6
ON
HELEN F. SIU
wandering before he connected up with his maternal uncle in Kowloon. He was given the uncle's telephone number, but not knowing that dialing to Kowloon needed an area code, he could not put through the call. He did not dare to ask advice from the shopkeepers who let him use the phone for fear that naive questions would immediately reveal his alien identity.
His fears were real. Though he was wearing what a Hong Kong youth would normally have, his rural accent and his unfamiliar gestures generated enough suspicious looks from people around him. At the time, the Hong Kong police had set up check points to stop illegal aliens from reaching the city proper. Coupled with police raids in resettlement areas and the constant official warnings to prosecute those who sheltered illegal aliens, the maneuvers created the atmosphere of a state of siege for Liang.
He was lucky to have the connections of a maternal uncle, who quickly took him in as an apprentice in a Chinese restaurant. A labour certificate came with a legal status, the "green stamp," giving him temporary residence rights in Hong Kong. He felt secure enough to return to his home for a visit in 1982. It was a happy event, but the three years of sojourn left an unspeakable mark on Liang's life. The mark told the story of what it meant to be an immigrant from rural Guangdong to urban Hong Kong at the historical juncture when both societies were suspended in a state of uncertainty.
The setting for emigration
The year 1979-80 was disorienting for many youths in rural Guangdong. The Third Plenum of the Party Central Committee in late 1978 gave the go-ahead signal for political and economic reforms. In the commune where Liang was, cadres with due anxiety started to introduce the new production responsibility system. Even before the reforms became official, interest groups had pushed for relaxation in the local economy. The atmosphere triggered unexpected movements in the rural commune. Though the commune was not dismantled at the time, work responsibility was gradually allocated to households. Surplus labour emerged as a problem for the more efficiently managed household economies.