The future of Hong Kong: Problems of the Young Generation

Although I have been rather critical of the successful and complacent chaps who are in-charge of Hong Kong, I am equally critical of the younger generations.

Anti-Express Rail Link Protest. Photo: Edwin Chiu

This sort of common images during the anti-Express Rail Link (a.k.a. High Speed Rail) movement have made the city thought that, on the whole, young generation, or post-80s (who were born in the 1980s), were rather radical and unwilling to submit to authority. The truth is most of the post-80s generation are not radical nor fearless to authority. In fact, most of them only fail to realise that the old formula for success has quite simply failed, but they are still submitting to the “ideology” (if you are still willing to call it so) of the Hong Kong Spirit. Not matter which side they are on, there are problems that they do not realise.

For those people who protest on the street, they are absolutely right to say that there are many problems in the society. Unfairness, high Gini Coefficient, the poors are unprotected while the riches have all the privileges, reduced upward mobility, and no democracy. Yes, these are indeed worth fighting for, but they failed to realise whom they are running up against.

The economic structure of Hong Kong, helped by the “High Land Price” Policy, made Hong Kong property developers rich. There is little wonder why the society of Hong Kong is becoming increasingly unfair, because the rich guys who have real estate are becoming rich by owning real estate, while the poor guys are getting poorer by not owning real estate. With money, there comes with power. But to fight this, these people fail to ask the crucial questions. Instead of realising the root of the problem, they base their rhetoric on Marxist-like ideology, that capitalists are by nature evil and are exploiting the poor workers to their own profit motif.

In terms of democracy, you are running up against with the People’s Republic of China, which has no democracy. China is a country with their own unique culture, and young people in Hong Kong are perhaps too Western in thinking that they failed recognise this. In short, Chinese people need “face”. If people protests fiercely to ask the Chinese government for something, and if the Chinese government give in, it would be a rather big “face-losing” event. How could these Chinese leaders who need so much of face allowed themselves to lose their face? Put it simply, protests and provocative rhetoric are something the Communist regime fears, but they are doing both.

But these people are, after all, minority of the so-called post-80s generation. The majority of them follow the rules of the game set by the previous generations: they studied hard, got into the universities, and got out and worked. Unfortunately, there are more universities now, and there are too many people older than them who are ahead of them and still struggle to climb up the ladder because they still have another generation ahead of them. The unfortunate thing here is that the complacent chaps told young guys to study hard and work hard as they did 30 years ago, but that will not work well now, and still the majority of these young guys still follow this advice, which becomes, in some way or another, nonsense. So they work hard, but without good future: not very much different from slaves.

In short, young people of Hong Kong, oddly, either become Marxists or slaves. These people are supposed to be the future leaders of Hong Kong. However, if they are not going to change themselves and continue to be Marxists or slaves, I cannot see any future in Hong Kong.

The future of Hong Kong Series:

Preface
1. “High Land Price” Policy
2. Real Estate Tycoons and Monopoly
3. Complacent Chaps
4. Reduced Upward Mobility and Generation War
5. Problems of the Young Generation
6. Solutions

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About Zarathustra

Zarathustra: Founder and Managing Editor of Also sprach Analyst. Once an analyst, now an investor and entrepreneur. Based in Hong Kong, but Londoner at heart.