Xinhua News reported on Dec 25th that TVB’s series “Friendly Fire” has provoked outrage in Mainland China and netizens demand an apology from the station, as the series shows a Mainland Chinese pregnant woman, who is going to give birth to an anchor baby in Hong Kong, eating hot pot with her family inside a hospital ward. Over thousands of Hong Kong netizens have expressed that TVB should not make any apologies to Mainland Chinese as the offending scene is based on true stories inside Hong Kong hospitals.
English news via Singapore Yahoo,
“Friendly Fire” angers China
26 Dec – TVB’s new drama, “Friendly Fire” has been criticised for its depiction of mainland Chinese people.
Popular Asians reported that recently, mainland netizens were enraged with a scene in the drama that was deemed insulting.
……
Mainland netizens who watched the drama were deeply offended in how they were being portrayed, claiming “Friendly Fire” to be anti-mainland China. They also demanded TVB to make an apology.
Asked if he is not afraid that his drama will not be shown in mainland China due to the controversy, producer Man Wai Hung stated, “I am from a Hong Kong broadcasting company, and I want more freedom in my creativity.”
“Friendly Fire” stars Michael Tse, Tavia Yeung, Sammy Leung, and Sharon Chan.
The following is the offending scene,
Based on Reality
In fact, the scene is based on actual stores reported by Apple Daily on Dec 4th 2011. (screen capture)
Netizens’ Comments
Facebook blogger 朗思 commented with “Apologise my a**” and has received over 17K likes.
朗思:【Apologise my a**!】
TVB’s “Friendly Fire” satirises “double negative” (*anchor babies) and rudeness of Chinese, sparking outrage among Chinese netizens. And they demand an apology.Hong Kong netizens reply, “Playing victims and claiming that you are innocent when you are at fault? Apologise my a**!”
If you are with me, please share!
Chan: In the past, Hong Kong TV series and movies could reflect the reality of Hong Kong. However, after the Handover, TV series and movies are made to pass the Mainland Chinese censorship and cater to the Mainland Chinese market. There are very few of them that use Hong Kong as themes. In the past, TVB’s sitcom used Hong Kong news as themes, such as “Hong Kong 8x” series.
Long: Eat shit! This TV series has already embellished the locusts!
Tse: TVB should really make an apology. Mainland Chinese “double negative” are worse than that, at least 10 times worse. TVB is suspected to treat the “double negative” favourably and should make an apology!!!!
Kong: The “double negative” who ate hot pot in the hospital ward, the one who beat a female doctor in the Emergency Room, the one who beat a tour guide, those Mainland tourists who jumped the queue in theme parks, smugglers who fled after hitting people and blocked roads when packing goods, Mainland Chinese kids who peed and pooped everywhere, Mainland Chinese men who couldn’t stop smoking everywhere, Mainland Chinese women who squatted everywhere…Have THEY apologised yet?!?!?!
Chan: Apologise? When I gave birth, I experienced how loathsome they are. Hospital had stated clearly that only two people are allowed per visit. However, they (“double negative”) brought many people every visit and the visitors even sat on my bed, speaking loudly. Nurses said that they pretended not to understand. The most outrageous is that one Mainland Chinese man followed his wife to the bathroom full of other female patients. They think the hospital was their home. Those (“double negative”) women talked on the phones loudly in the midnight. These are just the tip of the iceberg. The uncivilised stay uncilived !
Yung: I work in the hospital ward. I always encounter the same situation. Insulting loudly is their instinct. They even insulted me and my colleagues for not learning good Mandarin to serve them! We received colonial education and our first language is Cantonese. If you want to get treatment in here, please learn better Cantonese! Barbarian!
Wong: Demand an apology? Awesome! Please find somebody to apologise to me first.
When I was pregnant, I had already travelled by the first-class compartment to avoid competing for seats with Mainlanders, because I know that not only do they not give up their seats but they also shove you off. I had never thought that Mainlanders would either occupy seats with their LV and Gucci bags or cross their legs so much so that there was just a narrow space to get to the seat. Sometimes, I tripped and almost fell.
I demand an apology!
When I gave birth, the hospital was so crowded that nurses ignored me even though I suffered from great pain. It was all because of the “double negative”- one rushed gate (*gave birth in the E.R), one had expired visa, one needed an urgent C-cession, and one even hadn’t have any prenatal checks before and she came to give birth in here. These made all the doctors and nurses serve them, leaving us taxpayers in pain and ignored. A Hong Kong mother was so painful that she couldn’t wait and half of the baby head was out. A nurse then came and said, “Darn, this one is giving birth.”
I demand an apology!
After I gave birth, I went to maternal and child health centre. Every time, I had to wait for two hours. I thought I was in Mainland China. Nurses were so busy that they had no time to pee. You say you Mainlanders are so extraordinary, why do you give birth in Hong Kong? And use our resources?
I demand an apology!
I pushed my baby stroller and took the East Rail. Groups of smugglers occupied the lift. Those who are in need, like disabled people and those who push baby strollers, can only wait. If you don’t want to wait, you either have to get in the lift quicker than smugglers or take risk and use the escalator with your baby stroller. Sheung Shui area has becomes so dirty because of you people. And the price of daily necessities goes up.
I demand an apology!
My baby is going to apply for school. Quotas for Northern district schools aren’t enough. Who causes this? Who will make an apology to us?
You Mainlanders say Mainland China brings prosperity to Hong Kong. It is right, on the surface. However, those who are benefited are only people like LV and Gucci. We the public get nothing!
Dictionary of Politically Incorrect Hong Kong Cantonese 
The only way to break our dependence on immigration is to have more kids of our own, which is hardly an option in today’s economy and lack of social services. Indeed, HK has one of the lowest birth rates in the world.
I’m sorry, but that’s a really outdated model of thinking. I’m NORMALLY of the camp that immigration brings in a lot of good diversity. For instance, in Hong Kong’s entertainment industry, there have been quite a number of Filipinos who have made their contributions (Joe Junior, 肥媽). Even Pakistanis and Indians in Hong Kong have contributed to Hong Kong society at large. However, the problem with the mainlanders, is that they don’t come to learn from Hong Kong, they come in to impose, buy tax free items, and bypass their own trade laws to avoid VAT Taxes and smuggle everyday items into the mainland.
Back to the kids issue: There is an obvious reason Hong Kongers aren’t having as much kids as they used to –in a developed society, it isn’t viable for someone who barely scrapes by to have more than one kid. Even policies that encourage women to give birth by giving them money (using taxpayers’ dollars) has failed, and I’d wager most of this money goes to mainland women anyways. The question is what type of policies has the government created in encouraging local couples to have more kids? Are they providing enough tax credits for children? Or, let’s look at the education that one has to send their kid through. They pay for school, and then to try to make their kids more competitive, they have to send their kids to extra-curricular activities –yields may vary. So things have to be done to change Hong Kong’s school system. Not just the availability of seats, but also the quality. Who wants to bring in a kid into the world, where they will be faced with nothing but fierce competition, interviewing with different schools at a crack to try to get in a decent school (AND paying for all that, and the tuition). Now, with mainland kids coming into the mix, competition is much more fierce. As I mentioned earlier, most mainlanders don’t come to Hong Kong to learn, but if we can teach these kids Hong Kong values early on, it benefits Hong Kong AND China as a whole. The problem lies in the fact that there aren’t enough schools and classes for everybody (locals, mainlanders, and even children of foreign teachers that come to Hong Kong to teach). So what’s the government doing to encourage more schools to open up? Then, what about the weakening Hong Kong dollar? You can’t buy anything for your kids with the little money that we make thanks to inflation. That’s why instead of pegging the Hong Kong dollar to the US, which is trying to weaken their own dollar to increase exports, [I forgot the name, but] there’s a Hong Kong economist that proposed using all sorts of regional Asian currencies, averaging it out, and then pegging Hong Kong’s currency to that average. That way, Hong Kong people have better purchasing power. So in short, what I’m saying is that this bad situation is a result of bad government policies. Can’t really fault the mainlanders for wanting a better system for their kids. Canadians said the same thing about Hong Kongers “invading” Canada, when many Hong Kongers were merely trying to evade the mainland hoard. We need to put the heat on Hong Kong’s government and the legislators to come up with better policies. Otherwise, we need to vote these guys out.
It’s laughable that they would dare to make such complaint. I am most surprised that no psychologists have made a serious study into the social psychology of modern Chinese people. Their inferior complex alone would be worthy of any research. Do they not see their own hypocrisy and the ridiculousness of their predicament?
I do not wish to give constructive comment as it would not change these people but primarily I find their psychology entertaining and source of amusement.
as someone who lives in China I can tell you that it’s quite amusing indeed. They can spit on your shoes, jump the queue or smoke on the lift… but hey, don’t you daare to tell them they are wrong, even there is a signal that says that they can’t spit, can’t jump the queue or smoke on the lift… why? because you are not Chinese.
I think is not inferior complex. It’s directly racism and ignorance. This is a good example but another one can be the idea that English and Mandarin are the only 2 important languages of the world and others such as French, Spanish or German are just not important dialects.
I am really pissed off about this because i am suffering everyday and I have nothing more than sympathy towards HKnese.
Thanks for the insight. It is a very negatively defensive attitude many of them have nowadays. I have never ventured into Mainland and have no intentions of ever doing so, but I have come across a few Mainlanders (in Macau and in Canada) who are very nice and down to earth years ago when China was just emerging into the global market.
Seems like many cannot take criticism without a ounce of self-reflection. Gone are the gentler and humble manners of old days 😦
沒家教. The false pride of a nation.
I don’t know if it’s the Chinese way of relationships but, they really don’t have 家敎. When I started to learn Chinese (and then Cantonese) I expected that the mainlanders were more humble, but after 5 years I realized that they are not humble in any way when they have power and money.
What’s more outraging for me is that they can’t admit a defeat or criticism…what’s more, as someone who comes from a western country, I must say that they are doing the same mistakes that we done and led us to the economical crisis. They think they will never suffer it. I don’t know whether they are ignorant or just arrogant. We’ll see.
The reason why I follow this blog is because every time I am in HK I am treated as a local and I love it. So I love this city and I don’t want that HK became another mainland where I am treated different.
Well, now I feel better after I said this!
I hate to say this, but I think there are two factors that the mainland chinese operates on:
1. The world owes them everything, because they had been suffering for so long 50-60 years since the second world war. Therefore it is their god given rights to get back as much of what was owed to them as much as possible
2. Money seems to had cut off the oxygen supply to the brain, the more money they have the more it cuts off logical thinking, and greed just takes over. Then they start thinking they are some sort of hotshot, crawled out of poverty and had become classy with LV,Chanels, Gucci.
There are no helping these people, there is a saying, money DOES NOT buy class. It is something you either learn over a long period of time, or you are naturally born with it.
#2 all the way! lol