-By Warner Todd Huston
As protesters demanding democratic reforms continue to fill the streets of Hong Kong, the disaffection that regular people there have for their leadership has been further inflamed by the daughter of Hong Kong’s Chief Executive who was caught bragging on social media about her jet-setting lifestyle paid for by the taxpayers.
Hong Kong leader CY Leung’s daughter, Chai Yan Leung, audaciously flaunted her high spending lifestyle boasting about “beautiful shoes and dresses and clutches” angering the regular citizens of Hong Kong.
The city’s chief executive, supported by the communist government in China, is a very “unloved leader” and demonstrators are demanding his resignation. Protesters also want to implement a new system of elections.
With his rise to power, Leung was presented as a sort of man of the people. His supporters claimed he was not like the city’s richest citizens and would lead like a regular citizen, not a tycoon.
“He wanted to present himself as someone from the grassroots, not linked to the tycoons… but people have been terribly disappointed,” Joseph Cheng, a professor of political science at City University of Hong Kong, told CNN.
Protesters demonstrating for democratic reform feel he is just a stooge of the Chinese government and want him out. But it hasn’t helped Leung’s reputation that his daughter has been flaunting her ritzy lifestyle paid for by the largess of the taxpayer.
One photo she posted showed a clutch purse in sparkling silver with her name custom embossed onto its side. More photos showed expensive shoes and other items she bought with money supplied by her father who is paid by tax money.
Daughter Chai’s social media accounts have all been taken down now, but just before they were deleted the young woman even went so far as to taunt people posting negative comments about her boasting.
“This is actually a beautiful necklace bought at Lane Crawford (yes- funded by all you HK taxpayers!! So are all my beautiful shoes and dresses and clutches!! Thank you so much!!!!) Actually maybe I shouldn’t say ‘all you’- since most of you here are probably unemployed hence have all this time obsessed with bombarding me with messages,” she posted on Facebook.
At one point Chai even suggested that detractors try boxing classes. “They’re ace at venting anger stemmed from self-hatred and insecurity,” she taunted.
Tens of thousands of citizens have streamed into the streets of the city to protest the government and many have been passing around links to Chai’s inflammatory social media posts.
Protesters protect themselves with umbrellas spawning the name given their movement.
The movement was dubbed the “umbrella revolution” in the western press after photos were published showing many protesters using umbrellas to protect themselves from the tear gas and pepper spry unleashed by government soldiers and policemen opposing the protests.
The demonstrations have been mostly peaceful but on October 2 violence broke out when hundreds of pro-government supporters waded into the protesters physically assaulting “umbrella revolution” crowd.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.
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