Wounded Pride;No Longer Condescend'g, Hongkongers Feel Threatened by Mainlanders

choi

Simon Denyer, Hong Kong Squirms in the Shadow of China, Its Overpowering Big Brother. Washington Post, Dec 10, 2013
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wo ... 16b976b2_story.html

Quote:

"Nearly 35 million Chinese tourists flooded into Hong Kong in 2012, snapping up everything from luxury goods to imported baby milk powder. Some 30,000 students from the mainland are studying at Hong Kong universities, and many stay on to compete for the best jobs after graduation. Chinese money is pushing up property prices.

"An opinion poll conducted by Hong Kong University showed the proportion of 18-to-29-year-olds identifying themselves primarily with Hong Kong rather than China rose to 84.3 percent in June, from 68.4 percent at the time of the handover and a low of 58.2 percent in 2003.

"But the problem is not just the vast numbers of visitors. Hongkongers have a sense of wounded pride. 'The original design was [that] the Hong Kong manufacturing would take advantage of cheap labor, but now it’s the other way around,' said Lui. 'Ten or 20 years down the line, will our kids be happy to be shopkeepers?'

"Yang, who asked to be identified only by her family name [but a woman who came to Hong Kong to study in a university and stayed on as a successful financial professional married to a Hong Kong local] to avoid controversy, said she tends to be ignored in gold shops if she speaks to salespeople in Cantonese; if she addresses them in Mandarin, she gets plenty of attention.

"Tensions are perhaps sharpest in the territory’s universities. Drawn from China’s brightest young people, the mainland students often get better grades than locals; after graduation, with native Mandarin and contacts on the mainland, they are often preferred by employers in Hong Kong, fueling jealousy, professionals and professors say. * * * Part of the problem, she said, stems from different points of view about Hong Kong’s place in China: While Hongkongers think of themselves as unique, 'mainlanders don’t view Hong Kong as special; they see it as just another city in China.'

"While some blame the media for fanning resentment, others talk of a clash of values. Hongkongers, accustomed to British etiquette, complain that mainlanders do not know how to stand in line; that mothers let their children relieve themselves in public; that mainlanders are bringing in corrupt business practices.

Note: "LUI Tai Lok, a sociologist at Hong Kong University"

呂 大樂 (曾任香港大學社會科學院副院長（本科生教育)  Zh.wikipedia.org)