The lyrics for a song called "Hong Kong" -- that's supposed to be a tribute to Hong Kong -- printed in Simplified Chinese rather than Traditional Chinese. 🤦♀️🤦🤦♂️
On its face, this seems to be nothing more than the act of a stereotypical morally conservative Asian city. But it’s actually another sign of One Country, Two Systems in Hong Kong being stripped away (no pun intended):
1. As part of the Sino-British Joint Declaration negotiations, no less than Deng Xiaoping himself promised that Hong Kong after 1997 would be one where “horses keep running, people keep dancing” (馬照跑、舞照跳). “Horses” is a reference to horse racing and gambling on the same. “Dancing” requires more explanation. The early 1980s was a time when a Hong Kong variant of Japanese hostess clubs became very popular - they were places where men (and, sometimes, women) went dancing and more (you get the drift) with hostesses and, sometimes, hosts, and they were replacing the older, more traditional Hong Kong-style “dancing halls” which were basically the same thing but with less panache. Against this background, the references to “horses” and “dancing” by Deng were actually part of a broader promise that, under One Country, Two Systems, Hong Kong can keep its vices as a freewheeling, uncensorious city.
2. Indeed, even in the lead-up to 1997, one of the popular Hong Kong mainstream film fads at the time was porn - while most of those films involved simulated acts, there were films like the Trilogy of Lust (血戀) that involved unsimulated acts. Some of the performers in those films became mainstream stars, and some mainstream stars also crossed over to those films. To that extent (although the set up and industry structure are obviously all different), the mainstream crossover situation in Hong Kong then was not so different to that of the Japanese porn performers who were banned from entering Hong Kong overnight.
3. Another One Country, Two Systems angle is the well-known one whereby Hong Kong is meant to serve as an example for Taiwan “reunification”. Since Taiwan democratised, it became a sexually tolerant Asian liberal beacon, ranging from same-sex marriage rights to holding the biggest annual adult entertainment exhibitions in Asia. These exhibitions often flew in the very Japanese porn performers who were just banned from entering Hong Kong. The forced cancellation of a similar exhibition in Hong Kong is yet another soft signal of a One Country, Two Systems that Taiwan does not want.
4. In addition, while Taiwan has been liberalising, Hong Kong has been going in the other direction. Even corporate-sponsored LGBTQ rights organisations have been barred from hiring public venues for events. A court judgment on same-sex civil union rights has been flouted by the other branches of government. And now we have this forced cancellation of an adult exhibition at a time when Hong Kong is supposed to be showing that it is still open for freewheeling business. Ironically, all this is happening the same time as a number of recent cases (including one involving a pro-Beijing politician just a day before Joshua Wong’s latest sentencing) where, sickeningly, paedophiles are lightly punished.
As such, do not dismiss this latest incident involving Japanese porn stars being barred from Hong Kong and an adult exhibition being forced to cancel as just Asian conservatism - there are political undertones all over it.