MCLC: HK identity and democratic values (1)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Sean Macdonald <smacdon2005 at gmail.com>
Subject: HK identity and democratic values (1)
***********************************************************

Thanks to Christoph Steinhardt for posting this article.

Without detracting from Sebastian Veg's astutely political reading of
attitudes in Hong Kong towards mainlanders, the situation may have a
parallel in the PRC.

Perhaps this is a version of that old enemy called class. In the PRC
migrants used to be called 外地, now they are 农民工, a compound that stands
in 
for two classes, but what revolutionary theory used to call the "urban
proletariat." 

While no doubt Hong Kongers have their own history to bear, but bullying
the yokel outsiders for "stinking up the place" is a longstanding attitude
that appears across and within cultures. It's a bit like (pace Professor
Kong) calling a population dogs. Indeed, there's a whole discourse of the
"filthy" body in class insult (mix in a bit of gender and race and it only
gets worse).  

Indeed the video of responses of a few HK subway passengers to a
"mainland" child eating surely must have struck some as ironic with the
recent discussion of the mother holding a child on a bus in Shijiazhuang
who refused the seat offered her by a young migrant worker. Some of these
migrants are even attracting pity as they (according to some) refuse to
sit on public transportation for fear of insulting the other passengers.

http://hlj.rednet.cn/c/2011/12/14/2461040.htm
脏的不是农民工，“脏”的是你的心

 
http://tv.hexun.com/2011-12-30/136838373.html
农民工让座遭白眼 女子嫌脏不肯坐   

http://xian.qq.com/a/20120220/000022.htm
<applewebdata://A4DA0BD1-B195-4E52-B1A5-35934F0C63F7/goog_670145672>
农民工乘西安地铁有座不坐 只怕把座椅弄脏

Sean