JK! Suggestion to move Hong Kong Chinese to N. Ireland was a ‘joke’, says ex-British official

So we guess sarcasm in the written form doesn’t translate so well across three decades.

Last week Hongkongers everywhere shook their heads in disbelief when newly released memos revealed that British officials had discussed the idea of relocating all 5.5 million Hong Kong Chinese to a new city-state in Northern Island.

Former Foreign Office official D. R. Snoxell, who had discussed how a lake in the proposed area in Ireland would be divided up between the locals and the potential transplants, has come out to say that it was a joke, reports the AP.

He said that he’s shocked anyone took his letter exchange seriously.

The letters “relieved some of the tension” at a time when Northern Ireland was going through a tumultuous period with republican prisoners going on hunger strikes.

Well, there goes that alternate universe when all Hongkongers would have been kind of Irish. No potato-and-cabbage pineapple buns for you!

Photo: Giuseppe Milo via Flickr

 

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