Hong Kong’s Toxic “Low-Key Racism” Problem
Hong Kong prides herself for being a multi-racial society, where people from all walks of lives and races are both welcomed and treated equally. But that is only assumingly, that is what is on the surface. Unless you are an ethnic minority living in Hong Kong, you wouldn’t be able to recognise that there is a severe problem of racism against ethnic minorities in Hong Kong.
Before I dig deeper into the deep-rooted toxic problem of racism in Hong Kong, allow me to define what “ethnic minorities” (EM/EMs) mean in Hong Kong to avoid any misunderstandings. Ethnic minorities refer to the 8% of people from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, the Philippines, Indonesia, African countries, etc. This population also accounts for a little more than half of Hong Kong’s poverty and the reasons for that are shocking.
Just like everywhere, Hong Kong has her fair share of racist slurs, which are only offensive to the people the insults are being directed at. If not, using them over the dinner table during a family reunion is normal. Some of the most common ones include: “bun mui” which is a derogatory term directed at Filipino women for only being capable of being domestic helpers/maids. Some even use the name “Maria” which is to typify a Filipino domestic helper, “ah cha” which is a racist slur to refer to Pakistanis, “ah sing” which is a racist slur to refer to Indians, “hak gwai” which literally means black ghost to refer to the Black population of Hong Kong, and lastly “gwai lo” which means white ghost when directly translated and is used to refer to the White people of Hong Kong.
Even though “gwai lo” is considered as a non-derogatory term in most cases today, the origin and intention of the term were negative to refer to “gwai lo’s” as a nuisance back when Hong Kong was a British colony. However, in most cases, discrimination against the White population of Hong Kong is rarely seen nowadays. In fact, it is much easier for you to find a high-ranking job in Hong Kong if you are White as opposed to any other ethnic nationalities in Hong Kong as the notion of White supremacy is still deep-rooted in Hong Kong, they are usually considered to be rich, influential and powerful, hence are given more respect (most of the time, not always!).
As for the other ethnic minorities in Hong Kong, the discrimination against them can be seen from miles away but is usually chosen to be ignored and overlooked.
While Hong Kong may be an international city, the use of Cantonese is prominent in almost every part of your daily life. Usually, employers look for candidates who are proficient speaking and writing in both English and Chinese. This language requirement gives many disadvantages to a lot of the ethnic minorities in Hong Kong looking for a better job. Hong Kong’s education bureau has been struggling on how to tailor an education system for the EM students. A system that will allow the EMs to be proficient in Chinese but also not fail their class because of a language course, mainly because Chinese (Cantonese to be specific) is a challenging language to learn. Learning Chinese just like how the local students learn English is going to open themselves up to much more opportunities rather than the few before them due to the language requirements. If Hong Kong’s education system can help English as Second Language (ESL) students be proficient in English, why can’t it do the same for Chinese as Second Language (CSL) students?
Their inability to take the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education’s (the HKDSE which is similar to the GCE) Chinese paper due to the poorly designed CSL course gives then a disadvantage or even disables them from applying to the local universities. The CSL students generally take the GCSEs or the GCEs to replace their missing core Chinese paper from their university entrance exams. However, most universities intentionally give a scoring disadvantage to these students. Some don’t recognise it as a valid qualification. This leaves CSL students fighting for an even smaller portion of the tiny amount of local university spaces in Hong Kong. And trust me when I say, the university that you go to matters a great deal if you are thinking to work in Hong Kong, especially as an ethnic minority.
The issue, as mentioned earlier of language barriers, this naturally causes EMs mainly to be eligible for lower-paying jobs. Workplace inequality is one of the main reasons why EMs contribute to more than half of Hong Kong’s poverty. This is precisely why, even if, they try to get themselves a better life by finding a better job, they can’t.
Okay, let’s put this to a fair test and hypothetically say both candidates, one local and one EM) have same qualifications and language abilities. The likelihood the local candidate will be hired is much higher because employers tend to look down on people who come from third-world countries (e.g. the Philippines and Pakistan). In the eyes of many, EMs are only qualified for blue-collar jobs for Indians, Pakistanis and the Blacks, meanwhile, Filipinos are only meant to be domestic helpers.
If you have ever been to Hong Kong, or are living in Hong Kong, you must’ve stumbled upon the public housing estates and sub-divided/poor housing here. These housing complexes are for people at or below the poverty line. A lot of the tenants are EMs. While poverty and not being able to pay Hong Kong’s crazy high rents might be a big reason for them to be living in poor conditions before being allocated a flat at a public housing estate.
There is another shocking, and much more racist reason. A lot of landlords refuse to rent out their flats/houses to EMs. No matter the amount of money you are willing to pay or however much proof you provide them that you can pay your rent on time. They won’t rent it out to you just because you are an ethnic minority (this is exceptional for Whites though because Whites are usually given the flat at a much better deal than anyone else).
While the reason might be unknown as it is the landlord’s right to choose who they want to rent their property to, the best guess is that they fear the EMs cannot pay because EMs are known to be the “lower class” in Hong Kong’s society. Those landlords who are willing to rent out flats to EMs are strict and require routine and sudden check-ups.
In recent months, however, you can see that the discrimination towards EMs has slightly decreased due to the co-operation between different people during Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests since June 2019. Most of these people are the youth of Hong Kong, which is a good thing because even if the older generations continue being racist and discriminatory, the future of Hong Kong (i.e. today’s youth) won’t be. Two of the best examples of co-operation would be:
1. Ethnic minorities giving refreshments to Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protestors and chanting with them in support.
2. Locals cleaning HK’s biggest mosque, the Kowloon Mosque, after the police sprayed it with blue dye from the police water canon vans.
Some people might find the problems I mentioned minor and might even say that they shouldn’t even be considered as discrimination. But then, as an ethnic minority youth in Hong Kong, these problems significantly affect my quality of life. From not being able to find summer jobs because I cannot type Chinese on Microsoft word (despite being able to speak fluent Cantonese) to being racially attacked by landlords after landlords who just wouldn’t rent out their flats to me. Every day is a tough day for an EM in Hong Kong. However, problems of poverty and education aren’t exclusive to just EMs. There are a lot of locals in Hong Kong who are below the poverty line and live in terrible conditions but I just wanted to shed light on the problems faced by EMs as that is rarely talked about.
