Westerners like me who have lived in Hong Kong for a long time now have an identity problem

Being told to ‘go home’ in a city that feels increasingly unwelcoming poses a problem when I have few connections to Australia, my country of birth, never mind my ‘ancestral home’ of Munich

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A man walk in Hong Kong’s Central district in October last year. Hong Kong the international city increasingly feels like a thing of the past. Photo: Winson Wong

Published: 6:45am, 1 Jun 2021Updated: 7:32am, 1 Jun 2021

The regularly-voiced response from some readers to political opinions in this column, “if you don’t like it here then go home”, is somewhat problematic for me. Hong Kong is where I have lived for more than three decades and I have few connections to the place of my birth, Australia.

My father was from Germany and my only links to that country are relatives I met for the first time two years ago. Tell me to go back to where I am from and I can only shake my head.

This is no doubt mystifying to some Asians, and especially Chinese. The concept of “ancestral home” remains strong, to the point that it can still be a matter-of-fact part of official forms.

Most broadly, for Chinese, it is the place of origin of a surname, and more specifically, the patriarchal birthplace in China of someone’s great-great-grandfather. This factors into personal identity and can lead to stereotyping.

For a country like China, which is the size of a continent, “ancestral home” is therefore also a form of cultural shorthand. The Chiu Chow people from eastern Guangdong province have a reputation for being shrewd businesspeople, Shanghainese for being fashion conscious no matter the cost, and those from Fujian province, enterprising.

Hong Kong’s richest man Li Ka-shing is from the Chiu Chow community. Photo: @lksfoundation/Instagram

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