"Good to learn simplified characters"

LETTER TO THE  EDITOR, SCMP:

I don't understand the brouhaha over learning simplified characters ("Simplified characters rumour wrong", February 23). Surely this is a storm in a teacup. 

I learned Chinese at Peking University in the mid seventies. I learnt simplified characters. 

When I came to Hong Kong I was confronted with traditional characters. I quickly realized that many of the differences were logical and straightforward. For example, simplified radicals (such as  訁to 讠), based on pre-existing cursive forms in use for centuries, account for many of the differences. These are very quickly mastered. 

It took me just a few months of part-time study to be able to read Hong Kong signage and newspapers in traditional characters. 

Moreover, I suggest it's easier to go from traditional to simplified, than the opposite route I did. 

If an adult 鬼佬 such as me can quickly adapt from simplified to traditional characters, surely local mother-tongue Chinese speakers can go from traditional to simplified even more quickly. 

In short, Hong Kongers should stop moaning and get on with the the job of learning the written form that's used by the vast majority of Chinese. What's more, it's fun!

Peter F, etc...

LATER: published on 6th April 2016:

Good to learn simplified characters

I refer to the article by Raymond Young (“Traditional or simplified, the script is for communication”, March 30) and don’t understand the brouhaha over learning simplified characters.

I learned Chinese (simplified characters) at Peking University in the mid-1970s.

When I came to Hong Kong I was confronted with traditional characters. I quickly realised that many of the differences were logical and straightforward. For example, simplified radicals are based on pre-existing cursive forms in use for ­centuries. These are very quickly mastered.

It took me just a few months of part-time study to be able to read Hong Kong signage and newspapers in traditional characters.

Moreover, I suggest it’s easier to go from traditional to simplified, rather than the ­opposite route I did.

If an adult gweilo such as me can quickly adapt from simplified to traditional characters, surely local mother-tongue ­Chinese speakers can go from traditional to simplified even more quickly.

As for calligraphy, of course it will continue to be done in the more artistically felicitous traditional characters.

In short, Hongkongers should stop moaning and get on with the job of learning the written form that’s used by the vast majority of Chinese, and one that will enable reading Mandarin as it’s increasingly written outside China. It’s not about China trying another takeover route.

Peter Forsythe, Discovery Bay

"Thought without learning is dangerous" -- the Master

[Letter To South China Morning Post]
I would like to weigh in on the discussion of Chinese characters by Wang and Dunn (“Revival of old characters isn’t likely”, Letters, October 29).

I write as one who learnt the simplified characters at the Peking Language Institute and Peking University in 1976, then the “old” characters at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1977.

First, it was easier for me as an adult to learn the simplified characters first and then the traditional (“old”) characters.  The same must surely be true for children learning them. Going from simple to complex is more sensible than going from complex to simple: walk before you run.

Second: many of the simplifications were done by taking existing hand-written forms as the basis.  For example, the character shuo (to speak), printed as 說, was commonly hand-written as 说 , a saving of  five strokes in seven for its radical yan (言).  This 70% saving is carried over into the many characters that have the “speech” radical 言.

Third: if Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and Korea use traditional characters in their trading relationship with China, so what?  A click of a software button will convert a document from simplified Chinese to traditional, if needed.

As for “building culture”, which is alleged to flow from use of “old” characters, I make the following observation. I studied both calligraphy and the Analects of Confucius in its original classical Chinese. When I was later the boss of offices in China and Hong Kong, I found that the calligraphic skills of staff on the mainland were far better than those of our Hong Kong staff [at the risk of angering Hong Kong readers: Chinese staffs’ calligraphy was elegant; Hong Kong staffs’ calligraphy was childish]; and their knowledge of Confucian references was measurably better than that of their Hong Kong colleagues. So which way does the culture “build”, Mr Wang?

There is no need for China to own up to any “mistake”, as Dunn contends. Introducing simplified characters helped spread literacy in China and helped foreigners in learning the language.   It was and remains a good move.

Messrs Wang & Dunn would do well to heed the words of Confucius, the Master: “thought without learning is perilous” (…思而不學則殆)

Revival of old characters isn't likely

Wang Xiangwei in his China Briefing column is quite right when he says China should reintroduce traditional characters ("How our old characters build culture", October 24).

In addition to cultural factors, there are many practical considerations that recommend such a reintroduction.

First, in an era of digital communications, the speed with which a simplified character, averaging seven strokes, can be written is of lessening importance. A traditional character, averaging 13 strokes, is easier to recognise and distinguish from other characters. Recognition is now the key attribute in reading and writing characters.

Second, traditional characters are much easier to read, not only for Chinese in Hong Kong, Taiwan and elsewhere but also for Japanese and Koreans. With increasing imports from China, Koreans and Japanese have a greater need to access information in Chinese. Use of traditional characters would facilitate that process.

However, the likelihood that China will make such a change is unfortunately quite low.

The central government is of the mindset that any change made today is an admission of mistakes in the past. An obvious example is the one-child policy, which has long outlived its usefulness and has contributed to an imbalance of the sexes and a future of too few workers supporting too many retirees.

Despite the fact that there has been a need for change for many years, that policy continues, largely in its original form.

David Dunn, Beijing

Traditional or simplified? Debate on Chinese characters should be decided by pragmatics, not politics | SCMP | Paul Stapleton

LETTER TO SCMP:

LATER: PUBLISHED 15th JUNE

There's no need for the kerfuffle over use of simplified characters in Hong Kong. (Alex Lo and Paul Stapleton, recently). 

I learnt Chinese as an adult, first in Beijing in the mid-1970s. Being Beijing, I was taught simplified characters. In later full-time study in Hong Kong I learnt the traditional forms. I found this a pretty straightforward process. 

What is rarely mentioned by commenters is this: that simplified characters are most often derived from a cursive version of the traditional.  For example: 言 (yan) is written cursively as 讠. This character is also a common radical, so it is a part of many characters. In one stroke (as it were) you've learnt both forms of hundreds of characters. 

Learning a few basic rules for the connection between simplified and traditional characters allows anyone to be literate in both. In short order. 

By the way, if there's a sensible order in which to learn, it's simplified then traditional: walk before you run. (Though it's no big drama if it's the other way around). 

Take it from me: if I can learn both simplified and traditional forms of Chinese characters anyone can! 

Pf

Harbingers… simplified characters vs traditional characters

We now realise that some seemingly minor things that we’d dismissed as trivial were part of the growing Hong Kong resentment of all things mainland China.
Example: the battles over simplified characters (used in the mainland) and traditional characters (used here in Hong Kong).
I got involved in a couple of  “letter wars” starting in 2011. I asked “what’s the big deal about the spread of simplified characters?“ I wondered why the “brouhaha”, why the “kerfuffle”. My main line was: if I, as an adult gweilo, could learn traditional characters after having learnt simplified ones, surely native speakers could go from traditional to simplified, which is the easier route.  That was “common sense”.
But common sense wasn’t what this was about. It was an emotive issue.
Those in the other side of the debate — railing against simplified characters— saw them as “Beijing influence”. Which resentment they could add to many others, like the “dancing aunties” and Chinese tourists behaving badly. All became part of the “Beijing running Hong Kong” narrative.
The “character wars” were a harbinger of our troubles today.

[Prompted by SCMP article today: “An identity crisis” by Franklin Koo]

“Traditional or simplified, the script is for communication", March 30

LETTER TO THE  EDITOR, SCMP:

I don't understand the brouhaha over learning simplified characters ("Traditional or simplified, the script is for communication", March 30). Surely this is a storm in a teacup. 

I learned Chinese at Peking University in the mid seventies. I learnt simplified characters. 

When I came to Hong Kong I was confronted with traditional characters. I quickly realised that many of the differences were logical and straight forward. Simplified radicals based on pre-existing cursive forms in use for centuries, account for many of the differences. For example, "yan", from 訁to 讠.  These are very quickly mastered. 

It took me just a few months of part-time study to be able to read Hong Kong signage and newspapers in traditional characters. 

Moreover, I suggest it's easier to go from traditional to simplified, rather than the opposite route I did. 

If an adult gweilo 鬼佬  such as me can quickly adapt from simplified to traditional characters, surely local mother-tongue Chinese speakers can go from traditional to simplified even more quickly. 

As for calligraphy, of course it will continue to be done in the more artistically felicitous traditional characters (or even Xu Hong's invented characters).

In short, Hong Kongers should stop moaning and get on with the the job of learning the written form that's used by the vast majority of Chinese.  And one that will enable reading mandarin as it's increasingly written outside China.  It's not about China trying another take-over route.

What's more, it's fun!

Yours, etc....

Happy Niu Year! Year of the Ox -- 牛

3,000 years ago, the character for "Ox, a pretty good pictogram.
Looks like it does today. And is understood the same,
no matter how you pronounce it

 My cross-linguistic pun. “Niu” is the Mandarin pinyin pronunciation of the character:

牛

sounds like “new” and means “Ox”, this our Chinese New Year. So: “Happy Niu Year”!

It beings to mind one of the advantages of China’s pictographic language, over an alphabetic one: everyone can recognise the character and know it means “Ox”, no matter how they pronounce it.

Another example: 你 is pronounced “Ni “ in Mandarin and “Lei” in Cantonese but in both cases means “you”. 我 is pronounced "Wo" in Mandarin and "Ngo" in Cantonese, but in both cases means "I" or "me". 永 is pronounced "Yong" in Mandarin and "Wing" in Cantonese, but in both cases means "Forever". And so on.

[I’ll add a bit more later. Right now I’m prepping dinner, Asian-style salmon and stir-fried veges]

ADDED:

Here: An answer to the question "Why does China remain one of the few countries not to transfer to an alphabet-system of writing". 

[Me: to which I would add: that it helps memorise. I can more easily recall poetry in Chinese than in English. And that's for someone who learnt Chinese as an adult. If that's the case for me, it must even more be the case for native speakers]

Also: the answer below is not the one I was looking for which highlighted the unifying effect of Chinese characters on Qin-dynasty China. Every character was recognised for its meaning, whatever the pronunciation of it.

Whither Hong Kong?

Will Hong Kong “take a knee” to Beijing? Has it done so already? Is it already under the tyrants jackboot? Are we done for?
Or will we confound? As we’ve done for the 23 years since Fortune magazine wrote us off with the cover story, “The Death of Hong Kong”?
Since I live here I’m going to take this position: we will confound.
To do so, we need Beijing to implement the new Security Law with a light hand. That’s a big ask, to be sure.

Why row over Chinese characters when simplified to traditional is one easy step | SCMP

The comments divided over my letter.
Re the one saying that characters are pictograms: sure. I do know that. And learning simplified doesn't do away with learning that.
I also learnt calligraphy and doing so one learns and appreciates the history of characters and also learns cursive.
One asks how can simplified “hou" 后 be cursive of the non-simplified 後. Well, I didn't say all simplified characters were based on cursive just that most were.
Also and by the way I do understand that there's a "cultural" aspect to the issue, more properly a "political" one in that some Hongkongers think it's communist hegemony to have simplified characters.

"Out of the 50,000 Chinese characters, why don't any have circles?"

Shu Fa “calligraphy". Top to bottom, L to R: Seal (Zhuang) Script;
Clerical (Li); Grass (Cao); Running (Xing); Standard (Kai)

"Out of the 50,000 Chinese characters, why don't any have circles?”

Asks someone on Quora, and Alex answers with some interesting observations. If I’d been asked, I’d tend to say that it has something to do with the writing instruments after the development the Greater and Lesser Seal scripts which used hard tipped writing tools. After around the Han dynasty (200BCE) calligraphers began using flexible brushes. This led to standardisation of the strokes and stroke order (summarised in the character yong, 永, “forever” which has all nine). A side effect is it’s hard to write 0 with a brush -- try it and see how unnatural it feels.

Alex makes some interesting points, so copy his answer to the question below, from here:

You have made a fascinating observation that I think does give a lot of insight into Chinese culture.

Please do keep in mind that these are no more than my own very casual reflections:

Chinese script originated in Jiaguwen or oracle bone script, with characters carved onto turtle shells. It would have been somewhat difficult to carve a circle onto a turtle shell, I would imagine: you would need to carve it segment by segment while turning it. (Yet, as some in the comments as well as one of my friends have pointed out to me, it was actually a common element present in these oracle bones. Nonetheless, I would conjecture that it was still slightly more difficult, though the importance of which might be minimal.) Over time, what once were limited by technical difficulties might have become what was normal and what was natural.

Jordan road just now…

LATER (6:00 pm): back home and watching live stream, which is the most trusted news source. Nothing but the staring eye of the camera. No voiceover, no editing.
There’s vandalism going on in Tsim Sha Tsui, Lai Chee Kok, Sham Shui Po, Prince Edward, Mongkok, Cheung Sha Wan. Again, all working class areas. Smashing mainland linked shops. And the MTR. Graffiti on the MTR: 黑狗, hei gou Black dogs. And 黑铁, hei tie, Black Rail (but with the traditional form of 铁 (which I don’t have o my keyboard). You don’t want to write simplified characters these days. Otherwise you’re a running dog 走狗 zou gou of the communists. Lots of dogs).
I was just rethinking my Flying Squad idea: that the police fly in to just the places where they’re vandalising and arrest them. Don’t bother trying to clear whole streets. But for sure the vandals would hear about it and melt like water.
Today shows clearly, as if we didn’t know: there’s a deep, visceral, bitter, frightening  hatred of the police. It used not to be so. Not before June. The police athe enemy, representatives of the hated occupying power, China. The graffiti is “Fuck CCP, Fuck Popo” (popo = police)

********

EARLIER (2:00 pm): Jordan… I’m up the road from Austin road, going north along Nathan road, Hong Kong’s main tourist street, now (2:30) in Jordan road and they’re barricading the streets. There’s one black-clad protester directing traffic. Not a policeman in sight. This is this is control of the streets by random mobs.
Have asked many if they know what the Five Demands (5D). Not a single person knows all five.  Most cite the demand to investigate police “brutality”. Some “democracy” but not sure what they mean by that, though a few mention universal suffrage. I ask what will stop the protests. “The 5D, not one less”.  No response to “but some are impossible”.
It’s like the original demos against the extradition bill. No one had read it. But I forgave that because it was easy to imagine how it could be misused.
Now the misuse seems to be on the other side. Random mobs controlling the streets.
I read and see how in London and Australia people are very upset at the disruptions of the XR mobs. They are NOTHING, compared to this.
And yet if police do try to restore order, it’s “police brutality”. (ADDED: a guy just pissed on the TST police station. I fear for Hong Kong, we have the madness of crowds)

People watch a Bank of China branch get vandalised.
Vandal tourism … Jordan Rd. 

The sound of the Star Spangled Banner, in the background, FFS. A few people have HK colonial flags. Forgetting, or more likely not knowing, that they had less democracy under the Brits than we do now, and that in 1967 riots the troops came out of their barracks, clamped down hard on the demos and 50 people were killed.
It’s looking to ramp up to a bad day… plenty of vandalising. The odd thing is the more violence and vandalism, the more the government gets blamed. Even when they trash the MTR and it has to close, it’s the government’s fault. (“It’s you that taught us peaceful protest is useless”)
Sigh… I think I’ll go watch the Rugby somewhere. Wales v France 

"Look back in anger": Matthew Cheung and the issue of polling public sentiment. (Letter to SCMP)

ADDED:  published 24 November here.

Letter to SCMP, 

You asked for readers' views on Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung's much mocked statement that he "didn't know what the biggest cause of public anger was".  He proposed a recognised international company do a poll of public grievances.

Absolutely! I fully agree. I don't know why it hasn't been done already. I said back in August, that we needed to do a wide-ranging opinion poll.

Of course we know of the "Five Demands" which must be delivered with "not one less". (五大诉求，缺一不可)

But I believe there is rather more to it than that, judging by the words of protesters themselves.  There is a strong tinge of nativism in their anger.  

Consider this from your investigative article on 23 October: 

Their yearnings, as revealed on social media, imagine a Hong Kong where people speak Cantonese, patronise family-run shops and not chain stores and pharmacies catering to mainland Chinese tourists, and care for one another as neighbours in close-knit communities. 

In any other country, in any other context, this would be criticised as the nativist bigotry that it is. Recently the comedian John Cleese was savaged for suggesting that "London is not an English city anymore"; this is exactly the same sentiment we see above ("Hong Kong is not a Cantonese city anymore").

A video by the Washington Post, Anatomy of a Protest features a woman who says that she fears the "invasion" of mainlanders, who "refuse" to learn Cantonese, and only speak their own "dialect"(!), Mandarin.  

Graffiti around Hong Kong calls mainlanders "locusts" and Zhi Na Ren (支那人), the latter a term last used by the invading Japanese in the 1930s. Nothing is more insulting to mainlanders. The graffiti Tian Mie Zhong Gong (天滅中共) — Heaven Destroy the Communist Party —  goes back to early KMT days and was chanted by the Falun Gong. Also insulting. In 2011 I was involved in a debate in these pages over the use of simplified vs traditional characters. I couldn't understand what the hang up was with simplified. Now I know. Simplified = mainland and mainland = bad. [Our locals can dish it out but can't take it. They are incensed — outraged! -- when mainlanders themselves make tart and germane observations about Hong Kong and our protesters].

In short, the hatred of mainlanders is visceral and leads me to the thought that the stated worries about "Beijing interference" are really deep concerns about individual mainlanders (locusts, invaders), not so much things done by officials in Beijing (even given Beijing’s slamming the High Court ruling in face masks). If that's correct, a fair response to the protesters might be "get over it" rather than the molly-coddling and praise of "brave freedom fighters" heaped on them now here and in the international media.

Whether or not I'm correct about this would be flushed out through an international polling exercise. It should have been done long ago. 

(446 words) 

Peter F. etc…

Queues have consequences

“How hard”? Answer: really easy

 Why am I posting this seemingly random clip from today’s South China Morning Post? And why might queueing be “consequential”?

It reminds me of some happenings here in Hong Kong, maybe twenty years ago.

I was in Pacific Place, having a little meal at the wonderful Dan Ryan’s Chicago Grill, one of their chilli bowls and a hamburger that I rate at the best in Hong Hong, arguably the world, juicy, ripe, prime beef grilled to perfection, with sides of pickle and epic chips (“fries” to Americans), thick, crispy on the outside, creamy soft inside. 

I wandered in to a next door shop to buy something for dear spouse. At a Prada.

In the Prada, customers before me, a man under sufferance, leaning on the counter, his ladies, three or four -- wife, mum, sister, perhaps -- trying themselves out with various styles. 

The man leaned, bored, smoking, took a deep draw on his cigarette and blew out an eye cloud. 

Wait. Smoking? Cigarettes?

In a Mall? In the 21st Century?

I can’t remember the last time one could smoke in the Mall of a modern city. 

In any case it was certainly not allowed at the time this fellow was, right there in the Prada shop of Pacific Place.

I said to him, in Mandarin: “Mate, you’d better put that cigarette out. Cause if you don’t the security guys will be along in a bit and they’ll fine you. Like $5,000 ($US642). They do that -- they’re pretty fearsome”. 

He looked at me, puzzled at a huge foreigner confronting him and in his own language. 

He didn’t argue; he also didn’t ignore. He stubbed out his cigarette. But with bad grace. His ladies glared at me. They continued shopping, trying Prada.

When they’d gone the young lady behind the counter said: “Thank you for doing that”. I asked why didn’t they just do what I’d done, tell them they can’t smoke in here. She said they tried that and they were ignored. “Every time we have people from the mainland, they misbehave like this”, she said.

She said they’d tried again and again to stop them smoking (and some other “bad behaviour”), but they were always ignored.

Later, we learnt about more of these “misbehaviours”:  

• Upsets at the use of Chinese simplified characters
• Upsets at parents allowing their toddlers to pee in gutters
• Upsets that Mainlander speak Mandarin and not Cantonese
• Upsets at Mainlanders taking high-paying jobs in finance and other service industries

I followed the 2019 Hong Kong demonstrations day by day, on this blog. One conclusion: they were as much, perhaps more, due to such “upsets”. Annoyance at the different habits of mainlanders. Of which queueing (or failure to do so) is just one example. Sure, a desire for “democracy” was there -- but let’s remember that the demand for “universal suffrage” only became one one of the “Five Demands, Not One Less” after they’d promoted the first version which had, instead, the demand for CE Carrie Lam to resign. The “demand” for “universal suffrage” was an afterthought, never front and centre. Nativist hatred of their mainland cousins played a greater part.

“One Country, Two Systems”

One queues, the other doesn’t

It is as if "Animal Farm" had never been written -- thoughts on the 5 teachers charged with sedition

Re Ann Althouse blog of September 10, a few comments from me, here in Hong Kong.

Disclaimer: I may say some things below which appear to excuse actions of the Chinese Communist Party, and I certainly don’t mean them to be. I first arrived in China as a student at Peking U, in 1976, which was the fag-end of the Cultural Revolution, deep-red socialism, pak-choy socialism, rationing socialism, which experience cured me quickly of the Chardonnay socialism I’d imbibed at Uni in Australia. I’ve no love for Socialism, and no love of Xi Jinping. I’ve criticised it and him many times in the blog I’ve kept for the last 13 years. I certainly don’t want any of what I say below as seen to mitigate or excuse the excesses of Xi and his Leninist cronies.

Althouse says: “I want freedom of speech and abhor the prosecution described here”. Of course, I agree. And of course I have a “but”. Making me an instant member of Salman Rushdie’s “But Brigade”. And I really hate the But Brigade, but...
The Red Lines from Beijing were and are clear. They have been since 1997.
1. No talk of independence for Hong Kong. 

2. No call for any action to undermine the rule of the Chinese Communist Party.
We can talk about anything, except independence or anything that might undermine the rule of the Communist party of China. Those areas aside, anything goes. 

We do not live in a western-style democracy. We are part of China, everyone recognises that both de jure and de facto. Our sovereign is neither a Nice Monarchy nor a Robust Republic. It’s an ancient Confucian state, now run by marxist-leninists. Call is “tyrannical” if you want — as did Lord Patton a while back. I wouldn’t quibble. When you are ruled by a tyrant, you’ve go to be ready for it to act like a tyrant. Don’t be surprised. Don’t be, like the Washington Post, “outraged” when the tyrant acts like a tyrant.
Yet this tyrant has acted rather less harshly than it might have.
Take the 2019 riots we had here in Hong Kong, for the best part of a year. Our very own “mostly peaceful demonstrations”.
Were they really peaceful? No, they were not.
The initially peaceful mass demonstrations had by mid year descended into chaotic trashing of the city. I went along to observe many of them, and we, my wife and I, watched in horror, as our beloved city was put to the torch. Not just occupation and vandalising the Legislative Council and other government offices and of mainland-owned companies, but also of individual companies and even stations on the MTR, our world-best subway.
You object: if they have have at times been a little less than “mostly peaceful” were they not at least “brave warriors fighting for freedom and justice”?
Again, no.
The west pushed that narrative, of course. But if you went on the street and talked to them (and I did) their anger was nativist. They promoted the idea that they were fighting against “encroachment by Beijing” because the western media lapped it up. In reality they hated that more individual mainlanders were coming into Hong Kong — at a rate of 150 a day, agreed during the Asian Financial Crisis as a means of giving economic stimulus to Hong Kong. They were threatened -- they said so, openly -- by mainlanders with their crude money and crude ways. Ways that Cantonese did not like: toddlers piddling in the gutter, spitting, smoking in non-smoking areas. I grant, those are pretty crude and you get a bit leery for fear they will infect your refined (colonial) ways. More serious: mainlanders started landing plum jobs — not through mainland nepotism, but because they were very often better trained, with better degrees — buying local real estate, pushing up property prices in a fraught market. They also got very upset with the use of mandarin and simplified characters.
What about “Beijing Interference”? 

That is, interference from Beijing, at government level, in the operations of Hong Kong? Of course there was some involvement. It would be weird if there were none. Until 2020, any Beijing involvement in Hong Kong matters came through “interpretations” of local laws by the National People’s Congress, but at the request of the Hong Kong government.
Was there any level of malevolent Beijing “interference” that justified rioting? No, there was not.
I know this from personal experience: I was a senior member of the Australian government liaising with the Hong Kong government. Later I founded and ran an education company in Hong Kong, during which I established a lobbying body for the private education industry. We were involved with the Hong Kong government and its legislature, drafting and amending regulations for the education sector. Not once was there any hint of Beijing behind-the-scenes involvement.
The demonstrators were almost all very young, mostly teenagers. I’m gonna go ahead and say: they had not a clue if there were or if there were not any Beijing “interference” in the running of Hong Kong. No idea. ADDED: my wife reminds me that post-handover the Hong Kong school curriculum removed any teaching of Chinese history. Crazy but true.
What these young demonstrators did have was a visceral anger at their cousins from the mainland, coming here and showing them up. That they did not like. And for that they torched our city. In any other context that would be slammed as “racist” though that’s a tough charge when they are literally of the same ethnicity. John Cleese was condemned in the UK, for saying London was “no longer English”. Racist! The Cantonese calumny of their Chinese cousins was the same.
Graffiti Graphics
I remember when I first saw some of the graffiti that shocked me in 2019. Hong Kong was, and is again, a place where there is virtually no graffiti, which I’ve always viewed as a positive, a reflection of the fact that people respect their home. On seeing the 2019 graffiti, vicious attacks on mainlanders and the CCP, I was shocked. And I thought, if this shocks me, how are the Leninist apparatchiks up north going to view this? The'll be freaked!
There were graffiti to “Liberate Hong Kong”, to start a “Modern Revolution” -- and nothing frightens an old revolutionary more than calls for a “revolution”. There were rude, crude and horrid graffiti: “kill the cockroaches from the north”, “stop the mainland locusts”, “CCP: Black Party”, “Let’s Burn together”.
What was surprising was not that Beijing responded to this. This lawlessness. This provocation. What was surprising was that it took so long to do so and that when it did that the response was relatively mild. At the time there was much talk of “Beijing bringing in the tanks” as they had done in June ’89 -- almost as if people were hoping for an extreme reaction so they could demonise Beijing. But not a single PLA soldier left their barracks, except with brooms, to sweep the streets. In the end it was not beasts of war but beasts of law that contained the riots: via the National Security Legislation.
One may argue the merits and demerits of that Law - many say it is too broad -- but whatever, we can’t argue that it was not far more restrained than tanks in the streets.
And so to these “seditious” books.
I’ve just gone over to read them, what’s available at the WaPo story. I’ve discussed them with Jing, my wife, born and brought up in Beijing, a linguist, scholar of Classical Chinese. I note that they’re written in Cantonese. Jing says -- ever the northerner --there's no such thing as “written Cantonese”, rather she says they’re written in combination slang and dialect. In any case, it’s not standard mandarin Chinese, which in itself is an indication of where the teachers are coming from -- let’s cock a snook at Beijing, why don’t we?
Second: that the reference to current events and criticism of Beijing is very obvious. The Chinese are no strangers to abstruse literary allegories. These are pretty in-your-face. The WaPo claims they are “...indirectreferences to social issues.... and implied criticism”. To any Chinese the references are direct and explicit.
This does rather sound like excuse-making, doesn’t it? To repeat: in Hong Kong we don’t live in a Democracy. If you want a full-on democracy where you can vote the president, then Hong Kong is not your place. Never was, never will be (maybe).
We live under the rule of Beijing. Call it a tyranny if you will, call it an Authoritarian-Leninism, call it Fascist-Mercantalism (a case can be made for each). What it most certainly is not is a democracy.
The RED LINES were made clear: do not talk of independence, do not talk of secession, and no blatant attack on the Communist Party. Got that? Ok, go ahead and say and write what you will. (I remember talking to some of the Yellows and they denied that they’d pushed for independence. "But I saw the graffiti with mine own eyes!" I say. Didn’t matter. Denial and deflection)
It’s true that we were -- kind of -- promised we could choose our Chief Executive by universal suffrage. I say “kind of”, because in the Basic Law, our mini-constitution, it says the method for choosing the CE “shall be specified in the light of the actual situation in ... Hong Kong...” with the “ultimate aim” of choosing by universal suffrage. Clearly loopholes you can drive truck through. It’s never been a copper-bottomed guarantee. The rioters in 2019 made sure that the “actual situation” is not that good, and that “ultimate” now means “final, final”.
Do I care? Not much. What I care about, what many care about, is having a Chief Executive who is competent and works for the benefit of Hong Kong. I was in Shanghai when the Mayor was Zhu Rongji. He made a huge and positive difference to Shanghai. If we could have a Zhu Rongji for Hong Kong, then I’m two thumbs up.

Da Big Boss in town

 

Happy July 1. Holiday here in Hong Kong. “Reunification Day”. 回归节. Hui Gui Jie. It happened 25 years ago.

ADDED: Bernard Chan makes the following point in today’s South China Morning Post 

Some things are better since the handover

I’ve questioned the narrative of “Beijing encroachment”. Asked “when, where, how”.
And noted some ways things are better since the handover: like District Council elections which are universal and proper. I’ve taken part in one, as the chairman of an election committee for our candidate. The process was tough and rough fought just like an election anywhere. (We lost).
I wonder how much of the “Beijing encroachment” narrative is actually more day-to-day stuff: mainlanders buying up milk powder, occupying hospital beds, taking top-end jobs, not following queueing etiquette, dancing aunties simplified characters, etc. All grating, perhaps, depending on your patience and tolerance, but not the same as Beijing’s black hand.
And today an article on why there’s such hatred of mainlanders, here.
Meantime in this letter R. Heng (21/10) points out improvements in the rule of law since the handover.
/snip from Heng’s letter…

Do we agree with the protestors? Are we OK? A pinned post

This is when we supported the demos. June: “No Extradition” 反送中

ADDED (5 October 2019): this Post was “pinned” at the top of the blog until 5 October. Now I’m letting it go, to be covered by the sediment of later posts).

Friends ask how we are and what’s going on, so I’m pinning this to the top of the blog. Later posts will be immediately below this one. 

The tag is “HK Demos” or just scroll to browse.

Do we agree with the protestors?

Our short answer: “No”.

Our longer answer: “Yes, but”.

We agreed with the demonstrators at the beginning, in June, when it was about the Extradition Bill.  Even though it was clear that most protestors had not read the proposed legislation, still, we could understand their concern that people in Hong Kong might be tapped by Beijing and then sent to the tender mercies of China’s legal system. Even if the crimes for which extradition applied were very constrained, China has shown itself very inventive when it comes to accusations and certainly would have no trouble concocting accusations to fit the HK requirements for someone they happened not to like.

So, “Yes” we were in favour of the demos against that bill.

But now the movement has degenerated into a bit of a rabble, with reliably violent groups trashing our city every weekend.  The violence is increasingly random, senseless, wanton vandalism. The economic impact is severe. Police are demonised but we think that they’ve been restrained.

The Five Demands （五大诉求) are now Four Demands, as Carrie Lam withdrew the Extradition Bill a few weeks ago.  It doesn’t seem to us that continuing endless demos is going to solve any of the remaining four.  As I said.  And Alex Lo said.

And then there have been other demands tacked onto the original five [ADDED: my longer list here], the most dangerous being the call for independence for Hong Kong. This is simply not on.  Autonomy, yes — “Hong Kong people running Hong Kong, 港人治港 —  but not independence. It’s not in the Basic Law, the constitution of Hong Kong, and it’s not on because Beijing will never in a million years accept it.  The implications for other areas like Tibet, Xinjiang, Mongolia and Taiwan are just too grave for HK independence ever to be allowed.  And Beijing holds all the cards to control Hong Kong: 70% of our fresh water, 23% of our electricity and 93% of our food come from China. Oh, and their army. [My NYT letter]

There are other demands more reasonable, like the demand for more affordable housing. That’s certainly one that we all agree on -- the real estate tycoons aside.  Even Beijing is onside with that one, and ties between Beijing and the property tycoons are fraying. But, again, it’s not one that can be pursued while violence continues.

Are we OK?

Yes indeed, especially here in Discovery Bay.

Marcus and PF at the top of Lantau mountain, behind
our place. Peace and quiet and green

If we didn’t go out to town we wouldn’t even know there was anything amiss.  Even when you do go to town, you can easily avoid the troubled areas.  Occasionally you might get caught -- as a couple of friends of ours did a few weeks back -- but they were not in danger, simply inconvenienced.

It’s true we live a privileged life in a privileged place.  So of course we wouldn’t want our comfort to be upset, would we?  Should’t we put up with some discomfort for the sake of “freedom and democracy”?  Sure, if that’s what it takes. But we have our freedoms.  We have every freedom of any advanced liberal society.  We also have our democracy, just that we need to extend it. And the last time we had the chance to extend it, in 2015, the Pan-democratic parties vetoed the Bill because wasn’t perfect.  So perfection was again the enemy of the good.

For those that say that Beijing is inserting its “dark hand” in the affairs of Hong Kong, I’d ask: when and where?  We’ve been here for forty years, and in all 22 years since 1997, Beijing has been noticeable in its absence.  They have been remarkably hands-off given the fears before 1997.

It is naive to think they literally no influence or involvement in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is, after all, a part of China, even under One Country Two Systems.

They kidnapped three booksellers and paraded them in China making bogus admissions of guilt. But it seems likely it was a rogue operation not approved by Beijing. They were returned to Hong Kong and there’s been no repeat.  There have been five “interpretations” of the Basic Law by China’s National People’s Congress, but in all cases these were sought by pre-emptively pliant Hong Kong government, not Beijing.

It’s far more likely that the “interference by Beijing” is more to do with day-to-day issues: mainlanders buying property, pushing up prices, they come in droves to buy up milk powder because they don’t trust the mainland product, they have “dancing aunties” making all sorts of noise in their daily callisthenics, they use simplified characters instead of the traditional ones used in Hong Kong, they don’t queue property, tourists behave badly, and so it goes on..... These have been festering for years now, and have bubbled to the surface.  And so, it all gets lumped in to “Beijing interference” because that plays better.

And yet, and yet, the irony is that in fighting this bogey of “Chinese interference”, the demonstrators risk bringing in the bogeyman.  And that’s why we no longer support the demonstrators.  They risk losing all that we already have.  They say “burn with us”. And we say, no thanks. We don’t want to burn at the hands of teenage millenarians.

My comment published in New York Times, 16 September 2019:

I live in Hong Kong, speak and write Mandarin and Cantonese. I’ve owned a business here. I welcome a Hong Kong anthem. And I've marched with the anti-extradition law demonstrations. But now they've gone too far. Every week, there’s wanton, senseless violence. Over half MTR Stations are damaged. 80 petrol bombs on a Sunday. A mainlander beaten senseless. Business is down 50%, workers are being laid off. Mass bankruptcies and unemployment will follow. And this, we cheer? Hong Kong has freedom of assembly, freedom of thought, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, freedom of the media, freedom of trade and — when the protesters allow — freedom of movement. This is not some third world dictatorship trying to overthrow a brutal despot. We are a modern, open and vibrant society. That is, until violent protesters bring it down (their avowed aim). The government certainly bears responsibility. And I’m no fan of Beijing. But please note Beijing is hanging back, save to make the useful recommendation to resume land to provide public housing. For those that speak of the “dark hand” of Beijing, I’d ask them for examples. We do not need bleeding hearts in the west swooning over these “brave young freedom fighters”. The violent part of the movement is senseless and destructive. We need some peace and quiet to get on with meeting protesters remaining four demands, some of which can be met, some of which will need to go to LegCo, according the Basic Law, which is our constitution.

City records 1.2pc drop in population as emigration rises

Today’s page 3. SCMP

The figures to note:in the year to end June 2021 almost 90,000 people emigrated from Hong Kong. In the same period almost 14,000 mainlanders immigrated. 

Right-wingers would call that a process of “replacement”. Well, not just right wingers. The students out in the streets, demonstrating and rioting, back in 2019, calling for “freedom and democracy” were also driven by fear of “replacement” as I found at the time. They were worried about mainlanders taking over their jobs, bringing their uncouth habits, smoking in shopping malls, letting their toddlers urinate in the streets, not queueing properly, talking loudly, talking … [shudder] …Mandarin!

It was this fear of mainlandisation that drove the protests. Or, at least, more so than the demands for freedom and democracy. They had their “Five demands; Not one less” (五大诉求，缺一不可 Wu da Suqiu, Que Yi Bu Ke). Initially not a single one of the Five Demands was for universal suffrage. When they realised this was not a good look for freedom and democracy activists, they replaced the fifth Demand — the one demanding our hapless Chief executive Carrie Lam resign — with the Demand for universal suffrage. But all along it was a fear, a nativist fear, that Hong Kong was being overtaken by mainland people and customs. That Hongkongers, Cantonese speakers, were being replaced. How do we know this? Because they said it. Openly. As I noted at the time,  eg here.

And it continues, now exacerbated by the outflow —  more than 6 times the inflow of mainlanders.

Me, I’ve got no issue with it. When I started noticing, a decade or so ago, that there was more Mandarin spoken around me, I was fine with it — I speak the language! I lived in China! The mainland!  But it wasn’t clear to me until 2019 just how much the locals resented mainlanders. Their cousins, after all. I’d had hints of it when I got into some spats with locals over the use of simplified Chinese characters (a mainland thing) vs Traditional characters (a Hong Kong and Taiwan thing).

When I did realise the full extent of the resentment, the vitriolic hatred even, towards mainlanders by locals — some of whom, a shockingly large number of whom had never even been to the mainland (!) — I thought it a kind of racism. Except they’re all Han. So maybe just a kid of bigotry. Certainly a kind of xenophobia. 

What else about a declining population? Will the trend it endure? We don’t know. But seems likely at least to slow growth. Long-term planning has assumed a population upwards of nine million by 2050. That doesn’t seem likely.  How does that affect policies, housing, schooling, environment, etc? I wait and see… 

And that wait will be here in Hong Kong. At least for now; at least as long as there's free access to the internet. If that is censored, then there's Plan B. Having Australia as a Plan B is a pretty good fall-back option....

A question of character

The South China Morning Post carried my letter yesterday on the recent kerfuffle in Hong Kong over simplified vs traditional Chinese characters.  Some in Hong Kong think that having subtitles on some TV programs is an attempt by mainland China to exert its sovereignty.

SCMP, 7 April '16