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Beijing professor
raises hackles in HK with comments
AFP, BEIJING
A controversial Chinese professor has sparked an outcry by calling Hong Kong
people “bastards,” “dogs” and “cheats” after a spat between mainlanders and
locals in the territory went viral online.
Kong Qingdong (孔慶東) — famous for his public use of profanities — made the
comments after a video showed a mainland girl being rebuked by locals angry that
she was flouting rules against eating aboard Hong Kong subway trains.
The incident has been described as an example of the culture clash between
mainland China and Hong Kong, with many pointing to what they see as a prevalent
sense of superiority among residents in the former British colony.
“Everybody should have a duty to speak Mandarin,” Kong, a professor of Chinese
studies at Peking University who says he is a descendent of the philosopher
Confucius, said in an interview posted on online video Web site v1.cn last week.
“What type of people are those who deliberately don’t speak Mandarin? Bastards!”
he said, referring to the Hong Kong people involved in the row, who spoke
Cantonese.
“As far as I know, many Hong Kong people don’t regard themselves as Chinese.
Those kinds of people are used to being the dogs of British colonialists — they
are dogs, not humans,” he said.
Kong also says the British dealt with “Hong Kong dogs by spanking them” before
they handed the territory back to China in 1997, and he accuses many Hong Kong
people of swindling and cheating.
Furious netizens in Hong Kong have vented their anger, with many attacking
mainland China in sometimes vicious comments.
“I see a fat dog barking, all I can say is, please take a look at your own
country before u comment on other people,” one online user wrote, before listing
perceptions about what is wrong with mainland China.
About 150 people protested at Kong’s comments on Sunday evening outside
Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong, police in the territory said.
Hong Kong trade union lawmaker Lee Cheuk-yan (李卓人) said the outcry was evidence
of growing tensions between people in the territory and on the mainland.
“This is a ticking time bomb,” he said.
“Hong Kong people are unhappy with the central government, we are disgruntled
about the lack of democracy. On a more day-to-day level, you see that Hong Kong
people often have clashes with mainlanders,” he said.
Kong himself has reportedly backtracked from the controversy, claiming in a
subsequent interview that he did not mean all Hong Kong people were “dogs,” but
said some people who kowtowed to colonialism were dogs.
The professor is no stranger to controversy. He was reportedly involved in a
shadowy “Confucius Peace Prize” that awarded its annual prize to Russian Prime
Minister Vladimir Putin last year and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)
chairman Lien Chan (連戰) the year before.
The furore has highlighted the wide gap that still exists between China and Hong
Kong.
A survey published last month by the University of Hong Kong found that just 17
percent of people in the territory identified themselves as Chinese, the lowest
percentage since 2000.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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