Kapok: Now, a #fishballrevolution?

What just happened in Hong Kong should not leave us indifferent, and deserves better than short rehashes of the most police-friendly article of the South China Morning Post or anxiety-conjuring front-page pictures of rioters (no demonstrators there…) being “appropriately” contained by duty-blissed (and heavily-equipped) constables. First, because even though it happened in the early hours of the second day of the fiery fire monkey year, “squabble day” (Chek Hau) actually falls on the third day, so, clearly, the whole episode marks more than the calendar! Second, because even pro-Beijing legislator Regina Ip—the one who, as secretary for security, failed to sell article 23 to Hong Kong people back in 2002-2003—views it as somehow reflecting the inability of the Hong Kong government to tackle the deep-rooted issues affecting the SAR. And finally, because these events hold a universal message that not even our neon-glowing out-of-this-world gaming paradise should ignore.

Scenes of street-battle in Mong Kok happening at a time of supposedly festive and rejuvenating mood helped capture our imagination, and added to the sense of “disproportionate” incongruity between the trigger—the expulsion of illegal street hawkers by police-backed agents of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department around Langham Place—and images of intense clashes between policemen and demonstrators, possibly not seen since the 1960s. Soon characterized as “riots”, as to delegitimize the whole affair (and probably frustrate some insurance claims!), what had started as a “quarrel” between the hawkers and officials grew into fierce opposition to state authority after a so-called “localist” group, Hong Kong Indigenous, encouraged people through social media to come and support the hawkers. Violence erupted: cobblestones were dislodged from the pavement and thrown at the police; chubby orange-colored rubbish bins set on fire; windows and surveillance cameras broken; police sticks heavily fell on necks, backs and shoulders; warning shots were fired; blood was spilled and participants as well as policemen injured; journalists were threatened by both sides and arrests were made—dozens of them. Yet, at the height of the confrontation, no more than 300 people participated!

All that sound and fury for a “fish ball revolution” of 300? And if violence is to be utterly condemned and responsibilities have yet to be fully established what is this protest in aid of?

In an enlightened op-ed, Jason Y. Ng makes a direct connection between these events and the Jasmine Revolution—I immediately thought of the 228 in Taiwan back in 1947—with the warning that one should “never underestimate what the little guy can do.” For Ng, who equates the hawkers with Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia, such dramatic events can only happen because of short- as well as long-terms dysfunctions of the Hong Kong government, with the little people—booksellers included!—feeling more and more like helpless victims, in a wider context of broken promises—social, economical and political. Beyond the almost exclusive blame put on C.Y. Leung “dismantling the city bit by bit”, Ng’s final comments sound like a resounding warning: “Unless we find a way to cool the rising political temperature, it is perhaps a matter of time before we have our very own Mohamed Bouazizi and protesters set more than just garbage on fire.”

A study released in mid-January by The University of Hong Kong actually showed that the Public Sentiment Index had hit a 20-year low, even lower than in 2003 at the time of the combined SARS and Article 23 crises, or at the end of 2014 during the Umbrella Movement. The Index is precisely meant to quantify Hong Kong people’s sentiments “in order to explain and predict the likelihood of collective behaviour”!
What about Macao then? Is there a “localist” movement? Is civil society mature enough to escape the grip of traditional associations? Is the government perceived as doing the right job and is it fully trusted? One would be hard-pressed to find a hint of scientifically grounded survey regarding any of these issues… let alone anticipate them!

Published in Macau Daily Times on February 12th 2016

Kapok: Progress vs. growth

Ask any resident in Macao and you will probably get the same answer: Chinese New Year has become a real nuisance for our territory, mainly because of the massive arrival of tourists, all channeled along the “axis of consumption” in the city center—and here I am not even plowing into the officially orchestrated permit to pollute the air and the ears of passers-by in the form of a pyrotechnic extravaganza that is truly scaring the dead as well as the living! 
According to the Public Security Police, 915,275 visitors entered Macau between January 31 and February 5, 73% of whom came from the mainland. Overall, that means that one and a half times the total population of Macao entered the territory in less than a week, or close to a third stepped in every single day. Extrapolating from the figures of 2013 (altogether 29.3 million visitors for the whole year), 51% of this massive influx consists of day-trippers: no wonder then that the public transport system is overloaded and the streets jammed when those hasty sightseers have to be carried back to the border-gate on the same day!
Here and there, I have been reading several articulated criticisms regarding this free-flow of tourists into Macao that emphasise the “unsustainability” of the whole situation.
To the drastic measures oriented-ones who remark that in any case more than 70% of Macau’s gambling revenue is derived from VIP tables and that high-rollers tend to deliberately avoid Chinese New Year for the annoyances it brings I say: yes, sure, and yet SMEs are not to be forgotten, and here we are talking about far more than just the over-inflated cosmetics, dry cakes, beef jerky and milk powder outlets. Countless small restaurants and shops actually benefit from the pendulum-like daily invasion, and knowing the importance of “gift-giving” in Chinese culture, I am pretty sure that there is even more room for growth in this area. Of course, that means that some of the heavily visited spots should be “reserved” or “pre-empted” by the government for these small operations to obtain without having to pay hefty rent prices—a preemption based on the multi-pronged sustainability of the project more than the nationality of the operator. 
Clearly put, the ousting of the Cultural Club on San Ma Lo in January or the vacating at the end of 2013 of the Yellow House next to St Paul’s Ruins to make way for the global fashion brand Forever 21 should have been prevented—in the latter case, the Yellow House is owned by Future Bright Holdings, the company managed by legislator Chan Chak Mo, who is supposedly representing the “cultural sector” in the Legislative Assembly! 
The same line of reasoning goes for those who believe that this massive crowd should be funnelled exclusively, or at least mostly, to the Cotai strip: not only will it deprive SMEs of their fair share of the juicy pie, but it will also constitute a missed-opportunity for mass education as to how and why Macao is different from the rest of China—entertainment and the epitome of fake, however professional they are, will never replace culture… it’s like saying “don’t go to Boston if you’ve been to Vegas”! 
To those who, on the contrary, believe that things should be left to market forces and that ultimately tourists will get fed-up of feeling like subway customers at rush-hour in the open air and will thus come up with their own corrective measures, I say: you have no idea what human nature can endure and for how long it can do so in a nation that has been deprived of holidays for 50 years… visit the Yellow Mountain in Anhui province on any given day, and you will get my meaning!
Something needs to be done, that’s for certain, and all the touristic places in the world are faced with the same challenges—83 million Chinese tourists went abroad in 2012, and that number is set to reach 200 million by 2020. Spreading the visitors out across the year and thus imposing quotas is inescapable. It is high time that our GDP indicator be coupled with a Genuine Progress indicator, taking into account social and environmental costs. 
If Bhutan can design and fare well in a Gross National Happiness indicator while still controlling the number of entries to its tiny and modest kingdom, so why can’t Macao, cash-ridden as it is?

Published in Macau Daily Times, February 7th 2014