Shenzhen and Hong Kong - a strategic partnership?

SZ:	You are silly. You are acting like if I had done something bad to you.    Aren't you earning good money from your investments in my place? Aren't your guys coming over for cheap holidays, cheap sex, and for buying themselves mistresses? Isn't it your people that buy flats and stay over here? Aren't we a preferred site for your factories, and aren't our junkyards taking good care of your garbage? Any complaints? Disclaimer
HK:	Not every investment in your place is a good investment. You guys are cheating us like hell. Your karaoke bars are murder traps, and sex isn't all that cheap, after all. Yes, your junkyards are okay. But they could be cheaper, too. Besides, you have no class. Disclaimer
SZ:	Yeah, but your bosses treat my people fair, right? Don't make me laugh.    You didn't look classy either, fourty years ago. I was very small then, but I have a good memory, my dear neighbour. Today, I am looking better than you did, back then. And all of this took me only ten years or so. I'm a boom town. You are in a recession.
Ferry from Kowloon to HK Island >>
HK:	You are bragging. As I said, you have no class. You are just as goofy today, as you were in 1997, when you celebrated my "return to the motherland". Like if I had asked for that "return".
SZ:	Every patriotic person in your place cried tears of happiness, during that night.
HK:	Hahaha! I'm sure you saw people crying. I just doubt they cried out of happiness.
SZ:	Every patriotic Hong Konger was happy with the handover.
HK:	If that is true, maybe every tenth of my inhabitants is "patriotic", by your definition.
SZ:	Excuse me?! Did I hear you talking about class, a minute ago?
HK:	People with class don't need your kind of lumpenproletariat nationalism, do they? Look at what my people have achieved. Now, that is what I call a source of pride.
SZ:	Not so hasty. Within ten years, you will hardly see a difference between me and yourself. I've got the "Window of the World". What have you got?
HK:	"Window of the World"? That theme park with all those silly copies of international famous buidlings? And that calligraphy by Jiang Zemin at the entry? You are funny, pal! I am going to have a Disney Park, soon.
SZ:	I have got the DiWang DaSha, the tallest building both in Shenzhen, and Hong Kong.
HK:	That's something, huh? My skyscraper is under construction. Take a close look at my International Financial Centre. Talking about Finance and Banking - I am the place for that. Not you.
SZ:	Haha, let me think... you got started with some crappy sweat shops. I have got past that, already. I am the place where they make your software.
HK:	I have a subway. Have you?
SZ:	Under construction. Are you blind? The construction site is reaching from Futian in the city, down to the West, almost to Shekou.
Shenzhen City >>
HK:	Your people snot and spit. Your wonderful subway will look like a shithole within days.
SZ:	Your people litter tons of garbage on every bloody holiday, no matter where they walk or stand. Their behaviour is a shame. Not to mention the conduct of your "visitors" over here.
HK:	You are a plague. I suffer from your air pollution. Before you started looking good at my expense, I had clean air, over here.
SZ:	Much of this pollution comes from the factories you invested in, and that you buy your products from. If they weren't here, they would spoil the air from your New Territories.
HK:	You people are screwing my autonomy. My Court of Final Appeal's verdict on immigration was overturned by Peking. That is about as much "autonomy" as what Tibet has.
SZ:	Would you shut your face about Tibet? You are still a victim of Western propaganda.    Will you ever learn? And talking about you being screwed - Peking spared you millions of immigrants by "screwing" you. If your Court of Final Appeal had had its way, all those illegitimate kids that your horny men have over here would have got a right to abode in your place. Count yourself lucky for being "screwed". I'd be very happy with your degree of autonomy.
HK:	You aren't saying that you have a problem with your dear, beloved motherland, are you?
SZ:	Stop twisting my words in my mouth! I never said I have a problem.
HK:	Haha! Gotcha!
SZ:	You won't question my patriotism. You are that kind of scum that doesn't care about the motherland. Let me just tell you this: I pay taxes to the central government in Peking. You do not. You asked for all kinds of special treatment, before your return. But we are one family, named China.
HK:	Hahaha, no objections. No one said that family people are always nice to each other.
SZ:	So what is your problem? I'm just saying that we are family. You are included. You have no choice.
HK:	Not if it is up to me. I'll go my own ways, with my own basic law.
SZ:	Basic law, yadayada. Shanghai will make your basic law about as irrelevant as that of Macau, within a decade. Heard of their deep-sea port that they have under construction?
HK:	Shanghai will make you looking bad, too. Your old Godfather is long gone. He won't save you, like he did in 1992.
SZ:	Leave Deng Xiaoping alone, will you? You have no clue of his greatness.
HK:	He won't help you. He's dead.
Deng left a message >>
SZ:	He won't help you either, if Shanghai gets after you. Listen, what are you quarreling about? I didn't ask for your return, in 1997. It just happened.
HK:	Hey, I seem to remember that you "celebrated" my return?! That much about family and the ties that bind. Spare me with your big, "patriotic" yakking in the future, alright?
SZ:	Look... like it or not, we are family. And we have a bloody big cousin there, further North. Shanghai will give both of us a hard time. How about we just put this aside and cooperate, where it helps both of us? Our businesses are complementary in so many ways, aren't they?
HK:	Ummm... I might come back to you.
SZ:	Don't take too much time thinking about it. Time is money.
HK:	Before I forget - we have a free press.
SZ:	Ummm... sure. We love your TV stations. Keep them going.
Related topic: Governor Christopher Patten´s Farewell Speech on June 30, 1997