Stuart Wolfendale

A friend furious and  resident in Mui Wo  wrote to me about my ‘derogatory and scurrilous’ remarks over the original Mui Wo protest at the Christian Zhen Shang College moving into their empty school. I thought that was a little harsh but I’ll live with it.

 

He was pointing out that I and others should have egg on our faces for having supported the College when it had since been shown to be running a brothel in Fujian. In fact, my blog did not give much if any direct succour to the College. My theme was what an unsightly exercise in counter public relations the Mui Wo activists had carried out that weekend.  I may have used language which some might have called unflattering and my friend called derogatory and scurrilous but it made me feel better and for that I plead for pardon because I once lived on Lamma.

 

My friend asked me to re-blog and, since he was one of my half dozen readers, I am responding to strong public opinion.

 

I was never particularly frothy in my enthusiasm for the College. I always have a little reserve over institutions that put Christian in their title without any clear link to a denomination of some sort. It is fine for one to believe oneself a Christian and attempt to walk with Jesus, as a someone described it with divine prosaicness the other day, but you don’t necessarily put it on your card.

 

Some small nimbus of doubt must float over any outfit that says it ‘forgot’ where its company was registered, particularly when the premises are actually being occupied by a ‘bordello’ as my furious friend described it. Still, I should show sympathy here. Years ago , as their press officer, I was forever defending the Church Commissioners in London against press accusations that they were landlords of one woman, walk up brothels in their Paddington properties which had been microscopically sub-let.

 

For the rest of the indictment against it, the College hardly seems damned. We are told by educationalists that their assets are not unusual in scope nor are their charges excessive nor are the subsidies granted them unwarranted. You would need to demonstrate that hands were plunging cash into pockets and the ICAC is investigating, as they say.

 

Mind you, I could ring up the ICAC and give them the scantiest suspiscion of anyone of you six readers having your hand in a till and they would be investigating too so we are a long way off a conclusion.

 

To return, at great risk with my furious friend, to Mui Wo’s PR hard luck story, I read about the recent demonstration in support of opening the school to local children rather than the recovering drug kids.  During the demo, an SCMP reporter got her hands on what read like a lady of French  provenance to give example of the hardships suffered by local families. Certainly it was very expensive, explained Madame, to send  her six and eight year old daughters back and forth to Hong Kong every day - with a maid.

 

Yes, I know that when you look at it logically, some sort of escort system has to be worked out but wouldn’t a true community at least come up with a maritime equivalent of car- pooling? Do the local Chinese kids get sent with a maid? Shall drug kiddie rehab be delayed to cut down on Madame’s staff expenses?

 

Of course there is an argument to be put if but only if, when reporters from the SCMP or English channel televison are spotted, foreign residents are ushered off the street.

 

 

 

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