The Standard reports the full horror of young Hongkongers desecrating a shopping mall with their unruly presence, disturbing retail chains owned by pro-Beijing tycoons, and stomping on a Chinese flag. In its structure, the article highlights the disrespect towards the symbol of national sovereignty – but the tone suggests greater shock at the interference with conglomerates’ subsidiaries, and utter unspeakable disgust and terror at the threat posed to an almighty landlord’s rental income. Or maybe it’s just me.
The paper’s owner Charles Ho uses a full page of his organ to carry a pompous ‘letter to youngsters’, telling them to stop worrying about unaffordable housing and get into Bay Area opportunities/tech/Jack Ma and be ‘hardworking and innovative’. (Viewable, if you really want, on p.10 of the ‘flipping version’ on the website.)
Unlike some recent tycoons’ open statements, his message is not pure Beijing-shoe-shining (he omits many of the patriotic buzzwords that are obligatory in public acts of CCP-groveling). It seems he genuinely thinks he is imparting useful, even inspiring, advice. As the scion of a tobacco monopoly, the Sing Tao Group proprietor surely has little to offer. More likely, he is comforting himself – and providing us with a nice example of how the Hong Kong establishment desperately wants to believe that it will soon wake from this nightmare and everything will go back to normal.
While Hong Kong faces the prospect of the death of its rights and freedoms as Beijing prepares to embed itself into daily governance from now on, our great and good are realizing that their days as a talentless, cronyistic, mollycoddled ‘elite’ look numbered. To the CCP, they are just boot-lickers who have failed – and any number of Gold Bauhinia Medals won’t make any difference.
There is a theory that Hong Kong is currently being used as a weapon in a conflict between rival factions of the CCP. It is a rational and credible explanation for Beijing’s apparent inconsistent and indecisive approach to Hong Kong as a government-legitimacy crisis. (Another plausible explanation is that they are clueless and wetting themselves.) Here’s a decent argument leaning towards the former position.
On a related note, the South China Morning Post op-ed page has one of its occasional lapses into critical thought – academic Minxin Pei ponders signs of CCP rule coming to an end.
Which bring us back to Hong Kong as National Day approaches: there are a lot of Chinese flags around.
The sirens moan.
There’s teargas just a mile away
This sunny, breezy Saturday.
I’ll stay at home.
Who’ll explain?
If the young protestors just
Increase the Peking Men’s distrust,
What can they gain?
But who can say?
Less than half a year ago
Who imagined, who could know
The scene today?
A voice replies:
One side’s weak and so, of course,
The strong side will increase its force
And mainlandize.
But don’t forget:
When pepper sprays and baton hits
It only gets more bitter; it’s
Not over yet.
I don’t know.
Will this long-enduring mess
Make the change, the chilling process
Fast or slow?
You might recall:
Thirty years ago, who knew
How soon they would be racing through
The Berlin Wall?
The years go round.
A man so fine, so brave, so rich,
But then Gaddafi in a ditch
Was cowering found.
They all have passed.
Worldly tyrants, small or great,
In the end disintegrate.
They cannot last.
So, hope. This phase
Will like a marvellous laser pen
Shine – illuminate – again
In future days.
Fancy stuff.
Come back to the SAR.
However strong the protests are,
There’ve been enough.
A losing game.
Tonight or any other night
If they go away, or fight,
The end’s the same.
– – – –
[with acknowledgement to posts by C.Law and YTSL on September 19th]
It has been a long time since anyone addressed me as a ‘youngster’, but that’s okay.
Has anyone seen the video clip on Twitter of the blonde haired gwai por, tearing off posters in front of Mongkok police station and having an argument with protesters? Can we identify her?
Preemptive vilification of the protest movement or simple incompetence would seem to be more likely explanations for the confused messaging about the threat of a “colour revolution” than the unconvincing speculation that it was a reflection of factional infighting within the CCP.
@Joe Blow: Why would you want to identify her ? Her life as a gwai por must be so miserable already, don’t shoot the ambulance.
And lets not forget the popo’s current attempts to discover new lows in “lets find more ways to destroy our reputation” with the arrest of a young lad with three Octopus cards. I mean, shit, I’m lucky, I had two on me the other day.
@ Mun Dane. Re: “…..arrest of a young lad with three Octopus cards”.
You shouldn’t get so narkey – I think it’s jolly good detective work. I’d like you know that I pay a shed loads of money in taxes, thus I expect my police force to deliver (principally by arresting large numbers of miscreant shouties). Actually, I’d like to see the Police being rather firmer with the rioters, but I also appreciate that there are other issues at play, i.e. pandering to HK’s indigenous chattering classes plus a sizable fraction of the city’s FILTH.
@Mun Dane: Also –
1. Kicking a prone, unresisting man in a dark alley and then claiming that there’s no evidence that the “object” they were kicking was a person.
2. Yelling at people to get back on the pavement, and once they obeyed and got close enough, pepper spraying them over the walls of the Mong Kok Police Station.
3. Arresting a man for possession of a “dangerous drug”, Viagra.
4. Arresting a twelve year-old boy.
18:51 23 Sep: Junius Ho, Ann Chiang Propose Anti-Mask Law; Should “Deal With” Lennon Wall ASAP. Note the core issue:
“Chiang said there are posters smearing DAB candidates on these Lennon Walls, so it will be hard to deal with during elections, and the government must deal with this ASAP”
I have an ongoing years old complaint with Legco and a certain Mr. John Lee, on the issue of indifference on the part of the administration with regard to damage to public utilities by serial commercial posting of stickers that strip paint and other coatings off government property. Every time I made a complaint at the police station I was fobbed off with various excuses.
Now suddenly people are being charged with criminal damage for sticking posters.
Double standards or what?
I am willing to be a witness, and have evidence to the fact that the practice has been tolerated for decades and therefore any charges brought now are discriminatory.
Reactor #4
You’re a nasty piece of work, aren’t you?
Reactor #4: your trolling was mildly amusing for the first three times. After that it got boring and predictable. You haven’t had a job in 15 years or so and I doubt that you ever paid taxes at all. We (still) have freedom of speech in Hong Kong. Why don’t you use it constructively, or at least, in an interesting way?
@ Mary: With that comment, Junius Ho and Ann Chiang have basically owned up to being political seat warmers. They don’t need any help looking bad.
Oooh! Donny Almond – please tell us more about Reactor #4 as you seem to know who he is. He hasn’t had a job in 15 years or so and…and…?
I think all of us on this forum should hear more about the troll.
Reactor #4 must not realise — or he doesn’t care — that his thoughts and work here on this site sound like the work of a teenager who has been onastically enamored for the first three months of his adolescence. It’s getting tiring.
@ Joe Blow: Nadia Maria of Shenzhen
@reactor failed, if you are paying lots of tax, which I somehow doubt, you, or your accountant, are seriously stupid. And what with your childish misogynistic ramblings I would say that filth sums you up accurately. Get on your bike.
Folks, pay no attention to the geriatric edgelord. It only encourages him.