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A Walk in Hong Kong

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Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#361

Post by bouncycastle »

alisonatwork wrote: post #280
tombh wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've misunderstood both them and the geography of South China. They're clearly referring to the Cantonese speaking region, which is called Guangdong (which the British never owned), of which HK is a very small part (perhaps 1/30th of the size). It sounds like you think they were just talking about HK or that the British owned GUangdong. And even more confusingly attributing HK's linguistic distinctiveness t…

To add to the confusion, there are plenty of people whose families have lived in Guangdong for generations that are not ethnically Cantonese at all. Linguistically, Southern China has many different groups. In Guangdong alone there are plenty of Hakka and Teochew speakers, both of which are languages quite different to Cantonese. Even within the Cantonese topolect there are a significant number of different groups, f…

> ethnically Cantonese

You gave an argument that is factually wrong.

Cantonese is not a seperate ethnic group. They are still Han Chinese.

Also, the Cantonese and Mandarin speakers can still understand eachother without study (although their speech may sound funny to eachother).

The language differences are enough to give both groups their own identity, but certainly not a new ethnicity.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#362

Post by ausbah »

brendanw wrote: post #213

A few years ago a Chinese man on the BART tried asking me for directions. His english was poor. With the aid of google translate we were able to do some basic communication. Over the course of 10 minutes I learned he was trying to visit the Wikipedia headquarters. I mentioned I was surprised he could access Wikipedia in the mainland. He told me that many know how to access Wikipedia. Let's be clear. Authoritarianism…

The tragedy is things like sanctions against authoritarian regimes do nothing but to hurt the average citizen. The we'll connected in such regimes have the means to evade sanction, the lower classes don't. Look at Iran, North Korea, and other countries the US has sanctioned to kingdom come - there isn't nearly as much pressure as there would be in a western state.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#363

Post by loyukfai »

addicted wrote: post #206
loyukfai wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time, PRC government doesn't want to turn HK instead exactly another Chinese city... (the closest one would be Shanghai, I guess.) There are interesting historical issues, economical issues, geopolitics (especially Taiwan) and international politics at play. But yes, in a certain sense the PRC want to turn HK into "the rest of China" alike, in the sense that you can have economic freedom and many other th…

I am not sure how true it is thst the govt doesn’t want to turn HK into just another Chinese city. The belief was that HK’s economic value to China would protect the one country 2 systems status. However, the Chinese govt appears to have convinced itself with the rise of its major cities (such as Shenzhen) and general economy that HK isn’t unique, and any economic benefits the political autonomy provides is far outwe…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States%E2%80%93Hong_Kon...

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#364

Post by mytailorisrich »

robocat wrote: post #342
mytailorisrich wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The governments of the UK and the US would not countenance the idea of cities gaining independence. In fact the US fought their bloodiest war over such issue...

The UK has a massive precedence of ceding independence to former colonies and overseas territories: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_that_have_... I can't see how you imply UK and the US have any link on the topic.

The point was about their territories proper, not overseas colonies.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#365

Post by woutr_be »

brendanw wrote: post #213

A few years ago a Chinese man on the BART tried asking me for directions. His english was poor. With the aid of google translate we were able to do some basic communication. Over the course of 10 minutes I learned he was trying to visit the Wikipedia headquarters. I mentioned I was surprised he could access Wikipedia in the mainland. He told me that many know how to access Wikipedia. Let's be clear. Authoritarianism…

There's honestly quite a lot of misinformation about how people live their lives in China. Many of my friends are perfectly capable of accessing blocked websites, and they're by no means computer experts. They all have been able to travel because of their increase in wealth, and most of them are in contact with foreigners from all over the world. To them, they live in a society with restrictions, but they've all benefited immensely from it in the past decades.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#366

Post by woutr_be »

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 come from Europe, and every time someone brings up the protests to me, all I can say is, this is nothing compared to what happens in Europe. Not to downplay what's happening, but I think in general HK people are not used to violence, it's incredibly rare to see any physical altercations. I've been in verbal arguments here before, and once people see you won't back down, or you're willing to escalate, they'll quickly back off.

That's why now you see the slog "HK police is attempting to murder citizens", even though nobody has been close to dying. It's just that they perceive violence on a different scale, and people being beaten up (not even severely) is enough to claim they're trying to murder people.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#367

Post by germanier »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #327
germanier wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because a case involves publication it does not mean that legal concepts developed therein only apply to that. Anyhow, the quoted P.G. and J.H. vs The United Kingdom in my last reply specifically deals with surveillance. You may find the court's arguments nonsensical but you can't stand by the fact that this has never been a concept anywhere. It certainly is a concept there. I even quoted you the court's assessm…

Right, I've had a look at the case you mentioned and it so happens that it has nothing to do with expectation of privacy in public places, but is about covert police wiretapping of phone lines and of private premises, and acceptability of evidence in court. In fact, the paragraph you quoted previously is immediately followed by the following (which you left out by mistake, I'm sure): > A person who walks down the str…

The paragraph I left out is exactly the argument in my very first reply.

You can't expect the whole world to share your definition of the word "privacy". If they did, my last quote would have been utter nonsense. This is all what I have been saying. When people talk about privacy in this context, they mean something different than what comes to your mind. This does not make them wrong in using that word.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#368

Post by mytailorisrich »

germanier wrote: post #367
mytailorisrich wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, I've had a look at the case you mentioned and it so happens that it has nothing to do with expectation of privacy in public places, but is about covert police wiretapping of phone lines and of private premises, and acceptability of evidence in court. In fact, the paragraph you quoted previously is immediately followed by the following (which you left out by mistake, I'm sure): > A person who walks down the str…

The paragraph I left out is exactly the argument in my very first reply. You can't expect the whole world to share your definition of the word "privacy". If they did, my last quote would have been utter nonsense. This is all what I have been saying. When people talk about privacy in this context, they mean something different than what comes to your mind. This does not make them wrong in using that word.

It's not my definition of the word. It is the definition.

People who complain about being filmed when in public because that would breach their privacy do not understand what a public place is, or do not understand what privacy means. This is clear from all this discussion.

Have a nice day.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#369

Post by germanier »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #368
germanier wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The paragraph I left out is exactly the argument in my very first reply. You can't expect the whole world to share your definition of the word "privacy". If they did, my last quote would have been utter nonsense. This is all what I have been saying. When people talk about privacy in this context, they mean something different than what comes to your mind. This does not make them wrong in using that word.

It's not my definition of the word. It is the definition. People who complain about being filmed when in public because that would breach their privacy do not understand what a public place is, or do not understand what privacy means. This is clear from all this discussion. Have a nice day.

As those "people" include basically any European legal practitioner I'm not sure you are in a position to tell all of them that they made such a basic fundamental mistake.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#370

Post by ngcc_hk »

Except for 21 Jun and 11 Aug I join every protest I can made to. It is exhausting to fight a gov that do not listen because its power is from a colonial power on the north. Hk is in the forefront of the things to come. Look at Austria you know what the bully will do.
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