Literary Master 1983

Chapter 181 Dialogue with Zha Liangyong (Large)

The "Happy Tonight" program team first played historical information about "Kowloon Walled City":

The area was originally a military fortress of the Qing Dynasty and an office for foreign affairs officials. After World War II, liberation, and reconstruction, the population grew larger and larger, and a large number of lower-class people gathered there. It became an active area for triads, a hotbed for illegal activities such as drug trafficking, prostitution, and gambling, and a no-man's land between Hong Kong, Britain, and the mainland. Illegal expansion and unauthorized construction were serious, and the environment and sanitation were extremely poor.

How many people live here? How many renovations have taken place? No one knows, only the locals who live here know.

However, this place has also become a place for refugees to gather together for warmth. Considering the current cost of living in Hong Kong, many people will have problems with their future lives if they leave Kowloon Walled City.

Their extremely large number makes them a major problem for the government.

Cha Liangyong spoke first. He wore an expensive suit, a "civilized stick" and a top hat to show his status and demeanor.

He was unlike the mainland writer Yu Che in front of him. Because of the hot weather, Yu Che only wore a shirt and thin trousers. His shirt was even rolled up, making him look like a young man who had just started working at a newspaper.

If a young man like this came to Ming Pao, I would definitely have a bad impression of him. In the serious newspaper industry, colors, buttons, and ties are all required.

Cha Liangyong was naturally prepared. This year, Cha Liangyong turned 60 and had not suffered from any diseases. He even rehearsed for this interview. He had been elected as one of the government members and was ready to make great plans and regard this as the "first battle" of his new career.

"Here is a report on Kowloon Walled City!" Cha Liangyong held up a document and showed it to the camera. "Reliable data shows that the crime rate in Kowloon Walled City is much higher than other places. Doctors, goods, teachers... are all fake here. It is full of people from all walks of life. They have not made any contribution to this society. Instead, they have doubled the bad consequences!"

"So the Kowloon Walled City needs to be demolished, and it needs to be demolished immediately, right away, without a moment's delay!"

The host was Shen Dianxia, ​​nicknamed "Fat Sister". She asked Yu Qie on the other side: "Mr. Yu is very young, but he is also a great writer from the mainland. I will use a more literary name to address you, Mr. Yu! If you like, Comrade Yu is also OK!"

Yu Qie said: "What do Hong Kong citizens like to call people of my age?"

"The rest of your life?"

"Then use the local term."

Afterwards, Yu Qie asked Cha Liangyong: "Has Mr. Cha ever been to Kowloon Walled City?"

"I've been there."

"Mr. Cha looked down like this, dressed up as a committee member, and went deep into the walled city, climbing up to the rooftop of the walled city?"

"Of course I've been inside and seen it, but I'm not young enough to see the whole thing. I'm sure you can't see it all either, right?"

It turned out that Yu Qie was wearing it simply, and he was waiting for this sentence! Cha Liangyong broke out in a cold sweat.

He was saying that I had lost sympathy for the common people. Cha Liangyong suddenly realized that most of the audience of this program were these "common people", so he quietly put down his stick and put his hat aside.

Yu Qi nodded at him, as if he could see through what he was thinking.

"I ask this question because if you haven't seen it, it's not worth discussing it... Now that you've seen it, has Mr. Cha also felt a kind of chaotic vitality? Although the tube buildings in Kowloon Walled City are crowded into a maze, under the neon lights, people sell wonton noodles, worship Guan Gong, and even open their own kindergartens to learn culture."

"It has become a school of its own, a system of its own."

Yu Qie summed it up this way.

Cha Liangyong retorted, "You reminded me of the martial arts novel "Against the Cold Current" recently published in our newspaper. Lianyun Village has become a good place with great righteousness, and everyone is well-educated and righteous, and values ​​friendship... But if Lianyun Village is left with only prostitution, gambling, and drugs, it will become a den of bandits. Everything still needs to be followed by rules, otherwise there will be no order."

"And we know that in reality, there is no such Lianyun Village, but there is a modern government that is much better than the feudal court. Lianyun Village can disobey the Northern Song Dynasty court, but after all, we are facing a modern government, which has rules."

"Mr. Cha, you are totally wrong!" Yu Qi directly refuted him.

"Where did I go wrong?" Cha Liangyong was a little angry.

"You are wrong in confusing the relationship between the past and today. Our perception of a thing is not the feeling at a certain moment, but the sum of our perceptions over a long period of time... The debts owed in the past must be repaid today, and the mistakes made in the past must be made up today."

"Why do people in Kowloon Walled City refuse to trust the British Hong Kong government? From the perspective of the residents of Kowloon Walled City, if a relative has not cared about you for more than a hundred years, and now it suddenly cares about you, wouldn't you be alert first?"

"Is it here to eat you up or is it here to help you? Please think about it."

Yu Qie's words were so sincere that Cha Liangyong could not find any words to refute them. Ming Pao often published articles criticizing the Hong Kong British government, but it unexpectedly became one of the evidences Yu Qie gave.

The program "Unforgettable Tonight" was broadcast in the TVB studio, and many audiences were invited to listen. Most of the audience were intellectuals with a middle-class economic level.

The camera scanned the audience at this time, and saw many of them with their mouths slightly open, with confusion or slight approval in their eyes.

In Hong Kong, the core decision-making level has long been monopolized by officials directly sent by the United Kingdom, and local Chinese have been almost excluded from key decision-making.

On the other hand, the British Hong Kong government transferred a large amount of Hong Kong's economic benefits to Britain through taxation, trade monopoly and land policies. The figure was as high as nearly HK$1 trillion per year, while local Chinese workers faced extremely low wages and poor working conditions. Only a very small number of rich people benefited. This was completely a colonial practice.

Given the current situation, why do we think they will do anything good this time?
Even if we want to do good things, who can guarantee that this matter will not harm the public interest and benefit oneself?

The large-scale migration of Hong Kong people, involving tens of thousands of people, was entirely operated by the British. It was like taking off your own pants and giving your balls to others to pinch.

The ratings of this program began to enter a continuous upward curve. Originally, one out of every six people watched the program, but now one out of every three or four people watches the program.

At the Chinese University of Hong Kong, students from the Department of Electronics watched the conversation between writers from both places through television broadcast.

The person who invited the students to watch TV was Chinese scientist Gao Kun, one of the inventors of optical fiber technology and later Nobel Prize winner in physics. Although he holds British nationality, he has long maintained contact with the mainland and is very fond of traditional culture.

In the early 1980s, Gao Kun actively promoted the transfer of fiber optic technology to the Mainland's Post and Telecommunications Technology Institute through his students, which promoted the development of many technologies.

"What do you think about what Yu Qie said?" Gao Kun asked the students.

Most of the students were confused. They knew nothing about the mainland and nothing about England's past.

Someone said: "Gao Kun (Gao Kun asked students to call him by his first name), Yu Qie looked down on the Hong Kong British government. Is it really that bad? After we graduated, we were able to get employment subsidies. I also heard that Thatcher in the UK cut welfare in England, but they gave Hong Kong higher welfare every year, which was particularly obvious in recent years... Is it because Yu Qie was too extreme, and the British woke up and knew that they had let us down in the past."

Gao Kun shook his head and said, "In fact, the improvement of Hong Kong's welfare only started after the negotiations. They didn't want the mainland to get so much foreign exchange, so they took away most of it by various means and gave out the rest in excess, creating a welfare trap." The student said, "But it was also given out, wasn't it? It's better than not giving out anything at all."

Gao Kun said helplessly: "This is the wealth we created. They should not get a penny. If there is no negotiation, how can Hong Kong become the lucky one? According to their method, things will be delayed until ten years later. Who will pay for this cost by then?"

"So that's how it is. No wonder Yu Qie is not optimistic about the British Hong Kong government carrying out this demolition."

On TV, Yu Qie also dropped a bombshell.

He took out a document and said, "I want to tell you a story!"

Yu Qie said: "This happened more than 300 years ago. At that time, a group of Chinese went to Southeast Asia. After several generations, they settled down and formed their own small society. They exchanged what they had with the Spaniards who came later, did business, and even got married and became brothers."

"However, the Spanish did not think so. They coaxed the Chinese merchants out of their homes and spread rumors that they were preparing to rebel. They tried every means to expel and eliminate the Chinese merchants."

"In the beginning, the Chinese merchants lived in the settlements, in the city, and on large merchant ships. They had the ability to resist... but because they were deceived and left, they laid down their weapons and were wantonly eliminated, resulting in a series of human tragedies."

"This has happened many times. The Spanish came, the British came, the Japanese came... Finally, you see the Chinese people starting to band together for warmth, rebuilding society based on clan blood relations, learning Chinese, reading Hanshu and studying Hanwu. Of course, Mr. Cha thinks this is very backward and primitive, like the Boxer Rebellion, but at least it can keep them alive."

Yu Qie stood up and showed his own information to the camera. His information was much more substantial than that of Zha Liangyong, but this was not because Yu Qie was well prepared, but because such bloody and tragic events were everywhere in history.

He randomly turned to a page, which was about a series of tragedies that occurred after the Japanese occupied Hong Kong. The next page was about a series of tragedies that happened in the 1960s, in which the British Hong Kong government caused dozens of deaths and thousands of people to be imprisoned.

"The patriotic overseas Chinese Tan Kah Kee was targeted by the Japanese. His entire family fled. More than 30 people fled in two groups. As a result, more than half of his relatives were captured by the Japanese and brutally executed! He chose not to cooperate with the Japanese."

"In the 1960s, conflicts broke out in many parts of Southeast Asia. Textbooks don't record this. The police arrested Chinese people on the street, and some even shot them without saying a word. Most of the people who survived hid in their homes. They didn't go out for days and nights."

"In the Strait of Malacca, there is a mountain named 'Sanbao Mountain' because of the Ming Dynasty eunuch Zheng He who was stationed here. This mountain gradually became the largest Chinese cemetery outside China. The government wanted to take it back for commercial development and promised extremely high compensation. However, the Chinese people raised the money and bought back the burial place of their ancestors. They will also be buried here in the future. The mountain was renamed 'China Mountain'."

"..."

Hundreds of years passed in a flash, condensed into this history book. It is too thick, and just a few lines of words represent the lives of many people. It is also too thin, and many unknown events have not yet been recorded.

Yu Qie's words were passionate and impassioned.

He said that what happened in Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong was one of the countless Chinese associations, and the choices made by these people were also influenced by past history.

It cannot be said that they are stupid and unwilling to integrate into civilized society. They are just too smart, so they made a choice that is beneficial to themselves. Maybe the British Hong Kong government is doing a good thing this time, but they cannot bet on such a possibility.

After hearing this, Zha Liangyong was stunned for a moment, then said: "I think this is sophistry. You always like to use these slogans, and you are particularly inflammatory. I think today is completely different from the past."

"What's the difference?"

"Today I am also one of the committee members and one of the supervisors. I will of course keep an eye on this demolition until it is completed. I also know many friends in the political circle and I can ask them to help me... Ming Pao will continue to pay attention to this matter and exert the power of media opinion."

"What if the British don't listen to you?"

"I'm a committee member, why don't you listen to me?"

“Are judges in Hong Kong Chinese?”

"No."

“Is the Chief Executive Chinese?”

"Well... not really."

"What about the violent agencies?"

"Sir, you are Chinese."

"What about the sir above the sir?"

Cha Liangyong shook his head. He couldn't talk nonsense. All the senior police officers were white, not even one with yellow skin.

"Oh, one of the committee members who made the proposal is you. Do you think your words will count?"

Yu Qie seemed very disappointed at this time. He understood why Cha Liangyong retired from politics after a few years. Cha Liangyong actually had a naive and romantic fantasy that power is given by status, not status by power.

Cha Liangyong also found himself led into a logical trap by Yu Qie, and he answered completely according to Yu Qie's ideas.

Wait, this won’t work!

After Cha Liangyong became famous for writing novels, he occupied high positions for most of his life, examining the stubborn illnesses of society as a critic. Everyone respected him very much, and he was a guest of honor wherever he went on both sides of the Taiwan Strait and in Hong Kong and Macau.

He made some extraordinary requests, which were always met, which made him have higher expectations for his life.

Cha Liangyong didn't care about his appearance. He was once an angry young man. He was extremely excited: "I didn't expect you to be so eloquent, but those people in Kowloon Walled City... their living environment is terrible. Shouldn't it be demolished? Shouldn't they be allowed to enter civilized society?"

"You have certainly gained fame by saying these things, but have you changed their fate? I am indeed doing something, so why should I be misunderstood by you?"

Good question!
I really wanted to applaud; this was such a good question.

In fact, Yu Qie never misunderstood Cha Liangyong. He believed that Cha Liangyong was going to do something, but he felt that Cha Liangyong was a rookie in politics and might end up with good intentions but bad results.

Of course Kowloon Walled City needs to be demolished, but how and who does it are important.

Otherwise, there will be a huge mess and no one will be happy except the British Hong Kong government.

Yu Qie said: "Of course this place must be demolished. This is our only consensus. But since it is a no-man's land and is now under control, it cannot be decided by one party. At least the mainland should be informed."

(End of this chapter)