Hong Kong returnees: There and back again

By Tiffany Wong
For CNN

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HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- One year ago Alina Huo traded her New York apartment for a bedroom at her parents' home so she could return to her native Hong Kong.

Living with her parents has provided challenges, says 33-year-old Alina.

"My parents can just come into my room when I'm asleep and put a blanket over me and I'd just jump out of my bed, you know?" Alina laughs. "I live with them now, and that just hasn't happened since I was 15 years old."

Alina isn't alone in facing a readjustment to returning home; she's increasingly joined by tens of thousands of Hong Kong-born men and women who share common threads: a desire for a Western education, a tradition of migration by Hong Kong families and growing sentiments by those who left that their futures look brightest back home.

As Hong Kong approaches the 10th anniversary of its handover from British to Chinese rule, fewer residents are choosing to travel overseas to seek their fortune.

Every family has its own story for leaving and coming back, but these same men and women also report a pattern of challenges: culture shock in both Hong Kong and in the West, that leaves the nagging question: What does "home" mean?

Satellite kids, astronaut parents

Emigration from Hong Kong abroad has been a common phenomenon for many generations of residents.

One academic study labels this phenomenon with a Cantonese slang that describes these migrants as "astronauts:" often the husband who stays in Hong Kong to support his wife and children, to move abroad for a prized Western education and a perceived better quality of life.

"Satellite kids," explains Alina, are the children of "astronaut parents" who sent away while their parents are more rooted in their home country.

Fellow satellite kid, William Ng, says integration abroad is not easy. He left for Australia with his family in 1989, at the age of 10. While living with his brother and sister at the time, being outside of Hong Kong still meant feelings of loneliness as he faced challenges with having to learn English and needing to adapt to a whole new culture, he says.

Like Alina, he enjoyed his freedom abroad away from the watchful eyes of parents. "I was actually happier living without my parents around since we had more freedom. And in Australia you could drive to a different location for a weekend visit which made life very satisfying."

Government figures show families of young migrants such as Alina and William have been part of a larger movement of Hong Kong emigration that began before 1997's handover from Britain to China. But that movement away from Hong Kong has diminished, figures show.

Emigration from Hong Kong peaked in 1992 -- five years before the handover -- when the figure reached 66,000, according to a 2004 Hong Kong government census. The number of emigrants dropped to 30,900 in 1997, and to 10,300 in 2006, according to government statistics.

While these families often obtained foreign passports offering them the option to stay abroad after the handover, many returned to Hong Kong to reunite their families (husband-wife, parents-children) and what seems to be a rediscovery of the growing bounties back home.

Emigrating for education

Professor Kwok-Bun Chan, head and professor of the Sociology Department at Hong Kong Baptist University, spent many years studying and living in Canada. A Hong Kong returnee himself, he offers other reasons why emigrants choose to go abroad for education and to come back for work.

With respects to leaving Hong Kong, Chan is less concerned with the political climate of Hong Kong's handover as a main factor for residents.

He criticizes the ongoing problem with the quality and accessibility of Hong Kong's educational system. It's too rigid, he says, with excessive emphasis on memorization and a heavy emphasis on exams without providing enough intellectual space "to think, to imagine, to ponder, to ruminate" through project-based learning.

"Education in Hong Kong is very stressful." So, the West for them represents an alternative to the Asian educational system. In addition to expanding their children's cultural horizons, Chan says, they also act upon their unspoken admiration and romance of the West.

" The person expects to be comfortable at home, but in fact, they discover that it's not. So this mentality perpetuates as an eternal drifter. I think they are quite restless." - Professor Kwok-Bun Chan, Hong Kong Baptist University

Australia, meanwhile, has a reputation for offering quality university educations and is close to Asia, making it an attractive destination for migrants, Chan says. Australia ranks with the United States and Canada as one of the three most popular destinations for Hong Kong emigrants, according to the Hong Kong Security Bureau.

After achieving this perceived dream, why are so many Hong Kong emigrants coming back?

Desires to reunite with separated family members, care for aging parents and personal decisions to pursue growing job opportunities in Asia's booming economy, say some people interviewed for the story.

However, Chan's study of 30 returnees, mostly from Canada, points to another factor: many emigrants return because of prejudice and discrimination experienced abroad. With respects to the job search, he cites that the "color line" continues to be associated with one's occupational future. And once the kids graduate abroad, they have the choice to settle down in a career abroad, or to return to Hong Kong. Many choose to come back.

"Canada, after all is, culturally not an Asian place, not a Chinese place," he says.

Reverse culture shock

Back in Hong Kong, reintegration is not a straightforward process, Chan says. Many who left Hong Kong spent 10 years or more living in a different lifestyle, learning from a different educational system and working in a different economy.

Chan, however, says returning to Hong Kong is not without its cultural and sociological differences: "They (returnees) have suddenly realized that they have changed.

"You have been in the West, you have changed. You have been socialized to begin to instill within yourself some values such as gender equality, democracy, accountability, you treat your parents nicely, but your parents should not be unapproachable."

"The person expects to be comfortable at home, but in fact, they discover that it's not. So this mentality perpetuates as an eternal drifter. I think they are quite restless."

Even after returning to Hong Kong in 2001, William still finds his family and himself constantly on the move. When contacted for an interview, William was already preparing for a business trip to Taiwan, answering questions on a laptop from his hotel room. At the same time, his parents were on their way to living in Australia for a month.

They miss the fresh air and they want a break from the materialistic mindset of Hong Kong, he says, adding that Hong Kong lacks an identity that revolves around something besides making money.

Citing the sociological phenomenon in which returnees are "neither here nor there," Chan says continuous migration makes these people adopt a mindset where they are used to constantly "living elsewhere."

Asked to describe "home," the Huos' response, like that of many Hong Kong returnees, is complex. Even though they've returned to Hong Kong on several occasions, each trip greeted them, they say, with a noticeable increase in the region's material wealth and the increasing use of the Mandarin language.

Close to home, moving ahead

For the moment, families such as the Huos are in high-sprits for the future of Hong Kong and to finally be living in the same city after many years.

"We're happy to see Hong Kong the way it is -- the way after its return to China," says Alina's mother, Bonnie. "And everything came to be a smooth transition. We're more confident in this part of the world than we had [been] in the past decade."

Alina, meanwhile, is content to further her career for now on this side of the world, closer to her family. Having returned to live in her parents' apartment for the past year, she admits that home is still New York.

But, she explains, her family is in Hong Kong, which makes it a part of her as well: "I don't think we're living in an age where we can say that 'home' is a physical place or a mental place. I think it's just where your loved ones are and where you feel the most comfortable."

In terms of carving out her own space, Alina is looking forward to branching out soon to her own apartment, down the street from her family, and at "home," for now, in Hong Kong.

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