My Take | A very Hong Kong tale of emigration and return

  • An online viral story about a family of returnees from Britain seems to be an indictment of certain types of snotty, racist and delusional Hongkongers, rather than naive ‘BNOers’

The Hong Kong skyline, as seen from The Peak. Photo: K. Y. Cheng

YouTube wastes a lot of my time but it can be educational sometimes. Watching the channels respectively run by “blue” (pro-China) and “yellow” (anti-China) presenters can be quite entertaining, especially when it comes to claims about the state of contemporary Britain. According to one group, it’s a hellhole rapidly descending into third-world status; to the other, paradise on earth. You probably get a much clearer picture, though, from the “UK” section of the BBC news service, which also has a Chinese-language version.

A recent Facebook post by Hong Kong billionaire Jacinto Tong Man-leung about a family of returnees from Britain after a brief stint at emigration has been quoted approvingly by many online blue commentators. However, I am not quite sure the post actually says what it means to say.

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