HK-American: Ask me anything

Dude, there are so many fifty cents party members rating negative on your comments.

How are you gonna handle those madafukers in US?

I have seen too many of them being active in US social platform, mostly are American-born Chinese and Malaysian.

This is a really good question. What do we define as multiculturalism is the key. If multiculturalism is just having people from different groups but having them all to conform to 1 standard then what is the point. Like if we have a group of Asians and whites but the Asians have to become fully westernized then what is the point?

Multiculturalism to be worth anything means different ideas from different people. There has to be an equal power structure where minority voices and perspectives are just as valid as those of the majority.

Asian-American turnout was high this year and the voted overall for Democrats though the picture is more murky. Many Vietnamese vote Republican due to many of them being refugees from South Vietnam and anti-Communist. In Orange County, Republicans have smartly run a lot of Asian-American candidates there as the demographics change and this has help them continue to be viable even as the white population shrink and the county becomes more liberal. There are more black voters in the US than Asians so they do have more power. Latinos also outnumber Asians in the US so they have more power in elections. Latinos in the US are hard workers too, many work in minimum wage jobs. Many Latinos do the hard work in CA agriculture and no one ever talks about it. This does not take away from the hard work Asian-Americans do.

I think Affirmative Action is good and CA's ban on affirmative action via prop 209 still hurts the state. It looks like Asian-Americans are doing well in the US but Asian is very broad. If you divide Asian into separate ethnic groups some Asian groups like Chinese are doing a lot better than others (affirmative action could help Asians in sub-groups that get less opportunities). UCSA (It's basically the HK Federation of Student Unions for University of CA campuses) pushed very hard to get affirmative action re-instated in CA as it was on the ballot.

Affirmative Action in the US is restricted in how it can be used. In the UC Regents vs Bakke the Supreme Court ruled that strict quotas are unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment equal protection clause and that race can only be one of many factors.https://www.oyez.org/cases/1979/76-811
In 2003 the Supreme Court case Gratz v Bollinger ruled that giving extra points to students based on race was a violation of the strict scrutiny test. https://www.oyez.org/cases/2002/02-516. Affirmative Action in the US will be rather narrow by law so this is why I favor it, it has plenty of built-in protections.

I will give you a long answer. The Asian-American political movement looked fondly of communist China because they saw it as anti-Western. This is in the 1960s-70s, many Asian-Americans would not say that now but there is still some sympathy for China.

Some on the left are very Anti-Western (which I agree with) and they think China is some socialist paradise. I think some people on the left don't understand that China is state-capitalist. One can oppose the US and oppose China at the same time.

But don't you think that having a unified culture and a shared identity is essential for a stabilized society? Without a dominant culture and value, different cultures just compete with each other until one win and others die out. People cling to their own identity and ideology but fail to develop a common identity that all people in the society can agree on. This is not a country. This is just different tribes live in the same lands.

We can see lots of examples in the history that a great country failed because of the irreconcilable differences between nations like Austria-Hungary and Yugoslavia.

One of the reasons why some countries like Japan is so political stabilized is that they are highly homogenous, which means the people in it share and agree a common culture, history and identity. This is something the US lacking(All immigrant countries have this problem but US is much more serious). Something that can bring people together.

你確定？

April 15, 2013 – Boston Marathon bombing (Boston, MA): Foreign-born Muslims detonate two bombs packed with ball bearings at the Boston Marathon, killing three people and causing several more to lose limbs.

September 25, 2014 – Vaughan Foods beheading incident, (Moore, OK): A Sharia advocate beheads a woman after calling for Islamic terror and posting an Islamist beheading photo.

July 16, 2015 Chattanooga shootings, Chattanooga, Tennessee: A Muslim commits a shooting spree at a recruiting center at a strip mall and a naval center, leaving five soldiers dead at the latter location.

November 4, 2015 – University of California, Merced stabbing attack by Islamist extremist

December 2, 2015 San Bernardino attack, San Bernardino, California: A couple opens fire at a Christmas party, leaving fourteen dead.

January 7, 2016 - Shooting of Jesse Hartnett, Philadelphia police officer Jesse Hartnett is ambushed by a gunman who later pledged allegiance to ISIS.

February 11, 2016 – Ohio restaurant machete attack by Islamist extremist

June 12, 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting, Orlando, Florida: Omar Mateen shoots and kills 49 people and injures 58 more at a gay bar, the largest mass shooting in U.S. history at the time.

November 28, 2016 – Ohio State University attack, Columbus, Ohio: A Somalian student, Abdul Artan, who came to the U.S. as a refugee, intentionally rammed a car into pedestrians on a busy campus sidewalk on Monday morning and then began slashing passers-by with a butcher knife, the authorities said, injuring 11 students and faculty and staff members.

October 31, 2017 – 2017 New York City truck attack, New York City: 29-year-old Sayfullo Habibullaevich Saipov rented a Home Depot pickup truck and intentionally drove it through a bicycle path. He crashed into a school bus and then exited the vehicle wielding look-a-like weapons. He was shot by NYPD. 8 people were killed and 12 were injured.

December 6, 2019 - Naval Air Station Pensacola shooting, Pensacola, Florida: A second lieutenant of the Saudi Royal Air Force training at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola opened fire in one of the classroom buildings killing 3 and wounding 8 others before being shot dead by responding police officers.

May 21, 2020 - Corpus Christi, Texas: At the Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Adam Alsahi crashed through a northern perimeter gate at NAS Corpus Christi, activating vehicle barriers. The driver then got out and opened fire before being shot and killed. A Navy police officer was shot but was protected by a ballistic vest. Alsahi had expressed support for terrorist networks including ISIS. The FBI announced the incident as terrorism-related.

Thank you for your response. The main reason I advocate the idea of HK race is that many people, especially those with leftist ideals, put their own interests above the future of a culturally-intact HK. While I agree it is not appropriate to treat some groups as 2nd citizens, it is necessarily evil IMO in some circumstances like language preservation. For example, If Cantonese is not artificially granted a higher right than Mandarin, the later will easily take over with the socio-economic advantage it grants. The Israeli has forbidden use of foreign languages to make sure their newly revived language respected at least in their homeland.

I am well aware that race is a social construct. A popular definition of HK race is ‘a group of people based in HK / with roots in HK whose existence threatened by CCP. However, I have to disagree that class segregation is merely a capitalist problem. Communism is a failure well-proven failure due to human being intrinsically motivated by greed, not by fairness. Successful societies in the West, no matter how socialist are their welfare approach, are essentially capitalist. The reason why those capitalist problems remain unsolved is because our government is a colonial force that only care about the rights of CCP, not us.

I absolutely agree all rights are equal including LGBT rights but again I have to emphasise my view that we are not fighting for a right. Instead, we fight for survival against CCP. It may not be strategically appropriate to focus on LGBT rights at the moment.

BTW, Jeffrey Ngo is one of the most hated figure amongst Demosisto, not only because of his political view, but also his arrogance against Trump-supporting netizens. No one asked him to agree with the conservatives but he openly criticised and alienated them. We simply can’t afford that. One of my biggest worries is that the overseas ‘HK ambassador’ community leans too far left to truly represent the voice in HK. They may value pleasing the Western media and satisfying their moral ideals instead of broadcasting the true demand of HKers.

As you are an American citizen who only have roots in HK, I have no rights to request you to give up your personal belief. However, those ambassadors including Jeffrey NGO are actually representing HK protestors so I think it is not wise for them to stand anywhere outside of centrist zone.

Lastly, if somehow it is actually proven leaning progressive can strategically help HKers survival, I am willing to hide my conservative beliefs and act as a liberal myself. Nothing weighs more than preserving my homeland for my next generation.

不過話好似波士頓爆炸案咁大單既近年都係得奧蘭多夜店槍擊案可以比.......因為美國近年既國內反恐係超嚴格

Of:
I would not use of in this way. To use of I would rephrase it as "What are the secrets of convincing Hazard to become a blue?" The question is no longer addressed to specific person(s) and is general. The of works in this case.

About: In this context it means concerning which does not make sense in this context with the word convincing following afterwards. This is the least usable word in this context.

Into: Using makes the most sense based on sound. I can't really explain why else. In this context into makes the most sense because of the fact the question has a defined person you. If it was first person I would say "what are my secrets into convincing..", third person "what are Matthew's secrets into convicing...," plural ex: What are our secrets into..." I would only use of to when there is no direct noun and the question is not directed at someone.

Sorry if this is not a good explanation. :(

I think HK national is more suitable in this case. Unlike other homogenous countries like Korea and Japan, HK is a place that
build by many races. But this thing that most of the Hong Konger share is a common value, history and cultural background, which is the same as those homogenous countries. This is important. If someone can agree and uphold our shared ideas and value then I will treat him as Hong Konger. If it's not, then he just someone happen to have a same ancestors and nothing alike after that.

打英文比佢睇啦

I am curious about how you are influenced to start using lihkg. And you are actually talking in the right channel. Brilliant

I used to lean left but the more I learn about the world the more conservative I become.

The world is a mess and in chaos. The left wing crusader wont make any differences as their ideology is so far-fetched and out of earth. This is the one thing I've learned over the past few years and by reading history.

I apologize that I don't know how to shrink threads so this post will be super long from all the threaded posts. Someone explain for me would be great.

Because of the US history of wiping out Native American (the term we use for "Indians") culture, I know to well from history how a dominate power can erase a group's culture/identity. I want very much HK culture as well as Cantonese to be preserved and even though I don't speak Canto I see it as my role to pass on whatever I can. If you look at the UK languages like Welsh almost went extinct but the Welsh government took measures to promote it such as teaching it in schools. The HK govt needs to do a better job at promoting Cantonese. Chinese lang classes need to be taught in Cantonese, we already have a separate Mandarin class. Some local parents choose to send their children to intl schools and the EMI local schools are even preferred (this also promotes English to the detriment of Cantonese). If I could change one thing about my childhood it would be that my parents taught me Cantonese even after we left HK.

Communism doesn't work because humans are selfish. HK has always had a colonial govt who the colonizer just changed in 1997. This is why I think the Joint Declaration is flawed as it preserved colonial institutions beyond 1997 and all the British did was push last minute reforms in the late 80s-early 90s. They waited until 1991 to have direct elections for LegCo and didn't abolish appointed seats until 1995.

I am gay so to me LGBT rights are a matter of survival, even now many LGBT teenagers commit suicide because of bullying/harassment.

No one can represent HKers, the movement is leaderless. I advocate for HK based on what I think is good for HK though that may not be what the majority thinks but more than happy to have a discussion about it with HKers as we are doing now. (I believe politicians should do what they think is best even if that is not what their voters want. They need to explain to their voters why they did what they did). Elites should not claim they represent the people unless the people give them that mandate.

I actually volunteer in a social studies classroom with all English language learners so it makes me think about how to teach English language along with content. Basically it is kind of like an English medium of instruction class in HK except that the students speak different native languages (instead of all speaking Cantonese).

I don't wanna sound like an asshole but this is really what I think. While what happen to the native American is tragic, it is also inevitable that end like this. Throughout history, people conquer other people and those who being conquered are often fully assimilated or get wiped off . I am not saying that justify the horrible killing happened in the recent years and I do believe that we should not doing anything like that(Well at least we are not conquering others by force nowadays but using economy unstead).

I tried to make an LIHKG account in 2019 but I couldn't even navigate the website as it's all in Chinese and the issue with non HK ISP. Once it took my US university email as ok then I created an account. I finally figured out how to translate the website on google chrome (it doesn't automatically do this website for some reason). I follow the HK page on reddit but that is just English speakers (so more expat heavy, the locals on there are more affluent, and overrepresents overseas HKers). I know English will limit who I can talk to but I wanted to talk to HKers in HK. Most of the HKers I know are intl students at university in western countries (who are more left). Very few of my HK friends studying in the US like Trump actually. I know very few HKers living in HK outside of my blue relatives (which I know is not representative of HK).

Had I grown up in HK I would of attended local schools as my parents are middle class. So LIHKG also gives me a glimpse into what my life could of been like (though my English would be better than a typical local student since one my parents only speaks English).

What do you think