And I'm sure a lot of that goes on there as well, but it's hard to track for obvious reasons.
I think that summarizes the constant emotional undertones in this article. This article strikes me as a deliberate re-spinning of a story meant to be triumphal, making it the sneakiest hit piece, ever, disguised as a think piece. I would think better of it, were it not for its reliance on such common knowledge preconceptions about "what the Chinese are like."
(Also the French and the British. But that is just what upper-crusty people are like. Human beings are highly hierarchical, and this expresses itself in even the most hardline Marxist states. Even some of the west coast philosopher kings and queens who hang out in places like Big Sur can look down their noses at people with almost no information to prompt it.)
Which is considered by many to be a form of human trafficking. Just because you signed a contract doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to get out of it. I'm not entirely certain where to draw the line.
Which is considered by many to be a form of human trafficking.
My own family history has a lot to do with indentured servitude. If you watch Korean historical dramas, you'll find the condition described as being a "servant" but at other times, the same condition will be described as being a "slave."
In terms of being signed up as minors, exactly how do you draw the line? I went to a boarding school where they didn't let us off school grounds without getting leave.
Just because you signed a contract doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to get out of it. I'm not entirely certain where to draw the line.
How about physical coercion? Did 19 year old Jackie Chan consider himself a slave? Was he kept in a place through physical coercion and torture? Did he dream of jailbreaking himself out of his barracks and wire-cutting the fence and running to freedom while being chased by guards prepared to main or shoot him? Or was he thinking of it as working through a contractual debt?
The line should be firmly held at physical coercion. As always, there will be people who skirt the lines by coming up with things that have the same effect, but which are "technically not coercion."
^ This right here.
There are many things to say about the damages caused by colonialism, but complaining that it's not covered in a book about Chan (who got immensely successful), in Hong Kong (which became very wealthy) in the 1960/70s (while the rest of China was basically burning down) misses the mark. There is a historical context that is quite specific to Hong Kong: the majority of its population actually moved there post-WW2 to escape the troubles on the mainland. Moreover before its decades of unrest, China had been ruled by the Qing, whom most Chinese considered to also be colonisers (the Qing were Manchus who imposed their customs on the Han Chinese majority), so in that regards the British were not some sort of uniquely evil rulers, they were yet another bunch of invaders, who happened to be slightly less violent than the other ones next door.
I think that's why Chan ignored the colonialist angle: it's kind of hard to hate on a city if your family willingly moved there. And yes there is hardship and injustice, but in the rest of China people are either getting purged or are literally dying of hunger. I believe his apolitical view of that era is quite common amongst his generation: yep HK was ruled by some foreigners for a while, next chapter please.
There are some Brits who would tell you that HK developed "thanks to" the UK (I am of the opinion that when a colonised city surpasses even the UK's GDP without being granted any meaningful democratic rights, they succeeded despite your rule, not because of it). This article takes the opposite position but still implies the same thing, that Hong-Kongers were victims with little agency, which I find patronizing when in reality they where a city of refugees who brilliantly navigated a difficult era. Likewise presenting Chan's physical trauma as representative of Hong-Kong's development strikes me as completely off. Lots and lots of people accessed the middle and upper class in the 70s and 80s. Most of them were not stuntmen, it turns out. I must say this is the first Western review I see of this book, and it's the first one that brings colonialism up seemingly out of nowhere. There is a little bit of "Chan's story is not really about him, it's about... us! the Western people" euro-centrism here, IMHO.
Also, since everyone is naming their favourite Jackie Chan movie, have a look at Project A and Project A2, they're a lot of fun (A2 actually tackles some colonialism-related topics in passing).
Democracy is often cited as economically advantageous, but as Singapore demonstrates, authoritarian dictatorships are not necessarily fated to economic ruination. Sometimes authoritarian dictatorships do better than they would have under democratic rule. The trick to democracy is the results are more consistently in the middle; it's not as likely to go catastrophically wrong, but it's also not as likely to go spectacularly well. That's why we generally prefer it; it's the same reason we generally prefer compensation in the form of paychecks instead of lottery tickets. Sometimes people who play the lottery win, and sometimes authoritarian governments are effective governments.
Hong Kong during the colonial era might be another example of an non-democratic regime actually performing well. Or maybe not, I don't really know. It's hard to run a "parallel Hong-Kong experiment" to find out for sure.
