Good post. Possibly more than 50% of Hostile123's problem is that his wife is not happy in HKG.
Back in the sixties and seventies taking a job with a foreign based company was a big decision, becoming an expat, in other words. Probably no more than one trip home every six months, no 'phone calls unless an emergency, wife and children always accompanied you regardless and if you turned up at the interview expecting more your application would go no further. The rewards were the expat lifestyle, the money and often a standard of education for the kids that you could not have dreamed of if you had stayed at home.
From my personal experience overseas basings, (home basings really) and wives who refused to join husbands but expected them to 'commute' were the start of the rot, as the company immediately became divided and workmates became strangers, each with a different agenda. No surprise that Emirates, for example, don't forsee overseas basings and SIA are letting it die on the vine.
Possible one instance of going backwards would actually be an advantage, where only people really committed to an overseas job applied in the first place. Just my humble opinion, nearly forty years an expat.
