What sort of cynical embittered world are we living in, where you can’t tow a decrepit money-losing floating restaurant out to the Paracels where it tragically sinks in deep water, without nearly everyone instantly muttering about insurance fraud? Shocked!
Some more on the ‘Hong Kong was never a British colony’ hoo-hah from AP. Basically tortured semantics – Hong Kong wasn’t a British colony because we didn’t recognize it as one. A Rita Fan quote in this item in Global Times gets to the heart of why this arcane point is being put into local school textbooks…
…if we were a colony, we would be able to declare “independence” and have our own nationality and culture. “But the fact is Hong Kong people are Chinese, and our culture is Chinese culture,” Fan said.
Citizen-subjects do not have the right to perceive their own heritage. We decide your identity and culture – not you.
A Reddit meme to clarify the issue, or not.
While we’re on the subject of conflicting and shifting meanings of words – the end of ‘One China’, from CSIS…
As [the 2024 presidential election] approaches, growing repression in Hong Kong and shifting demographics in Taiwan may finally convince the KMT to modify or relinquish the last planks of its unification platform. If not, the party risks falling into irrelevancy and Taiwan’s democracy risks losing its loyal opposition.
I really don’t understand why some people are so upset about Jumbo’s demise/sinking. (One person on Twitter wrote that she was as upset about this as when she heard that Cardinal Zen had been arrested!) This is not least because I personally only knew of one person who liked eating at Jumbo — and he’s a South African expat who raved about its sweet and sour pork!
Did any local actually regularly eat at Jumbo — as opposed to its serving tourists that were part of group tours?? Maybe decades ago but not in the last 10 years or so, right?
Scenario:
*cue: sound of a gong*
After North Korea misfires one of their toy ICBMs, it lands in the South China Sea and explodes on the bottom. This wakes up Son of Godzilla. The beast feels hungry after sleeping for 1000 years and decides to go for the seafood buffet of the Jumbo Floating Restaurant that is resting in the trench next door. He finds the door closed. Enraged by anger it swims to the surface, reaches dry land and stomps through the streets of Sham Shui Po… (cont’d)
Scenario:
*cue: sound of a gong*
An evil genius has transformed the Jumbo Floating Restaurant at the bottom of the South China Sea into his high-tech lair from where he will CONQUER THE WORLD. Naval Commander James Bond, aka 007, travels to a great depth in his new super-powered submarine, H.M.S. Queen Camilla, to defeat the heinous fiend. After an intense battle, 007 floats the Jumbo Floating Restaurant to the surface and victoriously sails into Victoria Harbour. While he stands on the top floor balcony with his arm around Bond girl Ursula Undress III, he winks at the camera before retreating inside with Ursula III for some “dim sum”.
Scenario:
*cue: sound of a gong*
Transformers, Jumbo Floating Restaurant, flying ding-dings, apocalypse, a couple of white young lovers, something Oriental, a plot with more holes than Makati II on Sunday afternoon, yadda yadda… (cont’d)
Rumour was the Jumbo was to be a giant floating whorehouse for suffering PLA lads stationed out on those savage, sun bleached, man made bases which have been part of the Chinese motherland for 7,578 years (look it up!).
That would be Rita Fan who served on the colonial LegCo in the 1980s and ExCo until 1989? I see…
Has Rita Fan given up her CBE yet? Seems like a strange award to keep for someone who refuses to admit that Hong Kong was once a British colony.
Anyway, China and its partisans seem to want it both ways. On one hand, they say that Hong Kong was never a British colony. On the other hand, they want to decolonize Hong Kongers, as the failure to do so after the handover supposedly led to the social unrest of recent years.
But how would they decolonize a place that was, by their claim, never a colony?
Rita Fan’s statement that “Hong Kong people are Chinese” is of course incorrect, or at least not the full story – from its earliest days under British rule, Hong Kong’s population has included substantial minorities of mostly European and South Asian extraction. It is the resultant mixing of cultures that has given Hong Kong its unique cultural identity, one which Fan and company now seek to deny and supplant. Moreover the notion that there is a single “Chinese culture” is also highly questionable. Not only are there substantial differences between the cultures of China’s different regions – in their arts, cuisine, even language (which is fundamental to culture), but the PRC’s definition of who is “Chinese” includes groups with undeniably distinct cultures such as Tibetans and Uyghurs. Nationality should not be confused with culture – there are many countries around the world which successfully accommodate more than one culture.
To be fair, Cafe Deco did run Top Deck at Jumbo for several years which did a very good value free-flow weekend brunch which I enjoyed several times with various groups of friends. But, sadly, as usual, it was allegedly forced out of business by the landlord seeing how successful it was and demanding an unsustainably large slice of the pie.
Beware the Ides of March.
Melco following in the Ho family tradition probably planned a floating casino/bordello on the Paracels. The personnel posted there have nothing to spend their cash on.
“…forced out of business by the landlord seeing how successful it was and demanding an unsustainably large slice of the pie.”
The true metaphor for HK.
Carrie is looking forward to travel (after retiring); wonder what countries she had in mind knowing she is on the sanction list.
Carrie is looking forward to travel
By GB Airlines, presumably, with its one aeroplane and assuming it has no US$ transactions.
It’s a bit sad to see Beijing flailing around with these convoluted and bogus non-colony claims. Is this really the best they can do, and do they think anyone (Alex Lo’s latest yawn-fest notwithstanding) takes them seriously? They’re making fools of themselves on the world stage.
Jumbo lost (sorry, “lost”) in super-dooper deep waters exceeding 1,000m depth? narrowed eyes everyone. Lets note:
“Dragon Hole, or Longdong, is reportedly more than 300 meters deep. If confirmed, that would be far deeper than the previous record holder, Dean’s Blue Hole in the Bahamas”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/south-china-sea-blue-hole-could-be-world-s-deepest/
Should I report Rita Fan to the terrorist alert hotline? If I look carefully at the GT picture I spot a Purilite Butane Gas Refill BOMB on her bookshelf. If she were a democrat this surely would land her in the slammer. And what’s all the other stuff in small bottles ? Acetone nail polish remover? She sure does not paint her nails, does she? And maybe fertiliser pills “for her roses”? Looks like a job for Alick McWhriter !
@Portuguese Tart: They made fools of themselves long ago when they decided Putin was their guy to back and Russia still has any links at all to “Communist” China (other than cheap oil and being a dictatorship) due to “historical ties” of a Comintern.
“Did any local actually regularly eat at Jumbo”
I doubt it. It’s something you don’t miss until it’s suddenly gone.
I only went there once in 2016 when I took my cousin there. At the time wife and I joked about what a touristy place it is, but we had fun. Now we’re both pretty sad it’s gone.
“This is not least because I personally only knew of one person who liked eating at Jumbo — and he’s a South African expat who raved about its sweet and sour pork!”
LOL I love this anecdote. The food was average at best. You go there for the experience more than anything, but of course you know that already. There is much better Dim Sum out there, but it was an icon…