Of course persons of non-Chinese race can hold a permanent HK Identity Card - providing the 7 year residency criteria is met. It entitles you to vote, and indeed all the accompanying rights of citizenship. The only difference between this and taking citizenship in other counties is that it can be lost; for example if you remain outside of HK for more than three years, or cash in your MPF fund before retirement.

"saam lap sing", or three stars that appear after the immigration codes on the card denote Chinese race.

Squire
 

If you would care to read this thread then you will see that this has all been discussed and dealt with already.

regards, BE.

Please do not allow chinese to be spoken in fragrant harbour. I am from Hong Kong, can't speak chinese, and fragrant harbour is the only section I visit regularly.

Blue Eagle:
In light of what has preceded this would you be prepared to consider allowing Chinese to be used on Fragrant Harbour after the Pprune administrators issue a public disclaimer to the effect that they (the administrators) are not responsible for any defamatory or similar statements and that Chinese is being permited without a moderator?

I am a pilot not a lawyer and I don't understand legal speak but surely there is some way of implementing something along these lines.
Regards (wen hou)

Hong Xing

To show who is right and who is wrong in this debate here are links to relevant pages of the HK Immigration Department website:

Symbols on the old ID card
http://www.immd.gov.hk/ehtml/topical_3_2.htm

Symbols on the new Smart ID cards
http://www.immd.gov.hk/ehtml/hkid_frontinfo.htm

"Who can enjoy the Right of Abode in HK"
http://www.immd.gov.hk/ehtml/topical_3_4.htm

This defines "Eligibility for a HK Re-entry permit" which is the criterion for having *** on the ID card.
http://www.immd.gov.hk/ehtml/hktraveldoc_2_rp.htm

This defines the criteria which will be taken into account when considering an application for Chinese nationality (a criterion for a Re-entry permit) by naturalization:
http://www.immd.gov.hk/ehtml/chnnationality_4_1.htm

There is no race-based criterion.

I think Flap5 owes you an apology.:(

Blue Eagle:

Thank you for the private message. We progress.

Regards (Wen Hou)

Hong Xing

Thank you for your childish prompt Hotdog. From your previous post I can see where the misunderstanding has arisen. A person with a foreign passport can not have a permanent I.D. card even after 7 years. Obviously the immigration official who spoke to me was mistaken. I (and any expat) can not have a permanent I.D. card, and can not vote. I assume therefore from your post that you had a permanent I.D. card?

You've still got it wrong Flap.

d. A person not of Chinese nationality who has entered Hong Kong with a valid travel document, has ordinarily resided in Hong Kong for a continuous period of not less than seven years and has taken Hong Kong as his place of permanent residence before or after the establishment of the HKSAR.

As for my "childish prompt":

Have a nice day.

Flaps, might I suggest you

a)Check what you are on about perchance you may have the wrong story

or

b)Shut up before you make a fool of yourself, and let Hong carry on admirably

or

c) All the above

Sorry the link to tell me why no Chinese may be spoken didn't work for me can anyone tell me the reason briefly?

Sorry Squire!
 

My fault, I merged the two threads concerned which is why the link failed. If you now go to the beginning of this thread you will have the complete picture.

regards,

BE

OK I see what you mean in that it may be a little difficult unless you employ a Chinese moderator, but Hong has a point in that while different people speak different dialects there is just one written language. Interestingly it was the old emperors who developed this system as a means of controlling the people as I understand it. However I digress it still seems that there would be quite large numbers of aviators in the domestic markets of Mainland China/Taiwan to whom this would be useful.

squire:

Your interpretation of the development of written Chinese is interesting but I am afraid I can't entirely agree. I have always thought that the written language simply developed as the culture evolved and that the writing continued to develop until 1958 when Mao Tse Tung decreed that the simplified characters would be used by all. Even now the system is not all that satisfactory as scholars and academics still use the old script and the masses use the new. As an example of this it is well known that the Chinese love caligraphy as an art form , yet it is never written in the new simplified script. Modern caligraphy is written in the running script, cursive script, or standard script and these three scripts have been in use since 4th century AD. It's all very complicated but the system works.
Regards
Hong Xing

Our policy remains as previously stated. It is not under review and the present load on the site is such that we are seeking to reduce the number of forums rather than increase them or their scope.

Regards
rob

Non-Chinese and citizenship
 

My daughter was born in Hong Kong in 1999 while I was in the employ of Dragonair.

After her birth I set about getting her papers and travel documents in order. I asked about a Passport or Permanent Identity Card. The person I spoke to laughed at me and said that I must go to my own country.

I told her that she may have misunderstood me. That my Daughter was born in the hospital we were standing in, 3 days previous. To which she replied - "She can not be Chinese, she is white!"

Needless to say I was taken aback and not prepared for this tongue lashing. I suppose that I can be forgiven for expecting another country to extend the same courtesies as my own with regard to citizenship when one is born in the land.

I can just imagine the hue and cry should someone in officialdom say to the Parents of the newly born Chinese in my country - "You can not be Canadian, you are Chinese! You go to your own country"

The Chinese are very "protective" of their background and culture. I am not at all surprised to the extent that someone would want the Chinese language in this forum.

I am however, surprised that one would wish to use this forum, primarliy English, to promulgate one's view's and feeling's ,in the Chinese Language, to primarily English reader's...

Slapshot:

It is apparent that you do not realise there are 11 foreign language forums on these boards and they run simultaneously with English. They are listed under the heading " Rest of The World and Non English Forums" and one of them is French. This of course caters nicely to your nationals needs. Am I correct in thinking you speak English on the west side of Canada and French on the east side ?

Hong Xing

To Slapshot

The issue of nationality is different from that of "permanent residence". Some countries (USA, Canada?, Australia?) automatically give their nationality to anyone who was born there.

Some others (the UK, Germany, France for example) do not.

As a general rule, and without wishing to initiate a racist slanging match, it seems to me that the countries still run/primarily populated by the "native" race do not automatically give nationality through birth, whereas those run/primarily populated by a relatively recent (say within the last 500 years) immigrant race do.

The person who said "she cannot be Chinese - she is white" was out of touch with the trend in HK (though things have moved on a lot since 1999). There are now many ethnic Indians (who are perhaps fourth generation immigrants) who have HK/Chinese nationality and a few caucasians.

This is turning out to be quite an interesting and informative thread. How sorry I am to try and ruin it...

Slightly off the thread but HKG is still waaaaay behind the times when it comes to racial or ethnic equality. The tax laws for filipinos springs to mind.

Similarly, I have some clippings from the SCMP, that I have saved for my future book...that I'll no doubt never get around to doing....one clipping from Nov 2001 reads

Secretary/Personal Assistant
....... must be female, attractive, Chinese and single (girl with boyfriend is often distracted)

and another for a Company exectutive (also 2001) lists as a requirement "Must be a ble to hold 5 shots of hard liquor"

Here it seems you can discriminate based on gender, looks, race and marital status....not to mention drinking prowess! (Just because its not 'legal' doesnt mean there is not one rule of us and one rule for others)

Now.....on the comical side, is the old sign at CLK (the airport) that said "NO SMOKING NAKED", of course it meant "NO NAKED FLAMES"

:ok: