Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Part of the stress placed on the children is the need to conceal their par-
ents' absence from teachers and other public authorities, for immigration
status has residence requirements in Canada. When a break-in occurred at
the home of two satellite children it was not reported to the police:
We didn't call the police. I asked my Mum… Of course they're in Hong Kong
and they're not supposed to be in Hong Kong because of their immigration in
Canada, right? They have to stay here. So my Mum is scared if they call the
police they will find out they're in Hong Kong (Waters 2003: 181).
Contributing to poor social decisions is the amount of unsupervised time
available to children; a large survey of high school students in Toronto born
in Hong Kong found that the presence in Canada of a student's father was
positively and significantly related to the student's academic performance at
school (Chow 2000). The school day in Canada is a good deal shorter than
in East Asia, particularly when after-school studying is factored in. There is
more time to hang out at malls, bubble tea shops and karaoke bars, espe-
cially if parents are away. But for some kids, life can be too slow and boring,
especially compared to the 24-hour day in Hong Kong or Taipei (Birnie
2003). Fast and slow is another dimension with a discernible gradient across
the transnational social field, a gradient to which young adults are especially
attuned. As one male teenager told us some years ago, whereas 'Vancouver
was a Pentium I, Hong Kong was like a Pentium III' (Ley and Waters 2004).
But for others slowness has its virtues:
Taiwan and Canada, there is a big difference. Canada is pretty slow. Everything
is very slow… relaxed and slow. But in Taiwan every second is like war…. You
have to fight for every second… If you do something too slow, probably other
people might take your job away (Waters 2003: 175).
Of course there is a good deal of internal variation in the experiences of
children and youth in general, and satellite kids in particular (Tsang et al.
2003). For some, separation from parents is not a trauma to be suffered
through but more a time for growing independence and maturity. But for all
of them, in a parent's mind, school achievement offers the primary litmus
test of time well spent.
Education and the Student Vanguard
Education is a leading motive in migration and links with Canada are long
established - especially in Hong Kong. By the early 1980s the universities
in Vancouver and Toronto were already well-known destinations (Goldberg
1985), and the location of a child's education often provided a beach-head
