As I See It | Hong Kong activist’s anti-government tirade goes viral as social media users hail her for voicing Hongkongers’ frustrations
Kwan Wing-yi made the impassioned speech at a special Legislative Council meeting to discuss retirement protection
If you speak Cantonese, by now you have must have watched it at least once or possibly more times. You must have shared the link with your family and friends and urged them to watch it too. If asked, you can probably quote a few zingers from it verbatim.
I am referring to the anti-government tirade by Kwan Wing-yi, a self-described “concerned citizen”, at a special Legislative Council meeting to discuss retirement protection earlier this week. The video went viral on social media, receiving 300,000 views on YouTube in just 48 hours. Netizens have added English subtitles, turned her words into a rap song and even called on her to run for Legco in the September election.
For those who haven’t had time to watch the clip, here’s a recap of Kwan’s three-minute rant.
On the government’s proposed pension scheme:
Your so-called ‘universal’ retirement plan puts an HK$80,000 asset limit on applicants but only offers them a paltry payment of HK$3,230 per month. Are you kidding me? There is so much government-business collusion and inflation these days that we can’t even buy a catty of contaminated vegetables for HK$30!
Chief Secretary Carrie Lam rejected the need-blind proposal [favoured by the public] because she claimed it would lead to a government deficit. What she said made me laugh out loud! The government spends hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ dollars on white elephant projects like the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge and the high-speed rail link, only to nickel and dime the poor on social programmes. How dare she mention the word deficit.
On law and order:
What happened after [Chief Executive] Leung Chun-ying was accused of accepting HK$50 million in secret payments? Nothing.
