Wuhan Coronavirus and the War of Defending Cantonese
The 2019-nCoV coronavirus is raging all over the world, and Hong Kong is at the very frontline. As the Hong Kong government’s taken virtually no practical action and denied to shut the Hong Kong-China borders to slow down the influx of patients, citizens and local businesses are forced to make their way through. Without governmental intervention like that in Taiwan, citizens have to queue for masks outside pharmacies as early as at 4 or 5 a.m. if they believed in the Chinese and Hong Kong governments’ “don’t panic it’s not an epidemic” lie. Meanwhile, local drugstores have to prepare huge stocks of masks to cater for the soaring demand, with newly-arrived packages of masks piled up at the Airport Air Mail Centre.
And that’s why a few cha chaan tengs have to put up this kind of announcements, saying they can’t serve Putonghua-speaking customers due to high risk from Chinese tourists who deliberately conceal their travel record in order to flee China to avoid being infected or diagnosed, which has been reflected in several news reports and lots of social media posts. (The cha chaan teng above…
