Minority Stories

A few years ago we received donations to set up a capacity building program - to train secondary school teachers to teach service-learning in their schools.  As part of the program, we helped to set up projects through which the teachers can practice supervising their students carrying out community service.  One of these projects involve interviewing ethnic minorities in Hong Kong, to help them turn their experiences into stories. To help them express themselves and to educate the Hong Kong society about the ethnic minorities’ experiences living among the dominant majority Chinese.  

Noor is an ethnically Pakistani girl, born and raised in Hong Kong. She knows it is important to master Chinese to function well in Hong Kong like the local Chinese people.  Yet she struggle tremendously in her efforts to learn Chinese.  Her family cannot offer her much help.  The environment that she is living is not conducive to learning Chinese.  She has enough challenges learning Cantonese, the local dialect, for daily living and studies.  In form 1, however, she was put in a class which studies the Chinese classics using the dialect Putonghua, dominant in Mainland China.  She had to use English phonetics to learn to pronounce the Chinese characters, then to translate the words into her fist language to understand the meaning.  It continues to be an uphill struggle for her to learn Chinese, making it hugely challenging to try to get into a local university. 

As an ethnic South Asian boy, Shah didn’t like to study.  He was a naughty student in the eyes of his teachers.  As he grew up, he was surrounded by many different people and issues, which caused him to think about what he really wanted to do.  Eventually he decided to be a teacher.  Now he teaches Chinese to fellow South Asian students.  His struggles and live experiences help him understand and relate to his students.  He is able to teach according to his students’ needs, which makes him a popular teacher.  He also loves food, which helps him relate to other people. 

Shehzad is ethnically Pakistani. Yet he has been able to master Chinese very early.  He is curious and pursues many interests.  He feels the education system in Hong Kong rely on rote learning too much.   He also feels that Hong Kong is too fast paced, and lacking in human relationships.  He does not feel prejudiced against.  Yet he feels the majority Chinese may not understand his community too well.  He is now teaching English, and hopes to help change these perceptions gradually through education.  

These stories are told creatively through words, photographs, and drawings.  They are attractive as well as informative.  These efforts can contribute to better understanding between ethnic groups in Hong Kong.  Yet such efforts in advocacy often find it difficult too reach the intended audience.  Popular channels of distribution are exhibitions on campuses and community centers, social media, etc.  Yet venues for exhibitions are not easy to find.  Social media are choke full of content.  How does one stand out and attract attention?  More creative efforts in distribution are needed.  Otherwise much effort in collecting these stories will just go to waste.