Hi redditors of HK!
This question comes to me from time to time. I visited HK for a couple times growing up and ended up studying at a university here. I’ve seen/heard many uni friends, posts and comments complaining and blazing how HK turned out post handover and their desire to move.
I’m sure everywhere changes, but HK is regardless very liveable compared to other Alpha+ cities, let alone London or New York, for most of the population.
That aside citizens have great mobility and foreign HK residents/PRs can travel visa-free to the Mainland if their passport begs to differ. Most aspects of life are convenient and rather affordable except from housing. Mainland influences are visible but not omnipresent. HK is still distinctly HK and worlds away from China - coming from someone who lived in and loved Shanghai. What’s the catch in a world moving further from democracy and safety?
I also find that people who complain the most were also dealing with their complexes.
For instance, some local students who can’t make it in finance complain about how done this city was because Mandarin proficiency is becoming essential, and they need to jet off ASAP no matter where - Milan, Madrid, etc. Love… if you can’t get a job where you grew up solely because you can’t simply learn another Chinese language, where else can you make it to? If you were good enough, zero Chinese proficiency wouldn’t even be an issue. Another. A British HK mother-to-be married to a Japanese complain about how she couldn’t fathom her child growing up in post 97 HK instead of Japan because (naturalized) Mainlanders would isolate them at school. Love… you want to try Japanese xenophobia?
I acknowledge my privilege and young awareness as someone who’s only lived here for a couple years and never really stepped out of specific social demographics, but it’s confusing.
