HONG KONG—As tens of thousands of ordinary people took to the streets on Wednesday to call for greater democracy 12 years after Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule, one group of residents voiced its dissatisfaction in song.
The Hong Kong Complaints Choir performed a sung litany of gripes to mark Wednesday’s public holiday, which commemorates the day the former British colony was handed back to Beijing in 1997.
A video of the song was quickly posted on the Internet video-sharing outlet YouTube.
“Backs to the motherland, faces to the world,” the Complaints Choir sings in the official language of the People’s Republic, Mandarin, quoting China’s official slogan about Hong Kong.
“We wanna make a change,” follows in English.
“The world’s gone crazy; there’s no wisdom left,” the Complaints Choir sings. “The government and big business keep putting off direct elections.”
Wednesday’s protesters voiced slogans about the government’s response to the worldwide economic slowdown, growing unemployment, and calls to set a date for universal suffrage and full, direct elections.
The singers also picked up on the territory’s economic woes.
“If I lose my job I’m going to panhandle. And still they tell us ‘try your best!’”
“I have to worry about making ends meet. I have to do so many part-time jobs—not to mention a lifetime of debt,” they sing in Cantonese, one of the territory’s official languages.
The Complaints Choir also appeared to raise concerns about growing levels of self-censorship and distortion in Hong Kong’s media.
“There’s no truth in the news,” they warble.
“They think I’m stupid and they want me to read it. One thing after another—it scares you to death.”
Marching with banners
Braving sweltering heat on the way to Hong Kong’s central Victoria Park, Wednesday's protesters held banners to demand universal suffrage in elections for the city’s chief executive and legislature in 2012.
Handover agreements made between Britain and China said Hong Kong should progress toward universal, direct elections, but set no definitive timetable.
Beijing has said universal suffrage won’t come before 2017 at the earliest.
March organizers, mostly from the pro-democratic political parties in Hong Kong, drew parallels with 2003, when 100,000 took to the streets to express growing popular anger at then chief executive Tung Chee-hwa and his proposed national security bill.
Those demonstrations shocked and embarrassed Beijing. The security legislation was shelved, and Tung resigned the following year.
Opposition to the government of Tung’s successor Donald Tsang has grown in the wake of the economic crisis, which has hit Hong Kong’s export and financial services sectors hard.
More complaints
On a more personal note, the Complaints Choir ended its lament with a duet between and a man and a woman about the difficulties of finding a mate in 21st century Hong Kong:
Woman:
Ugly face, small breasts, no partner--always complaining! And the pork chops are moldy! My hair won’t set.
I don’t want to be alone.
Man:
I haven’t got any money.
How will I get a girl?
I’m a poor guy!
Better not get married.
Woman: People ask me why I watch movies alone.
Man: Actually I don’t want to be single.
Both: What can we do? Empty love songs are blaring all through the streets, brainwashing us, making us fall in love anyway. Perhaps happiness exists only on TV?
Original reporting by RFA’s Cantonese service. Director: Shiny Li. Translated and written for the Web in English by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.
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