Cow or bull dung, one’s garden will still grow. Perhaps the same applies to Hong Kong district council election candidates
- Choosing a candidate was a challenge in the recent District Council polls in Hong Kong – they all seemed homogenous. Maybe that was the intention
- Past elections were popular expressions of civic will, where anyone could stand. Maybe, like the contents of one’s garden slurry, it ultimately doesn’t matter
In the weeks before Hong Kong’s recent District Council elections, pre-election hip-hooray-and-ballyhoo rowdily materialised around my generally quiet corner of the New Territories.
Seemingly endless motor cavalcades drove randomly along the road, emitting a perpetual loop of tinned noise through scratchy-sounding rooftop loudspeakers; other increasingly frantic campaign efforts were easy enough to ignore.
Did these mobile performances help sway any lingering doubters? One couldn’t possibly suppose.
Billboards at the station, posters strung out along the roadsides and glossy printed fliers shoved through the postbox are silent, at any rate, and can be readily disregarded or discarded, according to individual preference.
Election apathy is inevitable when voters are denied a free choice
Growing up in Queensland, voting was compulsory, and enforced by fines for non-compliance; a characteristic Australian response to public distaste for devious politicians, and consequent electoral apathy. Nevertheless, voting remains a profound civic responsibility.
If participation in public life exists – however fundamentally flawed one may perceive certain procedural matters to be – then one should show up and be counted.
And so, when the allotted day arrived, it was off to the polling station, and dressed smartly for a change.
As so many others had made such concerted efforts on behalf of us all, the very least that one could do was return the gesture; after all, the late Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother always pulled on her glad rags when she visited London’s bombed-out slums during the height of the Blitz.
In confident expectation of a long queue in Hong Kong’s afternoon sun, a hat and a water bottle came, too; but at the last minute, a book was decided against. Optics might suggest inattention or frivolity, and anyway, I wanted to observe these proceedings closely.
As ever in Hong Kong, bureaucratic processes were streamlined. From being politely ushered in until being smilingly gestured back whence one had come, nothing could be faulted.
Candidate choice was a challenge; they all seemed utterly homogenous. Maybe that was intentional, but again – one couldn’t possibly surmise. Nevertheless, ticks had to be placed on the ballot somewhere – and placed they duly were.
Traditional Chinese values were everywhere apparent, as various kind people helped the aged perform their civic duties. Whether some venerable voters could have accurately remembered what they’d just had for lunch was, of course, only for their carers to know for certain.
09:54
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Gratitude should never be expected for merely doing one’s duty, but nevertheless, a prettily designed thank you card – courtesy of the taxpayer – was urgently thrust upon me on the way out.
Carefully kept as the day’s souvenir, presumably this token would double up as proof positive of personal attendance, should the need ever arise.
Unlike the last time, however, queues didn’t seem quite so lengthy; perhaps advancing years are beginning to play cruel tricks upon one’s memory. After all, Hong Kong before “2019 And All That” already belongs in an earlier epoch.
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Was the whole exercise a waste of time, effort and bus fares? Certain cynical persons might think so.
Things are now rather different; those who know better than the rest of us maintain these altered formulas improve on previously chaotic and disordered times – perhaps they do. One couldn’t possibly say.
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Anyway, as Deng Xiaoping once famously opined, it doesn’t matter whether cats are black or white, as long as they catch rats.
Back home later that afternoon, mixing up a pungent bucketful of organic fertiliser slurry, similar metaphors came to mind. Whether the main ingredient be cow’s or bull’s ultimately matters little, as long as one’s garden continues to grow.
