Reality check: what awaits the HK migrants arriving in the UK

Hi there guys, my attention has been drawn to a report on Sky News about how immigrants from Hong Kong who took advantage of the BNO route to move to the UK in the last year have been struggling with life in the UK. I read that article and found it very one-sided - it almost sounds like a piece written by the Chinese government in Beijing gloating about how these people are suffering in the UK after moving here and that they should have remained in Hong Kong regardless of the situation there. Even the headline was alarmist, warning of 'social conflict' and how these new arrivals struggled to find jobs, housing and school places. Is this merely click bait or pro-Beijing propaganda? As a British-Chinese immigrant who arrived in the UK 25 years ago from Singapore, I am in a good position to evaluate if some of these claims are justified or not. This article was written by British journalist Lisa Holland, so is this merely an example of bad journalism, or was Lisa Holland bribed by the powers in Beijing to depict such a bleak picture of the new migrants from Hong Kong? 

Who said what about 'social conflict'?

The words 'social conflict' dominated this article - it was in the headlines and it was repeated several times in the article. However, upon close inspection, the only people who mentioned 'social conflict' were migrants from Hong Kong themselves who were worried that this influx of migrants from Hong Kong might cause tensions in some communities. Lisa Holland did not interview any white people who said racist things like, "we don't want these migrants from Hong Kong here and they can fuck off back to where they came from." Even the migrants who did raise this issue of 'social conflict' phrased it carefully in way to suggest that it was a worst case scenario: "If we do not contribute the resources evenly it means that the local people may be angry about maybe some of the resources being taken and that will have social conflict." Okay there is some bad English there, but the journalist's job is to capture the genuine voice of the subject rather than function as an English teacher but allow me to paraphrase that in a more articulate manner: the subject Mr Choi is concerned that if the new arrivals are not seen as hardworking, useful members of society who contribute to the good of society, they may be viewed as a burden who simply sponge off the state and this could lead to resentment amongst the local population. This is about the new arrivals being able to adjust to life in the UK, find good jobs that allows them to contribute to society and being able to successfully assimilate into British society here - this is most certainly not about white people being very racist, not at all yet that is still dangled as a worst case scenario which I think is an unfair portrayal of the situation. Whilst these new arrivals do fear 'social conflict', but have they faced any yet? 

You're responsible for resolving any social conflicts that may come your way.

Thus 'social conflict' is not something that sweeps over a nation the way the Corona virus has but rather, it is something each individual has to navigate everyday - we need to take personal responsibility in all our relationships with our colleagues, our friends and our neighbours in order to avoid social conflict. The journalist didn't challenge Mr Choi on that point so I will: surely it is up to each individual migrant to make sure that they use their social skills to successfully assimilate in the UK, that is their personal responsibility and so I want to ask Mr Choi: whose responsibility is it to help each these migrants from Hong Kong find new jobs, new places to live and place their kids in good schools? Is it the government or the migrants themselves if they have chosen to move here? Perhaps I take such a tough stance on this issue because I'm Chinese and I'm from Singapore - I grew up in a society with no welfare state, no safety net. If you're unemployed, then you starve and you get no help from the government - the only thing you'll get from Singaporean society in that situation is judgment and condemnation, so you would be shamed into doubling your efforts to find a job quickly.  This visa scheme was offered to migrants from Hong Kong to leave a country in political turmoil, but nobody promised them that the streets of London are paved with gold - indeed, each migrant has to face the challenge of finding a suitable job and that's exactly what I had to do all those years ago. Gosh, I did some terrible jobs just after I left university, I didn't get any help or favours but I took personal responsibility for myself. I wasn't going to play the race card.

It sucks to be poor, but am I telling you anything new?

Allow me to point out the obvious: a rich, highly skilled migrant from Hong Kong is highly unlikely to encounter 'social conflict' whilst a poor, unskilled migrant from Hong Kong is very likely to encounter it because it sucks to be poor in the UK. Duh, I'm stating the obvious here. Money can solve a lot of problems - the rich person can easily afford a nice place to live, get a great job because s/he is highly skilled and well educated and enroll their kids in the most exclusive (and painfully expensive) private schools in the country. Whereas the poor migrants may find themselves scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to the housing market, struggling to find decent work as they are unskilled and their kids are going to be in the nastiest inner city schools. But what has changed? These poor migrants were probably struggling with housing back in Hong Kong as it is far more densely populated than the UK, they also struggled to make ends meet in Hong Kong as they had crap jobs there and their schooling situation for their kids were just as dire back in Hong Kong. Thus if a poor man moved his family from Hong Kong to the UK hoping for miracles to happen, well I must say that's simply a question of him having very unrealistic expectations. The same reasons that made this man poor in Hong Kong is going to keep him poor in the UK - there are already plenty of poor people in the UK so this may create a situation where the local poor working class who were born here may think, "we are already struggling, why is the government letting in more people from Hong Kong who might need help into this UK when some of us are not getting enough help?"

Is it really that hard to find a place to live in the UK?

Let's address the issue of the housing market here in the UK as this was discussed in the article: the people interviewed complained that a lack of credit history in the UK meant that some landlords asked for a rent in advance. Allow me to speak on the issue as a private landlord with a London property portfolio: this is fairly standard practice - we don't make the rules up as we go along. Rather, for someone like myself, I simply use the services of a professional estate agent who would handle all the paperwork (for a cut of the rent on top of a hefty fee) but in exchange, they simply take care of the entire process for me. I've had tenants from loads of different countries over the years including Iran, America, Italy, France, Taiwan, Denmark, Sweden, Malaysia and the UK. The properties I let out are not cheap, they are in central London and thus they tend to attract working professionals who have no qualms about putting down a sizable deposit in order to secure the place. If estate agents are asking for a year's rent as a deposit, then that figure is entirely dependent on how expensive the property is: so for a decent property in central London, that could be in the £25,000 to £50,000 range, which admittedly is not a small number but for rich people, that's nothing. But if you're willing to rent in somewhere like Hull, a year's rent is around £4,800 - it is a lot more affordable but of course, you get what you pay for. Let's be realistic: if you're poor and your budget is limited, then you need to settle for less rather than complain that you can't afford to live in the most expensive part of London, or even the lovely suburb of Sutton, which was featured in the article. 

Wait, Eric doesn't speak English? Seriously, how old is this guy?

I wish to turn my attention now to the person 'Eric Wong' who was interviewed for the article, Eric left behind a successful business selling tea leaves in Hong Kong but it was then revealed that he doesn't speak English. That's when I did a double take - how's that even possible? Is Eric a very old man, in his 70s? I don't mean any disrespect to Eric but it is important to put these case studies in context. I wrote a post about how I befriended some gymnasts from Hong Kong at a competition back in 1996 and we had no issues communicating in English (since they didn't speak Mandarin and I barely speak any Cantonese). These gymnasts I met were teenagers so they were taught English at school. I was last in Hong Kong in 2018 when I had little difficulty communicating in English with most people, usually I would make a valiant effort to try to speak to the locals in Cantonese and they would usually reply in English (or sometimes with older people, Mandarin). I remember interacting with an older lady in a shop in Kowloon, I spoke to her in Cantonese and she replied in English, albeit with a strong accent but she was keen to demonstrate to me that she was confident enough to speak to me in English. I did encounter some older people in Hong Kong who were effectively monolingual and they spoke only Cantonese - no English, no Mandarin, nothing else but these tended to be older people who were doing menial labour. So I've no doubt that Eric Wong did have a business selling tea leaves in Hong Kong, but I wouldn't imagine him to be a highly educated, successful businessman - he is probably someone who simply wasn't that educated but managed to find a decent way to make a living in Hong Kong. Good luck to Eric, but it is probably going to be a real struggle for him.

Enoch's National Insurance blunder

And now we come to Enoch who came to the UK at the height of the pandemic, only to exhaust his savings and find himself homeless. He claimed, "landlords want proof of income and he couldn't get a National Insurance (NI) number to find work." For those of you not familiar with the UK system, your NI number is your personal tax ID number which you must submit to your employer when getting paid work. This is only issued to people who have the legal right to work in the UK, including people like Enoch of course. But he made it sound as if he was trapped in a catch-22 situation: he couldn't get his NI number because he couldn't find a place to rent as he couldn't prove he had a source of income, but to work he needed his NI number. Whilst you do require an address to apply for an NI number but this is merely for them to send you letters and other correspondences. You're not required to submit a a rental contract with your landlord for this purpose - I actually checked the website for the online application and you merely need to submit an address for them to send you letters. Thus hypothetically speaking, if Enoch came to me and said, "I need to put an address down on the application form just for them to send me a letter. Could I give them your address and when they send the letter, please let me know, so I can then come and get that letter with my NI number from you?" I would say yes and that would be the matter - quite easily solved. Is this a massive oversight on the part of Enoch that has prevented him from finding work? Even if we grant him the benefit of the doubt as someone new to the UK, unfamiliar with the process, didn't he try to seek any help or advice on the matter? Why didn't Lisa Holland (the journalist) try to tell him, "hey there's an easy fix for your NI situation: you can use my address on the application and then update the system when you find a new place to live."  

Bad journalism and spreading fake news

I don't want to be unsympathetic - migrants getting confused by a new, unfamiliar system is actually quite common and can cause a great deal of stress. However, instead of pointing out Enoch's error and helping him find a solution to his NI number situation, Lisa Holland reported the story as if Enoch was somehow a victim of a bureaucratic system. I do acknowledge that Enoch has suffered a lot in his current situation but his suffering was due to his own misunderstanding of what he needed to do to obtain the NI number rather than any kind of mistreatment by the UK government. I believe a good journalist would use the story of Enoch to send a very important message to those in Hong Kong looking to take advantage of the BNO route to move over to the UK: check and double check the rules on all aspects of the process and if you're not completely sure, ask for help rather than trust your own judgment. But instead, Lisa Holland simply ignored the fact that Enoch had made a terrible blunder; either that or she simply didn't do her research on the NI number application process which took me no more than ten minutes since this information is all online on the relevant government websites. As a journalist, do you simply report Enoch's misunderstanding as your story in the article, at the risk of spreading misinformation and fake news? Or do you include some of your own research and include in your article what the actual process entails (thus revealing the terrible mistake that Enoch had made)? This is the challenge for the journalist when you interview an unreliable witness and Lisa Holland made a mess of the article because she had reported the statements of an unreliable witness as if it was fact: she's guilty of spreading fake news and misinformation. 

Would you willfully spread fake news by interviewing an unreliable witness?

So allow me to present you with a hypothetical situation - imagine you're a journalist in London and you witness an altercation between a Chinese tourist and a shopkeeper. It seems that the Chinese tourist can't speak any English and is very upset; since you do speak his language, you ask him what happened. The angry Chinese tourist tells you that he wanted to buy something in the shop but when he tried to pay for the item, the shopkeeper was very racist and refused to serve him despite the fact that he had the cash ready to pay for the item. You then ask the shopkeeper for his side of the story and the shopkeeper said, "the Chinese man tried to pay me with a £50 note but I simply don't have the change for that especially if he was buying an item that only costs £2.20 - I don't have £47.80 in cash with me right now. Most people pay with card these days anyway so we don't often have that much cash in the shop. I tried to ask him to pay with card instead but he doesn't understand English and got very upset. I don't speak his language and there's been a terrible misunderstanding." So given that you now know both sides of the story, would you simply ignore the shopkeeper's side of the story and go with the headline "Chinese tourist encounters racist English shopkeeper and refused service in London store!" You could argue that the journalist's job is not to interfere with the outcome of the story but to merely report what happened, but only reporting one side of the story especially when you're aware of exactly what happened is just bad journalism that would totally mislead the reader into believing that this shopkeeper was indeed racist. Surely as a journalist, you have the duty to make sure you do not spread fake news by repeating the false claims of an unreliable witness whilst totally ignoring the other side of the story: hence that's the exact mistake that she has made in this article. 

Do not look at what others are doing - find you own way in life. 

I want to challenge a statement made by one of those interviewed: "I think this is just wave one - these are the early adopters these are people with money and a bit more social agility and capacity to move quickly (...) So wave two I think is coming soon and a lot will depend on how wave one get on." I dispute the fact that wave two is dependent on how well wave one gets on in the UK, after all, how well you get on in the UK really depends on how highly educated and skilled you are as this would impact on your ability to find a good job here. Imagine if someone looked at my story and said,  Alex moved to London years ago and now he's really successful working in investment banking earning a ton of money, I'll do the same thing and follow in his footsteps." If someone said that, I'll be like, do you actually know what I do for a living? I build relationships with non-English speaking clients because I speak 25 languages, 7 of them fluently - how many languages do you speak and how good are your social skills? Do you seriously think you can simply do what I do and enjoy the same success? I remember back in Singapore when I was a kid, I had a neighbour called 'Uncle Norman' who married a Canadian woman and moved to Vancouver. He struggled to make ends meet for a few years and then returned to Singapore after his marriage fell apart, but of course, Uncle Norman played the race card and blamed his failure in Canada on racism. Yeah but did I mention that uncle Norman was an uneducated idiot? I'm intelligent, he's stupid so I have the confidence that I can succeed because thankfully, I'm nothing like uncle Norman, not at all. My point is that you have to find your own path in life rather than blindly follow what others are doing. Do not evaluate your chances based on what others have done or how they have gotten on - you can't copy them nor should you try to do so. 

But wait. Aren't there already plenty of Chinese people in the UK?

The fact is there are already 433,000 British-Chinese people resident in the UK but if you were to consider all Chinese people (say if you include Chinese-Singaporean expatriates here), then that number is much higher - the fact is Chinese people have been here in the UK for a long time and most of us have simply settled down, gotten good jobs and life here isn't bad at all for the Chinese people living in the UK. The statistics don't lie: according to a 2019 BBC report, Chinese and Indian people earn far more than white people in the UK. Oh yeah, Chinese people are on the very top of that list with Indians coming in a close second, whilst white British people earn on average 24.05% less than your average Chinese person according to that report. There's no smoke without fire - the Chinese (and other East Asians including Koreans, Japanese and Vietnamese) are often referred to as the model minority in the West - this is mostly because East Asians who move to the West have to meet very strict criteria to qualify for a work permit and so this system filters out any low-income poor East Asian people. Hence without the BNO visa scheme, people like Eric and Enoch would never be able to move to the UK under the old system as they would be simply be considered way too unskilled, unqualified and not highly educated enough to be worthy of a work permit. But the fact is for the well-educated, highly skilled Chinese people who are here already, they certainly have no problem becoming very successful and earning more than any other ethnic group. I do tick that box as one of these British-Chinese high earners working in investment banking thus there's the temptation to smirk and say, "if so many Chinese people like me can succeed in London, then you only have yourself to blame if you fail." This article ignored all the British-Chinese migrants who have been rather successful. 

So in conclusion, we need a reality check.

Let's finish with a reality check. Are the streets of London paved with gold? Of course not, but then again, the same can be said about any city in the world including Hong Kong. Were the migrants from Hong Kong who came to the UK with the BNO visa ever going to have an easy time here? Not really, it is always challenging to move from one country to another halfway across the world but so much of that boils down to your individual circumstances. A highly educated professional like a doctor or an engineer is always going to have an easier time than someone like Eric who doesn't even speak English confidently. What irked me was the fact that a lot of these migrants knew what they were dealing with before making that big decision to move to the UK, yet they remained very pessimistic about their life in the UK which begs the question: if you weren't totally convinced that you were going to be happy and successful in the UK, then why did you chose to come here? Couldn't you have either stayed in Hong Kong or pick another country like Singapore to move to? Or if you have decided that you want to move to the UK in light of the dire political situation in Hong Kong, then shouldn't you take personal responsibility to make sure that this is indeed a very successful move and avoid making silly blunders like Enoch with the NI number application process? Are there opportunities in the UK for these migrants from Hong Kong? Of course there are but if you can't even figure out how to apply for an NI number, then forgive me if I am not particularly sympathetic to your plight. So that's it from me on this topic, what do you think? Why was the tone of this article so very pessimistic? What do you think about Lisa Holland as a journalist and her style of reporting? And also could someone tell Enoch how to apply for an NI number? Please leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.