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OSC Views Hong Kong’s “Mad Dog” Wong

10.26.09 | 1 min read | Text by Steven Aftergood

The DNI Open Source Center has produced a colorful profile of Raymond Wong Yuk-man, a former talk show host who was elected to Hong Kong’s Legislative Council in 2008.

Known as “Mad Dog” for “his virulent criticism of the Communist Party of China,” Wong is a member of the “radical pro-democracy League of Social Democrats (LSD).”  But his flamboyant behavior has raised concerns that he could “divide the Hong Kong opposition and set back the process of democratization,” the OSC report (pdf) said.

Earlier this year, Wong was officially rebuked for using the English phrase “poor guys” to refer to Hong Kong’s citizens. It seems that “poor guys” was a play on “the vulgar Cantonese expression ‘pok kai'” which means, the OSC explained, something like “drop dead.”

Last year, Wong was ejected from the Council chambers after throwing bananas to protest the minimal stipend (known as “fruit money”) given to senior citizens.

To be a radical is “fine,” said one of Wong’s critics. But to be “a loutish, obscene, banana-throwing radical is not.”

See “Profile of ‘Radical’ Hong Kong Legislator Raymond Wong Yuk-man,” Open Source Center, October 2, 2009.