On the latest election pamphlet of DAB party district council election candidate Christopher Chung Shu-kun – commonly known by the nickname “Tree Gun,” a play on his Chinese name – there was one mistake that caught people’s attention.
The wrong name “Chirs Chung” was printed on it.
Lawmaker Claudia Mo, who often writes a newspaper column teaching English, posted the pamphlet on her Facebook and asked her followers: “Chris Chung’s English name is ‘Chirs’? How do you pronounce that?”
Many commented that it sounded like “chi-sin”, the pronunciation of the word “crazy” in Cantonese.
This is not the first time Chung has erred in English spelling. In 2012, when Chung was first elected, Oriental Daily found that his new name card said he was a member of the “Legistrative Council, Hong Kong Special Adminstrative Region of the People’s Republic of Hong Kong.”
Besides the wrongly spelt words “Legistrative” and “Adminstrative”, he was dubbed “the Father of Hong Kong’s independence” by local media as he had put “People’s Republic of Hong Kong” rather than People’s Republic of China.
Chung is also famous for his English speech in LegCo in May 2014, where he challenged Jay Walder, the former CEO of the MTRC.
He said: “Shame! Shame on you!”
He followed by saying: “What is your daily work? You are dreaming under your office or you are not attend at your office!”
He was interviewed by his colleague lawmaker Ann Chiang for her YouTube programme of the DAB party in March, in which he said his English level is about 95 marks out of 100.
“Who can speak English in a 100 percent standard way? Even foreigners can’t do that! I misused a preposition, it’s not a problem,” he said that mistake cost him five marks, “it’s not a debate competition, or an exam; what’s most important is that people can understand you.”
Chris Chung will be facing independent candidate Chui Chi-kin in the Yue Wan constituency in the Eastern District.
Clarification: A previous version of the report erroneously used a parody of Chris Chung’s words at the Legislative Council as his original quotes. The inaccurate quotes were first reported by the Oriental Daily, and were then widely parodied by netizens.
