The Perfect Political System

Recent events in Australian politics had put me off writing social opinion pieces. Not that I have become less opinionated, but I just feel like I couldn’t be bothered anymore. The disappointment on both sides of the so-called Australian politics was just too overwhelming. However one of the discussions at tonight’s ABC’s “Q and A” got me thinking about something – is there really a perfect political system? Is politics ever meant to be for the benefit of the society?

These questions came about when they discussed about how China refuses to change politically but embraced western economic systems with open arms. They questioned how this is possible and whether this is, to an extent responsible. Now there is no doubt that China has become the core of the global economy. A lot of things, if not everything, are hinged on the Chinese market. When Deng Xiaoping opened up China economically, there was never an intention to change its core political ideology. This is why we have what we now called the June 4 Incident. The greatest concession China ever made was to establish the “One Country Two Systems” first with Hong Kong then with Macau. Even that, the autonomy is not complete and there were tensions from time to time over ideological controls.

People might condemn the political practice in China, but one thing I think a lot of people were never aware of was that China never really had a prolonged history of democracy. The Kuomingtang (KMT) Government was short-lived and corruption ridden, which I personally do not think left a good impression on the people of China at that time. Otherwise the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would not have a chance to undermine them during the war against Japan, which eventually led to the civil war and the KMT fled to Taiwan. So strictly speaking, China has been mostly under dynastic rules of successive kings and then a one party rule of the modern government. The good part of this is that things get done. I personally do not think the Great Wall of China would come into being if it were under democratic rules. No matter how much people criticised the Communist Party, they did get things done and brought China back up from the “Slicing of the Chinese melon” status to now a major player in international politics. This is the strength of single power rule. Similarly, Hong Kong never had real democracy under the British colonial rule. And at that time lots of things got done and Hong Kong evolved from a small fishing village to now a economically important metropolitan. Looking at now, with people throwing bananas in the semi-democratic Legislative Council, councillors seemed to have lost sight of what they were supposed to do.

These kinds of issue do happen in the western democratic establishments. The recent Australian election was just a farce of who is going to be voted out rather than which capable person is going to be voted in. There is no doubt that Labor lost because people wanted to vote them out and the Coalition won because people wanted to vote the Labor out. Tony Abott is not a popular choice to represent Australia with his “suppository of knowledge” and his decision to shy away from “Q and A” to debate with Kevin Rudd but appeared on “Big Brother” to talk up the hotness of his daughters. Democracy as great as it sounds, at the end of the day is just another tool of the privileged few. This was further proved last week when the American Government was shut down because the Republicans were playing their political games. These politicians, under the banner of democracy were supposed to seek benefit for the general public they claim to be representing. However, the government shut down saga exposed that all they cared about were their own power at the expense of average families getting paid so they could pay their bills.

Another common thread in all political systems is the act of corruption. We always hear about how corrupted in China is because of the one party rule. There is no doubt about that. The system has become so nepotic that it is virtually a family and good friends business. However one thing people tend to forget is that corruption exists in western democracy too. Australian political scene is constantly marred by corruption from council to state levels. Australia might have better systems to detect and litigate corruptive acts but if they think they are better than developing countries and non-democratic entities, they are just see the spike in other people’s eyes without seeing the logs in their own.

Of course there is the issue of oppression and persecution that were commonly exposed under single power systems.  The Cultural Revolution would always be remembered and not to mention stories from Iran, Iraq, Syria and North Korea. However, does that mean under democratic rules there would be no persecution and oppression? I personally do not believe so. These practices still happen but unlike the red terror that involves blood, under democracy it became things that played out in courts or during parliamentary sessions where people expose each other’s dark secrets to shut other people up. Maybe the pen is mightier than the sword, but in politics both are equally deadly.

To be honest I do not have an answer to what political system is better. For me if Adam and Eve were not left to their own device, we could still be enjoying free lunches in the Garden of Eden instead of working hard to pay our bills. So it seems right from the beginning mankind is not capable of self-governing. God might have given us a brain to figure things out and thus all those political ideologies and system, but maybe at the end we still need a divine intervention to set us straight. Could this be global warming? I don’t know. But the question is if this divine intervention arrives, where could we go? As we are no longer living in any paradise anymore.

Hong Kong - 16 Years On

On 1 July 1997 Hong Kong was finally returned to the People’s Republic of China and thus ended 150 years of British colonial rule. It was a big day for China and a mixed one for the Hong Kong people. I was not there at that time because I preferred to keep myself distanced from this whole thing and went overseas to Hawaii for the sunshine and beaches. Nonetheless, I still watched the broadcast on CNN. I also spoke on the phone with my parents. That year that day, the sky was pouring torrential rain in Hong Kong and everything was drenched. I was joking about that with my parents saying that even the heavens were mourning over the change.

16 years onward, 1 July is still a day of mixed feelings for a lot of Hongkongese. This year under the torrential rain brought by a potential typhoon attack, around a 100 thousand people took it to the streets to voice their discontent with the current political situation. This is the 10th year for the 1 July demonstration. I personally had not participated in anyone of them as I moved overseas not long shortly after the handover. I was in need for an identity I could identify myself with. However this does not mean I care less (or couldn’t care less) about Hong Kong. I still have family and friends there and I still make regular visit to this Pearl of the Orient.

A lot of people continued to ask me whether Hong Kong has changed since the handover. My usual reply is “how could there be no change?”  Hong Kong was promised with 50 years of political stability and a status of autonomy through the establishment of the Special Administrative Region, and China seems to be keeping its promise. However, there were subtle things in the past 16 years that still triggered the nerves of the Hong Kong people. One of them was the progress for democratisation. The people of Hong Kong have been fighting for greater autonomy through a more progressive movement for democratisation, especially the ability to choose its own Chief Executive. However, the pace has been lacking and the discontent against this has grown with time. The fact is Hong Kong never had democracy and was doing very well, so why fighting for it now?

Personally, I think this reflects the continued distrust of the Hong Kong people with the Chinese government.  The irony is that in my opinion the Chinese government has been extremely tolerant with what is happening in Hong Kong and in fact has been pouring resources into Hong Kong to keep this place vibrant. So what cause this distrust prevailing in Hong Kong? One of the reasons I could think of was that China has never recovered from the image it established during the “June 4 Incident” in 1989. Certainly, there were already a few generations of leaders since then, but from the Hong Kong people point of view (probably also some international politicians too), it was a public display that the Chinese authority could turn hostile at any time and the only way to secure a stable and free future is to have democracy in Hong Kong.

Another reason for this fight for democracy was the incompetence of the current Hong Kong Government to present itself as autonomy. There were three Chief Executives since the handover so far and none of them was able to make the Hong Kong people feel “secure”. The first Chief Executive Tung Chee-Hwa proved to be incapable of governing despite earning the good wills of the Chinese authorities initially. Donald Tsang, an ex-government official who succeeded him was initially seen as a “Hong Kong local”. However, his background as an ex-colonial official and his position of being torn between the pro-China and pro-Hong Kong sectors exhausted his ability to govern. Further the later scandals about potential corruption had further tarnished his reputation as the Chief Executive. The latest and current Chief Executive CY Leung has long been regarded as the brown nosing kid for China who couldn’t be trusted. Further his dirty tactics during the “election” against Henry Tang and his repeated lies about his wrong doings uncovered by the media had further eroded people’s respect for him across the territory. However, in my opinion, the major concern for the Hong Kong people was that they did not exactly see these Chief Executives as their representatives to the Chinese authority. This is because they were elected by a small circle up high and the Hong Kong people never had a chance to choose.

For me being able to choose the Chief Executive of Hong Kong is a comforting move that the Chinese authority failed to see. It is not just about democracy but about the feelings that the Hong Kong people have. Simply able to choose who represents could them could make them feel that at least they were being heard. However, from the Chinese authorities’ point of view, they do not want to see anyone from the democratic camp to win the general election and become a sore in the eye for them. But what the Chinese authority failed to see is the great pacifying effect that a general election could bring to Hong Kong. The fact is once this aspect is being satisfied, Hong Kong would be a lot more stable and this could only work to the advantage of the Chinese government both economically and politically. This is not about ideology but practicality. At the end of the day, quality golden eggs could only be laid by a goose that is happily satisfied with life.

The Big Brother Politics of Australia - The Recent Labor Leadership Spill

Ok the bloodbath is over. It was quite a frantic week in the Australian politics. There was yet another leadership spill and finally after several attempts Julia Gillard was removed and Kevin Rudd was reinstated. Watching this whole saga unfolding was like watching some bad reality series of six seasons – there is nothing left to exploit with the characters, so please move on to the finale already.

Although it feels like a cliff hanger on the day of the saga, it was of little surprise that Julia was finally replaced by Kevin.  Labor has been really bad in polls. As bullish as they wanted to be, they all know, well we all know, well the whole world knows that as long as the Liberals are willing to attend the party, the government is ready there at the buffet table in September. It is only a matter of how many dishes they could consume. So replacing Julia with Kevin is a desperate move at a desperate time for the Labor party.  The question now is how long would Kevin last? The thing is I don’t think Kevin is very popular still inside the Labor Party but he has become the necessary evil for the party to stay in power. What could happen is a year or two down the road they might try to replace him again. However, this would risk the Labor losing the remaining trust of the Australian public in them, and it would take a long time for them to recover from that (and this would be bad news for Bill Shorten).

As for Julia, she probably would “retire” and enjoy her latte (does she drink latte? Or would she prefer mocha or flat white?) for a little while with her 200K per year life pension before going back into her high paying legal profession or starting a consultation business for private companies. Either way, she is better off both financially and personally for life. A lot of people still think that Julia got removed because she is a woman. Seriously, this might play a part but then at the same time the truth is she never recovered from the “backstabber” image when she replaced Kevin 3 years ago. With this ghoul on her back, it would be hard for her to recover in any sense. And as much as a lot of people want to deny it, Australian politics has become a reality TV series and who wins the competition is based on image and popularity. Also Julia, as much as she wanted to do good the fact that we got one new tax after another after being promised with no new taxes at the last election just further cemented her image as a “liar” (although I personally did not agree with how certain media or media personalities treated her in this aspect).

So what are we, as Australians left with? Well, Tony Abbott now has a new A game to play against. And as a B game player, he would need to work much harder to get the job he desperately and unshamingly wants. In the past few years, he has been resolving to two roles only – producer of the series “Julia Gillard as a liar” and the producer of the B grade horror series “I Don’t Know What You Did Today and Ever After But It Is Scary Anyway”. Now with Kevin at the helm of the “New Labor” and he being the expert of those roles (we have already seen this from his “acceptance” speech), Tony Abbott needs to find new tactics to deal with this “new opponent”. The thing is Tony was never tested against Kevin. While Tony, despite his lack of intelligence speeches one after another, was seen as an easy win against Julia in the past few months. However, this last minute switch over immediately rings the alarm bell for the Liberals. Polls already showed a surge of support to Kevin Rudd against Tony Abbott. And for Kevin to stay in this honeymoon popularity, he only needs to continue exercising his charm and cashing in the last bit of sympathy from the Australian public. But for Tony Abbott, he really needs to step up with his intelligence and stop saying silly things such as “Malcolm Turnbull virtually invented the Internet in Australia” in the public (could you imagine him saying that when meeting other international heads of state?).  This is because Kevin Rudd would not hesitate to exploit all these silliness and further paints him as an idiot to the public. If Kevin Rudd is good with anything, he is a master of the reality show. He knows where he could solicit public support and let his opponents to undo themselves and go under.

Without a doubt the reality series of the Australian politics has got a dramatic turn last week. But how long would this sustain the public’s interest is still yet to be seen. The next few months would be crucial as I could see that the Liberals would not hesitate to play dirty (as they always do) while the Labors would be taking every opportunity to milk any mishaps from the opposing camps. As for the Australian public, unfortunately they would have no choice but continue to follow this reality series for as long as it lasts.

The Fight of 457 Visa

The recent debate about the change of the 457 Visa requirements has sparked debates on whether it is a racist policy in the public arena. For readers overseas, the 457 Visa allows employers to sponsor overseas workers to Australia to “fill certain skill gaps”. However, after the repeal of requirement in 2001 by the Liberal Howard Government to mean test the skill set shortage to do so, it has been regarded as a means for some employers to just freely import foreign workers at a lower cost. This puts the local Australian workforce at risk as they are competing at a lower wage with foreign workers who might have similar skill sets. The situation is similar to bringing manufacturing outsourcing at a lower cost into the country.

The Labor Party is keen to change it to reinstate the requirement for skill mean testing so the system would not be, according them, “rotted”. While the Unions are very welcoming about this policy change, it is not so much with employers who claimed that it would make employing foreign workers harder and “does not meet the labour market needs”. As missiles were shot all over the place, especially with Don Randall, a Liberal MP said the policy as racist, I can’t help but think, is that so?

As a migrant myself, I look at the situation from a different point of view. While the 457 Visa gives foreign workers are way to come to Australia, are we doing it in the right way? Certainly, there might be skill sets and expertise that are not available, especially when we talk about high level positions or highly specialised professions, but for example, is it really that hard to find, for example a baker for a bakery that operates by Mr Randall? I don’t want to sound sarcastic or anything, but with hundreds of people trying out Masterchef every year, and now a new reality series just about baking, is it really that hard to find a local baker to do the baking for Mr Randall? Or is it actually just cheaper to hire one from Vietnam (as he did) and lower the overhead? Is Mr Randall really passionate about the diversity of the Australian society or he is more passionate about more bread at a lower cost?

What really bugs me about Mr Randall’s comment is his using of racism as an attack to the bill. I mean seriously? Certainly now even in the Parliament there is a reflection of cultural diversity with Penny Wong becoming the sore in the eyes for a lot of Liberal MPs, so how is a policy that helps the ethnically diversed Australian workforce racist? The thing is, in case Mr Randall does not know, Australia, I mean modern Australia, not the one Mr Randall might have grown up in, is made up by a huge diversity of ethnicities. So can I ask Mr Randall how in the world that a policy aiming to protect this huge diversity of people in Australia be considered as racist? I am Australian and I don’t think it is racist. If Mr Randall thinks that by throwing this out he is doing his "White Man Duty" to protect the minorities, maybe it is a bit 20 years too late.

As some said the policy is xenophobic, maybe it is from a certain angle, but then the policy change is not about shutting out people from Australia but to ensure that employers source for suitable candidates within the country first before going external. This applies to a lot of companies that usually open up new positions internally first before going out to external recruitment when a candidate for the position could not be found. So from this angle, I don’t see how the policy is xenophobic. With projected unemployment rate hitting 6% in Australia soon, isn’t it the Government’s duty to protect the Australian workforce? If you look at other countries in the world, you might understand that working overseas, for example in the States is not as easy as you think either. So why should Australia give employers who only want to import cheap workers a free ride?

How the whole saga would unfold is still yet to be seen but I personally do think that if a policy is about promoting fairness to the people that a Government is responsible for, then people should put away their personal agenda, be it to just say no to a cabinet he doesn’t like or just felt that he would be gravely affected, to support that is something generally good for the Australian society. Then again, as I usually do, do these politicians actually care about the Australian public? Or they care more about their own jobs and financial security?

Forget Me Not? - June 4 1989

I have been avoiding writing a piece about the June 4 Incident around that time to avoid getting too emotional and not objective enough. It is more than a week after that day so I think I could start writing now.

On 4 June 1989 the Chinese government mobilised its army to “clear the venue” of protestors. The event was termed differently in different countries. While in Hong Kong we termed it as the June 4 Incident, in most parts of the western world it was regarded as the “Tiananmen Square Massacre”. That night a lot of people died, more people’s souls did too.

Fast forward to present, nearly 25 years after that fateful night, the Chinese community in Hong Kong is still commemorating this day; and for the west, probably less so. However, this year in Hong Kong, for the first time there were people saying that we should forget about the June 4 Incident and move forward. These suggestions ignited another series of debates across the semi-autonomous Chinese territory.

Hong Kong had undergone a lot of changes. Whenever people knew that I was originally from Hong Kong they are interested to know whether Hong Kong has changed since the hand over in 1997. I would tell them change is expected so of course there are changes. While changes are structural and political, core values seemed to be remaining quite intact. Hong Kong is still a “work hard and live a good life” kind of place. However, as the wheel of time continues to turn, ideologies in Hong Kong have evolved too. I remember earlier this year when I was back for a family affair, I saw a TV forum discussing about what does it mean to be a person who loves his country – referring to China. The slogan of “Loving China, Loving Hong Kong” has been around for ages since the hand over, but the meaning differs to different groups of people. At the forum there was a girl representing the “China came first” camp. As I watched the debate unfolded, I was astonished by the bullying attitude she had whenever the discussion did not go her way. She would point her finger and tell people off in an authoritative way and also trying to shut people up by talking over them. My jaws dropped as I had never seen anything like that on Hong Kong TV before. TV forums are known to be civilised and rational, until that night.

At that time I thought “Yeah Hong Kong really has changed” and didn’t think about it much further. However, the recent comment from some people about forgetting June 4 really triggered a nerve in me. I was disappointed – how could you forget an incident when so many people lost their lives in one night? Not matter what your take is on this event, it is still in our history and forgetting this part of the history is not something that anyone should do. Does that mean we don’t need to learn anything about this anymore? Does that mean that lives lost are no longer valuable anymore? Or we are just applying the “Winner takes it all” principle to this pivotal historical incident in the Chinese history? Surely time had moved on and so does life, but then when we talk about June 4, it is not just something that should be taken lightly. China certainly doesn’t when you see how they usually tighten security in Tiananmen Square every year around this date. So if the Chinese government has not forgotten about this date (surely they learnt something out of this disregarding the outcome) should the people of Hong Kong be doing so? If Hong Kong no longer cares about what it stands for in Chinese history, is there still a role for Hong Kong being a Special Administrative Region in China? These were the questions I had in my head at that time.

Certainly, I don’t want to get too emotional or worked up about this whole thing, but then I did feel that if one wants to erase the June 4 Incident, they are no different from  people who wanted to erase the fact that Japan did invade China during the World War II. If they want to remember the latter, they have to remember the former – one cannot be so double standard about history, especially history involving the loss of lives. In my opinion, any suggestion to discount something of such importance is a step to the dark side of humanity – and that would bring no good to anyone.

Council Merger a Political Game?

The recent debate about the merging of councils is another demonstration of political arrogance. Currently there are about 37 councils around Sydney. Each of them is responsible for dealing with local issues from approving development of properties to keeping the streets safe from fallen branches. The talks of merging councils were along the line of operational efficiency and economy of scale. However, as a person who has appreciated what my local council (Randwick) had done for the area, I seriously doubt the motivation behind this is purely operational.

I don’t want to point finger to anyone but it was already pointed out by academics that merging councils could not achieve economy of scale so that particular argument is already proved to be bogus. However, as a common local resident, I could see all the detrimental problems that could be caused by such merger.

First of all, local councils operate within the local setting. Thus they are more familiar with what is happening locally and what the local concerns are, and more importantly where do those concerns come from. Just think about this, residents of Leichhardt, an inner west suburb would have different concerns as compared to residents of say Coogee, a beach side suburb. The reasons behind these concerns would be completely different even if it looks like they are the same e.g. a development proposal application for expanding a house or building an apartment block. With a mega council that focuses on “efficiency” and economy of scale overseeing these diversely different areas, I doubt any in depth investigation would be carried out to sort out the rationale behind these seemingly similar concerns. What would result is that a “one-size fits all” solution to be applied to similar issues that would in the end resolve nothing and left everyone unhappy.

Another potential issue that I can see with the merger of local councils is that there would be a lack of understanding of the local situation. For example, if the new headquarter of the mega council was located in the city people would be commuting to the city to work. Unless these people needed to travel from the relevant suburb to work, they would not have a sufficient understand of local situations to carry out informed decisions. For instance, a mayor who lives only in the inner city suburb would not be able to understand traffic situations in the roads around the Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick during the peak hours unless he / she makes an effort to go there. Even so, without a day in day out experience of the local situation, there surely would be gaps in local knowledge about these situations. Under such circumstance could we still rely on the mega council to make correct and informed decisions?

Also no matter how the structure of the new mega council is sculpted one question remains – who is going to make decisions of local issues? How many layers of bureaucracy is required to have an application or complaint being dealt with? Also with so many areas involved, how are jobs being prioritised using standards that are fair and equal to residents of all areas? I wonder whether all these logistic issues were considered before someone throwing out such merger proposal in the name of economy of scale. Personally I think helping residents is not just about saving money but what you can really offer. If you lose sight of this there is no point of being in a government service, which I think we already have enough half-hearted politicians in the State and Federal levels. Also we have already throughout the years witnessed the detrimental effect of decisions made purely out of the aim save money. What we need is better financial management for certain councils not merge them to save money.

If the purpose of the merger is for economy of scales, there bound to be restructuring and lay offs in the mega council to trim “duplicate functions” that currently reside in individual councils. That could leave us with less people doing the same job because a number of roles were considered as “duplicate” locally. How would that be more efficient then? People who propose that might argue that this would not happen but to be honest, have we seen any merger in history that did not result in restructuring and layoffs?

Further, one of my biggest concerns is about the responsibility of these mayors after the merger. When a mega council is created, it will cover suburbs of greatly diverse cultures and people. However, to get re-elected, extensive local approval is completely out of the window as people who want to be elected only need to focus in certain areas, e.g. wealthier suburbs like Potts Point and Darlighurst. This lack of need for local approval as a scrutinising mechanism of performance for councils would only contribute to further dis-engagement of the mega council with certain localities. I personally do not think that this is a healthy way to go to manage local areas and suburbs.

One of the arguments about merging the councils is to reduce the chance of corruption. This argument lacks weight in my opinion as corruption happens if it needs to happen, no matter what your structure is. The only way to avoid corruption is to have tougher sentences and more comprehensive administrative mechanisms to avoid them. Also education is key to reduce mechanism. Corruption is an evil that I personally do not think could be eliminated by any structural management. It would be naïve and unrealistic to put this as an argument for the formation of a mega council.

I personally genuinely hope that this merger would fall apart. However, if the call is in those politicians’ hands, I doubt that this kind of consultation would end up in a non-merger. I sincerely hope that some responsible local mayors would have enough weight to stop this kind of crazy ideas to become a reality.

One Country Two People

It is no secret that since the opening of Hong Kong to Chinese travellers tensions between the two areas have been building. The difference in culture and life style had become more and more apparent and clashes in these areas have escalated discontents between the two groups of people under the One Country Two Systems rule. These issues were brought to the forefront earlier this year when a new television show portrayed them point blank at the audience. There were backlashes and supports alike. The New York Times even covered that in one of their articles.  But the issue here was, if these problems do not exist there would not be material to be put on. Further does avoiding such issue by not talking about them help at all?

The show went on from being sanctioned in China (the southern region of China can receive television signals from Hong Kong, but all ad times and news were replaced by “local” contents instead) to become one of the most popular shows in Hong Kong as people started to appreciate it in a different light. But the issues that were raised continue to exist and continue to pose problems across the borders.

Opening Hong Kong for Chinese tourists to visit was a measure adopted to save the Hong Kong economy during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC, which was also known as the Financial Tsunami locally). The measure did save the Hong Kong economy as a lot of wealthy Chinese tourists took advantage of this opportunity to come to this shopping paradise and buy genuine products (as compared to the predominance of counterfeit products in the mainland). This kept the retail business alive and thus the general economy. It was a great move, but then it opened up something that was more deep-rooted – the difference in life style and perception between the very distinct groups of people.

Hong Kong people have prided themselves as the more etiquette trained and sophisticated group as compared to the mainlanders (people from mainland China). The colonial rule probably had done good to “class up” Hong Kong in a way that common social etiquettes were well observed and respects for others are highly valued. So it is not surprising that the more “earthly” behaviours of a number of Chinese visitors continued to cause discontents among the Hong Kong residents. Before the influx of Chinese visitors, in the up market CBD and shopping areas, there weren’t people squatting along the streets smoking. Also spitting in the streets was virtually eliminated after decades of continued education. So it is not surprising when all these happened, a lot of Hongkongers were very upset. However, this was tolerated at that time because they needed these visitors for the money.

However as the economy recovers and the need for this money lessens, Hongkongers have become less and less tolerant. At the same, the mainlanders who still think that they are “doing Hong Kong a favour” have grown more and more arrogant. Under such circumstance, clashes are bound to happen. Last year when a certain brand name specialty shop started to blatantly practice favouritism to mainland shoppers (which was understandable as these shoppers do shop without considering the price), it caused an outrage among the Hong Kong communities. Further when stories about the complete lack of respect to the Hong Kong society by mainlanders such as parents asking kids to urinate or even excrete on public transport or in front of other people’s shops surfaced, tensions between the two groups of Chinese immediately reached new levels.

In the midst of all these, Hongkongers is by no means pure and innocent either. There were local companies that organise these tours aiming to rip off mainland tourists. Stories about tourists being forced to shop at overpriced outlets were not uncommon. These so called “shopping tours” were very cheap to sign up for but people who joined would be butchered financially during the trip. These unsuspecting victims soon started to fight back by complaining and going to the media. Calls for compensations were frequent. Funny enough though, it seems that recently some of these mainlanders were skilful enough to even exploit these by signing up and then complain to the media asking for compensations that were a lot higher than their sign up costs.

Having moved overseas for some time now, I was repeatedly told by my friends in Hong Kong that I am lucky that I do not need to tolerate or deal with these mainlanders. Nonetheless, I was by no means immuned from them during my last visit home. Mum and I were at the check out of a shop in Tsimshatsui, one of the major shopping districts, when mum was pushed aside aggressively (they nearly knocked her down) by a group of Chinese women jumping the queue to the cashier. I was shocked to experience this first hand but immediately could understand the anger of the Hongkongers when considering this is what they are dealing with day in day out.

There is really no easy solution to this. The mainlanders and Hongkongers are basically two distinct groups of people. As nice as it sounds to have a unification the social differences would continue to exist until the current generations of Hongkongers disappear. But this will take decades to happen. The lack of intervention form both sides of the border did not help either. It seems that at this point it is really up to the civilians to tackle this difficult problem, but I don’t see either party would be giving in. I am sad to see that it comes to this but then being sad about something that has no solution did not help either. I just sincerely hope that one day this could be resolved in a civilised manner and the two territories could have a real unification for the better of the Chinese race, if that is going to happen at all in my life time. 

It was a glorious moment for China, but has the shine worn off?