Patriotic education similar to dating a girl, Hong Kong’s No 2 official says
- ‘You have to get to know the country before identifying with it, eventually being able to love and safeguard it,’ Eric Chan says
Hong Kong’s No 2 official has likened the government’s approach to patriotic education to dating a girl, saying it was difficult to get someone to love their own country without first getting to understand it well.
Chief Secretary for Administration Eric Chan Kwok-ki told a radio show on Saturday that cultural exhibitions and markets selling mainland Chinese products were among activities organised to help Hongkongers better understand the nation.
Chan, who heads the city’s Basic Law promotion committee, also revealed that the city’s 18 district councils had been instructed to organise national day celebrations that incorporated patriotic education.
“We have agreed to take a softer approach to conduct patriotic education as it cannot be a hard sell,” he said.
“The order of things is that you have to get to know the country before identifying with it, eventually being able to love and safeguard it.
“To put it simply, for a young man to fall in love, he has to first get to know his girlfriend – how can you fall in love without knowing her?
“After he gets to know her, he will find that she is great, then he will marry her, and will surely love her and protect everything about her.”
