A judge reminded the witness that he could only tell what he had seen with his own eyes, not what he had heard from others. The questioning then started, and the prosecutor asked the witness, ‘When, where, and by whom were you born?’ The witness thought for a moment and said, ‘I can’t tell you any of these.’
The above joke serves to illustrate the limitations of ‘seeing is believing.’ In fact, most of our knowledge comes from books, the Internet, professional bodies, and other media. However, in Hong Kong since 2019, both have been censored by the regime. We used to believe that the media would stick to their own professional codes and present information and views to users in an objective and multi-perspective manner. Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK), a public broadcast service, used to produce programmes with objective substantiation and from the audience’s perspective, but after repeated criticisms from the leftists, it has been reshuffled to serve the interest of the regime and focus on China-related programs.
Concerning education, the Hong Kong government tries all means to maximize the effect of ‘seeing is believing.’ In addition to the implementation of the unconsulted national security curriculum, which praises China and makes the youngster stay alert all the time to possible threats to China, a new initiative is to stage a pilot scheme of ‘National Security Little Teacher,’ under which primary school students teach national security to kindergarten students, under the principle of ‘big hands holding small hands.’ This practice is more outrageous than that of the China Young Pioneers or the Hitler Youth. My friends in mainland China said that kindergartens there do raise the national flag and sing the national anthem but never instill political obedience in little children like what Hong Kong does.
Another instance concerns the Hong Kong Ice Hockey Association. In a tournament in Bosnia, the Hong Kong team came third, but was criticized by the Hong Kong government for playing the wrong national anthem. The government cared about the issue of the national anthem only, not the team’s historic achievement. HKIHA handed the national anthem audio file to the host, who had publicly accepted the responsibility for the blunder. But the Sports Federation and Olympic Committee of Hong Kong put aside the truth and were determined to use this issue to set up a precedent of ‘undignified handling of the national anthem,’ with full support from the government and pro-establishment politicians.
This best illustrates the recent changes in the once Pearl of the Orient. It has turned into a haven of disinformation and fake news. The government strives to create its own version of reality. Facts no longer count, and political struggle comes ahead of everything. Seeing is no longer believing.
We used to have trustworthy authors like Jimmy Lai, Allan Au, Joshua Wong, Tanya Chan, and Yu Jie. However, their books have been removed from public libraries.
Facing such a draconian Hong Kong where no media are truly independent, if one still believes in ‘seeing is believing’ and does not critically assess the reliability of the information, one will become a preacher of false information and collaborator of the regime.
Another story comes to my mind. A wumao (people being blindly supportive of the CCP) youth and a female pianist lived on the same floor and grew up as childhood friends. He thought he was a hero defending the country and an ideal partner for the pianist, on whom he kept making advances, but he was always unsuccessful. He grumbled to his friend, who said frankly, ‘You two are too apart. You are not on the same level.’ He retorted with a roar, ‘We live on the same floor, just one flat away from each other!’
This story fits Hong Kong well. Social elites allowing themselves to degenerate into wumaos, for whatever reasons, cannot prevent themselves from becoming quislings. They will live a new life and are never on the same level as others abroad, the same is true of Hong Kong.
