Fresh from leaving the Executive Council, Regina Ip officially announced the launch of her chief executive campaign “Win Back Hong Kong” today, a name which begs the question, “why, where did it go?”
The New People’s Party chairwoman kickstarted her run for the CE election by making a speech at the Convention and Exhibition Centre where she pledged to “lead [the city] to a better future”, such as by enacting the controversial “anti-treason” law, Article 23, SCMP reports. Ip was immediately mocked by netizens, one of whom said “Hong Kong has already died under the rule of 689 [CY Leung], if unfortunately she [Ip] wins, it will never come back to life.”
Meanwhile, others were swift to make fun of her campaign banner:
Is the slogan her way of saying she’s about to start the Hunger Games? Photo: Regina Ip via Facebook
As HKFP’s editorial director Kris Cheng noted wryly on Twitter, “Regina Ip cut 贏 [the Chinese character for ‘win’] in half to add ‘win’ [in English]. But the character it forms 吂 means:
- not answering when asked; or
- slow in reaction owing to old age”
And some blurred away the “unnecessary” words from the poster, turning its message into “Ip win, Hong Kong R.Ip.” Burn.
Photo: I.am.a.Hongkonger via Facebook
To remove any ambiguity, some simply wiped the English slogan off, replaced it “R.IP”, and plonked the Chinese character 亡 (die) above.
Photo: Proud Hongkonger via Facebook
The full-stop in R.IP was also replaced by a bunch of “sour grapes”, an image she’s been associated with ever since she wrote a Facebook status criticising TIME magazine for featuring Joshua Wong as a Person of the Year in 2014, to which Wong retorted by simply sending her a photo of grapes. #Shade
Looks like Ip has got a lot of Hong Kong to win back.