The Rebel, a TV drama that tells the story of how Communist Party of China revolutionaries fought in the 1930s and 1940s, has become a hot program on domestic TV channels.

The story happened mainly in Shanghai, but the details about Hong Kong, where the hero Lin Nansheng, played by Zhu Yilong, traveled to during his tour back home, have aroused fierce discussions on social media.

In Hong Kong occupied by imperial Japanese forces, Lin, like every local resident and traveler, had to bow to any Japanese soldier they saw even half a street away, or the latter might pick up a rifle and shoot. That's not a dramatic scene fabricated by the directing team. It is recorded in the history of every piece of soil occupied by the imperial Japanese forces during World War II.

From then capital Nanjing to the southernmost Guangzhou, from northeastern China's Shenyang to eastern China's Shanghai, in every fallen city people had to suffer from such humiliation. That humiliation to foreign forces for the Chinese mainland ended with the surrender of the Japanese in 1945.

However, for Hong Kong, it turned little better as the UK occupied it again and introduced large numbers of immigrants from its global colonies to rule the locals. It was still foreigners, holding weapons and batons in hand, commanding the local Hong Kong people, without caring about their dignity a bit.

Thus it is really confusing when some Hong Kong "pro-independence" forces and their organized rioters called for "dignity" in their riots. The Hong Kong people did not gain dignity back until the motherland resumed exercise of sovereignty over it in 1997. Before then, neither the UK forces nor the Japanese occupants cared a bit about Hong Kong people's dignity.

It was even more confusing when someone raised a poster in May 2020 to call for "US forces to land" in Hong Kong, or when Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, founder of Apple Daily, called for US sanctions against his own home city. Had they received K-12 education, they would know how Hong Kong people suffered from foreign contempt.

No one cares about Hong Kong people's dignity except the motherland and her 1.4 billion people. It is time to unite and cherish that dignity together.