Since the return of Hong Kong, we treat Hong Kong more cordially, and many Hong Kong people are also cordial to mainlanders, and the service conditions in Hong Kong are indeed much better than most mainland cities, so many pregnant women like to go to Hong Kong to give birth, not to see the streets full of The Hong Kong people finally couldn’t help but get angry.
A large advertisement titled “Hong Kong People, Enough is Enough” appeared in a Hong Kong newspaper on February 1, expressing an anti-Mainland pregnant women’s stance on coming to Hong Kong and insinuating that Mainlanders are locusts, asking the authorities to They also insinuated that mainlanders are locusts and asked the authorities to stop mainlanders from “entering Hong Kong”. Some Hong Kong people said this in no way represents the view of the majority of Hong Kong people.
It is reported that the full-page advertisement was published in a Hong Kong newspaper by Hong Kong netizens through online fundraising. This group of netizens earlier is in the face book (Facebook) opened “oppose mainland pregnant women to give birth in Hong Kong! 100,000 people like the government!” group, and to raise money to place an ad to express their demands.
The ad features a green locust climbing to the top of Hong Kong’s Lion Rock, looking out over Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour, with the headline “Do you want Hong Kong to spend $1,000,000 every 18 minutes to raise a child who is not born in Hong Kong? ”
The ad also claims, “Hong Kong people, enough is enough!” It also makes the claim: “Strongly urge the government to amend Article 24 of the Basic Law! Stop the unlimited number of Mainland doubly non-permanent resident pregnant women from entering Hong Kong!” .
After the ad hit the streets, some Hong Kong netizens expressed support for the “anti-locust” demand and the demand to amend the law. Some people also pointed out that stopping pregnant women from the mainland from giving birth in Hong Kong is not xenophobic.
But there were also many mainlanders who expressed anger at the ad’s shaming of mainlanders as “locusts,” saying that Hong Kong people still discriminate against mainlanders years after the handover, and even look down on Mandarin and simplified Chinese.
Background
With the Individual Visit Scheme for Mainlanders to Hong Kong in recent years, a large number of pregnant Mainlanders have come to Hong Kong to give birth. A large number of pregnant mainland women have gone to Hong Kong to give birth in exchange for their children’s permanent resident status and benefits in Hong Kong.
According to information, there were 620 “doubly non-permanent resident children” in 2001 and 32,000 in 2010. As the number of pregnant women from the mainland increases, Hong Kong’s medical institutions are overwhelmed and there are no beds for pregnant women to give birth in Hong Kong, which has led to sharp conflicts. After the Hong Kong government adopted measures to give priority to local pregnant women, pregnant women from the mainland began to rush through the emergency rooms of hospitals. Last year, there were more than 1,600 deliveries by foreign pregnant women through the emergency departments of Hong Kong’s public hospitals, more than twice the number of the previous year.
Mainland pregnant women are not “locusts”
In the early morning of Feb. 1, netizen “Hong Kong Girl Kitchen” posted this full-page advertisement. Within two days, it was retweeted more than 110,000 times on twitter alone, with more than 40,000 comments, sparking heated debates among netizens from all sides.
Over-the-top rhetoric drew backlash from netizens
On the issue of “Mainland pregnant women giving birth in Hong Kong “In an online survey, 60% of netizens “understand” the “opposition” attitude of some Hong Kong people; more than 20% of netizens feel “incomprehensible In an online survey, 60% of the netizens expressed “understanding” of the “opposition” of some Hong Kong people; more than 20% felt “incomprehensible” and thought “some people in Hong Kong lack inclusiveness”; some others thought it was “hard to say”.
The debate has been going on for a long time, but this time the “advertisement” alludes to pregnant women from the mainland as “locusts” and The “ad”, which alluded to mainland women as “locusts” and “denied” mainland tourists the freedom to travel and shop in Hong Kong, stirred up a lot of antipathy among netizens, “understanding and accepting are two different things, the rhetoric is too radical and hurts many innocent people …… “
Advertising can’t be “blind representation”
Advertising can’t be “blind representation”
The wording of the “advertisement”, such as “If it weren’t for Hong Kong, you’d all be finished”, has expanded the incident from a debate on “mainland pregnant women giving birth in Hong Kong” to a debate on the relationship between Hong Kong and the mainland.
Netizen “Jingling by the Stream” said, “I can understand Hong Kong people’s fear of taking up resources, but such wording is really a bit unacceptable. When they need the mainland, the mainland is their support, when they do not need the mainland, the mainland is their drag. Hong Kong is a child spoiled by its motherland.”
Netizen “Formosa” pointed out that the wording of the ad was quite disgusting, “especially for the Individual Visit Scheme, which is supposed to be mutually beneficial.
The website is a good place to start.
However, more netizens believe that this should be the extreme attitude of a minority of Hong Kong people. For the radical content of the ad, netizen sososoda on the angry denunciation, “discussing the issue of pregnant women involved in the free travel why? It’s hard to believe that everyone on the free flow has gone to Hong Kong to give birth to a child? Such radical behavior has any good effect? Does it show good quality? You put up with yourself enough you sign your name, don’t represent others blindly!”
Netizens count the “regional discrimination”
Many pregnant women go to great lengths to have their babies in Hong Kong, in the opinion of netizens, because of two main reasons: having a Hong Kong domicile and being able to have more babies.
Netizen “Wendy 2009” said, “We shouldn’t blame Hong Kong people for not being able to accommodate pregnant women from the mainland to give birth in Hong Kong. At least Hong Kong as long as your child landed there, the child will be recognized as a Hong Kong citizen. Which part of the mainland has done that?” Netizen Weeds believes that Hong Kong people look at mainlanders the same way as Beijing and Shanghai people look at migrant workers. The government’s policy is to promote the use of the Internet as a means of communication between the public and the private sector.
Voice
A Hong Kong citizen: The ad may reflect the views of some Hong Kong people. the views of some Hong Kong people, especially some affected local pregnant women, but the metaphor used is very rude and in no way represents the views of the majority of Hong Kong people.
Hong Kong Baptist University Associate Professor YU Wai-kam: I understand the feelings of the person who placed the ad, as their immediate interests are affected, but I cannot agree with the metaphors that appear in the ad. We are all compatriots, people of the same country, and it is totally wrong to use locusts to describe them. There is a serious notion of regional discrimination in Chinese culture, where people from different places discriminate against each other, but the biggest problem now is not that mainland compatriots are coming to Hong Kong to have children, but that something is wrong with our population policy.
Hong Kong is facing a serious problem of aging population. Hong Kong simply needs a lot of young people to come to Hong Kong and should encourage new immigrants, not oppose compatriots from different places to come to Hong Kong to have children.
Zhou Ning, head of the Chinese Department at Xiamen University: Running a full-page ad criticizing pregnant women for giving birth in Hong Kong is an uncool act. The incident itself is not very important, it is mixed with the grievances of both sides and does not need to be infinitely magnified. The recent series of escalating incidents show that name-calling and emotional expressions cannot solve the problem, and both the mainland and Hong Kong should reflect on it.
@HKTV Chen Yang: I solemnly call for an immediate end to all geographical attacks! In half a century of living I have never seen Chinese people irrationally attacking each other in an increasingly vitriolic manner on the topic of geography. A literal war of words! This is definitely an ominous sign. The openness and irrationality of the ethnic divide is a disaster. No one wants to spend the next hundred years of painful healing to atone for today’s disrespectful remarks. Those who agree, please turn. Please!
@Yang Jinlin: Those who are responsible for Hong Kong and Macau should not take this phenomenon lightly. It is extremely unfriendly and unwarranted to accuse mainland pregnant women coming to Hong Kong as locusts. This is not the mainstream of this part of Hong Kong people, but the various institutional differences between the two places, especially the increasing number of cases of conflict involving resources in the field of people’s livelihood, which is not simply instigated by the so-called anti-China and chaotic forces in Hong Kong, but deeper structural hidden worries are swaying and interfering with the process of the practice of one country, two systems.
@From Wind Forest Volcano to Knowledge and Action: Mainlanders should also face up to their own problems and must learn to respect others, respecting others is respecting themselves. Those minor problems, such as loud noise, spitting, queue jumping, will not say polite, steal hotel towels, use hotel towels to wipe shoes, throw cigarette butts on the hotel carpet and other problems should be resolutely quit, otherwise, it will only make people look down on. What does it say about some attractions in Europe that there are warning tips in Chinese alone?
So many voices mixed together, like Beethoven’s symphony, but the editor still believes that in the end, the government will step in to set things right, the power of our people is small, and the power of the government is strong, as long as this news is found by some thoughtful leaders Discovered, is certainly the time for the end of the story, is not the end of all? So the problem of pregnant women, or the leaders to solve!