Things He Said

Or What others said about him…

Well, John Lee, the sole candidate for the upcoming CE election, finally announced his political platform. Some would say it’s his manifesto, or simply “his plans for the next administration”. No matter what you called it, it won’t matter much to most of the citizens. Only the 1,500 selected members can cast the final vote on May 8th, 2022.

The only way this will become a disaster is that he doesn’t get more than half of the votes. I am not sure what would happen if that actually happened, especially when there is only one candidate. Does it really matter? They might ask everybody to vote again, and verify every vote to find out who voted what. That could be ugly!

Anyway, when John Lee confirmed he will run, he released a statement outlining his governance directions. Below is a picture captured from the website.

These are the exact wordings, for easier viewing.

My governance will focus on three main areas:

(1) to resolve issues based on a result-oriented approach;

(2) to enhance the overall competitiveness of Hong Kong; and

(3) to consolidate a firm foundation for Hong Kong’s development.

I will strive to build and promote a “we and us” teamwork culture, solving problems in a collaborative manner.

People already questioned this statement. Like in English that reads “we and us”, the Chinese part actually use “me and us”. Which one is correct? Well, judging from the QnA afterward, he used the word “I” more often than “We”, so that might be an indicator. The phrase “result-oriented” doesn’t make a lot of sense in Chinese, no one has ever used that before. It makes people think “to get the result, I’ll do whatever it takes.” It could be brutal.

Anyway, John Lee is a person with very few words. He hardly says anything in public, and when he needed to, he usually was short and blunt. During the protests against the extradition bill in 2019, the police started to not show their ID card, nor show their officer number while on duty. When people complained, Lee simply replied:

“The design of the uniform leaves no space for displaying the police officer’s number.”

(Yet, other uniformed services have no such issue.)

Anyway, he is running for the CE position and wants to start a new chapter. He makes use of social media, visits different groups of people, seeks every photo opportunity, and just exposure. He posts something on social media every day, and people started to criticize his language, the wording, and the grammar. They found things to talk about every day, they have a field day every day. I guess people need to entertain themselves during these depressing times.

One day, when asked about defending the freedom of the press, he said there is no need to because we have that already. You don’t lose something like that when you have it. Then a day or two later, he came out and said we need to defend the rule of law. Did he imply we don’t have that anymore? We thought we had it before, how did we lose it?

However, at the same time, the pro-government media tried so hard to help build up Lee’s character. They tried so hard that it became hilarious! Forget those vague comments like “He’s the best man for the job”, those were so phony. Some more serious media, so they thought, dug up some of his high school memories and put together an article about the sides of John Lee that nobody knows. Or cares. Seriously, the guy is 64 years old and running to be the top official of the city, and all you can tell us is about his high school days?

One headline actually reads, from his old teacher, “He always hands in his homework.” No, this is no joke. They are dead serious. They even go so overboard that they also tell us that he was a ladykiller (aka good social skills), always focus in classes, a skilled MahJong and Chinese Chess player. This is what they want us to know, he was a GOOD student in high school, so he should be a good CE. Of course, people laughed their heads off, if this is the best thing he had ever done, it can only mean he is no good at all. Nothing to write home since high school. Lucky for him, the people have no say in the final vote and being the only candidate, what could go wrong.

People, embrace yourself.

*All the quoted sayings above were in Chinese, it was translated into English here.