Hongkongers

Hongkongers (Chinese: 香港人), also known as Hong Kongese,[12] Hongkongese[13] Hong Kong citizen[lower-alpha 1] and Hong Kong people, usually refer to the permanent residents of Hong Kong, in a broad sense. Very often, those terms are confined to describe Hong Kong permanent residents who are culturally associated with Hong Kong, especially through descent, birth or growth in Hong Kong or other types of deep affiliations with Hong Kong, regardless of ethnicity or nationality. In legal terms, they are usually regarded as persons who are Permanent Residents (Chinese: 香港永久性居民; Cantonese Yale: Hèunggóng Wínggáusing Gēuimàhn) of Hong Kong and, depending on their nationality, are eligible for a Hong Kong SAR passport. In March 2014, the word "Hong Kongers" was officially included in the Oxford English Dictionary.[15][16]

Hongkongers
Total population
c. 7.33 million[1]
Regions with significant populations
 Hong Kong7,234,800[2]
 Canada616,000[3]
 China472,900[4]
 United States330,000[5]
 United Kingdom145,000[6]
 Taiwan87,719[7]
 Australia86,886[8]
 Macau19,355[9]
 Netherlands18,300[10]
 Japan3,785[11]
Languages
Cantonese (first language),
Hong Kong English (second language),
Mandarin Chinese (second language)
Religion
Non-religious with veneration of the dead, Chinese folk religion, Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, Christianity and other faiths
Related ethnic groups
Cantonese people, Macau people, Hoklo people, Hakka people, Teochew people, Shanghainese people
Hongkongers
Chinese香港人
Demographics and culture of Hong Kong
Demographics
Culture
Other Hong Kong topics

The majority of Hongkongers are of Cantonese Han Chinese descent and most of them trace their ancestral roots to the province of Guangdong; however, Hong Kongers of other descents such as Indonesians, Filipinos, South Asians, Vietnamese and British also make up 6% of the identity population.[17]

In the years leading up to the 1997 transfer of sovereignty from the United Kingdom back to the People's Republic of China, many Hongkongers emigrated and settled in other parts of the world. As a result, the diaspora stretches across the globe. The largest diasporas of Hong Kongers are found in English-speaking countries, but there are many expatriates in the People's Republic of China. A second wave of mass emigration has emerged after the failure of the 2014 protests and the ongoing political crisis as integration with China continues.

Cultural identity

Hong Kong's local cultural identity had been fostered before the People's Republic of China declared a new state in East Asia in 1949. Major distinctions from the People's Republic of China are evident in the following areas: language, judicial system, street naming system, culture, customs area, international border control, system of governance, direction of driving, social attitudes and values and legal currency.

Until 30 June 1997, Hong Kong was formally a British colony (later renamed as British Dependent Territory). English was the lingua franca, as well as official language, used by all public institutions with Chinese being the mother tongue language. The effigy of the reigning monarch was also present on the obverse of coins issued there. Local roads were also named after past British monarchs or famous people. While it was an overseas territory, Hong Kong participated in a variety of organisations of the Commonwealth Family network. Hong Kong ended its participation with most Commonwealth Family organisations after the colonization ended in 1997; although still participates in the Association of Commonwealth Universities and the Commonwealth Lawyers Association.

Due to increasing social and political tensions between Hong Kong and Mainland China and desinicisation in the territory, a recent poll found that most Hong Kong residents identify themselves as 'Hongkongers' (source needed), with an "estimated" figure of over 40%, while less than 27% identify themselves as 'Hongkongers in China' and less than 18% as 'Chinese'.[18][19] The identity crisis is further heightened by demographic changes, in which Chinese immigrants made up of a considerable portion of the population post-1997.

Terminology

The terms Hongkonger, and Hong Kongese are used to denote a permanent resident of Hong Kong. Formally speaking, Hong Kong does not confer its own citizenship, although the term Hong Kong citizen is used colloquially to refer to permanent residents.[lower-alpha 1]

The following aforementioned terms all translate to the same Cantonese term, Hèung Góng Yàhn (Chinese: 香港人; Cantonese Yale: Hèung Góng Yàhn). The direct translation of this is "Hong Kong person"; however, the term Hongkonger is also frequently used. 香港人 may also be translated as "Hongkongan".[20]

In March 2014, "Hongkonger" was added to the Oxford English Dictionary.[15][21] According to the Dictionary, the term "Hongkonger" appeared in an 1870 edition of US newspaper The Daily Independent.[22]

The term 'Hong Kong Chinese' was used during the British colonial era, when the British residing in Hong Kong made up a greater percentage of the population. It was common at that time to refer to an individual as 'Hong Kong Chinese' to differentiate them from a Hong Kong Briton.

Main article: Right of abode in Hong Kong

The Hong Kong Basic Law gives a precise legal definition of a Hong Kong resident. Under Article 24 of the Basic Law, Hong Kong residents can be further classified as permanent or non-permanent residents. Non-permanent residents are those who have the right to hold a Hong Kong Identity Card, but have no right of abode in Hong Kong. Permanent residents are those who have the right to hold a Hong Kong Permanent Identity Card as well as the right of abode.

The Basic Law allows residents to acquire right of abode by birth in Hong Kong, or in some other ways. For example, residents of China may settle in Hong Kong for family reunification purposes if they obtain a One-way Permit (for which there may be a waiting time of several years).

Unlike many countries, Hong Kong does not require applicants for naturalisation to take a citizenship or language test to become a permanent resident.[23] However, Hong Kong migrants and residents are assumed to understand their obligation under Article 24 of the Hong Kong Basic Law to abide by the laws of Hong Kong.

Residents of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region ("Hong Kong residents") shall include permanent residents and non-permanent residents.

The permanent residents of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall be:

  1. Chinese citizens born in Hong Kong before or after the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region;
  2. Chinese citizens who have ordinarily resided in Hong Kong for a continuous period of not less than seven years before or after the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region;
  3. Persons of Chinese nationality born outside Hong Kong of those residents listed in categories (1) and (2);
  4. Persons not of Chinese nationality who have entered Hong Kong with valid travel documents, have ordinarily resided in Hong Kong for a continuous period of not less than seven years and have taken Hong Kong as their place of permanent residence before or after the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region;
  5. Persons under 21 years of age born in Hong Kong of those residents listed in category (4) before or after the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region; and
  6. Persons other than those residents listed in categories (1) to (5), who, before the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, had the right of abode in Hong Kong only.

The above-mentioned residents shall have the right of abode in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and shall be qualified to obtain, in accordance with the laws of the Region, permanent identity cards which state their right of abode.

The non-permanent residents of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall be persons who are qualified to obtain Hong Kong identity cards in accordance with the laws of the Region but have no right of abode.

Ethnicity and background
Main article: Demographics of Hong Kong
See also: Indigenous inhabitants of the New Territories, Punti, and Taishanese people in Hong Kong

According to Hong Kong's 2016 census, 92% of its population is ethnically Chinese[24], with 32.1% having been born in Mainland China, Taiwan or Macau.[25] Historically, many Chinese people have migrated from areas such as Canton to Hong Kong, for example in the 1850s–60s as a result of the Taiping Rebellion[26][27] and in the 1940s prior to the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Thus, immigrants from Guangdong and their descendants have long constituted the majority of the ethnic Chinese residents of Hong Kong, which accounts for the city's broad Cantonese culture. The Cantonese language, a form of Yue Chinese, is the primary language of Hong Kong and that used in the media and education.[28] For that reason, while there are groups with ancestral roots in more distant parts of China such as Shanghai and Shandong, as well as members of other Han Chinese subgroups such as Hakka, Hokkien, and Teochew,[29][30][31][32] residents who are Hong Kong-born and/or raised often assimilate into the mainstream Cantonese identity of Hong Kong and typically adopt Cantonese as their first language.[33]

In addition to the Han Chinese majority, Hong Kong's minority population also comprises many other different ethnic and national groups, with the largest non-Chinese groups being Filipinos (1.9%) and Indonesians (also 1.9%).[29] There are long-established South Asian communities, which comprise both descendants of 19th and early 20th-century migrants as well as more recent short-term expatriates. South Asians include Indian, Pakistani, and Nepalese, who respectively made up 0.4%, 0.3%, and 0.2% of Hong Kong's population in 2011.[29] Smaller groups include Americans, Britons, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, Japanese, Koreans, Russians, Vietnamese and Thais.[29][34] In 2011, 0.8% of Hong Kong's population were European, many (53.5%) of whom resided on Hong Kong Island, where they constitute 2.3% of the population.[35]

See also

Hong Kong diaspora:

Expatriates living in Hong Kong:

Culture:

Miscellaneous:

Notes
  1. Formally, there is no "Hong Kong citizen", with the terminology being used to denote a permanent resident of Hong Kong. Permanent residents of Hong Kong typically hold citizenship from China or from another sovereign state.[14]

References
  1. "2016 Hong Kong Mid-term Demographics". Archived from the original on 6 November 2019. Retrieved 18 November 2019.
  2. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 3 May 2009. Retrieved 29 September 2019.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  4. "Enhanced Method for Compiling Statistics on Hong Kong Residents Having Resided / Having Stayed Substantially in the Mainland" (PDF). Census and Statistics Department, Government of Hong Kong. March 2007. Archived (PDF) from the original on 12 October 2018. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
  6. "Country-of-birth database". Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Archived from the original on 25 April 2007. Retrieved 24 August 2009.
  7. "臺灣地區居留外僑統計". 統計資料. 內政部入出國及移民署. 31 December 2011. Archived from the original on 7 March 2014. Retrieved 12 July 2010.
  8. "2016 Census Community Profiles: Australia". www.censusdata.abs.gov.au. Archived from the original on 5 August 2017. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
  9. "Population Census – Official statistics". Statistics and Census Service, Government of Macao Special Administrative Region. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 22 July 2016.
  10. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 29 September 2019.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  11. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 14 December 2013. Retrieved 29 September 2019.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  12. "Hong Kongese". English Oxford Living Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 8 August 2018. Retrieved 8 August 2018.
  13. "Hongkongese". MSN News.
  14. Fong, Vanessa L.; Murphy, Rachel (2006). Chinese Citizenship: Views from the Margins. p. 149. ISBN 1-1341-9597-4.
  15. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 28 June 2014. Retrieved 9 July 2014.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  16. "'Hongkonger' makes it to world stage with place in the Oxford English Dictionary". Archived from the original on 1 June 2015. Retrieved 23 June 2016.
  17. "2011 Hong Kong Consesus, Volume 1, Table 3.9" (PDF).
  18. "HKU POP releases latest survey on Hong Kong citizen's ethnic identity". hkupop.hku.hk. Archived from the original on 22 December 2014. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
  19. Hong Kong's Enduring Identity Crisis Archived 1 March 2017 at the Wayback Machine Veg, Sebastian, The Atlantic, 16 October 2013.
  20. Luk, Bernard H. K. "The Chinese Communities of Toronto: Their Languages and Mass Media." In: The Chinese in Ontario. Polyphony: The Bulletin of the Multicultural History Society of Ontario. Volume 15, 2000. Start p. 46. CITED: 56 (Archive).
  21. "Hongkonger – definition of Hongkonger in English from the Oxford dictionary". www.oxforddictionaries.com. Archived from the original on 26 October 2014. Retrieved 23 June 2016.
  22. Lam, Jeffie (19 March 2014). "'Hongkonger' makes it to world stage with place in the Oxford English Dictionary – Amid anti-mainland sentiment, Oxford dictionary recognises city's local identity". South China Morning Post. Archived from the original on 30 July 2019. Retrieved 2 September 2019.
  23. Lai Tung-kwok (22 May 2013). "Application for naturalisation as a Chinese national". Legislative Council of Hong Kong. Archived from the original on 13 December 2013. Retrieved 7 December 2013.; quote: "However, it has to be pointed out that the knowledge of the Chinese language is only one of the factors to be considered. This does not imply that applicants who do not know Chinese will be refused, nor will those who know Chinese necessarily be eligible for naturalisation as Chinese nationals. ... At this stage, we have no plan to institute examinations similar to those used by some foreign countries in handling naturalisation applications."
  24. 2016 Population By-census – Summary Results (Report). Census and Statistics Department. February 2016. p. 37. Archived from the original on 20 November 2017. Retrieved 14 March 2017.
  25. "Place of Birth of Overall Population – 2011". Census and Statistics Department. February 2012. Archived from the original on 29 October 2013. Retrieved 24 October 2013.
  26. John Thomson 1837–1921,Chap on Hong Kong Archived 19 October 2017 at the Wayback Machine, Illustrations of China and Its People (London,1873–1874)
  27. Info Gov HK. "Hong Kong Gov Info." History of Hong Kong. Retrieved on 16 February 2007. Archived 18 April 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  28. Alex Lo (February 2014). "Why Cantonese is a real language in Hong Kong". Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 31 March 2015.
  29. 2011 Population Census – Summary Results (PDF) (Report). Census and Statistics Department. February 2012. p. 37. Archived (PDF) from the original on 22 May 2013. Retrieved 23 October 2013.
  30. Melvin Ember; Carol R. Ember; Ian Skoggard, eds. (2005). Encyclopedia of diasporas: immigrant and refugee cultures around the world. Diaspora communities. 2. Springer. pp. 94–95. ISBN 978-0-306-48321-9.
  31. "Immigration Autonomy". Immigration Department Annual Report 2009-2010. Archived from the original on 23 June 2012.
  32. Ng Sek Hong (2010). Labour Law in Hong Kong. Kluwer Law International. p. 19. ISBN 978-90-411-3307-6.
  33. "Han Chinese, Cantonese in China, Hong Kong". 2015. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 31 March 2015.
  34. Odine de Guzman (October 2003). "Overseas Filipino Workers, Labor Circulation in Southeast Asia, and the (Mis)management of Overseas Migration Programs". Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia (4). Archived from the original on 4 May 2007. Retrieved 18 March 2007.
  35. "Population by Ethnicity and District Council District, 2011 (A205)". Census and Statistics Department. May 2012. Archived from the original on 20 February 2014. Retrieved 2 February 2014.
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