The 'cheating expats' issue has certainly caused a stir, and my letter, (South China Morning Post, November 17), appears to have caused your correspondent Stephen Lam double vision.
His response headlined, 'Expats have only themselves to blame for bad sentiment' (Post, November 20), seems to have read much more into what I was saying than I had intended.
My point was simply that we need to be careful not to fall into the trap of labelling one group in society as cheats.
Not all of those recruited from overseas are cheats, many want to contribute to the good of Hong Kong and I also wondered if the 'expat' label helps to foster multicultural relations. But Mr Lam believes that pointing this out is patronising to the local Chinese, who have good cause to harbour 'anti-expat' feeling.
Expatriates, he says, are treated preferentially in terms of salaries and other benefits and are no longer needed here. (He does not explain why local firms are stupid enough to continue recruiting them.) Nor does he like women from the mainland who come here to give birth, because he feels that they are cheats too and he wonders why I did not mention them. But, then, I do not share his negative attitudes towards these people.
The Chief Executive in his recent policy speech held out the vision of Hong Kong as a first-class city. I hope he realises that this will inevitably mean an international city, with a multicultural population, trying its best to work together in harmony. I hope that Mr Lam can come to realise that, too.
