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A Walk in Hong Kong

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Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#241

Post by germanier »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #44
germanier wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A street is not a private place and, as said, there is no expectation of privacy there: Anyone and everyone can see you and what you are doing. Only people physically there can see me and what I am doing. Modern technology enables them to record that and share it globally and across time. It's important to recognize that this ability is not inherent in it being a public place. "Expectation of privacy" and that you…

Expectation of privacy in public places has never been a concept anywhere. Privacy and public space are simply contradicting terms.

> Expectation of privacy in public places has never been a concept anywhere

It's certainly a concept in Europe, see the famous Caroline cases. Quoting for example from the European Court of Human Rights case von Hannover v. Germany

> The Court notes at the outset that in the present case the photos of the applicant in the various German magazines show her in scenes from her daily life, thus involving activities of a purely private nature such as engaging in sport, out walking, leaving a restaurant or on holiday. The photos, in which the applicant appears sometimes alone and sometimes in company, illustrate a series of articles with such innocuous titles as “Pure happiness”, “Caroline... a woman returning to life”, “Out and about with Princess Caroline in Paris” and “The kiss. Or: they are not hiding anymore” [...] The Court reiterates the fundamental importance of protecting private life from the point of view of the development of every human being’s personality. That protection – as stated above – extends beyond the private family circle and also includes a social dimension. The Court considers that anyone, even if they are known to the general public, must be able to enjoy a “legitimate expectation” of protection of and respect for their private life [...] Furthermore, the Court considers that the public does not have a legitimate interest in knowing where the applicant is and how she behaves generally in her private life even if she appears in places that cannot always be described as secluded and despite the fact that she is well known to the public.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#242

Post by slothtrop »

FabHK wrote: post #174
lawrenceyan wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Growing up in the suburbs of California, I never really understood just how central the concept of face was in Asian society until visiting China and seeing it for myself. Over time I’ve come to realize that many of these social concepts exists in some form or another across all cultures, likely implicit in some part to the human condition, but it still surprises me to this day just how entrenched it still is in cert…

FWIW, I've encountered several times that German or Russian directness was considered impolite or even offensive in the US, for example when you'd point out that there was a mistake or something not conforming to spec without prefacing it with "Thanks for the awesome work! This is real progress. A minor issue we could still improve might be this:", etc. So, as you point out, these conventions exist everywhere, and (l…

We could use a little German-ness in that case.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#243

Post by aqrcxvz »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #222
ilikehurdles wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why not withdraw it?

To avoid total humiliation? Even if they withdraw it completely nothing prevent them from introducing another similar bill at a later time anyway, so protesters would not gain anything apart from having humiliated the executive even more.

Not exactly. The govt can still proceed with the second and third readings and pass the law in a day. If withdrawn, the bill will need to go through the whole process. https://www.legco.gov.hk/general/english/bills/bill_1620.htm

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#244

Post by gwathk »

TASMebWdhWc9NeA wrote: post #51

I am in Verona (Italy) at this time, and I'm in a hotel where some tourists from Shanghai happen to be as well. I'm alone, so I hang out in the lobby a lot. I just engaged in some small talk with some of those tourists, and the discussion somehow shifted to the Hong Kong protests. Basically what they sad is that western culture in Hong Kong clashes with the chinese culture. They don't seem to say that the chinese way…

Go Hong Kong visit sometime. You will find British has managed to build Hong Kong into a prosperous and peaceful society with all the elements of so-called Chinese culture and Western culture. There is a church next to a mosque next to a temple in Tsim Sha Tsui district. People enjoy yum cha in their lunch and America rib-eye steak in their dinner.

I wonder whether the Chinese viewpoint stands. It is purely bad governance of HKSAR and CCP.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#245

Post by HNcantBtrustd »

j1vms wrote: post #79
spyckie2 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to change my original post, so I'll add to it here: When you're on the streets with the protests, it feels extremely primeval. The micro-scale interactions of the protest movement is like looking into a microscope at microorganisms, blobs of life that just kind of move around and sometimes eat others but most of the time just float there. It's a decentralized, rather polite mob. Angry, yes. Scary, someti…

> It feels like there's no real goal or direction of the protest except to exist Reading this makes me think a very little bit of the Paris Commune [0], well in its early days perhaps. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Commune

In the last 2000 years, much of human progress came in the form of freedom.

In recent times it seems there is a pushback towards less.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#246

Post by mytailorisrich »

aqrcxvz wrote: post #243
mytailorisrich wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To avoid total humiliation? Even if they withdraw it completely nothing prevent them from introducing another similar bill at a later time anyway, so protesters would not gain anything apart from having humiliated the executive even more.

Not exactly. The govt can still proceed with the second and third readings and pass the law in a day. If withdrawn, the bill will need to go through the whole process. https://www.legco.gov.hk/general/english/bills/bill_1620.htm

Isn't that what I wrote? Than they can bring it back no matter what?

The protesters have also now made sure that the government will not bulge. Because that would send the message that they cave in to violence.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#247

Post by keiferski »

tombh wrote: post #229
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like a pretext. It’s hard to understand why China would be motivated oppress the almost entirely Chinese population of Hong Kong because the British were jerks a hundred years ago.

I sometimes like to have a little thought experiment like this: I'm British, so what if, during the 1800s, China had, through unprovoked war, forced the handing over of the port city of Liverpool because we didn't let them sell us heroin? Or if you're American, think of San Francisco being a sovereign state of the CCP. Of course you can never justify oppression, but I think such a thought experiment can give some ver…

I understand the point you're trying to make, but at best, it's simply an explanation of the realpolitik motives of China. Yes, Hong Kong was ultimately created through some nefarious tactics by the British. But that was 150 years ago. The people living in Hong Kong now are overwhelming ethnic Chinese (92%), have their own culture, and while not perfect, are far more democratic and freedom-loving than the CCP is. If you support the right of peoples to be self-determining, then it seems to me that China is clearly the antagonist here.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#248

Post by tombh »

bouncycastle wrote: post #235
tombh wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm troubled to disagree with your comment, because I usually get so little feedback to such opinions and also it makes it look like I'm CCP stooge. So I should add that I'm British, I just lived in China for a year. Your comment really worries me though, because it seems to me you're conflating the subculture of Guangdong with the culture of Honk Kong, perhaps in an attempt to make a tenuous argument that it is in f…

There is a lot of evidence, historical and recent, that shows that the CCP is pushing for the assimilation of the Cantonese subculture. A sample of some recent articles "China Is Forcing Its Biggest Cantonese-Speaking Region To Speak Mandarin" https://www.businessinsider.com/china-is-forcing-its-biggest... "Hong Kong education chief forced to clarify controversial comments about teaching Chinese language in Cantonese…

Wow, that's really interesting, I didn't know that, thanks.

So are you indeed saying HK identifies more with the plight of Guangdong than the principles of British democracy? To me it still would seem that Guangdong's resistance to Beijing is fundamentally different from HK's, so that it's merely coincidence that both Guangdong and HK have reason to feel tension with Beijing.

I completely appreciate that HK further differentiated itself from the mainland, in the same way Taiwan did, during the Cultural Revolution. And I see how that must fuel HK's desire for autonomy. But I don't see how that gives any more insight into Beijing's view, which is what I'm trying to bring more awareness to. How do we get beyond the black and white perspective that "China Bad, Honk Kong Good"? Or are you just saying that Beijing is indeed acting completely without reason, as if in a deranged authoritarian vacuum? What doesn't anybody want to understand the nuances of the CCP's motives, no matter how much we might disagree with them?

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#249

Post by sherjilozair »

tombh wrote: post #229
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like a pretext. It’s hard to understand why China would be motivated oppress the almost entirely Chinese population of Hong Kong because the British were jerks a hundred years ago.

I sometimes like to have a little thought experiment like this: I'm British, so what if, during the 1800s, China had, through unprovoked war, forced the handing over of the port city of Liverpool because we didn't let them sell us heroin? Or if you're American, think of San Francisco being a sovereign state of the CCP. Of course you can never justify oppression, but I think such a thought experiment can give some ver…

What is this thought experiment meant to say? If the people of Liverpool or San Francisco want freedom and make their own country, many in the west would support such a thing. After Trump got elected, the separationism meme was spread in California half-seriously.

The reason this thought experiment doesn't really work is that it disregards a crucial piece of information that the CCP is an authoritarian regime, while the people of Hong Kong are liberal and democratic. People generally prefer to move from the former to the latter, and not from the latter to the former.

I think history is useful, but it doesn't really change the fact that the people of Hong Kong do not want authoritarianism. It should be irrelevant what some king in the Qing dynasty or British empire did. As common folk ourselves, we should be giving more value to the will of the people, than the will of people who buy and sell countries and its people as if it was private property. So, no, Hong Kong does not "belong" to CCP just because at some point it "belonged" to Qing dynasty.

Talking about people as if they are property of kings and rulers is just slavery at the level of groups.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#250

Post by baby »

namelosw wrote: post #134
avip wrote: post #27

Interesting to contrast this with popular demonstrations in US or France. No windows broken? Burnt city infrastructure? No beaten up police? All so quiet.

I'm from China, I'm actually shocked to see people in the US or France do that all the time. Usually, it seems private properties are destroyed during the process. But why? If it is the government people protest, but why do people break shop windows and burn someone's car all the time... It seems to be a lesser kind of terrorism for me: they don't like a country, they hurt properties instead of people.

There are thugs, they see protests as a way to hide in the mass and commit crimes.

It's good for the government because they can then say that the protests were "violent".

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