Why Hong Kongers Hate Being Called Chinese

1584austin

When you ask Hong Kongers where are they from, you will get a very typical answer of “I’m from Hong Kong”.

You barely hear them say “I’m a Chinese”. Even though Hong Kong has been returned to the sovereignty of China for almost 14 years, Hong Kong people still consider themselves separately from Chinese regarding language, culture and living standard.
Why don’t Hong Kongers think of themselves as Chinese? What’s wrong with being a Chinese for them?

Hong Kong people think Cantonese is a more exclusive and prestigious language and it creates some kind of language pride to Hong Kong-ese because they’re speaking their “own” language. Although Guangdong people also speak Cantonese.

Hong Kong is a capitalist economy while China is a (partially) socialist one.

The economic system had made Hong Kong economically more affluent than China in the old days. Hong Kong was doing well at making clothing, watches and jewellery in the 1960′s-1980′s, though the main economic sectors have been switched to retail, banking and real estate after because of the rising wages and rents in factories

Hong Kong people’s higher income and living standard created their mentality of being more high-status than “Chinese”.







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1584austin

Seee full artical as written

http://hkgirltalk.com/2011/06/29 ... y-they-are-chinese/

liuyedao

Hong Kong people’s higher income and living standard created their mentality of being more high-status than “Chinese”.

From Marx's materialism viewpoint... this is not a problem.

How about when mainland Chinese is richer than them?

liuyedao

1584austin Post time: 2012-6-16 04:53
Seee full artical as written

http://hkgirltalk.com/2011/06/29/why-hong-konger-hate-when-people-say- ...

In essence, Hong Kong people’s self-identity is based on the mutual benefits and influence between Hong Kong and China. When China is having good reputations, they don’t mind being a “Chinese”, otherwise they stick to their old “Hong Kong-ese” pride.

liuyedao

seneca Post time: 2012-6-16 13:08
You are even simpler than my grandfather's snuff box!

Hong Kong's "self-identity" (why not "ident ...

Why don't you tell this to the author?

Austin provided the link and I posted what he missed. Then you suddenly jumped in.

Use your eyes before spreading dirt out of your mouth.

greatlady

It's a way that some ppl like to identify themselves are different than others.

Like Shanghainese, they would like to talk to you with SH dialects to show where they are come from.

laincoubert

shanghainese love pointing out they are Shanghainese first

one big difference is that they dont hate Chinese
HKers  consider Mainland Chinese as country bumpkins so they dont want to be confused with them.

interesting to see how long they keep this view,as HK is in a slow decline