Verna Yu is supposedly a free lance writer and published an opinion page column in New York Times on Feb 18, 2015 titled “Giving Up on Hong Kong”, which I think deserve a rebuttal here. New York Times has been on a propaganda offensive against China since being barred from China a few years ago. A few days ago they even published a puff piece on India overtaking China in economic growth which is laughable and full of holes. As comments already showed the laughable analysis it was I would not bother to rebut it here, but this article really got me angry.
Ms. Yu’s grandfather was a professor fleeing Guangzhou in 1947 to Hong Kong from Chinese civil war. some of her family fled Hong Kong after TAM in 89 and before the handover to China in 1997, some returned later after the panic receded, she has a British passport and British university education, and now she’s hinting she might leave again. her grievances can be summed up as following:
1. Usual bromide about inequality and soaring property prices.
2. Hong Kong can no longer be insulated from Chinese politics, and becoming just another Chinese city.
3. Democracy, freedom of speech, rule of law, etc.
I would like to rebut her point by point here.
1. Ms. Yu like most of the OC crowd belong to not the bottom 50% or the top 1%, but mostly from the 1-20%, so any bromide about inequality is probably insincere. They aspire to be the 1%, certainly not for more taxes on themselves to provide for more social services for the bottom. They do worry about their off springs being remain on top, and ready to fly away to London or Vancouver at any scent of disorder. They are mainly the beneficiaries of the soaring property prices, enabling them to sell at the top and buy houses in places like Vancouver or Long Island where locals there are grumbling about the Chinese driving real estate prices beyond their earning power.
2. Well, too bad, the goal of 1 country-2 systems is suppose to gradually change to 1 country-1 system. Who are you to feel superior to other Chinese. I would be in favor of Hong Kong gradually introduce patriotic education courses to suppress the colonial outlook.
3. The usual complains of liberals against authoritarian China. Where has Ms. Yu been? Horror of horrors, pepper spray, tear gas? Did Hong Kong lost freedom of speech? Has she ever heard of Ferguson, Missouri? Has she heard of Charlie Hebdo? Ms. Yu must be living at Fukuyama’s end of history.
I was born in 1947, the year Varna Yu’s grandfather left for Hong Kong. My father was a merchant seaman who was stranded in U.S. with the end of Chinese civil war. I was reunited with him when China granted my mother and me exit visas for humanitarian family reunification in 1959. We were from the bottom 50%. To me income inequality is real and widening in U.S., while in China they are making real efforts to bridge it and move hundreds of millions out of poverty. That is human right in reality, not a throw away catch phrase for Varna Yu.
United Chinese Diaspora says
Ms Yu should leave Hong Kong if she doesn’t like it there.
No one is forcing her to stay. It is a free country
Perhaps she should move to England and experience some English racism.
She has a British passport but before the handover in 1997 many Hong Kong residents found out that their British passport was as good as toilet paper for being allowed into England.
Notice that all other members of the commonwealth get free and immediate entry into England except the Hong Kong people.
I would bid Ms Yu good luck and don’t let the door hit her on her way out of Hong kong China.
pug_ster says
The problem in Hong Kong is with the rampant stupidity of the Pro-democracy people who are basically against Mainlanders. There were protesters against “parallel traders” in shopping malls in Sha Tin and the other week at Tuen Mun. There’s one thing against people buying baby formulas but this is going to far. Even some of the Hong Kong politicians are getting on this. CYL and their spineless Hong Kong government officials should call out on what it is, racism. Many of us who come to the West heard this kind of racist epithets “go back to China” and now it is happening in Hong Kong. If morons like Verna Yu have some sense left she should do the same after all, her parents are from mainland China too.
http://rthk.hk/rthk/news/englishnews/20150215/news_20150215_56_1077495.htm
Guo Du says
An excellent rebuttal wasted on someone who’s evidently blind to facts and resistant to logic. I have recently written a piece on just her type of Democracy Cultists in Hong Kong, and was about to post it in parallel on this blog. I’d share it here for now instead: http://guo-du.blogspot.hk/2015/02/the-grievances-behind-occupy-central.html
N.M.Cheung says
@Guo Du
Read the article from your link, couldn’t agree more. Glad more opening of my horizon, will enjoy reading your book. Thanks.
Guo Du says
@N.M.Cheung Thanks NM. If you don’t mind reading PDF files, you can download Man’s Last Song through the dropbox link provided in my blog as well.
United Chinese Diaspora says
@Guo Du
I just bought the book from kindle and I am at the part of baby Tom and miscarriages and infertility epidemic.
So far I am really impressed with your writing style and diction. I really enjoy the multidimensional structure in which the seamless incorporation of east and west cultures; philosophies; upbringings; time and space; but above all your stabbing sense of logic. Why would God need light?
Your use of the English language is masterly and magical.
“Three hours were stretched into one hundred eighty minutes, many more seconds. Each phlegmatic second that wore on made……”
This description of the agony of the wait is truly genius.
I didn’t know you can download the book from your site but I don’t regret paying for it.
N.M.Cheung says
@Guo Du
I got downloaded from Kindle. I am a sci-fi fan. There was a movie a few years back on a similar theme, but the book seem much more interesting as it deals with philosophical questions. Thanks.
Guo Du says
@N.M.Cheung Thank you thank you! I like a good SciFi too though I have different views when it comes to genre. Right now I’m drafting my talk to the HKU Reading Club on coming Thursday. May I share with you the relevant paragraph?
“MLS is commonly classified as Science Fiction because the story is set in the future. But the future is not necessarily fictitious. In fact, quite the opposite, whatever happens in the future depends on what we do today. It’s cause and effect, nothing SciFi about it. However, all books are required to have a genre in the modern world, like ID cards. So MLS is officially SciFi according to book sellers. Dan Bloom, the guy who coined the term Cli Fi for Climate Fiction, says MLS is Cli Fi for sure. I kinda agree with him. But in my heart, not all books have a genre, and MLS is one of them.”
Hope you enjoy it!
pug_ster says
Looks like the HK government actually have some backbone after these latest incidents.
http://thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=30&art_id=155023&sid=44042037&con_type=3
The latest incident these rioters went after seemingly anybody who is carrying a luggage. They attacked a mother and child and forced the woman to open the luggage showing that she was carrying reading books.
http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1734089/hong-kong-anti-parallel-trade-protesters-hit-back-claims-they-behaved
Another incident where an elderly man was attacked in a park and these ‘pro-democracy’ people blaming on the elderly man.