HK’s Love+Hate Relationship with Mainlanders
by Josie Tao
To some, the recent D&G and MTR eating incident seem to be a series of events tipped off by how HKers truly feel about our cousins across the border (and vice versa) . The Guardian muses (quite nicely) that this may be due to the identity issues of HK Chinese (only 1/3 of us consider ourselves “Chinese”).
The professor is clearly a total A-hole, but his views probably do represent how a number of people/visitors truly feel about HK–that we are self-righteous arrogant snobs (especially with some horribly rude experiences/ripoffs from tour guides/travel agencies in HK).
For HKers the feelings toward mainlanders are mixed— businesses lovee their bulk shopping but locals are annoyed with the preferential treatment (although isn’t the sales person at fault?), the government wants their investment (buying apartments, using our hospitals), but locals are suffering from the jacked up prices and shortage of facilities.
The root of the conflicting feelings is that, while we are hungry for a piece of the Mainlander’s frivolous spendings, we hate to feel like they are better than us and can do whatever the f* they want when they are in HK (i.e sh*t at a Broadway, squat at shopping malls, eat in MTRs).
I was shocked to the core the first time I saw that interview. But apparently that professor was known for his inappropriate antics in front of media. Aka a total attention whore.
agreed—- after i let it sit for a while i realized hes just like the china equivalent to long hair or wong yuk man