It’s official: Xi Jinping is coming to town.
Here’s an early and famous photo of Chris Patten’s early days in Hong Kong:
He wasn’t surrounded by security goons, the police didn’t have to glue the bricks to the ground to prevent people from picking them up and throwing them at him, and although this may have been staged, it didn’t have that feel to it.
A couple of years later I was out for a hike and came across him, a retired dignitary and their wives. There was no security. Perhaps the two drivers were armed – I don’t know – but I wasn’t stopped, frisked or the like: Patten gave me a friendly nod, which I returned, and we went on our respective ways.
President Xi, by contrast, will be staying at the Grand Hyatt where “For security reasons, hotel rooms in several floors will be vacated and people will have to receive a security check before being allowed to enter the hotel” and will be too busy on the Great Hong Kong White Elephant tour to sample egg tarts.
So here’s a little ditty to welcome him (by the way, “X” is pronounced “Sh” in Chinese, and Jin would rhyme with “bean”, so “She Jean-ping” is about as close as I can get in spelling that a native English speaker would recognize):
You’d better watch out
You’d better not cry
You’d better watch out
I’m telling you why
Xi Jinping is coming to town
Well he’s bringing lots of tanks and guns
And a great big army too
And when he brings them to Hong Kong
He’s gonna drive them over you (splat)
[Chorus]
He knows which books you’re selling
He knows when they’re taboo
He’ll get that filmed confession
And that’s the end of you (oo)
[Chorus]
He don’t like independence
He knows just what’s at stake
So he will change the Basic Law
And a pyre of freedoms make (yeah!)
[Chorus]
There’s National Education
And we are all Chinese
And if you’re not on board with that,
Well, get down on your knees.
[Chorus]
And if that doesn’t earn me a knock on the door at 4 a.m., I take it all back.