Hong Kong’s children of ‘split families’ on the move: they emigrated, returned to work, now they’re leaving again
- New wave of departures by emigrants who returned to Hong Kong and now have children themselves
- Children’s education, family life main reasons for trend of ‘reverse migration’, study shows
Wenda Wu’s life has been one of moving back and forth between Hong Kong and Australia, and having to decide where to settle for good.
She was 11 when her family emigrated to Sydney in 1988. She noticed that the people looked different and spoke a different language than in Hong Kong, and there were big houses and wide open spaces.
Her father continued working in Hong Kong, while she started a new life in Australia with her mother, two brothers and one sister.
They were among thousands of Hongkongers who left in the years before 1997, when Britain returned its former colony to China.
An estimated 500,000 emigrated between 1984 and 1997, although tens of thousands returned over the following decades, armed with foreign passports, to work in the city or reunite with families.
A study by two researchers has found a new wave of departures by people from “transnational split families”, who went away, returned to Hong Kong, only to leave again now they are parents themselves.
