Fans of BILLKIN & PP KRIT's (BKPP), a popular group from Thailand, shouted "China, China, China" in protest at the host's wrong Taiwan-related remarks at a fan meeting in Hong Kong on Tuesday night. Photo: Screenshot of video from huanqiu.com

Fans of BILLKIN & PP KRIT's (BKPP), a popular group from Thailand, shouted "China, China, China" in protest at the host's wrong Taiwan-related remarks at a fan meeting in Hong Kong on Tuesday night, local media reports said on Wednesday.

The host of the fan meeting is suspected of advocating "Hong Kong independence," by mentioning the island of Taiwan and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in an inappropriate way, which has provoked strong dissatisfaction among the fans present at the fan meeting. Not only did they shout "Taiwan is part of China," but they also chanted "China, China, China," with their voices echoing throughout the venue. However, the host appeared to ignore or pretend not to understand it, despite the clear expression of discontent from the audience.

According to reports from Hong Kong news websites, in addition to the alleged confusion between the names of countries and regions, it has been revealed by visitors at the scene that the host and on-site translator, among others, made several remarks and exhibited behavior that appeared to be discriminatory toward fans from the Chinese mainland. When a fan from the mainland interacted with actors, the host and the translator deliberately explained the rules of the game in Cantonese to the fan, who apparently does not understand the dialect. Members of the Thai group even bypassed the host and spoke to the fan in English.

Some netizens found the host's social media account after the fan meeting and noticed that he had publicly supported "Hong Kong independence" and there were many other inappropriate remarks. In fact, the group BKPP labeled Taiwan as a province of China on its ticket-sale platform, and their fans want the company to end its cooperation with the host's team.

At present, the host's Instagram account has a large number of fans from the mainland leaving comments criticizing his inappropriate remarks. "Don't you speak Chinese? Don't you know that your motherland is China? Hong Kong and Taiwan are both parts of China. Go home and study history, please," one netizen commented below the host's post.

This is not the first time discrimination against people from the mainland in Hong Kong has attracted widespread attention. Previously, the Hong Kong-based airline Cathay Pacific sparked wide controversy over discrimination against non-English-speakers, as Chinese netizens revealed experiences of being treated differently by the airline's flight attendants based on the language they spoke.

Some netizens attributed the discrimination incident to some individuals' lack of national identity, psychological distortion and low cultural and professional literacy, pointing out that it is a problem of geographic discrimination.

Global Times