AFRICAN COMMUNITY in HONG KONG
School of English
University of Hong Kong
Interview with Francis
Viewpoints to Hong Kong
Most of his friends stayed near TST, but he never heard of any African association in HK. He can see more African in HK in these few years. Most of the African friends he made are businessmen. The best thing in Hong Kong is the peaceful environment, where does not have a lot of crime. But he doesn’t consider to immigrant to HK, because Hong Kong is too small for him.
Name: Francis
Age: 34
First time in HK: 7 years ago
Marital status: single
Occupation: Businessman
Langauges: Tsana (First language) and English
Francis is a businessman coming back and forth from Mainland China, Hong Kong and also Africa. He stays in Hong Kong for around 3 weeks each time. Even though he is not an immigrant, the first time he comes to Hong Kong was around 7 years ago. So he is also a worth-studying case that we would like to look into. We want to see how he looks at HK and the African community as an African. And we are also interested in his language attitudes towards Cantonese, Mandarin, English and also African.
Language attitudes
He knows some very basic Mandarin and Cantonese. Mandarin is easier for him. He wants to learn Cantonese. He thinks that language is a vital part to express oneself and to interact with people. Therefore, he would like to learn more Mandarin and Cantonese. He said that in China, he faces more difficulties if he doesn’t know any Chinese. But in Hong Kong, he said that he could use English when interacting with people. So, not knowing Chinese is not a really big problem for him in Hong Kong daily life.
