
Cathay Pacific faces crackdown as Hong Kong protests hit business - improvehk
https://www.ft.com/content/6afd54d0-bbe9-11e9-b350-db00d509634e
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neonate
[http://archive.is/gDR0J](http://archive.is/gDR0J)

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chychiu
New to Hacker News - anyone know why the other thread about the Hong Kong
protests
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20673676](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20673676))
disappeared from the front page? It has >100 comments/upvotes and was posted 2
hours ago.

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mtmail
It's breaking news politics which in most cases is off topic. CNN currently
reports it on their front page. Earthquakes, mass shootings, famous person
going to jail are other examples. In generic news they are relevant, HN has a
different focus
([https://news.ycombinator.com/best](https://news.ycombinator.com/best)). HN
users flag the story as off topic so it looses ranking.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

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mytailorisrich
Cathay Pacific is really at the nexus of Hong Kong's history and the British
empire.

It was setup by an Australian and an American. Its top management is mostly
Western. Its largest shareholder is an old British company that expanded in
China in the 19th century, thanks to the British Empire, its 2nd largest
shareholder is Air China (China's national carrier).

This 'crackdown' may be a visible manifestation of a culture clash.

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__sy__
First hand account posted earlier today on r/china:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/cowhws/ranti_am_tire...](https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/cowhws/ranti_am_tired_of_chinas_bullshit/)

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Scoundreller
It's definitely a sign, but I'm not sympathetic because other airlines get a
crack at the best gates.

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AFascistWorld
Also Versace, see who's next to feel the wrath.

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mytailorisrich
What's happened to Versace happens once a year to a company. It happened to
D&G at the end of last year.

It's not necessarily triggered by the government. Chinese are very patriotic,
if not nationalistic, and the power of social media does the rest.

In this case Versace have only themselves to blame: T-shirts "Milan-Italy",
"London-UK", etc. then "Hong Kong-Hong Kong" especially at this time, was
incredibly stupid though probably not malicious.

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jialutu
Oh, it's even worse than that, they even have "Macau-Macao". Not only did they
not know that Macau is a part of China, but they could not even spell "Macao"
properly!

From this, I would not even say it's due to stupidity, but more incompetence.
If you are in a business and not know about one of your biggest markets, then
you are doing something very very wrong!

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eggy
How did they misspell Macau/Macao? I lived there for 7 years, and at first I
thought Macao was the Portuguese spelling due to the -ao ending. It's more
complicated than that when you start to research the two spellings.

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JetSpiegel
The Portuguese spelling is Macau. Macao is English, and maybe other languages.

For Portuguese you are probavly confusing it with the -ão ending. The tilde
makes a difference.

For example: \- pão / pau \- mão / mau

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eggy
Believe me I went through that explanation, and a few others in deep
conversation with my Portuguese and Macanese friends as well as with a Matteo
Ricci scholar. It seems there was an old Portuguese spelling Macao, and there
is Macáu with the accent also from eighteenth or nineteenth century
Portuguese. In Cantonese it is called Àomén

~~~
JetSpiegel
TIL. Thanks for that.

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supernova87a
Can't read paywalled article.

But aside from that, protests in the airport just shut down _all_ outbound
flights from HKG for the remainder of Monday (from 4pm onwards). This is
getting worse.

[https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-
kong/politics/article/3022437...](https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-
kong/politics/article/3022437/flights-out-hong-kong-airport-cancelled-mass-
protest)

