三件事令我今晚眼濕濕…

1)  有精神病紀錄父親將6歲女兒拋下樓後再跳樓自殺.

2)  銅鑼灣前三越百貨公司拆樓地盤天秤折臂七死傷.

3)  一家人:  窮媽媽富的家

(http://www.rthk.org.hk/rthk/tv/weareafamily/20070124.html).  父親突然因地盤意外離開. 

I was wondering what if 2) may well be the beginning of 3) ? 

This CNN article is indeed a very accurate account of what a typical HK returnee from overseas has to encounter. 

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/06/06/hk.returnees/index.html  

Hong Kong returnees: There and back again

POSTED: 0525 GMT (1325 HKT), June 30, 2007   

By Tiffany Wong
For CNN

HONG KONG, China (CNN) — One year ago Alina Huo traded her New York apartment for a bedroom at her parents’ home so she could return to her native Hong Kong.

Living with her parents has provided challenges, says 33-year-old Alina.

“My parents can just come into my room when I’m asleep and put a blanket over me and I’d just jump out of my bed, you know?” Alina laughs. “I live with them now, and that just hasn’t happened since I was 15 years old.”

Alina isn’t alone in facing a readjustment to returning home; she’s increasingly joined by tens of thousands of Hong Kong-born men and women who share common threads: a desire for a Western education, a tradition of migration by Hong Kong families and growing sentiments by those who left that their futures look brightest back home.

As Hong Kong approaches the 10th anniversary of its handover from British to Chinese rule, fewer residents are choosing to travel overseas to seek their fortune.

Every family has its own story for leaving and coming back, but these same men and women also report a pattern of challenges: culture shock in both Hong Kong and in the West, that leaves the nagging question: What does “home” mean?

Satellite kids, astronaut parents

Emigration from Hong Kong abroad has been a common phenomenon for many generations of residents.

One academic study labels this phenomenon with a Cantonese slang that describes these migrants as “astronauts:” often the husband who stays in Hong Kong to support his wife and children, to move abroad for a prized Western education and a perceived better quality of life.

“Satellite kids,” explains Alina, are the children of “astronaut parents” who sent away while their parents are more rooted in their home country.

Fellow satellite kid, William Ng, says integration abroad is not easy. He left for Australia with his family in 1989, at the age of 10. While living with his brother and sister at the time, being outside of Hong Kong still meant feelings of loneliness as he faced challenges with having to learn English and needing to adapt to a whole new culture, he says.

Like Alina, he enjoyed his freedom abroad away from the watchful eyes of parents. “I was actually happier living without my parents around since we had more freedom. And in Australia you could drive to a different location for a weekend visit which made life very satisfying.”

Government figures show families of young migrants such as Alina and William have been part of a larger movement of Hong Kong emigration that began before 1997’s handover from Britain to China. But that movement away from Hong Kong has diminished, figures show.

Emigration from Hong Kong peaked in 1992 — five years before the handover — when the figure reached 66,000, according to a 2004 Hong Kong government census. The number of emigrants dropped to 30,900 in 1997, and to 10,300 in 2006, according to government statistics.

While these families often obtained foreign passports offering them the option to stay abroad after the handover, many returned to Hong Kong to reunite their families (husband-wife, parents-children) and what seems to be a rediscovery of the growing bounties back home.

Emigrating for education

Professor Kwok-Bun Chan, head and professor of the Sociology Department at Hong Kong Baptist University, spent many years studying and living in Canada. A Hong Kong returnee himself, he offers other reasons why emigrants choose to go abroad for education and to come back for work.

With respects to leaving Hong Kong, Chan is less concerned with the political climate of Hong Kong’s handover as a main factor for residents.

He criticizes the ongoing problem with the quality and accessibility of Hong Kong’s educational system. It’s too rigid, he says, with excessive emphasis on memorization and a heavy emphasis on exams without providing enough intellectual space “to think, to imagine, to ponder, to ruminate” through project-based learning.

“Education in Hong Kong is very stressful.” So, the West for them represents an alternative to the Asian educational system. In addition to expanding their children’s cultural horizons, Chan says, they also act upon their unspoken admiration and romance of the West.

” The person expects to be comfortable at home, but in fact, they discover that it’s not. So this mentality perpetuates as an eternal drifter. I think they are quite restless.” - Professor Kwok-Bun Chan, Hong Kong Baptist University

Australia, meanwhile, has a reputation for offering quality university educations and is close to Asia, making it an attractive destination for migrants, Chan says. Australia ranks with the United States and Canada as one of the three most popular destinations for Hong Kong emigrants, according to the Hong Kong Security Bureau.

After achieving this perceived dream, why are so many Hong Kong emigrants coming back?

Desires to reunite with separated family members, care for aging parents and personal decisions to pursue growing job opportunities in Asia’s booming economy, say some people interviewed for the story.

However, Chan’s study of 30 returnees, mostly from Canada, points to another factor: many emigrants return because of prejudice and discrimination experienced abroad. With respects to the job search, he cites that the “color line” continues to be associated with one’s occupational future. And once the kids graduate abroad, they have the choice to settle down in a career abroad, or to return to Hong Kong. Many choose to come back.

“Canada, after all is, culturally not an Asian place, not a Chinese place,” he says.

Reverse culture shock

Back in Hong Kong, reintegration is not a straightforward process, Chan says. Many who left Hong Kong spent 10 years or more living in a different lifestyle, learning from a different educational system and working in a different economy.

Chan, however, says returning to Hong Kong is not without its cultural and sociological differences: “They (returnees) have suddenly realized that they have changed.

“You have been in the West, you have changed. You have been socialized to begin to instill within yourself some values such as gender equality, democracy, accountability, you treat your parents nicely, but your parents should not be unapproachable.”

“The person expects to be comfortable at home, but in fact, they discover that it’s not. So this mentality perpetuates as an eternal drifter. I think they are quite restless.”

Even after returning to Hong Kong in 2001, William still finds his family and himself constantly on the move. When contacted for an interview, William was already preparing for a business trip to Taiwan, answering questions on a laptop from his hotel room. At the same time, his parents were on their way to living in Australia for a month.

They miss the fresh air and they want a break from the materialistic mindset of Hong Kong, he says, adding that Hong Kong lacks an identity that revolves around something besides making money.

Citing the sociological phenomenon in which returnees are “neither here nor there,” Chan says continuous migration makes these people adopt a mindset where they are used to constantly “living elsewhere.”

Asked to describe “home,” the Huos’ response, like that of many Hong Kong returnees, is complex. Even though they’ve returned to Hong Kong on several occasions, each trip greeted them, they say, with a noticeable increase in the region’s material wealth and the increasing use of the Mandarin language.

Close to home, moving ahead

For the moment, families such as the Huos are in high-sprits for the future of Hong Kong and to finally be living in the same city after many years.

“We’re happy to see Hong Kong the way it is — the way after its return to China,” says Alina’s mother, Bonnie. “And everything came to be a smooth transition. We’re more confident in this part of the world than we had [been] in the past decade.”

Alina, meanwhile, is content to further her career for now on this side of the world, closer to her family. Having returned to live in her parents’ apartment for the past year, she admits that home is still New York.

But, she explains, her family is in Hong Kong, which makes it a part of her as well: “I don’t think we’re living in an age where we can say that ‘home’ is a physical place or a mental place. I think it’s just where your loved ones are and where you feel the most comfortable.”

In terms of carving out her own space, Alina is looking forward to branching out soon to her own apartment, down the street from her family, and at “home,” for now, in Hong Kong.

上次執筆寫文, 我想已經是七年前的事.  雖然年紀大了, 書讀多了, 但傻氣未減. 

Tweens 的日子已隨水流半.  回想自己近年思路和情緒的改變, 不禁感到哭笑不得.  從昔日對某些人和事的執著, 到今日的豁達, 改變過程實在出其的痛苦難堪.  畢竟過去的已成過去, 要後悔已太遲.  有能力做的, 祇有繼續抱著戰戰競競的心去迎接未來. 

說到迎接未來, 我希望從寫文的過程中, 再喚醒已長眠多年的思潮死灰復燃. 

思潮終於再次作動了!

這是祖國僅有未能邊緣化香港的價值. 

以己身為一位美國測試工程師的經驗, 免不了被卷進越來越多的祖國部件供應商 certification projects.  每次會議提起”中國制造”, 保証有同事抱憂慮的態度去洗耳傾聽.  祖國制造部件雖然價廉, 但它的質素實在令人懷疑.  祖國部件供應商出名 over - promise, under - deliver.  即使我跟品質工程師和採購分析員同事們用盡各種各樣方法去評價它們的部件性能, 生產程序和定期遞送能力, 我們仍然不能消除腦海中長年累積的美國汽車制造業在祖國從商的不幸遭遇.  今時今日的中國部件商仍然在多方面比外國部件商弱, 但廉價優勢實在難抗.  廉價優勢令外國企業寧可容忍各樣祖國問題, 不願支付外國人工. 

信, 正是祖國目前每進一步, 退半步的步伐逐漸賺回來. 

今時今日香港的香, 正香在信.  祖國越來越香, 香港未來繼續比祖國更香?

儘管昔日情懷, 記憶仍然由新

歌詞精簡易明, 盡訴人間冷暖

放開豁達面對, 不問你我對錯

昔日已隨水流, 來日依然方長

開放懷抱迎接, 願你展翅飛翔

I’m now listening to 海誓山盟, 一生何求

and 每一個晚上.