Today is the day we remember the atrocities committed by the Chinese government 20 years ago. Although some of our politicians continue to dispute the scale of the massacre, we as Hong Kongers do enjoy the freedoms to talk about it and all of its infamy. Unfortunately, just a few minutes away it is largely forgotten, as the Chinese have been quite effective in the non-education of the population on this event. The blocking of Youtube, Flickr and Twitter in China two days ago due to ‘maintenance’ fits beautifully in this context and reminds us again what a fucked up nation we live in. Yawn.

Without downplaying the impact and importance of the Tiananmen protests and subsequent crackdown, it’s obvious other nations have similar ’smudges’ on the pages of their history books. And today is an excellent day to refresh our memories a bit!

England: The ‘Boston Tea Party’. The treacherous Americans wasted tonnes of tea and effectively sent a message- Folgers in my cup. Don’t forget spanking and then getting spanked by India either. Guess the gunning down of hundreds of unarmed men, women and children at Jallianwala Bagh didn’t really pay off as intended. Now Ireland has a better IT industry than you- wait, so does India. Fail?

Germany: Well, it’s not erased (yet) but it’s been broomed aside a bit. Teachers in high schools in the Netherlands and Germany are at times incapable of talking about the Holocaust due to heavy antisemitism by Muslim immigrant kids. Back in the days, one way for ze nazis to check whether a boy/man was Jewish, was to pull down his pants and check for circumcision. Don’t forget you’re snipped as well, annoying little punks, meaning you would have ended up in the camps just like those Jewish ‘pigs.’ But anyway, back before WWII, it was WWI, and before that Prussia was a bunch of pricks dicking in everyone’s business. Hmm.. the key theme for this paragraph on Germany appears to center around dicks and related matters. Who would have thought.

Russia: Nasty. Despite having way too much power, Putin is the definition of cool and his puppet Medvedev, well, what about him really. The Grey Cardinal still runs the show. But let’s have a look at Stalin. The Big Bad Cockroach (don’t you just love these Russian politicians’ nicknames?!) really worked a number on the Russian population, killing more than 20 million in his death camps from 1922 and 1953. Yet he was recently elected the third greatest Russian EVAH, signaling some troubling signs about Russian mental health, from crazy to completely fucking nuts.

U.S.A.: Obviously incredibly efficient at wiping out the native population. And next to the numerous fuck ups abroad (Vietnam, Somalia, Iraq, Mexico?), domestic policy is far from cool, even despite the fact that a dude who would have brought you your cornbread 200 years ago before heading out to the fields is now commander in chief. Messiah Obama still condones torture. Yes we can’t! But we can ask others to do it (hey, slapping of bonafide terror suspects is what truly pays our bills, as ad revenues from this blog merely represent our weekly Wan Chai allowance).

Concluding, every country has its dirty laundry. Although China has a huge amount of inhabitants, its ’secrets’ have been hidden behind walls of seclusion for decades. All cultures can occasionally do something off-canter and get a little crazy with the trigger fingers. Sucks, but part of life. Heck, most nations even have holidays dedicated to the ass whooping they delivered at one point. Does all the fuss make a difference anyway? On July 1st 2047, the ‘one country, two systems’ policy comes to an end. From that day onwards, China will be able to tell us Hong Kongers when to fart and how loud. So keep on marching as long as you can, but know that your grandchildren won’t have a goddamn clue what senile grandpa/grandma is moaning about at the dinner table on June 4 2055.