If music be the food of love, play not

Hong Kong's Education Secretary Kevin Yeung has instructed that: “Schools must not allow their students to play, sing or broadcast any songs which will disrupt the normal operation of schools, affect students’ emotions or contain political messages.”  Well, there goes the music syllabus!

Lessons in Stupidity

I'd like to teach the world not to sing

As the national anthem law comes into force, just over a year after the start of the Hong Kong protest movement, Education Secretary and all-round wanker Kevin Yeung declares that schoolchildren will be prohibited from singing songs in school which contain political messages expressing a political stance. So, no "March of the Volunteers" then?

Legal disclaimer: I am not insulting the national anthem, only the jerks who seek to use it as another weapon in their campaign to remove Hong Kong's freedoms.  "Arise, ye who refuse to be slaves!" is a truly noble sentiment - in the right context.

All that education and still stupid as sh*t

You have to wonder what is wrong with Chief Executive Carrie Lam.  She's supposed to be highly intelligent - invariably number one in class, head girl at school, educated at top universities in Hong Kong and the UK, years of experience as a senior civil servant - yet it is clear she is as out of her depth now as Bob Dylan's Mr Jones..  The two biggest mass protests ever in Hong Kong, and she doesn't get the message.  Six months of violent clashes, and she doesn't get the message.  Now the biggest electoral drubbing in history for the pro-government parties, and she still doesn't get the message.  Public opinion polls show her popularity rating at  unprecedented lows, and that more than half of Hongkongers have zero trust in the police, and - need I repeat myself?

Hong Kong voted massively for change, yet all Lam continues to deliver is hand-wringing, platitudes and empty promises.  For all her talk of listening humbly to the people, I think the problem is that humility is not in her nature.  Southern District Councillor Paul Zimmerman's analysis seems spot on: instead of thinking "the people have spoken; I must respond", her attitude is "the people are attacking me; I must fight back".  That does not bode well for Hong Kong's future.

I'm liberal, but to a degree

A&E – the difference between

In British slang, it is commonly said of an ignorant person that he "doesn't know his arse from his elbow".  However, one would expect medically-trained individuals to have a somewhat more accurate grasp of basic human anatomy.  Sadly, an elderly patient in Queen Elizabeth Hospital recently found herself the victim of incompetent radiology staff who don't appear to know the arse from the other nearby orifice. As one medical specialist drily commented, "it should not have happened because there were usually no difficulties locating the vagina and anus" – something most of us learn quite early in life.

Is that how it's speld?

"Jettison Held" says the Doctor Who soundtrack.  Unfortunately someone in the BBC Props Department seems to need spelling lessons!

Rotten to the Core

Freedom of Speech Hong Kong style:

Text - Article 27 
Hong Kong residents shall have freedom of speech, of the press and of publication; freedom of association, of assembly, of procession and of demonstration; and the right and freedom to form and join trade unions, and to strike.   [Basic Law of Hong Kong]

Subtext - so long as they only say what we like.

By the way, did KMB read that last part?

Almost Right

But not spelling, apparently!

Melania speaks her mind - well, her speechwriter's mind, anyway

Odd Things Happening All Over

"Very odd things are happening nowadays in the Legislative Council," says Chief Secretary Carrie Lam.  And how right she is - there is the spectacle, for example, of her government colleague, Secretary for Commerce & Economic Development Greg So, arguing that the government can't approve the amendments to the Copyright Amendment Bill proposed by the pan-democrats because "they haven't been thoroughly discussed with the public".  In other words, he is arguing that LegCo should pass the bill even though, on his own admission, it has not been the subject of adequate public discussion.

It seems to be becoming a habit for this government to argue that something must be implemented immediately despite widespread objections, usually with the sop that it can be reviewed some time later (which it probably never will be).  One example of this was of course the fake universal suffrage bill.  Clearly they have never heard of the maxim "Get it right first time" (nor indeed, in many cases, grasped the concept of getting it right at all!)

Pretty odd things are going on outside LegCo as well.  For example Lifelong College, exposed by Apple Daily as peddling fake (or at least unearned) degrees to, among others, council members of Lingnan University, 17 police officers, a District Councillor (DAB, naturally - the party already has form in that area with the Quat Doctor), and a TVB actress, claims that the newspaper's exposé is “unethical”.  Richard Nixon should have tried that argument on the Washington Post.

And across the Pacific, Sarah Palin and her new best friend Donald Trump (they should form a singing duo called the Intellectual Lightweights) are blaming Barack Obama for the arrest of Palin's son, who got drunk and ran amok with a gun.  It's certainly true that mental health care for veterans could be improved, but given his mother's loopiness, Trick (what kind of name is that?) Palin's mental condition could owe as much to heredity as to his army service.

The Trump/Palin linkup is interesting.  For Palin, the lure is presumably another shot at the Vice-Presidency.  For Trump, putting Palin on the ticket could be a safeguard against assassination if he gets elected.  Who'd bump him off knowing that she was next in line to the White House?

PS - correction - that should be Track Palin, not Trick.  less tricky, but just as weird.

And yesterday Greg So told the media that the copyright bill had been the subject of very thorough public consultation - more or less the opposite of what he told LegCo the day before.   Duplicity is the word of the day.

More fiddling

CY Leung plays Nero again with a big announcement at his last LegCo appearance - primed by an obviously staged question from DAB leader Starry Lee.  I'm as much in favour of clean streets as the next man, but doesn't the government have more important things to do something about?  Their problem is that genuine solutions to the real problems would require offending either their Beijing overlords or the tycoons who control our economy, so they are forced to fall back on sideshows instead to give the appearance of doing something.

Discord in the Wolf Den

The sudden stepping down of two government ministers yesterday provides fertile fodder for speculation, particularly as Chief Executive CY Leung was typically less than forthcoming in his announcement: "I shouldn't discuss in public the background, the details of these changes, but suffice to say that both gentlemen will soon issue a press release in their own names and you will soon be able to find out the reason why".  Except we didn't find out - Home Affairs Secretary Tsang Tak-sing merely said he was "glad to retire", while Civil Service Secretary Paul Tang  cited unspecified family circumstances and expressed a desire to spend more time with his family - always a popular excuse for politicians eager not to discuss the reasons for their departure.

Leung should of course discuss the circumstances in public - firstly because we pay the government's salaries and are entitled to know what is going on; and secondly because uncertainty breeds rumours which can often be more damaging than unpalatable truths.  The mystery is compounded by the fact that the men were variously described as having been removed, retired or resigned.  Given that the two cases came at the same time, one must suspect that they reflect disagreements within Leung's inner circle rather than mere coincidence.  It's doubtful the ministers were sacked for incompetence, because there are far more obvious candidates for that fate - useless (National) Education Secretary Eddie Ng and Financial Secretary John "Never a Correct Forecast" Tsang spring to mind.  Maybe, according to Regina Ip's bizarre theory, the two were just too introverted for their posts.  Or perhaps Tsang Tak-sing, like his brother Jasper, showed occasional heretical signs of thinking outside the Beijing box, despite being a lifelong loyalist. 

Loyalty is hardly a quality one can attribute to Tsang's replacement, Homer Simpson lookalike Lau Kong-wah - an opportunist turncoat who (it is often forgotten) began his career as a democrat before switching sides to the DAB, making him probably the only politician to have lost LegCo elections on both sides of the political divide.  Despite being soundly rejected by the voters in the last LegCo poll, he wormed his way back into a position of power when CY indicated his contempt for the electorate by appointing Lau as Undersecretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs.  Having demonstrated his incompetence in this role with the failure of the government's political reform package, he is now being rewarded with a promotion.  Curiouser and curiouser.

Another strange appointment announced yesterday is that of former Housing Director Duncan Pescod as the umpteenth chief executive of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority - supposedly after a worldwide search, which sounds unlikely.  Strange because we had people with an arts background - none of whom stayed long - appointed during the phase when construction of the buildings was the main concern, and now we have someone with a housing background when we are supposedly getting close to seeing some actual cultural activity on the site.  But then this mega-project has been mishandled from the beginning - true to Hong Kong's preoccupation with enriching the property developers, debate on what should be constructed on the site took precedence over actually determining the community's cultural needs and wishes first and building to meet them.

Acknowledgement - the picture is from the Wolves Throne blog.

A Simple Question

I haven't posted much here lately, partly because I'm busy and partly because many others are in a better position to comment on the Occupy situation than I am.  But I would like to know the answer to one simple question: have any of the pro-government legislators actually gone to the protest site and talked to the protesters to find out their concerns and understand why they are there, or are they solely relying on their own propaganda for information?  Sadly, I fear I know the answer already.

Hint - it's just outside the LegCo Building.  You won't need your chauffeur-driven car, just walk a few steps.  Go on, the students won't bite you.

A History Lesson from Xi Jinping

These Are Not The Dr.Roids You're Looking For

I've seen many odd "English" names in Hong Kong - including Puffer and Whisker - but this is a new one on me.  Given that most people adopt an English label while at school, it doesn't say much for the standard of English teaching here that no one tells the students when a name they choose is too weird to use.  Given this, it's perhaps not surprising that the SCM Post reports on this sign in Victoria Park:

 

However, I rather like the comment from one person interviewed by the Post that the mistake doesn't matter much because "few people pay attention to the warning signs anyway".  Now there's the true Hong Kong spirit!.

Have We Got News For You

Watching the news in Hong Kong, it is often hard to shake off the feeling that the whole broadcast is one elaborate - and not even very funny - satire.  Take the first half of last night's ATV news for example:

• Beijing expresses concern over the anti-Chinese riots in Vietnam - which are remarkably reminiscent of the anti-Japanese riots that break out in China from time to time over similar perceived insults to national sovereignty.  Of course the PRC government could stop the whole problem in seconds by announcing that China would remove its oil rig from the disputed waters off Vietnam, but...
• Hong Kong's Financial Secretary announces that in the face of the LegCo budget filibuster, he will withdraw funding from the Hospital Authority and higher education - presumably so the money can be spent on more important social needs, like the White Elephant Bridge to Macau or the inflated salaries of overpaid but underskilled government ministers.
• He also announces that he will not talk with the radical legislators leading the filibuster because he is opposed to their demands.   Isn't that why they need to talk?  If they already agreed on everything, they would have no need to discuss their differences in the hope of reaching a compromise.
• By the way, who was the marionette-like figure lurking behind John Tsang's right shoulder and nodding sympathetically on cue at the FS's words of supposed wisdom?
• The government announces that it will not include demands for civic nomination in the next round of consultation on the 2017 CE elections, thereby making it clear that the first round - the results of which have not even been released yet - was a meaningless exercise which will, as we feared, be ignored in favour of whatever the government has been told to do already by its puppet-masters in Beijing.  They could at least be smart enough to pretend to be listening to the people, but that would require some degree of intelligence.
• To add insult to insult, Carrie Lam asks those planning to vote in Occupy Central's coming referendum to "consider whether it provides them with a genuine choice".  Er, would that be by comparison with the fake choices offered by the government, or what? If no genuinely democratic candidate is permitted to run in 2017, I suggest a write-in vote for Mr. Bean - we certainly need a leader with more substance than the present crowd.
• The Consumer Council warns that energy drinks contain high levels of sugar and caffeine.  Hello?  Isn't that why people drink them?

"You couldn't make this stuff up" may be a cliché, but no other response seems appropriate to the farce that passes for news in Hong Kong.

Time Heals All Wounds

1968 - white man kisses black woman on US television - shock horror!

2013 - white man kisses black woman on US television - yawn.

Sometimes human beings do learn better.  Happy New Year!

Natural Ignorance

Just a few days before Hong Kong's annual Gay Pride March attracted a crowd twice the size of last year's, it was reported that "the Liberal Party conducted a survey in which they found over 60% of the 1,200 respondents [as always with such figures, I wonder how this sample was selected?] objected to homosexuality and transgenderism".  Well, tough!  I object to typhoons, but that doesn't mean they don't happen.

In a city which is well behind the times in terms of waking up to equal rights, the result is hardly surprising.  What is sad is that instead of taking a lead in trying to enlighten the public, Liberal Party legislator Felix Chung endorsed the findings, describing these conditions as "anti-natural".  The reality, however, is that homosexual behaviour is observed in nature across a wide array of animal species.  Put simply, scientific observation tells us that like it or not, it is natural for gay people to be gay.  I am naturally attracted to women; Elton John is naturally attracted to men - that doesn't make either of us unnatural.

As for transgenderism, I suspect some of the prejudice here comes from simple-mindedness - many people want to slot everyone into two neat categories because it's easier to think that way.  But nature is not so precise - many babies are born with varying degrees of gender ambiguity, often "tidied up" surgically in infancy, though this policy is increasingly being questioned.  There is nothing new about this - one of our words for intersex individuals dates back to ancient Greece.  There have been notable transsexuals throughout history, including possibly a Roman Emperor and allegedly a Pope.  Some people may not even be aware of their true gender, as in a recent Hong Kong case.

So while some countries are amending their laws to recognise these realities, some Hong Kong politicians are still attacking natural phenomena as "unnatural".  This only demonstrates that the natural state of Liberal Party politicians is ignorance. 

The East is Multicoloured

Modern China - Part 2 of an occasional series

I took this picture of a group of Chinese children on a school trip to the Three Kingdoms City theme park in Wuxi a few days ago.  Looking at it this morning, I was reminded that not too long ago, every China tour involved two invariable stops: one at a Friendship Store (remember them?), and the other at a school where a bunch of kids dressed like this

would sing songs such as "The East Is Red" glorifying the Communist Party and the "Great Helmsman" Chairman Mao.  [Pic borrowed from http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/07/01/aint_no_party_like_the_communist_party]

One or two generations later, ignore the facial features and the kids in my pic could be anywhere from Sapporo to Sacramento.  While China today has many problems - massive pollution, widescale corruption and gross abuses of human rights - for the average Chinese person who does not challenge the (still nominally Communist) system, life has probably never been more colourful nor offered so many choices.