9 v/ p% S: J& }( p 司女士说她在下一代看到希望。她说，“1997年，一些学校不肯接受新移民的孩子，但现在有所改变，另外，新移民的孩子学习和适应很快，香港学生总体太天真而不会有歧视。成年人才是问题。所以是内地母亲在奋斗。” & x1 p) e9 t) C# d r+ E* G; V ' x! x3 o8 K; w7 M 文章指出，内地移民改变了工作场所，同时孩子们在当地学校产生了相似影响力。 3 Q a2 s" f7 D# e7 y! {, }* s& K5 o
教育是回归时争辩的一个焦点，教学语言改变后在父母中引发大面积担忧，害怕学生们无法适应。香港政府采取了“两文三语”政策，希望学生们能够写中文和英语，说粤语，普通话和英语。少数政府开办的学校主要用英语教学。普通话是核心课程，最后还有标准化测试。香港学生和成年人都竞相学习普通话，这是一项新来者都会的技能。 7 I/ |# V! ]2 G: Q ) H' C, K& ? c) T 戴教授在自己的教室也见证了这一文化改变。他说，“以前，香港学生习惯于小瞧内地学生，取笑他们的英语，10年前，大学里面很少有内地学生。内地学生开始竞争，提升各方面的表现力。他们已经提高了竞争力，香港学生再也不取笑他们了。” * J8 l7 g; W/ ?7 ]* H+ Z 8 {! N3 p: ]( H4 B ( [' r( Q" x9 P. S- x + E$ f8 S9 j6 n( Y3 g1 fCommuters arrived at a station in Hong Kong after taking a train that originated at the border crossing that links Hong Kong and mainland China. $ l' n- B* E n8 ]% o6 X6 w" O2 K: C9 K T
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Hong Kong Is Reshaped by Mainlanders; X1 C0 F& r4 b: I2 s0 M
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HONG KONG, June 23 — Old-time Hong Kongers sometimes call themselves the “people beneath Lion Rock,” after the ragged peak that looms over the peninsula joining Hong Kong to mainland China.+ A! {( ]7 P, @& N H
6 H! }+ R3 K( t/ [+ J6 lAt the mountain’s base is the leafy suburb of Kowloon Tong. It has never been a big tourist draw, but in the decade since territorial control returned to China, this quintessentially Hong Kong neighborhood has had many more visitors — and important changes. * g6 ^1 i+ I( b% ^/ n5 ^
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Of the two barracks that used to house British troops here, one lies empty and neglected, visited only by a cleaning woman who goes to sweep up the leaves. The other now belongs to the People’s Liberation Army, though Chinese uniforms are rarely seen.& w7 I0 M5 E8 H' k! Z
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But the mainland presence is inescapable in many other places. At the local rail station, where the Hong Kong subway links with the train from Guangdong Province, raucous crowds of mainlanders spill onto the platforms, and jam the escalators with huge suitcases. Police officers hover and check identification cards. ; q8 M1 K4 S' F. _& ?3 S0 \' b) A/ l- g& ]
In the shopping mall connected to the station, mainland tourists snap up designer goods. The nearby university is registering more mainland students than ever. * y D f1 B6 R7 g1 W" s4 L8 d$ e' g9 n: b B5 y/ G7 Y' D% [
Since the British handed over Hong Kong on July 1, 1997, skyscrapers have gone up and down; momentous political battles have been fought. But few developments have affected the average Hong Konger more than the opening of the border with the mainland.9 m* V9 C: T+ ^% X
" u* Z/ S: c. v) @; y' m- dSince 1997, more than half a million mainlanders have been allowed to move here, and 13.6 million visit each year — almost double the resident population. Meanwhile, the number of people who live on one side of the border and work on the other has soared — to 500,000 from about 50,000 in the early 1990s. 0 C- G: {# Q; S7 X( z * B) P) y; c4 u/ oIn their journey into one of the world’s most open and affluent economies, the mainlanders bring their own distinctive dialects, ways and aspirations. They have reshaped just about every aspect of life here — from the conduct of business and social life, to commuting, marriage and education. & v% I4 V: I* D' o8 T. l# {% `* f- D# N/ r) g
Migration from the mainland is hardly new. But for decades, it was defined by revolution and political turmoil on one side of the “bamboo curtain,” while a British colony prospered on the other. Most of the old migrants were refugees, fleeing poverty, famine, Communism and persecution across a fortified international border. Many swam here. 5 K5 Z8 w- @5 E
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Post-1997 migrants, by contrast, are more likely to be legal workers, professionals and university students. " A, K: k3 M, ~ 9 E) e: K5 X* t1 N4 K4 nHong Kongers now shop across the old border in Shenzhen as casually as American families drive to a mall in another town. Cross-border marriages are on the rise. Hong Kong’s incessant street chatter has become trilingual: Cantonese, English and the mainland’s lingua franca, Mandarin. + F6 f A4 |( e N( ~7 C* @/ I& ?) g7 H9 l0 c
Even Hong Kong’s famed action movies have changed: if four gangsters plot a killing, two speak Cantonese and two argue back in Mandarin., p" B. s7 A1 v5 U8 g6 D
And then there are the commuters. 7 E3 f" m& @6 Z% A' @+ O, p8 g0 D/ q) K: D
“There are about half a million people crossing that border regularly, and they are not tourists,” said Michael DeGolyer of Hong Kong Baptist University, who has traced social and political changes since 1989 through the Hong Kong Transition Project. 4 w7 e1 ~ z: D; ? u b6 E6 ~" @. _% w/ i) bOne regular crosser is Chan Tit-keung, a Hong Kong taxi driver who now lives near Shenzhen. ! n. E b$ l2 G9 M. o
“I live in a big, 1,000-square-foot flat by myself, and you can get a nice place for 2,000 yuan” a month, or about $250, he said. “You can’t afford a place like that in Hong Kong. I live outside the city, so the air is cleaner. And on my days off, I can go for long walks.”2 ^ G. l% W" q& v* x; _+ R2 H9 t
5 b6 ]8 j- q) ~But he is less happy to see mainlanders moving into Hong Kong in search of higher wages — helping to lower them. Hong Kong has no legal minimum wage. & I" Z f/ C0 Y2 h0 q5 z - n& s9 U$ C3 a7 u“Before, it was easier for older guys like us to find casual work in Hong Kong, and now it’s harder,” he said. “It’s because the mainland workers have come down” in the wages they accept for their work. Mr. Chan identifies himself as Hong Kong Chinese, to set himself apart from his mainland neighbors. 5 q- e) P; l6 z; v* ~0 D; u! s1 m9 G0 i5 v, f8 f
“People there squat on the ground and smoke everywhere and fight in the bars, which is why I don’t really go out when I’m on the mainland,” he said. “And when I have to see a doctor, I come back down over the border with my Hong Kong ID card.”' l6 ~, A. B" A# E4 K0 a8 }) [
. b3 Y" }: `: v3 r" cAfter the shock of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, Hong Kongers emigrated in large numbers to Western countries. As China’s political situation has stabilized and its economy surged, émigrés have been returning. & n" \. ?7 A3 L6 w 7 D+ D6 W7 Z# ?5 q! Q. s8 ULau Tak-man, who runs a bookstore in the bustling Tsim Sha Tsui district, moved to New Zealand with her children in the early 1990s. But she eventually returned, saying things were “more relaxed.” & K* y; e" d4 n$ ?' `6 F0 f+ V* F& m2 H- y9 |6 q4 G) }' C8 B
“The spirit here is better,” she said, as customers streamed in and out of her shop late one evening., \' J* K9 a( I# O9 X
, ?; C. r! |3 X/ jIf local anxiety once centered on the Chinese government, now it is on how the city will accommodate the new arrivals. The “biliterate, trilingual” policy in schools, once feared, now seems to have been accepted as an asset, but the local news media blame the mainlanders for crime, disease, undercutting the job market. They highlight stories of the large numbers of pregnant mainlanders crossing the border to give birth here and so guarantee their children rights to permanent residence.. D. H1 k4 z& U: h; T( j
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“There is definitely discrimination,” said Sze Lai-shan, a mainland-born social worker who runs the New Immigrants Project for the Society for Community Organization, a nonprofit group in Hong Kong. “They go to a job interview and the employer hears the mainland accent on their Cantonese. Even if the job doesn’t require much talking or use of Cantonese, they won’t be hired. And if they are hired, they will be paid less.”+ O# N; A, d, @ j# ?. W9 A
3 m( U4 b) z1 o4 }' U; L# \A study that Ms. Sze’s group released in 2003 showed that mainland women tended to be employed as cleaners, garbage collectors and kitchen workers, with little legal protection for their rights. Nearly half were working seven days a week.
