The measure of success of any nickname is how many people adopt it. So the unknown creator of Frederick Ma Si-hang's alias, Sart Ta Sei, should take a bow. According to a government source, many civil servants within the Central Government Offices are now secretly calling the Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Sart Ta Sei (kill it), the brand name of a pesticide featured in a decade-old television commercial.
In the animated commercial, a dizzy-looking cockroach which has been sprayed with the pesticide knocks on the door of a household plagued by many other cockroaches. When the door is opened, the insect says by way of an introduction to this party of new friends: 'Ah Chung [an insect] asked me to come over.' The contaminated cockroach enters the flat and soon dies - killing all the others with the contagious pesticide.
In real life, Sart Ta Sei, er . . . Ma (right), recently voted as the least popular politician in Hong Kong, is a long-time friend of Financial Secretary Antony Leung Kam-chung, who is known as Ah Chung.
