Hong Kong Chinese leaving Vancouver ‘by the thousands’
The gap between ethnic Chinese from Hong Kong and those from mainland China seems to be widening.
The different attitudes displayed by people from Hong Kong and more recent arrivals from mainland China contributes to the tension in the city of Richmond over the expansion of Chinese-language signs, according to a report in The South China Morning Post.
At the same time, bilingual Hong Kong residents (who can often speak both Chinese and English) have almost stopped arriving altogether in Richmond and Metro Vancouver. Indeed, the newspaper suggests thousands of former Hong Kong residents per year now seem to be going home or elsewhere.
By far the greatest proportion of ethnic Chinese arriving in Metro Vancouver now come from The People’s Republic of China.
Here are two recent stories from The South China Morning Post, which is based in Hong Kong. Together the stories paint a dramatic picture of diverging immigration trends and cultural differences among ethnic Chinese immigrants.
This first excerpt, from a strong South China Morning Post story by Ian Young,explains how the controversy over Chinese-language signs in Richmond expanded only after more mainland Chinese arrived, beginning about a decade ago:
…. Kerry Starchuck’s concerns {about the preponderence of Chinese signs in Richmond) roughly coincided with a boom in mainland Chinese migration.In the past decade, mainlanders overtook bilingual Hongkongers as Richmond’s main immigrants and census data suggests they now outstrip Hong Kong arrivals three to one.Between 2006 and 2011, Richmond’s population of people claiming Mandarin as their mother tongue grew by 7,725, while for Cantonese it grew by 2,680.Starchuk, a fourth-generation Richmond resident whose great-grandfather’s name graces the local William Bridge Elementary school, said she was unaware of that demographic shift, but she knew changes were afoot in her beloved city. “I just knew that something had happened. Our real estate market went crazy. And I was wondering ‘what’s going on here?’,” she said.… Chak Au was the only Richmond councillor who voted in favour of investigating the issue of Chinese signage on Monday.
Chak Au, formerly of Hong Kong, was the only Richmond councillor who voted in favour of investigating the issue of Chinese signage.Au a family therapist and former assistant professor at Chinese University of Hong Kong, agreed with Starchuk that political correctness made some reluctant to discuss the matter.“I came to Canada in 1989. I’ve seen a lot of changes, and in Richmond this issue is not going away,” Au said.… Au said some business owners “are bringing their way of doing business from their place of origin”, but neglecting English signage and non-Chinese customers “is not a good business model”.“They don’t realise that they have to reach out. I don’t think that they don’t care, they are just unaware,” Au said.Starchuk hopes to keep the issue in the spotlight. “This is my only home and I am protective of it,” she said. “I love Richmond, but I don’t feel that what’s happening now is inclusive. Where did everybody else go? It seems like it happened overnight.”
Here is another informative excerpt that captures the divide between ethnic Chinese from Hong Kong and Mainland China — from an April 13 story in the South China Morning Post
According to immigration data, mainland Chinese arrivals in Vancouver outstripped those from Hong Kong by 7,872 to 286 in 2012.But even this 27-to-one disparity does not adequately portray the scale of the demographic shift that is taking place, because while the mainlander population is soaring in Vancouver, the number of Hong Kong immigrants actually present in the city has been falling sharply.Mainlander numbers in Vancouver increased 88 per cent to 137,245 between 1996 and 2006, according to the most recent full census data. But Hong Kong immigrants present in the city fell 12 per cent, to 75,780, with nearly all of those losses occurring in the latter five years.Although 18,890 new Hong Kong immigrants arrived in Vancouver in the decade to 2006, the fall in the number of such immigrants present in the city suggests that 29,325 left Vancouver in the same period. Overall, Hongkongers seem to be leaving Vancouver by the thousands, just as mainlanders are arriving by the tens of thousands.Real estate agent Julia Lau was part of the Hong Kong wave who stayed, and she now estimates that 80 per cent of her buyers are mainlanders. “I’ve been a real estate agent for eight years. In the beginning we had a lot of buyers from Hong Kong and Taiwan, but I think maybe they all went home. Now, they are all from [mainland] China,” said Lau, at an open house for a home in the Oakridge neighbourhood, where potential buyers whispered in Putonghua as they inspected the luxury fittings.Canada does not keep records on foreign ownership, but a Landcor Data analysis of all 164 homes sold for more than C$3 million (HK$23 million) in Vancouver’s core Westside neighbourhood in 2010 showed that 74 per cent were sold to buyers whose names were mainland Chinese spelling variants and who did not have any Western legal name.
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