Once enthralled by Hong Kong’s opportunities, many young professionals from mainland China now feel the political upheaval has made staying ‘not worth the trouble.’
Twenty-five years ago, Comrades: Almost A Love Story enraptured audiences with its story of two mainland Chinese migrants eking out a life in 1980s Hong Kong. The film captured the city through the lens of mainland imagination—a space both foreign and familiar, a commercialized land of opportunity, unto which desires of assimilation and prosperity were projected.
Now, as the 2019 protests and Beijing’s subsequent quelling of dissent calls Hong Kong’s political future into question, that imagination has radically changed. The persistent understanding of Hong Kong as a capitalist metropolis has been replaced with one of a city in crisis. Many young professionals from mainland China who came to Hong Kong in search of opportunities are now reconsidering whether to stay.
In Comrades, the main character Lee Kiu (played by Maggie Cheung) calls Hong Kong “a land full of gold.” She and Lai Siu-kwan, her foil and romantic interest played by Leon Lai, are strivers. Their imagination of Hong Kong is defined by a fundamental optimism that for their efforts, the city will reward them.
After the handover of Hong Kong to Chinese rule, that optimism only increased. Young mainlanders flooded into the city in increasing numbers, with faith in the gradual improvement of relations between the former British colony and Beijing. In 1997, the year of the handover, there were just over 790 mainland Chinese students enrolled in Hong Kong universities. In 2018, that number surpassed 12,000.
“I believed that Hong Kong’s economy would get better and better, and so would its relationship with the mainland.”
Xiao, 28, who preferred not to use her full name because she did not want to be identified by her employers, moved to Hong Kong from her hometown of Guangzhou in 2012 to attend the University of Hong Kong. “I believed that Hong Kong’s economy would get better and better,” she says, “and so would its relationship with the mainland.”
The steady influx of mainland Chinese belies the fact that for many of them, life in Hong Kong was never easy. During the 1980s and ’90s, new arrivals from the mainland were branded “Ah Chan,” a derogatory term originating from an uncouth mainland character named Cing Chan in the 1979 television series The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. They had less education on average and worked lower-paying jobs in the city. Many lived in concentrated poverty.
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Into the 21st century, Hong Kong’s soaring home prices have made it one of the most expensive cities in the world. More than 200,000 people comprising the city’s poorest live in small, subdivided flats known as “cage homes.”
Yet none of this has deterred young mainland Chinese, especially those seeking a path into the city’s middle and upper class—until the protests thrust Hong Kong’s political complexities to the fore.
In 2014, protesters staged a 79-day mass sit-in to call for what they deemed genuine universal suffrage. They were cleared by force. Three years later, Beijing-backed Carrie Lam was elected as Hong Kong’s chief executive.
For the young professionals from mainland China, the larger political context of deteriorating relations has often seeped into daily encounters. Amid rising localism in Hong Kong and rising nationalism on the mainland, they struggle to navigate life as politics looms large.
Xiao entered university just before the 2014 protests began. Her parents had encouraged her to go to Hong Kong because she aspired to become a lawyer. They believed that Hong Kong’s legal environment was more stable and transparent than that of the mainland.
Fluent in Cantonese, Xiao believed that Hong Kong would be ideal for her future development. She did not anticipate the feelings of alienation that would come. Although she never encountered explicit discrimination during her years in university, it was difficult to fit in with her classmates. So when protests erupted again in 2019 against a controversial extradition bill, existing political divides escalated into direct conflict.
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Milanie, who did not give her full name to avoid being recognized by people who know her, moved to Hong Kong in June 2017 for a job assignment. Originally from Hunan, she eventually went to Guangzhou to pursue a career in marketing, which led her to Hong Kong. She arrived with hopes of making the city her home. She took Cantonese lessons and tried to make local friends. Four years in, however, almost all of her friends were other mainlanders in Hong Kong.
“He told me, ‘People like you are ruining this city.’ I was so shocked. I felt like the city didn’t want me here.”
She recalls one encounter she had on the subway during the height of the protests in 2019. While she was speaking on the phone in Mandarin, a man came over and shoved her. “He told me, ‘People like you are ruining this city,’” she says. “I was so shocked. I felt like the city didn’t want me here.”
While the discrimination of the ’80s and ’90s often depicted mainland Chinese as rural and backward cousins, the acrimony today mainly stems from their wealth. Many mainland Chinese professionals in Hong Kong work high-paying jobs in the financial industry, with lives centered around the high-rises of Central.
“There’s a real disconnect between middle-class, mainland professionals in Hong Kong and Hong Kong society.”
Xiao graduated with a degree in law and accounting in 2018 and began work at a Hong Kong-based law firm. “There’s a real disconnect between middle-class, mainland professionals in Hong Kong and Hong Kong society,” she says. “They’re completely detached from local communities.”
As Beijing tightens its hold over Hong Kong with the national security law, that rift has only widened. Hong Kong’s position in the mainland consciousness has radically changed as well. Once enthralled by the city’s opportunities, many young professionals from mainland China now feel the political upheaval has made staying “not worth the trouble.”
Milanie, and many around her, had supported the initial anti-extradition bill demonstrations, “when they were peaceful,” she says. But eventually, she felt a sense of alienation—her national identity began to feel incompatible with the society around her. It was, as she put it, an “inescapable conflict.” Hong Kong’s struggle was ultimately not hers.
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Milanie says she plans to return to Guangzhou before 2022. She remains optimistic about Hong Kong’s future—“the good things are still here; it just needs more time”—but she does not see herself building a life in the city anymore.
Xiao left Hong Kong for London to pursue a career opportunity in 2020. She brings up her dismay at the passing of the national security law but also says she understands Beijing’s decision.
“Hong Kong is a puzzle,” she says. “It’s just very, very complicated. I really hope someday, someone can solve it. But I’m definitely not that person, and until then, I don’t think I’ll be back.”
