong Kong street without tripping over some 50 year old Hong Kong lady in half an inch of makeup, and who's wearing a Burberry jacket in spite of it being 90 fucking degrees and 85% humidity, stabbing her pink parasol into my eyes because she's so short. I haven't been able to head into a club in LKF without some guy decked in Triad tattoos offering me and my date MDMA pills. And I haven't ever dated a Hong Kong girl who sleeps in anything less stylish than an Armani t-shirt.
I could go on, but I won't, since stereotypes aren't just stupid, they make you stupid, even if you came out of one of those overpriced Hong Kong private schools with a three-letter acronym and make a living laundering money for those rich mainlanders you profess to hate so much.
I love how nothing of what you mentioned pertains to the barbarism of mainland Chinese. Nice try, though, finding the most extreme examples, when all the facts I mentioned are actually commonplace. Sadly, nobody who's ever been to Hong Kong will buy your bullshit. Look at all the posts in this thread, from non-Chinese people who have traveled to or lived in both Hong Kong and China.
I'd rather be materialistic and wear Prada than take my pants off and shit in the street in front of the Prada store I bought the glasses in. I'd rather be strict and yell at my subordinates for a small typo than have my company produce a product that blows itself up or poisons babies in the progress. And where the hell in LKF do you go that you see this, because that's practically my second home and I've never had that happen to me, nor any of my friends. And you know those sales ladies who swarm you? Have you ever wondered WHY?
Seriously? The world's freest economy, lowest taxation rates, 9th most traded currency in the world for such a small city, and the people are materialistic? Call the press!!! How is this happening?!? Again, I'd rather be materialistic because I can afford it, having graduated from an ESF school, then getting direct entry into an Ivy League college rather than start the shadiest business with the shadiest practices where half the profits enter the pockets of the foulest mainlanders, than be an ill-mannered, uneducated brute who thinks being nationalistic is more important than being educated.
On September 06 2012 18:18 KwarK wrote: They're in the unfortunate position of having sovereignty in their state essentially handed over to a foreign nation with a totalitarian government. They're fucked. They're right to protest, their history is one of a liberal colonial western system and being told they need to learn to conform with the antithesis of that is horrible.
You say colonial western system like its a good thing. As if colonialism was some gift from the great Brits. You know what? I hope China fucking crushes the protests from these faux fucking Brits. There isn't a country or culture in the world more scummy than the British and if it will take a massive act of oppression to destroy the British influence in a region, its completely worth it.
western colonialism, and specifically British colonialism, has done nothing but good for the world
Ask the Congolese how they feel about the Belgians sometime. Or ask the Indians why all those years under the thumb of the British Raj didn't turn them into a financial center.
out of all the nations to come from the Commonwealth/under British colonization, the only major country to falter has been Zimbabwe.
Canada, South Africa, India, and Malaysia/Singapore are all major economic powers, but the British didn't directly craft them into the financial strongholds they are today. Because all of these nations retained or modeled off their British-influenced educational, financial, judicial, and legislative systems, they were able to develop their nation well after they'd left the British sphere of influence.
British Guyanas? Rhodesia? The native inhabitants of South Africa? Pakistan? British Iraq? Syria? The aborigines of Australia? Please tell me any of those regions or places is better off after colonialism and I will find you papers, entire academic departments, and governments who beg to differ, because they are still trying to sort through the trauma that the Brits dished out.
The foundations that the British gave these nations is nothing to scoff at when you consider nations that have no official ties to the Commonwealth, but draw heavily from British influences such as the United States and Hong Kong, are central pillars of economy and culture in their respective parts of the world. This is why your blind hatred has no place, and why it's especially important for citizens in HK to recognize that an underlying portion in their formula for continued prosperity is being forcefully altered.
from what I hear, people are wary of the implications national education might carry, and that a milder form of the devastating Cultural Revolution might take place again. For a lot of citizens, excessive PRC influence or impression has been something that they've dreaded ever since the 1997 reunification. A lot of them would have preferred to stay under British sovereignty.
Whoa there. From 1857 to 1949, the main financial center in East Asia was not straitlaced, neo-Victorian Hong Kong, but mongrel, internationalized, utterly amoral Shanghai. It was only after 1949 that Hong Kong became, first, a manufacturing center (due to the influx of cheap refugee labor, and even then it was an also-ran to Taiwan); and then finally only after 1978 did the rise of the Chinese manufacturing enable Hong Kong to vault into position as a center of global finance. Hong Kong's rise has very little to do with its institutional history, and very much to do with the fact that it's the only place the West and the Chinese Communist Party both felt comfortable doing business.
On September 06 2012 20:41 yandere991 wrote: I also find it interesting that whilst mainlanders act rather uncivilized in HK (that I am sad to admit) it's the reverse once both parties travel overseas. From my experience at Uni and work it's the HKers screaming their Cantonese across campus and talking like a fucking sound blaster in the computer labs, the only other race that even approaches this is the Koreans. Also they always open their food which stink the rooms/trains up without any regard to the other occupants. Lastly I can't seem to talk with a HKer without the conversation degenerating into money (ffs for the last time no one cares you got a shitty accounting job at a big4 firm, also no one cares or believes you will make partner before 30 at GS and own a lambo)
It's funny how most of the shit that HKers accuse mainlanders of (greed, obnoxious loud voice, doing shit without consideration for others) they do themselves when their in another country.
Sorry just like Xpace I had to get that off my chest. The behavior of HKers in Oz makes me rage sometimes. No idea why mainlander migrants generally stay below the radar, maybe because they perceive themselves as second class or not the top dogs anymore...beats me.
It's completely justifiable that you think that way. And you're probably right on most of what you said. It makes absolute sense.
The people from China I've seen in NYC stay below the radar because they KNOW they're not liked. They're in a foreign country where suddenly, they have full access to the Internet. Suddenly, they can speak their mind. They can criticize the environment around them. They can speak up and share their ideas about government and politics. It's a scary world for someone who's used to the Chinese regime back home. There are lots of videos on YouTube of North Koreans who have escaped their country (though mainly produced by South Koreans, so expect the typical bias and sob story to make the North look bad), and I see the same thing.
As for the Hong Kongers, again I completely understand. They grew up thinking they're the 'elite'. They grew up being told that the huge continental landmass above them are full of barbarians, while they're "better". Look at Shady Sand's post, his anger towards my post is completely justified, but what he doesn't realize is that what I said is SO COMMONPLACE. Again, I challenge anyone who doesn't think so, whether you're from Europe or America, to spend one day in Hong Kong and deny me what I just said. I've seen tons of Hong Kongers on student visas wearing nothing but brand clothes walking around NY, thinking they're all cool and shit, because that's the environment they grew up in. They have the NEED to show off, they have the NEED to feel elitist. They NEED to distinguish themselves from China.
On September 06 2012 19:25 Williammm wrote: I disagree with your position. Name a single piece of history which isn't biased? There is no such thing as objectively sound history, because it is always going to be the interpretation of the person writing it. Secondly, it is hard to avoid other opinions of what happened in China, because information is as free in HK as it is in the rest of the Western world. So your opposition of the scheme being brainwashing doesn't really make too much sense in a place like HK.
Also your prediction that people in HK will just flee China when the time came to completely convert the city into the Chinese system. It already happened prior to the 1997 handover, and what happened was people from the mainland coming down to fill the positions. Economic stability didn't change as Hong Kong is still the Asian centre for financial and accounting activities. You could argue that HK is worse off than it was prior to the handover, but I would point you towards the 1972 and 1988 stock crashes that severely lowered wages and increased unemployment that HK is still trying to recover from.
This is just news turned fox news turned pitchfork witching hunting
The people are great, everyone living in China are amazing individuals, but the Chinese government itself can go fuck itself (and then censor it out!). No offense to the people, plenty of offense to the government.
I beg to differ, I encounter a great many mainlanders who are rude, loud, lacking in social graces, boorish, tasteless, ignorant, and see the need to wear brand name clothing head-to-toe that shove logos in your face. Obviously not all of them are like this, I have a couple of mainland friends they are very decent people (although hardly average - they're more bohemian folks), but there are so many of the former that they tend to eclipse the latter.
Maybe it's just that the people who flock there are the ones with cash to splash. Recently rich aren't known for their sophistication don't matter where they come from.
That's exactly what it is. Take any poor bum who doesn't speak English, give him half a billion dollars and a Manhattan apartment and a Lambo, tell me you won't laugh when he orders the most expensive shit on the menu when he doesn't even know how to pronounce it.
On September 06 2012 20:41 yandere991 wrote: I also find it interesting that whilst mainlanders act rather uncivilized in HK (that I am sad to admit) it's the reverse once both parties travel overseas. From my experience at Uni and work it's the HKers screaming their Cantonese across campus and talking like a fucking sound blaster in the computer labs, the only other race that even approaches this is the Koreans. Also they always open their food which stink the rooms/trains up without any regard to the other occupants. Lastly I can't seem to talk with a HKer without the conversation degenerating into money (ffs for the last time no one cares you got a shitty accounting job at a big4 firm, also no one cares or believes you will make partner before 30 at GS and own a lambo)
It's funny how most of the shit that HKers accuse mainlanders of (greed, obnoxious loud voice, doing shit without consideration for others) they do themselves when their in another country.
Sorry just like Xpace I had to get that off my chest. The behavior of HKers in Oz makes me rage sometimes. No idea why mainlander migrants generally stay below the radar, maybe because they perceive themselves as second class or not the top dogs anymore...beats me.
It's completely justifiable that you think that way. And you're probably right on most of what you said. It makes absolute sense.
The people from China I've seen in NYC stay below the radar because they KNOW they're not liked. They're in a foreign country where suddenly, they have full access to the Internet. Suddenly, they can speak their mind. They can criticize the environment around them. They can speak up and share their ideas about government and politics. It's a scary world for someone who's used to the Chinese regime back home. There are lots of videos on YouTube of North Koreans who have escaped their country (though mainly produced by South Koreans, so expect the typical bias and sob story to make the North look bad), and I see the same thing.
As for the Hong Kongers, again I completely understand. They grew up thinking they're the 'elite'. They grew up being told that the huge continental landmass above them are full of barbarians, while they're "better". Look at Shady Sand's post, his anger towards my post is completely justified, but what he doesn't realize is that what I said is SO COMMONPLACE. Again, I challenge anyone who doesn't think so, whether you're from Europe or America, to spend one day in Hong Kong and deny me what I just said. I've seen tons of Hong Kongers on student visas wearing nothing but brand clothes walking around NY, thinking they're all cool and shit, because that's the environment they grew up in. They have the NEED to show off, they have the NEED to feel elitist. They NEED to distinguish themselves from China.
If you feel like you need to wear brand names to cover up an ethnicity because you think either one of them can define how other people view you, then your identity must be shallow indeed
On September 06 2012 19:25 Williammm wrote: I disagree with your position. Name a single piece of history which isn't biased? There is no such thing as objectively sound history, because it is always going to be the interpretation of the person writing it. Secondly, it is hard to avoid other opinions of what happened in China, because information is as free in HK as it is in the rest of the Western world. So your opposition of the scheme being brainwashing doesn't really make too much sense in a place like HK.
Also your prediction that people in HK will just flee China when the time came to completely convert the city into the Chinese system. It already happened prior to the 1997 handover, and what happened was people from the mainland coming down to fill the positions. Economic stability didn't change as Hong Kong is still the Asian centre for financial and accounting activities. You could argue that HK is worse off than it was prior to the handover, but I would point you towards the 1972 and 1988 stock crashes that severely lowered wages and increased unemployment that HK is still trying to recover from.
This is just news turned fox news turned pitchfork witching hunting
The people are great, everyone living in China are amazing individuals, but the Chinese government itself can go fuck itself (and then censor it out!). No offense to the people, plenty of offense to the government.
I beg to differ, I encounter a great many mainlanders who are rude, loud, lacking in social graces, boorish, tasteless, ignorant, and see the need to wear brand name clothing head-to-toe that shove logos in your face. Obviously not all of them are like this, I have a couple of mainland friends they are very decent people (although hardly average - they're more bohemian folks), but there are so many of the former that they tend to eclipse the latter.
I definitely know what you're talking about, but we just can't assume that every single mainlander's like that, and we definitely can't treat them like trash just because we have our prejudices. Otherwise we'll also just end up hating on perfectly friendly, decent people. The people who actually do shit on trains and all that though, yeah, fuck them. Not everyone's like that though, and we shouldn't treat everyone from the mainland that way, even if (and I stress the word if) the majority truly does act like that.
On September 06 2012 19:25 Williammm wrote: I disagree with your position. Name a single piece of history which isn't biased? There is no such thing as objectively sound history, because it is always going to be the interpretation of the person writing it. Secondly, it is hard to avoid other opinions of what happened in China, because information is as free in HK as it is in the rest of the Western world. So your opposition of the scheme being brainwashing doesn't really make too much sense in a place like HK.
Also your prediction that people in HK will just flee China when the time came to completely convert the city into the Chinese system. It already happened prior to the 1997 handover, and what happened was people from the mainland coming down to fill the positions. Economic stability didn't change as Hong Kong is still the Asian centre for financial and accounting activities. You could argue that HK is worse off than it was prior to the handover, but I would point you towards the 1972 and 1988 stock crashes that severely lowered wages and increased unemployment that HK is still trying to recover from.
This is just news turned fox news turned pitchfork witching hunting
The people are great, everyone living in China are amazing individuals, but the Chinese government itself can go fuck itself (and then censor it out!). No offense to the people, plenty of offense to the government.
I beg to differ, I encounter a great many mainlanders who are rude, loud, lacking in social graces, boorish, tasteless, ignorant, and see the need to wear brand name clothing head-to-toe that shove logos in your face. Obviously not all of them are like this, I have a couple of mainland friends they are very decent people (although hardly average - they're more bohemian folks), but there are so many of the former that they tend to eclipse the latter.
Behavior like that is not limited to any particular ethnicity...
Lots of posts here talks about the feelings of Hong Kongers to Chinese and vice versa, which is a huge and interesting topic itself but perhaps not directly related to the discussion of "National Studies". Maybe can talk abotu that in another thread...
Almost all countries will do something like National Studies, it's just the method that differs. For example, such ideas can be taught in subjects like literature, history or even geography. Just like how the English will learn about the Civil War, read Shakespeare etc... The Education Department in Hong Kong is just doing the oppoisite, they have recently abolished "Chinese History" as a core subject. Most of us feel that incorporating national ideas in different subjects is a better approach by far.
There was a guideline published by the department that the subject would involve glorifying the Communist Party, containing sentences like "the Communist Party is a progressive, selfless, united ruling party". "The Communisty party chooses its officials according to ability, with officials exchanging positions from time to time to prevent corruption, these qualities are the 'ideal type' of governancy." That's why we call it a "brain-washing" policy.
Moreover, they announced the policy in a short time without full public consultation during the process and set a rule that all schools should implement the subject within 3 years.
Sorry that my wordings aren't that good, seldom use English to write on local matters like this.
Edit re questions of op: I remain pretty optimistic that the govnerment would withdraw the proposal, afterall it must be a pretty big thing when demonstrations reach as far as TL. Any sort of escalation into would be unlikely though, and I do not really like comparison of what happened in 4.6.1989.
On September 06 2012 20:56 Shady Sands wrote: Whoa there. From 1857 to 1949, the main financial center in East Asia was not straitlaced, neo-Victorian Hong Kong, but mongrel, internationalized, utterly amoral Shanghai. It was only after 1949 that Hong Kong became, first, a manufacturing center (due to the influx of cheap refugee labor, and even then it was an also-ran to Taiwan); and then finally only after 1978 did the rise of the Chinese manufacturing enable Hong Kong to vault into position as a center of global finance. Hong Kong's rise has very little to do with its institutional history, and very much to do with the fact that it's the only place the West and the Chinese Communist Party both felt comfortable doing business.
No wonder Shanghai ceased to be the financial center of East Asia after 1949. Nationalization and central planning are a sure way of ruining the economy for good. While today's PRC economy has gone far from what it was during Mao's days, political system didn't change enough and it will backfire when the limits of extensive economy growth are reached. Liberal politics are not some sort of a whim, they're a prerequisite for a stable and innovative economy.
On September 06 2012 20:41 yandere991 wrote: I also find it interesting that whilst mainlanders act rather uncivilized in HK (that I am sad to admit) it's the reverse once both parties travel overseas. From my experience at Uni and work it's the HKers screaming their Cantonese across campus and talking like a fucking sound blaster in the computer labs, the only other race that even approaches this is the Koreans. Also they always open their food which stink the rooms/trains up without any regard to the other occupants. Lastly I can't seem to talk with a HKer without the conversation degenerating into money (ffs for the last time no one cares you got a shitty accounting job at a big4 firm, also no one cares or believes you will make partner before 30 at GS and own a lambo)
It's funny how most of the shit that HKers accuse mainlanders of (greed, obnoxious loud voice, doing shit without consideration for others) they do themselves when their in another country.
Sorry just like Xpace I had to get that off my chest. The behavior of HKers in Oz makes me rage sometimes. No idea why mainlander migrants generally stay below the radar, maybe because they perceive themselves as second class or not the top dogs anymore...beats me.
It's completely justifiable that you think that way. And you're probably right on most of what you said. It makes absolute sense.
The people from China I've seen in NYC stay below the radar because they KNOW they're not liked. They're in a foreign country where suddenly, they have full access to the Internet. Suddenly, they can speak their mind. They can criticize the environment around them. They can speak up and share their ideas about government and politics. It's a scary world for someone who's used to the Chinese regime back home. There are lots of videos on YouTube of North Koreans who have escaped their country (though mainly produced by South Koreans, so expect the typical bias and sob story to make the North look bad), and I see the same thing.
As for the Hong Kongers, again I completely understand. They grew up thinking they're the 'elite'. They grew up being told that the huge continental landmass above them are full of barbarians, while they're "better". Look at Shady Sand's post, his anger towards my post is completely justified, but what he doesn't realize is that what I said is SO COMMONPLACE. Again, I challenge anyone who doesn't think so, whether you're from Europe or America, to spend one day in Hong Kong and deny me what I just said. I've seen tons of Hong Kongers on student visas wearing nothing but brand clothes walking around NY, thinking they're all cool and shit, because that's the environment they grew up in. They have the NEED to show off, they have the NEED to feel elitist. They NEED to distinguish themselves from China.
If you feel like you need to wear brand names to cover up an ethnicity because you think either one of them can define how other people view you, then your identity must be shallow indeed
Well, personally, I own two pairs of jeans, a t-shirt for each day of the week, a pair of sneakers for the day and a pair of leather shoes for night. Although I do own like 20 jackets/hoodies.
On the other hand, if a million dollars to spend on clothes suddenly fell on my lap, can you blame me for not throwing those all away and buying a ton of crap that I don't really need but would make me look richer?
In any event, I wasn't offended by yandere991's post describing Hong Kong people's behavior overseas, because I myself have seen it with my own eyes. The issue here is that you're too busy attacking me to realize that everything I've said in this thread, even up to this point, about both sides are completely true. I might have come off as stereotypical, but if I see it every. single. fucking. day, having lived in Hong Kong far longer than you have, then it's closer to the truth than someone who simply visits. I don't know shit about how Chinese people act in Australia, having only visited a couple of times, but I DO know how mainlanders act in Hong Kong.
In any event, this discussion has gone way beyond off-topic; it's about the protests, and arguing the history behind China and Hong Kong is so much more appropriate than arguing which population behaves better at random places in the world. The original intention of my post wasn't to attract people to share their perceptions of Chinese behavior wherever they're from, it was to give those who have never stepped foot in Hong Kong an idea as to why there's anti-China sentiment over here. Maybe I should have written a disclaimer.
On September 06 2012 18:18 KwarK wrote: They're in the unfortunate position of having sovereignty in their state essentially handed over to a foreign nation with a totalitarian government. They're fucked. They're right to protest, their history is one of a liberal colonial western system and being told they need to learn to conform with the antithesis of that is horrible.
A "foreign nation"? That's certainly a British way of looking at it lol. I don't support the HK government's decision but "handed back" would be a lot more accurate than "handed over" in this case.
It's been one hundred and fifty years. China today would be unrecognisable to the China that HK was previously a part of. I don't dispute that the initial seizure was an illegitimate act of imperialism and I have no desire to defend the 19th Century British record in China. However the people for whom it would be "handing back" are long dead, as is the China they would be "handing back" to. My concern is with the people alive today for whom modern China is an alien system.
Might be wrong, might be some James Clavell novel, but wasn't Hong-Kong property rights ceeded to Great Britain for a long period of time in a trade agreement? I
On September 06 2012 19:25 Williammm wrote: I disagree with your position. Name a single piece of history which isn't biased? There is no such thing as objectively sound history, because it is always going to be the interpretation of the person writing it. Secondly, it is hard to avoid other opinions of what happened in China, because information is as free in HK as it is in the rest of the Western world. So your opposition of the scheme being brainwashing doesn't really make too much sense in a place like HK.
Also your prediction that people in HK will just flee China when the time came to completely convert the city into the Chinese system. It already happened prior to the 1997 handover, and what happened was people from the mainland coming down to fill the positions. Economic stability didn't change as Hong Kong is still the Asian centre for financial and accounting activities. You could argue that HK is worse off than it was prior to the handover, but I would point you towards the 1972 and 1988 stock crashes that severely lowered wages and increased unemployment that HK is still trying to recover from.
This is just news turned fox news turned pitchfork witching hunting
The people are great, everyone living in China are amazing individuals, but the Chinese government itself can go fuck itself (and then censor it out!). No offense to the people, plenty of offense to the government.
I beg to differ, I encounter a great many mainlanders who are rude, loud, lacking in social graces, boorish, tasteless, ignorant, and see the need to wear brand name clothing head-to-toe that shove logos in your face. Obviously not all of them are like this, I have a couple of mainland friends they are very decent people (although hardly average - they're more bohemian folks), but there are so many of the former that they tend to eclipse the latter.
Behavior like that is not limited to any particular ethnicity...
Obsession with brands is just a very Asian thing in general. I'm pretty sure Japan wins if we do an LV per capital comparison. lol...
On September 06 2012 19:25 Williammm wrote: I disagree with your position. Name a single piece of history which isn't biased? There is no such thing as objectively sound history, because it is always going to be the interpretation of the person writing it. Secondly, it is hard to avoid other opinions of what happened in China, because information is as free in HK as it is in the rest of the Western world. So your opposition of the scheme being brainwashing doesn't really make too much sense in a place like HK.
Also your prediction that people in HK will just flee China when the time came to completely convert the city into the Chinese system. It already happened prior to the 1997 handover, and what happened was people from the mainland coming down to fill the positions. Economic stability didn't change as Hong Kong is still the Asian centre for financial and accounting activities. You could argue that HK is worse off than it was prior to the handover, but I would point you towards the 1972 and 1988 stock crashes that severely lowered wages and increased unemployment that HK is still trying to recover from.
This is just news turned fox news turned pitchfork witching hunting
The people are great, everyone living in China are amazing individuals, but the Chinese government itself can go fuck itself (and then censor it out!). No offense to the people, plenty of offense to the government.
I beg to differ, I encounter a great many mainlanders who are rude, loud, lacking in social graces, boorish, tasteless, ignorant, and see the need to wear brand name clothing head-to-toe that shove logos in your face. Obviously not all of them are like this, I have a couple of mainland friends they are very decent people (although hardly average - they're more bohemian folks), but there are so many of the former that they tend to eclipse the latter.
Behavior like that is not limited to any particular ethnicity...
Obsession with brands is just a very Asian thing in general. I'm pretty sure Japan wins if we do an LV per capital comparison. lol...
Agreed, esp trophy wives with no job no kids and their husbands spend half their time away on business.
Once met a lady who had an entire apartment unit in Hong Kong as her fucking wardrobe.
On September 06 2012 19:25 Williammm wrote: I disagree with your position. Name a single piece of history which isn't biased? There is no such thing as objectively sound history, because it is always going to be the interpretation of the person writing it. Secondly, it is hard to avoid other opinions of what happened in China, because information is as free in HK as it is in the rest of the Western world. So your opposition of the scheme being brainwashing doesn't really make too much sense in a place like HK.
Also your prediction that people in HK will just flee China when the time came to completely convert the city into the Chinese system. It already happened prior to the 1997 handover, and what happened was people from the mainland coming down to fill the positions. Economic stability didn't change as Hong Kong is still the Asian centre for financial and accounting activities. You could argue that HK is worse off than it was prior to the handover, but I would point you towards the 1972 and 1988 stock crashes that severely lowered wages and increased unemployment that HK is still trying to recover from.
This is just news turned fox news turned pitchfork witching hunting
The people are great, everyone living in China are amazing individuals, but the Chinese government itself can go fuck itself (and then censor it out!). No offense to the people, plenty of offense to the government.
I beg to differ, I encounter a great many mainlanders who are rude, loud, lacking in social graces, boorish, tasteless, ignorant, and see the need to wear brand name clothing head-to-toe that shove logos in your face. Obviously not all of them are like this, I have a couple of mainland friends they are very decent people (although hardly average - they're more bohemian folks), but there are so many of the former that they tend to eclipse the latter.
Behavior like that is not limited to any particular ethnicity...
Obsession with brands is just a very Asian thing in general. I'm pretty sure Japan wins if we do an LV per capital comparison. lol...
Agreed, esp trophy wives with no job no kids and their husbands spend half their time away on business.
Once met a lady who had an entire apartment unit in Hong Kong as her fucking wardrobe.
On the flip side, these ladies are easy pickings if you have bedroom prowess and quick hands. I know of one particularly enterprising ex-banker who slept his way through a whole bunch of trophy wives while stealing/fencing all their shit. Then he reinvested the proceeds into drugs which he sold back to the wives... on top of filming them naked/drugged up so that when they found out about his habits, they couldn't do jack.
Most awesome i-banker exit opportunity I have ever come across. A pity he got arrested though
On September 06 2012 18:18 KwarK wrote: They're in the unfortunate position of having sovereignty in their state essentially handed over to a foreign nation with a totalitarian government. They're fucked. They're right to protest, their history is one of a liberal colonial western system and being told they need to learn to conform with the antithesis of that is horrible.
A "foreign nation"? That's certainly a British way of looking at it lol. I don't support the HK government's decision but "handed back" would be a lot more accurate than "handed over" in this case.
It's been one hundred and fifty years. China today would be unrecognisable to the China that HK was previously a part of. I don't dispute that the initial seizure was an illegitimate act of imperialism and I have no desire to defend the 19th Century British record in China. However the people for whom it would be "handing back" are long dead, as is the China they would be "handing back" to. My concern is with the people alive today for whom modern China is an alien system.
Might be wrong, might be some James Clavell novel, but wasn't Hong-Kong property rights ceeded to Great Britain for a long period of time in a trade agreement? I
It was a period of gunboat diplomacy, agreements were coercive.
On September 06 2012 19:25 Williammm wrote: I disagree with your position. Name a single piece of history which isn't biased? There is no such thing as objectively sound history, because it is always going to be the interpretation of the person writing it. Secondly, it is hard to avoid other opinions of what happened in China, because information is as free in HK as it is in the rest of the Western world. So your opposition of the scheme being brainwashing doesn't really make too much sense in a place like HK.
Also your prediction that people in HK will just flee China when the time came to completely convert the city into the Chinese system. It already happened prior to the 1997 handover, and what happened was people from the mainland coming down to fill the positions. Economic stability didn't change as Hong Kong is still the Asian centre for financial and accounting activities. You could argue that HK is worse off than it was prior to the handover, but I would point you towards the 1972 and 1988 stock crashes that severely lowered wages and increased unemployment that HK is still trying to recover from.
This is just news turned fox news turned pitchfork witching hunting
The people are great, everyone living in China are amazing individuals, but the Chinese government itself can go fuck itself (and then censor it out!). No offense to the people, plenty of offense to the government.
I beg to differ, I encounter a great many mainlanders who are rude, loud, lacking in social graces, boorish, tasteless, ignorant, and see the need to wear brand name clothing head-to-toe that shove logos in your face. Obviously not all of them are like this, I have a couple of mainland friends they are very decent people (although hardly average - they're more bohemian folks), but there are so many of the former that they tend to eclipse the latter.
Behavior like that is not limited to any particular ethnicity...
Obsession with brands is just a very Asian thing in general. I'm pretty sure Japan wins if we do an LV per capital comparison. lol...
Agreed, esp trophy wives with no job no kids and their husbands spend half their time away on business.
Once met a lady who had an entire apartment unit in Hong Kong as her fucking wardrobe.
On the flip side, these ladies are easy pickings if you have bedroom prowess and quick hands. I know of one particularly enterprising ex-banker who slept his way through a whole bunch of trophy wives while stealing/fencing all their shit. Then he reinvested the proceeds into drugs which he sold back to the wives... on top of filming them naked/drugged up so that when they found out about his habits, they couldn't do jack.
Most awesome i-banker exit opportunity I have ever come across. A pity he got arrested though
It's a pity that the drug dealer who seduced rich women in order to get them hooked on drugs so he could take their money and then blackmail them got arrested?
On September 06 2012 19:25 Williammm wrote: I disagree with your position. Name a single piece of history which isn't biased? There is no such thing as objectively sound history, because it is always going to be the interpretation of the person writing it. Secondly, it is hard to avoid other opinions of what happened in China, because information is as free in HK as it is in the rest of the Western world. So your opposition of the scheme being brainwashing doesn't really make too much sense in a place like HK.
Also your prediction that people in HK will just flee China when the time came to completely convert the city into the Chinese system. It already happened prior to the 1997 handover, and what happened was people from the mainland coming down to fill the positions. Economic stability didn't change as Hong Kong is still the Asian centre for financial and accounting activities. You could argue that HK is worse off than it was prior to the handover, but I would point you towards the 1972 and 1988 stock crashes that severely lowered wages and increased unemployment that HK is still trying to recover from.
This is just news turned fox news turned pitchfork witching hunting
The people are great, everyone living in China are amazing individuals, but the Chinese government itself can go fuck itself (and then censor it out!). No offense to the people, plenty of offense to the government.
I beg to differ, I encounter a great many mainlanders who are rude, loud, lacking in social graces, boorish, tasteless, ignorant, and see the need to wear brand name clothing head-to-toe that shove logos in your face. Obviously not all of them are like this, I have a couple of mainland friends they are very decent people (although hardly average - they're more bohemian folks), but there are so many of the former that they tend to eclipse the latter.
Behavior like that is not limited to any particular ethnicity...
Obsession with brands is just a very Asian thing in general. I'm pretty sure Japan wins if we do an LV per capital comparison. lol...
Agreed, esp trophy wives with no job no kids and their husbands spend half their time away on business.
Once met a lady who had an entire apartment unit in Hong Kong as her fucking wardrobe.
On the flip side, these ladies are easy pickings if you have bedroom prowess and quick hands. I know of one particularly enterprising ex-banker who slept his way through a whole bunch of trophy wives while stealing/fencing all their shit. Then he reinvested the proceeds into drugs which he sold back to the wives... on top of filming them naked/drugged up so that when they found out about his habits, they couldn't do jack.
Most awesome i-banker exit opportunity I have ever come across. A pity he got arrested though
It's a pity that the drug dealer who seduced rich women in order to get them hooked on drugs so he could take their money and then blackmail them got arrested?
Because I was trying to meet him to pick up a mental snapshot. He would have made an excellent supporting character for the script I'm trying to write
On September 06 2012 19:26 Xpace wrote: China needs to back the fuck off. Nobody wants them here.
I'm sick of China calling us "British dogs", who have lost "our sense of what it means to be Chinese", yet at the same time every mainlander I know wants a piece of Hong Kong (for reference, mainlander is a Chinese from China). They buy tons of property from their "government-approved spending money", essentially turning the city into their own game of monopoly, without caring about what makes Hong Kong the city that it is.
If China really sees us as "paperdoll Chinese" (quoted from CCTV), then why are there hundreds of women crossing our border everyday, waiting to give birth so their children can have HONG KONG PASSPORTS? Why do so many mainland families want to move to Hong Kong, even today? Mind you, we're talking about the RICH and the ELITE families, the 1% (or in China, the 0.001%).
I haven't seen a single star in the sky for over 10 years in Hong Kong because of pollution from China. I haven't gone one day outside without seeing a mainlander spit in the street, or pick his nose and wipe it on bus/train railings. I haven't had one lunch or dinner at a restaurant where there's a mainlander and he or she isn't yelling over our table when he's on the freakin' phone. I haven't been able to shop at a EUROPEAN BRAND store without having to line up because all these mainlanders come to Hong Kong to spend all their dirty money. Sorry, but there's no way you can convince that the mainlanders I see every single fucking day aren't barbaric. They have no respect for people around them, they are uneducated, they have no shame, no tolerance, no common manners (like putting your hand over your mouth when you cough or sneeze), they don't follow public order whatsoever.
I challenge anyone who doesn't believe me to spend ONE day in Hong Kong, and you will see what I mean. I've had friends from all over the world (Africa excluded :\) and when they visit, they all say the same thing. "Hong Kong is a class A world city, like London, Paris, but the mainlanders are really fucking things up".
I heard they were going to do something about those people who cross the border to give birth to get an identity predicament.
Went there on vacation a few years ago and those mainlanders are definitely barbarians.
On September 06 2012 19:26 Xpace wrote: China needs to back the fuck off. Nobody wants them here.
I'm sick of China calling us "British dogs", who have lost "our sense of what it means to be Chinese", yet at the same time every mainlander I know wants a piece of Hong Kong (for reference, mainlander is a Chinese from China). They buy tons of property from their "government-approved spending money", essentially turning the city into their own game of monopoly, without caring about what makes Hong Kong the city that it is.
If China really sees us as "paperdoll Chinese" (quoted from CCTV), then why are there hundreds of women crossing our border everyday, waiting to give birth so their children can have HONG KONG PASSPORTS? Why do so many mainland families want to move to Hong Kong, even today? Mind you, we're talking about the RICH and the ELITE families, the 1% (or in China, the 0.001%).
I haven't seen a single star in the sky for over 10 years in Hong Kong because of pollution from China. I haven't gone one day outside without seeing a mainlander spit in the street, or pick his nose and wipe it on bus/train railings. I haven't had one lunch or dinner at a restaurant where there's a mainlander and he or she isn't yelling over our table when he's on the freakin' phone. I haven't been able to shop at a EUROPEAN BRAND store without having to line up because all these mainlanders come to Hong Kong to spend all their dirty money. Sorry, but there's no way you can convince that the mainlanders I see every single fucking day aren't barbaric. They have no respect for people around them, they are uneducated, they have no shame, no tolerance, no common manners (like putting your hand over your mouth when you cough or sneeze), they don't follow public order whatsoever.
I challenge anyone who doesn't believe me to spend ONE day in Hong Kong, and you will see what I mean. I've had friends from all over the world (Africa excluded :\) and when they visit, they all say the same thing. "Hong Kong is a class A world city, like London, Paris, but the mainlanders are really fucking things up".
I heard they were going to do something about those people who cross the border to give birth to get an identity predicament.
Went there on vacation a few years ago and those mainlanders are definitely barbarians.
How so? Please explain how the mainlanders you saw are barbarians.
I've known alot of nice people from mainland China in my time, but I've met my share of ignorant, unpleasant and unbearably jingoistic mainlanders as well.
I'm not even a sensitive person, but the superiority complex projected by a significant number of mainland scholars in my school is both offensive (to some) and confounding (to all) at the same time. Makes it impossibly hard for me to get along with any of them.
On September 07 2012 00:25 red4ce wrote: I'll be rooting for you Hong Kong. Anything that subverts CCP power can only be a good thing.
Why?
I consider the CCP to be the primary culprit in holding back the Chinese people from true greatness.
What, then, good sir, would you consider to be a plausible alternative?
The institution of peaceful democratic reforms and respect for human rights would be a good start. Embracing and celebrating the diversity of all Chinese peoples/customs/religions, etc rather than imposing Northern Han Chinese culture onto everyone would be nice too.
On September 07 2012 00:57 Shady Sands wrote: The level of Sinophobia and general retardation regarding China in this thread is just... rage-inducing
Someone could have Wire-esque levels of understanding of China and enough PHD's to build a house, people would still bitch and moan that people "don't get it."
Even experts are thrown at the side of the road by uneducated idiots that just want to make claims.
Sinophobia, general retardation...
The truth is that you won't permit anyone to be right about China, whether they are right or not is of no importance to that point.
On September 07 2012 00:25 red4ce wrote: I'll be rooting for you Hong Kong. Anything that subverts CCP power can only be a good thing.
Why?
I consider the CCP to be the primary culprit in holding back the Chinese people from true greatness.
What, then, good sir, would you consider to be a plausible alternative?
The institution of peaceful democratic reforms and respect for human rights would be a good start. Embracing and celebrating the diversity of all Chinese peoples/customs/religions, etc rather than imposing Northern Han Chinese culture onto everyone would be nice too.
Have you ever been to China much? Because if you do, then you'd also realise that any talk of democracy is far too premature at this point in time. The government is not ready to hand over power, neither are the people ready to recieve it.
On September 07 2012 00:57 Shady Sands wrote: The level of Sinophobia and general retardation regarding China in this thread is just... rage-inducing
Someone could have Wire-esque levels of understanding of China and enough PHD's to build a house, people would still bitch and moan that people "don't get it."
Even experts are thrown at the side of the road by uneducated idiots that just want to make claims.
Sinophobia, general retardation...
The truth is that you won't permit anyone to be right about China, whether they are right or not is of no importance to that point.
On September 07 2012 00:57 Shady Sands wrote: The level of Sinophobia and general retardation regarding China in this thread is just... rage-inducing
Someone could have Wire-esque levels of understanding of China and enough PHD's to build a house, people would still bitch and moan that people "don't get it."
Even experts are thrown at the side of the road by uneducated idiots that just want to make claims.
Sinophobia, general retardation...
The truth is that you won't permit anyone to be right about China, whether they are right or not is of no importance to that point.
What do you mean by this post?
That China is one of those subjects where everyone that read more than 1 magazine article about it will scream
"YOU DONT GET CHINA!"
Even when it is the world's foremost expert on all things China.
It isn't a real reaction, it is just a knee-jerk reaction.
On September 07 2012 00:25 red4ce wrote: I'll be rooting for you Hong Kong. Anything that subverts CCP power can only be a good thing.
Why?
I consider the CCP to be the primary culprit in holding back the Chinese people from true greatness.
What, then, good sir, would you consider to be a plausible alternative?
The institution of peaceful democratic reforms and respect for human rights would be a good start. Embracing and celebrating the diversity of all Chinese peoples/customs/religions, etc rather than imposing Northern Han Chinese culture onto everyone would be nice too.
Have you ever been to China much? Because if you do, then you'd also realise that any talk of democracy is far too premature at this point in time. The government is not ready to hand over power, neither are the people ready to recieve it.
Democratic reform does not mean an overnight switch to Western style democracy. How would the foundations of democracy ever be established in China when the national curriculum is dictated by the ruling party and the people lack freedom of speech and freedom of assembly?
And I've been to China 3 times in the past 5 years, twice to Beijing and once to Hong Kong. Not that I see how it's relevant.
On September 07 2012 00:57 Shady Sands wrote: The level of Sinophobia and general retardation regarding China in this thread is just... rage-inducing
Someone could have Wire-esque levels of understanding of China and enough PHD's to build a house, people would still bitch and moan that people "don't get it."
Even experts are thrown at the side of the road by uneducated idiots that just want to make claims.
Sinophobia, general retardation...
The truth is that you won't permit anyone to be right about China, whether they are right or not is of no importance to that point.
What do you mean by this post?
What he means is that accusing others of Sinophobia is a cop out. If you think someone is wrong, explain why he is wrong rather than hiding behind the 'you hate China' card. What people post here may be offensive to you, but offensiveness in of itself does not make a statement false.
As an ignorant American (who doesn't know which of his Chinese classmates are from HK and which are from the mainland), I just wanted to thank the posters in this thread. It's been quite educational to hear all of the opinions and gain a slightly greater insight into what's going on in China. I find this issue to be absolutely fascinating.
For one thing, the US has a Department of Education which dictates some level of central planning for Kindergarten through 12th grade education. On the other hand, local municipalities are given nearly complete discretion over how everything is taught and beyond math, science, and English, discretion over what subjects to teach/focus on. I know there's plenty of bias/Americocentricity in the history courses we teach (particularly in early education), but that's generally implemented at the local level rather than at the national level. For years, Southern classrooms taught a very different version of the leadup/causes of the Civil War (aka "War of Northern Aggression" lulz) than was taught in the rest of the country. So while I can see the benefits of a centrally planned curriculum, I'm not sure I'd vote for it for anything outside of Math, Science, and literacy-related stuff.
i know that people in HK think it's stupid that China wants to exert their influence over HK, but it's their land legally isn't it? as much as it sucks i don't think the west is going to go to war over it, since 1. it's china's right to do so, 2. the china is an integral part of the world's economy and 3. it's only HK, it's not like china is invading SK (they're not even invading HK, they just wanna change the education.. they're not changing economic policies yet as far as i can see)
On September 07 2012 01:59 Endymion wrote: i know that people in HK think it's stupid that China wants to exert their influence over HK, but it's their land legally isn't it? as much as it sucks i don't think the west is going to go to war over it, since 1. it's china's right to do so, 2. the china is an integral part of the world's economy and 3. it's only HK, it's not like china is invading SK (they're not even invading HK, they just wanna change the education.. they're not changing economic policies yet as far as i can see)
There is a thing called "One country two system", which means the government of Hong Kong can make decisions about most matters except like diplomacy, military etc...
Education is important...
Edit: One country 2 systems is a bit like how there is Scotland, Wales, N. Ireland in United Kingdom, and kinda like the different States in America.
On September 07 2012 01:59 Endymion wrote: i know that people in HK think it's stupid that China wants to exert their influence over HK, but it's their land legally isn't it? as much as it sucks i don't think the west is going to go to war over it, since 1. it's china's right to do so, 2. the china is an integral part of the world's economy and 3. it's only HK, it's not like china is invading SK (they're not even invading HK, they just wanna change the education.. they're not changing economic policies yet as far as i can see)
What does the size matter?
This is just so disgusting. These people are going to lose the freedoms that they care about, and they should just shut up and deal with it because they are only a small part?
What ever happened to individual freedom? Why exactly is their right to freedom any less crucial because they are a smaller group?
The people of HK don't want this, so by what right is the government rolling in and dictating that they have to hand over their rights?
You can't speak your mind because the rest of us has decided it isn't oke? Fuck that. One man has every right to fight the other 6 billion if they come for his freedom. The people of HK shouldn't take this, just because the majority of wolves has decided to eat the sheep.
As someone who has worked in HK and Shenzhen, China (which is next to HK), I have come across, on occasion, HK Chinese who are really elitist and disrespectful towards mainland Chinese. The way they conform to social stigma is pretty obnoxious, especially when many of the faults they point out in mainland Chinese are exceedingly common in HK people themselves! Of course, I have also met many open minded HK people who adopt a more mature view of the situation and are more accepting of the social and economic changes that comes about as Hong Kong becomes more intertwined with China. Hopefully there will be less senseless hating and more mutual understanding between the 2 groups of people in the future.
On topic, I'm really out of touch of what's going on, everything is kind of vague at the moment. What is actually in that curriculum? Does it include poems singing praises of Mao ? I mean, is it really hardcore propaganda or a somewhat accurate depiction of Chinese history? Also, did the Chinese government actually attempt to remove some of the rights that HK people enjoy?
On September 07 2012 01:59 Endymion wrote: i know that people in HK think it's stupid that China wants to exert their influence over HK, but it's their land legally isn't it? as much as it sucks i don't think the west is going to go to war over it, since 1. it's china's right to do so, 2. the china is an integral part of the world's economy and 3. it's only HK, it's not like china is invading SK (they're not even invading HK, they just wanna change the education.. they're not changing economic policies yet as far as i can see)
What does the size matter?
This is just so disgusting. These people are going to lose the freedoms that they care about, and they should just shut up and deal with it because they are only a small part?
What ever happened to individual freedom? Why exactly is their right to freedom any less crucial because they are a smaller group?
The people of HK don't want this, so by what right is the government rolling in and dictating that they have to hand over their rights?
You can't speak your mind because the rest of us has decided it isn't oke? Fuck that. One man has every right to fight the other 6 billion if they come for his freedom. The people of HK shouldn't take this, just because the majority of wolves has decided to eat the sheep.
Do you really see this as black and white as that?
This isn't Hollywood. HK isn't being invaded by the Mongols. Geez, this whole thing is blown out of proportion from what I see, not sure that anyone in HK or China actually cares unless they have racist sentiments.
The students who protest obviously care.... I don't really see it as blown out of proportion, the protester have more than enough reason to believe that "Brainwashing" is the intended goal. Whatever you want to say about the Chinese government right now, it is for sure not free and that more or less breach of "one country, two systems" is in my opinion just a warning of things to come.
On September 07 2012 01:59 Endymion wrote: i know that people in HK think it's stupid that China wants to exert their influence over HK, but it's their land legally isn't it? as much as it sucks i don't think the west is going to go to war over it, since 1. it's china's right to do so, 2. the china is an integral part of the world's economy and 3. it's only HK, it's not like china is invading SK (they're not even invading HK, they just wanna change the education.. they're not changing economic policies yet as far as i can see)
What does the size matter?
This is just so disgusting. These people are going to lose the freedoms that they care about, and they should just shut up and deal with it because they are only a small part?
What ever happened to individual freedom? Why exactly is their right to freedom any less crucial because they are a smaller group?
The people of HK don't want this, so by what right is the government rolling in and dictating that they have to hand over their rights?
You can't speak your mind because the rest of us has decided it isn't oke? Fuck that. One man has every right to fight the other 6 billion if they come for his freedom. The people of HK shouldn't take this, just because the majority of wolves has decided to eat the sheep.
do you want someone to fight a war??? everyone criticizes the US, Canada, and the EU for exerting influence on other cultures but as soon as the west has a contractual obligation to not intervene (HK is chinese territory by definition..) everyones feathers get roused.. 1. yes size matters, however HK is a huge economic asset so it would be worth keeping free, but 2. China isn't doing anything wrong, they control HK.. it's none of the West's business to intervene and fight China over HK, which is why the British Empire didn't do it 15 years ago
btw your individual rights are decided by the government that prevails in your region, they're not inherently given to you by being born.
On topic, I'm really out of touch of what's going on, everything is kind of vague at the moment. What is actually in that curriculum? Does it include poems singing praises of Mao ? I mean, is it really hardcore propaganda or actually a somewhat accurate depiction of Chinese history? Also, did the Chinese government actually attempt to remove some of the rights that HK people enjoy?
It's in the article the OP posted.
Chanting "No to brainwashing education. Withdraw national education", some 8000 people denounced a Hong Kong government-funded booklet entitled "The China Model" they say glorifies China's single Communist party rule while glossing over more brutal aspects of its rule and political controversies.
On September 07 2012 01:59 Endymion wrote: i know that people in HK think it's stupid that China wants to exert their influence over HK, but it's their land legally isn't it? as much as it sucks i don't think the west is going to go to war over it, since 1. it's china's right to do so, 2. the china is an integral part of the world's economy and 3. it's only HK, it's not like china is invading SK (they're not even invading HK, they just wanna change the education.. they're not changing economic policies yet as far as i can see)
What does the size matter?
This is just so disgusting. These people are going to lose the freedoms that they care about, and they should just shut up and deal with it because they are only a small part?
What ever happened to individual freedom? Why exactly is their right to freedom any less crucial because they are a smaller group?
The people of HK don't want this, so by what right is the government rolling in and dictating that they have to hand over their rights?
You can't speak your mind because the rest of us has decided it isn't oke? Fuck that. One man has every right to fight the other 6 billion if they come for his freedom. The people of HK shouldn't take this, just because the majority of wolves has decided to eat the sheep.
Do you really see this as black and white as that?
This isn't Hollywood. HK isn't being invaded by the Mongols. Geez, this whole thing is blown out of proportion from what I see, not sure that anyone in HK or China actually cares unless they have racist sentiments.
True, can't they just get up and make their own version of the curriculum? Doesn't need to be "All hail the motherland and the generous CCP" (which doesn't fool anyone with a brain in China anyway), but it's not as if learning history is a great loss of freedom and a slippery slope to Stalinism.
China's definitively not free or open, but the dynamic of the past decades has been overall positive imo. 30 years down the road, I wouldn't be surprised if democracy comes up...that or a total collapse and civil war like in Syria, and I think people would even prefer the CCP over reliving the 1920s again.
On topic, I'm really out of touch of what's going on, everything is kind of vague at the moment. What is actually in that curriculum? Does it include poems singing praises of Mao ? I mean, is it really hardcore propaganda or actually a somewhat accurate depiction of Chinese history? Also, did the Chinese government actually attempt to remove some of the rights that HK people enjoy?
Chanting "No to brainwashing education. Withdraw national education", some 8000 people denounced a Hong Kong government-funded booklet entitled "The China Model" they say glorifies China's single Communist party rule while glossing over more brutal aspects of its rule and political controversies.
I see. If the curriculum really is a biased review of the CCP, I hope that the HK government recognizes the futility of implementing something like this. Even students in China don't buy into the history taught to them in classrooms.
I've always liked HK's presence in China the way it is. They always stood out as this strange co-existing contrast to the rest of China (with exception of a few provinces).
What's considered propaganda and what's considered objective education is also a subjective judgement. I arbitrarily consider all education of history, language, culture and arts to be propanganda and completely biased. If national education is applied, then the HK society in the a couple decades will become more cohesive and unified than it is now. Of course the current population would protest against it. It is their future that's being over-written.
As much sense as it makes for any nation would try to apply national education, HK being a near-standalone society is a gem for China and this is going to erase that, for better or for worse. I personally don't like it.
Generally, I am pro- for preservation of culture.
-===- And quit it with the stupid insults about mainlander's social behaviours. It's only making you guys look like an idiot. Like as if education is going to somehow teach you how you behave. The way people act are influenced by those around them. I don't see how taking a shit on a train is influenced by chinese history/politics or whatever examples of 'barbarism' you guys bring up.
The problem with the Executive branch of gov in Hong kong is that it basically already submitted to the central government in Beijing, there are pretty much nothing else but an extended arm of the CCP. Which makes having an "own version" of the curriculum pretty hard as hong kong's government follows beijing in that regard. Learning history in itself is nothing bad obviously, but it matters how it is teached. Why do you think did the totalitarian governments of the past always aimed to control the education as soon as possible? If you are taught to be sheep from the beginning it is much easier for the ruling class to have you stay content with the way you are.
The dynamics of the last couple decades have been positive yes, but as you can see the power struggle that is happening right now within the CCP about the succession you can easily see the inherent flaws of the current system. 30years is quite optimistic from my point of view (I am biased though as taiwanese anyway). That would only amount to 3 leadership cycles and I doubt that it would be enough to let a pro-democracy faction win enough support within the CCP, which would be needed for democratisation.
On topic, I'm really out of touch of what's going on, everything is kind of vague at the moment. What is actually in that curriculum? Does it include poems singing praises of Mao ? I mean, is it really hardcore propaganda or actually a somewhat accurate depiction of Chinese history? Also, did the Chinese government actually attempt to remove some of the rights that HK people enjoy?
It's in the article the OP posted.
Chanting "No to brainwashing education. Withdraw national education", some 8000 people denounced a Hong Kong government-funded booklet entitled "The China Model" they say glorifies China's single Communist party rule while glossing over more brutal aspects of its rule and political controversies.
I see. If the curriculum really is a biased review of the CCP, I hope that the HK government recognizes the futility of implementing something like this. Even students in China don't buy into the history taught to them in classrooms.
I don't think that's necessarily true. My cousin learned more about Chinese history while studying in the US than she did throughout her high school education in China. I mean, they didn't even know about the Tiananmen Square massacre...
On September 07 2012 00:57 Shady Sands wrote: The level of Sinophobia and general retardation regarding China in this thread is just... rage-inducing
Someone could have Wire-esque levels of understanding of China and enough PHD's to build a house, people would still bitch and moan that people "don't get it."
Even experts are thrown at the side of the road by uneducated idiots that just want to make claims.
Sinophobia, general retardation...
The truth is that you won't permit anyone to be right about China, whether they are right or not is of no importance to that point.
What do you mean by this post?
That China is one of those subjects where everyone that read more than 1 magazine article about it will scream
"YOU DONT GET CHINA!"
Even when it is the world's foremost expert on all things China.
It isn't a real reaction, it is just a knee-jerk reaction.
Once upon a time, there was a guy who wrote a book called "The coming collapse of China," and said they'll collapse in 5 years due to their inability to remain competitive as they open to the WTO. That was in 2001. That man's name is Gordon G. Chang. I personally have a rule of thumb, you're an idiot if you think you can predict the future more than 6 months...
That said, this guy was the speaker of an online debate for The Economist and he was presented as the world's foremost expert on China.
There are people who know China really really well. The problem is that most people don't know who they are and their reputation which leads to experts being passed off as experts. This happens way way too often which leads to why a lot of people say these things when people talk about China.
P.S. If you really want to understand China then the most credible and obvious people in the West that know about China are obviously Jon Huntsman, and Kevin Rudd. They actually speak fluent mandarin too. =D The only reason I'm pointing these guys out are because if I point out other experts, you wouldn't believe me since they're more unknown.
Yeah sucks for HK , but tbh even if there's no official doctrine or rule in the US school system to do something similar with US history, lower level American history (below college level) is pretty much a patriotic circlejerk as well. But, I guess that's still quite a bit different than enforcing such "education" onto children.
On September 07 2012 01:59 Endymion wrote: i know that people in HK think it's stupid that China wants to exert their influence over HK, but it's their land legally isn't it? as much as it sucks i don't think the west is going to go to war over it, since 1. it's china's right to do so, 2. the china is an integral part of the world's economy and 3. it's only HK, it's not like china is invading SK (they're not even invading HK, they just wanna change the education.. they're not changing economic policies yet as far as i can see)
What does the size matter?
This is just so disgusting. These people are going to lose the freedoms that they care about, and they should just shut up and deal with it because they are only a small part?
What ever happened to individual freedom? Why exactly is their right to freedom any less crucial because they are a smaller group?
The people of HK don't want this, so by what right is the government rolling in and dictating that they have to hand over their rights?
You can't speak your mind because the rest of us has decided it isn't oke? Fuck that. One man has every right to fight the other 6 billion if they come for his freedom. The people of HK shouldn't take this, just because the majority of wolves has decided to eat the sheep.
do you want someone to fight a war??? everyone criticizes the US, Canada, and the EU for exerting influence on other cultures but as soon as the west has a contractual obligation to not intervene (HK is chinese territory by definition..) everyones feathers get roused.. 1. yes size matters, however HK is a huge economic asset so it would be worth keeping free, but 2. China isn't doing anything wrong, they control HK.. it's none of the West's business to intervene and fight China over HK, which is why the British Empire didn't do it 15 years ago
btw your individual rights are decided by the government that prevails in your region, they're not inherently given to you by being born.
Currently, China legally has no control over HK whatsoever until 2047 - Hong Kong is legally and politically an SAR, meaning that it has it's own political and legal system, entirely seperate from China's. The problem is that China isn't supposed to control HK but they do, through political and social manipulation. This new civics class that's clearly going to gloss over important historical facts, such as the vast negative consequences (not to say there weren't positives, however few) of Mao's leadership and more recent events, spanning from Tiananmen Square to the recent Uyghur massacre in the north, coupled with the government's inaction towards such change is clearly a sign that we are in fact losing our sovereignty, even though we're supposed to still be entitled to it.
Whether or not individual rights are decided by the person or by one's national government is more of a philosophical issue than a socio-political one, but surely we can both agree that freedom should be a given human right? Governments can decide what rights are 'given' to us, but that doesn't make it morally legitimate, nor does it make it something we should just suck up and accept.
Well this is how I see it. I've been in Canada since I was 3 months old. More precisely, I've been living in Quebec and my winter semester has been delayed and is scheduled to end at the end of September, while my fall semester is due to start in October. On the other hand, I am also a Hong Kong resident and I go back to HK often enough (I'm born in HK, I have the right to work there, use medicare system, vote, etc.).
The two protests are very different one from another. The (now cancelled) Quebec tuition hike would have brought very little change to social well being, general levels of education, Que.'s economic standing, etc. Even with the tuition hikes, there would still have been more people applying to universities than there are spots in universities. One of the party leaders, Francois Legault, said that if Quebec students worked as hard as Asians did, they would whine less about the hike, work harder, and get better jobs. Personally, I don't think that his claim is without truth, but I shall not argue about that. Point is, the tuition hike would have done nothing to decrease the well being of Quebec residents.
HK's protesting students, on the other hand, are trying to defend their very identity as Hong Kongnese. If anyone knows anything about China at all, they should also know that "national studies" has nothing to do with "objectively true" Chinese history and accomplishments. Chinese history according to the Chinese is full of propaganda and blown out of proportion acts of altruism/heroism/godliness/etc. Thus, what HK students are really trying to do is to prevent assimilation. HK is an awesome place. I consider it to be my home. We have a very unique culture (being Chinese and having being influenced by the west through the British Empire), we have a great economy, we have a very unique history. We do not want to be assimilated and become like the rest of China. We do not want to lose our heritage. This is why the HK protest is, for a lack of a better word, "better and more valid".
Unfortunately, China is very unlikely to react to HK ppl protesting. Unless HK students manage to draw significant international attention that is... Also to note (although I am really not certain of this): HK students will protest, but are unlikely to boycott their classes (i.e. unlikely to be a strike like here in Quebec. I do hope I'm wrong though)
Governments can decide what rights are 'given' to us, but that doesn't make it morally legitimate, nor does it make it something we should just suck up and accept.
Exactly. I mean the CCP could just force their way to do things, and there's probably going to be very little action taken to punish them for betraying their word. However every action they make, whether they can or cannot will affect people's perception of them. Doing this is certainly negative to everyone that cares about HK, whether local or foreign. I just hope the negativity is enough to convince the party otherwise. And the party does care about how people view them. They've changed themselves to accomodate the changing opinions of the people and the foreign world, and strayed further and further from Mao's ideal of a socialist communist nation. They just happen to have a very high tolerance for haters and a high social inertia that makes things very hard to adapt to what a minority group wants. Which is sad, since everyone is a minority. If there was a majority, it's the people who don't give a shit about anything other than what's directly in front of them..
I'd feel a city-wide protest is the best thing they can do. At least they are allowed peaceful protesting to some degree, unlike the rest of China.
Among this thread, posts from HaFnium and InvXXVII gives the best insight of what is actually happening; The main reason why the people in Hong Kong are upset.
It's like in Japan, they don't teach their students about Nan Jing Massacre, and some context regarding world war 2 has been altered. The Chinese don't like that either.
On September 07 2012 02:56 InvXXVII wrote: Well this is how I see it. I've been in Canada since I was 3 months old. More precisely, I've been living in Quebec and my winter semester has been delayed and is scheduled to end at the end of September, while my fall semester is due to start in October. On the other hand, I am also a Hong Kong resident and I go back to HK often enough (I'm born in HK, I have the right to work there, use medicare system, vote, etc.).
The two protests are very different one from another. The (now cancelled) Quebec tuition hike would have brought very little change to social well being, general levels of education, Que.'s economic standing, etc. Even with the tuition hikes, there would still have been more people applying to universities than there are spots in universities. One of the party leaders, Francois Legault, said that if Quebec students worked as hard as Asians did, they would whine less about the hike, work harder, and get better jobs. Personally, I don't think that his claim is without truth, but I shall not argue about that. Point is, the tuition hike would have done nothing to decrease the well being of Quebec residents.
HK's protesting students, on the other hand, are trying to defend their very identity as Hong Kongnese. If anyone knows anything about China at all, they should also know that "national studies" has nothing to do with "objectively true" Chinese history and accomplishments. Chinese history according to the Chinese is full of propaganda and blown out of proportion acts of altruism/heroism/godliness/etc. Thus, what HK students are really trying to do is to prevent assimilation. HK is an awesome place. I consider it to be my home. We have a very unique culture (being Chinese and having being influenced by the west through the British Empire), we have a great economy, we have a very unique history. We do not want to be assimilated and become like the rest of China. We do not want to lose our heritage. This is why the HK protest is, for a lack of a better word, "better and more valid".
Unfortunately, China is very unlikely to react to HK ppl protesting. Unless HK students manage to draw significant international attention that is...
There are obviously certain posters in this thread that don't understand that. They don't see what you see. They don't feel what you feel. They think Hong Kong is just a glorified city full of these wild, Chinese people that don't hate westerners and speak a different language (what is this, English? How demonic!), and have their own set of strange, weird laws that promote human rights and don't conform with backward PRC values. They don't realize that their intentions for Hong Kong completely undermine the unique identity of the city.
They don't realize that you have your own identity cards. Or that your passport allows VISA-free entry to 150 countries, while China only has access to 50. Or that you drive on the other side of the road like in the UK. Or that there's a freaking border between China and Hong Kong. Or that nothing on the Internet is censored. Or that your public infrastructure such as bridges and trains don't randomly fall apart and explode because they weren't developed properly.
Hong Kong is a FREE city, despite the countless barbaric hordes from China trying to enter our border each day. We enjoy our FREEDOM. We enjoy the fact that we are FREE to protest about unwarranted changes to our education system! We enjoy the fact that we are FREE to speak up without fear of disappearing in the middle of the night, or have tanks running wild on our streets.
The fact that we have these FREEDOMS, despite the People's Communist Republic of China thinking we don't, is already enough of a reason that we don't want these things taken away from us. I know it's hard to understand why we value such things from a mainland Chinese person's perspective, just imagine how much harder it will be to convince the PRC government...
On September 07 2012 03:11 Fishball wrote: Among this thread, posts from HaFnium and InvXXVII gives the best insight of what is actually happening; The main reason why the people in Hong Kong are upset.
It's like in Japan, they don't teach their students about Nan Jing Massacre, and some context regarding world war 2 has been altered. The Chinese don't like that either.
That's another good point.
Like a previous poster in this thread said, he had a friend from China who learned more about factual Chinese history in the United States, things such as the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Imagine if Nazism is completely erased (or omitted) from modern history studies in Germany? Or the word "Stalin" is blocked on Google.ru?
On September 07 2012 02:56 InvXXVII wrote: Well this is how I see it. I've been in Canada since I was 3 months old. More precisely, I've been living in Quebec and my winter semester has been delayed and is scheduled to end at the end of September, while my fall semester is due to start in October. On the other hand, I am also a Hong Kong resident and I go back to HK often enough (I'm born in HK, I have the right to work there, use medicare system, vote, etc.).
The two protests are very different one from another. The (now cancelled) Quebec tuition hike would have brought very little change to social well being, general levels of education, Que.'s economic standing, etc. Even with the tuition hikes, there would still have been more people applying to universities than there are spots in universities. One of the party leaders, Francois Legault, said that if Quebec students worked as hard as Asians did, they would whine less about the hike, work harder, and get better jobs. Personally, I don't think that his claim is without truth, but I shall not argue about that. Point is, the tuition hike would have done nothing to decrease the well being of Quebec residents.
HK's protesting students, on the other hand, are trying to defend their very identity as Hong Kongnese. If anyone knows anything about China at all, they should also know that "national studies" has nothing to do with "objectively true" Chinese history and accomplishments. Chinese history according to the Chinese is full of propaganda and blown out of proportion acts of altruism/heroism/godliness/etc. Thus, what HK students are really trying to do is to prevent assimilation. HK is an awesome place. I consider it to be my home. We have a very unique culture (being Chinese and having being influenced by the west through the British Empire), we have a great economy, we have a very unique history. We do not want to be assimilated and become like the rest of China. We do not want to lose our heritage. This is why the HK protest is, for a lack of a better word, "better and more valid".
Unfortunately, China is very unlikely to react to HK ppl protesting. Unless HK students manage to draw significant international attention that is...
There are obviously certain posters in this thread that don't understand that. They don't see what you see. They don't feel what you feel. They think Hong Kong is just a glorified city full of these wild, Chinese people that don't hate westerners and speak a different language (what is this, English? How demonic!), and have their own set of strange, weird laws that promote human rights and don't conform with backward PRC values. They don't realize that their intentions for Hong Kong completely undermine the unique identity of the city.
They don't realize that you have your own identity cards. Or that your passport allows VISA-free entry to 150 countries, while China only has access to 50. Or that you drive on the other side of the road like in the UK. Or that there's a freaking border between China and Hong Kong. Or that nothing on the Internet is censored. Or that your public infrastructure such as bridges and trains don't randomly fall apart and explode because they weren't developed properly.
Hong Kong is a FREE city, despite the countless barbaric hordes from China trying to enter our border each day. We enjoy our FREEDOM. We enjoy the fact that we are FREE to protest about unwarranted changes to our education system! We enjoy the fact that we are FREE to speak up without fear of disappearing in the middle of the night, or have tanks running wild on our streets.
The fact that we have these FREEDOMS, despite the People's Communist Republic of China thinking we don't, is already enough of a reason that we don't want these things taken away from us. I know it's hard to understand why we value such things from a mainland Chinese person's perspective, just imagine how much harder it will be to convince the PRC government...
I can totally understand you, in Taiwan we are in pretty similar shoes regarding relations to PRC :D
But putting every mainlander into the "barbarian" category is kind of too harsh, I know a few mainlanders and they are totally great people, while you should value the freedom you have there is no need to look down upon mainlanders that much.
If it weren't for MAD, any Chinese aggression against HK would be the perfect opportunity/justification for the US to rip China a new one. We have the "humanitarian / freedom" justification to go to war whether or not that would actually be the politicians' interest, we militarily wreck the greatest threat to our domination in Eastern Asia, and we exponentially further establish ourselves as the world's most powerful nation., and proportionally in world history, WHILE of course freeing Hong Kong. Everyone wins. Nothing's going to stop American imperialism, so I may as well stop condemning it and instead just embrace it as a fact of life .
Hong Kong is a FREE city, despite the countless barbaric hordes from China trying to enter our border each day. We enjoy our FREEDOM. We enjoy the fact that we are FREE to protest about unwarranted changes to our education system! We enjoy the fact that we are FREE to speak up without fear of disappearing in the middle of the night, or have tanks running wild on our streets.
Don't you think "barbaric hordes from China" is too harsh? That's like the typical Westerner's view of China, circa the 1800s.
The problem isn't that they're teaching patriotism. The problem is that they're equating patriotism with loving the Chinese Communist Party. That's bullshit.
Hong Kong is a FREE city, despite the countless barbaric hordes from China trying to enter our border each day. We enjoy our FREEDOM. We enjoy the fact that we are FREE to protest about unwarranted changes to our education system! We enjoy the fact that we are FREE to speak up without fear of disappearing in the middle of the night, or have tanks running wild on our streets.
Don't you think "barbaric hordes from China" is too harsh? That's like the typical Westerner's view of China, circa the 1800s.
China also view Westerners the same way back then so I guess it's even.
His language may be harsh, but really, no one is more racist towards the Chinese than the Chinese themselves. If you to go Shanghai and you don't speak their language, people will look down on you too.
Obviously not very healthy way to look at the world though, usually leaves a lot of place for hypocrisy and decadent elitism when you treat everyone else as "barbarians".
Hong Kong is a FREE city, despite the countless barbaric hordes from China trying to enter our border each day. We enjoy our FREEDOM. We enjoy the fact that we are FREE to protest about unwarranted changes to our education system! We enjoy the fact that we are FREE to speak up without fear of disappearing in the middle of the night, or have tanks running wild on our streets.
Don't you think "barbaric hordes from China" is too harsh? That's like the typical Westerner's view of China, circa the 1800s.
Hong Kong only had a population numbering the hundreds of thousands before British rule. Now it's home to over 6 million people. Most Hong Kongers today are descendants from Guangzhou province. It's also no secret that a lot of Chinese fled from China during World War II to Hong Kong (for the foreigners reading this, think Ip Man).
My grandfather fled to Hong Kong from China (and met my grandmother who's a Hong Kong native), may they rest in peace. It would be very stupid of me to call *ALL* mainland Chinese barbarians.
What I meant by that are the individuals who have recently become wealthy through corruption or abusing their neighbors, conducting shady ass businesses focused on short term success that undermines the social, environmental and economic well-being of their not-so-fortunate countrymen.
Hong Kong is a FREE city, despite the countless barbaric hordes from China trying to enter our border each day. We enjoy our FREEDOM. We enjoy the fact that we are FREE to protest about unwarranted changes to our education system! We enjoy the fact that we are FREE to speak up without fear of disappearing in the middle of the night, or have tanks running wild on our streets.
Don't you think "barbaric hordes from China" is too harsh? That's like the typical Westerner's view of China, circa the 1800s.
China also view Westerners the same way back then so I guess it's even.
His language may be harsh, but really, no one is more racist towards the Chinese than the Chinese themselves. If you to go Shanghai and you don't speak their language, people will look down on you too.
Obviously not very healthy way to look at the world though, usually leaves a lot of place for hypocrisy and decadent elitism when you treat everyone else as "barbarians".
While I do regret using that word (now that I look back, I've stooped to their level), it's no different from what the mainland Chinese call us.
"British dogs" "Paperdoll Chinese" "No identity, no sense of honor"
And those aren't phrases said by just anybody. Those three examples are from CCTV, China's largest TV broadcasting channel.
Peking (Beijing) University professor Kong Qingdong, an 'expert' at... whatever the fuck he does. Did I mention he thinks highly of North Korea? Quote from Wikipedia:
He said that in comparison, North Korea is a "great and impressive country," and that China was 'so far gone' that it was not even worthy of criticism from North Koreans. According to Kong, China should 'bow its shameful head' in front of the North Korean people.
Believe me, people like him come to our border each and everyday, spewing crap like he does in Mandarin, loudly in our faces. They think they're untouchable in Hong Kong, just because Hong Kong people aren't violent barbarians.
May I also add that a LOT of Chinese netizens rose up, criticized and condemned him. I don't consider those individuals the least bit barbaric.
On September 07 2012 03:11 Fishball wrote: Among this thread, posts from HaFnium and InvXXVII gives the best insight of what is actually happening; The main reason why the people in Hong Kong are upset.
It's like in Japan, they don't teach their students about Nan Jing Massacre, and some context regarding world war 2 has been altered. The Chinese don't like that either.
That's another good point.
Like a previous poster in this thread said, he had a friend from China who learned more about factual Chinese history in the United States, things such as the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Imagine if Nazism is completely erased (or omitted) from modern history studies in Germany? Or the word "Stalin" is blocked on Google.ru?
Hong Kong is a FREE city, despite the countless barbaric hordes from China trying to enter our border each day. We enjoy our FREEDOM. We enjoy the fact that we are FREE to protest about unwarranted changes to our education system! We enjoy the fact that we are FREE to speak up without fear of disappearing in the middle of the night, or have tanks running wild on our streets.
Don't you think "barbaric hordes from China" is too harsh? That's like the typical Westerner's view of China, circa the 1800s.
They seem pretty barbaric when it's about Senkaku Islands.
well senkaku or diaoyu islands is another matter altogether imo....I agree though that the current escalating stuff is stupid, but Japan also got to share some of the blame for it.
Also keep in mind that nationalism is one of the pillars on which the support for the CCP rests, they pretty much cannot back down, even if they hypothetically wanted to.
On September 07 2012 02:56 InvXXVII wrote: Well this is how I see it. I've been in Canada since I was 3 months old. More precisely, I've been living in Quebec and my winter semester has been delayed and is scheduled to end at the end of September, while my fall semester is due to start in October. On the other hand, I am also a Hong Kong resident and I go back to HK often enough (I'm born in HK, I have the right to work there, use medicare system, vote, etc.).
The two protests are very different one from another. The (now cancelled) Quebec tuition hike would have brought very little change to social well being, general levels of education, Que.'s economic standing, etc. Even with the tuition hikes, there would still have been more people applying to universities than there are spots in universities. One of the party leaders, Francois Legault, said that if Quebec students worked as hard as Asians did, they would whine less about the hike, work harder, and get better jobs. Personally, I don't think that his claim is without truth, but I shall not argue about that. Point is, the tuition hike would have done nothing to decrease the well being of Quebec residents.
HK's protesting students, on the other hand, are trying to defend their very identity as Hong Kongnese. If anyone knows anything about China at all, they should also know that "national studies" has nothing to do with "objectively true" Chinese history and accomplishments. Chinese history according to the Chinese is full of propaganda and blown out of proportion acts of altruism/heroism/godliness/etc. Thus, what HK students are really trying to do is to prevent assimilation. HK is an awesome place. I consider it to be my home. We have a very unique culture (being Chinese and having being influenced by the west through the British Empire), we have a great economy, we have a very unique history. We do not want to be assimilated and become like the rest of China. We do not want to lose our heritage. This is why the HK protest is, for a lack of a better word, "better and more valid".
Unfortunately, China is very unlikely to react to HK ppl protesting. Unless HK students manage to draw significant international attention that is...
There are obviously certain posters in this thread that don't understand that. They don't see what you see. They don't feel what you feel. They think Hong Kong is just a glorified city full of these wild, Chinese people that don't hate westerners and speak a different language (what is this, English? How demonic!), and have their own set of strange, weird laws that promote human rights and don't conform with backward PRC values. They don't realize that their intentions for Hong Kong completely undermine the unique identity of the city.
They don't realize that you have your own identity cards. Or that your passport allows VISA-free entry to 150 countries, while China only has access to 50. Or that you drive on the other side of the road like in the UK. Or that there's a freaking border between China and Hong Kong. Or that nothing on the Internet is censored. Or that your public infrastructure such as bridges and trains don't randomly fall apart and explode because they weren't developed properly.
Hong Kong is a FREE city, despite the countless barbaric hordes from China trying to enter our border each day. We enjoy our FREEDOM. We enjoy the fact that we are FREE to protest about unwarranted changes to our education system! We enjoy the fact that we are FREE to speak up without fear of disappearing in the middle of the night, or have tanks running wild on our streets.
The fact that we have these FREEDOMS, despite the People's Communist Republic of China thinking we don't, is already enough of a reason that we don't want these things taken away from us. I know it's hard to understand why we value such things from a mainland Chinese person's perspective, just imagine how much harder it will be to convince the PRC government...
Hong Kong is a FREE city, despite the countless barbaric hordes from China trying to enter our border each day. We enjoy our FREEDOM. We enjoy the fact that we are FREE to protest about unwarranted changes to our education system! We enjoy the fact that we are FREE to speak up without fear of disappearing in the middle of the night, or have tanks running wild on our streets.
Don't you think "barbaric hordes from China" is too harsh? That's like the typical Westerner's view of China, circa the 1800s.
Harsh maybe, but definitely not without reason. As Xspace mentioned, being a HK citizen is very VERY beneficial.
On top of being able to be "free" (which is already a big huge deal), you get access to HK's healthcare system, which, in itself, is already a huge boon. Let me give you an example: I went to an emergency room two months ago in HK. Within the span of three hours, I saw the doctor thrice, got a CT scan, got all my meds, and got discharged. And the only thing that cost me that night was the taxi. All this because I'm a citizen. Also, the waiting lists for surgery there is nothing like the Canadian and American waiting lists. Education is also way way way more accessible. YOU'RE ALLOWED TO HAVE MULTIPLE KIDS. There are also many other perks, and benefits I can't remember from the top of my head.
Anyone born in HK is eligible to be a HK citizen (and to get ALL the good stuff). In HK, we call mainlanders "locusts" not only because they are, generally speaking ofc, rude and they come in hordes. Recently, it has been a trend for Chinese mainlanders to come to HK just to give birth. There is currently no law or rule in HK to prevent this from happening. This is also another method of assimilation. It's like spreading creep tumors. AND, if your child is a HK citizen, it is also easier for you to become a citizen. Hence HK people's dislike of mainlanders.
On September 06 2012 19:25 Williammm wrote: I disagree with your position. Name a single piece of history which isn't biased? There is no such thing as objectively sound history, because it is always going to be the interpretation of the person writing it. Secondly, it is hard to avoid other opinions of what happened in China, because information is as free in HK as it is in the rest of the Western world. So your opposition of the scheme being brainwashing doesn't really make too much sense in a place like HK.
Also your prediction that people in HK will just flee China when the time came to completely convert the city into the Chinese system. It already happened prior to the 1997 handover, and what happened was people from the mainland coming down to fill the positions. Economic stability didn't change as Hong Kong is still the Asian centre for financial and accounting activities. You could argue that HK is worse off than it was prior to the handover, but I would point you towards the 1972 and 1988 stock crashes that severely lowered wages and increased unemployment that HK is still trying to recover from.
This is just news turned fox news turned pitchfork witching hunting
The people are great, everyone living in China are amazing individuals, but the Chinese government itself can go fuck itself (and then censor it out!). No offense to the people, plenty of offense to the government.
I beg to differ, I encounter a great many mainlanders who are rude, loud, lacking in social graces, boorish, tasteless, ignorant, and see the need to wear brand name clothing head-to-toe that shove logos in your face. Obviously not all of them are like this, I have a couple of mainland friends they are very decent people (although hardly average - they're more bohemian folks), but there are so many of the former that they tend to eclipse the latter.
Behavior like that is not limited to any particular ethnicity...
Obsession with brands is just a very Asian thing in general. I'm pretty sure Japan wins if we do an LV per capital comparison. lol...
Agreed, esp trophy wives with no job no kids and their husbands spend half their time away on business.
Once met a lady who had an entire apartment unit in Hong Kong as her fucking wardrobe.
On the flip side, these ladies are easy pickings if you have bedroom prowess and quick hands. I know of one particularly enterprising ex-banker who slept his way through a whole bunch of trophy wives while stealing/fencing all their shit. Then he reinvested the proceeds into drugs which he sold back to the wives... on top of filming them naked/drugged up so that when they found out about his habits, they couldn't do jack.
Most awesome i-banker exit opportunity I have ever come across. A pity he got arrested though
It's a pity that the drug dealer who seduced rich women in order to get them hooked on drugs so he could take their money and then blackmail them got arrested?
Because I was trying to meet him to pick up a mental snapshot. He would have made an excellent supporting character for the script I'm trying to write
There are tons of swindling casanovas out everywhere in the world. I don't deny the authenticity of this example, though, as it's not exactly a rare occurrence. Remember that Taiwanese businessman who did the same thing in Taipei? Except he fucked with the wrong woman (the wife of a government official). This isn't unique to Hong Kong, but your point that Hong Kong women are very materialistic can't be denied. But remember, these women are married to rich businessmen who more often than not have second, third, even fourth families scattered all over China, and they don't exactly keep it a secret. Having one or two mistresses is very common when you're working for an international conglomerate or own a business in Hong Kong, and there are millions (or billions, barely) in China making cents for a hard day's work.
It happens both sides, there are tons of attractive mainland Chinese women (and boy are they always dolled/pushed up) entering Hong Kong and seducing lonely men who aren't even rich, but they get married so the woman can have a Hong Kong ID card. It's also much more convenient to conceive a child with that man because the process gets sped up rather than waiting years. It's definitely disheartening, because I bear no ill will against these women, but c'mon. There are better ways of escaping the PRC...
Edit: The post above me elaborates further. It's scary that you don't even live in Hong Kong, yet you know all these things! I'd also like to add that while the word "FREE" healthcare sounds strange, it's free because of taxes. 15% on income, 15% corporate tax, no purchasing tax, ie. VAT (or GST/HST, none of that stuff!), and non-residential property owner tax.
You can see how someone from China would be lured into coming here, to escape the hell that is the Chinese government.
On September 07 2012 03:51 ShiaoPi wrote: well senkaku or diaoyu islands is another matter altogether imo....I agree though that the current escalating stuff is stupid, but Japan also got to share some of the blame for it.
Also keep in mind that nationalism is one of the pillars on which the support for the CCP rests, they pretty much cannot back down, even if they hypothetically wanted to.
The disputes over the sharp corner infuriated the barbarians to destroy their own cop cars ( tax payers' money ) because they were made in another country.
Cooking oil made from sewage... antibiotics made from sewage... bridges collapse after 9months of use...
On September 06 2012 18:18 KwarK wrote: They're in the unfortunate position of having sovereignty in their state essentially handed over to a foreign nation with a totalitarian government. They're fucked. They're right to protest, their history is one of a liberal colonial western system and being told they need to learn to conform with the antithesis of that is horrible.
You say colonial western system like its a good thing. As if colonialism was some gift from the great Brits. You know what? I hope China fucking crushes the protests from these faux fucking Brits. There isn't a country or culture in the world more scummy than the British and if it will take a massive act of oppression to destroy the British influence in a region, its completely worth it.
User was warned for this post
Given that the North-Western Muslim state (now known as Pakistan) only exists thanks to the British Raj, this is a hysterically misinformed post.
"if it will take a massive act of oppression to destroy the British influence in a region, its completely worth it"
Spoken like someone whose female literacy rate runs at 3% outside of cities where people are legally obliged to not act like Neanderthals.
P.S. The above are irrefutable facts, please check. If you wish to ban me for stating them, you may wish to consider a job in Homeland Security.
I don't doubt for an instance that British rule overseas resulted in oppression. But this isn't something unique to the British, it happens when any civilised culture encounter a group of people who lack a similar logistical backbone.
On September 07 2012 02:56 InvXXVII wrote: Well this is how I see it. I've been in Canada since I was 3 months old. More precisely, I've been living in Quebec and my winter semester has been delayed and is scheduled to end at the end of September, while my fall semester is due to start in October. On the other hand, I am also a Hong Kong resident and I go back to HK often enough (I'm born in HK, I have the right to work there, use medicare system, vote, etc.).
The two protests are very different one from another. The (now cancelled) Quebec tuition hike would have brought very little change to social well being, general levels of education, Que.'s economic standing, etc. Even with the tuition hikes, there would still have been more people applying to universities than there are spots in universities. One of the party leaders, Francois Legault, said that if Quebec students worked as hard as Asians did, they would whine less about the hike, work harder, and get better jobs. Personally, I don't think that his claim is without truth, but I shall not argue about that. Point is, the tuition hike would have done nothing to decrease the well being of Quebec residents.
HK's protesting students, on the other hand, are trying to defend their very identity as Hong Kongnese. If anyone knows anything about China at all, they should also know that "national studies" has nothing to do with "objectively true" Chinese history and accomplishments. Chinese history according to the Chinese is full of propaganda and blown out of proportion acts of altruism/heroism/godliness/etc. Thus, what HK students are really trying to do is to prevent assimilation. HK is an awesome place. I consider it to be my home. We have a very unique culture (being Chinese and having being influenced by the west through the British Empire), we have a great economy, we have a very unique history. We do not want to be assimilated and become like the rest of China. We do not want to lose our heritage. This is why the HK protest is, for a lack of a better word, "better and more valid".
Unfortunately, China is very unlikely to react to HK ppl protesting. Unless HK students manage to draw significant international attention that is...
There are obviously certain posters in this thread that don't understand that. They don't see what you see. They don't feel what you feel. They think Hong Kong is just a glorified city full of these wild, Chinese people that don't hate westerners and speak a different language (what is this, English? How demonic!), and have their own set of strange, weird laws that promote human rights and don't conform with backward PRC values. They don't realize that their intentions for Hong Kong completely undermine the unique identity of the city.
They don't realize that you have your own identity cards. Or that your passport allows VISA-free entry to 150 countries, while China only has access to 50. Or that you drive on the other side of the road like in the UK. Or that there's a freaking border between China and Hong Kong. Or that nothing on the Internet is censored. Or that your public infrastructure such as bridges and trains don't randomly fall apart and explode because they weren't developed properly.
Hong Kong is a FREE city, despite the countless barbaric hordes from China trying to enter our border each day. We enjoy our FREEDOM. We enjoy the fact that we are FREE to protest about unwarranted changes to our education system! We enjoy the fact that we are FREE to speak up without fear of disappearing in the middle of the night, or have tanks running wild on our streets.
The fact that we have these FREEDOMS, despite the People's Communist Republic of China thinking we don't, is already enough of a reason that we don't want these things taken away from us. I know it's hard to understand why we value such things from a mainland Chinese person's perspective, just imagine how much harder it will be to convince the PRC government...
If you're unwilling to work with those who have power over you, it really won't be surprising if they decide to work against you. You can proclaim your rights and freedom all you like, but rights are given and can be restricted. If you think governments have no ability to take away rights in the future just because you have them presently, look elsewhere in the world.
On September 07 2012 02:56 InvXXVII wrote: Well this is how I see it. I've been in Canada since I was 3 months old. More precisely, I've been living in Quebec and my winter semester has been delayed and is scheduled to end at the end of September, while my fall semester is due to start in October. On the other hand, I am also a Hong Kong resident and I go back to HK often enough (I'm born in HK, I have the right to work there, use medicare system, vote, etc.).
The two protests are very different one from another. The (now cancelled) Quebec tuition hike would have brought very little change to social well being, general levels of education, Que.'s economic standing, etc. Even with the tuition hikes, there would still have been more people applying to universities than there are spots in universities. One of the party leaders, Francois Legault, said that if Quebec students worked as hard as Asians did, they would whine less about the hike, work harder, and get better jobs. Personally, I don't think that his claim is without truth, but I shall not argue about that. Point is, the tuition hike would have done nothing to decrease the well being of Quebec residents.
HK's protesting students, on the other hand, are trying to defend their very identity as Hong Kongnese. If anyone knows anything about China at all, they should also know that "national studies" has nothing to do with "objectively true" Chinese history and accomplishments. Chinese history according to the Chinese is full of propaganda and blown out of proportion acts of altruism/heroism/godliness/etc. Thus, what HK students are really trying to do is to prevent assimilation. HK is an awesome place. I consider it to be my home. We have a very unique culture (being Chinese and having being influenced by the west through the British Empire), we have a great economy, we have a very unique history. We do not want to be assimilated and become like the rest of China. We do not want to lose our heritage. This is why the HK protest is, for a lack of a better word, "better and more valid".
Unfortunately, China is very unlikely to react to HK ppl protesting. Unless HK students manage to draw significant international attention that is...
There are obviously certain posters in this thread that don't understand that. They don't see what you see. They don't feel what you feel. They think Hong Kong is just a glorified city full of these wild, Chinese people that don't hate westerners and speak a different language (what is this, English? How demonic!), and have their own set of strange, weird laws that promote human rights and don't conform with backward PRC values. They don't realize that their intentions for Hong Kong completely undermine the unique identity of the city.
They don't realize that you have your own identity cards. Or that your passport allows VISA-free entry to 150 countries, while China only has access to 50. Or that you drive on the other side of the road like in the UK. Or that there's a freaking border between China and Hong Kong. Or that nothing on the Internet is censored. Or that your public infrastructure such as bridges and trains don't randomly fall apart and explode because they weren't developed properly.
Hong Kong is a FREE city, despite the countless barbaric hordes from China trying to enter our border each day. We enjoy our FREEDOM. We enjoy the fact that we are FREE to protest about unwarranted changes to our education system! We enjoy the fact that we are FREE to speak up without fear of disappearing in the middle of the night, or have tanks running wild on our streets.
The fact that we have these FREEDOMS, despite the People's Communist Republic of China thinking we don't, is already enough of a reason that we don't want these things taken away from us. I know it's hard to understand why we value such things from a mainland Chinese person's perspective, just imagine how much harder it will be to convince the PRC government...
If you're unwilling to work with those who have power over you, it really won't be surprising if they decide to work against you. You can proclaim your rights and freedom all you like, but rights are given and can be restricted. If you think governments have no ability to take away rights in the future just because you have them presently, look elsewhere in the world.
On September 07 2012 02:56 InvXXVII wrote: Well this is how I see it. I've been in Canada since I was 3 months old. More precisely, I've been living in Quebec and my winter semester has been delayed and is scheduled to end at the end of September, while my fall semester is due to start in October. On the other hand, I am also a Hong Kong resident and I go back to HK often enough (I'm born in HK, I have the right to work there, use medicare system, vote, etc.).
The two protests are very different one from another. The (now cancelled) Quebec tuition hike would have brought very little change to social well being, general levels of education, Que.'s economic standing, etc. Even with the tuition hikes, there would still have been more people applying to universities than there are spots in universities. One of the party leaders, Francois Legault, said that if Quebec students worked as hard as Asians did, they would whine less about the hike, work harder, and get better jobs. Personally, I don't think that his claim is without truth, but I shall not argue about that. Point is, the tuition hike would have done nothing to decrease the well being of Quebec residents.
HK's protesting students, on the other hand, are trying to defend their very identity as Hong Kongnese. If anyone knows anything about China at all, they should also know that "national studies" has nothing to do with "objectively true" Chinese history and accomplishments. Chinese history according to the Chinese is full of propaganda and blown out of proportion acts of altruism/heroism/godliness/etc. Thus, what HK students are really trying to do is to prevent assimilation. HK is an awesome place. I consider it to be my home. We have a very unique culture (being Chinese and having being influenced by the west through the British Empire), we have a great economy, we have a very unique history. We do not want to be assimilated and become like the rest of China. We do not want to lose our heritage. This is why the HK protest is, for a lack of a better word, "better and more valid".
Unfortunately, China is very unlikely to react to HK ppl protesting. Unless HK students manage to draw significant international attention that is...
There are obviously certain posters in this thread that don't understand that. They don't see what you see. They don't feel what you feel. They think Hong Kong is just a glorified city full of these wild, Chinese people that don't hate westerners and speak a different language (what is this, English? How demonic!), and have their own set of strange, weird laws that promote human rights and don't conform with backward PRC values. They don't realize that their intentions for Hong Kong completely undermine the unique identity of the city.
They don't realize that you have your own identity cards. Or that your passport allows VISA-free entry to 150 countries, while China only has access to 50. Or that you drive on the other side of the road like in the UK. Or that there's a freaking border between China and Hong Kong. Or that nothing on the Internet is censored. Or that your public infrastructure such as bridges and trains don't randomly fall apart and explode because they weren't developed properly.
Hong Kong is a FREE city, despite the countless barbaric hordes from China trying to enter our border each day. We enjoy our FREEDOM. We enjoy the fact that we are FREE to protest about unwarranted changes to our education system! We enjoy the fact that we are FREE to speak up without fear of disappearing in the middle of the night, or have tanks running wild on our streets.
The fact that we have these FREEDOMS, despite the People's Communist Republic of China thinking we don't, is already enough of a reason that we don't want these things taken away from us. I know it's hard to understand why we value such things from a mainland Chinese person's perspective, just imagine how much harder it will be to convince the PRC government...
If you're unwilling to work with those who have power over you, it really won't be surprising if they decide to work against you. You can proclaim your rights and freedom all you like, but rights are given and can be restricted. If you think governments have no ability to take away rights in the future just because you have them presently, look elsewhere in the world.
So... bow down to whoever has the bigger guns?
Diplomacy or death. I'm not saying you have to bow, just that if you don't, you will need an actual game plan rather than idealism.
On September 07 2012 02:56 InvXXVII wrote: Well this is how I see it. I've been in Canada since I was 3 months old. More precisely, I've been living in Quebec and my winter semester has been delayed and is scheduled to end at the end of September, while my fall semester is due to start in October. On the other hand, I am also a Hong Kong resident and I go back to HK often enough (I'm born in HK, I have the right to work there, use medicare system, vote, etc.).
The two protests are very different one from another. The (now cancelled) Quebec tuition hike would have brought very little change to social well being, general levels of education, Que.'s economic standing, etc. Even with the tuition hikes, there would still have been more people applying to universities than there are spots in universities. One of the party leaders, Francois Legault, said that if Quebec students worked as hard as Asians did, they would whine less about the hike, work harder, and get better jobs. Personally, I don't think that his claim is without truth, but I shall not argue about that. Point is, the tuition hike would have done nothing to decrease the well being of Quebec residents.
HK's protesting students, on the other hand, are trying to defend their very identity as Hong Kongnese. If anyone knows anything about China at all, they should also know that "national studies" has nothing to do with "objectively true" Chinese history and accomplishments. Chinese history according to the Chinese is full of propaganda and blown out of proportion acts of altruism/heroism/godliness/etc. Thus, what HK students are really trying to do is to prevent assimilation. HK is an awesome place. I consider it to be my home. We have a very unique culture (being Chinese and having being influenced by the west through the British Empire), we have a great economy, we have a very unique history. We do not want to be assimilated and become like the rest of China. We do not want to lose our heritage. This is why the HK protest is, for a lack of a better word, "better and more valid".
Unfortunately, China is very unlikely to react to HK ppl protesting. Unless HK students manage to draw significant international attention that is...
There are obviously certain posters in this thread that don't understand that. They don't see what you see. They don't feel what you feel. They think Hong Kong is just a glorified city full of these wild, Chinese people that don't hate westerners and speak a different language (what is this, English? How demonic!), and have their own set of strange, weird laws that promote human rights and don't conform with backward PRC values. They don't realize that their intentions for Hong Kong completely undermine the unique identity of the city.
They don't realize that you have your own identity cards. Or that your passport allows VISA-free entry to 150 countries, while China only has access to 50. Or that you drive on the other side of the road like in the UK. Or that there's a freaking border between China and Hong Kong. Or that nothing on the Internet is censored. Or that your public infrastructure such as bridges and trains don't randomly fall apart and explode because they weren't developed properly.
Hong Kong is a FREE city, despite the countless barbaric hordes from China trying to enter our border each day. We enjoy our FREEDOM. We enjoy the fact that we are FREE to protest about unwarranted changes to our education system! We enjoy the fact that we are FREE to speak up without fear of disappearing in the middle of the night, or have tanks running wild on our streets.
The fact that we have these FREEDOMS, despite the People's Communist Republic of China thinking we don't, is already enough of a reason that we don't want these things taken away from us. I know it's hard to understand why we value such things from a mainland Chinese person's perspective, just imagine how much harder it will be to convince the PRC government...
If you're unwilling to work with those who have power over you, it really won't be surprising if they decide to work against you. You can proclaim your rights and freedom all you like, but rights are given and can be restricted. If you think governments have no ability to take away rights in the future just because you have them presently, look elsewhere in the world.
So... bow down to whoever has the bigger guns?
That's what most the world does with Uncle Sam . To quote a bad Metallica song, "Sad but True".
On September 07 2012 02:56 InvXXVII wrote: Well this is how I see it. I've been in Canada since I was 3 months old. More precisely, I've been living in Quebec and my winter semester has been delayed and is scheduled to end at the end of September, while my fall semester is due to start in October. On the other hand, I am also a Hong Kong resident and I go back to HK often enough (I'm born in HK, I have the right to work there, use medicare system, vote, etc.).
The two protests are very different one from another. The (now cancelled) Quebec tuition hike would have brought very little change to social well being, general levels of education, Que.'s economic standing, etc. Even with the tuition hikes, there would still have been more people applying to universities than there are spots in universities. One of the party leaders, Francois Legault, said that if Quebec students worked as hard as Asians did, they would whine less about the hike, work harder, and get better jobs. Personally, I don't think that his claim is without truth, but I shall not argue about that. Point is, the tuition hike would have done nothing to decrease the well being of Quebec residents.
HK's protesting students, on the other hand, are trying to defend their very identity as Hong Kongnese. If anyone knows anything about China at all, they should also know that "national studies" has nothing to do with "objectively true" Chinese history and accomplishments. Chinese history according to the Chinese is full of propaganda and blown out of proportion acts of altruism/heroism/godliness/etc. Thus, what HK students are really trying to do is to prevent assimilation. HK is an awesome place. I consider it to be my home. We have a very unique culture (being Chinese and having being influenced by the west through the British Empire), we have a great economy, we have a very unique history. We do not want to be assimilated and become like the rest of China. We do not want to lose our heritage. This is why the HK protest is, for a lack of a better word, "better and more valid".
Unfortunately, China is very unlikely to react to HK ppl protesting. Unless HK students manage to draw significant international attention that is...
There are obviously certain posters in this thread that don't understand that. They don't see what you see. They don't feel what you feel. They think Hong Kong is just a glorified city full of these wild, Chinese people that don't hate westerners and speak a different language (what is this, English? How demonic!), and have their own set of strange, weird laws that promote human rights and don't conform with backward PRC values. They don't realize that their intentions for Hong Kong completely undermine the unique identity of the city.
They don't realize that you have your own identity cards. Or that your passport allows VISA-free entry to 150 countries, while China only has access to 50. Or that you drive on the other side of the road like in the UK. Or that there's a freaking border between China and Hong Kong. Or that nothing on the Internet is censored. Or that your public infrastructure such as bridges and trains don't randomly fall apart and explode because they weren't developed properly.
Hong Kong is a FREE city, despite the countless barbaric hordes from China trying to enter our border each day. We enjoy our FREEDOM. We enjoy the fact that we are FREE to protest about unwarranted changes to our education system! We enjoy the fact that we are FREE to speak up without fear of disappearing in the middle of the night, or have tanks running wild on our streets.
The fact that we have these FREEDOMS, despite the People's Communist Republic of China thinking we don't, is already enough of a reason that we don't want these things taken away from us. I know it's hard to understand why we value such things from a mainland Chinese person's perspective, just imagine how much harder it will be to convince the PRC government...
If you're unwilling to work with those who have power over you, it really won't be surprising if they decide to work against you. You can proclaim your rights and freedom all you like, but rights are given and can be restricted. If you think governments have no ability to take away rights in the future just because you have them presently, look elsewhere in the world.
So... bow down to whoever has the bigger guns?
Diplomacy or death. I'm not saying you have to bow, just that if you don't, you will need an actual game plan rather than idealism.
Except we're not Iran, and China isn't the United States. But that's not the point.
I don't know where you're getting your information from about this topic (hopefully it's not ALL from this thread -.-), but "death" isn't exactly an option on the table. For either side. Not China, and definitely not Hong Kong.
So, another suggestion? A more intelligent one this time... maybe after you've read more into the history...
On September 06 2012 20:16 alffla wrote: im so sad about the situation here in hong kong ..watching our little city slowly fall apart to the chinese communist party is terrible
how is your city falling apart?
everytime i go to hong kong i get smeared at because i can't speak canto
On September 06 2012 20:16 alffla wrote: im so sad about the situation here in hong kong ..watching our little city slowly fall apart to the chinese communist party is terrible
how is your city falling apart?
everytime i go to hong kong i get smeared at because i can't speak canto
There is a "one country, two system" policy that gives HK the autonomy to decide on internal matters. However, our government is becoming more and more pro-Chinese Government and not listening to waht people want, the "national education" mentioned in the thread is one of those issues.
On September 07 2012 09:03 haduken wrote: Meh, HKers need to harden the fuck up.
If you think your city is bad, what about Shanghai/Beijing and 10000 other Chinese cities that had millions of peasant migrations.
What the hell is this? Some places are worse means that we can be bad? Of course not. And we are not just a random Chinese city, we (still) enjoy some freedom, so we can resist attempts that change our society for worse.
Although HK is a part of China, it still enjoys a decent amount of autonomy, especially regarding internal affairs such as the "National Education" mentioned. We also have the autonomy on migration, Macau, our neighbour has tighened up some migration policies for example.
Edit: People are getting really off topic. As I mention earlier, migration issues/HK VS China/migration issues are not the main point TT
On September 07 2012 02:56 InvXXVII wrote: Well this is how I see it. I've been in Canada since I was 3 months old. More precisely, I've been living in Quebec and my winter semester has been delayed and is scheduled to end at the end of September, while my fall semester is due to start in October. On the other hand, I am also a Hong Kong resident and I go back to HK often enough (I'm born in HK, I have the right to work there, use medicare system, vote, etc.).
The two protests are very different one from another. The (now cancelled) Quebec tuition hike would have brought very little change to social well being, general levels of education, Que.'s economic standing, etc. Even with the tuition hikes, there would still have been more people applying to universities than there are spots in universities. One of the party leaders, Francois Legault, said that if Quebec students worked as hard as Asians did, they would whine less about the hike, work harder, and get better jobs. Personally, I don't think that his claim is without truth, but I shall not argue about that. Point is, the tuition hike would have done nothing to decrease the well being of Quebec residents.
HK's protesting students, on the other hand, are trying to defend their very identity as Hong Kongnese. If anyone knows anything about China at all, they should also know that "national studies" has nothing to do with "objectively true" Chinese history and accomplishments. Chinese history according to the Chinese is full of propaganda and blown out of proportion acts of altruism/heroism/godliness/etc. Thus, what HK students are really trying to do is to prevent assimilation. HK is an awesome place. I consider it to be my home. We have a very unique culture (being Chinese and having being influenced by the west through the British Empire), we have a great economy, we have a very unique history. We do not want to be assimilated and become like the rest of China. We do not want to lose our heritage. This is why the HK protest is, for a lack of a better word, "better and more valid".
Unfortunately, China is very unlikely to react to HK ppl protesting. Unless HK students manage to draw significant international attention that is...
There are obviously certain posters in this thread that don't understand that. They don't see what you see. They don't feel what you feel. They think Hong Kong is just a glorified city full of these wild, Chinese people that don't hate westerners and speak a different language (what is this, English? How demonic!), and have their own set of strange, weird laws that promote human rights and don't conform with backward PRC values. They don't realize that their intentions for Hong Kong completely undermine the unique identity of the city.
They don't realize that you have your own identity cards. Or that your passport allows VISA-free entry to 150 countries, while China only has access to 50. Or that you drive on the other side of the road like in the UK. Or that there's a freaking border between China and Hong Kong. Or that nothing on the Internet is censored. Or that your public infrastructure such as bridges and trains don't randomly fall apart and explode because they weren't developed properly.
Hong Kong is a FREE city, despite the countless barbaric hordes from China trying to enter our border each day. We enjoy our FREEDOM. We enjoy the fact that we are FREE to protest about unwarranted changes to our education system! We enjoy the fact that we are FREE to speak up without fear of disappearing in the middle of the night, or have tanks running wild on our streets.
The fact that we have these FREEDOMS, despite the People's Communist Republic of China thinking we don't, is already enough of a reason that we don't want these things taken away from us. I know it's hard to understand why we value such things from a mainland Chinese person's perspective, just imagine how much harder it will be to convince the PRC government...
If you're unwilling to work with those who have power over you, it really won't be surprising if they decide to work against you. You can proclaim your rights and freedom all you like, but rights are given and can be restricted. If you think governments have no ability to take away rights in the future just because you have them presently, look elsewhere in the world.
So... bow down to whoever has the bigger guns?
Diplomacy or death. I'm not saying you have to bow, just that if you don't, you will need an actual game plan rather than idealism.
Protesting is the beginning of a game plan. Look at Quebec. They have been protesting against English assimilation since the British empire defeated the French. And they have resisted assimilation pretty well. This is much much much more than just working for those who have power over us. This is literally brainwashing that China is asking. Watch any documentary about elementary education in China and you'd be convinced.
On September 07 2012 09:03 haduken wrote: Meh, HKers need to harden the fuck up.
If you think your city is bad, what about Shanghai/Beijing and 10000 other Chinese cities that had millions of peasant migrations.
We do not think our city is bad. Nowhere in this thread has anyone said that our city is bad. And following your train of thought, no one living in the western world should ever have anything to complain about because there are people living in worse situations. The argument is a fallacy. You do not understand that HKers are trying to keep their culture and their identity, and not their material wellbeing.
A lot of people in general are just confused as to what Hong Kong actually is. They hear "autonomy" and/or "sovereign" and they immediately assume we're fighting for independence against China, sort of like Tibet or Taiwan. Then they find out that Hong Kong is actually PART of China, and get all confused. I remember a friend's reaction to hearing "one country, two systems" - she said "so you have a democratic AND a republican as president?" ..................
I've also had Hong Kong compared to the likes of Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Quebec, etc. For reference sake, Hawaii is definitely part of the United States, Puerto Rico is talking about independence, Quebec has already voted several times on independence and Canada has recognized the Quebecois as a "nation within Canada". China wants Hong Kong to go the other direction. It's going to happen eventually, and I shudder at the mere thought of it, but they're in a hurry to brainwash the people into accepting PRC rule. They want it bad, and they want it NOW. And they're starting with education.
On September 06 2012 18:18 KwarK wrote: They're in the unfortunate position of having sovereignty in their state essentially handed over to a foreign nation with a totalitarian government. They're fucked. They're right to protest, their history is one of a liberal colonial western system and being told they need to learn to conform with the antithesis of that is horrible.
You say colonial western system like its a good thing. As if colonialism was some gift from the great Brits. You know what? I hope China fucking crushes the protests from these faux fucking Brits. There isn't a country or culture in the world more scummy than the British and if it will take a massive act of oppression to destroy the British influence in a region, its completely worth it.
western colonialism, and specifically British colonialism, has done nothing but good for the world
Ask the Congolese how they feel about the Belgians sometime. Or ask the Indians why all those years under the thumb of the British Raj didn't turn them into a financial center.
out of all the nations to come from the Commonwealth/under British colonization, the only major country to falter has been Zimbabwe.
Canada, South Africa, India, and Malaysia/Singapore are all major economic powers, but the British didn't directly craft them into the financial strongholds they are today. Because all of these nations retained or modeled off their British-influenced educational, financial, judicial, and legislative systems, they were able to develop their nation well after they'd left the British sphere of influence.
British Guyanas? Rhodesia? The native inhabitants of South Africa? Pakistan? British Iraq? Syria? The aborigines of Australia? Please tell me any of those regions or places is better off after colonialism and I will find you papers, entire academic departments, and governments who beg to differ, because they are still trying to sort through the trauma that the Brits dished out.
The foundations that the British gave these nations is nothing to scoff at when you consider nations that have no official ties to the Commonwealth, but draw heavily from British influences such as the United States and Hong Kong, are central pillars of economy and culture in their respective parts of the world. This is why your blind hatred has no place, and why it's especially important for citizens in HK to recognize that an underlying portion in their formula for continued prosperity is being forcefully altered.
from what I hear, people are wary of the implications national education might carry, and that a milder form of the devastating Cultural Revolution might take place again. For a lot of citizens, excessive PRC influence or impression has been something that they've dreaded ever since the 1997 reunification. A lot of them would have preferred to stay under British sovereignty.
Whoa there. From 1857 to 1949, the main financial center in East Asia was not straitlaced, neo-Victorian Hong Kong, but mongrel, internationalized, utterly amoral Shanghai. It was only after 1949 that Hong Kong became, first, a manufacturing center (due to the influx of cheap refugee labor, and even then it was an also-ran to Taiwan); and then finally only after 1978 did the rise of the Chinese manufacturing enable Hong Kong to vault into position as a center of global finance. Hong Kong's rise has very little to do with its institutional history, and very much to do with the fact that it's the only place the West and the Chinese Communist Party both felt comfortable doing business.
hong kong's rise has everything to do with the foundation the British provided. every legislative, judicial and executive position there was staffed by a Briton until the late 80s.
you seem to have some comprehension issues stemming from, what I've gathered from your other posts, a very pro-Chinese viewpoint. I didn't mention that the British colonial system was completely unfallible. However, out of all the nations to come from a British background, 3 (4 if you count the US) make it into the top 10 countries by GDP, 6 in the top 20, and 9 in the top 50. the only common denominator in all of these countries is an Anglican background. their systems have changed since separation as a colony, but you can't deny that these governments are simply a personalized system crafted in their image. hence, the British can claim a large hand in these nations' respective prosperity. several failures taken out of context do not serve to invalidate the success of the overall system.
As for disrespect to mainlanders, if you've ever been to Hong Kong, then took a trip to Guangzhou, the differences you can visibly see right off are immense; shit includes people spitting indoors, eating rice with their hands, complete disregard for common traffic laws, and an overall lack of what westerners like to call common decency. It's not some hillbilly city in the middle of China either, it's literally a 25 minute train ride away from Central. While I don't necessarily condone the discrimination the citizens of Hong Kong have against mainlanders, I can certainly sympathize with their frustration. on one hand, you have a city of people acclimated to Western influences and mannerisms, and on the other you have a congo line of coarser mainlanders who make little effort to assimilate and continue to act upon their lack of manner whilst taking away benefits and welfare. It's completely reminiscent of the problem Americans have with Mexicans "crossing the border and taking away jobs and manipulating the welfare system"
Are mainlanders inherently bad people? not at all, once you get past their lack of culture, you'll see that they're some of the most naively benevolent people. again, this reflects upon their education levels and upbringing. Why are mainland Chinese such a different breed than the Chinese in Hong Kong? IMO, it has to do with Mao's Cultural Revolution half a century back. In the dynastic era of Chinese history, they had extremely strong Confucian roots. because the revolution (more of an upheaval of tradition) destroyed countless texts, silenced various scholars, and censored many leading Chinese educational institutions, China plunged into a short Dark Age. While scientific/empirical knowledge was untouched, culture as a whole was almost wiped out. There's a reason why Hong Kong and Taiwan retain much of their culture and mannerisms while mainland Chinese have nothing but a shadow of their past traditions. I suspect if the Cultural Revolution never happened, regardless of governmental system, present day Chinese society would look somewhat to Korean culture. Of course, this is all my conjecture, but I'm sure it's exactly what people in HK are protesting for - a rally against the slow conversion into a mirror image of China. Cultural identity, a blend of the west and east, has always been HK's forte and to meddle with that mixture is something I'd rather not see for the city.
Also for the record, almost a million people fled the city in 1997 before the reunification, though many have returned since China mostly kept up its half of the bargain. A sixth of the city deemed impending Chinese rule so intolerable they had the balls to drop everything in their life and move to start over abroad. pretty much gives you an idea how riled up people there can get when it comes to their autonomy.
Also for the record, almost a million people fled the city in 1997 before the reunification, though many have returned since China mostly kept up its half of the bargain. A sixth of the city deemed impending Chinese rule so intolerable they had the balls to drop everything in their life and move to start over abroad. pretty much gives you an idea how riled up people there can get when it comes to their autonomy.
I wouldnt really say it was a hardship to monetize your expensive property in HK and move to Vancouver. Its not like its the 19th century and they were some Fujianese fleeing starvation and ended up being rubber farmers in Malaysia or whatever.
Also for the record, almost a million people fled the city in 1997 before the reunification, though many have returned since China mostly kept up its half of the bargain. A sixth of the city deemed impending Chinese rule so intolerable they had the balls to drop everything in their life and move to start over abroad. pretty much gives you an idea how riled up people there can get when it comes to their autonomy.
I wouldnt really say it was a hardship to monetize your expensive property in HK and move to Vancouver. Its not like its the 19th century and they were some Fujianese fleeing starvation and ended up being rubber farmers in Malaysia or whatever.
considering most of the population spends their entire lifetime working to own a bathroom, I'd say that example is in the minority. You also misunderstood that paragraph; obviously selling your property is much easier than adapting, moving, leaving your friends, family, and other relationships.
Yeah, Cultural Revolution sucked hardcore for everybody. However it was true that Confucianism has been holding China back for a long time.
I've personally never met people eating rice with their hands. Please don't take the beggars on the street to generalize 1.3 billion people with vastly different upbringing, education and provincial cultures. (Guangzhou doesn't really have great reputations from what I've heard.)
I value honesty and integrity (which unfortunately doesn't seem to corrolate with intelligence all that well) over the mannerisms (especially the shallow, sycophantic type) when judging a person myself so perhaps I'm biased, but in reading this thread I find that there's a bit too much accepted elitism and bigotry in these debates. (Yes I know this is a problem on both sides).
HK is at least 2 generations ahead of mainland in terms of development, but I don't think it's ever justifiable to look down on others no matter how much better your current static situation is, because it promotes a bad dynamic. That is just not a helpful attitude from anyone. You alienate the others without helping them improve themselves, and you leave yourself to over-confident self-righteousness. Worse, you leave people who would otherwise agree with you puzzled and disgusted by your attitude.
To look down on others = bad, no matter how much good you have.
I mean, the Germans and the Japanese weren't exactly stupid, lazy, uncivilized or have bad manners, but their main fault was to wrongly look down on others.
Besides, the opponents in this matter isn't the average guy from Mainland trying to live his life in the streets of HK, it's the CCP and their puppets in your government.
On September 09 2012 06:17 andyrau wrote: Why are mainland Chinese such a different breed than the Chinese in Hong Kong? IMO, it has to do with Mao's Cultural Revolution half a century back. In the dynastic era of Chinese history, they had extremely strong Confucian roots. because the revolution (more of an upheaval of tradition) destroyed countless texts, silenced various scholars, and censored many leading Chinese educational institutions, China plunged into a short Dark Age. While scientific/empirical knowledge was untouched, culture as a whole was almost wiped out. There's a reason why Hong Kong and Taiwan retain much of their culture and mannerisms while mainland Chinese have nothing but a shadow of their past traditions. I suspect if the Cultural Revolution never happened, regardless of governmental system, present day Chinese society would look somewhat to Korean culture.
I'm not sure about that. I don't think north korea had a cultural revolution, or Vietnam, but they did have authoritarian governments that brainwashed people (well north korea at least). South Korea had some bouts of dictators, but people had enough leeway to protest them without getting purged.
Maybe it would be like singapore or thailand. If I compare Japan and South Korea with other eastern countries (communist or democratic, authoritarian regimes or not), the biggest difference is that heavy US involvement prevented the government from some of the more extreme actions.
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong's government withdrew plans for a compulsory Chinese school curriculum on Saturday after tens of thousands took to the streets in protest at what they said was a move to "brainwash" students.
The decision by the island's pro-China Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying to make the curriculum voluntary for schools came a day before elections for just over half the seats of Hong Kong's 70-seat legislature.
"We don't want the recent controversy to affect the operations of schools, nor do we want to see the harmony of the education environment to be affected," said Leung, noting the move was a "major policy amendment".
"They have made a substantive concession," said Joseph Wong, a former senior government official and political scientist.
"One may say it's too late, but better late than never. I think it will defuse the issue, maybe not entirely, but at least it will remove a lot of the tensions ... This is a great day for Hong Kong's civil society."
For the past week, thousands of protesters have ringed Hong Kong's government headquarters, camped out in tents, dressed in black and chanting for the withdrawal of the curriculum they said was Communist Party propaganda aimed at indoctrinating new generations of primary and secondary school students.
The education issue is one of several key issues for voters along with housing and the increasing number of visitors from the mainland coming into the city.
DEMOCRACY CAMP
Leung was sworn in in July after being elected by a committee filled with business professionals, tycoons and Beijing loyalists. Hong Kong's seven million people have no say in who becomes their chief executive.
A strong showing by the opposition pro-democracy camp would make it more difficult for the chief executive to pass policies in a fractious legislature.
The polls may be a chance for voters to express anti-China sentiment, with many protesters still camped outside the government headquarters after the apparent back-down, still unsatisfied with the policy change.
"This is a cunning move to put the ball in the people's court. Even though they say schools are free to choose ... in the coming years I expect the government and Beijing to use hidden means to try to pressure more and more schools to take up the scheme," said young activist Mak Chi-ho.
"What Hong Kong needs is real universal suffrage."
Hong Kong is a freewheeling capitalist hub which enjoys a high degree of autonomy, but Beijing has resisted public pressure for full democracy and has maintained a high degree of influence in political, media and academic spheres.
The past week's protests have included hunger strikes and the parading of a replica of the Goddess of Democracy statue which was erected in Beijing's Tiananmen Square during the 1989 demonstrations and crackdown.
The latest outbreak of discontent represents yet another headache for Beijing, after Chinese President Hu Jintao appealed in July for Hong Kong to maintain unity, with Beijing's own leaders grappling with an imminent leadership transition.
Hong Kong officials have dropped plans to introduce compulsory Chinese national education classes in schools that raised fears in the former British colony of pro-Beijing "brainwashing."
The semiautonomous Chinese city's leader, Leung Chun-ying, said Saturday that the government would leave it up to schools to decide whether to launch the classes, and that it would no longer be mandatory.
Leung's retreat follows a week of protests by thousands in front of government headquarters. News reports quoted organizers as saying more than 100,000 took part Friday evening.
The decision comes a day before elections for the city's legislature. Sunday's vote will be the first time the public will be able to choose more than half the seats.
Deepening opposition to the education plans could have undermined support for pro-Beijing candidates.
Unfortunately, this is surely only a temporary victory, and I doubt anyone believes this is over. The CCP, for all its faults, are neither stupid nor impatient. They still have 35 years before the official end of 1 country 2 systems and will undoubtedly try to reintroduce their 'national education' again, next time more subtly.
Unfortunately, this is surely only a temporary victory, and I doubt anyone believes this is over. The CCP, for all its faults, are neither stupid nor impatient. They still have 35 years before the official end of 1 country 2 systems and will undoubtedly try to reintroduce their 'national education' again, next time more subtly.
That's assuming the CCP lasts for 35 years. 35 years is a long time from now and nobody knows what's going to happen within those years.
Unfortunately, this is surely only a temporary victory, and I doubt anyone believes this is over. The CCP, for all its faults, are neither stupid nor impatient. They still have 35 years before the official end of 1 country 2 systems and will undoubtedly try to reintroduce their 'national education' again, next time more subtly.
That's assuming the CCP lasts for 35 years. 35 years is a long time from now and nobody knows what's going to happen within those years.
Storm in a teacup, really though. The CCP is busy right now figuring out how to chop up the spoils of the past two decades of growth
On September 06 2012 19:25 Williammm wrote: I disagree with your position. Name a single piece of history which isn't biased? There is no such thing as objectively sound history, because it is always going to be the interpretation of the person writing it. Secondly, it is hard to avoid other opinions of what happened in China, because information is as free in HK as it is in the rest of the Western world. So your opposition of the scheme being brainwashing doesn't really make too much sense in a place like HK.
Also your prediction that people in HK will just flee China when the time came to completely convert the city into the Chinese system. It already happened prior to the 1997 handover, and what happened was people from the mainland coming down to fill the positions. Economic stability didn't change as Hong Kong is still the Asian centre for financial and accounting activities. You could argue that HK is worse off than it was prior to the handover, but I would point you towards the 1972 and 1988 stock crashes that severely lowered wages and increased unemployment that HK is still trying to recover from.
This is just news turned fox news turned pitchfork witching hunting
The people are great, everyone living in China are amazing individuals, but the Chinese government itself can go fuck itself (and then censor it out!). No offense to the people, plenty of offense to the government.
I beg to differ, I encounter a great many mainlanders who are rude, loud, lacking in social graces, boorish, tasteless, ignorant, and see the need to wear brand name clothing head-to-toe that shove logos in your face. Obviously not all of them are like this, I have a couple of mainland friends they are very decent people (although hardly average - they're more bohemian folks), but there are so many of the former that they tend to eclipse the latter.
Behavior like that is not limited to any particular ethnicity...
Obsession with brands is just a very Asian thing in general. I'm pretty sure Japan wins if we do an LV per capital comparison. lol...
Agreed, esp trophy wives with no job no kids and their husbands spend half their time away on business.
Once met a lady who had an entire apartment unit in Hong Kong as her fucking wardrobe.
On the flip side, these ladies are easy pickings if you have bedroom prowess and quick hands. I know of one particularly enterprising ex-banker who slept his way through a whole bunch of trophy wives while stealing/fencing all their shit. Then he reinvested the proceeds into drugs which he sold back to the wives... on top of filming them naked/drugged up so that when they found out about his habits, they couldn't do jack.
Most awesome i-banker exit opportunity I have ever come across. A pity he got arrested though
It's a pity that the drug dealer who seduced rich women in order to get them hooked on drugs so he could take their money and then blackmail them got arrested?
Because I was trying to meet him to pick up a mental snapshot. He would have made an excellent supporting character for the script I'm trying to write
You and quark just had the most ridiculous discussion ever. I laughed so hard at every post in the chain.
Anyhow, nationalism. Its a force for good and bad. I don't know that china will actually let up, oriental communist countries seem pretty regimented. The question really is what will happen to HK, and I have no idea
Still have to be wary about more subtle measures the CCP may take, like other people here have said already. But we still did it! Guess China really does care about the stability of the region, at least for now.
So is the national studies class just a history class with a patriotic spin, because that sounds a lot like pre-highschool American history to me. Nothing wrong with being proud of your roots.
On September 09 2012 22:09 MattBarry wrote: So is the national studies class just a history class with a patriotic spin, because that sounds a lot like pre-highschool American history to me. Nothing wrong with being proud of your roots.
America isn't a Communism country. It's different in Vietnam, China and North Korea. Trust me I have first-hand experience.
On September 09 2012 22:09 MattBarry wrote: So is the national studies class just a history class with a patriotic spin, because that sounds a lot like pre-highschool American history to me. Nothing wrong with being proud of your roots.
America isn't a Communism country. It's different in Vietnam, China and North Korea. Trust me I have first-hand experience.
What's different, though? When I first read this article I wasn't able to figure out what exactly China was trying to push in HK, either. Is it just a positive spin on the PRC's history?
Also, is there any way HK could possibly use some kind of diplomatic mumbo-jumbo to weasel their way out of this deal? Perhaps a call for help to the rest of the world? I know that sounds dumb, but I don't know what their options are (I know nothing of this issue outside of what the OP posted)
...then again, the transfer is in 2047, so there's still time for the CCP to water down a bit.
As a Chinese-Canadian born in Canada, but spent quite a bit of my life in Hong Kong/Macau (both SARs), as well as a few stints in mainland China (I was around Asia quite a bit in my teens):
Hong Kong in particular has a very western look upon the world, thanks to the British colonization that has occurred.
Mainland China, on the other hand, has been as "chinese" to its core forever, valuing traditional concepts like conformism.
As most of you may have gathered from this thread or have lived in both areas, you realize that HK technically is China, but under a different set of laws and a completely different culture. China may want to change this, but in reality its not exactly a great idea (imo) for mainland China itself. As of right now, the region of HK is still relatively stable, and like any sovereign state, any attempts to "introduce" new "norms" would just cause ruckus, and since Hong Kong is still relatively "free," the rest of the world can see what's going on in the region, free from a suppressive government.
Ultimately, this puts China in a lose/lose situation. If they don't make what is technically a part of their country their "own," it makes them feel like they're weak. However, if they try to force HK to conform by force (both physical and political), then the rest of the world would look at them like tyrants.
The trend in the US is indeed against governments trying to impose cultural values upon individuals via education, but in Europe there is starting to be a backlash against multi-culturalism, driven by the need to assimilate large populations of immigrants with cultures very different from that of Europeans. The timing is not great for China to try to enact 'national education,' but it's hard to say how things are going to go in the future with regards to how the world sees these things.
I was born in China but came to good ol' Murrica when I was 10. Best decision my parents ever made. The only good thing about the Chinese government is they get shit done unlike in America when you have a different party controlling the Congress, the Senate and the Presidency nothing ever gets done.
Oh and the American government isn't too much better either with Patriot Act and dem debts. But at the very least my internet isn't censored here
I'm from HK, migrated to Australia when I was 3 (back in 1991).
The general population of HK tend to 'look down' on people from mainland China. Be it from how they behave in public, what they dress, their attitude to others, lack of general courtesy and the way they talk. It's kinda kept hush-hush amongst them because they don't want to be seen as discriminating. To foreigners, you probably cannot see the difference between a person from HK and a person from mainland China, to us, every little difference in detail sparkles.
How can a more developed country be influenced by a lesser developed country, even though it maybe the 'motherland'? HK would much rather learn off UK education standards than China's.
There was already a huge exodus in 1997 when Britain handed HK back to China. Many many HK people flocked to Canada/US/other countries. China wouldn't want a second wave.
I would just like to remind people that looking down on a populace that's just trying to get by and improve their own standards of living and understand the outside world is separate from looking down on a corrupt governing structure. The former is arrogant bigotry and the latter is civil awareness.
Think it would all depend on how transparent the curriculum development was made to the people and how much of a say voters there would have in altering or rejecting it.
Pretty dumb to make it a 2-12 grade length at inception. I mean that invites an "It's Brainwashing!" opposition. If they made it a 7-12 study and stressed the transparency of the development, they would have better chances.
On September 06 2012 19:26 Xpace wrote: I haven't seen a single star in the sky for over 10 years in Hong Kong because of pollution from China.
Physics guy here: That's not because of the pollution (from Shenzen) but from the light pollution in HK itself. Please argue your case cleanly, or you play into the hands of the people you want to argue against.
Sounds like China wants Hong Kong to be a little less open-minded and "Western" and bring the youth back into line. No better way than to introduce propaganda to the curriculum. At least Hong Kong has the balls to stand up for themselves and give this the thumbs down.
If China simply screwed over Hong Kong it wouldn't be beneficial for both, is not like Hong Kong is swarming with natural resources or scientific developments. Hong Kong is an economic hub, a capitalist city in the purest sense of the word. By assimilating it at an accelerated rate you make a lot of people leave = > economic instability = > you actually lost what mad HK so precious in the first place.
HK is one of the many examples of British colonies that were "let go" due to stupid people not realizing how much better off they are under the British "rule". Could they have kept HK with all the pressure from China... maybe ? If all of HK voiced there opinion against China, but you always find the dumb people that are pro leaving the UK influence.
Sometime they are made hero and the calamities caused by there stupidity only show 50 years latter when a country that was evolving stagnates in the 70s. Other times, like HK, there is no "important figure" that wants assimilation with China but i fell like the fact that the people of HK didn't stood up for there rights 15 years ago got back to them pretty damn soon.
On September 07 2012 01:59 Endymion wrote: i know that people in HK think it's stupid that China wants to exert their influence over HK, but it's their land legally isn't it? as much as it sucks i don't think the west is going to go to war over it, since 1. it's china's right to do so, 2. the china is an integral part of the world's economy and 3. it's only HK, it's not like china is invading SK (they're not even invading HK, they just wanna change the education.. they're not changing economic policies yet as far as i can see)
What does the size matter?
This is just so disgusting. These people are going to lose the freedoms that they care about, and they should just shut up and deal with it because they are only a small part?
What ever happened to individual freedom? Why exactly is their right to freedom any less crucial because they are a smaller group?
The people of HK don't want this, so by what right is the government rolling in and dictating that they have to hand over their rights?
You can't speak your mind because the rest of us has decided it isn't oke? Fuck that. One man has every right to fight the other 6 billion if they come for his freedom. The people of HK shouldn't take this, just because the majority of wolves has decided to eat the sheep.
do you want someone to fight a war??? everyone criticizes the US, Canada, and the EU for exerting influence on other cultures but as soon as the west has a contractual obligation to not intervene (HK is chinese territory by definition..) everyones feathers get roused.. 1. yes size matters, however HK is a huge economic asset so it would be worth keeping free, but 2. China isn't doing anything wrong, they control HK.. it's none of the West's business to intervene and fight China over HK, which is why the British Empire didn't do it 15 years ago
btw your individual rights are decided by the government that prevails in your region, they're not inherently given to you by being born.
Then they're not "rights" they're pieces of legislation, either de jure or de facto by tradition.
On September 10 2012 14:34 Aterons_toss wrote: If China simply screwed over Hong Kong it wouldn't be beneficial for both, is not like Hong Kong is swarming with natural resources or scientific developments. Hong Kong is an economic hub, a capitalist city in the purest sense of the word. By assimilating it at an accelerated rate you make a lot of people leave = > economic instability = > you actually lost what mad HK so precious in the first place.
HK is one of the many examples of British colonies that were "let go" due to stupid people not realizing how much better off they are under the British "rule". Could they have kept HK with all the pressure from China... maybe ? If all of HK voiced there opinion against China, but you always find the dumb people that are pro leaving the UK influence.
Sometime they are made hero and the calamities caused by there stupidity only show 50 years latter when a country that was evolving stagnates in the 70s. Other times, like HK, there is no "important figure" that wants assimilation with China but i fell like the fact that the people of HK didn't stood up for there rights 15 years ago got back to them pretty damn soon.
It's not like the British was great either. They didn't initiate democratic reforms until they decided to handover Hong Kong to China. Which was done only to make it harder for the CCP to control Hong Kong. The police were corrupt.
On September 10 2012 14:34 Aterons_toss wrote: If China simply screwed over Hong Kong it wouldn't be beneficial for both, is not like Hong Kong is swarming with natural resources or scientific developments. Hong Kong is an economic hub, a capitalist city in the purest sense of the word. By assimilating it at an accelerated rate you make a lot of people leave = > economic instability = > you actually lost what mad HK so precious in the first place.
HK is one of the many examples of British colonies that were "let go" due to stupid people not realizing how much better off they are under the British "rule". Could they have kept HK with all the pressure from China... maybe ? If all of HK voiced there opinion against China, but you always find the dumb people that are pro leaving the UK influence.
Sometime they are made hero and the calamities caused by there stupidity only show 50 years latter when a country that was evolving stagnates in the 70s. Other times, like HK, there is no "important figure" that wants assimilation with China but i fell like the fact that the people of HK didn't stood up for there rights 15 years ago got back to them pretty damn soon.
It's not like the British was great either. They didn't initiate democratic reforms until they decided to handover Hong Kong to China. Which was done only to make it harder for the CCP to control Hong Kong. The police were corrupt.
Maintaining the status quo is the best for HK.
Maybe the current situation wouldn't be any better if it was still part of England's colonies but what about a few years in the future ?
Im not arguing that Brittan ruling would be any better than Chinese ruling currently, however i could argue that if China is doing this now I could see that in 10 years Chinese ruling will be worse than what would have happened if the brits were still there.
Than again, you are from HK so you likely know better.
On September 10 2012 14:34 Aterons_toss wrote: If China simply screwed over Hong Kong it wouldn't be beneficial for both, is not like Hong Kong is swarming with natural resources or scientific developments. Hong Kong is an economic hub, a capitalist city in the purest sense of the word. By assimilating it at an accelerated rate you make a lot of people leave = > economic instability = > you actually lost what mad HK so precious in the first place.
HK is one of the many examples of British colonies that were "let go" due to stupid people not realizing how much better off they are under the British "rule". Could they have kept HK with all the pressure from China... maybe ? If all of HK voiced there opinion against China, but you always find the dumb people that are pro leaving the UK influence.
Sometime they are made hero and the calamities caused by there stupidity only show 50 years latter when a country that was evolving stagnates in the 70s. Other times, like HK, there is no "important figure" that wants assimilation with China but i fell like the fact that the people of HK didn't stood up for there rights 15 years ago got back to them pretty damn soon.
It's not like the British was great either. They didn't initiate democratic reforms until they decided to handover Hong Kong to China. Which was done only to make it harder for the CCP to control Hong Kong. The police were corrupt.
Maintaining the status quo is the best for HK.
Maybe the current situation wouldn't be any better if it was still part of England's colonies but what about a few years in the future ?
Im not arguing that Brittan ruling would be any better than Chinese ruling currently, however i could argue that if China is doing this now I could see that in 10 years Chinese ruling will be worse than what would have happened if the brits were still there.
Than again, you are from HK so you likely know better.
Won't work out in the long run, I think. I don't know about the opinion of HKers, but I know that there isn't an ex-colony left that's still content under their former colonial master. The UK was implementing democratic reforms in HK before the handover, so 'British rule' was not an option there.
With the rise of nation-states, governance by people outside the 'nation' is becoming less and less tenable in today's geopolitical environment. Had HK not been handed back to China, I think the trend was still towards the end of British rule, and in place of protests against China, I think we're going to see protests against the UK had democratic reforms not been initiated.
Legally speaking, the UK leased HK for 99 years, after which they have no authority in the territory by virtue of international law.
this probably isn't much help if you dont understand Cantonese, but this will give you a sense of the climate of the debate here in hong kong. The kid at the debate table is the 15yo at the head of the anti nationalism edu movement representing students. I believe this debate was sponsored and produced by RTHK, which is the public/gov radio/tv channel in hong kong.
just by watching the atmosphere and emotions in the debate, you can probably pick up on the ongoing themes between old vs young, educated vs uneducated, nationalism vs individual freedom, seasoned public personalities vs new and passionate, ect. All these things are brewing under the surface of this issue.
to clarify the kid's position specifically in this video: he's not actually against civil/national education per-se, he is taking the safer position that the current program that the government is trying to pass is too rushed, feels too much like they're forcing something, and that more time should be allowed, and more educators should have a voice in making these decisions. Outside of the debates, he takes the stronger position of GIT RID OF ALL THIS BRAINWASHING BULLSHIT FUCK THE CCP!
the old guys are just yelling at him because GOSHDARN UNGRATEFUL KIDS THESE DAYS GIT OFF MAH LAWN.
/personal bias
edit:
also, all this is riding on the back of the legislative council representatives election that happened yesterday, so it has become a huge deciding issue for many about who to vote for. All this is on the radio all day for the past few weeks and even my barber asked/joked to me about fasting for the cause.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02327/Hong-Kong_2327924b.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/gallery/090601/GAL-09Jun01-2117/media/PHO-09Jun01-163975.jpg)
? I mean, is it really hardcore propaganda or a somewhat accurate depiction of Chinese history? Also, did the Chinese government actually attempt to remove some of the rights that HK people enjoy?
. 
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/wUwDU.jpg)
