Sex-Crazed Undergraduate Students of Hong Kong? What’s actually going on?
(The following commentary is written in English, however the links to the matter in concern are all Chinese articles)
I’ve been an undergraduate student myself, though not in Hong Kong but in the UK, and had my fair share of that colourful student life (that all stopped now of course, having a wife and all that), so it’s understandable to think that undergraduate male students always have a lot of semen sexual fantasies in their minds (in Chinese that would be 谷精上腦 - too much semen in your testicles that they’re getting to your brain).
The Chinese had always been a more conservative society over this matter, therefore when last year CUHK had opposed against the student’s newspaper decided to publish a Sex section it came as no surprise to me. According to the student newspaper commitee - “the purpose of setting up a sex section was for students to openly discuss the topic of sex, and to openly and unreservedly criticise how present day society twisted the perception of it”, which was (and still is) a taboo within the Chinese culture to do so. It is, afterall, the 21st century, HKers even mainland Chinese fellows are pretty open to discuss each other’s sex life, a sort of trying to catch up with Western civilisations. One would be inclined to give these students encouragement to do so.
If you managed to pick up a CUHK student newspaper like I did (or you can read parts of them here) - I am a part-time postgraduate CUHK student who needs to goto CUHK every saturday afternoon for lecture - you can see for yourself what the fuss was all about. Apart from some bits, and the notorious survey that was so publicised and slaughtered by the mainstream media, I do actually find some of the articles rather intriging and interesting (eg. this reader’s comment on the book about female masturbation), if not a little avant-garde for the Chinese society in general.
I was expecting mature, open conversations about sex and sexual relationships, and at times I found some (for example here, a girl talking about her experiences with the Sex festival ). You must give the students credit for pioneering such a section, given the social background that they were brought up and currently living in. In my opinion, they can say whatever the fuck they like, just because they’re living in Hong Kong and the Common Law has a freedom of speech cluse which allows them to do so. Ok so some people always like to take the moral highground criticising open discusion of these sensitive topics, and rightly so because these topics ARE sensitive, and should be handled with the greatest care, but look at it this way, if these matters were discussed with maturity and openess, it could serve as a positive education to young people in general. With current high rates of teenage sex, abortion and unwanted pregnancies and all that shit, didn’t some social groups (Mother’s Choice in particular) tried to advocate actions like these and drill them into parents’ head? If put to the right use, it could educate youngsters the right way.
However, for completeness’ sake, there are a few bad points about this incident for me to pick on, and these points are actually worth nothing, whether you agree with it or not, and whether you’re participating in it or not -
1) Extremely Poor editing
The one thing that I can’t stand whilst reading was reading an article that was written by a person who has a very poor command of the language that the article was written in (like this one, the result of that notorious survey). I don’t mind writing in Cantonese in general, I simply can’t stand that these undergraduate students can’t even write in their own first language properly. Ok, so those results listed were written by actual students, but in my view, the editors of the newspaper has a responsibility to edit the language used (not necessarily equal to editing the article’s content, but if it touches on the edge of the law, then it might do them favours editing them; also, if returnd comments are too low a level to be published, then it should be moderated to a certain extent) before publishing an article. Even if these newspapers’ target readers were undergraduate students, I read articles written by primary school students with a better command of Chinese than that shite that was published on that page. In this case, I think those comments should be edited on the grounds that not only they’re an eyesore, but it just shows how immature some students are (which is NOT unusual).
Also, what beggers belief was this - “why did they merely (selectvely) publish some stupid comments written by low-level homo sapiens, and not do analyse the data that they obtained?” It makes you wonder why the fuck did they even conduct that survey in the first place if it’s not for some thoughtful analysis and inference of the current youth generation. That was a really really bad move, which showed a lack of thought on their behalf.
2) The way the students handled the aftermath and the mainstream media
Remember the Gordon Wu’s mob politics incident? Young human beings tends to be hot-headed, and usually lacks thought about possible consequences to their actions. This is most likely because they lack experiences in life where they reap the seeds they sowed, good AND bad. So they pioneered a sex section in the student’s newspaper, but from their (over-)reactions after being slashed upon by mainstream media it can be concluded that they didn’t see that coming at all. Apparently they held a so-called open discussion forum which turned into something similar to a one-sided rally. A mature human being simply wouldn’t handle things this way. You may think that Ghandi and Nelson Mandela were stupid for being a pacifist, but if you play your cards right then you get your desired outcome.
Unfortunately, at this stage, being hot-headed and holding a rally isn’t one of the right cards to play. I haven’t been to the rally, but according to the news, if it was right, then the discussion was no REAL discussion at all, but rather it was a bunch of semen-filled stupid fucks holding a rally to support a space which allows them to masturbate.
If one is mature enough, when confronted by the mainstream (which should be totally expected), one should stick with their stance (which the student did), and convince the society calmly that one means what one says, and one can handle sensitive matters in a mature manner, and time will tell that one’s in fact right (which the student failed to show utterly and completely). To be really honest, the rally wasn’t what I expected from their reactions (in fact, it was the last thing I would expect them to do), so it’s normal for people to think, “they may have reached the legal age where they can talk about sex, but unfortunately they still don’t have the mentality to handle the reality at all.”
In my opinion, those students shouldn’t handle things like dumbfuck revolutionaries do - pretending to indulge in their own pointless ideologies and pretend that they can and will change a society, but instead they should take this opportunity to show that they’re mature and persevere until accepted by the society. The semi-political rally really didn’t do them any favours at all, it just made things worse - that they’re, as the mainstream media had (rightfully) perceived, immature and are no more than a bunch of vulgar kids playing the adult game.
With mentalities like this, they stand no chance against the big media tycoons, after the press had a picnic devouring them, they will just leave them there to rot. The worst thing is - because of their inexperience, they still don’t know that their lives are being ruined by the media horde as we speak - getting kicked out of universities and had criminal charges held against them literally means that they’re fucked for life.
Update 13 May 2007 - 《中大學生報》情色版被評為二級不雅刊物 (Verdict: CUHK Student newspaper is Level 2 obscene object)
I was honestly shocked at the news, not at the verdict, but the speed at which the government acted towards this incident (given the usual inefficiency of the governmental departments). Although the decision was preliminary, that only means that the students have the right to appeal. It had already proved what I said before - the students’ lives are truly and surely fucked. Without a doubt, publishing level 2 obscene object is already a criminal offense, and the students had already broken the law (i.e. they’re criminals). CUHK must kick at least one, if not all, of them out of the university to cover its own arse.
Although the students had softened their stances from their reactions given at the news, using words like “we know that the student newspaper has a lot of room of improvement“, but it’s already too late. At least one of them will be slaughtered as a scapegoat, and if the rest of them act like a mature person now and admit your mistakes, they might still be able to finish their degree.
Update 14/5/2007 - 中大校友批評校方處理方法 (CUHK alumni criticises University’s handling of the incident)
Not that I don’t forgive the students (I never condemned them for anything in the 1st place except being incompetantly stupid), but laws are here for a reason (no, not to be broken) - to prevent people from committing crime. Also, I was bewildered by comments such as this one:
“中大校友關注大學發展小組表示，情色版編委大多是一年級學生，要求他們冷靜妥善處理是超出經驗和能力，希望社會多同情及諒解”
(CUHK alumni’s university development commitee states that, the editors of the Sex section are mostly year 1 undergraduate students, hence it’s out of their experiences and abilities to treat matters calmly, and hopes that the society understands and sympathises with them)
Using the same logic, if 15 year-olds start killing people, does that mean because it’s out of their experiences and abilities, the society should sympathises with them, instead of sending them to jail for the crimes they had committed. THIS IS wrong BULLSHIT. And anyway, I don’t recall anyone younger than 18 (except those exceptionally clever-arse 10A students who got straight into universities) can get into HK universities as a year 1 undergraduate. In other words, they’re supposed to be fucking adults and can think for themselves and be aware of their consequences. Others have to pay, why shouldn’t they? Just because they’re university students?
It’s true - if you want to condemn someone, there’s a thousand reason for it, if you want to forgive someone, even half a reason is enough. But the problem here is - this isn’t even half a lame reason, so come back with a better one.