The en-masse shelf-clearing of milk powder by Chinese smugglers and tourists has triggered another round of angry locust-bashing. At least Hong Kong can take some cold comfort this time, since our fellow Chinese countrymen up north never seem to have an appetite for food products manufactured in North Korea or Cuba. As a victim of milk powder shortages, at least we can rank ourselves in the league of civilized countries like Germany, the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand.
Young Hongkongers have been smart to seize the opportunity to appeal to the US government for some kind of 1948-Berlin airlift—it would be a bold and ambitious attempt, but technically more difficult to implement here than pushing through a gay marriage bill. In this hypothetical, American pilots might not be able to tell which among those stampeding on Nathan Road are local Hongkongers or Chinese tourists. (This presupposes, of course, that they won’t be shot down by the PLA.) But of course, there is little the can-do Obama administration—widely believed to be ushering the US into permanent decline—can do.
The only way for Hong Kong to help itself is to appeal to Beijing to launch its own nationwide breastfeeding campaign. It wouldn’t be too difficult. First of all, everyone knows that Chinese milk powder is contaminated. But CCTV could claim that by abandoning western-made milk powders and opting for the Chinese bosom, babies will grow up more patriotic. Twenty years ago, proud Chinese mothers breast-fed on pavements and in train station waiting rooms, but now these scenes are rarer and rarer. Why? I was let in on a supposed secret by a mainland Chinese businessman friend: Chinese wives have to compete so fiercely with their husbands’ many mistresses that they need to keep their breasts in the best possible shape. This can be accomplished by not giving birth at all, but if unfortunately it’s too late, only milk powder can leave a Chinese wife confident that her husband will come home to share her bed more often. For this, supposedly, mothers and babies in Australia and New Zealand pay the price.
Western milk powder brands haven’t offered much comment on the Chinese problem, but they did announce with pleasure that they would increase milk powder production by 50 percent in the next 12 months. This would make the lives of Australian cows difficult. Animal rights groups should be on alert.
With the government’s announcement of milk powder rationing measures and fewer babies born in the sinister Year of the Snake, hopefully the war on milk powder will die down before any of this becomes necessary; and more sucklings will turn their innocent sucking happily to their mothers’ own natural breasts, as we Hongkongers did, upon the warm return to our motherland on the night of June 30, 1997.
Chip Tsao is a best-selling author, columnist and a former producer for the BBC. His columns have also appeared in Apple Daily, Next Magazine and CUP Magazine, among others.
