I am increasingly of the opinion that the animosity between “mainland locusts” and “Hong Kong dogs” is a serious issue.  I don’t think it will go away.  Oh, it may fade out of the news for awhile, but it will surely come back again.  And again.  Because the simple truth is, there is no way that Hong Kong can win this one.  No way.  China won’t intercede, or if they do, if they start running ads somewhere saying “be nice to the Hong Kong dogs,” it will be a half-hearted attempt.  And the crappy excuses we have called “the Hong Kong government” can’t go against China, they can’t and even if they could, they wouldn’t.  So the only resolution would be if Hong Kongers kept their mouths shut, kept their opinions to themselves and learned to love their mainland brethren, or at least pretend to, because there is no other possible outcome.  Hong Kong secede from China?  As if.

As I wrote to a friend earlier today, I see definite parallels with Tibet.  The Chinese government actively encouraged Han Chinese to move to Tibet.  They gave them all kinds of incentives with the notion that if Tibet looked more Chinese, if it sounded more Chinese, it would eventually become more Chinese.  50+ years later, nope, still hasn’t happened.

My friend is someone who has lived in mainland China for the past 15 years and has traveled extensively throughout the country.  I think his opinion is as valid as anyone else’ on the topic, if not more so.  Here’s some of what he wrote back to me.  (He’s asked me to not use his name in the post but otherwise given me permission to quote him.)

Re HK/mainland – it’s very significant. HK has an important role to play in the future of China. The view of many – that I have argued against – that HK is being turned by the commies, is simply not true. there is a fundamental cultural/social difference that is growing not shrinking, and Legco elections etc are not a reliable gauge of the state of play.

Prof Kong’s comments are enormously important – he’s Peking University, and these people are very sensitive to speaking within accepted parameters. i.e. his comments reflect a position beyond himself within the ruling class.

There is a connection here to what is happening in Tibet, another place where the party thought they could bring pressure to bear and things would eventually fall their way. It seems I was wrong on Tibet – I used to say the Dalai Llama would one day die and it was game over. I think it’s going to be more complicated than that.

The background to all this is two issues – the party’s incapability of doing respect, to anyone or to any entity, and the power of the Internet to provide transparency.

There is a confluence of issues raising pressure on the party at the moment. How it plays will be fascinating.  They are smart, but they are more selfish than smart, so I would expect them to make more and more mistakes. Watching developments is more fun than TV.

I’d like to write more on this topic but, frankly, I’m just too tired tonight.  So in the meantime, let me just direct your attention to new-ish blog Dictionary of Politically Incorrect Hong Kong Cantonese.  What this guy is doing is taking all the various stuff from HK newspapers, Youtube, Weibo, Facebook and other sources and translating it into English.

Read this stuff and try to convince me that this is something that will just blow over.  Oh, there may be some pauses, some times when everyone is united in their hatred for the Japanese or the Americans, but this will return, again and again.  ”Hope for the best, expect the worst,” as they sang in the Mel Brooks movie The Twelve Chairs, and I suppose to many non-Chinese, there is a kind of Mel Brooksian feeling to this entire thing.  Surely these people cannot be serious.  (Yeah, I know, stop calling you Shirley.)  And yet many of them are.

This is life in Hong Kong in 2012.  It may feel a bit like 1Q84 but last time I looked there was still only one moon in the sky – on those increasingly rare nights that one can see past the pollution.  Donald Tsang has refused to address this in any meaningful way and Henry Tang hasn’t even managed to get off his fat ugly ass long enough to have a platform or positions on anything (to the point where even China has called him up and said, “Yo, Hank, WTF?”).  And so when I look at possible projections of the future, I’m worried.

Since my previous post on Sheung Wan restaurants seems to have been well-received, I figure a similar post on dining spots in Sai Kung is in order.  If you don’t live in the area, you might think that Sai Kung is only those waterfront seafood restaurants but actually OpenRice lists 299 restaurants in the Sai Kung district.  Most are in Sai Kung Town, but not all.  This is just a rundown of the ones I’ve eaten in.  Note that I have not eaten in some of Sai Kung’s more famous restaurants, such as Loaf On and Anthony’s Kitchen and One Thirty-One.  One of these days …

Honeymoon Dessert – Yes, they’re all over town but if I’m not mistaken, this is their original location.  Every bit as good as you’ve heard, when the weather’s nice people are still lined up on the street waiting for a table at midnight!

Anthony’s Ranch - Anthony knows food (and I know Anthony, so take this with as many grains of salt as you wish).  Some of the best baby back ribs in HK, really good steaks, and what I’m sure are the best huevos rancheros to be found in Hong Kong (only on the breakfast menu but they’ll sometimes make them for other meals on request).  A bit on the expensive side for some items.

May’s Sawaddee Thailand – A bit confusing because there are three places in town with this name and at least one claims to have no relationship to the others.  Popular and reasonably okay Thai food.

Paisano’s – This is the original branch of what is in my opinion the best pizza in Hong Kong.  The owner, a former golf pro, is an Italian-American whose parents have pizza places back in the US.  He makes his dough and pasta fresh daily.

Pepperoni’s – I’ve been here several times but it’s been years since I’ve gone back.  It’s very Hong Kong-style pizza (wrong kind of dough, sauce too sweet), the other dishes are okay.  The owners of Pepperoni’s also own Jaspa’s, Wagyu and several other chains around town.

Jaspa’s – With branches in Soho and TST (and Saigon!), this is the first place that fills up in town on weekends and with good reason.  I’ve been coming here for 10 years and never had a bad meal.  Whatever you order comes with a huge amount of fresh greens.  And last time I was there, Moreton Bay Bugs were back on the menu!

Chuen Kee – I think there’s been some consolidation of ownership among the waterfront seafood restaurants.  For all I know, they might all be owned by just one or two people now.  If memory serves, this is the one that is listed in the Michelin guide.  Stay away from larger fish, lobster and more exotic choices and the price can be quite reasonable.  Beer is super cheap here and a great place to sit at night stuffing your face and watching the crowds stroll by. I’ve probably eaten at all the waterfront seafood places at one time or another, I’ll just list this one.

A.J.’s Sri Lankan Cuisine – I believe this is the only Sri Lankan place in Hong Kong.  R.J., the owner and chef, is really from Sri Lanka (the place is named for his son) and the food is consistently delicious.

Sawaddee Thailand – Okay, I see they’ve removed the “May’s” from the name of this location.  It’s a back alley place, cheap folding tables and plastic stools.  I think they’ve got the most authentic Thai in town.

Mr. Froyo – Nothing that really sets this apart from the other frozen yogurt shops in town except this is the only one in Sai Kung town and it’s quite nice. (Oops, there are two now.  This is the only one I’ve tried.)

Ali-Oli – If this isn’t the best bakery in Hong Kong, it certainly has to be in the top ten.  Aside from the cakes and fabulous breads, they set up tables outside now for sandwiches, salads, or just a cup of decent coffee with a croissant.

Hebe One O One – In a village house in Pak Sha Wan.  Readers of Sai Kung Magazine voted this their favorite Sai Kung restaurant last year.  Another consistent spot, it’s what I think of as Australian style.  Great grilled stuff and my gf swears by their apple crumble.  The ground floor bar area is filled with overstuffed old leather sofas and steamer trunks for tables, first floor a more traditional looking restaurant, rooftop bar.

Colour Brown – Yeah, we do have a Starbucks in town but why go there when we also have this gem?  Serious coffee, good sandwiches and cakes, a small place that’s impossible to get into on weekends but worth the wait.

Anthony’s Catch – Same owner as Anthony’s Ranch, this is mostly Italian-style seafood and they make their own pasta.  Expensive but quality stuff.

Fiesta Fiesta – An odd little place in the old part of town, they have some western dishes and some Filipino food.  And it’s the Filipino food that we go there for.

Ristorante Firenze – An Italian restaurant that appears to be owned and run by Indians.  Quite good.

Sauce – I think I’ve been here twice in 10 years.  It’s not bad, it’s just not as good as Jaspa’s in my opinion.

Steamer’s – A longtime Sai Kung favorite, a bar with half a dozen outdoor tables and some British and Indian style pub food.  Nothing exceptional but cheap & cheerful.

Classified – The Sai Kung branch of the popular HK chain has me on the fence.  Sometimes when I go here I really love it, other times it hasn’t quite lived up to my expectations.  On the whole though, I’m glad they’re here.

Sawaddee Thailand – This is the branch next to McDonald’s.  A couple of outdoor tables and usually busy.  My opinion is that the food is fairly average HK-style Thai.

Village Malaysian and Indian – I’ve been here twice and wanted to like it a whole lot more than I do.  Ground floor of a village house, they grow their own spices in their backyard, yet the two or three times I’ve been here it’s been less than inspiring.

Juicy J’s – Big British-style breakfast served all day in a tiny place, they also specialize in hot dogs with Japanese toppings.  Definitely different and the one time we were there it was quite okay.

Bacco – The upstairs portion of this bar is a branch of HK Indian favorite JoJo’s.  The one time I ate here, the biryani had what was obviously frozen vegetables in it, something I think is inexcusable in HK.

Agua Plus – It was Aqua Plus when they first opened, then it changed for some reason.  This was a hard luck location with two previous places not catching on here, but they’ve made a run of it.  Booze and outdoor seating, mostly, but the British pub grub and Indian curries are quite okay.

Occo – The Pepperoni’s/Jaspa’s folks shut down Cru, which I loved, and re-opened as Rocco, but then had to drop the R because there’s already a Rocco someplace else in town.  Been here once, it’s good, I miss Cru and don’t know why they felt impelled to change.

Ten Ku – See if you can follow this.  The sign outside says “Shushi”.  The listing on OpenRice calls them “Shsui”.  Whatever it is, I came here twice and doubt I’ll go back for a third try.

Wing Wo – There are actually two listings for this place in town (they have two shops, directly across from each other).  One listing says closed, the other says closed for renovation.  Either way, incredibly friendly staff, cheap prices but some of the worst dim sum I’ve ever had in Hong Kong.

Thai Ho – Actually I’ve never been here but each time I walk by I tell myself I need to try this place.  Maybe by listing it here I’ll remember next time!

There was a great small and cheap Vietnamese place in town that recently closed that we miss.  A couple of years back Dia, which I thought had the best Indian in town, got replaced by a Japanese “fusion” joint that I still haven’t tried.

For many, the center of food in Sai Kung is not the water front or the Man Yee Square, it’s the alley that runs between Fuk Man (yes, I know) Road and King Man Street.  There must be at least 20 different hole in the wall joints here, mostly HK style noodle joints, some little Thai places, all of them extremely cheap. most of them foreigner friendly, most of them quite good.

So there you go, 27 out of 299, obviously I still have quite a few places to try!

What places have I missed?  What are your favorite spots?

By now all of you, or at least all of you who live in Hong Kong, have heard of Kong Qingdong, the Beijing professor who called Hong Kong people “dogs” and said that the Rule of Law is only needed in trash societies like Hong Kong and Singapore.  Very indicative of how tempers have flared in the aftermath is this column in Asia Sentinel by Alice Poon – not so much for what she has to say as for the extreme racism and misogyny in the comments on her editorial.

So, my take?  Who the fuck is Kong Qingdong and why should I give a shit about what he has to say?  As near as I can figure it, he’s China’s answer to Rush Limbaugh – a big bag of gas who says whatever he thinks will land him media coverage, whether he believes it or not.  I mean, come on, if Hong Kong is a trash society, what about a place that practices extreme censorship, puts people in jail without a trial for expressing their opinions, puts melamine in milk powder or builds schools out of cardboard in earthquake zones?  Strike all that.  How many people does China execute every year?  China has the rule of law, too, it just doesn’t enforce it equally across all walks of life and classes of people.   Kong says he’s a direct descendant of Confucius, by the way, 73rd generation.  And what should that count for?  I mean, after 73 generations, I think the bloodline might have thinned out a little bit.

The whole tempest in a teapot comes on the heels of the D&G photo mess, which presumably started because some rich mainlander didn’t like having his picture taken in their shop.  It’s all a slap in the face to Hong Kong, which is now seriously dependent on mainland policies and mainlanders for much of its economic survival.  Remember back in the 90′s?  Damn, HKers loved to make jokes about mainlanders, how they dressed, how they acted, how they spoke.  It was hard to say who was lower in HK eyes back then – mainlanders or white people.

So now the tables have turned.  HK needs mainland money.  HK needs mainlanders to come here and buy over-priced shitbox flats and LV bags and Rolex watches by the bushel to keep the economy going, never mind how that money managed to illegally cross the border.  There is a divide – a cultural divide as well as a language one – between Hong Kong and the rest of China.  Anything that attacks at that divide, that tears down the wall, gets people upset.

Am I being harsh here?  Some will say yes, others will say not harsh enough.  Maybe Hemlock or others will take it further.  All I can say is this: who the fuck is Kong Qingdong and why does anyone care what he says?

Maybe the answer is that people are afraid that what he’s saying may not be true but that it represents, at least to some extent, the thoughts and feelings of the ruling class in China – otherwise why would he be allowed to say it and not be tossed in jail afterwards?  And if that is indeed the case, what happens to Hong Kong?

Both sides are wrong.  Both sides are right.  What’s next?

Here are excerpts from some of the comments that Ms. Poon received:   ”A coward old b!tch whining about mainland.” “her degenerate and prejudiced opinions” “Wannabee White’s like this Alice Poon are disappointed that she longer has the priviledge to asskiss the Brits.” “she is a neo-liberal hell-bent on trying to propagate the so-called western values like demoncracy, human rights, free speech etc. unto HK in particular & China in general That is alright if she balances her such admiration of the white man’s ideas with the darker sides of these same western bullshits which now prove so disastrous economically humanity-wise with equal zeal.”  ”I think Alice Poon is whitewashed” “This Alice Poon like so many Hong Kongers are traitors.”

Pleasant stuff, eh wot?  Maybe I’ll get some “you white piece of shit how dare you comment on China like that” kinds of things.

(Many of you will no doubt find the following post pointless.  But many people seem to like when I post this sort of stuff.  Feel free to skip it if it ain’t your cup o’ joe.)

It’s been a week of ups and downs for me, probably more downs than ups.

It was, for starters, the week that we lost two giants of music – Etta James and Johnny Otis.  It was also the week that the feds shut down file sharing site Megaupload.  It’s estimated that this site earned US$175 million in revenue over the past six years and the reported lifestyle of its founder, Kim Dotcom, certainly would seem to support that.  (What’s funny is that the SCMP insists on calling Dotcom a “Hong Kong man” despite the fact that he was born in Germany and essentially bought his New Zealand citizenship (which is where he was arrested) because he did live in Hong Kong for awhile, apparently in a suite at the Grand Hyatt.  How odd that the media is so strenuously trying to claim this guy as one of our own.)  New Zealand police, cooperating with the US, apparently not only raided his house but had to break their way into the armored safe room somewhere in the house where he was hiding.

I haven’t been feeling very well for quite some time but was just letting it go by.  I don’t want to be labeled a hypochondriac and as a result I tend to not go to doctors unless I’ve been shot or lost a limb.  Then we watched this movie, 50/50.  It’s writer Will Reiser’s semi-auto-biographical work about a 27 year old guy who comes down with cancer and how his best friend supports him through it and how he reconciles with his mother, blah blah blah.  Actually, it’s not great but it’s quite okay.  It stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the cancer victim, Seth Rogen as his best friend, Anjelica Huston as his mom, Anna Kendrick as his shrink, Philip Baker Hall and Matt Frewer as a couple of other cancer patients.

The thing is that JGL discovers he has cancer because he has this persistent back ache, so he goes to the doctor, gets an MRI, discovers he has this rare form of cancer on his spine.  I watched it and thought to myself, “Hmmm, I would never go to a doctor for that!”  And then I thought about the way I’d been feeling lately (and the fact that despite the best of intentions I remain a heavy smoker) and went to the doctor.  Maybe this does make me a hypochondriac after all.  I then had a few days of extreme nervousness and lack of sleep waiting for the results.  In the end, it was nowhere near as bad as I was dreading.  No cancer but something that I used to have has returned.  Actually, back when I had it, there was no Wikipedia so I couldn’t read up on it, now I can and I see it’s something that once you have, you pretty much have it for the rest of your life (and no, it’s not an STD).   At least now I know and I know how to deal with it and I expect certain things to improve relative to the good ol’ “quality of life” thing.  So I have that.  But I now also have a lot more tests to undergo and weekly doctor visits for the foreseeable future.

Without going into a hell of a lot of details, I’ve been seriously considering buying something in the Philippines – a flat or a house or something.  I’m not sure what and I’m not sure where.  Do I want to stay in the big city, which means Manila, which probably means Fort Bonfacio since that’s my favorite part of Manila?  Do I want to look a couple or a few hours away from Manila?  (I didn’t much care for Clark/Angeles, haven’t been to Subic.)  On an island like Boracay – a place I really like but a pain in the balls to get to and from since you have to take a boat to get to the nearest airport?  Some other island or beach that I’ve never been to?  I’m planning a trip there in March, in part to take a bit of a look around.

Of course, it’s now Chinese New Year.  Last night we went over to the malls at Hang Hau for dinner.  Around 9 PM, much as expected, most of the shopping mall was empty.  However Taste, a vaguely upscale supermarket owned by Park & Shop, was packed.  People were going pretty crazy buying the sorts of things that Hong Kong people buy in anticipation of CNY – presents to give when visiting family & friends, food & drink for when friends & family come to visit them.  There were huge stacks everywhere of deluxe gift boxes of chocolate, cookies, cakes (yeah, I know, how did I manage to go out without a camera? just my mood relative to my health I guess).  What struck me as odd about this is that most of the stuff being bought seems to have been boxes of western sweets – things that most HKer’s don’t really go for.  (Krispy Kreme lasted just a year in Hong Kong because local people found it way too sweet.)  Gift boxes that contained Cadbury Chocolates and Pepperidge Farm Cookies?  And some of these people were buying like 10, 20, 30 boxes of this stuff.  Gift cases that contained XO sauce and other Asian sauces seemed to make more sense to me.  The wine section was packed with people – probably in no small part thanks to a sale, buy 6 bottles and get an extra 15% off.  Yes, I was planning on buying 1 or 2 bottles and I bought 6.  Anyway, 10 PM Saturday night, every register open, lines 10 deep at each register, each person with a shopping cart stacked up to the ceiling.

Also traditional for Chinese New Year in Hong Kong – shit weather.  The skies are grey, the clouds are low, the temperature has dropped.  It’s 11 degrees in Sai Kung and that’s probably where it’s going to stay for the next 3 or 4 days.  Thanks to the visit to Taste and a delivery from The Porterhouse, there’s plenty of food in the house.  Then I had this idea – that I could speed up the performance of iTunes on my PC if I moved the drives (two drives, RAID 1) from an external USB box to the inside of my PC.  So I figured, okay, move those two 2 Terabyte drives and then buy some new ones to shove into the soon-to-be-empty external RAID box.

So I put the two drives into the computer, booted up, checked the BIOS, made sure they were set up as RAID1, all good.  And put two new drives into the RAID box, booted up, brought up disk manager, formatted the drives, or so I thought.

Because what actually happened is that when I put the drives into my computer, some resource conflict blew out my USB 3.0 ports.  And what I thought was the new disks was actually old disks sitting in another external box that I had inadvertently left powered up and for some reason the computer decided these were new disks.  So I reformatted hard disks that contained close to 2 Terabytes worth of MP3 files.  And not just any MP3 files.  This was the A-J section of my collection.  Just losing the B’s alone would be a disaster – every noise the Beatles ever made down to belches and farts; every wheeze that came out of Bob Dylan’s nose, every Bruce Springsteen concert and outtake from the 1970s.  Because this stuff was stored RAID1, I didn’t bother backing it up to Backblaze.  Because this was RAID1, when I reformatted one disk, I reformatted both disks.

The only thing that saved me was the fact that after mistakenly reformatting these disks, I hadn’t done anything else to them.  Which means they’re recoverable.  I tried out a few different bits of software, finally went with one that was recommended to me via Twitter, GetDataBack. As promised, it is able to not just recover the files, it can recover the long names and the directory structures as well.  It allowed me to run the discovery process against the drive (which took ten hours) before deciding whether or not to buy it, so that I could evaluate how successful it was going to be first.  It looks as if 100% can be recovered and it’s now in the process of copying the files from the accidentally reformatted drive to a new drive.  One file at a time.  I think it’s going to take a couple of days to complete this.  I’m spot checking and the files are there and they can be played but it looks as if all the tags have disappeared.

Just posted by the SCMP.

For renewing my NOW-TV contract, I get a HK$100 supermarket coupon.  Someone calls me to tell me that in 4 to 6 weeks, they will mail me a redemption letter so that I can travel to their redemption center to collect the coupon.  ”So, you are going to mail me a piece of paper that says I can go somewhere to collect a piece of paper?  Why not just mail me the piece of paper?”  ”Uhhhhhhhhhhh ….”  ”Yes, I know, you are just the phone person and you don’t set policy and have no control over this but will  you at least agree with me that this makes no sense?”  ”Uhhhhhhhhhhh ….”

I might as well have asked them why the porridge bird lays its eggs in the air.

With the exception being that Tang will likely be selected as the next Chief Executive of Hong Kong; Romney’s future is not as clear.  Well, maybe the comparison to Romney is unfair to Romney.  Romney never met a position he couldn’t change his mind on yet I suspect he still has more personal integrity than Tang.  Tang spends his time saying not what he actually believes but zigzagging between what he thinks the people in HK want him to say and what he thinks he needs to say in order to get Beijing’s approval.  In terms of what he actually believes, does anyone really know?

The latest example was in the SCMP today.  (I’m sure the Standard would do a better job on this except their free model doesn’t support Saturday and Sunday editions.)  It seems that on Thursday Tang, or “Dipshit” as his friends fondly call him, criticized Hong Kong’s Urban Renewal Authority for selling “pricey flats” without regard for the needs of the average Hong Konger.  Great!  We all agree that the URA sucks sweaty donkey balls and it’s nice to have our probable next CE publicly denounce them.

All well and good,  except that ole Dipshit, when he was Financial Secretary, was the one who approved these miserable stupid useless projects.  Dippy Tang then said, roughly, “Oh, hold on, I approved the projects based on the price of the projects, not on the selling price of the results.”  Which is akin to him saying, “Hey, I was a useless fucking toad as Financial Secretary and I couldn’t see any further than the tip of my nose and I really couldn’t be arsed to bother with it because I was too busy with all of my mistresses and girlfriends and my daily 3 hour sharks fin banquet lunches.”

Tang then wondered why the URA (the Urine Recycling Authority) was so upset at his pretend-criticism.   Get this, Dipshit actually said, “”I am now only an ordinary citizen so I find it weird for the authority to have such strong reaction.”  Yeah, an ordinary citizen who will be the next Fearless Leader and who gets to hold press conferences and has his deep thoughts reported on a daily basis in the local press.

By the way, Tang seems to “think” (I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt here) that the way to reform the URA is to put limits on their abilities to acquire old buildings for redevelopment. The problem with the URA is that its charter requires it to be profitable.  So of course they’re going to maximize their investment and create fancy shitboxes that only mainland Chinese millionaires can afford.  Take that profit incentive out and then you might actually have a government agency doing something useful for the people of Hong Kong like tearing down dangerous fire traps and building new housing that the middle class could afford.  As if.

This ad was in The Standard today.

I love In-N-Out Burger.  There is no fast food burger in the US that comes close to this one.  For those who’ve never had one, maybe the best comparison I can come up with is to say it’s like Triple O’s only better.  They’re only on the west coast of the US, the burgers are made from quality meat, real cheese, the fries are made from fresh potatoes right in the store.  So the notion of In-N-Out in Hong Kong is like a fantasy I wouldn’t dare to have.

But wait a minute.  Just what is going on here?  One day only?  4 hours only?  And in Braemar Hill, FFS?

Is there anything about this that even slightly makes sense?

Sam Wong had a letter published in the SCMP last week which I wrote about here.   His letter was filled with drivel such as, “ Expatriates who have come to this city to work do so because they can’t get a better job at home.”

Following a few letters that contested what he wrote, he has once again taken fingers to keyboard and wrote a somewhat more conciliatory missive.

There have been many responses to my letter (“Expats have done little to benefit city”, January 3).

The theme of my letter relates to the competitiveness of Hong Kong but your correspondents focused on the contributions of individuals, which is a different matter. This misunderstanding caused an overreaction and harsh language from some letter writers.

I did not suggest a lack of contribution on the part of foreigners and domestic helpers despite the headline (which I did not write). Every citizen contributes to our society one way or another. Even people living on social welfare can claim they contribute to our economy because they are also spenders.

Hong Kong’s competitiveness is measured by its infrastructure, modern airport and container port facilities, communications technologies, good social systems, financial services, industries, tourism, medical services, an efficient police force, good governance and a hard- working population, supplemented by the support of the mainland under the “one country, two systems” concept.

Foreigners in Hong Kong share the success of Hong Kong’s competitiveness.

As Graham Price pointed out (“Foreigners make a big contribution”, January 6) many chose to make Hong Kong their permanent home because of job opportunities and a friendly environment that makes it easy for foreigners to settle.

However, some foreigners who lived through Hong Kong’s colonial era still fail to acknowledge that this city has returned to Chinese sovereignty. They suggest that local people’s views should be expressed only in the Chinese-language media.

I extend a welcome to all foreigners if they share the view that the competitiveness of this city is not solely due to the presence of a small population of expatriates. And I hope your correspondents will no longer feel offended after my clarification.

Well, duh, no one is going to claim that expatriates are the sole reason that Hong Kong has any competitiveness.  I also don’t know of anyone who claimed “that local people’s views should be expressed only in the Chinese-language media.”  Yes, Hong Kong does indeed have “ a friendly environment that makes it easy for foreigners to settle” although it has to be recognized that some portion of the population, perhaps a significant one, sees non-Chinese residents of Hong Kong as inferior.  Some of it is jealousy, some of it is racism, all of it is ignorance.  Mr. Wong may be trying to back-pedal a bit here but he is the person who wrote, “Expatriates who have come to this city to work do so because they can’t get a better job at home.”  And “Expatriates who are making a living in Hong Kong are no different from domestic helpers earning their livelihood here …”

Incidentally, Mr. Wong makes a point of stating that he didn’t write the contentious title that the SCMP used for his previous letter.  And I assume he didn’t write the title that they came up with for this letter either – “Some Deny Post-Colonial Reality of HK.”  I have no idea who those people are or if such people even exist.  Many of the items on Mr. Wong’s list of things that add to Hong Kong’s perceived competitiveness are a legacy of colonialism, for better or worse.  It’s like that scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian – what did the Romans ever do for us?  Nothing – except the aqueduct, the roads, the hospitals, law and order, the wine ……  One can rail all one wants against colonialism – but it happened and you can’t make it “un-happen” no matter how hard you might try and maybe, just maybe, the British left one or two good things behind when they left and it hasn’t all exactly been gravy and biscuits since 1997.

Something interesting happened over the weekend.  Hundreds of people showed up outside a D&G store in Tsim Sha Tsui staging an impromptu protest when a guard at that store tried to chase away people taking pictures of the shop’s windows.

There’s more to this than meets the eye.  Apparently the store guard said that the policy was that only mainland Chinese could take pictures of the shop window; local Hong Kong people were forbidden to do so.  As usual, the Standard trumps the SCMP in uncovering the reason behind this:

A well-known mainlander, possibly a government official, was reportedly shopping in the store last month when he noticed people outside taking photographs. A complaint was made to D&G because the customer feared netizens would link the shopping spree to corruption. Then D&G instigated the ban.

The Standard reports more than 1,000 showed up.  The SCMP says “some reporters” counted 800.  The protest has now been going on for 3 days, has its own Facebook page and has resulted in the closings of other shops due to the overflow of the crowds.

The Standard further reports:

“Open the door. I have money and I want to do some shopping,” said one protester, holding a fistful of hell banknotes.

Colorful language, no?  Whereas in the SCMP you get this:

One demonstrator stuck paper money meant for the dead on the shop’s windows, forming the Chinese character for “shameful”.

At any rate, one thing that should be clear is that this is more than just people protesting to have the right to take pictures of a shop window.  This is something that is trending around the world, even in the US, where the police have attempted to limit the rights of people to take photos in public spaces due to a long list of insane reasons.

I’ve had some run-ins myself, not with police, but with shop-keepers (especially in night markets) who post signs stating “No Photos” but my position is that if I’m standing in a public space, I have the right to take a picture.

I’d like to think that this factored into the Hong Kong protest, the notion of an unreasonable restriction on what should be a legally guaranteed freedom.  But it’s hard to say what will capture the public imagination here.  The Occupy movement has failed to gain any real traction here, just a series of small protests against DBS, Lehman Brothers and Citigroup.  So does this photo protest fit into HK’s tradition of protesting when the public perceives their rights are eroding (such as the Article 23 marches several years ago)?  Is it a sign that HK is growing fed up with the increasing power and influence of the mainland over HK and perceived domination of rights of mainlanders over HKers on their home turf?  Or are we just a society of shutterbugs and nothing more should be read into it?

Time will tell ….