Job Discussion Forums

[once again]

I have noticed many posts here that are critical of the mainland, from those on the mainland. These posts also seem to take every opportunity to have a dig at Hong Kong. Just why are so many posting bad things about HK? I am just interested to know.

[Roger]

Dear once again!

I respect those who love HK, and I know you are one of them! Good on you, and I wish you remain happy with your wife!
I would also agree that a lot of one's negativity directly affects our judgment, and thus comes back at us.
Let me add that there was a time I really loved HK! I lived on a small island called Peng Chau, between HK Island and Mui Wo on Lantau. That was in 1987 through '88, 7 months.
How HK has changed since then! For the better? Better infrastructure, to be sure! Better shopping, yes. Better connections to the world too.
But the people are still the same, except that they have changed for the worse.
Those girls I knew 15 years ago have all emigrated to Canada, Holland, Italy, Britain, AUS and elsewhere. What social class did they belong to?
You could honestly say they were lower-to-middle social stratum. I knew a nurse, which was a highly respected profession at that time! She now lives overseas, and supports her family from there.
Most people you run into these days are of a different description. Of course, different locations make for different social groups. I can't choose - I cross the border once in a while, and those people that do the same definitely are not of the more refined and humble variety! Have you ever experienced the pushing, shoving and kicking at Lowu? And then the segregation into "Visitors" and "Residents"? I understand that residents cannot be expected to spend so much time in queues every time, but I don't understand why HK residents line up in the Visitors' queues, thus stealing our time. Not just that - they also routinely jump the line, and when they travel with family or friends, they scatter all over the place, only to call each other over when it is the turn of one of them - then, the person behind that HK resident will suddenly be standing behind an extra 6, eight or ten HK residents in the Visitors' queue, and have to wait that much longer!
HK also has lost a lot of its charm, if you accept this term for the quaint fact that in the early 1990's, many backpackers were able to hold on some lowly job, for instance courier, kitchen hand or cleaner. The YH's and the various guesthouses in CHUNGKING MANSIONS were full of Israelis, British, New Zealanders and Aussies, scrounging a living the hard way. Nowadays, these guesthouses operate at half-capacity!
These days, the Immigration give you a notice that says "No visitor is allowed to engage in business or to accept a job..."
Not that I think we should be given the opportunity to work illegally.
However, the term 'illegal' is now interpreted much more ruthlessly, to always discriminate against outsiders. Whether they are Vietnamese boat people (you know, perhaps, that certain HK bigwigs a decade ago wanted the authorities to push those rickety fishing boats back into the sea rather than receiving their human cargoes!).
Shortly after HK's return to China, the new government was seriously debating whether to hand out to each and every HK native a bonus from the government's reserves accumulated during British rule. These days, they are trying to take as much money as possible from the lowest classes, first a disproportionate 400 HK dollars from every foreign domestic helper (who makes 3600 $ at most!), then they have been planning now for two years to rip 18 dollars off every traveller who leaves HK for the mainland (this so-called 'departure tax" has already been in existence for air travellers and those taking a mainland-bound or Macau-bound ferry!). ALso the ongoing debate about the subsidy to the ESF schools (which used to cater to expats, but now accept a good many wealthy locals whose children are better off using English as the medium of instruction).
Besides, what has become of Hong Kong the "shoppers' Paradise"? Not a day goes by without someone being ripped of really big! Yes, tourists should never be too trusting - but trusting in the wrong people should not result in more trusting people being cheated, short-changed, ripped off and generally being treated as underdogs!
I can't say I hate HK, but I can't say I love Hong Kong natives either! I just feel they are a bunch of pampered boors with no soul and no heart.
Oh, I exclude from this dreadful picture the landlady of a guesthouse in Causeway Bay, and some friends all over HK...

[once again]

Thank you Roger for you kind wishes towards my wife and myself. The same to you in your choice of abode. And I must say I agree with some of the things you say.

That the government is taking money from domestic helpers is a travesty and shameful. That tour groups are consistently ripped off here and the government seems unwilling or powerless to stop it is disgusting.

Yes there are many impolite people here, however, only as many as I met on my last trip back into London in the UK. THEY really were bores in every sense. Much better in the North and East of the country. Maybe big city mentality brings this out.
But I must say that these days HK people are much more humble and polite than they used to be�..falling from high perches is always humbling!

Having said that, I cannot agree with or understand some of your points.

�You could honestly say they were lower-to-middle social stratum. I knew a nurse, which was a highly respected profession at that time! She now lives overseas, and supports her family from there.
Most people you run into these days are of a different description. Of course, different locations make for different social groups.�

I am not sure what you mean here. Are you suggesting that different social groups now inhabit HK, and this is making the place unpleasant? Just what are these social groups and where have they come from? What does �most people you run into these days are of a different description� mean?

If the guest houses are less full these days, one of the reasons could be that there was a massive influx of visitors when people had a �last chance to see� mentality. If many of these people were working here then they were doing so illegally. To my knowledge, only British passport holders were allowed to work legally. If other people were taking unskilled jobs they were doing so on the premise that if you looked white then you were British!

I am also not sure what you mean about
�However, the term 'illegal' is now interpreted much more ruthlessly, to always discriminate against outsiders.� Immigration laws are just that, to discriminate against outsiders. All countries do this depending on the labour supply at the time. If a country decides that it has an unemployment rate that is too high, it will try to stop outsiders taking jobs. If the unemployment rate is low, then they turn a blind eye.

As for departure taxes, every country I have ever visited has them. I would be interested to know which countries do not have them.

The ESF schools are heavily subsidized because they need to be. They pay teachers very high salaries. Much too high now that HK can hardly be considered a hardship posting, and higher than international schools who receive no such subsidy. The international schools have been some of the most vocal proponents of the ending of the subsidy, as they operate without such help and provide an equal service. They complain that if they can provide the service without the subsidy, why can�t the ESF. As I understand from your past posts you consider these schools to be colonial relics anyway!!

Thanks for the reply and the kind wishes, Once Again.

[Roger]

Dear once again!

I hoped others would join in with their own answers to your interesting query, but alas, nobody has done so, what a pity!
This shows, perhaps, that HK no longer is the magnet it used to be. It is fast fading into ordinary Chineseness. People forget that it has some of the most remarkable landscapes with magnificent hiking trails and large Buddhist monasteries and temples. What a pity too that islanders have over the last two to three decades abandoned outlying islands, where you smell no exhaust gases and hear no unfriendly noises.
Everything is now concentrated in HK proper and some parts north of Kowloon. I thoroughly enjoyed my holiday trips to Ping Chau, Shekwu Island, Potoi, Tung Chau island and my walks on the McLehose trails and on Lantau Island.
Now, if I head into HK from Guangdong HK ID steal at least half an hour off my time. I often miss the shuttle bus at Lok Ma Chau that had brought me to the customshouse, and have to take another one (once the driver wanted to refuse me entry because he had not seen a Westerner board his bus at Satin terminus).
When I do arrive in downtown HK, I have too little time to sightsee and to enjoy myself. Besides, those touts that offer me fake ROLEXES get ever more numerous in spite of avowed claims by the police to do something about them. They are in fact so cheeky they don't flinch when you ask them to give you their name card!

Alright, I expressed myself a little ambiguously when I was writing about the social classes I frequented long, long before. The people then were not poor and not rich. That nurse hailed from a NT village. Her parents and their 6 children inhabited a single house of 4 floors. Some of that nurse's friends lived in Shatin highrises although their parents still lived in village houses. Salaries then were a long shot from those that are paid now. For a nurse to emigrate the almost only way was by marrying an expat. You can say girls then were a little more like most mainland CHinese girls are now. One major difference the HK girls showed was that they were prepared to work hard. My nurse friend was never above cooking, cleaning house and contributing towards common finances.
She eventually made it to Canada I don't know how. I disappointed her, not wanting to marry her because of my fears (difficult to explain here, but not altogether unreasonable).
The girls and, indeed, people in general that I have known over the past years (since around 1992) all seem to be from very different circumstances. Landed, independent, owning properties in HK and on the mainland, having passports of to to five different countries, always on the go, always spending big, always checking the latest stock market news...
Many are ex-Hongkongers that returned after an obligatory period of time in a Western country to just pick up that country's citizenship. Smart, shrewd, calculating, totally unromantic and unsentimental.
I don't know how to describe these people in sociolese, but you get the gist of it, I guess.

Now for your mention of illegal work in HK: True, under the British it was more lax, and it attracted some strange characters. But on the whole, it was more of a laissez-faire policy that hardly attracted the wrong people because nobody could afford to live in HK without any funds, and those menial jobs that backpackers picked up were not paying too well. You could not go to HARD ROCKSS CAFE or to a Wanchai Bar on the remunerations a kitchen hand made. People shared dorms in the Garden Hostel or somewhere in Chungking Mansions.
And, the majority were not illegal because they hailed from Commonwealth countries.

I agree HK has to take steps to stem the tide of illegals just as others have to do the same. Note however, that under the British even mainlanders enjoyed a better reception if they made it to HK Island (until 1984). Now everybody in HK is constantly blaming the OUTSIDE world - including mainland China - for their ills: Joblessness (because HK businessmen transferred their factories to Guangdong, making HK workers redundant!), Chinese housewives rant about Filippinas chattering in the lifts of highrises; HK citizens complain about Filippinas occupying large swathes of downtown HK on their days off (and, mysteriously, Hongkongers discover other people "trash" HK but the same Hongkongers never see how dirty their own behaviour is!); well, my litany could go on and on and on, I suppose...

The departure tax is a novelty to me, anyway! I don't know what other countries exact payment of a 'tax' from those leaving their territory; maybe the world has changed since I arrived in China, but last time I went to Macau no jurisdiction - neither Zhuhai nor Macau! - demanded such a payment! Nor did the Europeans when I visited Spain, France, Switzerland and Italy a few years ago. I am aware of some charge being levied at airports, but land departure taxes...?

Don't take my lamenting too badly, once again; I still visit HK from time to time, and I do believe you that HK folks are now a bit more 'humble'. Temporarily at least!

[once again]

It would be nice to see some other contributions on this. So anybody out there that has some comments please go ahead.

You are right about most things Roger. When the economy was great here, people were almost wholly concerned about the stock market and house prices. Iguess as HK became richer, the people changed their attitudes. But I saw the same think happen in the UK, and it was not a pretty sight. I must say also, that I took no small degree of smug pleasure when people realised that HK was not infact invincible, and it has taken some time for them to understand that they are not some kind of special species. But I can tell you for a fact that several of my Chinese friends now either work on the mainland full time, or spend a lot of time on business there. A recent job fair for mainland companies was absolutley bombed out. Attitudes, out of neccesity are changing.

As for blaming other people..well you got that spot on. It is always someone elses fault at the moment. But I think this is a common trait for any country when things go wrong. It is either cheap labour coming in, unfair competition etc...

I guess my main point is that HK is no different from other large cities that have enjoyed a boom time. People and their attitudes change. I remember when the place I lived in England was all fields. On my last visit I saw new road links and fly overs and housing developments. As kids and teenagers we would always be playing soccer and other less parentally sanctioned activites in the woods and fields, and then they built new houses on them. It never ceased to amaze me when people who had bought these houses, and taken away land that was "common" space, then complained about the next development being built because it would take away their green setting and spoil the view.

Anyway, it would be nice to hear some other oppinions about this.