Meanwhile in Hong Kong

There was a world cup football (soccer) qualifier match between China and Hong Kong in Hong Kong yesterday. The Hong Kongese fans booed the Chinese anthem. It isn’t the first time they’ve done that. Before a game between Qatar and Hong Kong, local fans also booed the Chinese anthem. That behaviour have resulted in a fine on the Hong Kong Football Association before.

However, since this time the Chinese players where there on the field as it happened, it caught a lot more attention. Fans brought in slogans saying Hong Kong isn’t China to the stadium, which enraged Chinese players, prompting them to write profanities on their social media accounts dedicated to the Hong Kongese fans.

Hong Kong and China tied at the end, nil, nil. It pretty much disqualified China from the 2016 World Cup in Russia.

[quote=“hansioux”] Fans brought in slogans saying Hong Kong isn’t China to the stadium, which enraged Chinese players, prompting them to write profanities on their social media accounts dedicated to the Hong Kongese fans.
[/quote]
It’s like being a telemarketer. Or a cop in NYC. Or a presidential spokesman. You work for sleazes, on behalf of sleazes, and you get all the hate due the sleazes. It’s part of the job to be a whipping boy. You’re the public face of sleaze.

If they don’t like it, they can quit… in theory.

People down the memory hole…

bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-34782266

[quote]In a frenetic commercial district of Hong Kong, sandwiched between shops selling vitamins and clothing to tourists, the Causeway Bay Bookstore touts itself as the authority on Chinese politics.

The tiny shop specialises in selling gossipy paperbacks that are highly critical of China’s leadership. They are particularly popular with mainland Chinese visitors who cannot buy the banned books at home.

But two weeks ago, four men who work for the bookstore and its affiliated publishing house went missing. Their colleagues believe they have been detained by Chinese officials because of their work.[/quote]

time.com/4183967/hong-kong-publi … ent-china/

[quote]A Hong Kong–based publisher who disappeared while on holiday in Thailand more than two months ago has resurfaced in China, appearing visibly distressed on Chinese state television Sunday night to claim that he was turning himself in for a crime supposedly committed 12 years ago.

The case of Swedish national Gui Minhai has caused widespread fear and alarm in Hong Kong, where it is widely speculated that he was abducted from his Thai vacation by mainland Chinese agents on account of his company’s specialization in works highly critical of Chinese Communist Party leaders.

Gui is one of five people from Mighty Current Media to have gone missing in recent weeks. All are suspected to be in arbitrary detention in China.[/quote]

Still “missing”…

Take note of the sort of people who try to dismiss this as a nothingburger.

Think globally, oppress locally.

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Meet Stephen & Stitt.

People have been walking past the, um, pair of lions for 80+ years, complimenting them on their feng shui, and rubbing their noses for good luck. They’re so charming, people rarely stop to wonder what they’re doing together… :eek:

One day they decide to get creative with their hair, and suddenly now it’s the end of civilization? :rolling_eyes:

The article doesn’t mention one fact that this one does, namely the petitioner’s family connection:
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2016/12/07/2003660748

It’s so tedious when corporations take a public political/religious stance and then complain about their customers disliking that. There are so many attention whores in the corporate world now. If they want that, they should go and join a political party, religious organisation or NGO. I’d be annoyed too if they replaced the lions with statues of Mao, Obama or Trump, or they suddenly had crucifixes or crescents hanging from them.

Were they not already political symbols before they “came out”? If they were Chinese lions they would look canine, like shihtzis, not western style like British imperialists…

That’s a bit like saying that Italian dishes with tomatoes in them are not authentic because the tomato isn’t originally from Italy. People latch onto certain things and eventually naturalise them.

So British imperialist symbols are kosher in HK because they’re naturalized Chinese symbols? In that case, how long will it take for the same thing to happen to rainbows? :ponder:

Are you saying that rainbows are a form of foreign imperialism alien to Chinese culture? Interesting perspective.

Come on, we’re not talking about rainbows per se.

Of course we are. They’re a symbol of a foreign ideology. Isn’t that the whole reason that those people in Hong Kong are complaining? Both articles above specifically mention it.

The rainbow as an lgbt symbol is something new in China, yes (afaik). The rainbow per se, no.

So my question: if you believe the non-shihtzu style lions are not foreign political symbols because they’ve been around long enough to be naturalized, how long do these rainbows need to be around before they’re naturalized?

With any kind of cultural change, probably at least a generation. I suspect more since it won’t be complete within that generation, so more likely at least two, actually.

Of course, going with the analogy of British imperialism, I wonder if a war and the subsequent imposition of suffering of detrimental (if not fatal) lifestyles, quasi-enslavement of large sections of the populace, etc. will also be necessary. Will China need another century of humiliation for which they will ultimately hate the West?

You mean Chinese won’t accept rainbows until they’ve spent two generations being forced into fatal rainbow lifestyles, and then they will? :ponder:

Just at a guess. Cultural change that is top down usually has to be done in a fairly heavy-handed manner, usually creates all sorts of unintended consequences and social dislocations, and usually takes at least two generations (more like three). People of the first generation are not necessarily on board at all and any compliance is usually done under duress. Those of the second generation might be roughly 50% because they still grow up with the first generation’s culture around them in the home and other such places but get the programming at school, through the media or via other such institutions; those of the third generation accept the status quo as having always been the status quo because they don’t know any different (tales from ancient history from their grandparents don’t count).