A Hong Kong returnee is a resident of Hong Kong who

emigrated Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...

to another country, lived for an extended period of time in his or her adopted home, and then subsequently moved back to Hong Kong.

Population

According to the Hong Kong Transition Project of

Hong Kong Baptist University Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) is a publicly funded tertiary liberal arts institution with a Christian education heritage. It was established as Hong Kong Baptist College with the support of American Baptists, who provided both operati ...

, in 2002, the population of Hong Kong Returnees constituted 3% of the Hong Kong population. This number was arrived at by survey and a participant was categorised as a "Returnee" by self-identification. As such, it excluded those Hong Kongers surveyed who had foreign citizenship, but did not self-identify as "Returnees".

Emigration

Most returnees left Hong Kong during the

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and the

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leading up to the

handover of Hong Kong Sovereignty of Hong Kong was transferred from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China (PRC) at midnight on 1 July 1997. This event ended 156 years of British rule in the former colony. Hong Kong was established as a special admin ...

back to China. According to

Matthew Cheung Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, (; born 20 November 1950) is a former Hong Kong politician who served as Chief Secretary for Administration from 2017 to 2021. Cheung previously served as the Secretary for Labour and Welfare for ten years. He was award ...

, Secretary for Labour and Welfare, approximately 600,000 people emigrated before and around 1997. The destination of choice was usually a Western country, the most popular being Canada, Australia, and the United States. There are typically two types of emigrants, those who planned on returning to Hong Kong after they obtained foreign citizenship and those who planned on staying in their adopted homes permanently and fully adapting to life there. The former are sometimes better described as ''sojourners'' rather than emigrants. However, often these two types of Hong Kong emigrants act against what they had planned, where some of those who had planned on permanent stays actually returned to Hong Kong, some planning on temporary stays actually made the decision to stay permanently in their adopted homelands.

Remigration

It is estimated that 30% of those Hong Kongers who moved away in the 1980s have returned to Hong Kong. Those that have moved back to Hong Kong have returned for various reasons – for economic reasons, or simply because they enjoy living in Hong Kong more than they do elsewhere. Specifically, many wealthy Hong Kongers who emigrated to Canada found that they could not adjust to the economic culture in Canada. The higher taxes,

red tape Red tape is an idiom referring to regulations or conformity to formal rules or standards which are claimed to be excessive, rigid or redundant, or to bureaucracy claimed to hinder or prevent action or decision-making. It is usually applied to ...

, and the language contributed to the barrier of entry for businesses in Canada. Comparatively speaking, doing business in Hong Kong was much easier. "The concept of 'return migration' doesn't quite capture the contingency and fuzziness of Hong Kong emigrant strategies. Returnees could go back to Australia at any stage, especially if they gained Australian citizenship. They could be planning to move back on retirement, or if there are unfavourable 'changes' in Hong Kong. Skeldon (1995: 63) suggests the term 'return movement', since 'return migration' assumes a permanency which may not be justified. Nevertheless, return movements should be distinguished from visits and various types of business and social 'commuting' of a very short-term nature."Chapter 9 'Return movements: back in Hong Kong'
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Social consequences

Cultural identity

Issues of identity have sometimes arisen for returnees, especially amongst those returnees that left Hong Kong when they were children, because of the change in national identity of Hong Kong the city itself due to Hong Kong returning to Chinese rule, and because of the life experiences gained living in their previously adopted homes outside of Hong Kong.

"Astronauts"

Many of those who returned to Hong Kong were husbands who left their entire families in their adopted homes, while they worked in Hong Kong. These husbands were dubbed ''Taai Hung Yahn'' (), or "astronauts" because they spend their lives flying back and forth between Hong Kong and the adopted homes of their families. ''Taai Hung Yahn'' is also a play on words. Taking a more literal meaning of the Chinese characters for "astronaut", ''Taai Hung Yahn'' () can translate loosely to "man without a wife".

References

External links

Out and Back: The Movement of Hong Kongers 1984–2004 and the Psychological Consequences for Identity
b

Hong Kong Residents Rush for Foreign Citizenship
a
Migration News

* ttps://www.doi.org/10.1111/j.0020-2754.2004.00122.x Transnational spaces and everyday livesb
David Ley

Back to Hong Kong: return migration or transnational sojourn?
By David Ley and Audrey Kobayashi {{DEFAULTSORT:Hong Kong Returnee Culture of Hong Kong Hong Kong society Human migration