Star Online:
Nintendo game pulled from Chinese platforms after Hong Kong protest
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Joshua Wong |
HONG KONG: A Nintendo Switch video game has been pulled off China's grey market e-commerce platforms, Reuters' checks show, after Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong used the game to protest against Beijing’s rule of the Chinese territory.
The game, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, is a colourful social simulator in which players can decorate their own island and invite others to visit. It became an instant hit after its launch last month and has been used by many players to interact and simulate real-life scenarios while they are stuck at home because of measures to curb the coronavirus outbreak.
Joshua Wong, a Hong Kong democracy activist, took his protests to the game last week and on Twitter posted a screenshot of his island decorated with a banner saying: "Free Hong Kong, revolution now."
China has stringent rules on content from everything from video games to movies and music, censoring anything it believes violates core socialist values. Gaming companies must also seek licences for the games they want to publish.
Nintendo launched console sales in China with tech giant Tencent in December, but players in China can only access multiplayer connections for games such as Animal Crossing via foreign editions available on the grey market via platforms such as Pinduoduo and Taobao.
However, since Joshua Wong's Twitter post, searches for Animal Crossing: New Horizons have showed no results on Pinduoduo. On Alibaba' s Taobao, some vendors are trying to circumvent the crackdown by directing potential buyers towards listings that sell the game without using its title in the description.
Some Animal Crossing players in China have created scenarios that mirror the real world, with temperature check points and avatars wearing face masks.
Joshua Wong has since shared pictures of his island showing portraits of Chinese President Xi Jinping and World Health Organisation head Tedros Adhanom at a funeral simulation with a sign saying "Wuhan pneumonia".
"This is what we do in #AnimalCrossing... maybe it's why these people are so anxious to go back to the game!!" he said on Twitter.
The game, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, is a colourful social simulator in which players can decorate their own island and invite others to visit. It became an instant hit after its launch last month and has been used by many players to interact and simulate real-life scenarios while they are stuck at home because of measures to curb the coronavirus outbreak.
Joshua Wong, a Hong Kong democracy activist, took his protests to the game last week and on Twitter posted a screenshot of his island decorated with a banner saying: "Free Hong Kong, revolution now."
China has stringent rules on content from everything from video games to movies and music, censoring anything it believes violates core socialist values. Gaming companies must also seek licences for the games they want to publish.
Nintendo launched console sales in China with tech giant Tencent in December, but players in China can only access multiplayer connections for games such as Animal Crossing via foreign editions available on the grey market via platforms such as Pinduoduo and Taobao.
However, since Joshua Wong's Twitter post, searches for Animal Crossing: New Horizons have showed no results on Pinduoduo. On Alibaba' s Taobao, some vendors are trying to circumvent the crackdown by directing potential buyers towards listings that sell the game without using its title in the description.
Some Animal Crossing players in China have created scenarios that mirror the real world, with temperature check points and avatars wearing face masks.
Joshua Wong has since shared pictures of his island showing portraits of Chinese President Xi Jinping and World Health Organisation head Tedros Adhanom at a funeral simulation with a sign saying "Wuhan pneumonia".
"This is what we do in #AnimalCrossing... maybe it's why these people are so anxious to go back to the game!!" he said on Twitter.
While I admire such a young man in his political endeavours I wonder whether:
(1) ... he's being manipulated by the USA to harass China under the guise of 'Freedom for Hong Kong'? and,
(2) ... he is realistic enough to realise that even if China were to bizarrely allow Hong Kong to gain her independence and become a new sovereign state, the new state won't be able to survive on her own without China's goodwill and acceptance of an independent Hong Hong.
OK, Hong Kong has over the years plan wisely for its own water supply by damming up inlets and turning those into fresh water reservoirs - its mainland section, Kowloon, is something poor Singapore doesn't have.
But will those be enough for Hong Kong current and future needs?
Then, there is the economic-financial aspects to consider. If China stops 'seeing' Hong Kong as 'visible' and embargo EVERYTHING (food, supplies, economical & financial & communication needs, etc) at the border, how long will a mischief-making provocateur USA be able to support, sustain and supply a marooned-isolated pimple like Hong Kong on China's belly?
Joshua Wong is just a hopeless idealist who should think carefully, realistically and maturely about his pie-in-the-sky "Free Hong Kong, revolution now."
And the word 'revolution' sounds far too seditious given that young protesters in Hong Kong have shown themselves to be violent thugs (even shooting arrows and hurling harmful objects at policemen) and arsonists-vandals who destructively harassed and disrupted the greater Hong Kong society in the name of a nebulous hope of Independence from China.
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The Queen of England made Hong Kong the 'Pearl of the Orient'? What an idiotic bodek-ite of the Great White Mother |
revolution in china context is change of govt, not independence, dun simply slander, read ccp revolution.
ReplyDeleteJoshua Wong is just a hopeless idealist???!
ReplyDeleteNo!
Hopeless? Definitely! Idealist? Not in a million to one count!
More of a clueless anglophile panegyrizing for a foreign demoNcratic citizenship.
Just like ALL those HK 废青， playing to the tunes of the western masters for an fake utopia that they DON'T realize could never be achieved!
When the crunch is DOWN, like when the covid-19 pandemic now hits, they shamelessly asking for the SAR govt they used to opposed for HELPS of any forms!
They have so conveniently forgotten about those godfathers/godmothers they would so eager to ampu when they created those HK riots to the scripts of their masters then!
Joshua Wong....Hong Kong's very own TANK MAN....Go..Go..Go...
ReplyDeletePathetic superpower frightened of a video game.
ReplyDeleteGo back and hide under your mother's skirt!
Podah !
Read AGAIN lah, mfer!
DeleteFrom whom & who that piece of shit arise?
Old moneyed f*ckhead always think about hiding under his (god)mother's skirt when crisis arises! Right?
Real podah!
no surprise, remember winnie the pooh?
DeleteWakakakaka…
DeleteWinnie the Pooh!
Proof that mfer, like u, never visit weibo, QQ or youku social media blogs. Most likely u don't even know what they r!
For a laugh, there was a video circulation of Xi's daughter masquerading as Piglet cajoling with Winnie the Pooh (played by Pang) on these Chinese social media around Sept2018. It was uploaded to lampoon BBC/The Guardian/almost all the known pommie medias headline display of the Chinese censors had banned the release of winnie the poon. The video was removed from the Chinese social web media bcoz it was considered affront to the Chinese traditions! The Chinese need not stand so low to lampoon bad press. They just did as them medias headlined - take it or leave it. That's known as masterly pride. Wakakakaka…
Neither were ANY of those pommie medias picking up that video. Instead, the banning headline was repeated no ends & picked up by blind CCP bashing morons as another authoritarian high-handedness!
So, I have zero surprise that demoNcratic ampu-ees would continue to highlight this Winnie name tag.
U guys have no more REAL stories to tell, except yr own fabricated shits & farts that fill yr living chambers.
yr type chinese tradition? whats that?
DeleteMy type of Chinese traditions.
Delete中国传统文化，孔孟儒学的“人伦”观
“天地君亲师”
“君君臣臣，父父子子”
Know them?
Ooop… thousands apology, forgetting u r NO Chinese but a mfer with 台毒 cocooned 'chinese' idealism!
what this hv to do with winnie xi?
DeleteMfer, I'm answering about u questioning my Chinese tradition ma!
DeleteOr u have confused yr incoherent farts with lousy England AGAIN?
What has Pommie media's egoistic blasts about their WASP Winnie been banned by China got to do with Xi? His family is LAMPOONING those pommie media le.
Ooop… sorry… forgetting u only read demoNcratic farts for news entertainment.
"ncoz it was considered affront to the Chinese traditions!"
Deletei repeat again, how this offence chinese tradition? n which part of chinese tradition?
Prove conclusively u r a non Chinese with limited Chinese knowledge & understanding!
Delete中国传统文化，孔孟儒学的“人伦”观
“天地君亲师”
“君君臣臣，父父子子”
Get yr 台毒 morons to enlighten u. Maybe 龙应台? I'm dying to see how she interpret that with her 小民的智慧. Mmmm… maybe she is no Chinese but 3rd kind Taiwanese - ready to run to Germany when the time comes?!!!
Wakakakakaka…
oh now u talk chinese tradition, since when u have a respect to others tradition, for eg malay n muslim tradition?
DeleteMfer, I have s always talking about the REAL Chinese traditions!
DeleteI also respect others' traditions iff it's the true McCoy.
If u can read my past takes about the melayu CLEARLY, then u should know very well about my distinction of them into zombies, ketuanan freaks & blur-sotongs!
I call a spade SPADE. Unlike u a closet minion readily for sellouts.
Mfer, where's the answer that I seeked? Checked with that Formosa bitch yet?