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| “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
