二次告別 – 香港第二代跨國家庭的去與留
【顏樂燊博士】

Most people long to find a place suitable for them to ‘take root’, so that they can live and work in peace. An immigration wave came about in the 1980’s and 1990’s, when some Hong Kong people decided to emigrate with their families or send their children to study overseas in the face of the uncertainties ahead. Later, having considered the work opportunities in Hong Kong, some of these families chose to return to the city. The children who had emigrated with their parents gradually returned to Hong Kong. Having established their careers and families upon their return, one would think that they would stay permanently; however, some families are considering to say their farewells once again. 

Dr Lucille Ngan, Associate Professor of the Department of Social Science, who has long been studying migration, race, gender and families, found this phenomenon intriguing, and therefore commenced a research project entitled ‘Trajectories, Strategies, Practices of Secondgeneration Hong Kong Transnational Families’ in 2019. 

Dr Ngan remarked that this project is to a certain extent a continuation of a research project she conducted in 2015. “I was researching the fatherhood experience of returnees in Hong Kong, and was surprised to learn that all of the participating families planned to send their children back to the countries where they grew up, or return with their whole family. In the current research project, I examine returnee families’ reasons for leaving Hong Kong again, and the considerations, arrangements and challenges involved in the process. I also wish to understand how they employ local and transnational strategies to realise their plans.”

Growing Up in ‘Astronaut Families’ Affects Family Planning

Dr Ngan’s study centres on second-generation returnee families from Hong Kong that have the intention to leave or have recently departed for the West. This includes those who are relocating part of the family and the whole family unit. In these families, at least one of the parents has dual citizenship. Some of the respondents had lived through a transnational childhood as a ‘parachute kid’ of an ‘astronaut family’, meaning they resided in a foreign city away from one or both of their parents when they were students. Such a background has had an influence on their migration plans for their own families in parenthood. “Some respondents didn’t want their kids to experience the kind of loneliness they went through themselves when they resided alone overseas, apart from their own parents, while some hoped their children would gain more independence by going abroad by themselves. Some felt sandwiched between two generations as they felt obligated to spend more time with their aged parents in Hong Kong, but at the same time they wanted to return to the West for their children. All these factors played a role in their decision on whether to send their kids away, or to depart with the whole family

Different Considerations in Planning for Children’s Education

Dr Ngan also noted in her research that similar to the previous generation, children’s education was one of the respondents’ main reasons for leaving Hong Kong. However, the educational concerns differ between the two generations. Their parents’ generation expected that the acquisition of overseas qualifications would enable their children to have more advantages in the job market, while second generation returnee parents, who have grown up overseas, tend to champion an education model that stresses happy learning and creativity. They hoped that their children could receive this kind of education early on. The dual citizenship of second-generation immigrants gives them an edge in mobility. “My informants expressed that international schools in Hong Kong could also provide a learning environment of a similar kind, but the tuition fee was high. However, as foreign citizens, these parents felt that they could offer their children the same kind of education for a much lower cost in the West. Most families I interviewed were leaving in primary school, in contrast to the past when children tended to leave in high school, prior to university entrance exams.”

Giving Up Income in Exchange for Family Life

The main aim of emigration is to pursue a better life. To these secondgeneration returnee parents, they were more motivated by a better lifestyle than better economic opportunities. They were mostly professionals or industry workers with incomes of the middle to upper-middle class, and they already enjoyed more freedom and choices in life in the eyes of the public. Nonetheless, most of the respondents said that the high pressure of living in Hong Kong would easily damage family relationships. Although they made more money in Hong Kong, they could not achieve their desired lifestyle. They believed that even if they worked ten more years, their life would still not really change for the better. They therefore were considering to move and settle permanently overseas with their families, despite the lower chance of upward social mobility and the need to readapt to the local labour market.

Further Plans to Study Transnational Families Issues

Dr Ngan originally planned to conduct fieldwork in Australia and Canada, but unfortunately because of COVID-19 travel restrictions, overseas interviews had to be conducted online. She was glad that her own background made it easy for her to open up conversations with the respondents. “I am myself a returnee from Australia, and I have children as well. My informants positioned me as someone similar to them, and this worked to my favour as they were willing to share more thoughts with me.” The research project will formally come to a close in June 2022, and Dr Ngan plans to study more issues of transnational families in the future.