A number of letters have appeared in these columns asserting that the English Schools Foundation's (ESF) subsidised education is an expatriate privilege. They make me wonder whether Hong Kong's presumptuous self-designation as 'Asia's world city' should be 'the world's colonial city'.
From their experience of colonialism, Hong Kong's native denizens have internalised a self-deprecating mentality and become purblind to the iniquity of the established practice where they have to work more for less reward than expatriates do. Hong Kong students have a heavy workload and difficult exams knowing there is a separate school system with a light workload and easy exams proffering 'better' credentials to native English speakers to facilitate their entry first to famous universities and later to high-paid jobs. Why don't locals go to the more student-friendly schools? Because the other schools are for expatriates.
Expatriates have emerged as the new colonialists who lord over the city with an intangible authority that is more pervasive than the political control once wielded by the British. Students are bombarded by reminders that their English standard is no good and the cant that English is the key to success. The unspoken message is that their mother tongue is inferior.
From my experience as an 'expatriate' in Geneva and visits to great international cities all over the world, I never felt any of them need a 'good' English standard. In Hong Kong, success as an ideal has been reduced to the superficial objectives of getting rich and living an easy life. These objectives will not be achieved until one is true to oneself and not pretending to be someone else. Locals earn less than expatriates for equal work because to get a job done is not enough; what is expected is to get a job done in an expatriate manner.
That is why a local English-medium school system is not enough for learning English, and there is a separate schools system for expatriate children to retain their expatriate nuances. In the circumstances, I can't see how anyone could have faith in Hong Kong's future as a respectable international city.
Julia Kwong, Mid-Levels