Nepali community: missing the opportunity in Hong Kong

Chura Thapa

1 July 2009, Hong Kong

Hong Kong has a tiny population of Nepali community. According to Hong Kong Government figures there are roughly less than twenty thousand Nepalese nationals living in Hong Kong as permanent residents. Although the presence of Nepali nationals in Hong Kong can be traced back to British colonial times, the civilian habitation only began after the British packed up their colonial baggage and left Hong Kong in 1997.

Hong Kong’s return to China after almost 156 years of British colonial grip outshined Chinese pride in the city. Gripped by joy and astonishment over the establishment of Chinese sovereignty over Hong Kong, government officials ignored the presence of some overseas nationals like the Nepalese, an alien component of the population, in Hong Kong. Embarrassing revelations of discrimination of Hong Kong’s Nepalese nationals by the local community in the early 2000s awakened the government which initiated various alternative measures to alleviate the problems of the community. In order to establish an effective communication with various ethnic groups in Hong Kong and find ways to serve the community Hong Kong Government then established Race Relations Unit which is under the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau currently.

Much has changed since then. The Race Relations Unit is actively channeling different issues of various ethnic minority communities in Hong Kong to the relevant sections of the government and actively coordinating with various Chinese and non-Chinese NGOs to best serve their interests in Hong Kong. With a small number of staffs visible, the Unit seems to be striving hard to communicate with different communities, to channel their problems and to fund and monitor various projects for the ethnic minorities.

With its effort and support, several institutions and NGOs including VTC are offering Chinese language education for ethnic minorities. Various academic and professional institutions in Hong Kong have begun to introduce English medium courses suitable and essential to ethnic minorities. Primary and secondary schools across Hong Kong have been designated to cater for the new comers and provided funding for Chinese language education. Community support service projects have been funded for Pakistani and Nepalese community by the government for the last three years. Lately the Government has funded for four community service centers which will also provide Chinese and English language courses for ethnic minorities. Race Relations Unit has funded for radio programmes in Nepali language and Urdu language for the last five years.

However, members of ethnic minority communities seem to be ignoring the Government’s support and initiatives for integration of the communities into Hong Kong society. Chinese language education and learning are considered the keys to the integration of ethnic minorities into Hong Kong’s mainstream society. There are tremendous opportunities of learning Chinese language in Hong Kong and equally awaiting opportunities if Chinese language is learnt. Although some community leaders complain of being confined to unskilled jobs in Hong Kong, they have shown little interest to persuade the members in learning language and join various vocational as well as professional trainings which are available in English medium. Learning the language as well as the culture of the local community is also another important element in social integration. In order to learn another community’s culture, one has to communicate and get mixed with the community members. However, after years of residence in the Chinese populated city it would be a difficult mission to find a handful of people who greet the next door Chinese neighbour in Chinese language. Without the effort and hard work by the community members themselves, the fate of future generation cannot be prosperous.

Nepalese community leaders as well as members should realize the urgency of grabbing the educational and professional opportunities available in Hong Kong and get mixed up with the local Chinese population if they really feel Hong Kong as their home.

Comments (8)

Chura, good article I dont deny learning Chinese language but your are focusing too much learning in Chinese language. Just learning Chinese language does not open the door of opportunity the most important is to get higher university qualification which can peruse the greatest possibilities to access the opportunity of world from Hong Kong. I did my higher secondary in Hong Kong and degree from Hong Kong University, which did not required Chinese language for my study, all I need to study in English. I did my Hons Degree in ITMS now currently I am working in corporate company as Project Manager all we have is English speaking environment. Most of the Hong Kong corporate companies serve around the world which they need to communicated in English. English language is very important that can help you to study in University.

Nirmal, do you know - Joint University Programmes Admissions System (JUPAS) ? You and Chura both study in in English and on self finance way not from JUPAS. But most (all most) of our Nepalese students are not rich enough to pay HK$120000 + for their degree, in this way our new generation must go through Local root like JUPAS and get more opportunities. for this we must learn local language.

Yes you are right but do you know how many local student could able to join the university and if you know well about JUPAS then you must know why most of the EMI and International student could able to join the University, from the recent report of Kong Chamber of Commerce most of the local student could not join the university due to their poor English language. Even you join JUPAS it does not mean you can study university in free of cost, maybe you need to look once more about JUPAS, even those student who join the university throw JUPAS they need to pay the fees. In Hong Kong no body pay the university fees from their pocket, most of them they apply for the financial assistant loan from the student assistant agency or continue education fund. The bottom line is learning Chinese is not only the way to join university.

Well, what Nirmal and Bikram say might be partly true. But Nepalese people have been studying English and at EMI schools since their civilia life began back in the early 90s. But why only Nirmal and handful of people can get into the University? Why do most of the people end up as waiters, security guards and construction labourers? Nirmal, you should understand that English and Chinese are just the languages. And remember Hong Kong is, no matter whether people say it an international city or not, a Chinese city. 95% of the population is Chinese and Chinese language is used in most private and public discourse in Hong Kong. So, as Chura says, Chinese language is of utmost importance to Nepalese if they are really going to settle in Hong Kong forever. And lets talk about the multinational companies and EMI schools as well. How many EMI schools are there in Hong Kong? Only 10% of the total school size in whole of Hong Kong. If you are tying to say that the enrolment of EMI schooled students into universities is higher than the CMI schooled ones, based on their school proportion, then it wouldn't be fair to say so. How many students enter universities per year? Do you know? If you only make up the proportion of EMI schools out the students entering univerisities, it's less than 10% of the total in all the eight publicly funded universities. The report of Kong Chamber of Commerce is based on the school proportion, not as a whole. And they actually do not count those low quality so called EMI schools in their report. Secondly, out of eight publicly funded universities only HKU conducts classes in English in some courses. Most courses in other universities are conducted in Chinese. You shouldn't just think about yourself. You should also think about others like those who cannot attain enough score to get into universities. What has happened to those who do not know Chinese and who cannot attain enough score for university entrance? They are just compelled to work as housekeepers, waiters, and security guards. They would have received other professional and occupational trainings according to their interest and ability had they had the knowledge of Chinese language. Do you know that? We should think about the whole population, not just about the handfuls who are successfuls.

Yes ! Mr. Tilak you are 100% correct. Thanks for your VV Good View.

Here I am not arguing or insisting my views but what I am telling you is the TRUTH. Tilak if you want our community low middle class level working people, as you said we need to think in the whole population that's fine. As you have also agreed there are handfuls of successful people in our community, they are able to be success only have their university degree qualifications. If you know the handful of people can success studying in English medium and get to the university then why don’t we let them to study in English? I think you have no idea about the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce report you are just writing on base in your narrow and low level understanding of Hong Kong. In Hong Kong multinational companies employee 80% population as I know in Hong Kong Shanghai Bank all the IT department and Financial consultant department are full by the Indian expert similarly in Sony, Bloomberg and mostly 90% employee in Shipping Management companies of Hong Kong employee are Indian and Pilipino it is just small example. Now the Hong Kong is knowledge base economy, now business world is not like selling rice or potatoes in the market. Most of this service oriented companies have to serve the clients around the world and they don’t just employee for Hong Kong office they need to work traveling around the world…………….I think Tilak this all are out of your mind. Now the Hong Kong Universities are focusing in International students because having the students around the world from different background and nationalities can make the real education of University. All the Universities welcome the different nationalities race and background students so they have clearly make the medium of instruction like below Chinese University http://www2.cuhk.edu.hk/oafa/inter.php Hong Kong University of Science and Technology https://www.ab.ust.hk/arr/adm/ug/programs/first.html This are the Universities in Hong Kong which offer the course in English beside Hong Kong University. TILAK I THINK YOU DON’T WANT OUR PEOPLE OR OUR COMING GENERATION TO GET IN HIGH LEVEL TO BECOME GLOBAL LEADER because when our people get in this position then you will have no change to fool around to our people with your stupid idea.

Nirmal, I think you have more knowledge on education in Hong Kong for Nepalese people. Can you write a new article in this subject ! if yes it will be great.

First of all, knowledge and language ability are two different elements. If you think by only knowing English language a person can be considered as an expert, I don't agree with you. The porters in Pokhara are very good at English language, but lack expertise in different fields.
I agree that Hong Kong is a knowledge based economy. But I dout your account to say that the employees in all those multinational companies full of Indians and Filipinos. Indians or Filipinos might make a certain proportion of the manpower in those companies. If you think those few hundred foreign employees in handful of multinational companies as 'full of Indians and Filipinos' I think you have no idea of thousands of companies based in Hong Kong.
Secondly, I don't think you know the future direction of Hong Kong and Chinese society. They are not heading towards English dominated future. They heading towards Chinese dominated future because as China gets righ and powerful, Chinese language is going to be a global language. This is not the joke but reality. Even now there is the largest population of Chinese speakers.
What about Hong Kong's government service? Do you think knowing English only you can get the government job? The reality is 'NO'
So, the best way is to be bilingual or trilingual, not just the English. English alone is not going to benefit in the new world, believe me. So, I think China language is equally important in Hong Kong and in China as well.