Filipinos in Hong Kong

Filipinos in Hong Kong

Total population
140,000
Languages
Tagalog, other languages of the Philippines, English

There are around 140,000 Filipinos in Hong Kong, a lot of whom work as foreign domestic helpers. Filipino maids are known by the locals as fei yung (菲傭), fei being the first character in the Cantonese phonetic translation of Philippines (菲律賓) and yung means maid. They are also known by the diminutive terms bun mui (賓妹) and bun bun (賓賓) which can be used as disrepectful pejoratives. In some cases Filipino women with university degrees are willing to work as maids and nannies for the higher salary and better lifestyle they will receive in Hong Kong than they could make at home.

On Sundays (when most domestic helpers have a day off) and on public holidays thousands of domestic helpers gather in Central, Victoria Park and around Hong Kong Cultural Centre to socialise and picnic.

Professionals and residents

Although Filipino domestic workers vastly outnumber other Filipinos in other professions, there are a notable number of Filipino professionals in Hong Kong. Some are architects and civil engineers, working on some of the more prominent buildings and construction projects in Hong Kong^{[citation needed]}. Some are information technology professionals, and some are in professional services (accounting, law, finance) too. A significant proportion of those employed as domestic workers in Hong Kong have other professions in the Philippines, even those with university degrees work in Hong Kong because of better financial opportunities.

The first Filipinos to have worked professionally in Hong Kong were these groups who went to Hong Kong during the post-World War II years and following the fall of the Mainland to the Communists in 1949. A decade ago, prostitutes in the red light district in Wanchai were exclusively Filipinas, some of whom have now married or turned to waiting in bars. Many Filipinos also work in service industries in the Central business district, and also in Hong Kong Disneyland as entertainers or other cast members.

Language

Most Filipinos in Hong Kong communicate with the local population in English (usually a second language for both parties). However, they communicate with their own friends and community in Tagalog or in another Filipino language. Most of them have also picked up a few Cantonese phrases in everyday life. A few are adept at Cantonese usage.

Filipinos haven't settled long enough in Hong Kong to have a large number who know Cantonese fluently, unlike some of the other ethnic minorities such as the Pakistanis and the Indians who often speak Cantonese as well as their Chinese neighbors. This is because most Filipino workers are transients who do not intend to settle in Hong Kong—each year, a large number of these leave Hong Kong permanently, to be replaced by a different set of Filipinos who have to learn Cantonese from the beginning.

Community life

Statue Square is an ideal rendezvous for Filipino maids in Hong Kong on Sundays.

Filipino maids gathering around the Hong Kong Cultural Centre in Tsim Sha Tsui.

Commerce

The World-Wide House arcade in Central is popular with the Filipinos, as many of the shops are run by Filipinos. The wide assortment of typically small shops caters to their needs, selling telecommunications and banking services, to food, and magazines.

Entertainment

On Sundays, one can usually encounter a large number of Filipino maids gathered at various spots in Central, including the ground floor of the HSBC Hong Kong headquarters building. Many maids in Hong Kong have Sunday as their fixed once-a-week working day off, during which they socialize, eat self-prepared food, sing, and even sell various items. This weekly gathering is such a long-standing practice that the "No Littering" signs in the vicinity are written in three languages: Chinese, English and Tagalog.

Religion

Most Filipinos in Hong Kong are Christians, the majority Roman Catholic. There are also a sizeable number who congregate in Protestant and non-denominational churches. A minority are Muslims or Buddhists. Many spend at least a part of their Sunday mornings attending Mass and various church services. Numerous Catholic parishes in Hong Kong offer Masses in Tagalog or English geared towards the Filipinos, who make up a large part of the membership of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong (2005: 353,000, but it is unclear whether Church statistics include them).

See also

• Vallejos v. Commissioner of Registration, a Filipina maid's right of abode case

External links

• 'Hong Kong Maids' (Photographic project by Jonathan Winstone featuring Filipino domestic servants on the streets of Hong Kong).