Chinese mainland “locusts” and Chinese tourist “invasions”

Chinese mainland “locusts” and Chinese tourist “invasions”

Why do the people of Hong Kong refer to the Chinese mainland visitors to Hong Kong as “locusts”?

Locusts are gregarious swarming grasshoppers.  When they swarm, they cause devastating economic loss.

Pregnant Hong Kong mothers expecting delivery at Hong Kong hospitals have been crowded out by Chinese mainland women illegally entering Hong Kong to have their babies delivered so that the babies can obtain Hong Kong residency.  Hong Kong hospitals have been inundated.  Like locusts and floods, they are invasive.

Hong Kong shops have been inundated by hordes of Chinese mainland shoppers, and many local Hong Kong people see the Chinese mainland shoppers as invasive hordes that are like invading locusts.

The gregarious flocking behavior and the swarming behavior of Chinese mainland shoppers are characteristic of the gregarious swarming behavior of invading locusts.

To many people of Hong Kong, the Chinese mainland visitors are gregarious invaders, and their visits to Hong Kong are seen as invasions.

This sentiment is not unique to the people of Hong Kong.  South Koreans of Jeju Island, many Japanese, the people of Thailand, the people of Palau, some Australians, and the French who have used the term “pe’ril jaune” to describe Chinese mainland tourists who visit Paris, do express the sentiment that the Chinese mainland tourists are gregarious invaders.

Here are some of the descriptions used by Hong Kong tour guides who have led Chinese mainland tourists.  “The Chinese mainlanders are all mountain thieves and bandits.  They do not listen to reason and they are very uncivilized, savage, barbarous and brutal.”  The Chinese term is “ye man” meaning uncivilized, savage, barbarous, cruel and brutal.  Another term used to describe the Chinese mainland tourists is “que de”.  This is a classical Mandarin term used on Taiwan.  Its origin is from the Nationalist era and China’s Nationalist Republican era on the Chinese mainland up to 1949.  It is a term still used on Taiwan, but in the Chinese Communist dictionary, the term is defined differently from what it truly means.  In the Chinese Communist dictionary, “que de” is defined as mean, wicked, villainous.  This definition is completely wrong.  “Que” means “lack, lacking”, and “de” is “morals”.  “Que de” literally means “lacking in morals”, this is the only meaning the term has.  It means what the Chinese characters say.  The term “que de” which means “lacking in morals” does not mean “mean, wicked, villainous.”

The reason why the term “que de” is defined as “mean, wicked, villainous” is political.  The term is a Nationalist Republican era term, therefore, to the Chinese Communists, it is an “enemy” term.  Since the Chinese Communists could not find any reason to accuse the Nationalist government of lacking in morals, the term was thus defined in a “political” way by the Chinese Communists.