Recent photos of gray-haired parents bidding a tearful farewell to their grown-up children at Hong Kong International Airport made it to newspapers around the world. Such scenes of separating from one’s family can move emotions when put on display. The appeal is instant, even to an audience that’s aware of the bigger picture.
To suggest that Hong Kong has lost its finest young people to the UK in the last few months is to cast aspersions on the eligible millions who have chosen to remain in Hong Kong. There is no data analysis yet to ascertain that the recent “exodus” of people from Hong Kong was indeed a brain drain
Such photos usually come with stories containing phrases like “China’s crackdown,” “stifling of dissent” and “fleeing Hong Kong”. Served without context, such pairings of images and words could easily create the impression that Hong Kong people took the decision to migrate at the cost of leaving their elderly parents and beloved pets behind as they would rather live in a society where free expression was not compromised by the “draconian” (another media favorite) National Security Law for Hong Kong.
While leaving one’s native land to live in a foreign country will always have sad overtones, there are few things as natural, and as regular, a part of human life as migration. In one of its earliest forms, human society comprised mostly nomads.
One wonders if everyone among the nearly 90,000 who left Hong Kong in the last 12 months took the step because of the National Security Law though. Or could it be that at least some among them were economic migrants, following a time-honored tradition?
After all, it is cheaper to rent in Britain, where most of the migrants are headed. Their children having access to the British education system seems attractive to many. The United Kingdom’s new immigration program for British National (Overseas) passport holders has opened these possibilities, and a section of Hong Kong people with enough funds to cover the costs of living in the UK without social security until they secure a means of livelihood are taking advantage of it.
In Hong Kong, there are, broadly-speaking, two positions people take vis-a-vis the leavers. Those holding Position A lament that the city has lost its best and brightest of young (and youngish) people and this is an irreparable loss, as they are never coming back — unlike many of those who left in the lead-up to Hong Kong’s return to the motherland in 1997 because of similar concerns but began trickling back into the city some years later.
Position B is a more cynical one. It imagines the new Hong Kong emigre in the UK gasping like a fish out of water. Comments left on social — as well as those penned for mainstream — media conjure up grim pictures of life after migration. It entails slogging away at jobs that are subpar because employers won’t recognize qualifications or work experience obtained in Hong Kong, and then spending hours stuck in traffic trying to get home — the gift of an underperforming transport system. The children are at the receiving end of racist bullying in school. The high taxation rate means one doesn’t get to save much. And then, of course, there is the specter of getting mugged, a chilling prospect compounded by the rise of anti-Asian hate crimes.
Both views imagine extreme scenarios, to the exclusion of other possibilities.
To suggest that Hong Kong has lost its finest young people to the UK in the last few months is to cast aspersions on the eligible millions who have chosen to remain in Hong Kong. There is no data analysis yet to ascertain that the recent “exodus” of people from Hong Kong was indeed a brain drain. Also it is a little too early, and presumptuous, to decide on behalf of the leavers that they have left for good, ruling out the possibility that some of them might be testing the waters.
It’s equally simplistic to assume that the new migrants have no idea of the challenges awaiting them in a foreign country. The decision to migrate is usually informed by whether or not it makes economic sense, and there is no reason to conclude that those who have decided to take the plunge have not researched how deep the pool is and when the water might start to boil.
Hong Kong people moving to the UK have made a choice. Any discussion on whether it is Hong Kong or those who have left it that stand to lose because of this move is premature and conjectural at this point.
The author is a Hong Kong-based journalist.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.