Fans of gangju (Hong Kong TV series) like me can easily reel off the on-screen caption that kicks off every episode of each TV drama, "This is a work of pure fiction. Any resemblance to reality is strictly coincidental."

However, the disclaimer might not survive scrutiny in that many a televised story line is ripped from real-life headlines about what's happening in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

It is probably no accident that the Hong Kong small screen has seen a parade of plots which allegedly tarnish the image of mainland Chinese, echoing a string of high profile public events over the past year that brought to the surface the city's souring relations with the mainland.

Inbound Troubles, an on-the-air family sitcom produced by Hong Kong-based showbiz giant TVB, was inundated with complaints for being mean to mainlanders. I have watched some episodes. This slapstick comedy, touching upon how a Hong Kong native learns to get along with his bumptious cousin from Dongguan, a mainland city in nearby Guangdong Province, did crack me up, thanks to the bumbling antics of the performers.

I feel a bit awkward about the way tourists from the north are portrayed in this sitcom, either wearing goofy grins, stumbling along the marbled shopping malls of Tsim Tsa Tsui, or standing straight as a statue when bearing insults from the local people.

But I sense that the show tries to cushion the blow since the Hongkongers are also portrayed as clowns, with sales clerks coercing traveling brethren into stockpiling luxuries, and guides turning bright eyed and bushy tailed at the prospect of yuan holders.

Another latest Hong Kong legal thriller, Friendly Fire, has come under fire for its unfriendly depiction of a Guangdong pregnant woman and her husband, who overstayed their visas in Hong Kong in an attempt to give birth to an anchor baby.

In one maternity hospital scene, a Hong Kong mother-to-be referred to the Cantonese couple as "Chinese mitten crabs, running amok on our soil."

I know a more contemptuous metaphor for Hong Kong's northern neighbors: locusts, whom Hongkongers claimed have swamped their dominion, drained limited resources, pushed up prices, and are menacing the locals' livelihood. Watching such scenes is a bullet biting exercise, especially for us mainland youngsters who grew up watching gangju.

It is true Hong Kong TV producers know what it takes to make a critical and commercial hit: mesmerizing tales acted out by starlets that say witty lines in a laid-back manner and at easy breezy tempo, relaxed without feeling rushed or redundant. Small wonder the island's melodramas are easily identified with by a larger mainland audience.

Alas the skewed depiction of Putonghua speakers has taken some of the gangju sheen off.

If my memory serves me right, mainlanders came off as even more nasty and negative in Hong Kong crime shows in the past. Men were mobsters, killers and robbers; women were beigu (girls from the north) who either served as street walkers with tawdry costumes and flirty gestures, or were fickle mistresses of a raunchy Hong Kong sugar daddy.

After 1997, mainlanders' characters grew wealthier but not wiser. Officials are bulbous and lazy, while nouveau riche investors act as countryside bumpkins.

It may be argued all these plots hold a grain of truth. Yet odder still, highlighting mainland stereotypes does little to help drive the show.

Such jaundiced, blinkered typecasting can but deepen the misunderstanding between Hong Kong and the mainland, particularly when prime-time TV viewers in Hong Kong are mainly the housewives that educate future generations.

But such regional stereotypes are not Hong Kong monopolies. We have seen way more mainland teledramas that discredit and demonize other parts of China without even realizing it.

For instance, males in my hometown Shanghai are invariably shown as petty weaklings, unable to flex their muscles and tamed by their selfish, snobbish and stingy Shanghainese wives, thanks to manifold sloppy homegrown dramas.

If we're going to lambaste Hong Kong for stereotypes, we need to look to the mote in our own eye.

The author is a Shanghai-based freelance writer. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn