The trouble with trying to turn Hong Kong’s young people into ‘patriotic youth’
- In a series of in-depth articles on the unrest rocking Hong Kong, the Post goes behind the headlines to look at the underlying issues, current state of affairs, and where it is all heading
- Here we look at how the city’s government has poured millions of dollars into programmes to expose the younger generation to mainland China but the campaign has failed to foster national pride
When Kathy Tang (not her real name) and her fellow Hong Kong interns arrived at the Palace Museum in Beijing’s Forbidden City in 2017, they received a royal welcome.
High hopes were placed on this first batch of 15 young Hongkongers hand-picked by the Hong Kong government as part of the celebration for the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover to China in 2017 – the year that Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor took office as the city’s chief executive.
These university students were to set a shining example for the next generation of Hongkongers: to be patriotic youth who were eager to “understand their mother country’s culture” and who would be pioneers to “work and have exchanges with their mainland counterparts”.
“We were being bused in and out, got exclusive access to areas that are off limits to tourists. They went out of their way to treat us as privileged guests valued and welcomed by the country,” Tang said.
For six weeks, Tang enjoyed working inside the Forbidden City, with all her costs covered by the Hong Kong government. Two years later, the arts graduate has been out in sweltering heat every weekend since June to protest against Lam’s now-abandoned extradition bill, which would have allowed suspects to be transferred to mainland China.
Tang, who says she remains passionate about Chinese culture and history, sees no conflict in her position.
