'Violent' ducks? Hong Kong clothing manufacturer cartoons rile China
14 April, 2021
Cute cartoon pets or animals have been at the heart of Hong Kong apparel brand Chickeeduck since 1990, displayed on everything from T-shirts and tote handbags to baby rompers and pillows.
But owner Herbert Chow is currently struggling to obtain his designs manufactured in China, where his avian individuals have already been seized by authorities for "advocating violence".
Chow, 57, was finding your way through the Chinese New Calendar year shopping season earlier this year when he was educated that a shipment of about 10,000 Chickeeduck products had been seized found in mainland China.
"My company said the customs section found the products were advocating violence in interpersonal activities," Chow told AFP after recently making a decision to go public.
Initially, the contraband cartoons may seem innocuous.
They included cushions with yellow birds holding umbrellas alongside "I love HK" speech bubbles, and canvas bags featuring five ducklings swimming using one part and a flag-bearing poultry on the other.
But for individuals who be aware of Hong Kong's recent tumultuous politics, the models are a crystal clear nod to the city's protest movement, which is currently being swept away by China's crackdown on dissent.
Chow makes no secret of his messaging.
The tote bag, for example, was a mention of the favorite protest slogan "Five demands, not one less".
But he says he is baffled that such patterns will be deemed illegal.
"I don't see what's wrong with the concept," he said. "I don't know what organization the Chinese authorities possess in trying to avoid something like this from likely to Hong Kong."
GROCERY CHAIN RAID
Chow's predicament illustrates how much the scenery has changed found in semi-autonomous Hong Kong since 2019's huge and frequently violent protests.
Selected speech and views can immediately land people - and businesses - in warm water.
As Chow was talking to AFP, Hong Kong's Customs Section held a press conference to announce the seizure of practically 9,000 items from Abouthai, a grocery chain.
Authorities said the things - mostly imported from Thailand - failed to carry proper caution labels in Chinese.
Abouthai was founded by Mike Lam, a businessman who is one of dozens billed under a fresh national security rules that Beijing imposed on Hong Kong this past year.
The raid prompted prolonged queues at Abouthai stores by Hong Kongers attempting to show support.
The Customs Department said the raid on Abouthai was not political and it rejected "any false accusation maliciously alleging that its police action against the trader is 'repression'".
POLICE VETTING
Chow was born right into a friends and family that migrated to Hong Kong from the mainland's Fujian province. He identifies as "Hong Kong Chinese" and sees himself as a average democracy supporter.
He drives a car with the license plate "LV1997" (Love 1997), commemorating as soon as Hong Kong was handed to China by Britain.
What Hong Kongers want, he argues, is a greater say in how their lives are run.
But China's response has gone to go the different way.
As well as the national security laws, Beijing has spearheaded a campaign - dubbed "staunch patriots functioning Hong Kong" - to root out dissent around society.
Chow was not in the beginning that involved with politics. But that transformed when enormous protests erupted in 2019.
After expressing some sympathy for the movement's goals he found himself accused of being a "traitor" by a robust ultranationalist user on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter.
From there it snowballed.
"That was the very first time We felt like, what's this region?" he recalled.
Rather than back off - like so a great many other businesses-- he doubled down.
This past year he made headlines for refusing to eliminate a protester statue from one of his stores and the mall responded by not renewing his contract.
He says he's now scrambling to get manufacturers in Southeast Asia ready to make his patterns after his Chinese mainland spouse warned new orders must now come to be vetted by authorities.
"EASILY give him another design, he'll say, wait a minute, I'm going to send this to the Public Security Department," he said.
Chow is adamant his styles are not against the law and says he has no plans to eliminate them from his remaining 4 stores.
"We wish the Hong Kong persons not to get used to ridiculous issues," he said.
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