Translated by Chent'ang 鎮棠, Written by 翼雙飛 (Wing Wing)
Original: http://www.passiontimes.hk/article/01-21-2014/8159
*KH Cheung (張劍虹, also known as 沙膽虹), is the chief editor of Apple Daily, a prominent HK 'pro-democracy' newspaper.
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Caption translation:
Apple Daily betrays HK by advocating more IVS visitors
KH Cheung: "...suggest the government putting a cap [for IVS visitors], it's moronic! Firstly, it's hard to say whether the government has an accurate estimation. Even if it's accurate, what HKers have to do is to prepare the reception of these visitors. The government shall only ensure accessible entrances for tourists, and build the 3rd airport runway in order to fulfill the needs of visitors. For the else, [one] can just leave them to the private sector.
[Yellow boxes]: The headcount of visitors [last year] is 48.61 million, 677% more than the total population of HK - 7.18 million
[Yellow text]: Jimmy Lai and KH Cheung, go to hell!
I was much aggravated when I read such ridiculous opinion by KH Cheung on Apple Daily.
When the overcrowded environment affects people's well-being and livelihood, Cheung simply says: 'Suggesting the government to put a cap is moronic', and suggests HKers shall be 'prepared to receive these visitors', and 'leave others to the private sector.'
Are you f**king kidding me?
I will make an example. Suppose Hong Kong will import a batch of beef with hormones, and men become hypersexual. The frequency of johns seeking fornication increases from one time per week to one time every other day. But we can imagine that the supply of sex workers cannot be increased immediately, even though some compensated dating workers enter the market. And they only have 24 hours a day, and there will be restrictions even if they would like to earn more. So, what happens?
Firstly, the suppliers - vice dens and self-employed sex workers. If the supply increases, the price of their services will increase.
Secondly, in order to receive more johns, the service time will be shortened each time, i.e. worse service with same price. And the sex workers will be exhausted, and it affects the service quality.
These are inevitable consequences under KH's so-called 'free market'. Besides price hike and declining quality, there will be adverse effects if there are lots of vice dens, such as creating nuisance to the surrounding area and affecting the district's image in the eye of the external. We can estimate the community impact brought by soaring tourist headcounts.
Firstly, price hike of public transportation. Because public transport companies cannot raise their supplies [i.e. public transport services] immediately. They need a lot of arrangements, such as improve their frequency and routes, and all these procedures need to follow the established practices. Besides price hike, soaring number of passengers will extend the waiting time, and aggravate the overcrowdedness on buses. Then the quality becomes worse.
Also, restaurants will raise their food price (what's more, tourists are usually more generous than locals)! Shop owners will less likely rent their shop to grocery stores or watch repairer, which would not be benefited from the tourism industry. It causes a great inconvenience to locals. You might realise that there are less and less stationary shop in your community, right?
Besides these, adverse effects of having too many tourists include: jam-packed the pedestrian road, vehicle-pedestrian conflicts and noises and nuisance to locals' lives. Jewelery shops and pharmacies are all along Nathan Road, but the locals have to continue their lives. They have to walk a long long way to get basic necessities, causing lots of grumbles.
Gregory So (SCED), who keep himself aloof from the public with his private car, even said [the local version of the famous French phrase 'Let them eat cake']: 'Why not wait for another train?'. And after him, a chief editor who is supposed to know about the plight of the public even say 'leave them to the free market'. Does such irresponsible thought imply that he would like to be an enemy of the public?
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