Earlier quoted context omitted.
From what i gathered 140 million mainlanders travel abroad each year. and 140 million mainlanders return to China. That tells you enough people vote with their feets, wallet and voice.
What do they see when they travel abroad though? A large portion (if not a majority?) of those 140 million travelers go through organized tour groups, where they jump from attraction to attraction, staying half an hour or so to take pictures before rushing back to the bus to head to the next stop. This French photographer was allowed to join such a group and it's fascinating: http://www.slate.fr/grand-format/touriste…
Mainlanders don't all view Hong Kong the same way
61–70 of 83 posts
Re: Mainlanders don't all view Hong Kong the same way
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only if HK didn’t protest against mainland tourists before. A lot of them has strong prejudice against mainland Chinese making it easy for Chinese government spin the people against these protesters.
» Only if HK didn’t protest against mainland tourists before. Well yeah. China PR wants to pack Hong Kong with han people. This is no secret. They did the same with Tibet as well.
Re: Mainlanders don't all view Hong Kong the same way
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know exactly what you mean. I have a friend on wechat from my time living in China. It is remarkable for me to talk with this person. He's not at all the belligerent nationalist type nor the insufficiently critical news-bubble type. Yet even he finds the narrative pushed by the news to be compelling. It's been a stimulating exercise talking with him without falling down the rabbit hole of dismissing each others fac…
1.a Ask how much a protester is paid for participating. The number I've seen floating around is 3000 RMB. Then ask how much it costs to buy a million protesters. If they think that that's a reasonable amount, ask why they didn't simply buy every single Hong Konger for just slightly more. Hopefully they'll realize that most protesters aren't paid. 1.b The protesters' demands are all about changing the behavior of the…
Re: Mainlanders don't all view Hong Kong the same way
#64Without all the facts, mainlanders will never be in a clear position to make a proper decision. That's how the system is designed.
From what i gathered 140 million mainlanders travel abroad each year. and 140 million mainlanders return to China. That tells you enough people vote with their feets, wallet and voice.
I believe it's not a matter of "voting with your feet" so much as "if you don't have a good standing with the government, you aren't getting out in the first place". Anyway, even if you got out and couldn't get back in, the government would probably send people to "escort you back home".
In [the link that GuiA gives below](http://www.slate.fr/grand-format/touristes-chinois-europe-je...), the last slide tells of how the tourists have to surrender their passports; I wonder if the high number of tourists is because going through a tourist agency (all of which are state approved) is the easiest way to get an exit visa. I wouldn't be surprised if the agencies were held accountable for any bad behaviour or runaway attempts.
> À leur arrivée en Europe, les touristes donnent leurs passeports au guide, on leur dit que c'est plus sûr. Ils les récupèrent au moment de partir mais doivent les rendre au guide une fois en Chine pour dix jours à deux semaines afin de vérifier qu'ils sont bien rentrés. Il y a même un code de bonne conduite et les touristes sont encouragés à dénoncer les autres touristes qui se sont mal comportés en Europe.
My translation:
> On their arrival in Europe, the tourists give their passports to the tour guide — they're told it's safer that way. They get them back the moment they leave, but must give them to the guide again for 10–14 days once landed in China so it can be verified that they did indeed return from their trip. There's even a code of good conduct and the tourists are encouraged to denounce other tourists who behaved badly in Europe.
It's also worth noting that China doesn't recognise dual citizenship, and that Hong Kong citizens (not sure about Macau and Taiwan, but I wouldn't be surprised if this applied to them too) are considered mainland citizens once in the mainland. So I, for example, wouldn't be able to appeal to the Canadian embassy if anything happened.
Given that, even if someone stayed abroad long enough to gain a second citizenship, they'd have to give up their Chinese citizenship in order to avoid risking being "escorted home".
Re: Mainlanders don't all view Hong Kong the same way
#65Just an anecdote. I went to Beijing to watch the Olympics while I was in high school. During a volleyball game, I sat next to a local Chinese boy about my age and started talking with him. Apparently, at some Chinese schools, they give all of the students an English name. Kind of like how American schools give you a Spanish name for Spanish class. His name was Adolf. I asked him if he knew any other famous Adolf's. O…
Re: Mainlanders don't all view Hong Kong the same way
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
From what i gathered 140 million mainlanders travel abroad each year. and 140 million mainlanders return to China. That tells you enough people vote with their feets, wallet and voice.
Strongly disagree. I'm Canadian-Hong Kong, grew up in Hong Kong, and have family in China. Chinese citizens (by which I mean only mainland China, and excluding Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan) need exit visas to leave the country and they're not necessarily easy to acquire; anecdotally, those in my extended family who work for the Chinese government are able to get it quite easily (having shown loyalty, willingness to s…
Sometimes even that isn’t enough:
Re: Mainlanders don't all view Hong Kong the same way
#67Just an anecdote. I went to Beijing to watch the Olympics while I was in high school. During a volleyball game, I sat next to a local Chinese boy about my age and started talking with him. Apparently, at some Chinese schools, they give all of the students an English name. Kind of like how American schools give you a Spanish name for Spanish class. His name was Adolf. I asked him if he knew any other famous Adolf's. O…
Re: Mainlanders don't all view Hong Kong the same way
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do they see when they travel abroad though? A large portion (if not a majority?) of those 140 million travelers go through organized tour groups, where they jump from attraction to attraction, staying half an hour or so to take pictures before rushing back to the bus to head to the next stop. This French photographer was allowed to join such a group and it's fascinating: http://www.slate.fr/grand-format/touriste…
Learning takes time. I had an Indian coworker once who freaked out at the airport because the cab driver was black. This was his first trip ever out of his small town in India (late 90s). He was carrying a bit of cash and was worried he was going to have his throat slit. By the time I worked out the reasons for the panic attack, he had already cheesed of the cab guy. When there is a culture clash, these kind of misun…
"For many, it was the first time they traveled abroad, and the last time they would travel to Europe. This trip was a little bit like a trophy."
I'm not sure how much these trips cost compared to the average Chinese salary, but it would make sense - I know that many Americans have been to Europe once - as a graduation gift, or honeymoon, for instance - and could not justify a trip like that with any sort of regularity (combine high prices and few vacation days; and then when you start having to include kids etc., forget about it). More "regular" vacations for the Americans that can afford it would be other places in the US, or perhaps resorts in Mexico/Canada/etc (the Chinese equivalent would be countries in southeast Asia that are cheaper - both in airfare and local expenditures - than Europe).
Sure, all of my SF coworkers go to Iceland and Japan and Patagonia for vacation, but this is a very small, privileged portion of the population we're talking about - not at all representative of the broader US population.
This report [0] is quite telling: in 2016, 80 million Americans traveled abroad - 45 million of which went to North America, and only 13 million went to Europe.
[0] https://travel.trade.gov/tinews/archive/tinews2017/20171026....
Re: Mainlanders don't all view Hong Kong the same way
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
1.a Ask how much a protester is paid for participating. The number I've seen floating around is 3000 RMB. Then ask how much it costs to buy a million protesters. If they think that that's a reasonable amount, ask why they didn't simply buy every single Hong Konger for just slightly more. Hopefully they'll realize that most protesters aren't paid. 1.b The protesters' demands are all about changing the behavior of the…
addendum: with respect to 1a I haven't seen it suggested that the protestors are being paid. I've seen it suggested that a few key organizers are being bribed and the rest are mindless followers. For instance the insinuation that Nathan Law got into Yale as "payment" for "helping to split China". How could I ever disprove that the CIA arranged someone to be admitted to Yale? Its an unfalsifible yet plausible claim. T…
Re: Mainlanders don't all view Hong Kong the same way
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Talk about anti-democratic.
Democracy is fair, not efficient.
The trains running on time is a myth - because the time they arrive is defined as "on time" all while denying reality.