SCMP letters pages have been burning hot recently on the issue of the government subsidy for the English Schools Foundation, with a government minister describing it as a historical anomaly, and the usual suspects such as Pierce Lam and Cynthia Sze espousing their view that Hong Kong does not need English, and in fact all expats should shut up. Both of these correspondents wear there prejudice on their sleeves, they consider anything relating to the previous colonial government as negative, and that all expats should just go home ‘cos this is China now.
I’ll concede that the subsidy is a historical legacy, but does that make it a bad thing? The small house policy is a historical legacy, and that is a bad thing, but I don’t see our bunch of incompetents rushing to bemoan it, as it is filed under “too hard.” Also, a historical legacy; schooling abroad for children of civil servants, not to mention their obscenely high wages compared to the private sector – am still amazed that cha cha Tsang is better paid than Obama.
At root here is anti colonialism, or if you want to use a stronger word, racism, of which more, much more later.
But for now, every time I read one of these letters, from the above, or Peter Lok extolling the wonders of the motherland, I’m moved to wonder how quickly these people forget the opportunities that were ‘foisted’ on them by a colonial government, ie the right to escape to Hong Kong from starvation, murder and exploitation on Mainland China during the worst of the communist parties excesses. Hong Kong is a immigrant society, the colonial government operated a ‘touch base’ policy for those escaping ‘commie’ persecution; if you got here, you were allowed to stay. How many successful immigrants in Hong Kong are here today due to this enlightened policy.
But back to the ESF, it’s all been covered in the press, and it is just an ignorant government pandering to the masses, and ignoring reality, over 50% of pupils are of chinese extraction. The main issue is that local education is not good enough for ambitious parents, who do not want their children brought up to be good wee empty vessels ripe for filling. ESF and other elite schools breed intelligent, well rounded and confident individuals who are much more mature at any given age than their government educated peers.
Instead of penalising the ESF, the government should be investing massive sums of money in all schools to improve the overall quality of the local education.
It’s not racism, just ignorance
There was once a comedy sketch with John Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett. Unfortunately it’s not on you tube due to some copy right claim, for fucks sake, it’s 40 years old, but it was a parody of the English class system and went something like this: Cleese: (looking down) “I look down on him because I am upper class.”
Barker: (looking up) “I look up to him because he is upper class,” (looking down) “but I look down to him because he is lower class.” (looking straight) “I am middle class.”
Corbett: “I know my place.”
Cleese: (looking down) “I get a feeling of superiority over them.” Barker: (looking up) “I get a feeling of inferiority from him but a (looking down) feeling of superiority over him.”
Corbett: (looking up) “I get a pain in the back of my neck.”
I mention this because in Hong Kong, there is a lot of that looking up and down on people, and it was touched on briefly in an excellent article yesterday by Philip Bowring in the Sunday Morning Post. As Bowring says:
“That racism is innate in our official attitudes to our East and South Asian Neighbours who constitute all the domestic helpers is well attested to by many events, not least the continued government attempt to advise hong kongers of the dangers of visiting the Philipinnes.”
An uncredited copy of the same article can be found here on Asia Sentinal:
Click Here
To really get a feel for what are some very strange opinions, I’d recommend reading the comments section and weeping.
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