261–270 of 323 posts
As someone lived in Hong Kong for quite a while (during the tail of its heydays) but now in the US, Hong Kong is indeed in big trouble. But not for the reasons mentioned/implied in this article. It's very easy to buy into narratives such as authoritarianism vs democracy, communism vs capitalism, China vs Britain/West, tight control vs freedom as the reasons for Hong Kong's decline, but that's just short-circuited thi…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The elites of Taiwan are mostly mainlanders (well, 1949 descended transplants who suppressed the native Taiwanese elites) who prefer closer ties with the mainland. The violent swings in Taiwan's politics between the KMT and DPP are all relate to that.
There is so much intermarriage between the 1949 Mainlanders and the Taiwanese that I don't think you can label their children and grandchildren as "Mainlanders."
Of course it is just a data point, but that's may reveal underlying things that totally foreign for European/West way of thinking politics.
I'd like to offer my views on the decline of HK - 1. HK was a middleman, it used to connect the mainland China to the world. That worked for HK very well after 1949, but clearly the people living in the mainland do not want to see HK to keep having its cut for the flow of capitals/goods for a very reasonable reason - there are more and more professionals/businesses in mainland China that are eager/qualified/happy to…
Chinese from the mainland still goto HK to shop, if only for the lower taxes and greater selections. The lack of wepay is hardly a concern, and many places in HK actually take it.
5-10 years ago, hk was still the go-to place for my family if they wanted name brand things, short of coming to the US. Now, they come to the US or even Japan if they don't stay in the country.
Recently I was in Chengdu (which is not tier 1) and the sheer number of luxury brand stores in the IFS building shocked me. That isn't even counting the surrounding shopping center that also carry similar luxury brands. It certainly at least is on par with hk shopping.
Many in the west still view china through the same lens as they did 10 years ago, and that is wildly inaccurate.
I just crossed back to Shenzhen from Hong Kong yesterday. A few random observations... In HK, a lot of the taxi drivers are old guys who can barely read, don't speak English or mandarin, and are a real hassle to deal with unless you are a Cantonese speaker. A lot of the taxis have weird fare manipulation lookup tables instead of correct metering. Although the mass-transit oriented stored value card, Octopus, was esta…
I agree with the bank account. When I worked in HK, opening a bank account was problematic. But that has been in other countries as well I worked from because I rarely had a permanent job, mostly doing contracts.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
no more from the tier-1 cities. go to internet forums with good number of residents from Shanghai/Beijing, see how many posts are still about their shopping experience in HK. 10 years ago, I'd be seeing a couple each day on the front page, now you'd be lucky to have one in a week. it is also questionable to believe that there are better selection in HK - the sheer number of affordable consumers and their aggregated p…
Holy shit does Beijing suck for shopping, even in 2017; it is a mixture of really overpriced luxury brands who used to make all their profits on money laundering combined with new malls with the same set of generic stores in each. Maybe Shanghai is better, but if it's anything like Beijing, well, it makes sense why people still go to Korea, Japan, Hong Kong to shop. It always made sense to head down to HK to buy a ne…
I live close to the Nanjing Rd west in Shanghai, buy yourself a ticket to visit those shopping malls on that road, then you can continue to lecture me why should people living in tier-1 cities should continue to go to HK to waste time and money.
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The same is happening to Taiwan (stuttered growth; in-fighting, etc.). The issue is deeply rooted in local power-wielding elites conspiring or opposing the ruling government. It has nothing to do democracy. The riches have already allocated some of their wealth elsewhere (see Canada and Australia), so they don't really care. It's always easy to blame it on Beijing, isn't it?
And, arguably, in the U.S.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Holy shit does Beijing suck for shopping, even in 2017; it is a mixture of really overpriced luxury brands who used to make all their profits on money laundering combined with new malls with the same set of generic stores in each. Maybe Shanghai is better, but if it's anything like Beijing, well, it makes sense why people still go to Korea, Japan, Hong Kong to shop. It always made sense to head down to HK to buy a ne…
see comments above from another hn user talking about his experience in Chengdu. I live close to the Nanjing Rd west in Shanghai, buy yourself a ticket to visit those shopping malls on that road, then you can continue to lecture me why should people living in tier-1 cities should continue to go to HK to waste time and money.
The nice thing about HK is the diversity of shops. I almost feel like I'm back in the states, I can find things that I'd only find on Taobao in china. Not to mention the lower taxes make it on par with the states for pricing on electronics.
Just the savings on a MBP alone will pay for your plane ticket and a night in a reasonable hotel. I'm really baffled why you think shopping in the mainland is "better" than that when the prices are fixed much higher than HK.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Chinese from the mainland still goto HK to shop, if only for the lower taxes and greater selections. The lack of wepay is hardly a concern, and many places in HK actually take it.
family currently lives in a tier 1 city 5-10 years ago, hk was still the go-to place for my family if they wanted name brand things, short of coming to the US. Now, they come to the US or even Japan if they don't stay in the country. Recently I was in Chengdu (which is not tier 1) and the sheer number of luxury brand stores in the IFS building shocked me. That isn't even counting the surrounding shopping center that…
I lived in china for 10 years, and yes, it was much better 10 years ago, at least the air was much cleaner then. I don't see what that has to do with the current situation though, and westerners who didn't live in china always thought shopping in china was great because they could always get knockoffs at the silk market.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The elites of Taiwan are mostly mainlanders (well, 1949 descended transplants who suppressed the native Taiwanese elites) who prefer closer ties with the mainland. The violent swings in Taiwan's politics between the KMT and DPP are all relate to that.
There is so much intermarriage between the 1949 Mainlanders and the Taiwanese that I don't think you can label their children and grandchildren as "Mainlanders."
As someone lived in Hong Kong for quite a while (during the tail of its heydays) but now in the US, Hong Kong is indeed in big trouble. But not for the reasons mentioned/implied in this article. It's very easy to buy into narratives such as authoritarianism vs democracy, communism vs capitalism, China vs Britain/West, tight control vs freedom as the reasons for Hong Kong's decline, but that's just short-circuited thi…
It goes both ways, though - the tacit deal is basically that the HK tycoons do not challenge the Chinese Communist Party's monopoly on power, and the CCP doesn't challenge the HK tycoons' economic monopolies. But, all in all, I agree. As I've written in another thread: The grievances of HK's population are real: a political and business establishment dominated by property tycoons (and increasingly mainland Chinese po…
Prof Lawrence Lessig of Harvard nails it when he calls this type of corruption of democracy as Tweedism.
Here's a quick summary of his thesis (2015): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJy8vTu66tE
Here's a longer, more academic, version (2014): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFZEV7TeZBg
Both talks begin with the Hong Kong student protests of 2014.