I am a Malaysian of Indian descent residing in Singapore who travels to Hong Kong regularly.
Hong Kong's immigration officials appear to single out arriving passengers depending on their ethnic origin rather than their point of origin, as they claim. Every time I arrive here, almost always from Singapore, my passport is checked thoroughly and I am asked questions the answers to which are already in the passport. The officers never fail to check all additional cards in the side pocket of my passport, including my Singapore re-entry card.
In my last trip last week, the lady officer even ran my US visa on her machine and keyed in some information from other pages of my passport. What business is it of the Hong Kong Immigration Department to record information from the visas of other countries in my passport? I always try to react with good humour and attribute this racist basis of singling people out to a bewildered administration unable to distinguish between the variety of people of similar ethnic origin who visit Hong Kong. I wonder how many real troublemakers of more agreeable races have managed to get into Hong Kong because of this.
EDMUND DANIEL Singapore
