I loved this, nothing shows up the folly of democracy more than the recent election in Hong Kong.
Just like an old joke in the UK, you can put a blue rosett on a monkey, anywhere in southern England, and he will still win the election!
He's now looking for an assisstant that's got less qualifications than him?!
"Fewer than no qualifications"!
Last month, I wrote an article titled ‘Voting for random men off the street’, critiquing the bizarre choices that Hong Kong voters have made in the latest local elections. It has proven that to become a politician in this polarising political climate, all that is needed for one to win is a pro-protest agenda. One can be a breakdancer, a convenience store cashier, a video games commentator, or just a random uneducated and unemployed fella. Your qualifications simply do not matter, as long as you run against a pro-establishment politician, you have a support system.
27-year-old Chan Tsz-wai made headlines for his laughable resume:
• achieved 0 mark in his HKCEE (Hong Kong equivalent of UK’s GCSEs and USA’s SATs);
• failed his ‘Diploma Yi Jin’ – a formal qualification in proof of an individual’s ‘generic skills and general knowledge’;
• worked as a mechanic trainee at MTR, a cashier at a convenience store, and an events assistant at a social welfare agency.
This week, he made headlines again for his absurd responses in his interview with Cable News. When asked about an ideal assistant, which he is actively in search for, he expressed that he wants someone with less qualifications than him, because someone who is more educated than he is (frankly, most of Hong Kong) would be ‘self-centred’. Please tell me, how do you have fewer qualifications than no qualifications? Let me put it in simpler terms so Chan could understand, if you have no apples, it is impossible to find someone who has fewer apples than you do.
In the interview, he was himself interviewing a university-graduated applicant, to whom he said (my translation) ‘I’m uneducated, I want applicants to submit their curriculum vitae (C.V.) in Chinese, and you can see if you are incapable in this aspect.’ I have absolutely no idea what he meant by the last sentence. Why is it the applicant’s incapability that he is submitting a C.V. in English and he fails to understand it? Most C.V.s are written in English, and most companies only accept C.V.s in English – including companies in mainland China – it is nobody but the employer’s incapability if he couldn’t understand an applicant’s brief introduction in an international language.
The idiocy of this whole situation is entertaining but disappointing at the same time. When have we, as a society, decided that this foolery is to be celebrated? Everybody is laughing about it, but the joke is on you. You do not care about the future of Hong Kong, you care about being anti and having a few laughs along the way.
Watch the interview: