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Ian Young
SCMP Columnist
The Hongcouver
by Ian Young
The Hongcouver
by Ian Young

Hong Kong welcomes reverse migrants from Vancouver - now it wants their children too

Not content with the return of thousands of Hong Kong emigrants who have poured out of Vancouver since the handover, the SAR government now wants their kids, too.

The announcement by Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying in last week’s policy address  that the overseas children of Hong Kong permanent residents would be able to apply for one-year visas to allow them to look for work in the SAR has the potential to escalate the westward flow. But will it?
Reverse migration is a phenomenon that has already seen the Hong Kong-born population in greater Vancouver fall by 14 per cent, from 86,215 in 1996 to 73,770 in 2011. Yet the exodus has been far more extreme than that census data suggests, since there were around 20,500 arrivals in Vancouver from Hong Kong in the same period.

In other words, about 33,000 Hongkongers departed Vancouver in those 15 years (including deaths). What’s more, arrivals are now a mere trickle - in 2013, there were only 383 new Hong Kong immigrants for all of British Columbia.

Daniel Hiebert
UBC professor Daniel Hiebert has been studying the flows between Hong Kong and Vancouver for years. “There are many places that have these kinds of plans now,” he said of the visa scheme. “It’s becoming more common for countries to work through their diaspora populations as a source of newcomers, particularly countries facing demographic issues [such as a low birth rate].”

Hiebert said it was “probably Japan” that first tried to tap into this group, seeking to attract ethnic Japanese whose ancestors had emigrated, mainly to Latin America. But the idea failed in many ways, primarily because such migrants often found it difficult to assimilate into a Japanese society with which they were unfamiliar and from which they felt “very detached”.  “It was tough to integrate that population, and quite a few decided to move back to Brazil or wherever else they came from,” he said.

Hiebert noted that in the Japanese case, many of these migrants’ ancestors had left their homeland generations ago, so the situation was not exactly analogous to the Hong Kong government’s plan.

But similar cultural factors could come into play. Hiebert said a relative lack in proficiency in Cantonese could deter some children of emigrants from taking up the visa offer, as could a preference for Vancouver’s laid-back, outdoorsy lifestyle compared to that of high-density, high-intensity Hong Kong.

Nick So, a 29-year-old marketing strategist, moved to Vancouver from Hong Kong with his parents in 1990 when he was just four years old. He holds no Hong Kong residency, and thus could apply to the new scheme.

But the downside issues raised by Hiebert all resonate for So. He said he spoke Cantonese, but was not confident he spoke it well enough “to be successful in business. I’m not sure if there would be a language barrier, because my Chinese isn’t super-fluent.” 

Nick So
So said he and his girlfriend enjoyed a “kind of low key” lifestyle, and he liked his current job. “On a day-to-day basis, I think the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong might be too much for us,” he said.

Another downside consideration for So – one that was also raised by Hiebert - was the cost of housing in Hong Kong, the only city in the world with worse affordability than Vancouver.

Hiebert said he suspected that the bulk of the migratory flow from Vancouver to Hong Kong was over. “There may still be something left in the reverse flow, but I cannot see it happening at a colossal scale,” he said.

Yet the Canadian-born children of Hong Kong emigrants - as well as what he called the “1.5 generation” who left Hong Kong as very young children   – continued to “scan the opportunities available for them, both here [in Vancouver] and there [in Hong Kong]”. “Typically, that group of people still has family networks in Hong Kong. Uncles, aunts, second-cousins, whatever. So they’ve got places to crash for a while, they can look around and survey the scene,” he said.

“Don’t forget that very large numbers of the Hong Kong diaspora in Vancouver travel back and forth regularly, you’ve got non-stop flights that are quite affordable, even on a student budget…and if you have relatives you can stay with, then life is quite easy, to make that jump over there. Either way, people will very quickly decide whether the pace of Hong Kong and the economy of Hong Kong appeals to them.”
 

Hiebert said that even if some Vancouverites do take up the visa offer, it may not have huge, long-term implications. “Maybe the plan works as intended. But with a highly fluid population you’ve got to worry about retention as well as attraction…these kind of policies are never massive, crashing successes.”

The Hongcouver blog is devoted to the hybrid culture of its namesake cities: Hong Kong and Vancouver. All story ideas and comments are welcome. Connect with me by email [email protected] or on Twitter, @ianjamesyoung70

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