Yesterday’s South China Morning Post carried part 4 in the paper’s report on key religious figures, and today’s resumes the post-Occupy/Umbrella ‘Moving Forward’ series. Both feature aging men whining about how Hong Kong’s awful (especially young) people should be more Mainland/Chinese.
Thus in part 3 of the religious figures series, the hitherto unheard-of leader of the local Confucians (not really a religion, but anyway) lamented Hong Kong’s ‘British-style’ culture. Past tripe from the unremittingly tiresome ‘Moving Forward’ series can be seen here and here – the latter including a classic quote from an interviewee saying the key to boosting Hong Kong’s competitiveness is ‘cross-disciplinary productivity, which will create new things that are impactful’…
Yesterday’s religious leader was the local Buddhist boss, who predictably complains about young people’s ‘foreign/Western’ education and lack of understanding of Chinese culture. He recommends yuan rong, or ‘perfection and fusion’, as a way to restore harmony.
He also says the young have a bright future on the Mainland, as it has lots of job opportunities. So the SCMP headline could read ‘Buddhist advice on satisfying your lust for money’. After all, Buddhism is at least as sleazy and money-grubbing as any hypocritical monotheistic flimflam. Racist Burmese monks and the corrupt Shaolin abbot are old stories, and closer to home as we speak we have a fraud-committing nun and her fake marriages. This, rather than demanding democracy, is the way Hong Kong’s Umbrella generation can find Nirvana.
Today’s ‘Moving Forward’ piece features Antony Wu, the ubiquitous all-purpose cheerleader of the bureaucrat-tycoon cabal that ran Hong Kong back in the days of Chief Executive Donald Tsang. Last heard of being censured by the accountants’ disciplinary body, he is now apparently advising China on, among other things, family planning. Which would be fascinating, so obviously the SCMP overlooks it, and focuses only on his ‘young-people-crap, Mainland-wonderful’ comments, which is the same stuff as in the rest of the series.
In one respect, however, the Wu interview is noteworthy and thought-provoking – namely that thing next to the great man in the photo. It obviously brings him pleasure and comfort. Is it a camel saddle? Or some sort of yoke placed around the necks of peasants as a punishment? Or is it a little house for his pet elves? I declare the mid-week mini-weekend open with the hope that perhaps it is a ‘new thing that is impactful’.
(Hmmm…. Disappointing.)
So glad I ended my paid SCMP subscription last year. That rag has spiraled into utter embarrassment territory. When will they finally merge offices with Global Times?
That thing next to Wu is a 1:1 model of an affordable housing unit for today’s youth and tomorrow’s McDonald’s/Fortress/Louis Vuitton/SaSa minion.
I can plot my steady decline in reading the SCMP, it started with not getting to the end of an article, then I got half way down, then the first paragraph, I graduated to just reading the titles then just glancing at them. Now I am left with reading the polarized comments as the only voice of free speech left the whole pile of loo paper. Oh and I never ever look at the China section now, even the China Daily is more open than SCMP. HKFP is improving as the weeks go on, I think it is time for me to donate to them.
Antony WU. Looking more like a toad than ever. Shame there wasn’t a fly on the thing* next to him, as a photo of his batrachian tongue zipping out to catch it would have been great! *A camel saddle! Now I know what to get him for Christmas – a camel, so he can ride off into the sunset and not come back.
You’ve got to admire the big iron Buddha balls on a lad who is preaching a religion famous for being imported from the west saying that the problem with the Hong Kong youf is that they have been taught foreign ways by the west. Hypocrite of the week?
I did enjoy the SCUMP’s front page today where the government ploy to get equal coverage for Ken Tsang’s watering the cops vs his savage beating spectacularly backfired: even they know which is the bigger story with Ken getting a single para.
The Pro China Rag and the Sub-Standard are also colonial relics. Time they pulled the plug and end their miserable existence.
It’s a pity Jimmy Lai doesn’t publish in English.
Thank you, Hemlock, for reading this crap so that I don’t have to. The original Indian Buddhism was all about moderation, meditation and inner peace. When it moved to East Asia, it acquired bells and whistles and saints, heavens, hells, monsters, demons, expensively dyed robes and gold-plated mummies. Apparently it’s not a proper religion if it doesn’t have shiny bling.
If you’re putting the boot in on distortions of Buddhism, don’t forget Sri Lanka where Buddhist monks have been encouraging attacks on innocent Muslims.
Ironies abounding in the China Morning Post:
Buddhism. From India.
Communism. From Europe
Dumbass Confusion [sic] Dude banging on about how we should be helping the old and needy: median waiting time for cataract op at a HK public hospital = 2 years. (UK health service = 2 months)
Actually, not sure if that last one is irony or not. It’s still a BS statistic considering we can afford bridges to Macau and high speed rail links to (…be still my heart!) the motherland.
It is a tradition on the web, when discussing subjects such as religion, to introduce the Nazis and compare someone to Hitler.
If you’re putting the boot in on distortions of Buddhism, don’t forget Korea. From a BBC report on 12 October 1999:
Hundreds of Buddhist monks in South Korea have staged a pitched battle over control of the country’s richest monastic order.
At least four monks are reported to have been injured as rival factions clashed in the streets in the centre of the capital, Seoul.
Several policemen and journalists are also said to have been hurt.
For 30 minutes, grey-robed monks, armed with makeshift weapons and hurling stones, bottles and furniture attacked each other at the temple.
Police estimated more than 500 monks of the Chogye order battled alongside hired security men to defend the building – at one point they turned chemical fire extinguishers onto their attackers who were trying to take over the compound.
I’m surprised at the number of people apparently cancelling their SCMP subscription.
It’s worth it just for the joys to be found in the Letters page.
old git, you are worse than Adolf. OK, done !
Louis’ question of the day: why do Jerries and Ruskies have a Fatherland but we have a Motherland ?
If commenters on the Big Lychee blog persist in using words like “batrachian”, I’m going to cancel my subscription.
@Regislea
Exactly. I always like to start my day with an Earl Grey and a Peter Lok.
@Regislea: Admit it…you’re a closet “Pierce Lam” fanboy!!
@Chinese Netizen Completely open about it – but isn’t everybody a PL fan?
Diane Butler: Why Motherland? The Chinese use night-soil farming, and China/CCP is a patriarchal society. The sky is male, but take heart — the CCP now equally shit upon the sky order to supply America/Walmart （same/same) with the useless sort of crap Big Lychee catalogued on 22 Oct. When the pedarist Mao said women hold up half the sky, it now seems clear he meant the half full of manure real shit. Either that or his sagging libido, which was quite similar in nature.
That thing next to Antony WU looks to me like a 1960s-era attempt at a (then) avant-garde bass speaker, or “woofer”, as they are now known. They used to have something similar in the upstairs dining room at the long-defunct Ruby Restaurant in Mongkok, once a favourite hangout of denizens of the local nick.
@reductio: Your failure to capitalise “Motherland” has no doubt resulted in a file being opened under your name.
@Nimby – pedarist? Did you mean pederast? If so, I think you’ve got the wrong word – so far as we know, Mao’s tastes were for young girls, not boys. Strictly for the sake of his health, of course.