HK vs China: a clash of minds and culture

Hello again everyone. I had been wanting to write a long, more thoughtful article about the situation in Hong Kong, I realized my rather hasty post last night amounted to little more than a big middle finger to Chinese government in Beijing and it was written with a lot of anger but not a lot of thought. This morning I stumbled upon my HK friend's latest Facebook post on the issue- it is extremely thoughtful and I will first let you read it before I respond to it:

"So I was talking to some of my friends who live in China, surprisingly they don't think that China's human right problem and blocking the media whenever its anything against China is an issue. Its sad for them because they can't access most of the foreign websites and social networks such as Facebook. YouTube and Instagram (China blocked it too 2 days ago due to the protest in HK), but they really don't see it is a problem AT ALL.I asked them why didn't they protest about it (Zero human rights in China), they said they didnt have to ,because China has everything they needed, its the best, treating the people well etc.. and they think that HK people are now asking for too much, China is already being 'nice' to HK. They think HK people have nothing else better to do but to protest for 'silly thing'.

One of my friend said : 'if not China's help in HK, HK is already dead (economy wise)" I really didn't agree with it but I didn't argue with her. Because they have been raised like this and have been brain washed Whatever you say wont change their mind. I don't deny HK is part of China, but I mean sometimes when you do something you think its a 'help' for someone, maybe they don't like/want your help. its just like some parents would plan everything for their children, they may not like it to be done that way, then you shouldn't force them to accept what you think is 'good' for them. Although I am in UK, I am watching the news about the protest in HK these days, support all of my friends who attend the protest. Peace." 

I can fully understand and appreciate his frustration with his friends in China - I have worked with people from China before and I recognize this attitude. There are a few reasons why people in China would react like that to the protests in HK. Firstly, there is Maslow's hierarchy of needs: less than a generation ago, before the economic reforms in the 1980s, China was an extremely poor country. Thus for them to now have a roof over their heads, three decent meals a day, a job to go to, their children to be educated, enough clothes to wear - there is this sense of, "what more do you want? Why are you so demanding? Why can't you be grateful for what you have already? Why do you want to make so much trouble for everyone by protesting like that?" In China, their basic needs (physiological, safety, love/belonging) are met and they haven't gotten round to thinking about higher order needs (esteem and self-actualization). 

HKers are quite different - having been quite used to economic prosperity for many decades, they are more than ready to think about higher order needs: freedom of speech, democracy, freedom of expression, social equality and other such needs. Now for someone in China who is just concerned about putting enough food on the table for his family, he simply cannot understand why HKers would have this obsession with democracy. Why? Democracy isn't going to fill your stomach when you are hungry, democracy isn't going to quench your thirst when you are thirsty, democracy isn't going to keep you warm on a very cold winter's night - so why do you clamour for something so... abstract and profound?  

HK police attacking protestors with pepper spray

By that token, so many mainland Chinese people are rather unsophisticated and childlike - think about it. I am not calling them stupid per se, just intellectually backward and immature in their ways. I've worked with these people, I should know.  They are not bad or evil people, just brainwashed and shockingly ignorant. A very young child can understand what it means to feel hungry, thirsty or cold - but only a well educated adult can understand the difference between living in a democratic society and a society where you have no say over who rules over you. A child is quite happy to do as s/he is told: when the mother says, "do your homework" or "go to bed now" - the child (in most cases) would gladly do as s/he is told as that is what they are programmed to do by our culture. Whereas as adults, we are far more used to making our own decisions when it comes to anything and everything. When confronted with something illogical or unjust, we ask questions and protest - and that is exactly what the people of HK are doing now. 

In any case, there is a far simpler explanation as to why people from China have reacted like this to the protests in HK - they are taking it personally. There is a huge HK vs China divide, with many HKers being very angry with the influx of Chinese migrants flooding into Hong Kong, creating all kinds of social problems with their appalling anti-social behaviour. Let's not pretend that we're all Chinese and all from the same big happy Chinese family - far from it. So Chinese people in China are unable to see how the protests in Hong Kong could be the catalyst for a move toward democracy in China - no, they don't even understand what the implications of democracy can be, so they are at best baffled by what is going on in Hong Kong (if they even manage to get hold of reliable news reports in China). 

The HK police attacking protesters with tear gas.

What does this mean for the authorities in Beijing then? It means that their worst fears - that similar protests would spread to other big Chinese cities like Shanghai, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Xiamen - are highly unlikely given the mindset of the vast majority of Chinese citizens who are nothing like your average HKers. They just have to sit tight, exercise restraint and wait for the protest movement to run out of momentum - it is now the will of the HK protesters to continue, they are testing the patience of the Beijing government and the Beijing government has little to gain by staging a repeat of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre in Hong Kong. And so whilst tensions and emotions run high on the streets of Hong Kong day after day, it looks like Beijing is playing for a stalemate - there might be some conciliatory gesture that won't matter to much, but the authorities in Beijing at not going to back down because they don't want to 'lose face'. Certainly, they would be most afraid that any response to the protests would only encourage the protesters to ask for more - so they are not going to budge much at all. Not for now at least even as the protests rages on. 

Still, you have got to admire the sheer guts and determination of the protesters in Hong Kong. Sigh, this will never happen in Singaporeans - Singaporeans just don't have the balls that these HKers have.  It does remind me of the Bersih protests in Malaysia (in 2007, 2011 and 2012) - there was so much hope, so much momentum in the movement, so many Malaysians came onto the street in protest and then guess what? Hardly anything changed, Malaysia went back to business as normal after all that. That was very disappointing to say the least. Would the current HK protests go the same way? Or would the protesters acutally triumph and achieve real change, at least in Hong Kong's future?

In part 2, I am going to be comparing the situations in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong. These three countries are actually far more different than you think when it comes to their political situation. Stay tuned, akan datang.