People lined up over the weekend to see the Hong Kong Story exhibition one last time before the Museum of History gives it an ‘extensive revamp’. They especially came to photograph the colonial-era displays, on the assumption that items like Governors’ portraits will be scrapped in a more Glorious Motherland-themed show when it reopens. (We can be sure the CCP will at least get rid of the flock wallpaper, which looks like something out of a Merchant Ivory set.)
Photos of the photo-takers here, here, here and – singing the anthem – here. Hong Kong’s latest contribution to popular political rebellion guerilla techniques: museum visits.
HKFP offers a good summary of the existing exhibition, which – when it opened in 2002 – struck many as downplaying the colonial period and Hong Kong’s older claims to a distinct regional culture. Little did they know what 2020 had in store.
The word is that the new-look exhibition will have a bigger focus on the post-1997 period – in other words the many wondrous benefits the city has enjoyed from Beijing’s sovereignty. It will also be interesting to see how much other periods from the Bronze Age onwards at The Hong Kong Story are changed in keeping with the CCP’s official archaeological and other revisionist and airbrushed treatments of the past.
Also at HKFP, the hounding of Hong Kong’s Education Secretary for not being sufficiently rabid about hounding and purging ideologically unreliable teachers, like the one who had a 50-minute lesson plan that mentioned Hong Kong independence…
So here’s the deal: if you are a fraudster, a rapist, a murderer or a paedophile, then education officials are happy to leave it up to the school whether it wishes to employ you or not. You may be a religious nut who believes the world is flat or a rightwing fanatic who believes the world is run by a secret global network of Jews … It doesn’t matter. You may be registered, and you may stay registered.
Draw up a lesson plan which goes down badly with Ta Kung Pao, on the other hand, and you face banishment for life from the profession.
Asia Sentinel examines a leading instigator of this hounding: ex-Chief Executive CY Leung, whose hobby these days is demanding a new Cultural Revolution on Facebook.
Obviously, loyalists wouldn’t indulge in this nasty zealotry if Beijing’s officials didn’t approve, but it could be they are devoting extra unsolicited witch-hunting effort in the hope for rewards from the CCP…
A comeback to chief executive for CY would have seemed impossible two years ago. But…
I don’t really understand one thing about CY Leung. In the past, anyone who has released private information on the web has been prosecuted. So, this guy can just do whatever he wants? No penalties? He gets to go on a radio show and talk about his rationale and his reasoning? Why is it that he is allowed to speak for his constituents and his ideals and beliefs, but nobody else is allowed to do that, lest they say something that is contrary to the status quo that is being enforced.
School principals with who possess no leadership skills, racist comments and personal insults, extreme and petty vindictiveness, misappropriation and misallocation of funds, theft of school and even the personal property of colleagues, complete ignorance of basic teaching practices! What about being a drug dealer in Wan Chai? Hanging out with triads in illegal hotel room gambling sessions? Being fired from a school here in Hong Kong for being drunk? What about being a heavy drug user? No problem, apparently, for the EdB, (though the heavy drug user has recently retired from the NET Section Advisory Team [Scary Knight! Is he still in Discovery Bay?]).
Unrelated degree, no classroom experience, no training? Not an issue for many schools here.
Fraudsters rule!
And not even a basic background check from police departments back in the home country of the NET.
But, as noted, God forbid (for ‘God’ read ‘Xi’) that some critical thinking activities take place in the schools. (In the classrooms that is; One shouldn’t expect too much from school administrators!)
Next up: the banning of free and open student elections for recess monitors.
“And not even a basic background check from police departments…”
Do you think the PD will even conduct their OWN background checks? They’ll need bodies to man the Goon Squads to pound the heads of children and old grandpas in as well as just standing around looking nasty and disagreeable as hell, more and more these days and in the future. Mind you these won’t be the “face” of the PD in general nor will they ever reach positions of actual authority (think Yuen Long white shirts with civil service jobs now) that might require proper training and schooling.
Eventually they’d be fired for some minor, possibly even made up offences so that any sort of years in service towards a vested pension would be sacrificed as well and they’d be tossed to the streets. You know…like in China.
@ donkeynuts
Remember Leung is a minor god in the CCP pantheon, as vice-whatever of something-or-other. Therefore mundane things like laws do not apply to him. Unless he falls out of favour with the top god, he is fireproof.
The government’s Native English Teacher Scheme applicants are required to have a notice of no criminal convictions
from their country. The scheme only hires teachers with teaching experience in primary or secondary schools.
In the new museum I look forward to relearning correctly about Hong Kong’s Bronze Age with Chinese Characteristics and how Xi Jingping-thought was instrumental in the discovery of fire.
@donkeynuts
“So, this guy can just do whatever he wants?”
Er, yes.
Which part of the CCP destruction of the rule of law in HK did you not understand?
In my former days employed at one of Hong
Kong’s institutes of higher education, I encountered an instructor who did, in fact, believe that the world was run by a secret network of Jews. He was smart enough not to say the J word but spoke frequently and at length about how everyone should hoard as much gold as possible before the world economy collapsed because the Federal Reserve was a private cartel controlled by the Rothschild family. (Googling this brought up an, ahem, interesting collection of antisemitic conspiracy theory sites). People treated this as a harmless eccentricity. Wow, this guy sure likes gold, they would say.
donkeynuts: Are you being facetious? CY is merely a more genteel version of the thugs who beat protesters with sticks and hammers and gently get escorted into taxis by police.
Well you protesters and you arm-chair protesters only have yourselves to blame. It probably boils down to wisdom, which tends to be acquired with age. For instance, the odd times I get to play Pontoon with the grandkids, I am quite happy to “stick” if my hand is 19 or 2o. Going for 21 just isn’t worth it as the chance of receiving a small-number card is miniscule; 19 or 20 aren’t bad anyway. The same basic rules apply when the CCP is your landlord. The occasional couple of verses of “yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir” would have kept them off our backs. What you don’t do is riot 3-4 days a week, or holler “Revolution of our Times” whenever you fancy. Sadly, we are now finding out the consequences. Not good.
@onecistern: I’m sorry, but there are quite a few people working on the EdB’s teaching scheme who had little or no teaching experience back home before coming to HK.
No criminal background check required because the EdB accepts a “declaration of no criminal conviction” made at a local Home Affairs office.
She [Lam] also said that no matter how much people criticise her, it won’t affect her work because she is now “immune” from criticism.
“Why should I spend time reading and listening [to criticism] and becoming unhappy?”
That explains a lot.
And still he bangs on – yadda, yadda, yadda.
I feel sorry for his poor grandkids having to listen to what he thinks are his pearls of wisdom while he makes them play pontoon.
Nury shooting himself in the foot, again, while he inadvertently highlights the core issues:
‘A boat containing 12 mainlanders illegally ventured into Hong Kong waters, the government announced on Saturday. They were charged and will appear at Fan Ling magistrates’ courts this morning.
Twelve of them! Arrested in a boat!
This is where we wait for international outrage over the arrests. We wait and wait. and wait’
The Mainland 12 were arrested in HK waters on Saturday and appear in court on Monday morning, in full view of the media and any relative or member of the public who is interested in their case and condition.
The 12 HKers arrested, we are told, in Mainland waters, have been locked up for weeks with no access to their families or lawyers and to date there has been no opportunity to gauge their health and physical condition.
@Hong Kong Hibernian: maybe briefly after SARs when they couldn’t get enough qualified candidates but, except for those still hanging on from those days, it’s not common now.
All EDB NETs are required to submit a no criminal conviction from their home countries before teaching in a local school here and are supposed to have QTS in good standing as well. Prior experience teaching in schools at home is one of the job requirements.
I think you may be confusing EDB NETs and NETs hired directly by local schools using their own funding.
@Mary – Unfortunately or otherwise, I doubt whether Neury-osis reads this fine blog.
@Hibernian – you do seem to have a bee in your bonnet about this. I take it you’re not 420 friendly….
So Shitface #4 has “grandkids”, eh?
If this is true, it means that he/she/it/they can’t possibly be our old chum “Ginger” Adams, who, I believe, is, and no doubt always will be, sine prole.
@ CY Leung: I’m sorry, but that’s not true. Even the EdB’s website states otherwise.
My comments were not meant to insult professional educators, local or foreign, but were posted to ridicule the EdB’s incredible lack of awareness even as they deregister a teacher for an alleged political act.
I do understand that teachers here in HK will be under closer scrutiny, and so we’ll read and hear people trying to perpetuate the myth of high standards, recruiting only from the creme de la creme, professionalism, etc., etc. All totally unconvincing I’m afraid.
@HKJC Irregular: The bee in the bonnet is the fact that I have children in the local school system, and for years my partner and I have either laughed or cried at the levels of stupidity, incompetence, low levels of subject knowledge, clownish administration, and more. When the ‘Native Speaker’ working with ones’ children can barely produce 3 coherent sentences in English, written or spoken, we worry. I’m sure that we all have experiences similar to these, but Hong Kong is ‘special’.
In any case, I’ve decided that it’s far better to accept the reality and to cash in. I’ll be opening a chain of pro-Beijing tutorial centres very soon. The need is there, and parents will be flocking to my centres to help to instill patriotic fervour and the proper lack of critical thinking in the little dears. I’m stuck on the business name though. I’m leaning towards “Children of Xi”, but the simple and minimal “Motherland” works too. Of course, we will offer unique ‘Lil Xi’© merchandise such as red bandanas and children’s black hair dye, along with Long March colouring books. On Saturdays we will host ‘Baby Xi’ parties where parents can watch with pride as their toddlers go through rectification/toilet training sessions in our simulated ‘Down To The Countryside’ environment. Investment opportunities available now!