Click to hear Jacqueline Taieb’s ‘La Fac de Lettres’!
My nomination for Silver Bauhinia Star must go to ‘Dingo2006’, for going public with her single-minded determination to identify exactly what she wants and stop at nothing to obtain it. Where would Hong Kong be today without people like her? We’d still be living in caves. Why a young woman should imagine that only a ‘hard-working’ man from an investment bank trading floor is acceptable as a potential mate, to the extent that she will hang around the building lobby in the hope of netting one, is debatable. But when Dingo is presented with the medal, it will be in recognition not of her taste but her resolve and drive, not to mention the fact that she is, if inadvertently, side-splittingly funny.
If only we could say the same about participants in the ongoing uproar over the Great Hong Kong University Li Keqiang Visit Police Brutality Mayhem of 2011. Idealistic and bright-eyed students at Asia’s finest seat of learning were shocked and dismayed last week when the cops physically barred them from exercising their right to hurl abuse at China’s next Premier when he came to give a talk on campus.
Vice-Chancellor Tsui Lap-chee later sent everyone a far-too-lengthy email expressing remorse about how “the occasion was marred by some imperfect arrangements and an unhappy incident” and “could have been better planned and organised.” Students demanded a full apology. Ranting patriot Lau Nai-keung in China Daily declared that the only people who deserved an apology from HKU were the cops and certainly not ‘frantic protestors’.
The Vice-Chancellor, loyalties clearly torn between the nation’s senior leadership and his ill-mannered, bratty undergraduates, now duly says sorry to his radical young charges and at least implicitly hints at blaming the police. (Even the government itself seems slightly contrite about the over-the-top security arrangements for Vice-Premier Li’s imperial tour. No-one can bring themselves to spell out that when a top visitor from Beijing drops by, the usual rules don’t apply, and thank heavens it’s only once every couple of years.)
Flip-flopping, hand-wringing procrastination and denial. What can we say except: Dingo for Vice-Chancellor.
DingDong reminds me of that whore in the US that whined about finding an investment banker on Craigslist, and one replied that he was an appreciating asset while she was a depreciating one. Therefore better to lease than buy.
http://static.black-frames.net/images/financial-planning.jpg
She’s simply a dingo out looking for prey. I imagine her autiobiography will be titled something like “How to make a million dollars with only one twat working for you’. It’s every expat’s nightmare, a girl who has ‘kung ju bang’ and an MBA.
Qong said, ‘Dingo! Wake up, Dingo! Do you see that gentleman dancing on an ashpit? He wants to be popular and very truly run after. Dingo, make him SO!’
– Rudyard Kipling – The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo
Seriously, you read AsiaExpat – the ‘Whinge about my Maid’ forum of choice?
What’s the more popular AsiaExpat topic these days – “I have a problem with my maid” or “Is my husband cheating on me”?
HKU’s centenary celebrations have been going on since last year, and will apparently not conclude until next. By all accounts, most junior staff, support workers and students are sick to death of the whole thing. A major gripe concerns the antics of the senior figures, who seem to have an unhealthy penchant for donning garishly coloured robes at every possible opportunity.
Tiu Fu Fong: I think these two topics are two sides of the same coin. I recall interviewing a potential helper and being asked how much headache money” she would get …
With regard to poor old Dingo, the first thing she should do is to change her name to something less dog-like and more in tune with what she has to offer. Assuming that “Twat” would be too crass, my vote is for “Voluptua”.
And with her one-track mind and determination, she’d get my vote, if I had one, for Financial Secretary.
Oh the shame, the SHAME, of having your daughter come home and tell you she’s planning to marry a banker……
The HKU invites the Vice Premier to it’s campus and expects what? Of course the cops are going to be there to protect him and deal with students who seek to disrupt the event. That’s what happens at these events and students have done it since time began. To now pass the blame to the police for doing their job is simply avoidance of responsibility by HKU … pathetic spineless academics!
Tiu Fu Fong,
Another popular recurring AsiaExpat topic is “Moving from New York to Hong Kong, is HK$200K a month enough to live on?”
Then the “expats” chew the fat on schooling, the Repulse Bay flat, the maid, the weekly shop in Olivers and advise it’s not.
Sounds like the sort of place where ugly class, race and cultural prejudices forever lurk below each neurotic banker wife’s posting.
I suspect this is what happens when you liberate unemployed women from the tedium of housework. Shopping trips can only distract them for so long. Here’s some tangential scientific support for my possibly prejudicial view that non-gainfully distracted women bitch and moan about their “problems” more then men: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110822151021.htm
Excellent TFF, that made me laugh.
Oh Holy Sh1t
That one article cut me to the core, because that’s exactly the kind of person whom I would welcome here in HK
COME, PLEASE COME, BY HOOK OR BY CROOK
Poor Lap Chee. I know him, well to an extent anyway and let’s say have had the opportunity to obverse him in his usual job. He’s a decent and open and pretty liberal guy. A successful scientist/lab-rat in his former life. He’s not an idiot but has been made to twist over this and I think does in fact support the right of students to protest, scream, cry, and act like poorly-educated, emotionally stunted brats on occasion.
There aint no conspiracy here, within HK or via BJ. The cops were following orders I am sure, and need better training on this. The entire visit was run in the usual bureaucratic and yes completely un-democratic and hierarchical way. Absolutely none of that has to do with “Beijing” really– HKU is in fact poorly organized and seems to be quickly falling behind CUHK and UST.
But you know what? I cant blame Lap Chee. How many American/Western univ presidents would meet with a tiny handful of protesters and actually talk to them? Zero, that’s how many.
Why does no one in the English language media mention the fact that these “protests” on campus involved about 12 people? I’m exaggerating. Maybe there were 14.
The media whores, I mean journalists, are exhausting.