Occupy Central Hong kong

Occupy Central Hong Kong Anti-Capitalist Protest 佔領中環

The sight of Hong Kong Central Exchange Square occupied by local Hong Kong Chinese anti-capitalist protesters was rather strange, one rarely sees this from the apathetic Hong Kong Chinese, rather its usually a few ageing mavericks in the form of the long haired hippy, Che Guevara T-shirt wearing, 'egg throwing' Leung Kwok Hung and his entourage that cause an occasional stir.

In theory though, one should not be surprised as the South China Morning Post last year reported that Hong Kong's richest households earn 27 times more than the poorest households, Hong Kong as a free market economy  should be challenged, so there are legitimate concerns for protest. However, it is bizarre their protests have taken on very western perspectives.

Although the Anti-Capitalist movement and the Socialist movement are both international, they remain heavily driven by western Caucasians. I wrote an article last year on the student riots in London, in consideration that 90% of British Born Chinese are in higher education, surely BBC would be affected by student funding issues, yet there were no ethnic East Asian students protesting. By the same token, if one takes the International Socialist movement in the UK, one has never seen ethnic Chinese  involved in these organisations, its predominately a White Caucasian movement.

The Hong Kong Anti-capitalists are all highly influenced by western thinking as such there were a number of westerners attending the protest.

 There was a young Chinese guy sitting on the floor with his guitar singing in English - the song "Imagine" by John Lennon, be it with a noticeable bad Chinese accent.

Several others wore Guy Fawkes masks from the western anarchist film 'V for Vendetta.'

 Some bizarre influence from South American Mexican Ricardo Flores Macon.

Christianity - Homage to British colonialism

Chinese lack an authentic East Asian or Chinese philosophy behind their protest, merely trudging on the back of western ideals, indeed this protest at the weekend was in solidarity of its  leader - Occupy Wall Street. We need to address the original problem, Chinese are just not innovative enough nor leaders but followers of western ideals and western culture. Still, kudos for protesting, if the Hong Kong Chinese who are undoubtedly as apathetic as it gets in terms of politics (surpassed only by the British Chinese for apathy), isn't it about time the British Chinese (who are more westernised than their Eastern counterparts) asserted their own political presence in the UK?

By BBCZeitgeist in Asia
Photo Source: http://www.facebook.com/OccupyCentral