'Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet," wrote Rudyard Kipling in 1889. Today, some Hongkongers are also making a similar claim, thinking that Hong Kong is Hong Kong and the mainland is the mainland. They believe things on the mainland, no matter how fantastic they may seem, are in reality either fake, poisonous, unethical, or any combination of these elements.

To Hongkongers, Tencent's QQ is nothing but a rip-off of ICQ, just as WeChat, Renren and weibos are clones of Whatsapp, Facebook and Twitter. When Dad, Where Are You Going? became a sensation on the mainland, Hongkongers shook their heads, pointing out that the format was licensed from South Korea and there was nothing new about it.

Hong Kong, on the other hand, is an innovative place. Our originality, for example, enables TVB to keep the variety show, Super Trio Series, running eternally. It debuted in 1995. The hosts of the series - the three "Prize Masters": Eric Tsang Chi-wai, Jerry Lamb Hiu-fung and Chin Kar-lok - are still entertaining the city with the same kind of games. Anyone who has doubts about the implementation of the Basic Law should watch the show. When they see the same attempts to be funny, which have lasted for the last 18 years, they will be convinced our way of life hasn't changed a bit since the handover.

Watching the Super Trio Series - from the first Movie Buff Championship - to the more recent Super Trio Supreme and Super Trio Game Master, to the latest Super Trio Maximus, one cannot but admire the level of professionalism in local showbiz. It is not uncommon for juvenile roles in the city to be played by actors in their late 20s or 30s. Jerry Lamb and Chin Kar-lok are now in their 40s. Eric Tsang is 51.

Last month, our pop culture was enriched by the release of Bird of Paradise's debut music video Landing on the Sun. The singing/dancing boy group is a perfect crossover between the local Mong Kok style and K-pop. They are less feminine than their Korean colleagues, but they still wear eye shadow. The dazzling dance moves and signature offbeat rapping in the music video has captured the city's heart. People discussing the group and its debut on online forums said they could not believe what they were watching, and the images don't go away.

People are beginning to call this emerging style MK-pop, so as to celebrate its roots in the much-celebrated local grassroots culture of Mong Kok. However, some insist the abbreviation has a different origin, and in fact means the Marvelous Kai (lame).

The other new MK-pop group now being discussed in the city is Faith. It is famous for the members' distinctively amateurish dance moves, which may well be intentionally executed and painstakingly rehearsed. If the manager is not jailed for exploiting child labor, the group has the potential to become our city's Super Junior. However, to the dismay of Hongkongers, Faith's debut Stop Peeping is not sung in our beloved Cantonese. The production house managing the group said the song was in a language called huayu. To untrained ears it sounds very much like Putonghua with a Hong Kong accent.

The phenomenon of MK-pop reminds us that the line between innovation and imitation is thin. Korea's Samsung is no doubt inspired in part by the US's Apple, but it does a very good job pushing smart devices to the next level. Faith appropriates K-pop elements to create MK-pop, and sings in huayu. The mainland learns a lot from the rest of the world, but it also adds many fine touches which are truly pioneering.

Rudyard Kipling's poem quoted at the beginning also has the following lines, which say, "But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!" This can be construed as saying that despite their differences, when two strong men meet, accidents of birth, whether nationality, race, or family, do not matter at all.

In the era of globalization, what we consider to be uniquely "ours" often has its roots somewhere else. If we treat all countries and cultures equally, we can build a strong foundation for further innovation and growth.

The author is a current affairs commentator.

(HK Edition 04/11/2014 page9)