@NormalGayPsych Christianity and Judaism are traditionally against same sex marriage too. It’s inportant to distinction between criticizing ideas and generalizing about people.
@eurofounder Profiling is different. It means treating someone as suspicious primarily BECAUSE they belong to a particular ethnic, religious, or other group, rather than because of evidence about that individual. Tbh it was simply a factual description and you’re too sensitive?
Jimmy Lai has been convicted in a sham trial.
My name appears 161 times in the #JimmyLai judgment and IPAC nearly 200 times.
Jimmy had nothing to do with IPAC. We offered to give evidence to the court, but they didn’t want the truth.
And Starmer wants to go China?
One person who started a petition calling for accountability for the Wang Fuk Court fire in #HongKong has reportedly been taken away by national security police (unclear whether arrested) & the Instagram account of the petition has been shut down. https://t.co/PKjRhdOeLT
Live footage shows firefighter standing at window & looking out. Ppl said they can’t imagine what he saw at the apartment… One observant commenter said “aluminum window are bent from the heat, hard to imagine what’d happen if metal scaffoldings are used”
The “bamboo scaffolding caused the fire” narrative is not only factually wrong, it reflects a prejudice against in-situ craft and HK's own construction traditions. The fire started with the netting. The bamboo is still intact. We deserve better reporting. @BBCWorld
.@adamwithnall's piece does something deeply irresponsible: it takes a tragedy and uses it to push a simplistic conclusion--“the bamboo has to go” without evidence, without understanding HK’s construction practice, and with a clear cultural bias. It is Orientalism.
Anyone who has watched even one video knows the white plastic/fabric netting ignited first. It is highly flammable. It burns fast and drips fire.
The bamboo, by contrast, is still standing on multiple blocks even after the blaze. If bamboo were the problem, it would have collapsed.
Claiming bamboo “spread the fire” is simply false.
Bamboo isn’t a quaint “quirky throwback.”
It is a highly skilled, engineered system honed across decades, one that works specifically well because Hong Kong’s dense, humid, high-rise environment. If bamboo scaffolding were as unsafe as the article implies, Hong Kong would have had constant large-scale fires. We haven’t. This was the first Level 5 fire in 17 years.
Blaming bamboo because it “looks traditional” is lazy and prejudiced reporting.
Calling bamboo “quirky,” a “throwback,” and suggesting that Hongkongers should fear the sight of scaffolding the next morning is pure Orientalism. This is a textbook Western lens:
Western methods = modern, safe
Local methods = outdated, dangerous
Hong Kong uses bamboo because it works, not because the city is nostalgic or backward.