...some HK folks who bought houses during the peak of the market, and rode them all the way down
That was not the immediate problem, although it did cause pain. But the real pain came when the banks demanded additional payments from those people who bought flats at elevated prices. When the housing market collapsed, the value of the property sank, and there was not enough collateral to back up the loan. In some cases people lost their flats. However, the HKSAR granted emergency loans to a number of people to ease the hardship.
...The Brits had abused lots of power and violated lots of human rights
I am not an expert on history, but I have made an effort over the years to learn world history beyond what was taught in school. I'm sure every country has violated human rights somewhere, sometime. But I doubt the Brits should be singled out. For instance, the Japanese attacks on NanKing which you mentioned, the KMT attacks on native Formosians, US and Soviet attacks on smaller countries, German attacks throughout Europe, the French attacks on Indochina after WWII, yada, yada, yada...
...They simply don't want English stuff anymore
I don't think that is right because English is and has been widely taught in schools throughout the Mainland. I suspect what the Mainland wanted was Mandarin and English in HK. But Cantonese is too deeply entrenched. When I traveled in the Beijing and Dalian, English was more visible there than in Japan, for instance. |
