Apparently, I am in a ranting mood.

I saw the following comment when I was blogsurfing for the latest HK music news just now:

“Interesting that many Hong Kong fellows tend to be very skeptical (sometimes in very uneducated ways, unfortunately) whenever it relates to our own country. If you don’t even know how to respect your own country, no one will ever respect you.”

Normally, I wouldn’t bother responding to self-righteous comments like this, but that whole “respect” bit kind of pisses me off. While I am mostly ignorant of all politics in general, the suggestion that I should “respect” China in order to be respected by others in return is simply absurd.

Skipping over how the mechanics of that notion is simply wrong, I will start with this: for all intents and purposes, I don’t consider China to be my own country. We might be lumped under the list of China’s territories, but we are still operating under a separate governing body. On that topic, the Chinese government hasn’t done much to “respect” the people of Hong Kong either, what with all the efforts and decisions that are geared towards assimilating Hong Kong into China’s governing body. Given China’s socialist rule and general track record, why should I not be skeptical? I happen to enjoy having news sources that are not under control or censored by the government. I also enjoy having government officials and representatives who don’t have to be approved by China and are not completely inept. Is that so wrong? Why would anyone be so naive to think that people wouldn’t be instinctively resentful towards China when it’s a very real fear that Hong Kong is slowly becoming China? Why would anyone be so foolish to think that I should respect that same country’s efforts to push its rule on to me?

And let’s be honest here – China has never had a good reputation when it comes to ethical businesses, not just in Hong Kong, but worldwide. The economy is developing too fast for the government to impose the correct regulations on stopping all the shady business practices that China is infamous for, and the people who could take advantage of this are taking advantage of it to the fullest without regards to the well-being of others. This is the truth. It has nothing to do with respect. What kind of respect should I have for the country known for having industrial chemicals in baby milk powder? More importantly, can this country even command any respect from anyone, when the country’s own people don’t even have pride in its name and have no remorse about destroying it?

And… that is all; I am out of steam. That was a long srsbsns rant. -_______-

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