Question: is it time to leave hong kong?

[Soul planet]

Is it time to leave beloved Hong Kong? | South China Morning Post (http://www.scmp.com/comment/article/1584333/it-time-leave-beloved-hong-kong)


In my family, we like to joke and call my father the "insurance man". An insurance consultant for more than 40 years, he goes to extraordinary lengths to minimise risks in any and every situation. As such, he's tried to ensure the family has a soft landing, should anything untoward happen.

In 1989, amid uncertainty over the handover of Hong Kong in 1997, my parents took out the ultimate insurance policy: they moved me and my sister with them to Canada, where we obtained citizenship first before moving back to our home city.

Now, 25 years later, I am thinking about putting that insurance policy into action and leaving Hong Kong permanently for Canada.

I recently moved to Bonn, Germany, temporarily for research, and like many millennial transplants abroad, I followed Beijing's decision on elections in Hong Kong through online news reports, Facebook posts and Skype calls home.

When I first read the news on my phone during my morning train ride, I couldn't help but get emotional, my eyes welling up with tears right there in a crowd of German commuters.

I wanted to be with my fellow Hongkongers at this vital moment. But, more than that, I was moved to tears out of frustration, because this is the latest in a string of disappointments for our city.

Over the past few years, I have grown steadily less hopeful about Hong Kong. At 30, I should be contemplating buying a flat and starting a family, but neither of these prospects entices me. I resent that being a homeowner in Hong Kong means saving for over a decade to buy a miserable hovel in the boondocks. I cannot contemplate having a child when the only options in education are pressure-cooker local schools and overpriced international institutions.

My friends and I stopped going out - there were too many tourists everywhere. I no longer know where to shop. With affordable stores disappearing and visitors crowding the ones that remain, buying clothes, shoes and basic necessities became a daily battle.

Then, there are the signs of Beijing closing in: the plans for national education in 2011, and the white paper released in June proclaiming China's comprehensive jurisdiction over Hong Kong.

The right to vote for our leaders might not change all the things that are wrong in Hong Kong, but at least, with a ballot in hand, we could take ownership of our problems and try to resolve them. With Beijing's announcement, these hopes have been dashed.

For those of us who moved all those years ago - to Canada, the US, Britain, Australia and beyond - we had a very clear idea of what we were running from. Images of the violence and bloodshed in the Tiananmen crackdown were etched in our memories. The same thing could befall us, we thought. If ever a tank rolled over the Lok Ma Chau border, we could take our passports and run.

What we didn't visualise quite as starkly was a threat of this kind: the gradual encroachment on our way of life, and the sustained restrictions on our ability to decide how our home is governed.

I care a great deal for my city. I believe inherently in Hongkongers' ability to innovate, endure, thrive and reinvent ourselves. But I'm not sure I have it in me to stay.

Leaving is not something that any of us talk about lightly. It feels like desertion and betrayal. But I suspect that many, like me, are starting to have that conversation - not because they do not love Hong Kong, but because they can't bear to see the home they love slip away.

[monster330]

This had nothing to as an aviation thread.

Go away.

[joblow]

Maybe not but it is a matter that concerns all of us living in HK
Don't be so flippant and blow people off so quickly

[1200firm]

Yes it's time for you to leave. Goodbye.

[Progress Wanchai]

"Buying clothes, shoes became a daily battle"

Says it all really.

[Capetonian]

I read this as although I've no real interest in HKG, never been there either, and that's from choice as it's never appealed to me, I will probably be making a stopover there later in the year on the way to Guangzhou (sp?).

Those of you shot down the person who posted originally, shame on you. First of all he was not the writer, he was quoting a newspaper article, and secondly it was a relevant, sensitively written and well-constructed piece about someone who feels he is about to be driven out of what he considers his homeland by a changing and threatening political climate.

In fact, having read the article, I may decide not to go via HKG (and to save some of you saying that, yes, it won't be a great loss to HKG!)

[cxorcist]

I think the piece is entirely relevant, local or expat.

[etopsmonkey]

It is time to leave when you are no longer excited to come to work, AND you have alternate employer elsewhere that compensates you adequately. So, start sending out those resumes/CVs.

[Cpt. Underpants]

I wouldn't concern myself too much with the housing prices.

Beijing's geriocracy can't resist it's obsessive/compulsive need to meddle in HKG affairs. The mother of all corrections is coming.

"Buy when there's blood in the streets".

[mr Q]

Just like colonial times
Taipans ruled HK
Locals could not be trusted with the vote
The PRC sent spies here
But not in the numbers seen on the streets today
And to introduce an aviation and nostalgic note
BA and CX ruled the airways

[goathead]

Monster330
Just cos you ain't got a life and your like on here everyday reading pprune , and on the union forums doing the same , it doesn't mean it's a strictly aviation 100% of the time ......this forum is clogged with crap.... And faaarken **** loads of it .
Remember the title of this forum is ' Fragrant Harbour' not 'Melbourne !'
Get over ya self

[Basil]

monster330,
Go away.
Good advice. Take it!

[monster330]

Goathead,
Learn grammar and punctuation; grasp the nature of the website.

Basil,
You're redundant. Redundant

[Soul planet]

There are too many people worldwide with dual citizenship. You, too, are entitled to the hk passport after 7 years here. Will you reject it? One more passport, another safety net for your family.

[Capetonian]

Taking out "citizenship-of-convenience" and holding a passport of a country as a safety net for 25 years and becoming a burden without committing to the place or contributing anything of worth - what a slimy lowlife.

The Canucks should revoke the citizenship and turn him/her back at the airport but they are far too limpdick leftwing socialist for that sort of action - which is why they're being overrun by parasites like the author of this article and the rest of China plus half a billion indians and tamils. Jeez, who rattled your cage to invoke that invective?

Having a passport/citizenship of another country does not generally make you a burden to that country, and usually incurs certain obligations and costs to the holder.

By your reckoning I'm a 'slimy lowlife' too, so is my son who holds two but is entitled to three, and so, I would imagine, are hundreds of thousands of people all over the world and no doubt many Ppruners too who hold multiple nationality.

Edit : Add : In the case of HK, I don't know, but I know that in our cases there was no requirement to rescind another nationality.

[N1 Vibes]

Soul Planet - thanks for the advice - I already left.

monster - are you still there in HKG? Seems that your bitterness might extend from some of the things raised in Soul Planets post, start taking some of the advice.....

[Lowkoon]

Does anyone know where we can find accurate stats on expats leaving HK? It is alarming how many are departing, not just our industry, but it seems to be all the traditional expat employing industries are haemorrhaging expats? Or is it just me thinking this?

[junior_man]

A good post by the OP.
Can ad the other things, food of suspicious quality and origins from China and air from China. The writing is on the wall I am afraid...

[SMT Member]

I visited Honkers last year, was planning on staying for a week to do sightseeing before heading off to the 'flips for a spot of beach vacation.

Landed, smelled and tasted the air, stayed for 2 days and vowed never to return until such time air quality is fit for humans. And the only reason I stayed for the second day was that I couldn't rebook my flight to an earlier departure.

So if you value your health at all, yes, it's probably better to find another place to live.

PS
Didn't fly CX :E

[Algol]

With 7 years you get PR, not a passport. You don't have to revoke anything. Load of Bollox.

[N1 Vibes]

You get PR - if you apply for it. You get HK passport if you is HK born and bred. It is Chinese the passport that requires you to rescind citizenship of another country.

Maybe Scotland could be an option.....

I'll get my mackintosh!

[monster330]

Mackintosh?

You can use Windows PC as well in Scoootland

[triplesevencommuter]

To get a HK SAR Passport you must be ethnic Chinese. Overwise you will be refused, even if you have the right of abode in Hong Kong. Have a baby born in HK that is not ethnic Chinese, and try and get it a HK SAR passport before any other countries passport. It will be refused even if both or either parent has right of abode in Hong Kong giving the baby right of abode in Hong Kong.

A “Chinese citizen” is a person of Chinese nationality under the CNL. Hong Kong residents who are of Chinese descent and were born in the Chinese territories (including Hong Kong), or persons who satisfy the criteria laid down in the CNL as having Chinese nationality, are Chinese nationals

A businessman of Indian descent has been unable to gain Chinese nationality or a local passport even though his family came to the city nearly a century ago.

Furthermore, Philip Khan, 50, was born and raised in Hong Kong, and his late uncle fought against the Japanese in the second world war.

The businessman found himself caught in an identity crisis when he tried to run in the upcoming Legislative Council election and was told he was ineligible because he was not a Chinese national.

Khan, who speaks fluent Cantonese and has a trading business on the mainland, said the Legco ordinance went against the city’s Basic Law, which protected the rights of permanent residents to stand for elections.

In April, he tried twice to apply for Chinese nationality so that he could run for office. But immigration officers dissuaded him from even filing the applications, citing mainland nationality laws that require at least one of his parents to be a Chinese national, Khan said.

In June, Khan voluntarily took an oath before the immigration officers that he would renounce his Pakistani passport so that he could apply for an Hong Kong passport.

However, he later received a letter that said he had to prove he was a Chinese national..

[ShyTorque]

Landed, smelled and tasted the air, stayed for 2 days and vowed never to return until such time air quality is fit for humans. And the only reason I stayed for the second day was that I couldn't rebook my flight to an earlier departure.

So if you value your health at all, yes, it's probably better to find another place to live.

I took that decision over fifteen years ago. The health of my kids took priority over numbers in the bank.

The western world has exported its pollution to the Far East. The local government has allowed it.

[Algol]

I have no interest in having a Chinese/SAR Passport (certainly not going to revoke my other nationalities for one) - but if HKG is refusing SAR Passports to Brits who apply for it then I hope the same is done to HK'ers who may apply to the UK.