Published by: Chinese Community Forum, Wednesday, June 4, 1997

By Shuo WANG

[Editor's note: we owe great gratitude to the editors at Beijing Scene, an

on-line weekly based on the WEB (http://www.beijingscene.com) for the

decent translation job and for giving CCF the permission to carry this

article.)

Ever since I was little, I have known that Hong Kong is occupied by foreigners. All of the Chinese people have stood up; only the people of Hong Kong still serve as the cows and horses of the British. First, I don't understand why our invincible People's Liberation Army liberated every piece of land, but didn't free Hong Kong? It's understandable that they didn't liberate Taiwan. The main reason was to preserve world peace, not due to fear of the U.S. paper tiger. Still, I don't quite understand why the U.S., paper tiger that it is, insists on waging war with everyone in sight while you hardly ever hear of anyone who dares to fight it. Second, I don't understand why the Hong Kong people don't carry out a revolution.

How hard life in a colony is! Basically, they're just slaves. On this question, I always took exception to Chairman Mao's view. Especially when I ate my fill of cornbread, I would cry for a spell for the Hong Kong people. I heard they couldn't afford shoes: People without money went barefoot; people with money wore slippers. Every day, they ate some fish bones as their dinner, who knows who got to eat the flesh.

Some 20 years later, someone pointed out a group of small, skinny guys who weren't very tall, whose faces weren't very white, and who wore glasses and suits, and said these are Hong Kong people. They have money, and they like to drink tea. Not only does every one of them wear leather shoes, but after they put their shoes on, they never take them off, creating a kind of special "Hong Kong Feet," (xianggangjiao or athlete's foot). Some time later, before us Mainland guys, Chinese women accepted our Hong Kong compatriots; they liked to sleep with them. In the past, mainlanders used to be simple and honest. When men and women slept together, the women never charged money--you could say it was one of the advantages of socialism. As soon as the Hong Kong guys got here, they paid money for everything, which ruined the common practice. Good old adultery became prostitution instead.

It's all because of this gang of Hong Kong sex maniacs that I started having a bad impression of capitalism. Of course, for a long time now I've accepted the concept that you have to pay for every kind of service.

Another 10 years passed and everyone's very happy to hear that we're going

to get Hong Kong back. I've got a friend who's so poor that each day he goes with bowl and chopsticks to look for acquaintances in restaurants. He's also very happy, like he himself has gotten a big windfall and exorcised a huge hatred. There was a time when many people had no time to think of their own troubles, they placed all their hopes in their great motherland. After all, China is a permanent member of the Security Council and, besides, it possesses atom bombs; it's not anything glorious to have a colony left behind. I once went to Qingdao. A Qingdao guy who's not willing to submit to Hong Kong people told me if we had just known earlier that it took money to construct socialism, wouldn't it be better if we had just let the Germans manage Qingdao up to today and then take it back? The motherland would still be the great motherland, and nothing would be lost; it would just have another treasure chest. And fuck, you wouldn't see the whole street filled with all those dirty girls twittering away in Canton

ese; at least people can understand the Qingdao dialect.

In Dalian, the people said the same thing: If we had only known earlier what is happening today, why were we so hell-bent on fighting the Japanese at the time? Now it's gotten so that we've got to build everything from scratch. Which means, we got badly ripped off and we're really jealous of the Hong Kong people. Who's to blame? Who to blame but Germany and Japan, which overrated their ability to wage war against the U.S. See how clever Great Britain is--it's an ally of the U.S. forever and the Hong Kong people get to share in the luck. Of course, it's too unpatriotic to say this, and I don't dare speak out for fear of being beaten to death by those Chinese who can say "no."

All in all, Hong Kong's return is something which allows me to take pleasure in other people's misfortune. It's like a child who was carried off by rich people when he was young; now his poor mom and dad want him back. Our poor dad has got a bad temper, he beats his kids over any little thing. You Hong Kong compatriots shouldn't be too privileged. The misfortune that's due to fall on the Chinese people should be divided around the country a bit; that way, you also increase cohesion. Why don't you learn some Mandarin. There's nothing to fear. Take after the Shanghainese: Work hard, send your own people to Beijing and take over the

Politburo.