Hong Kong Democracy

One book I was most happy to give away was Emily Lau's (刘慧卿, pictured) unimaginably named book Hong Kong Can Say No (香港可以说不). Lau is a well-known democracy activist in Hong Kong.

Written in Chinese and published in 1998, it must have been the most boring book I have read in a long while. There were hardly any interesting or readable stories or anecdotes. Just lots of raving and ranting about why democracy and direct elections are important for Hong Kong.

I do not oppose democracy and direct elections of course. But her one-dimensional ranting is tiresome after a while. I lost interest after the first couple of pages.

But in those couple of pages, and when castigating business people for putting economic prosperity ahead of democracy, a businessman was quoted as saying:

"如果你明知躲不过强暴, 何不干脆躺下来享受算了."

Translated: "If you know very well that you cannot avoid being raped, why not just lie down and enjoy it?"

Okay, whoever said that ought to be castigated.