Integration Vs Disintegration

The following article is extracted from an entry of my wife's blog.

An article titled Pressing Issues arouses my curiosity when I was about to remove the old newspapers piled up like a tower next to the sofa. It covers an interview with a Nepali man who has struggled to make ends meet in running the only Nepali newspaper in Hong Kong.

The original plan to make the newspaper a daily was impossible as it was heavily in debt since the first publication day. Six months after the first copy was issued, Kisan Rai has been the only person who runs the paper. This one-man paper aims at publicizing local events and HK's government policy.

The article also depicts the plight facing the minority groups in Hong Kong. The Nepali here need to struggle to earn a living because of the language barrier. Being treated with no respect, they find the so-called Asia's world city ridiculous as it promotes integration which will never turn out successful. Integration is translated into a brand-new meaning, i.e. someone has to sacrifice own values and culture for the cause of integration. The Nepali residents even have problems with getting their children places in local subsidized schools and public housing.

Racial discrimination has been with us since the colonial period in which some people were more equal than the others (as some animals are more equal than the others -- from Animal Farm by George Orwell) Another form of prejudice against new immigrants from China, Filipino maids and Indians has been prevailing in the territory. Yet, why aren't Australians faced with the same predicament given that so many of them from Oz have robbed locals of the teaching jobs in the education field from primary schools to universities? Simply because they are knowledge professionals? How about Rai who is also an intellectual with a less superior skin colour and racial background?

For more information, click on the link

http://www.rthk.org.hk/rthk/tv/hkce/20050329.html
and watch an episode Racial Discrimination In Hong Kong ( 不 再 歧 視 ) produced by RTHK.