The end of this story warmed my heart.
Apple Daily as a renowned Hong Kong newspaper put up a full page print ad on Feb 1stprotesting aggressively against the surge of mainland pregnant women in Hong Kong. On top of the background of a locust overlooking the Victoria Harbor, the ad rolled out with the headline “Hong Kong people have had enough” followed by angry content protesting against the invasion of mainland pregnant women into Hong Kong and urged the Hong Kong government to amend relevant law. Surprisingly, the print ad was paid by the collaborated crowd fundraising of 2 completely irrelevant Hong Kong forums, hkgolden.com (IT) andbaby-kingdom.com (parenting).
Translation of the copy:
Do you want Hong Kong to pay 1 million HKD per 18 minute raising illegitimate child from mainland?
Hong Kong people have had enough of it!
We understand that you suffer from contaminated milk powder, so we tolerate your raid upon our milk powder; we understand that you don’t have freedom, so we receive you over here through “free pass”; we understand that your education is poor, so we share our educational resource with you; we understand that you don’t read traditional Chinese, so we use “cripple” Chinese character (simplified Chinese) in the following: “Please respect our local culture when you are here, without Hong Kong you are all doomed.”
Strongly demand the government to amend the 24th clause of Basic Laws!
Stop the massive invasion of double negative pregnant women from mainland. (double negative = none of the woman’s parents are from HK)
The ad made a huge stir on the Chinese Internet and gave rise to several mischievous distortion works for mainland cities done by netizens. Here we present the most popular versions on the Internet featuring Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. While Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou versions of the distortion followed the discrimination tone of the original Hong Kong ad, Shenzhen version went the opposite direction and showed hospitality.
Beijing version:
Do you want the migrant population of Beijing to continue to grow?
Beijing people have had enough of it!
Beijing has already inhabited 20 million migrant population and accepted 478,000 come-along children.
But! You still damage Beijing culture, mess up the order, push up the housing price, bring your children born in excess of plan here to intensify the college entrance examination; you benefit from Beijing but still defame Beijing like trash; please do us a favor, go back home build your own town before coming here.
Strongly demand the government to amend the law!
Stop the massive growth of migrant population in Beijing.
Click over to read Shanghai and Guangzhou
Last but not least, friendly Shenzhen version:
You are one of us if you come to Shenzhen.
Welcome to Shenzhen!
Because we are all away from home, so welcome here; because this is a big circle Grandpa Deng drew for all of us (metaphor for making Shenzhen special economic region), so welcome here; because you are part of the momentum that keeps Shenzhen going, so welcome here; because of you are the reason behind our 30 years of prosperity, so welcome here; because we want the whole world to know this, so we use English the say the next: “welcome to hometown Shenzhen”.
Warmly welcome every hard worker to Shenzhen!
We wish all Shenzhen people a happy new year and may all your wishes come true!
