Wang Yi, a mainland girl who lives and works in Hong Kong now. She come to Hong Kong as an economic student of the University of Hong Kong in 2008 and stays in Hong Kong after graduate.
When talking about mainland people in Hong Kong, people usually focus on the travelers with large amount of cash, new immigrations with low education background comes via marriage or non- citizenship pregnant woman.
Only HKU itself will accept more than 400 mainland students a year and most of them will stay in Hong Kong after graduate. Mainland students study in Hong Kong is a not a large social group who usually are ignored by the Hong Kong public.
University is an important turning point for young people. The mainland students came to Hong Kong at the end of their teenage, at the beginning of their career life. Therefor they kind of cut off their career link with their home town.
Most of these mainland students know nothing about Hong Kong before they came, don’t have and social link or family member here. They have to find their own way to live in this city.
She needs to take her passport, Hong Kong ID, Chineses ID together with her
In their self-position, they do not treat themselves as Hong Kong people, but at the other hand, if they comes back to mainland China, most of them also will be treated as a “non-local”. They are not familiar with their home town any more after such a long leave.
interesting piece! it addresses many typical issues mainland students face in hong kong.