Just spent Spring Festival in a Pearl River Bay Area Hub-Zone two-floor apartment that cost a tenth (at most) what it would cost in Hong Kong. One weird feature: the bathroom has two toilets – one next to the shower, and the other inside it. Don’t ask. Will dig up photos, if I remember. Even by the standards of a city whose population of predominantly migrant workers has gone home for the holidays, Foshan is a soulless urban desert with architecturally bold but empty office blocks everywhere. If it weren’t for delivery drivers on mopeds, the roads would have been empty.
Some things from while I was away…
RazvenHK on Jimmy Lai…
…Lai was neither the mastermind nor perpetrator … the idea that a single media outlet could have the influence to whip the people into a frenzy without there being very legitimate causes for concern is a laughable one. China thinks the people of Hong Kong are stupid while they are the only ones ignorant of the realities on the ground, desperately trying to rewrite history to try suit their political narrative.
Joel Chan on Hong Kong’s demographics…
Since mid-2017, the age 70-79 population in Hong Kong has increased by nearly 80%, while the age 20-29 population has decreased by 31%
Check out the graph.
From LA Review of Books, A good summary and comparison of the 2010s protest movements in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Developed a weird curiosity with curling while being forced to watch the Winter Olympics, but I couldn’t avoid the mania over US skater Alysa Liu, whose father escaped China via Operation Yellowbird after the 1989 Tiananmen upheaval. Even more impressive than her swirling-around on the ice is (in my humble opinion) the way she carries off what should be an atrocious hair-dye job, which reminds me of the puppies painted to look like tigers I saw people selling in Shanghai in the mid-90s. Anyway: a substack piece on MAGA’s creepiness about her…
Before obsessing over Liu, reactionaries dominating Elon Musk’s X spent much of the Olympics attacking Team USA athletes who criticized Trump and his administration. That all changed after Liu skated her way into overnight celebrity status. Some posters tried to claim her as MAGA, while others were less subtle in turning her into fodder for depraved fantasies.
…Turning Point USA hypeman Jack Posobiec, who the female-centered dating app Bumble banned in 2018, has been posting about her for the last several days. Posobiec even meme’d Liu’s face into a story about Trump’s response to the Supreme Court’s tariff decision in what looks like an attempt to positively associate her with the president.
Probably shouldn’t be on YouTube, so watch it while you can if you are of a certain age/demographic: Urgh! A Music War – a (good quality audio/video) 1982 film of live performances by the Dead Kennedys, Gary Numan, Klaus Nomi, Steel Pulse, Devo, UB40, Echo & the Bunnymen, the Police and more.