promises of non-interference. On the one hand, he wished that the local elite would put up a fight to maintain some control over Hong Kong's future. On the other hand, he was afraid that their demands might trigger arbitrary responses from Chinese officials, a mode of political behaviour not unknown to him. He felt sympathetic but alien to the language of political mobilization. Hong Kong was but a place for him to find a material future; he had not sunk roots enough to develop an identification with the rhetoric of commitment. After all, with only a temporary residence status, he was not considered by the local population as their ally. In fact, as described earlier, his lot was often singled out as the target for venting out political anxiety and heaped upon with negative images.
His uncle, who was a long-time resident of Hong Kong, urged him to migrate elsewhere. As a matter of fact, a friend of his uncle who operated a restaurant in New York had agreed to hire him as a cook and to help him obtain permanent residence in the U.S. Liang was torn. If he left then, he would have to give up his qualification for permanent residence. He was also warned of the difficulties of obtaining U.S. immigrant status. The job in New York might reduce him to an illegal alien far away from home. From the experience of fellow emigrants, he knew all too well the agonies of not having a legal status in the modern world. When he crossed from rural Guangdong to Hong Kong in 1979, he faced a social gap much greater than that faced by immigrants who fled China in 1949. While the latter, urban professionals and industrialists, had for a long time considered Hong Kong a temporary residence, Liang intended to stay from the very start of his sojourn. For four years, he had developed technical skills and social networks to help him settle down. Would he be able to start another sojourn farther away from home base where social networks were more intangible and cultural assumptions more alien?
Comparisons with other immigrants
Compared with many illegal immigrants who came to Hong Kong from the late 1970s to the early 1980s, Liang had a relatively fortunate story to tell. Many recent immigrants occupied the lowest stratum of the working hierarchy. In a study by a sociologist in
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promises of non-interference. On the one hand, he wished that the local elite would put up a fight to maintain some control over Hong Kong's future. On the other hand, he was afraid that their demands might trigger arbitrary responses from Chinese officials, a mode of political behaviour not unknown to him. He felt sympa- thetic but alien to the language of political mobilization. Hong Kong was but a place for him to find a material future; he had not sunk roots enough to develop an identification with the rhetoric of commitment. After all, with only a temporary residence status, he was not considered by the local population as their ally. In fact, as described earlier, his lot was often singled out as the target for venting out political anxiety and heaped upon with negative im- ages.
His uncle, who was a long-time resident of Hong Kong, urged him to migrate elsewhere. As a matter of fact, a friend of his uncle who operated a restaurant in New York had agreed to hire him as a cook and to help him obtain permanent residence in the U.S. Liang was torn. If he left then, he would have to give up his qualifi- cation for permanent residence. He was also warned of the diffi- culties of obtaining U.S. immigrant status. The job in New York might reduce him to an illegal alien far away from home. From the experience of fellow emigrants, he knew all too well the agonies of not having a legal status in the modern world. When he crossed from rural Guangdong to Hong Kong in 1979, he faced a social gap much greater than that faced by immigrants who fled China in 1949. While the latter, urban professionals and industrialists, had for a long time considered Hong Kong a temporary residence, Liang intended to stay from the very start of his sojourn. For four years, he had developed technical skills and social networks to help him settle down. Would he be able to start another sojourn farther away from home base where social networks were more intangible and cultural assumptions more alien?
Comparisons with other immigrants
Compared with many illegal immigrants who came to Hong Kong from the late 1970s to the early 1980s, Liang had a relatively fortunate story to tell. Many recent immigrants occupied the low- est stratum of the working hierarchy. In a study by a sociologist in
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