ments best illuminate the unique social ethos of Hong Kong in the 1980s.
7
Hong Kong has gone a long way being a city of immigrants. It quietly absorbed uneven waves of refugees who have eventually become a cultural mainstream. If recent immigrants appear to display a socially disjointed character, those who fled China in the late 1940s were probably no different. In fact, descriptions of family migration in the post-war period show that "it was not well planned and it usually involved drastic interruptions of family relationships because of continuous and morally damaging uprootedness necessitated by events and dictated by risks of personal security."* Nevertheless, Lau (1982) argues that a fragmentary, attenuated, but utilitarian familial structure has arisen from the disorderly processes to absorb the immigrants without causing serious strain on public resources. The familial group is still valued across social classes as the basic unit for mutual help and affiliation. This gives social relations a characteristically "Chinese" flavour; but utilitarian motivations built into the familial group makes it less significant as a source of and target for its members' social status. Lau (1982: 67-78) also sees that major normative orientations have emerged among Hong Kong Chinese that display a high value for material advancement as much as for social stability, a very short-term time horizon revealed in the population's search for maximum gain in the shortest possible time, low social participation, and general political aloofness. Though these orientations differ from traditional familism only in degrees, it nevertheless has been a new adaptation to a laissez-faire colonial environment (Lau 1982: 82-85).
The normative orientations were in varying degrees sustained by a social economic structure different from the pre-war era. Analyzing a household statistical report of 1976 (a time before the influx of recent immigrants), a sociologist listed three major social categories in Hong Kong whose attitudes he believed would exert considerable influence for the decade of the 1980s.* There was the capital-owning elite comprising 11 percent of the working population. They controlled large-scale native enterprises and maintained interests in foreign-owned enterprises as well. Through institutionalized channels of political consultation, charity, and
3
ments best illuminate the unique social ethos of Hong Kong in the 1980s.
7
Hong Kong has gone a long way being a city of immigrants. It quietly absorbed uneven waves of refugees who have eventually become a cultural mainstream. If recent immigrants appear to display a socially disjointed character, those who fled China in the late 1940s were probably no different. In fact, descriptions of fam- ily migration in the post-war period show that "it was not well planned and it usually involved drastic interruptions of family relationships because of continuous and morally damaging uprootedness necessitated by events and dictated by risks of per- sonal security."* Nevertheless, Lau (1982) argues that a fragmen- tary, attenuated, but utilitarian familial structure has arisen from the disorderly processes to absorb the immigrants without causing serious strain on public resources. The familial group is still val- ued across social classes as the basic unit for mutual help and affiliation. This gives social relations a characteristically "Chinese" flavour; but utilitarian motivations built into the fa- milial group makes it less significant as a source of and target for its members' social status. Lau (1982: 67-78) also sees that major normative orientations have emerged among Hong Kong Chinese that display a high value for material advancement as much as for social stability, a very short-term time horizon revealed in the population's search for maximum gain in the shortest possible time, low social participation, and general political aloofness. Though these orientations differ from traditional familism only in degrees, it nevertheless has been a new adaptation to a laissez-faire colonial environment (Lau 1982: 82-85).
The normative orientations were in varying degrees sustained by a social economic structure different from the pre-war era. Analyzing a household statistical report of 1976 (a time before the influx of recent immigrants), a sociologist listed three major social categories in Hong Kong whose attitudes he believed would exert considerable influence for the decade of the 1980s." There was the capital-owning elite comprising 11 percent of the working popula- tion. They controlled large-scale native enterprises and main- tained interests in foreign-owned enterprises as well. Through in- stitutionalized channels of political consultation, charity, and
3
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