Thursday 30 June 2022

It was raining then. It’s raining now

 

Me, with Teacher Gao, Guilin, 2 March 1977
(Not sure why I posted this as it’s 20 years before, but still, 
I like it so ima gonna leave it right here. Memories. We all loved teacher Gao)
I’m talking of 25 years ago tonight. The night of 30 June to 1 July 1997, “handover day” (回归节 Hui gui Jie).

June 30 1997 Jing and I were in a bar in Wanchai. Waiting for midnight.  I was the only one drinking, as Jing was six weeks away from giving birth to our son.

We watched the handover ceremony. As it rained and poured. Like it’s doing right now. With a typhoon on the horizon.

We’ve stayed here in HK ever since, though recently I regularly wonder. When I see our Dear Leader, Xi Jinpijg, now in Hong Kong, accompanied by his bunch of grapes, apparatchiks dressed the same as he, black trousers, white short-sleeved shirt, tucked in, held by a belt buckle identical to his. And lecturing us. When I see that, I wonder again. And when I see the oleaginous “Wolf warrior” Zhao Lijian, berating the west. I do wonder. But still live here. Because. Well, just because. Xi interrupts me, lecturing us here in Hong Kong, finger pointing like all good Chinese cadres. Telling us how good we are. We obedient children.

Laying down the law in Hong Kong