Difficulties
of integrating into Hong Kong society –Taking actions to build up a harmonious
society with ethnic minorities.
Thanks to Hong Kong’s
historical background and immigration issue, it is a society combined with
different races, religions and nationalities. With more than forty-five hundred
thousand ethnic minorities living in Hong Kong, the deep-rooted problem of their
integration has raised a significant amount of controversy (Census and
Statistics Department, 2011). Ethnic minorities have various cultural
background and living styles when comparing Hong Kong Chinese. This type of
problems has caused a wide variety of misunderstanding and discrimination among
ethnic minorities living in Hong Kong. According to research, almost half of
the ethnic minority interviewees felt that they were discriminated as
second-class citizens. Apart from that they also felt being discriminated
against daily activities, namely: shopping and opening personal bank account
(Department Social Work of The Chinese University of Hong Kong(CUHK), 2005).
Seemingly, ethnic minorities in Hong Kong are facing three crucial issues,
ranging from inadequate understanding of Hong Kong culture and social services,
the discrimination from local citizens to insufficient mastery of Chinese
language. Only if the government setting up various methods, namely:
implementing comprehensive settlement support program and establishing
mentorship program can this program be tackled in the foreseeable future.
It cannot be denied that
the one of the crucial problems facing by ethnic minority immigrants is the
inadequate understanding of Hong Kong culture and social service. As most of
the ethnic immigrants were lived at Southeast Asian before they came to Hong
Kong. Representing their cultural background and living style are different
when to compare to local citizens. They celebrate their festivals and believes
in different religions, at which the ethnic minorities are not able to
experience and integrate into the mainstream local culture. Also, with the
insufficient understanding towards social services, they are not able to seek
assistances when facing problems. According to research, ninety percent out of
141 interviewees did not ask for help from the government and non-government
organizations before (Caritas, 2010). The reason behind might because of
unawareness of the service and lack of local connection. Those problems result
in a slow integration of ethnic immigrant in our society, causing culturally
exclusion and failure in building up their sense of belonging to our society.
Seemingly, the next
problem to be noted here is the discrimination from local citizens. This issue
can be separated into two perspectives –employment and daily discrimination.
For employment discrimination, a survey shows that ethnic minorities felt that
their ethnicity determines their job development and payments (Department
Social Work of CUHK, 2005). From ethnic minorities’ personal experience, they
will easily fail to get a job even they were more qualified than other
competitors, at which the reason behind might related to racial discrimination.
For daily discrimination, the same survey shows that racial discrimination most
commonly happens in their daily activities including shopping and working.
Taking workplace as an example, the ethnic employees are discriminated by their
employers, at which they might have more duties but with fewer payments
(Caritas, 2010). Those problems result in unequal among different racial,
festering the unharmonious social phenomenon and racial discrimination.
Apart from the problems of insufficient understanding of Hong Kong
culture and discrimination from local citizens, the final problem to be noted
here is the inadequate mastery of Chinese language. A report suggests that most
of the South Asians found difficulties in learning Cantonese speaking for daily
conversation. At the same time, South Asians students are not able to be
familiar with the Chinese language, which is a crucial subject for further
study in Hong Kong (Centre for Civil Society and Governance, 2011). Another
report shows that the Chinese proficiency of ethnic minority students aged between
12 and 23 is almost the same level as the primary school one student (Oxfam,
2014). Due to their insufficient Chinese standard, the chance for pursuing
higher education qualifications and future career development will be limited
to ethnic minorities. At which will causing the problem of cross-generation
poverty and widening the wealth gap among our society, because of the
inadequate chance to complete for university education.
It cannot be denied that
this is our responsibility to nurture an equal and harmonious society. It is
hard to imagine how society is operating smoothly if the ethnic immigrants are
failed in integrating to our community. Therefore, the following suggestions
should be implemented by the Hong Kong government so as to tackling the problem
from its roots.
Integrating ethnic
immigrants in our society, the comprehensive settlement support program should
provide by the government for ethnic minorities before they go into our
community, to cope with the problem of inadequate understanding of Hong Kong
culture and mastery of Chinese language. This idea is borrowed from South Korea
Government, aiming to integrate North Korean refugees into their mainstream
society. The government should operate institutions that provide housing and
basic education for the immigrants for few weeks to few months. The training
could mainly focus on language and cultural teaching. For the adult, vocational
training, psychological counseling, social service briefing and career-aptitude
test can also be included in the training (Cho and Kim, 2011). After the
training, the institution should connect the ethnic immigrant to potential
employers. The ethnic minorities will be empowered to sustain their life with
own ability after engaging in the mainstream society (Cho and Kim, 2011). For
students, more Chinese academic courses and after-school tutorial classes
should be provided, so as to narrowing the Chinese learning gap between ethnic
minorities’ students and local students. These suggestions are expected to
equip ethnic minorities with enough understanding towards Hong Kong community.
At which, this policy might reduce their pressure when facing a new living
environment and increasing their integration and sense of belonging to our
society.
Apart from the training,
the government should implement the mentorship program for ethnic immigrants,
to provide assistances when they are facing problems (Cho and Kim, 2011). It is
suggested that the government should recruit some local citizens as their
mentors, who are required to introduce Hong Kong and provide basic assistance
to their mentees. By inviting residents to be their mentor, more chance will be
provided for them to build up mutual understanding and trust, helping the
immigrant to build up their local network and reduce the problem racial
discrimination from the local citizen.
To sum up, it is time for
us to rethink and reflect on ourselves that how an equal treatment is critical
to our society. The government should take the lead to integrate ethnic
minorities into our society, while we should take our initiative to accept and
tolerance them, so as to leading a harmonious society with ethnic minorities.
Reference:
Caritas Community Centre (2010). Survey
on working condition of South Asians in Hong Kong. Retrieved April
9, 2016 from, Web site: http://klncc.caritas.org.hk/private/document/633.pdf
Census and Statistics Department
(2011). Thematic Report: Ethnic Minorities.
Retrieved April 9, 2016 from Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong
Special Administrative Region Web site: http://www.census2011.gov.hk/pdf/EM.pdf
Centre for Civil Society and Governance, The University of Hong
Kong (2011). Study on Racial Encounters and Discrimination Experienced by South
Asians. EOC Research Reports, 1-6.
Cho, D. and Kim, Y. (2011). A study on
settlement service for North Korean defectors. Journal of Korean Public
Police and Security Studies, 8 (2), 25-50.
Department of Social Work (2005).
Survey Results on Racial Discrimination in Hong Kong. Retrieved April 9, 2016
from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Department of Social Work Web site: http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/cpr/pressrelease/051028e.htm
Oxfam Hong Kong (2014). Survey on the
Chinese Learning Challenges South Asian Ethnic Minority Kindergarten Students
from Low-Income Families Face. Retrieved April 9, 2016 from, Web site: http://www.oxfam.org.hk/filemgr/2639/Oxfam_Surveyon_Dec2.pdf