Hong Kong people adapt easily to Australia
Growing up in Hong Kong, I knew I was one of the 4 million people living in the city, which was then known as the Pearl of the Orient. At that time, there was no television broadcasting and of course no internet, but a picture of the night view of Victoria Harbour given to me by my primary school classmates told me how beautiful Hong Kong was. I am proud to be born in Hong Kong, and I have never thought about whether Hong Kong is Chinese or British, but I only know that if I am born in Hong Kong, I am rooted in Hong Kong.
When I was a child, I lived in a resettlement area, which I later learnt was a place where the government resettled fishermen who had no place to live, hut dwellers, or people living on land to be relocated. A family of 10 people lived in a flat of less than 300 square feet, with no indoor water supply, toilet or kitchen. Every day, they had to fetch water from the public hoses to wash their clothes and cook at home, while the toilet was located outside the house and each shared by two families. What was even more interesting was that the primary school I attended was built on the rooftop of the building, and the school didn’t even have a ceiling outside the classrooms. Looking at the colourful Hong Kong on the postcards, I still believe that this is the world-famous Pearl of the Orient. It is because in this difficult environment, millions of people came from China in a short span of 30 to 40 years and established their homes on this piece of land.
When I was in secondary school, I was allocated to Queen’s College, where Dr Sun Yat-sen, the father of modern China, also once attended, and I was very proud of the school. The classrooms in the school were spacious, bigger than my home with 40 students. That is why I like to stay at the school and consider it my home, and that is why I was fond of Queen Victoria, not thinking of myself as a Chinese, a second-class resident of this land. The good thing is that Queen’s College is a very good school, and most of its graduates have made great contributions to the society, and even some of its alumni have made contributions to China, such as Dr Sun Yat-sen who became the Father of the Nation, Liao Zhongkai who was the leader of the revolution, and Tang Shao-yi who was the first Prime Minister of China, and so on. Life at Queen’s College reminded me that people who grew up in the British colonies did not have to be loyal to the Queen, but could also give their lives to build China. (Duan Chongzhi, the President of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, who resigned last week, was also an alumnus of Queen’s College who had matriculated there for two years.)
In those days, students at Queen’s College could have very different political stances because of its philosophy of education, which encouraged independent examinations. They could become the highest-ranking official in the Hong Kong government like Chief Secretary for Administration Rafael Hui, or they could become patriotic nuisances like Antony Ho and Lee Kai Pan, who were reported to the police by the principal and arrested and jailed for advocating the “downfall of the British Hong Kong Government” during the Riot of 1967, or they could become the “orphaned son” like Szeto Wah, who saw himself as an advocate of love for China in the colonial territories. Growing up in such a society and in such an interesting school, I did not feel any sense of betrayal to the Queen when I emigrated to Australia, since Australia was as loyal to the Queen as Hong Kong. I just felt that I had moved from a society that was once part of the British Empire to another white-dominated society. I could speak English anyway, and with a few adjustments to my lifestyle, it would be no different. It was easy for me to accept myself as an Australian.
Discovering Multicultural Australia
When I became an Australian, I realised that Australia is not Aboriginal, nor is it only British, but it is a diverse place for anyone from all over the world to call home. There is no other country on earth today that is as open to all kinds of people as Australia. It doesn’t matter where you come from, as long as your life doesn’t jeopardise the lives of others, you will be respected, accepted and tolerated in Australia.
The history of this acceptance of diversity is not very long, only about 30 to 40 years. As Australia is far away from the developed western countries, not many rich, cultured and educated people would migrate to Australia from the developed world. From the 1970s onwards, Australia began to absorb non-white immigrants, so that they could establish a home in the same way as other people in this land. Most of these people were not rich, so democracy, freedom, the rule of law, and fairness to ensure that these people can have a chance to make a difference have become the common social values of Australians.
After 2000, when China’s economy took off and wealthy Chinese immigrated to Australia, and the Australian community began to absorb wealthy investment migrants, some people believed that the basic values of the Australian community had been impacted, and recognised that the values of the Australian community were gradually becoming a factor to be considered in immigration policies.
However, up to now, most of the people who come to settle in Australia are from different parts of the world, hoping to build their own future by their own efforts. Therefore, it is still a common value of the Australian society that everyone, including newcomers, should be treated fairly. In fact, from the Census results, we can be sure that today’s Australian society is already extremely diverse, but this is a true picture that not only new and old immigrants, but also the mainstream society here, do not quite understand.
For every immigrant who comes to Australia, we will meet different people in our lives, and gradually through these experiences, we have formed a different understanding of this society. What we don’t realise is that the Australian society we experience is largely determined by the way we choose to live our lives. And whether or not we are satisfied with those experiences is also determined by our choices.
The Hong Kong Community
Most of the people I first met in Australia were immigrants from Hong Kong, like me. Although my sister and brother had married Westerners, I was also surrounded by Australians. But because most of my friends were Hong Kong immigrants like me, and the churches I attended and served for years were Cantonese-speaking immigrant churches, I experienced a community that I chose to be predominantly Hong Kong.
In this community, we often meet professionals from the same background as us, all immigrants who finally chose to leave Hong Kong because of the 1989 pro-democracy movement, and naturally we believe that most Hong Kong people came here for this reason. In fact, this is not the case.
After I started the Sameway magazine, I found that many of the Cantonese-speaking community had come to live in Australia many years ago. They may be from Guangdong, but most of them have lived in Hong Kong, and many of them have lived in Chinatown, so there is not much of a connection between their arrival here and 1997. In the past few years, there have been more new immigrants from Hong Kong, and they are different from the original Cantonese-speaking immigrants. They do not want to see themselves as Chinese, they are dissatisfied with the Chinese government, and they are willing to integrate into the Australian society, but they do not know and are unwilling to accept the Australian way of doing things, and they are even more unwilling to regard Hong Kong immigrants who do not agree with their political beliefs as Hong Kong people.
In fact, Hong Kong immigrants have a very definite meaning, that is, immigrants from Hong Kong to Australia, and it has nothing to do with their acceptance of Hong Kong society, their attitude towards the Communist Party that is ruling China today, nor do they necessarily want to preserve Hong Kong culture, let alone supporting Hong Kong’s resistance. It is obviously we should refer to our identity of where we come from, but not to the various political concepts are added to differentiate us. I think this kind of thinking is not in line with Australia’s social values.
The Chinese community
The Chinese community in Australia is very diverse. They come from different generations and have different backgrounds. Among the Chinese, there are those who came to Australia in the 1980s as publicly-funded students, the so-called “50,000” migrants, investment migrants who came after China’s economic take-off, those who stayed behind and struggled to make a living, and successful retired cadres, entrepreneurs and academics who followed their children to Australia.
These Chinese immigrants from different backgrounds make up Australia’s diverse Chinese community today.
Chinese communities in South East Asia
Even more diverse are the Chinese immigrants from different countries in South East Asia. They may come from Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and so on. They share the same food habits, Confucianism, festivals and customs, or the same Chinese culture, or the same language.
The longer I live in Australia, the more diverse I realise it is. For me, it has enriched my life. In the last few years, I have been attending Western churches, and I have discovered a richer side of them, which I will tell you more about in this column.
Mr Raymond Chow