Not as hypocritical as using democracy to sugarcoat ulterior motives and using innocent, or should I say, dumb students as shield to their advantage.
Hong Kong....Occupy Central Demonstrations....
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Not as hypocritical as using democracy to sugarcoat ulterior motives and using innocent, or should I say, dumb students as shield to their advantage.
airsuperiority
Captain
Calling students dumb is insulting them, so we shouldn't go there. However, yes, tons of assholes with tons of agendas. I never believed in the HKSAR politicians anyways.
airsuperiority
Captain
I agree with 1 and 2, but for nationalist education part I think that's a bit biased. Let the academic material be neutral is better idea
3. Perhaps, but I believe some of it are fed by parents, so to blame us for all of it is also irresponsible. Furthermore, they have their own mistrusts and reason for doing so， and only time and critical thinking can help. Calling them names and not attempting to understand is totally unhelpful for the situation.
Pardon my reasons, but in my field, we work with people and we start by listening to them and hearing what they have to say, not making quick judgements too quickly.
4. Um I don't know how old you are, but I haven't met anyone who thinks that way. I do think that the gov't is responsible, but to be fair, the entire capitalist system is a slow-ticking time bomb for this sort of thing.
5. I don't know if the economy is the least of their concerns.
broadsword
Brigadier
You call it a demonstration, but the Western media is calls it a revolution.
Let's check some online dictionaries:
American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
...
2. The overthrow of one government and its replacement with another.
Cambridge Dictionaries Online
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a sudden and great change, esp. the violent change of a system of government:
Collins Dictionary
...
the overthrow or repudiation of a regime or political system by the governed
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I think they jump the gun.
Let's check some online dictionaries:
American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
...
2. The overthrow of one government and its replacement with another.
Cambridge Dictionaries Online
...
a sudden and great change, esp. the violent change of a system of government:
Collins Dictionary
...
the overthrow or repudiation of a regime or political system by the governed
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I think they jump the gun.
airsuperiority
Captain
It's easy to understand why they think that way.
They said they want democracy --> that means they don't have democracy --> so they want to have a new government and replace this one--> aha! that means it's another revolution to have democracy like the Arab Spring
When people don't understand a place, they use their schemas.
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You speak my mind, and put it into nice worlds
1. HKers use to be superior economically compare to the Chinese. HK businessman doing business in China sometimes look down at the Chinese themselves. Now that the tables have turn, they lost a sense of superiority and held grip of being more superior in behavior and politically. HK were the main door to China, and now it just another door. The anti-Chinese sentiment currently gives me the vibe of jealousy and frustration in lost of superiority.
2. So true. I was astonished when some of my friends were posting Apple Daily news on Facebook or sharing an article when it was biased and untrue story. I found out that they read nothing buy Apple Daily when I asked them if they read anything else. There were incidence where Apple Daily reporter state that their freedom of journalism were hampered when they were reporting in China. The funny thing was that they were there along with other HK news agency and they were always picked on (due to their action of not following the local laws). There was an incidence where HKU were called out by the Chinese government stating a survey that they did on CY was biased and misleading. 60% of the people that got surveyed state that CY performance was acceptable and HKU reported that: based on the average, more than half of the people state claimed CY performance was unacceptable. This happened during the Tung-Chee wah era also. When they were questioned about the method or being criticized, there are always people states that, such criticism impeach on academic freedom. Also on survey, I believe the police use a standard method in estimating participants in protest. Their numbers are usually slightly lower, but not that much of a difference compare to a third party. When the numbers get compared to HKU, HKU's number is always a lot more. On reporting from foreign news, foreign news tend to either does not understand the situation or mislead the reader either by the wording they use or other methods. One example I remember was Reuter reporting on a case in regarding to the Democratic Party. Reutor reported: the only democratic party in HK was doing "such and such" (I can't remember what it was about). When you think of it, HK has only one party by the name Democratic Party, and then there are the Liberal party, but not "THE ONLY DEMOCRATIC PARTY". Some foreigners that have been to HK and China questions what the news agency reports on their message board.
To be honest, I think HK should stop funding RTHK. RTHK should be a voice of the government and not a commercial media company. They were saying that HK government was impeding on their work. Of course they are impeding on your work since it is paid by the HK government. The funny thing is that they were asking billions from the HK government this year to build a media center, which got rejected, and now they are filing another proposal to the government on a smaller budget media center. At one point they were protesting a government agent was put in by the government and said that the government was interfering their work. RTHK is not CBC or BBC, they do not make money and create a drama to make money. They were created by the government (British created it) to broadcast message of the government.
3. Well after the great leap forward, a lot of Chinese fled to HK and told story about it. My mom and dad have told me about the situation as they have been through that era, but after improvement of China, they still support the Chinese government, since they are no longer that radical.
4. This is the major problem that some HK people can't see. Recent article shared on facebook that state Chinese visitor have low impact on the economy, but if you calculate number for the travel sector, it is a huge sum. They come here to buy milk powder, medication, food, clothing, luxurious good. Also HK people have to ask the question, why do big business come to HK other than low taxes. HK is a big stepping stone for business that want to go to China. Sometimes they are afraid to build headquarter in China itself (although this is changing) they have to use HK as base and hire people that are willing to travel to China. Quite a bit of HK people are rich are doing business in China, and they help the HK economy by spending in HK and buying financial products in HK. With ports of GuangZhou and ShangHai, Financial Center of Shenzhen and Shanghai, you are faced with a lot of competition on vital sectors of your economy.
5. Economics is a complex thing and I believe most HK people think that they have the economy figured it out, since they are successful in business (I am biased on this, since I have talk to some of my friends who are successful living in HK, and only understand the basics of supply and demand (not including short-run and long-run model) which is a part of economics. and only understand the stock markets) When it comes to government policy, a lot of people don't quite understand it. On social housing, it is a very sensitive area, it is almost a lose lose area now. You build too much, the price drop and people will complaint (a lot of people are taking our mortgage to buy additional house as investment.). You build too little and they will say the government is not helping the poor. The public have complained about government have huge surplus and state that they should hand out money. Government have surplus is to save up for bad times. The middle class claims that they are paying a lot of tax and supporting social program that they do not use, and inflation is hurting their real income. Inflation part is partially true for hurting them, but from what is reported in news and documentary on middle class, IMO they are overspending on things that are not a necessities and hurting themselves financially. Tax in HK even for middle class are really low. Some middle-class state that they should be able to buy government subsidized homes, which is absurd.
When CY government came to power, most of the opposition did nothing to help the economy and almost veto any government presented plans. When I was watching the news in HK on LegCo 拉布 (which IMO was ridiculous) the LegCo almost passed a bill to reduce spending on part of social welfare (which the opposition was advocating for more), as they did not pay attention, since they had to go overtime and had to listen to many useless change presented by the radical of the pan-democratic group. The DAB call on them for not paying attention and voted without paying attention. The DAB even called on them for missing assembly, and the excuse for missing the assembly is either "we were late already by a lot and decide not to show up" "this is useless since we have to sit in an listen to so many change". If it was another democratic country, citizen would call for the LegCo members missing from assembly or initiating 拉布 to get out of office.
IMO democracy can be a double edge sword for the radical democratic group. They may be elected first, but when they do not meet expectation and does not know how to manage the economy (which I don't really see it in their agenda) they would be voted out of office.
I think that nationalist education is required as people in HK are currently taught by the public to distant themselves from China, but not adding biased education. I mean almost all country, including democratic ones would have some sort of program to boost patriotism and nationalism.
I can understand why people are paranoid as they were taught that communist is bad and they brainwash you, but it should stop at a certain level. Some people complain signing the Chinese National Anthem is brainwashing. Other states that the song is too war like. The song is a reminder that Chinese needs to be united.
3. I'm just stating my observation. My judgement, while inevitably biased, is based on my observation throughout the last 10 years. I listen to what my peers said all the time. I even read Apple Daily. That's where I form my opinions.
4. I'm 30. Those people are the radicals. They spearhead an important part of the Pan-dem movement. A minority of them are descendant from the Kuomintang left behind in HK. They are indoctrinating our youths with these thoughts that's for sure. Why else would they support the termination of Individual Visit Scheme?
Seriously, the political landscape in HK is extremely complicated. If you want I can give a clear outline of what parties are involved in the HK landscape and what their agendas are.
airsuperiority
Captain
Well there are people who are extreme. Some can be talked sense into them if you take the time and patience, but unfortunately no one does.
As for the first point, I do agree there are these curriculum in a lot of countries, although I guess maybe more subtle in some senses. In US recently the Conservatives in one state tried to make the material more academic and again that led to high school students protesting. So it's quite the same as it happened in HK. Furthermore, it's hard to not be bias(or is it?) when you're trying to teach something that's patriotic or nationalistic since this sentiment itself is already so. As for the incorporation of Nationalistic Education, I'll say just let time be the judge for HKers. If things improve down the road, mistrust will go away.
airsuperiority
Captain
Funny enough I barely read Apple Daily cuz I've seen how poor their journalism could be. I do like their "蘋果照妖鏡" and some random funny news though.
I'm 26. Damn LOl the girl that I'm chasing is older than you by one year.
Serious note though, well you've seen the poor etiquettes of the rude individuals who showed up with their luggages to buy baby milk formula. Those people unfortunately made life worse for everyone else and build a bad name for mainland Chinese, even though other mainland Chinese aren't like them. Again I'm not saying stereotype and discrimination is right, as I live in Canada and we are very sensitive to racisms. I do have 1-2 friends who are racist towards mainland Chinese and I've tried to explain that they shouldn't do that, but even then they've never said those words. I guess it just depends on individuals.
And as for the extremists, yea their ways actually cause more friction than working things out. One thing about extremists everywhere is that they take a legitimate social phenomenon (often one where they are oppressed or poorly treated) and then magnify it several times to the point it's no longer a rational level. In Psychology we explained that this can be caused by many factors, such as meeting like-minded people, thus causing groupthink, or having repeated experiences of the same thing without a proper rationalization, or even other stuffs like misinformation, self fulfilling prophecy, etc. Ultimately, it's dangerous and certainly can provoke anti-social behaviour.
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