LegCo confidential

vines in sai kung

Poll positions

Stephen Vines on Long Hair, daft hats and the hill-burning festival

Sai Kung’s “interesting” contribution to democracy

Well, well, well, it seems that Sai Kung residents are living in Hong Kong’s most interesting geographical election constituency – New Territories East. In the September Legco poll, electors gave the largest number of votes to Leung Kwok-hung, better known as Long Hair, the only Marxist ideologue to have been elected. We have also elected Hong Kong’s only openly gay legislator, Raymond Chan, and another big vote winner was Fernando Cheung of the newly formed Labour Party, which campaigned on an unswerving pro-working class platform.

The Labour Party has brought a whiff of class politics to the election but it should not be forgotten that our constituency also selected the only legislator standing on a class platform from the other side of the fence. James Tien of the Liberal Party is a firm advocate for the middle class. Although radicals did pretty well in this constituency, the traditional democrats, primarily the Democratic Party, saw their share of votes shrink while the pro-China DAB maintained its strong showing, benefiting from impressive organizational abilities and contacts with influential people.

Only three candidates in this constituency made much of an effort to communicate in English, the language spoken by a sizeable proportion of voters in Sai Kung. Gary Fan of the new Neo Democrats did most to convey his message in English and, despite coming from a brand new party with a relatively low profile, managed to get elected. Tien also made a linguistic effort, which may have added to his tally. However, the indefatigable Christine Fong, who sits on the local council and is a refugee from Tien’s party, narrowly missed getting elected although she too made some effort to contact English-language speakers.

Of course, Hong Kong’s election system is deliberately designed to confuse and deprive those with the biggest number of votes from getting the lion’s share of the seats but if other districts were as politically diverse as New Territories East, the Legislative Council would be much more interesting. Or is the word I’m looking for… confusing?

The problem with hats

Not that many miles away from politics is the subject of absurdity. After wading through a really hot summer I was often urged to wear a hat while walking in the big outside. The problem is I look plain daft in all manner of headgear and desist from wearing any. Very few people look good in hats, yet Sai Kung has been awash with absurd head coverings. There are the really big hats, sufficient not just to cover their wearers but those adjacent to them. And then there are a variety of straw offerings, none of which look as rustic as their wearers assume. We have some exotic scarf arrangements and the ubiquitous baseball caps turned backwards. This sort of works for black rap stars but does few favours for anyone else.

As for more exotic concoctions such as cowboy hats, hats with fluffy animals embedded, slogans declaring the wearer loves this, that or the other, or designed to imitate the headgear of the armed forces... well, what I can say. If you are determined to look stupid, does it have to be done in public? I really would like to see the expression “hats off” taken more literally.

Time to tackle the arsonists

The Chung Yeung Festival falls on October 23 and, as night follows day, we will again see our hillsides burning with fires initiated by the careless activities of people who are supposed to be honouring dead relatives by sweeping graves and burning candles and incense in their memory. It does not take much to extinguish live flames before leaving gravesides, but this extra effort seems to be beyond some more selfish people. Either they don’t care what happens when they depart or cannot be bothered to do what needs to be done.

More of an effort should be made to prosecute these arsonists. They can cause considerable damage and it is hard to see how honouring the dead is compatible with burning the countryside. Yet there is a marked reluctance to act in what is perceived to be a sensitive area connected to the observance of local rituals. Why so?

If you are determined to look stupid, does it have to be done in public?

stephen says

Stephen Vines is a journalist, broadcaster and entrepreneur. He is the former editor of the Eastern Express and Southeast Asia correspondent for The Observer.