Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
years of those crazy hours and then just get the money and get out of Hong
Kong.' That's another way to think. I mean it won't last forever. Just put a time
limit on it. Five or six years, and then just leave. Take off.
Retirement and the Myth of Return
The myth of return is an abiding belief for many international migrants, but
for far more than ever act upon it. Of course the young adults in their 20s
and 30s and their working elders we spoke to have already returned to their
point of departure, but will not stay there at retirement. While there are
retirees from overseas in Hong Kong, we did not meet them, nor did our
respondents speak of them. Instead transnational longing among our focus
group participants is likely to carry them back eastwards across the Pacific.
In a previous section, both Simon and also Doreen and Andy saw retire-
ment as a decisive status passage that will once again tip the balance of
locational preference back to Canada; indeed, Simon had been planning
since the 1980s 'to save enough money in Hong Kong and go to Canada to
retire'. Focus group responses were not prompted and somewhat to our
surprise the desire to retire in Canada was voiced and found agreement in
every focus group. But we should not have been surprised for the cultural
logic of retirement migration perfectly fits the general thesis of 'Hong Kong
for making money, Canada for quality of life'. Indeed participants in the
focus groups either implied or stated explicitly that such a move was predi-
cated upon accumulating a sufficient capital base in East Asia, for they knew
from bitter experience that their ability to squeeze a decent return to fund
their retirement years out of the miserly Canadian economy was limited.
Undoubtedly there was generational weighting to the two shores of the
transnational social field.
Hong Kong is more bustling, it tends to be more lively, there's more of a night
life. It's more attractive to younger people. People who are retired, at least the
ones I know who are retired, they tend to say that they prefer Canada more.
A number of the younger graduates had been in astronaut families that had
reunited in Hong Kong. But they expected their parents would resume their
trans-Pacific circulation upon retirement.
I'd say my parents really love Vancouver and Canada. Weather, clean air, envi-
ronment, life style, standard of living, they love all sorts of things. I think they
would choose Vancouver after they retire. Actually, they will go back.
For some families who continued to be fragmented, retirement would
provide the opportunity for reunion:
