Ah Nan looks like any fashionable Hong Kong woman. She appears inconspicuous in her trendy sleeveless top, jeans and flip-flops in Mongkok. But this is her way of concealing her identity.
'I don't wear old-fashioned clothes so that police are unlikely to want to check my identity,' she said. 'Whenever I see police my heart jumps. I immediately grab my mobile phone and pretend to be talking, or head into shops.' When Ah Nan is home alone, she ensures the door is locked and never picks up the phone when it rings. Her family members are just as vigilant, closing the door on their apartment whenever they hear the watchman's walkie-talkie, fearing it might be the police.
Twenty-seven-year old Ah Nan - which is not her real name - is a right-of-abode seeker living a secret life in Hong Kong. Her parents have been granted permanent residency, but she is one of a small number of mainlanders who live a life of secrecy, warily going out in public and slipping into the shadows at the first sighting of police.
She is not alone in her fear. The Immigration Department says there are 150 abode claimants still hiding in Hong Kong. They are the last of thousands who lived here at the peak of the right-of-abode saga about six years ago. Back then, as many as 8,000 claimants resided in Hong Kong, with most electing to return to the mainland before a grace period set by the government ended in March 2002.
The Basic Law of Hong Kong says the children of Hong Kong permanent residents have the right of abode, but it does not specify whether at least one parent had to be a permanent resident of Hong Kong at the time of their child's birth. Despite the situation being unclear, thousands of mainland-born children flooded across the border, sparking scores of court cases as they fought for residency status.
The claimants were jubilant when the Court of Final Appeal ruled on January 29, 1999, interpreted the Basic Law to mean that children born before their parents became permanent residents were entitled to stay. But their joy was short-lived as the government, claiming that 1.67 million people would flood into Hong Kong if they were given the right, asked the National People's Congress Standing Committee to reinterpret the Basic Law. That June, the committee ruled that the abode seekers didn't have the right to stay because at the time of their birth neither parent was a Hong Kong permanent resident.
