Wolfson College in Cambridge sort-of-strips Carrie Lam of her honorary fellowship. Strictly speaking, they mumble – under pressure – about looking into her role in suppressing Hong Kong’s rights and freedoms, and eventually she gets the message and does a stroppy foot-stamping act of ‘returning’ the award. Like she ‘withdrew’ the visa the US cancelled the instant she was sanctioned. (‘Please find enclosed your Fellowship, for which I have no further use. Thank you for your attention.’)
To emphasize how little Beijing cares about the slight from Wolfson, Globular Times publishes a stream of articles excitedly praising Carrie as mature and dignified, and We spit contemptuously on your Western fellowship flim-flam, and Gosh Cambridge U is making itself look silly isn’t it?
Meanwhile, another great and noble seat of learning invents the meaningless but allegedly fancy-sounding title ‘Belt and Road Academician from Oxford University’ for Hong Kong tycoon and donor Chan King-wai. (Note the multi-dimensional shoe-shining going on here: Oxford flatters the guy with a tawdry fake accreditation, while he – and the university – grovel to Xi Jinping by giving a name-check to the neo-colonial debt-trap vision. An obsequiousness win-win!)
The Guardian says the award and inane cosplay presentation ceremony ‘raise concerns about Chinese influence on UK higher education’. But surely, in cases like this it’s the other way round – exploitative and cynical universities mesmerizing vain and gullible Hong Kong industrialists (born on a fishing boat and barely went to elementary school) with tawdry honorary awards in order to extract money from them.
Mr Chan is boss of Hong Kong King Wai Group and a CPPCC member, and also sits on the Our Hong Kong Foundation’s Alarming Hair sub-committee. He likes cultivating – or being cultivated by – academia. Shoe-shining administrators at HK Baptist U rush to announce Dr Chan SBS’s idiotic-sounding ‘Oxford Belt and Road Academician’ bauble on their own website. The odious fawning over the odious.
In case there’s still room in your sick-bag, fans of shameless grovelling will like this from around 10 years ago – a French film director pens a putrid pile of puke-provoking Panda-puffery begging for another chance after ‘hurting the feelings’ with a movie about Tibet. What’s French for ‘Eeewww’?
L: Dr Chan; R: Eraserhead.
Heyyy!
Will there be a “Janitor and Plumbing Academician from Oxford University”?
I mean, they do useful work!
” from the point of view of a substantial donation to the university.”
HK$50 would be more than enough for the BRA
Beurk is French for Eeewww
If something jacks me off, I find the best thing to do is ignore it. I suggest you follow suit. You don’t want to be spending your final years in retirement getting all angry and pink. Actually, I jettisoned my syndrome of the irritable bastard the day I exited my 40s. To steal a word or five off Farrokh Bulsara “nothing really matters to me”.
Will Carrie Lam cancel her VISA and Mastercard credit cards too? Or has she never had to use them — the way she hasn’t had to use Octopus cards, shop for toilet paper, etc. (as was revealed during her (s)election campaign back in 2017)?
May I please ask someone with more education than myself to sincerely and diligently explain to me the real reason why some Chinese men seem to have manes? Do they think the hair is a sign of virility and prowess? that photo is incredible.
@Vindaloo Sassoon Road: “Do they think the hair is a sign of virility and prowess?”
Yes, and it is. If you can, you should try it. You can beat having a dusky maiden twirling the locks at the back of your neck.
@Reactor#4
Nice reference to Queen’s leading queen. Respect.
@YTSL
“Will Carrie Lam cancel her VISA and Mastercard credit cards too? ”
They were probably cancelled for her as soon as the sanctions were announced. She can still play the post facto gambit “I don’t need them” and, no doubt, the BoC will be rushing to fill the gap with Union Pay
The other fun thing about the GT reports praising C Lam’s steadfastness, was that the examples they chose, to show how Oxbridge and UK academia were demonstrably unprincipled i stripping away honours were … Aung San Suu Kyi and Junius Ho… truly distinguished members of the ex-honorary fellowship brigade!
C Lam is honoured to join them.
Watch Gary Oldman in “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” (the early Castle Dracula scenes) and you’ll see where Chan and so many other septuagenarian Chinese “political players” get their coiffure cues
The RTHK Pipsqueak gave a masterclass on shoe-shining hyperbole on Chugani’s show last night. Its all about ………………………….. following The Charter. Forget about entertaining, informative and challenging reporting.
Dr. Eugene CHAN Kin-keung,. B.B.S., J.P
Anybody know where the Dr. bit comes from? Perhaps a class mate of Elizabeth Quat? BBS contrary to what you might imagine stands for Bronze Bauhinia Star, certainly no peak of academic achievement.