My Take | The demise of post-riot Hong Kong is greatly exaggerated
- A long-time expatriate reader says visitors he met recently have all been pleasantly surprised by the city, despite the bleak picture painted by foreign media
People are always asking me what’s happening in Hong Kong. I usually tell them not to believe anything you come across in the mainstream Western media. And if you really want to find out, take a holiday and go there.
I pretty much assume those who have actually visited Hong Kong lately will see a picture very different from the one painted by the usual media suspects. Sure enough, a friendly expatriate reader, Finn, has offered three such recent personal encounters. I am quite amused hearing about them. All of them took place this month.
He met an Australian couple on a ferry from Central to Discovery Bay:
“I bumped into a couple from Sydney, Australia, who were on their way to a wedding party in Greece and stopped over in Hong Kong to personally be able to compare Hong Kong before and after the return in 1997 of the city to China – their last visit to Hong Kong took place apparently shortly before the [1997] handover.
“They volunteered that they were impressed with what they had personally experienced in Hong Kong. The friendliness of service staff in hotels, restaurants, public transport etc was highlighted by them – they really felt very welcome. They found HK totally different from the perception that the Australian and international media have been trying to create over the past few years.
“They had long suspected the China story told by their local and international media, which through their personal experiences in HK was indeed confirmed, was blatant lies and exaggerations. They now simply feel fully betrayed by their local media as well as politicians.”