Migrants in Hong Kong

Introduction

Hong Kong is one of the two Special Administrative Regions of the People’s Republic of China, it is one of the most densely population with 7millions people. Besides, Hong Kong is an international city that consist of different nationalities which gather lots of cultures. In additional, Hong Kong is a unique meeting place for east and west, a combination of Chinese heritage, British colonial influences and high-tech modernity. Chinese and English are the official languages. Last but not least, Hong Kong is a world-class financial, trading and business center which attract lots of businessmen or companies to set up their brands in Hong Kong.

Basic information of my target migrant in Hong Kong

Ethnic minorities in Hong Kong is mainly focus on those coming from South Asia, Middle East

and Africa which including Pakistanis, Indians, Indonesians, Nepalese and South Asian. Most

of the ethnic minorities in Hong Kong belong to the grass root level. Actually, Japanese and

Korean should also include in the ethnic minorities, however both of them belong to

Mongoloid East Asian type as a result the society does not recognize them in the ethnic

minorities.

Pakistanis are part of the South Asian minority population in Hong Kong. The 2011 census

mentioned that there were 18042pakistanis in Hong Kong which is 0.3% of the Hong Kong

total population. Besides, among the total Pakistani population in Hong Kong, 37.6% of the

Pakistanis were born in Hong Kong, which was relatively high when comparing to other

ethnic minority groups that stayed in Hong Kong.

Push factor

Pakistanis first settled in Hong Kong in the 19th century because there was frequent trading between India and China. As there is limitation of the business opportunities in Pakistan as the two major business in there are cotton and rice which they do not always export to other countries so when comparing to Hong Kong, Hong Kong has lots of opportunities for starting different business. Soon then, more and more Pakistanis choose to migrant to Hong Kong, as most of the relatives stay in Hong Kong, their family members also follow their husbands or grandparents move to Hong Kong in order not to be separated.

Pull factor

The economic status can both involve in the push and pull factor, Hong Kong is an international city which contain lots of business opportunities such as electronic and they can export back to the country and even other Middle East countries which earn more than in Pakistan. Besides, Hong Kong has a well educational and medical system in which Pakistan does not have as it is still a developing countries, as a result it is also not as civil as in Hong Kong, so it attracts Pakistanis who chasing for civil and technological place.

Place they live and Reason

Most of the Pakistanis live in Kowloon or the New Territories, with 78% living in the private housing and the remaining of 20% household lived in the public renting housing. As in Pakistan, people used to living in a larger space which it is not easy to find in the Hong Kong since the property rent in here is so expensive, it is only cheaper in those rural area such as New Territories in which has more larger size of housing. Although it mentioned that 78% Pakistanis are living in the private housing, it doesn’t mean that they are wealth enough.

As it is difficult for them to find public housing, as first, some of them may have lack of language support, and second they may not know how to apply the rental housing and even some of them are not qualified for applying public housing. As a result, most of them choose to rent the private housing. Besides, most of the Pakistanis in Hong Kong earn less, so rent the accommodation in both Kowloon and New Territories is much cheaper when comparing to the accommodation in Hong Kong side.

Pakistanis is holding the HK ID card

Stereotype & Prejudice

Either stereotype or prejudice does exist in Pakistanis who live in Hong Kong, they used to work as construction workers, guards or porters which belongs to “Elementary occupations”. As a result, not all the people respect them especially for those traditional generation may even called them as “Ar Cha” which is a nickname for all the Pakistanis with the meaning that they are always worse than us. Besides, they always suspect that involving in those crimes related to sexual harassment or stealing as there is a lot of news in Pakistan reporting about