The Breast is the Better Bet.

By Chip Tsao | published Sep 25, 2008

The community has been greatly amused by what Gary Chan Hak-kan, a newly elected pro-Beijing DAB legislator, said when interviewed recently by a Western reporter. He pledged that “we will try our breast” to do a good job—a mispronunciation of “try our best.” Hak-kan’s remarks, in a spoken English style common among many Chinatown restaurateurs who will happily recommend “chicken flied lice” to their Western customers, turned out to be somewhat sinister. Soon after, contaminated milk powder made in China was reported to have affected at least some 40,000 babies. The event has shocked a world previously impressed by the spectacular Olympics opening ceremony. Although Jack Cafferty, the CNN talk show host, must have laughed up his sleeve at this new development. Cafferty famously described Chinese products as “junk” in his TV program “The Situation Room” in April, to the fury of many Chinese. He was later forced to make a public apology or lose his job. His description was unfair, of course, because junk doesn’t necessarily cause kidney stones or kill.

Now Chinese mothers must find Hak-kan’s suggestion inspiring. Compared with milk powder, a common Made-in-China product demonized by the likes of Cafferty, the breast is certainly more worth trying. It’s a mystery why Chinese mothers prefer milk powder anyway. Chinese children are educated with the patriotic and poetic notion that China is the motherland, and the vast land is like her breast, milking her children with the sweet water of the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers. These sentimental metaphors are enough to make us break into tears, especially when we are far away from home—say in London or New York, where the Thames or Hudson Rivers look like gutters flowing with the blood and guilt of a centuries-long invasion of China by Anglo- and American imperialism. The Chinese people are emotionally attached to the Mother’s sacred breast (although public display of nipples, even in a classical Renaissance painting, is still widely viewed as a moral crime in Hong Kong and bound to receive complaints).

Now flocks of Chinese tourists are rushing across the Shenzhen border to Hong Kong for Western-made milk powder, forgetting conveniently not only the motherland-breast and Yangtze River-milk double images, but also the angry calls for a boycott of the French Carrefour supermarkets shortly before the Olympics. Wet nurses are an up-and-coming moneymaking profession in China, even at a time when the Chinese government is still reluctant to make a clean breast of the scandal. But who can guarantee the good hygiene of their milk when the motherland is inflicted with severe pollution problems? Perhaps Hong Kong could do more to help. Our wet nurses could line up at Lo Wo station and offer the mainland tourists a McDonald’s-style suck-n-go service for their babies. A hundred dollars per minute would be a reasonable starting price, depending on the crowd. Our motherland has helped us so much economically in the past ten years, including getting rid of Tung Chee-hwa. It is time for us to offer our breast in reciprocation.