2012-11-27 Liaison Office English
Over the past two years while I've been helping Ming Pao with recordings of its English editorials, I've learnt a lot about Hong Kong. Recently I learnt that the Liaison Office of the Central Government has been more actively and more openly "sticking its finger in the Hong Kong pie".
Therefore I presume that the recent rash of anti-Falun Gong banners appearing in many tourist districts of Hong Kong is the work of the Liaison Office under the name "Hong Kong Youth Care Association".
But the English of the banners has me puzzled. Does "HK Youth Care Association" mean a group that cares about HK youth, or does it mean a group of HK youth that cares about something?
"Build
a haimonious
Hong Kong" should be "Build a harmonious
HK",
"Taiwan Falun Gong gets out
of HK" should be "Taiwan Falun Gong get
out of HK", while "scourging the public order" is
a nonsense combination of words: if you put "scourging public order"
into Google, you'll find that no one in the internet world has ever used such a
mix-up of words. Liaison Office English is an embarrassment to Hong Kong.
Also clumsy and confusing is the term "Taiwan Falun Gong" (in Chinese as well as English!). It implies that Falun Gong is from Taiwan. But everyone knows that Falun Gong is from the Mainland. If you put "Taiwan" into Wikipedia's 12,598 word article on Falun Gong, "Tawain" is used only once, in passing. From checking the HK news, I find that the term "Taiwan Falun Gong" refers to members of Falun Gong who have come to Hong Kong and are giving out Falun Gong literature.