Return Migrants in Hong Kong, Singapore and Israel: Choices, Stresses and Coping 3030409627, 9783030409623

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Kwok-bun Chan Wai-wan Vivien Chan

Return Migrants in Hong Kong, Singapore and Israel Choices, Choices,Stresses Stresses,and andCoping Coping

Return Migrants in Hong Kong, Singapore and Israel Choices, Stresses and Coping

Kwok-bun Chan • Wai-wan Vivien Chan

Return Migrants in Hong Kong, Singapore and Israel Choices, Stresses and Coping

Kwok-bun Chan University Adjunct Professor The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong Founder and Chairman Chan Institute of Social Studies Hong Kong, China

Wai-wan Vivien Chan Research Professor Institute of Public Policy South China University of Technology Guangzhou, China

ISBN 978-3-030-40962-3    ISBN 978-3-030-40963-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40963-0 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

《題都城南庄》崔護 去年今日此門中 人面桃花相映紅 人面不知何處去 桃花依舊笑春風

The Southern Village By Cui Hu Last year today at this door The face and plum flowers Were in bright red mutual reflection. This year the face Has vanished into an unknown place While the plum flowers Smile as always in the spring breeze. (Translation by Chan Kwok-bun of a Tang Dynasty poem by Cui Hu; 16 June 2012 at the Changi Airport waiting room, Singapore)

 ome No More Home to Me H By Robert Louis Stevenson Home no more home to me, whither must I wander? Hunger my driver, I go where I must. Cold blows the winter wind over hill and heather; Thick drives the rain, and my roof is in the dust. v

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Loved of wise men was the shade of my roof-tree. The true word of welcome was spoken in the door — Dear days of old, with the faces in the firelight, Kind folks of old, you come again no more. Home was home then, my dear, full of kindly faces, Home was home then, my dear, happy for the child, Fire and the windows bright glittered on the moorland; Song, tuneful song, built a palace in the wild. Now, when day dawns on the brow of the moorland, Lone stands the house, and the chimney-stone is cold. Lone let it stand, now the friends are all departed, The kind hearts, the true hearts, that loved the place of old. Spring shall come, come again, calling up the moor-fowl, Spring shall bring the sun and rain, bring the bees and flowers; Red shall the heather bloom over hill and valley, Soft flow the stream through the even-flowing hours; Fair the day shine as it shone on my childhood — Fair shine the day on the house with open door; Birds come and cry there and twitter in the chimney — But I go for ever and come again no more. A few years ago, Fran Markowitz (2012) commented on a finding by her colleague Anders H.  Stefansson in their 2004 co-edited book, Homecomings: Unsettling Paths of Return, about literature discussing immigration. A search on Amazon.com revealed 7,575 book titles under the subject heading “immigration/ emigration,” of which a mere 157, or 2 percent, re-appeared in the “return migration” category. Some 5 years later, Markowitz replicated that search and found 19,700 titles under immigration/emigration, of which 20 percent (4,027) dealt with return migration. Markowitz cited Bretell (2006) in concluding that return migration has grown into a “clearly recognized … significant global phenomenon.” A typical example of works in this emerging field is Takeyuki Tsuda’s 2009 edited book Diasporic Homecomings: Ethnic Return Migration in Comparative Perspective. Anthropologists, storytellers, poets, dramatists, statisticians, economists, and political analysts are writing about the return of diasporic people(s) to their ancestral homelands. Among them are several sociologists and a psychologist who have cast their analytical gaze at the transborder journeys of returnees resettling in a former British colony, Hong Kong—itself having been “returned” to the People’s Republic of China in 1997. Two recent monographs have set the tone and the standard of scholarship in the field: Hong Kong Movers and Stayers: Narratives of Family Migration by Janet Salaff, Wong Siu Lun, and Arent Greve (2010) and Return Migration and Identity: A Global Phenomenon, A Hong Kong Case by Nan Sussman (2011). Salaff and Greve crystallized findings of their monograph in a chapter titled “Social networks and family relations in return migration” in International Handbook of Chinese Families (2013) edited by Chan Kwok-bun, the lead author of the book you are now reading. Sussman also contributed to the same

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book. Her chapter is titled “Reforming family among remigrants: Hongkongers come home.” Chan Kwok-bun and Wai-wan Vivien Chan, authors of this book and both based in Hong Kong, have published three essays on the city’s returnees, bearing such unsettling titles as “Home but not home: Four vignettes of return migrants in Hong Kong” (2012a), “Innovators, strangers or hybrids? The returnees in Hong Kong” (2012b), and “The uncanny feeling of homeliness and unhomeliness: Gender and generation politics in return migrant families in Hong Kong” (2013), the last of which was also included in Chan Kwok-bun’s International Handbook of Chinese Families. Markowitz (2012) asked a simple, direct question, “What happens when the diaspora comes home?” The answer: Returning ethnic migrants disappoint and are disappointed by their sedentary hosts in the homeland. The reason? Markowitz pointed to the “problem of similarity,” indeed a paradox, “a primordialist belief in the equivalence of co-nationals, which creates unrealistic expectations of compliance on the part of the hosts” (2012:239). She explained: Instead of the seamless fit between co-ethnics anticipated by state policy and folk wisdom, newcomers and hosts tend to find fault with each other as they discover differences and then delineate boundaries that divide one re-uniting nation into opposing cultural groups. These differences might be great or small (2012:236) (our emphases).

Although all of the actors have in fact changed, the stayers insist on the sameness of the homecomers as co-ethnics or co-nationals, making demands on the latter for compliance and conformity, for behaving according to the rules, norms, and mannerisms of the locals. Are the returnees innovators or strangers? Should they follow the crowd and give up their hard-earned hybridity and creativity, perhaps to their peril? Are “home but not home” and “feeling unhomely at home” apt descriptors of the hybrids’ plight? Co-authors of this book, Chan Kwok-bun and Chan Wai-wan, discussed these questions in a series of essays bearing such titles as “A returnee’s hybridity: its upside and downside” (Chan 2012), “The return of the native: Globalization and the adaptive responses of the transmigrants” (Chan and Chan 2010), and “Social strain and the adaptive behavior of Hong Kong return migrants” (2012). The language of these essay titles points to the inner turmoil, restlessness, and cognitive dissonance—as well as the coping strategies—of the returnees, a socio-psychological condition marked by paradoxes, contradictions, and inconsistencies or a Freudian ambivalence, a love-hate sentiment. The returnees are left to their own resources and devices, making valiant attempts at adaptation with the strain and stress of migration. The domestic sphere is a crucial and critical unit of analysis in migration studies. Authors on return migrants concur on a particular observation: second-generation migrants, brought up by their parents to become cosmopolitan adolescents in the West, or “international kids” (Chiang 2011), have undergone significant personal transformations. Upon coming home, these young “leavers” have changed and so have the “stayers,” thus the gap, the misfit, between the two opposing camps. There is a saying, “You don’t step into the same river twice.” The experience of having stepped into the river has changed both the actor and the environment (the river) that continue to insist on sameness, thus the poignant paradox of “one race, two ethnicities, two solitudes.” The return migrants inhabit a third time-space betwixt and

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between a past (homeland) that has changed and a future that is uncertain and offers no guarantees, thus the title of this book—Return Migrants in Hong Kong, Singapore and Israel: Choices, Stresses and Coping. As argued by Adrian Bailey (2013) and Adrian Bailey and Agnes Law (2013), these personal changes may be the consequences of negotiations, even contestations, of familial roles and statuses (Sussman 2011, 2013; Salaff et al, 2010, 2013; Chiang, 2011) and of gender and generation politics within the family (Chan and Seet 2013; Chan and Chan 2013). Women and men, and parents and children, have swapped positions and sites of power, sometimes through force, even violence, during the family’s transborder journeys, resulting in significant changes in both attitudes and behavior regarding individualism versus collectivism; democracy, freedom, authoritarianism, and traditionality versus modernity; conformity versus autonomy; and so on. Again, as Bailey (2013) and Bailey and Law (2013) argue, the family continues to occupy an integral and strategic middling ground between self and society, between the individual and the community. Thus, the family and migration may well be two sides of the same coin, they are bonded and bounded to each other. To better understand the effect of return migration in global comparative perspective, in 2008, Chan Kwok-bun assembled a team of sociologists based in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Israel to conduct in-depth interviews with returnees and undertake ethnographic fieldwork and analyses of government policies and measures on return migration in the three sites under a common analytical framework, that of cost-and-benefit analysis. The interviews considered the sociology of emotions, social exchange, and rational choice as well as the social psychology of stress and coping, marriage and the family, migration, and diaspora and transnationalism. The study is an exercise in comparative sociology: in the three sites of our fieldwork, we have gathered returnees’ narratives of experiences, events, and life stories that are fused with sentiments of opportunities gained and lost, of joy and sorrow. All three sites are known immigrant societies, to both their residents and the world; two of them, Hong Kong and Singapore, are former British colonies with a marked history of westernization and post-colonialism, and are primarily Chinese societies in the East, though the latter is a lot more multiracial and multicultural and, as a nation-state, thus unlike Hong Kong, has the burden of cultivating a sense of nationhood and loyalty among both stayers and leavers as well as returnees coming home. The design of our study, and our book, is to compare and contrast the Hong Kong case with another primarily Chinese society in the East, Singapore, and with a racially and culturally different society in the West, Israel. Singapore and Israel, both being nation-states that have experienced the ebbs and flows, ins and outs, of population movements in their young, restless, and conflict-ridden histories of nation-building and community-­formation, find it necessary, or are even compelled, to link their immigration and integration policies with policies of national development in politics, economics, races and ethnicities, and, we dare say, emotions, aesthetics, imagination, and storytelling. Our overarching question is: How and to what extent could the Singapore and Israel cases be held up as mirrors of the experience of Hong Kong returnees? Our comparative study’s common theoretical premise is framed by cost-and-benefit analysis. The social psychology of coping and

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adaptation and other concepts used in studies of migrancy and transnationalism enable us to probe the private, inner workings of the returnee’s mind (and of his or her family and kin network). They also allow us to explore public, outer historical, and macro forces that shape a returnee one way or another—often not according to his or her own volition. To be or not to be, that is the question. To return (to Hong Kong, Singapore, or Israel) or not to return? Now back home, what should transpire in the future? To leave once again and return to the West, or not? Does a rolling stone really gather no moss? Once upon a time, when a native took the first (fateful) step of leaving his birthplace to “see the world,” he bid farewell to the ancestral cave of warmth, comfort, and trust. He began the first of many transborder journeys, earning his modernity and postmodernity in the midst of incessant mobility, even hypermobility. As it happens, he looks sideways all the time, always comparing places, cultures, peoples, ways of doing things. He has become a compulsive comparer. Is the pasture greener on the other side? This obsession with “the other side,” the “elsewhereness,” may mean he is destined to be an outsider, a drifter, a stranger, forever and wherever, which may be his fate, like it or not. An outsider often sees things the insiders do not, which is the fountainhead of his creativity, even genius. Things are not what they appear to be. What is made in one way can be made in another way. The outsiders know this “makeability” or artificiality of things very, very well, which is their delight, their upside, or bright side. But this ability to perceive options, alternatives, different ways of doing things, on the part of the returnees, disturbs the status quo and upsets, even angers, the locals who demand conformity and obedience to authority as well as tradition (Markowitz 2012). Stayers do not hesitate to punish those who dare to challenge and deviate—thus the suffering and plight of the movers. Creativity indeed has its costs. While reading the page proofs of this book in late September, 2020, Hong Kong the former British colonial city is in a deep political and economic turmoil which was sparked off by massive street protests of the people against their government— one after another in 2015. There is not a day passing by without reading reports in the newspapers about restless and worried Hongkongers deliberating on whether to stay or to leave, some of whom may well include those returnees interviewed in our Hong Kong study. What do we want to call these actions and moves of these people this time? Re-return migration, this time back to the West they had left 15 years ago? Circuit or circular migration? Is the circle game merely a game, or a matter of survival, of life or death?

Acknowledgments

This book would never have been completed if a total of 59 return migrants in Hong Kong, Israel, and Singapore did not generously share their experiences in the workplace and their life stories with us all. This book is dedicated to them. We would like to express our gratitude for the assistance from our research team: Dr. Wong Kang Kau, Dick Chong, Ross Cheung and Amanda Shi in Hong Kong; Dr. Irina Zak and Prof. Arie Cohen in Israel; and Ng Lai Fun, Ng Hak Kan, Dr. Rose Liang, and Grace Yang in Singapore. We very much appreciate the consistent support and assistance from so many people in Hong Kong, Israel, and Singapore, without whom this book could never have been completed. This book evolved from two research projects funded by the Central Policy Unit (CPU) of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administration Region. We would like to express our special thanks to the CPU for their financial support. From March 2018 to Feb 2020, Dr. Wai-wan Vivien Chan worked as Junior Fellow at the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts (SoF), Southern University of Science and Technology, China. We are most grateful for the research fund provided by her institute to support the book manuscript revision. Wai-wan would like to express her special thanks to Prof. Zhou Yongming, Prof. Wang Xiaokui, and Dr. Zhang Jinghong, my friends at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences and Center for Social Sciences; and other 20 Fellows at SoF for the warm, intellectual working environment they created there. Our special thanks also go to Laurence Stevens for his excellent proofreading. We would like to express our deep appreciation for his hard work even on weekends and during a holiday period to help us meet the deadline for submission. These few lines of thanks are inadequate to indicate our deep gratitude toward our family members. With their unfailing support, we successfully completed the long journey of fieldwork, interviews, data analysis, and book writing. Thanks to their whole-­souled kindness towards us, we will carry on and look forward to “travelling” together on our next intellectual journey.

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Contents

1 Introduction: Cost-and-Benefit Analysis: Decision-Making in Migration����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    1 Globalization, Public Policy and Assimilation of Return Migration ��������     6 Public Policy Implications of International Migration for Global Governance������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    13 Migrant Transnationalism and Family-Based Migration��������������������������    15 Globalized Economic Space, Transnationalism and Translocality������������    16 Some Theoretical and Methodological Considerations ����������������������������    20 On a National Level and Public Policy������������������������������������������������������    22 Migrant’s Coping Strategies as Responses to Policies������������������������������    23 Ritual Process, Community Development and De-alienation in Chinese Diasporic Communities ����������������������������������������������������������    23 Chinese Ritual Performance as De-alienation ������������������������������������������    25 Ethnic Chinese Community Development As De-alienation��������������������    28 Return Migration, Social Action and Public Policy����������������������������������    34 Analytic Procedure and Aims of Study������������������������������������������������������    37 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    39 2 The Hong Kong Study ������������������������������������������������������������������������������   43 Research Methods and Demographic Characteristics of Returnee Respondents in Hong Kong����������������������������������������������������    46 Vignettes of Four Returnees����������������������������������������������������������������������    50 Factors Associated with Return Migration������������������������������������������������    61 Plight and Delight of the Mobile Migrants: Hidden Injuries of Global Mobility ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    64 Adjustment to Local Environment������������������������������������������������������������    73 Migrant Coping Strategies as Responses to Immigration Policies: Migrant’s Cost-and-Benefit Analysis��������������������������������������������������������    79

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Suggestions to Other Returnees: Looking Beyond the Horizons of Costs and Benefits ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������    85 What Will the Future Hold?����������������������������������������������������������������������    87 Some Reflections ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    89 Policy Recommendations to the Hong Kong Government������������������������    93 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    98 3 The Singapore Study����������������������������������������������������������������������������������  101 Research Methods and Demographic Characteristics of Returnee Respondents in Singapore������������������������������������������������������   108 Evolution of Government Policies and Programs: Cost-­and-Benefit Calculation in Historical Perspective����������������������������   111 Government Programs and Initiatives Targeted at Overseas Singaporeans: The Long Arm of Global Capital Accumulation��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   115 The Balance Sheet of Migrating����������������������������������������������������������������   119 Preparation for Return��������������������������������������������������������������������������������   122 Returnees’ Problems and Dilemmas����������������������������������������������������������   132 Returnees’ Personal and Collective Strategies for Coping as Responses to Government Policies��������������������������������������������������������   133 Will They Stay or Leave? Migration Decision-Making Within a Cost-and-­Benefit Framework������������������������������������������������������   135 Some Reflections ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   138 Policy Recommendations to the Singaporean Government����������������������   140 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   144 4 The Israel Study ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  147 Human Capital and Economic Growth in Israel: Successes and Dilemmas ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   148 Brain Drain and Cost Accounting of Human Capital Accumulation��������   151 What Causes the Israeli Brain Drain and Loss of Human Capital?����������   155 Factors Influencing Israelis’ Decision to Return���������������������������������������   157 Brain Drain From Non-academic Sector: Two Stories������������������������������   160 Development of Migration Policies: Costs and Benefits of Human Capital Growth��������������������������������������������������������������������������   161 Dilemmas and Challenges of Current Migration Policies: Costs and Benefits of Global Innovative Knowledge Transfer������������������   167 Evaluation of Migration Policies: Legitimatizing the “Unholy” Alliance of Brain Strain, Brain Gain and Brain Drain in the Migration Drama��������������������������������������������������   172 Some Reflections ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   174 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   177

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5 Conclusion��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  179 Comparing Public Policies on Return Migration��������������������������������������   183 Toward a Universal Policy on Return Migrants and their Reintegration������������������������������������������������������������������������������   184 In Reflection: Thinking Back and Forth, Back and Forth��������������������������   187 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   189 Author Index����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  191 Subject Index����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  195

Chapter 1

Introduction: Cost-and-Benefit Analysis: Decision-Making in Migration

Nowadays, vastly improved global transportation and telecommunications enable an elite class of highly trained and socially endowed migrants to traverse the world. The globalization movement and migrant transnationalism reinforce each other, and this has profound implications as the movement of highly skilled and cultured migrants from the third world and developing countries makes an impact on both low-income countries of origin and more affluent host countries—even though at a disproportionate rate. Policymakers are painfully aware that this elite class is increasingly engaged in transnational migration from third world and developing countries, and if they do not return to their countries of origin, a continuation of the “brain drain” (a human capital cost/loss) may cause irreparable damage to the development of the sending countries (OEDC 2008; IOM 2003). Nevertheless, the World Bank reports that among migrants, those belonging to the elite class generally possess a higher propensity to migrate than the non-elite (2000:39). This is because they possess a higher level of formal education and a larger share of marketable skills, technical know-how, financial resources, social networks, professional connections, and market information—all enriched by their migratory experiences. Contrary to this (possibly permanent) loss of skilled and talented persons indispensable for the sustainable development of their home countries, elite migrants may occupy strategic roles in the administrative, economic, social, and/or political apparatus of the government in their country of origin upon their return. In this case, they may even act as purveyors of global interconnection and agents/catalysts for national and local development. However, insofar as return migration is concerned, there is a relative lack of detailed studies of its costs and benefits from the perspective of microeconomics. Also, there is little agreement among the stakeholders on the relative impact of return migration, though scholarly emphasis has largely been placed on the benefits (and less so on the costs) of financial, human, and social-­ cultural capital gains transferred back home by returnees—i.e., cultural remittances as distinct from “economic remittances” (Flores 2009; Barrett 2002). Therefore, to better understand policymaking and actual practices in country-specific cases, more © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 K.-b. Chan, W.-w. V. Chan, Return Migrants in Hong Kong, Singapore and Israel, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40963-0_1

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thoroughgoing research into the linkages between the migrants themselves and the mechanisms of movement involved in migration and socioeconomic and political development is needed. Such knowledge can help to both prepare reliable forecasts and minimize the risks and costs of human capital transfers (in multiple directions of the migration trajectories) when weighing up the costs and benefits of transnational migration. It can also help to plan how those benefits can both be maximized and more equitably distributed in both the host and sending countries. As mentioned, capital transfer may take the form of savings/remittances or technical know-how, training, and work experience that the migrants have obtained in the foreign country. On the assumption that these return migrants can apply their newly acquired skills and funds productively once they have returned home, return migration could be considered as a huge benefit over and above its cost in a cost-­ and-­benefit analysis regarding migration and dynamics of demographic movements. However, research findings thus far have failed to shed sufficiently strong light on the costs and benefits of return migration to allow policymakers across many countries to reach conclusions and draw up policy plans aimed at maximizing the benefits arising from the mobility of highly skilled migrants and other elites while minimizing the costs of the “brain drain” in what Beck has termed a “risk society” (Beck and Adam 2000). Also, the existent literature is divided in its findings on the policy impact of transnational migration and return migration on developmental policy. Specifically, the findings differ according to the magnitude, categories, jurisdiction, and timing of migration movements. The researcher’s choice of methodology and theoretical framework also significantly determines the research findings and their relevance and hence the nature and magnitude of the policy impact of return migration. In a nutshell, the researcher’s work on public policymaking must analyze the so-called “push and pull” factors of transnational migration confronting each migrant and policymaker in the migrant’s country of origin for any policy forecast to be reliable and valid to state policymakers and other stakeholders who frequently sponsor and support such policy-based migration research ventures. This book reports on a comparative study of the developmental policy impact on return migration in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Israel. The targeted migrant groups of our study are elites (including a measure of non-elite groups) who are likely to assume key positions in the economy, education, and social and political apparatuses, that is, at the forefront of national development. As such, these elite migrants are often the first choice of any government’s talent hunt campaign. These advantaged elite returnees have an unequal edge over their compatriots and are inclined to access high positions in enterprises and government, thus allowing them to obtain additional human financial and social capital gains while overseas and at home. With this “added value,” they are placed in a strong bargaining position vis-à-vis the government to effectuate change in society. As some authors would have it, the “stranger” is in a unique social position to have far better insights into the workings of society than government leaders themselves. This strategic position that returnee elites occupy also manifests itself in their having accumulated considerable wealth and technical knowledge and an international/cosmopolitan outlook which can be

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translated into human capital and put to good use in private or public offices. Besides these financial capital and human capital gains, elite returnees are in possession of significant social capital (e.g., community ties) both before and after they migrate. Upon returning home, their social capital holding is expanded to foster and consolidate productive human relationships (Faist 1997). As mentioned earlier, in both policy and practical terms, academics and most policymakers put disproportionately more emphasis on the “cost” side of out-­ migration (e.g., “brain drain”), to the neglect of the “benefit” side of the equation (e.g., remittances, two-way networking, and knowledge transfers back home). It is therefore good policy practice to redress the imbalance by reconsidering what improvements return migration and returnees can make at different levels of the social encounter. In a cost-and-benefit framework, the weighing up of each variable in the equation of migration and re-emigration decision-making takes into account family situation, economic advancement, employment opportunities, housing facilities, traditional values, newly learned (Western) values, and social, cultural, and political variables. Moreover, political allegiances seem to take on a special aura in the cases of Singapore and Israel, though less so in Hong Kong then and now— where Hongkongers have been identified as people living on borrowed land and in borrowed time under the British administration before 1997. Therefore, we argue that not only the migrant’s own personal benefits/gains should be explored but also the changes in his or her immediate family environment, the workplace, network or community, and the whole public sphere, and, no less importantly, his or her migration experiences overseas. This well-balanced approach seeks a comprehensive understanding of the complex relationships of both the private and public spheres of the migrant’s everyday life. Taking a cost-and-benefit analysis approach to state policy on immigration and return migration hopefully will on balance serve the interests of both the state and the general public by facilitating the emergence of new patterns of societal solidarity and prosperity, especially in view of the oftenquoted incidents in the research literature of conflict of interest between returnees and local inhabitants. The motivation behind migration or reverse migration lies in a dissatisfaction with the status quo, not least in the perceived inequality of opportunities and expected improvements that migration would bring. But the decision to move or not, and if yes, where to, inevitably involves individual- and family-level trade-offs between expected material and non-material gains and costs. Hence, the cost-and-­ benefit analytical framework (cognitive-motivational by nature; but motivation and behavior are not mutually exclusive concepts) is a technique for systematically estimating the efficiency impacts of personalized or collective migration (e.g., family-­ based migration) behavior or public policymaking, with the latter being the most commonly employed in the evaluation of publicly financed projects or programs with significant public policy implications. Researchers invariably investigate either the causes of migration or the consequences of it while the theory and model they adopt may vary according to their own intellectual preferences. As regards this study, it is appropriate to adopt a cost-and-benefit analysis as a decision rule for migration behavior because impact efficiency or efficacy is a

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relevant value for the migrants (e.g., in favor of a microeconomic approach to migration decision-making), and important public policy impacts/individual coping strategies are gained in realistic terms (Weimer and Vining 1989:33–378). Even in a multi-goal policy analysis approach, cost-and-benefit analysis can still be a useful technique for multivariate analyses. The first step of this technique is to identify impacts and categorize them as either costs or benefits for various stakeholders and then use them as a direct decision rule (or indirectly as a “rule of thumb”) for migration behaviors/strategies/maneuvers of individual migrants, families/households, or national policymakers—a methodology that is more appropriately identified as the micro-level analysis, whereas the macro-level analysis methodology depicts the generalized (but not generalizable) patterns of migration based on (trans)national census data. Although national governments and policymakers are more likely to see their countrymen or citizens as the relevant people for considering economic/developmental efficiency, our cost-and-benefit analysis specifies which societies’, countries’, or groups’ benefits or costs we are targeting—even though the government or society at large may consider their interests invalid or too expensive to achieve. For example, the targeted groups may be those who cannot articulate their interests. Also, policy impacts that apply to outsiders or related costs and benefits that accrue outside national boundaries are typically ignored by national policy leaders while measuring program changes in economic/developmental efficiency—often on political grounds. But in the event of devising a long-term and coherent policy on immigration and return migration that inevitably affects both sending and recipient countries, it is prudent to consider both the domestic/internal and foreign/external impacts of migration as being vital parts of foreign policy. This is because immigration affects both the host country and country of origin in terms of demographic changes, capital and technology/skill transfers, social/political/institutional relationships, and transformation in a rapidly globalizing world. The host country and origin country need each other in coordinating transnational migration and technology transfer. It can be a win-win situation for both sides if handled appropriately. Moreover, since the external factors cannot always be easily pre-determined or even determined posterior due to a lack of legal-constitutional or political jurisdiction, this cost-and-benefit analysis itemizes all identifiable/conceivable impacts and decides whether they are internal or external to the domestic/national interests. Thereafter, judicious (sometimes audacious) decisions are made about which external variables should be ignored, which pursued, and which prioritized. The items that are left over are therefore either internal or neutral interest-laden factors to be followed up later. Even while adopting a cost-and-benefit analysis from a socioeconomic and political perspective of a sub-national government (e.g., Hong Kong in relation to the central government of China), the method can reasonably predict whether the sub-national government will be the sole beneficiary in terms of net benefits rather than the unwitting victim in terms of net costs in the calculation of transactions of human resources across the borders. In many cases, a variety of external factors, e.g., economic, political, cultural, ethnic, or spillovers like cross-country disposal of

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industrial/nuclear wastes, acid rain, and other environmental hazards, can cause a discrepancy or a conflict flashpoint between dominant national interests and sub-­ national/autonomous regional interests, or between different sovereign states. (The superpowers are notorious for using underdeveloped countries as dumping grounds for their refuse, including not least nuclear/biochemical wastes.) From the perspective of national or sub-national policymakers, internal and external factors influencing policy impacts should be estimated in terms of their costs and benefits accruing first to their own local jurisdictions and then secondarily to what can only be applied to a utopian world. When estimating whether different segments of the population in society, including local residents and recent returnees (and, in rare cases, illegal immigrants and refugees), parents and their children, the aged, the handicapped, the chronically ill, the insane, criminals, etc., are entitled to such benefits from society as social welfare, housing, medical care, education, employment, etc., ethical/moral issues will invariably arise as to how to justify a particular policy option on, for example, universalistic/humanistic grounds or legal/constitutional grounds, or on grounds of economic/developmental imperatives. Should we give special attention to policy impacts favorable to any of those particular (underprivileged) categories of people in society as opposed to the more privileged, and why? When such sensitive, “class-­ based” questions are central to the identification of relevant policy impacts and repercussions, the scope of the cost-and-benefit analysis method should be expanded or diversified to include a multi-goal, multilayered, multivariate (e.g., involving canonical precepts and procedural justice or prickly issues of more democratic global governance) consideration of the efficiency impacts of policies affecting all stakeholders internally and externally. This study examines these questions in such an expanded manner. The next step in a cost-and-benefit analysis is to choose among policy options (oftentimes among the “lesser of two evils,” so to speak). In principle, a policy that offers positive net benefits should be adopted where the principal goal is to achieve policy efficiency and efficacy. But when choosing among multiple policies that may enhance or interfere (i.e., conflict) with each other, for example, government’s stated preferences for returnees over local residents in terms of resource allocation, it is practicable, or “politically correct,” to opt for the combinations of policies that maximize net benefits (over net costs such as the social cost of potential disharmony between returnees and local residents). Physical, cultural, budgetary, and other constraints may limit the feasibility of generating such combinations. Or, in a worst-­case scenario, when all the available policies are mutually exclusive, it is advisable to attempt to maximize efficiency and efficacy by choosing the option with the largest positive net benefits. Policy trade-offs (rather than selling out the “disposables”) become a hard choice. These choices are identified and discussed in this study. Invariably, governments are confronted with budgetary constraints in trying to pursue certain policy options (as regards opportunity cost or relative advantages of such and such a policy or policies). Under such circumstances, the best way to distribute constraints and manage risks exacerbated by information asymmetry, without harming the efficiency of policies, is to spread the costs and risks as widely or

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horizontally as possible, over a broad range of public activities ensued from policy implementation. Hopefully as few people as possible will actually bear the net costs or bear the brunt of (or, as some may see it, be victimized by) such a policy. Moreover, a rational policy expects different people to bear or share costs, often under inevitable constraints (as posited by rational-choice and/or pragmatism theory). Either a general leveling up or leveling down of the well-being of the entire population may ensue in such reckoning. But if some segment of the population should end up being the net loser from the combination of policies, they should be compensated by a special program that redistributes valuable resources, e.g., through affirmative action or a voucher system. One is restrained from punishing the beneficiary of a policy for the policymaker’s discretionary power, unless a charge of abuse of power is sustained. Overall, this study suggests the best approach would be to treat net benefits as the measure of efficiency and efficacy impacts of policies within a cost-­and-­benefit analytical framework.

 lobalization, Public Policy and Assimilation G of Return Migration It is often argued that public policymaking today is more affected than before by the impact of economic globalization (Hay 2003:587–604). The majority opinion suggests that globalization and public policy are contrary to each other. Some would even argue that the extent of globalization is an index of the retrenchment of public policy at the domestic/national level. The cause of this putative tension between public policymaking and the globalization process is regarded as, among other things, a challenge to the public nature (or domestic nature) of public policy (or the public sphere). Thus, globalization is conceived as minimizing the role of the nation-state because it requires that a series of non-negotiable external/globalizing policy strategies be made. Those global policy strategies are largely determined by economic imperatives that must be applied in a technically proficient way if sound economic performance is to be achieved in both the nation-state and the world economy. This developmental dynamic of economic globalization (as theorized in world-systems theory) means the undermining of democratic global governance and democratic accountability in global affairs which has a rippling effect on domestic/national politics. Also, in terms of political economy, globalization is seen as an “invisible hand” involved in global competition for scarce resources, including for elite international migrants. It thus dictates policy choices while itself being exempt from national/ domestic supervision by political actors (to control it), ironically, because it is “invisible.” An example is the free movement of transnational and return migrants across the world (except for those from the most dictatorial regimes) on the proviso that these transmigrants can obtain transit visas from the concerned authorities to cross borders. However, although globalization and public policymaking are viewed

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as antithetical, this conflict is less a consequence of the direct and necessary constraints imposed by the globalization process than it is an outcome of political and contingent variables. The need to apply for transit visas to cross national borders is a political act, an act of the state. Therefore, the constraining effects of globalization are actually spin-offs of political behaviors by purposeful political actors and are less the direct results of the unwieldy forces of the capitalist market. Even though these constraints are more keenly felt at the domestic/national level than at the global level, they nonetheless highlight the need for effective and democratic public policymaking at the transnational level—that is, an effective and democratic global governance to counter the tyrannical effects of economic globalization and free market forces. The social integration of returnees is a complex phenomenon which defies definition. In a sense, it is merely a way (among many and various ways) of describing the established patterns of social relations. The opposite of integration is disintegration, a state of anomie in a Durkheimian sense, which leads to polarization of social groups and social instability. However, for integration to be buttressed over a longer period and in a sustainable way, it is necessary to understand the underlying structural causes of disintegration (as the Marxists used to say). To be sure, the structural causes of globalization and globalism, both enhancing economic exchange and aggravating global inequality, also badly need to be better analyzed. Gerhad Wagner and Karin Ikas (2009) stressed that globalization has turned immigrants around the world into “nomads.” The institutions and organizations at all levels of society are battlefields (i.e., “nomads” keep pushing the frontiers) for international migrants who strategize on maneuvers and techniques to further their causes. This is suggested in Homi Bhabha’s theory of third space as a contingency/shifting space for inter- and transcultural negotiation in situations of asymmetrical power relations that are so often foregrounded in post-colonial studies (Bhabha 2009). It should, however, be emphasized that Bhabha’s thesis of asymmetrical power relations and inter- and transcultural negotiation/communication is applicable not only to colonialism but also to post-colonial societies, modernity, development, and post-­ development. Hence, scathing post-colonial critiques are also critiques of the social malaise of modernity and postmodernity. Therefore, in migration studies, it can be argued that migrant behavior or misdemeanor arises largely from the problems of socioeconomic and political malintegration, maladaptation, or cultural dislocation in both the host country and in the country of origin (the negative aspects of the “push-pull” argument). Many studies have indicated that migrant behavior determines to a large extent integration among a wide range of relevant stakeholders (sometimes a euphemism for predators or plunderers) and key players in regional, national, transcultural, and transcontinental spaces. This is so because migrants’ transnational behavior, as well as their transnational connections, ethnic/hybrid identity, and cultural attachment(s) are maintained and transformed as they settle into a new country. All these transnational personal experiences (not to mention their transcendental religious faiths, if any) and putative sagas of migrancy and vagrancy shape their behavior and attitude. As they transmigrate, their cultural

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imprints, like footprints, are shaped and reshaped, though ultimately wiped out like a journey across sand dunes. However, there is a new, more recent segment of immigrants who, unlike their precursors decades ago, are highly educated professionals who experience little open discrimination (though the existence of a “glass ceiling” cannot be ruled out) in society, and they often occupy high-paying jobs or even high offices in the government. These are the “new middle class” who have managed to integrate into mainstream society in fewer than three generations since their forebears first set foot in the host country. Conversely, unskilled and uneducated immigrants commonly languish in low-paying jobs. Non-white immigrants are especially vulnerable to economic recessions during which upward mobility is inconceivable. More likely than not, these unfortunate immigrants are confined to the lower-class segments of racial minority populations and ghettoized, so to speak. Their second generation are more likely to be caught in a “culture of poverty,” become anti-social deviants, and are condemned to a life of poverty (Portes and Rumbaut 1990:249). Even for those few exceptional second-generation immigrants from lower-class backgrounds who do have more life choices, their career paths and trajectories present different decisions: that is, whether to turn their back on their own ethnicity and heritage and integrate into their peer groups in the neighborhood schools or assimilate into the dominant class (Portes and Rumbaut 1990:254). Migration is a stressful, emotionally charged experience of spatial dislocation and cultural rupture that is difficult for non-migrants to grasp. Cultural differences encountered by the immigrants in the adopted countries, for example, in the form of Canadian and European multiculturalism, or American and French melting-pot mosaics, pose a challenge to the preservation of the migrants’ old ethnic identities and their ability to adapt to the new environment. The “in-betweenness” or liminal state of processual migration in a transnational situation, whether of refugees, exiles, escapees, or economic immigrants, underscores the migrants’ volatile migratory experiences which defy a traditional culturalist interpretation that tends to characterize the identity formation process as one that follows a linear and uniform pattern of tribalism. There are certain emotional manifestations that are specific to individual human beings such as grief and anguish that transcend specific cultures. By investigating the migratory experiences of immigrants at the interface of cultures, sociologists are able to explore the emotional and behavioral implications of migrants who experience frequent border-crossings. For example, by seeing culture as a social product rather than as a fixed preconception, researchers are beginning to understand that new coping strategies and adaptive skills emerge out of the social alienation engendered by various forms of discrimination because of gender, age, racial, or religious differences. Migrants’ pre-migration cultural practices and social skills, including their coping strategies and adaptive abilities, inevitably condition their lived foreign experiences and how they respond to changing social relations in their adopted countries—for example, how they approach a host country’s multiculturalism policy as compared to another country’s assimilationist policy as migrants move from country to country. Moreover, migrants may preserve, secretly or openly, their pre-migration emotional life and self-identity that have been shaped by their

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traditional cultural background while they take on a new, more cosmopolitan, social identity after having migrated many times over. In other words, a transmigrant may exhibit emotions and behaviors that are symptomatic of someone with a patent (post)modern identity that coexists with a covert “tribal” one, an “inner turmoil,” or a split subjectivity so often portrayed by diasporic writers in their novels or plays (e.g., works of Salman Rushdie, or Gao Xingjian, the Nobel Laureate in Literature in 2000). In some situations, there are specific myths of migration (and/or return migration) that are invoked by cultural, economic, and political circumstances of the migratory process. For example, in late imperialist China during the turn of the last century, a large and continuous out-migration movement occurred in Southern China, particularly in Fujian Province, toward the West. This very act of out-­ emigration by large numbers of Chinese to the West had a tremendous impact on how they reacted to their migratory experience (during the lengthy process of pre-­ migration, transmigration, and post-migration) in terms of their emotional as well as behavioral responses. During this transitional and transformative period of pre-­ migration, transmigration, and post-migration, a liminal state endures that may create a conflict in the formation of identities of these migrants—hence the emotional distress in the migration experience as a result of the incongruence between idealized pre-migration expectations and stark post-emigration realities. That is, a failure in wish fulfillment may produce in them social estrangement and anguish, an identity crisis, and even mental ailments. Under such circumstances, it is possible that this incongruence may arouse a nostalgic feeling toward a migrant’s homeland, the “motherland.” This “myth” of return exists in the minds and souls of the distraught immigrants, a “myth” that is culturally or economically motivated and, sometimes, politically manipulated to suit the interests of the sending countries, as in the recent upsurge of ethnic or regional nationalism in many parts of the third world. This “myth” of return, as it continues to thrive on the misguided cultural policies of the receiving countries, strongly shapes the identities of the immigrants and their coping strategies or adaptive abilities while settling in the host countries. Under normal circumstances, nostalgic memory of one’s homeland as one’s last resting place or cultural moorings may engender specific responses that can make integration into the host country all the more difficult—at least for the first-­ generation immigrants. This is what sociologists call a “self-fulfilling prophecy”: as immigrants are sometimes treated by the natives as disloyal transients or sojourners living in a diasporic situation, the immigrants themselves may then begin to embrace this identity of transients or sojourners (or, in rare cases, cosmopolitans) bestowed upon them by the locals, knowing that someday they will return to their homeland permanently as their nostalgic myth of return impels them to do. Such myth of return, once stamped on the minds of the immigrants, can feed on itself and becomes resistant to change and may cause considerable emotional trauma in many immigrant families when faced with an (in)decision on repatriation. In particular, as the young children in immigrant families are growing up, the gap between the teenagers’ expectations of an ideal life in the adopted country and those of their parents continues to widen (Chan and Seet 2003, 2013). To stay or not to stay, that is the

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question that may oftentimes lead to many parents eschewing their long-held dream of returning to their homeland and staying overseas for the sake of their children. But then emotional distress in the family may flare up again when the question of their children’s education comes up for discussion. Most parents want their children to not only be conversant with the Western culture and linguistic skills but also possess a functional literacy in their mother tongue, that is, to be culturally competent in both their country of origin and the adopted country—itself a “myth” of multiculturalism or an impossible dream for many immigrant children who are sometimes labeled as “third culture kids” or the “1.5 generation” by many scholars of migration studies (Salaff et al. 2008). Thus, each family’s (and/or each family member’s) deliberations on whether to return or not is influenced by the needs of the children and those of the other members of the family such as the householder’s wife or his own aging parents, and even by the peer group pressure of one’s close-knit ethnic community (besides other factors adumbrated in the so-called “push-pull” theory). In some cases, domestic anxiety arises when the spatialized nostalgia toward a myth of return harbored by the father is not or cannot be shared by his wife or children. The family dynamics of an immigrant family plays itself out in a constant tug of war between leaving and staying which frequently takes a heavy toll on the emotional and physical well-being of the family. For most immigrants, the questions remain: Where do their roots lie, with their children in their adopted country or in their country of origin? Are they humans with emotional attachments like everybody else? Or are they like trees whose roots can be extracted and re-rooted in foreign soil, where they either thrive or pine away and die? Migration by nature involves a physical removal from the familiar and an emotional reorientation toward the strange that requires the migrants to try to adapt to a new, sometimes inhospitable social milieu and a newly acquired social identity as well as a redefined self-identity. Return migration prolongs this socioeconomic and psychological process. The shaping and reshaping of new identities in the aftermath of traumatized life experiences can be a lengthy cultural and psychological process that is oftentimes stressful and emotionally disturbing for the migrants who are in the midst of a harrowing migratory experience of continually traversing national borders. In this diasporic journey, one can be alienated from others without ever having had the proper relatedness to them—barring a long enough stay. And one can also be alienated from oneself without ever having attained, in Erich Fromm’s conception, an ideal of genuine selfhood and authenticity (true personality) (Schacht 1971:252). The reasons for this self-alienation, this lack of internal relatedness or coherence, are that each of these unfamiliar territories or national boundaries through which they pass represents new cultural practices and alien socioeconomic and political apparatuses with which they must grapple, unlearn, and relearn (the past and the present). A new identity thus needs to be negotiated and renegotiated arduously each and every time. The stresses and distresses of migration in the diasporic population are aggravated if the historical relationships and the relative

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economic statuses between the traditional sending and receiving countries—such as the third-world and first-world countries, respectively, for example, the Chinese mainland and the PacificRim areas including the USA—between which the migrants shuttle are far from compatible. Such socioeconomic and historical forces can nurture certain emotional conditions and common structures of feelings—such as nostalgia for a migrant’s past identity and place of origin, or a yearning for a renunciation of them. Moreover, these emotional structures are channels for expressing the migrants’ feelings, like grief and anger, that are universally expressed by all humans. Managing stress associated with one’s nightmarish migratory experience is not always easy and oftentimes gives rise to emotional conflict within the migrant families, adversely affecting spousal relations, intergenerational expectations, and wish fulfillment (Chan and Seet 2003, 2013), thus the feminists’ warnings about gender and generation politics. Ironically, though emotional conflict, unfulfilled dreams, and dashed hopes within the migrant families upon their return home and while abroad are a destructive force, they may also engender and foster unconventional behavioral and emotional structures among the migrant population that are in and of themselves transformative culturally, even transpersonally, and spiritually among the family members and across generations and gender. This in turn can generate yet more emotional conflicts and dynamics in family interactions and consequently become a fertile battleground in which novel migrant identities and behavioral patterns may sprout. A case in point is the Hong Kong returnees as a social group. These returnees are not regarded as bona fide Hongkongers by local residents and even by themselves— perhaps because of a “self-fulfilling prophecy.” Hence, returnees have a “floating identity,” a feeling of being not welcomed and a nagging sensation of rootlessness. They are a “sandwich group” in Hong Kong society. Sometimes, they are co-opted by the mainstream society, sometimes jettisoned. They are caught in a double bind. Metaphorically speaking, at times, they have the best of both worlds, and at other times, they become the “fall guys” in both. They are haunted by a constant feeling of self-doubt over a serious norm deficiency, a tell-tale sign of postmodern anxiety—as portrayed in Edvard Munch’s famous oil painting “The Scream.” While they cherish their fond memories of the Western way of life in the past, they incessantly envisage a rose garden in the next station of their life cycle—a constant inner struggle, soul-searching, and perhaps a self-delusion over what they want to do with their lives, where they ultimately want to be—but, alas, more often than not, what will be is not to be. The flip side is that modern returnees are blessed with a more cosmopolitan outlook on life than the locals: the ancient Greek connotation of being a free man, a “nomad” roaming the borderless pastures as freely as the wind blows, as freely as the grass grows. But they are also burdened with a past of transculturality as the modern world, unlike the ancient borderless Greek grasslands, is nation-based, state-dominated, sovereignty-hypersensitive. The world is territorialized and often re-territorialized, as currently occurs in Middle Eastern geopolitics. Even so, as modern cosmopolitans, an elite class, Hong Kong returnees are relatively adaptable

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to different environments and know how to make selective use of foreign (new) cultural practices to resolve local (old) problems. They thus survive the harsh social selection experiment as a collective social species, though being painfully aware that local parochialism means their foreign-learned problem-solving skills and their reclaimed Chinese pedigree will not go unchallenged. They can usually come up with a compromise solution to their problems in a work situation, and in this sense, one can say they are more creative, adaptive, and resilient—distinctive attributes of the Hong Kong elites—though this level of creativity will not be readily appreciated nor rewarded by their peers. Returnees are “odd men out” in Hong Kong. They attract scanty attention in the Hong Kong government’s social development blueprints. Indeed, many returnees feel that their creativity and talents are not sufficiently recognized in  local companies or by the Hong Kong government, which impels them to job-hop. They are more likely to stay in companies that have more employees with similar overseas background—in which case they tend to form cliques, not welcoming the locals into their social group. Returnees are social hybrids and often are cornered into an unenviable situation of a conflict of roles, between their social identity and personal identity, a conflict between “Western” and “Eastern” values, or of a divided loyalty between their adopted countries in the West and the place of their forebears. Many returnees are hyper-reactive in intercultural situations, having experienced firsthand the difficulties of adjustment to foreign places “there” and now to reverse culture shock “here.” Being burdened by their past psycho-cultural baggage and present self-consciousness, their ability to adjust to an alien environment is undermined. They often feel that upon their return to Hong Kong, to a bicultural, bilingual, neo-colonial society, their life is once again at a crossroads. This is an emotional price they must pay. They go into hiding, take refuge in self-­ isolation, and turn themselves into hermits or an alter ego, that is, they “get out of the way.” Among many returnees, there are those who have already returned to and then left Hong Kong several times over in the past. For many of these multiple-­peripatetic migrants, homecoming is neither the beginning nor the end of their sojourn. As our interviews with most returnees indicate, the economic imperative is the pivotal consideration for their return, so that they can now be more properly identified as “economic immigrants” or born-again “returnees.” Why did Hong Kong emigrants return? The greatest “pull” factor of Hong Kong is its economic prosperity, low tax, low unionism, laissez-faireism, and job opportunities (perhaps because of Hong Kong’s proximity to the Chinese mainland and its ideological and economic props), but certainly not its living environment, social security, or cultural or humanistic ambience—a “push” factor, as a matter of fact—of which its air and noise pollution and overcrowdedness are among the worst in the developed world. Once Hong Kong’s competitive edge is lost, immigrants will stop coming back.

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 ublic Policy Implications of International Migration P for Global Governance International migration, return migration, and globalization feed on one another in an upward spiral of demographic flows (though a downturn or a horizontal spread is not an unlikely scenario), as immigration statistics released by many sending and recipient countries make clear. There is a large and growing amount of literature today on the widespread impacts of transnational migration. In brief, first, theoretically speaking, foreign direct investment may either substitute or complement international mobility of skilled labor by relocating production facilities abroad, or it may recruit skilled labor from overseas. Hence, foreign direct investment and international mobility of skilled workers complement one another and act in tandem. The increasing internationalization of research activities and protection of intellectual property make sharing of expertise and skills possible across different countries, hence increasing the global mobility of skilled workers. Economic integration, for example, in the EU and especially in Nordic countries, may also enhance the international mobility of skilled migrants, especially as a result of the harmonization and rationalization of labor rules among these countries. Within this geo-­ political and economic re-unification, like within the EU, it is easier (e.g., through mutual recognition of academic qualifications and transferability of pension rights, etc.) to reap the benefit of economies of scale from such an integration in many areas of skill transfers and demographic flows, such as the pooling of researchers and skilled workers and capital, and the global markets in which they operate (OECD 2008). The profound policy implications of these rapidly growing skilled migrant returns and skill transfers highlight many key areas of policy impact of immigrants’ transnational engagements (especially their migrant transnationalism) in their countries of origin. That is, the policy impact of return migration on the local/national and transnational structures of the globalization movement is more keenly felt by policy leaders as emigrants continue to return home in such large numbers that they cannot be ignored. Immigrants’ transnational engagements, including return migration, mean in practice there exists some combination of plural civic-political memberships, economic involvements, multiple citizenships, and social networks or communities on a global scale. And cultural identities frequently reach across and link people as immigrants and institutions in multiple nation-states, in both sending and recipient countries, in diverse, multilayered patterns and contents, hence the likelihood of a constant process of shaping and reshaping of personal and social identities (Morawska 2009:31). Some scholars have argued that immigrant transnationalism is a product of present-­day globalization of the world and remains so today (Glick-Schiller et al. 1995; Levitt 2002). Immigrants’ transnational activities involve several social, cultural, economic, and political domains. Upon returning, these migrants continue to make an impact on the country of origin, which are the (re)constitutive and performative effects of immigrants and returnees as they try to reintegrate into the home

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country, though not always successfully as the migration literature demonstrates. These transformative effects, if they do have an impact, are in the nature of political, economic, and socio-cultural structures, which are intertwined with the internal and external forces of globalization or the dynamics of the global political economy. Here, globalization refers to the implantation of elements of (mainly Western) habits and ideas from different realms of life into immigrants’, or returnees’, home societies through their activities so that local practices and mores there acquire new qualities, pushing for a qualitative change of the local culture (Morawska 2009:179). Apart from the financial and economic effects of immigrants in the host country and the sending country, professional and highly skilled immigrants’ transnational practices in the form of research or teaching in their home countries assist in raising funds for specialized training and recruitment of students and trainees for host-­ country institutions. These activities at the same time also represent a reciprocal positive contribution to their home country’s long-term technological and economic development through cultural and economic exchanges and other technology transfers, though the original brain drain from home countries is no guarantee of sufficient solace. A cost-and-benefit analysis can shed some light on the balance sheet in this two-way transaction. It nonetheless represents some comfort for the home country at least, as such initiatives would more likely than not provide a tangible enhancement for growth in the relatively less developed home country. Therefore, policymakers at home must prepare adequately for their former citizens’ return, if they do return, while the returnee’s first-adopted country is also waiting in the wings to welcome these returnees back in (Hugo 2002:291–320). Under the globalization movement, there are broad counter-migration currents and undercurrents, including, not least, return migrants, illegal immigrants, refugees, and people in exile. The possibilities are numerous. The extent to which population movement of one form or another produces return migration or circular migration is more or less similar to those factors which are directly related to the chief causes of the initial emigration or forced emigration. These factors include economic, environmental, social, and political conditions in the home country, along with official policies regarding emigration and return migration at a particular time, conditions of international travel, degree of socio-cultural diversity, and polices of assimilationism or multiculturalism in the initial destination countries. Migrants who have had the least linguistic, cultural, psychological, and/or economic difficulties in adjusting to new environments are more mobile and adaptive. They are more likely to practice transnationalism, hence likely to return to their native lands rather than to stay anywhere permanently, or to move on to yet other destinations, if and when their adopted country’s immigration policy proves too much to bear. Therefore, local government policy leaders should heed the vagrant forces of globalization, efficiency impact of immigrants’ transnationalism, and their vital contributions to the home country and accordingly devise favorable and equitable yet realistic reception policies and programs to help returnees reintegrate into their country of origin. Otherwise, this highly skilled and most sought-after human capital may just one day (even though unwillingly) move on, and on, to “greener pastures.”

Migrant Transnationalism and Family-Based Migration

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On this point, the examples of Hong Kong, Singapore, and Israel are noteworthy. These three governments have done their utmost in the past to attract and retain their skilled citizens and returnees.

Migrant Transnationalism and Family-Based Migration Migrant transnationalism, especially that of the elite class, has received increasing attention by state policy leaders (the state plays a key role here) and academic researchers (OEDC 2008; IOM 2003). If these elite migrants do not return to their country of origin after emigration, it may result in a permanent loss of citizens with technical scientific knowledge and skills and talents of various sorts that are critically necessary for national modernization. Besides these benefits accruing from the return of these skilled and talented migrants, return migrants usually occupy strategic locations in the international and national development matrix as they are not only a source of global interlinkages but are also purveyors of changes in national, local, and international development (Mayr and Peri 2008). Insofar as policymaking is concerned (i.e., viewed from the perspective of the policymaking authorities), it is essential to obtain reliable and thorough knowledge of the interrelations between immigration, return migration, and economic modernization, so that more realistic and productive policy forecasts on both the national and transnational fronts can be made. The family is an appropriate unit of analysis in studying the migration behavior of people. This is because, while migration research treats the movers as individual actors acting on their own, typically, members of a family migrate together. Also, an individual’s migration decision is motivated by his or her expected gains and costs to the entire family as well as to the concerned individual alone. Thus, in a family-­ based migration analysis, the well-being of the whole family is the focus of attention, whereas interpersonal costs and benefits between, for example, husband and wife, are deemphasized though not entirely disregarded. For example, in a hypothetical case where the wife was coerced to leave her own beloved parents and her birthplace to migrate to a new country abroad with her husband, the involuntary migration would create an unhappy situation for the wife, which would strain the husband-wife relationship. In such a case, the wife has become a “tied migrant”; if she were unmarried, she would have preferred not to move at all. However, benefits to her husband and to the whole family outweigh consideration for her unhappiness. A contrary situation would be where the husband becomes the “tied stayer”; if the couple stay put because if the wife were to migrate, her net loss would exceed that of the husband’s or the family’s net gain (Da Vanzo 1981). If more than one destination country is on offer to the family, the principle of maximization of benefits for the whole family determines whether the husband or the wife will move rather than having the husband’s and wife’s benefits cancel each other out by both migrating to the same destination. Gendered migration behavior is one of the aspects of the “push-pull” theory of migration. There are differences between the kind of factors

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that push females out of the original place and those that push males. Indeed, each individual may have different priority for their migration decision-making (Harbison 1981). Moreover, in a family-based analysis, the family is viewed as being capable of performing an ecologically adaptive role whereby it is amenable to changes in the structural variables for migration by expanding or constricting the degree of availability of family resources accordingly (Chan 2013). Over the long haul, it is possible to explain the correlation among family size and composition, patterns of mobility, and migration out of the household/country and returning later on (Harbison 1981:249). The observation of these relationships is of theoretical and methodological importance for several reasons. The size and structure of the family may change with each life-cycle stage, and the social role (and/or personal role) of each member may also change; all such changes may continue to impact the migration decision-making process, as household members go through different cycles of their lives and they continue to make claims on family migration decisions. In other words, each member, as he or she grows up (and gets married and has children) or grows old, may be motivated by different reasons to leave the homestead and emerge from the chrysalis of the family, only to later—or perhaps never—to return to its fold. In this process, the demographic structure of the household evolves through different life cycles of its various members and continues to impact on its members’ respective migration decision-making at each and every life-cycle stage. Although it is impossible to investigate each member’s biography from cradle to grave to analyze the trajectory of his or her motivational changes, a proper stock-­ taking of the bio-information of some key individual family members should be made. A member’s motivation is influenced by the family system of structure and functions within which he or she grows up and is socialized—to leave home early or late, alone or with others, to inherit the family business or be disinherited, and if so, why and how, insofar as these decisions all relate to each member’s traditional gender/cultural role (Harbison 1981:250). The family (or an extended family defined by kinship rights and obligations) is the last bastion a migrant will return to, or so she or he thinks at least. Theoretically and methodically, therefore, the structure and function of the family must be emphasized in the study of migration decision-­ making, especially while looking at the family from an evolutionary perspective (Harbison 1981:251).

 lobalized Economic Space, Transnationalism G and Translocality When capital moves, people move (McDowell 1997). The mobility of capital engenders globalization of markets in services for finance, commerce, and industry (Featherstone 1990). Mobility enables people to reintegrate social resources so as to expand their individual horizons or fields of activity (Wang 1995). At the apex of

Globalized Economic Space, Transnationalism and Translocality

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globalized economic space, social resources move between the global and the local, bound in a dynamic set of cross-boundary, circular relationships (Urry 2000). The increasing economic interdependence of national economies evolves through a rapid increase in the cross-border movement of goods, services, technology, and capital (Joshi 2009). While there are an increasing number of people able to live dual lives (Portes 1997), the tremendous compression of spatial and temporal distance engenders and constructs various relationships between people and societies and between time and space. For more than two decades, scholars have paid much attention to social interaction and connection associated with frequent cross-border activities among mobile migrants. Throughout the 1990s, migration studies have gradually adapted the meaning of a transnational approach. Basch et al. (1994:6) initially defined transnationalism as “the processes by which immigrants forge and sustain multi-stranded social relations that line together their countries of origin and settlement.” Transnationalism, as a new mode of migration, describes ways in which migrants live in “transnational communities.” Alejandro Portes (1997) indicated that such migrant communities form networks, stating: [Migrants form] dense networks across political borders created by immigrants in their quest for economic advancement and social recognition. Through these networks, an increasing number of peoples are able to live dual lives. Participants are often bilingual, move easily between different cultures, frequently maintain homes in two countries, and pursue economic, political and cultural interests that require their presence in both.

Transnational patterns among migrants take many forms in socio-cultural, economic, and political arenas, and each form may be broad or narrow (Itzigsohn et al. 1999). Forms of transnationalism may vary over time, depending on the intensity of exchanges and communication (Vertovec 2001). The variations in spatial extension and temporal stability have resulted in four different transnational topographies: dispersion and assimilation (weak simultaneous embeddedness in sending and receiving countries and short-lived transnational ties); transnational exchange and reciprocity (strong simultaneous embeddedness but rather short-lived social ties); transnational networks (weak simultaneous embeddedness and long-lived social ties); and transnational communities (strong simultaneous embeddedness in at least two countries and enduring social ties) (Faist 2000a Faist 2000b). Similarly, the terms “core transnationalism” and “expanded transnationalism” indicate distinguishability between the degree of engagement among different cross-border activities (Guarnizo 1997, 2000). Transnational connections have great impacts on the economic, socio-cultural, and political arenas in both sending and receiving countries. From the economic point of view, some scholars see transnational migrants as a by-product of capitalism. Migrants from undeveloped countries provide a large, cheap labor force to developed countries. And the massive remittances that migrants send back to their families and communities have extensive impacts on migrants’ home countries (Conway and Cohen 1998: Itzigsohn 2000: Portes 2003). Steven Vertovec describes two contrasting impacts of such remittances. On the one hand, “the money migrants

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1  Introduction: Cost-and-Benefit Analysis: Decision-Making in Migration

send not only critically supports families, but may progressively rework gender relations, support education and the acquisition of professional skills and facilitate local community development through new health clinics, water systems, places of worship and sports facilities. Remittances may also undermine local labor markets, fuel price increases, create new status hierarchies and generate patterns of economic dependence” (Vertovec 2001). For mobile immigrant entrepreneurs, Chan and Chan (2011) argue that transnationalism is indeed a business strategy immigrants use to cope with the challenge of blocked opportunities, to circumvent structural disadvantages, and to manage discrimination against new migrants in the host society. Cross-border ties imbue ethnic communities with valuable social and economic capital that can help immigrant entrepreneurs to gain valuable market information through informal channels. It is also a tactic of “impression management” for companies in Hong Kong to survive as brokers or middlemen in a highly competitive global market. The social and cultural impacts of transnational migrants are also varied and tremendous. Nowadays, the flow of people, money, ideas, norms, practices, and identities within fluid social spaces knit a complex social topography. Marriage alliances, religious activities, media, and commodity consumption are the few intense linkages in many migrant communities (Vertovec 2001). Scholars also document transformations in kinship and family structure and how these inform constructions of class, gender, and race. As Peggy Levitt and Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky point out, “studies of transnational kinship document the ways in which family networks that cross borders are characterized by gendered differences in power and status” (Levitt and Jaworsky 2007). Living arrangements, the experiences of parents and children, generational reproductions in everyday lives, and gender politics are the main fields that scholars have paid much attention to recently. Rhacel Parrenas (2005) examines transnational intergenerational relations between Filipino migrant mothers and their young adult children. By examining the transnational communication methods Filipino migrant families use to develop intimacy with their children, it is found that caregiving at a distance is emotionally stressful for both parents and their children. The systems of inequality have shaped the lives of children left behind by the global migration of women. Valentina Mazzucato (2008) examines what happens to the culture of “caring for parents” when children go overseas. By conceptualizing migration as an implicit insurance contract between the migrants and the family back home, she asks how migrants provide (or do not provide) care for their aging parents and whether such arrangements work equally well in all instances. Loretta Baldassar (2007, 2008, 2011) focuses on how transnational families provide transitional caregiving and maintain the bonds of emotions across distance. She asserts that the practice of “staying in touch” by high-tech-aided communication and regular visiting creates a feeling of “co-presence” which reinforces the sense of family obligation to care for each other and provides emotional and moral support within transnational families. Besides intergenerational relations, scholars also look closely at gender relations. Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo (2001) highlights the voices, experiences, and

Globalized Economic Space, Transnationalism and Translocality

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views of Mexican and Central American women who work as domestic helpers in America. When the migrant women become breadwinners, it can be a kind of liberation or empowerment as they begin to gain a more egalitarian footing with men. By focusing on the lived experiences of Moroccan migrant women shuttling between Morocco and Italy, Ruba Salih (2003) analyzes the ways in which these migrant women’s transnational social, economic, and symbolic activities affect their identity and cultural renegotiation. They must somehow reconcile their identity when the messages from the public and the private spheres of both the homeland and the receiving contexts are in conflict. Along with gender, class and race/ethnicity also play an important role in the transnational migrants’ social fields. Chan Wai-wan, Chan Kwok-bun, and Chong Tik-man’s research (2013) on mainland professional migrants in Hong Kong show that these elite migrants divide geographical relationship networks according to different functions: local networks in Hong Kong for instrumental support and mainland networks for both instrumental and expressive support. These transnational migrants engage in cross-border consumption and social life. For these migrants, the so-called superiority of one country, two systems actually refers to working in Hong Kong but spending and enjoying their social life on the mainland. As it happens, they gain from the discrepancy between the two regions’ living standards. And, by visiting “home” for a short period of time, it also helps them to relieve the stress of living in a foreign place. Coping with suffering sometimes produces yet more suffering. Transnationalism as a strategy of coping and as a way of life has its costs. Transnational migrants’ authenticity often baffles and even appears dubious to those around them (Chan and Chan 2011; Chan, Chan et al. 2013). The political impacts of transnational migrants also have far-reaching consequences. Questions of citizenship, homeland politics, and functions of the nation-­ state are key areas that have drawn much scholarly attention. Prema Kurien’s (2001) studies focus on the political struggles between Hindu and Muslim Indian immigrant groups in the USA over the definition of “Indianness.” Since both types of groups are working to influence American and Indian politics in line with their respective interests, leading to an exacerbation of the conflict between the two immigrant groups, Kurien argues that long-distance nationalism actually brings pernicious results. Vertovec (2001) points out that “the global flows and cross-border networks represented by transnational migrant communities critically test prior assumptions that the nation-state functions as a kind of container of social, economic and political processes”. Levitt and Jaworsky in their review article about transnational migrations argue that “navigating in transnational space has strengthened, rather than negated, the continuing significance of the national” (Levitt and Jaworsky 2007). Over the past decade, the perspective of translocality has gained momentum. Translocality describes phenomena involving mobility, migration, circulation, and spatial interconnectedness that are not necessarily limited to national boundaries (Greiner and Sakdapolrak 2013). Sometimes, the terms translocality, translocalism, and transnationalism are used interchangeably. Some authors identify translocality

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as a more general concept but consider transnationalism as a special case of translocalism (Hedberg and Carmo 2012; Freitag and von Oppen 2010). Insights gained from the study of transnationalism have led to growing concerns about the need for learning more about local context, internal migration (Trager 2005), global-to-local relations and local-to-local interactions (Guarnizo and Smith 1998: Smith 2001: Núñez-Madrazo 2007), and the expansion of analytical focus beyond the limits of the nation-state (Oakes and Schein 2006). Translocality perspectives capture “complex social-spatial interactions in a holistic, actor-oriented and multi-dimensional understanding” and seek to “integrate notions of fluidity and discontinuity associated with mobilities, movements and flows on the one hand with notions of fixity, groundedness and situatedness in particular settings on the other” (Greiner and Sakdapolrak 2013). Contemporary professionals are simultaneously embedded in multiple sites and different social fields in which they are working and living. Their life is marked by intermittent comings and goings, from place to place. On the one hand their translocal life stories share much similarity, but on the other they also are unique because personal desires, strategies, scale, and practices play a role in an individual’s own translocality. Translocal life experiences are characterized by negotiation and bargaining among locals and non-locals, as well as struggle and tension in the process of individual exchanges. The concept of “power geometry of time-space compression” (Massey 1991) provides insight to understand the roles and functions of professional migrants in globally connected office networks. Elites who shuttle between different world cities make meaningful contributions to building and maintaining the global-to-local and local-to-local connections. But the politics between local, non-local, and translocal in the fast-moving, multidirectional world are ever present, and so an understanding of the “situatedness during mobility” (Brickell and Datta 2011) in the lives of return migrants is important to reveal the complex dynamics of translocal connectedness.

Some Theoretical and Methodological Considerations Extended families in developing countries have many more family members (such as grandparents and children or even in-laws) than most Western nuclear families. But if the total costs of a migrating family increase more than its gains as the family size increases, migration propensities would be inversely proportional to family size (Harbison 1981:113). In that case, children may increase not only the family’s direct costs of travel but also the potential value/costs of location-specific capital loss in both the economic and psycho-social senses, because of changes in locally based friendships, peer influences, and educational provisions, including special-­ need education—a rare resource in most countries. Also, different members in an extended family, old and young alike, may have their own costs and benefits of migrating which exert differential impact on the collective migration decision of the family (Harbison 1981:113). Moreover, in extreme cases, it may be an intentional

Some Theoretical and Methodological Considerations

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family strategy for a couple to dissolve (permanently or temporarily) the marriage or choose a de facto separation; a spouse would leave the family if such a conjugal sacrifice exceeds the benefits that the couple both expect to gain if they continue to live together. Simply put, they decide that as a couple, a divorce pays off for each party. Thus conceived, the husband or wife may give up a personal gain or cut a personal cost (or spare themselves the miseries of a mismatch) by dissolving the marriage so that they can each restore or create new, private incentives/opportunities for each party and also for the collective family welfare. In such cases, remittances would be sent back by migrants to the family at the origin country (Harbison 1981:113). Putting deliberate family strategies aside, migration in many and various guises is not a one-off life event. In some instances, longitudinal studies on migration history and patterns of behavior are better (but certainly more difficult because of the long timeframe) utilized to achieve the reliable results of explaining global migration which includes repeat and return migration. Nonetheless, a common denominator that underlies all these patterns of migration behavior is that a potential migrant is considered a “rational” being (as per social positivism), making a calculated/ informed risk in investing in his or her (also their family’s) human capital/fortune (e.g., marketable skills or scarce resources or other opportunity costs). In doing so, he or she weighs the advantages and disadvantages of migrating (“rationally”) insofar as he or she is able to comprehend and envisage them, sometimes armed with only very limited (and imperfect, even wrong, and misleading) knowledge of the destination country. The problem of asymmetrical market information for the potential migrants as investors making a risky investment in migration (and betting the fortune of the whole family on an imperfect labor-market situation) seems to be ever present. According to this view, a cost-and-benefit analysis is premised on two central concepts: location-specific capital (human and psycho-social dimension) and imperfect (asymmetrical) market information (Harbison 1981:116). At the end of the day, a smart migrant may become a seasoned traveler by going through a lengthy and/or costly process of “corrective acts” of “learning by doing” and “trials and errors” over many attempts at onward, return, and circuit migration (Harbison 1981:117). Invariably, in all these migratory attempts, the migrant’s anticipation of achieving goals (buoyed by the availability of social capital—community ties, social networks, etc.—back home or overseas that bear on decision-making) foregrounds the motivation for migration. In such a case, the family as a social institution constitutes a structural (family members’ age-sex composition) and functional context (assigned/expected social roles of members) within which all the perceivable costs and benefits of migration are weighed up and the migration decision is finally hatched (Harbison 1981: 226). In this regard, some analysts emphasize the dynamic interaction of the structural context (both the base and superstructure of society) and individual perceptions (psycho-motivational process), with the cost-gain calculation being the initial conceptual driving force. Additionally, it is essential to consider the assumption that an individual’s migration decision is being made within objective structural constraints

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of the family and the larger society. In a study of the process of decision-making, the theoretical task of analysts is to identify and explicate the probable impact of many and various structural factors (e.g., family, schooling, community ties, official strictures, etc.) on the decision-making process (Harbison 1981:247). In other words, analysts should give equal attention to both structural factors and motivational elements when explaining migration behavior. For example, analysis needs to operate on both the individual and the family levels, and the national and transnational levels. Thus, the influence that the family/state/world (e.g., in a “push-pull” conceptualization) exerts on its members regarding migration decision-making is adequately accounted for through a balanced analysis of both the (objective) structural and (subjective) personal variables (Harbison 1981:247). Yet, in some analyses, it is demonstrated that it is not so much the structural forces (e.g., family, the state, or other social institutions) as the motivational factors that cause migration to finally happen to the individuals, whose concerns about the relative advantages of these structural factors may shift in importance over time; consequently they revise their adaptive strategies or otherwise are obliged to review, evaluate, and re-evaluate the decision to move voluntarily on individual merits (Harbison 1981:227). There is perhaps a sound methodology adopted by an analyst in the study of individual migration behavior and also a sound adaptive strategy adopted by the migrants themselves.

On a National Level and Public Policy As applied to individual immigrants (as economic actors) and families (as a social institution) described above, public policy forecasting on skilled labor importation within a cost-and-benefit analytical framework necessitates reliable, accurate national and cross-country data of various sorts to estimate the costs of human capital transfers on the sides of both the sending and receiving countries to ensure that the net benefits are larger than the net costs in the transnational migration of human capital. This is a difficult exercise as policy forecasts are notoriously elusive and accurate information is costly. Faulty information would result in a mismatch between immigrants and their destinations, between employees and employers, between husbands and wives, or between children’s educational needs and the educational provisions in the destination countries. As an example, a case can be made in the fact that in the policymaker’s equation of costs and benefits, social costs (e.g., education, housing, medical care, community building, familial/generational conflicts, ethnic-cultural disharmony, etc.) are often neglected in the calculation. Most state labor-policy forecasters, for instance, concentrate on the developmental side of the equation. In this regard, it is a sobering experience for state policy leaders like the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, who recently remarked that while Germany still has a need for importing skilled labor from abroad it is wrong to let hundreds of thousands of foreign immigrants who speak different languages and little German to live side by side with the locals without having them actually integrated into the

R itual Process, Community Development and De-alienation in Chinese Diasporic…

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larger German society. She concluded that multiculturalism under the previous immigration policy in Germany is a complete failure (Hong Kong Economic Journal, 18 October, 2010). Social costs and immigration trade-offs such as the dilemmas of reintegration, adaptation, and incorporation of the first-time immigrants and returnees in the source country also need to be addressed by state policy leaders apart from the human and economic benefits that first-time immigrants in general and returnees in particular bring back. For example, in previous studies of reverse migration using a cost-and-­benefit framework (Tian and Ma 2006; Zweig et al. 2006), the focus of investigation was on economic/developmental returns.

Migrant’s Coping Strategies as Responses to Policies According to Richard Lazarus and Susan Folkman, coping can be defined as “constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources of the person” (1984:141). There are two types of responses or strategies of coping: first, specific types of behavior and, second, the perceptions people form when actually contending with their problems of living. Behavioral strategies of coping relate not to what people are in terms of personality characteristics, such as self-esteem, optimism, internal or external locus of control, intelligence, self-confidence, etc., but to what people do, their concrete efforts or actions to deal with the life strains they encounter in playing their different roles (Pearlin and Schooler 1978; Chan 1997, 2007). People’s responses either change the situation out of which strain arises or control the meaning of the experience, depending on one’s appraisal of the situational demands and resources available at hand. Demands are either perceived as challenges, offering opportunities for personal growth, or as threats, burdens that can result in personal distress. Two types of coping can be distinguished: behavioral-­ instrumental coping that is directed at managing or altering the problem causing the strain and behavioral-expressive coping that is directed at managing emotions (Lazarus and Folkman 1984:150).

 itual Process, Community Development and De-alienation R in Chinese Diasporic Communities Globalization involves a range of contradictory and contested processes, which provide both new possibilities and threats to communities that attempt to promote relations of diversity, solidarity, and sustainability, and, above all, physical and emotional integrity of the members of those communities. Community development frequently involves an innovative agency that works through the central aspects of

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the process of cultural diffusion (Lewis 1980:190). In the process, elite extra-­ community organizations or individuals often attempt to modify aspects of community by bringing essential resources to bear on the change process. Chinese migrant transnationalism is a cultural movement aimed at global, cross-border community development. One of the ways to achieve that is through the mobilization of a ritual process in the Chinese diaspora. Chinese migrants develop their community and stimulate cultural change through the accumulation of social capital which predates a religio-cultural transformation and expansion of Chinese diasporic business networks and family ethics (Chan 2000, 2012a and b, 2013). In the process of community development, as Lewis (1980) argued, it is critically important for the returning elite migrants to refrain from imposing their Westernized values on the community. Such discretion is needed to avoid antagonizing and alienating the local community and to prevent anomie and social paralysis. Margaret Mead long ago argued that “culture building” is “the systematic attempt to invent new institutions to fill new need in the international, national and local scene”—as such, it is a major challenge of our age (Lewis 1986). Returning Chinese migrants take the initiative to start community development projects by establishing social and ethnic networks capable of mobilizing and sustaining community participation by all interested members, not only in the planning stage but also in the implementation stage. Mobilization of the ritual process in any cultural movement in which returning migrants play a key role can be a crucial mechanism in cultural transformation. Returning Chinese elites who frequently engage in religious or quasi-religious movements in diasporic communities can be described as “pilgrim migrants.” Diasporic Chinese practice rituals so that they can transmit collective messages among themselves to re-assert their cultural rights. In the ritual process, ritualists return to everyday life with new and renewed commitment to behaving within the symbolic framework thus articulated and subscribed to. Under economic globalization, there has been an increasing growth of different types of associations: from supranational organizations to NGOs to community groups or other grassroots networks. As increasingly more Chinese migrants are involved in different sorts of associative relations in organizations around the world, they develop social capital in the local communities as a result of their association with the new culture of transnationalism. The more closely the diasporic Chinese are tied to these organizations, the more they uphold associative relationships in global community networks. By engaging in a revitalization of religious-cultural or ethno-religious movements on a global scale, Chinese migrants persist in these associative relationships, thus expanding their share of cultural capital of both community-­based norms and values beyond their immediate social circle and objectified “self” (Coleman 2003:136–158). But these networks cannot be established by chance. Chinese transmigrants need to be associated with a change agent in a change process. In our view, social capital also refers to the growth of business networks and family ethics in the Chinese diasporic community. As it happens, social capital transforms the purely economic bond in the community into a cultural and spiritual bond that in turn further reinforces religious-cultural movements and network construction, or “ethnoscapes” (Appadurai 1996)—with successive rippling effects.

Chinese Ritual Performance as De-alienation

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The success of making and remaking a new form of solidarity in the Chinese diasporic community hangs in the balance of the expansion and application of this social capital.

Chinese Ritual Performance as De-alienation The concept of social capital, an idea of building civil society in the Chinese diasporic community, is conceived of as the state or quality of engaging in religious-­ cultural movements and in terms of building business networks and family ethics in the Chinese diasporic community. Earlier, we have argued that accumulation of such social capital is a precondition of overcoming alienation, and Chinese migrant transnationalism reflects this process of realizing social capital. Xunzi (active around 429 B.C.) carried further than both Confucius and Mencius the teachings of Confucianism toward a humanistic and rationalistic view of the cosmos. He defined ritual as the desires of the people to get something, and when no limits are imposed on how they can get it, they inevitably struggle for it. Struggles lead to disorder, and disorder leads to exhaustion. The ancient emperors detested disorder and longed for heavenly harmony, and so they instituted ritual and moral principles to allocate share of wealth in society, thus satisfying people’s desires and quenching their thirst for material pleasures. The ancient rulers saw to it that desire and the supplies of goods were kept in balance. This, as Xunzi saw it, was how rituals began (Ebrey 1993:25). Thus, in ancient China, at least from the Zhou dynasty (1000–770 B.C.) onwards, Chinese rites and ceremonial activities commonly found in social and political life performed an integrative role in the cosmic order of dynastic China. In modernity and postmodernity, however, the role of rituals is much more complicated. In so far as religion and ritual deal with the insecurity of both self and others, their contribution to the ordering of society cannot be underestimated in the globalizing world in which the self is increasingly being objectified and our physical world is increasingly possessed by cults of consumer culture. Under such circumstances, we argue that Chinese migrants can find a way out of modern alienation by expanding their holdings of social capital. The encounters of Chinese transmigrants with religion and ritual in the West give the impression that religion and Chinese rites are pushed to a position in the private sphere of life where religion would be a matter of individualized or customized preferences or pastime; however in reality these encounters have recently transcended geographical boundaries and crystallized into a dynamic, pluralistic religious-cultural force as symbolized in Chinese migrant transnationalism. Chinese transmigrants registered their disillusion with Western democracies by joining and creating such movements, seeking a return to their ancient Chinese traditions of culture and religion. Although Chinese migrants have been separated from their cultural moorings, they have not completely severed their cultural-­ religious roots; in cases where they have been able to re-awaken Chinese traditional religions in the ethnic Chinese diaspora, they create aspects of Chinese culture and

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religion anew. Many Chinese migrants are in search of a religion-cultural revitalization, falling back on the uncanny power of Chinese rituals to obtain experiential confirmation for an image of self or a sense of identity and solidarity (Tong and Chan 2001). The Chinese diasporic community can be regenerated through processes of ritual revitalization if it suffers crises of identity or a fallout with its constituents. Under such circumstances, a new cultural revitalization and reorientation movement becomes necessary. Tong and Chan (2001) described the functional role of Chinese religion and ritual in Singapore, where many traditional markers of ethnic identification have lost their homogeneity and influence. Under such circumstances, we argue, the best approach that Chinese migrants in Singapore, as elsewhere, can pursue is to bring about cultural change that will lead to a revitalization movement as a reaction to a social situation of anomie or similar kinds of cultural confusion and disorganization. Such a revitalization movement can be ultimately institutionalized as an alternative structure to overcome alienation. A type of cultural hybridization can also be articulated when the actual revitalization movement involves the promulgation of a new or synthesized normative framework on the basis of traditional religion and ritual. Such a new or synthesized core of values can be brought about by Chinese migrants who incorporate the new input into the realities of Singaporean society. These new adaptations can transform Singapore and be subsequently institutionalized to provide a different sort or slightly modified form of cultural base. Writing about trade and cultural values in traditional China, Wang Chunguang (2000:170) argued that scholars are well-advised to try to locate trade as a value in Confucian ethics while tracing the growth of trade in the Confucian world and assessing the role of Confucian values in a modern trading world. Wang’s advice is based on his historical findings about the social character of merchants in traditional China, focusing on Chinese merchants as a collective social category within the very rigid system of social hierarchy in dynastic China. Wang held that traditional Chinese merchants conformed to values that were not so much Confucian as syncretic. They were not any more Confucian than they needed to be while selling to the ruling class and dealing with officialdom. This shang (merchant) class was a dynamic creative social force. From a stance of cultural syncretism of both conformity and social innovation within the parameters of Confucian values, these Chinese merchants soon realized that with capitalism growing in China, their role as a shang class had gained increasing legitimacy, indeed becoming a force to be reckoned with, not least by striking close ties and economic reciprocity with the dominant literati and bureaucratic classes. As a result, the social hierarchy of simin (four social classes), that is, the social and political order of shi-­nong-­gong-shang (scholar official-peasant-artisan/craftsman-merchant), was undergoing change. By the Song dynasty (960–1279 A.D.), the legitimate social order was economically determined, in the order of shi-shang-gong-nong (scholarmerchant-­artisan-peasant), with the shang rising to a position just under the literati at the top echelon (Wang 2000: 87–118). In the Yuan dynasty (1217–1368 A.D.), under the nomadic Mongolian conquerors, the literati class hit the rock bottom of the social hierarchy, while the Mongolian rulers and the traders from the Near East

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became the overlords. In modern China, during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), the capitalist class was attacked as class enemies that symbolized the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” by the gong-nong-bing (“worker-peasant-soldier” class, a “three-­ in-­one” class alliance). After the Cultural Revolution, the tables were turned in favor of the capitalists in the “Four Modernizations” movement, leading to the formation of the so-called new class of technocratic elites, a self-perpetuating class of literati and professionals that has a tendency to alienate itself politically from its constituency by virtue of living a distinctive lifestyle, even in communist China. Nevertheless, the elite class “has within itself the moral strength and consistency” to voluntarily set itself apart as a power elite and allow increasing self-management of the economy and self-estrangement from the masses (Wortzel 1987:95). This is the kind of cultural revitalization directed by the traditional shang class and the post-revolutionary “new class” that has dramatically improved its social standing. It arose as a result of the prevalent prejudice against the merchant class and the intelligentsia. Wang explained that the shang (merchants) were defined by their trading at markets away from home, in distant towns, cities, and trading ports: that is, they were migrating all the time in their commercial activities. Reciprocity between clans and businesses, and their deference to the literati and bureaucratic classes, gave the shang class some solidarity and security. In preserving that solidarity, shang merchants created and abided by their own sets of codes of Chinese rites (itself an innovative conduct). For example, they observed certain Confucian values by refraining from greed. Moreover, they exhibited earnest philanthropic attitudes. They built networks of links between families, trade organizations, and even secret societies (Wortzel 1987:15–19). The merchants aired their dissatisfaction with the existing social hierarchy and their alienation, not by attempting to change the age-­ old Chinese cultural bias by draconian measures, but by finding ways of escaping the alienating effects of those biases through the reconstruction of social arrangements that involved a certain change of cultural or quasi-religious consciousness and institutional reforms. In preserving that solidarity not only among fellow merchants but also within the larger society, merchants also performed various philanthropic roles. Philanthropy won them respect from the other social classes, thus enhancing solidarity among themselves and commitment to communitarian virtues. Philanthropic acts like those exhibited in the Hungry Ghosts Festival (held on July 14 each year) during which rice rations were distributed freely to the general public as acts of benevolence improved (and, in some cases, salvaged) the public image of the merchant class. Chan and Tong (1993:372) pointed out that many traditional markers of ethnic identification have lost their homogenizing impact among the Chinese in Singapore. They argued that religion was an ethnic marker for the Chinese as core cultural values of Confucianism are encoded in religion. The performance of religious rituals reinforces values that preserve the Chinese identity. Rituals celebrate tradition, hence awakening and linking the cultural roots of ritual practitioners. Religion is therefore a constant reminder of people’s roots through the process of practicing rituals. Catherine Bell (2001:380) illustrated the point well in her religious interpretation of the role of “lighting incense.” She explained that the incense burner sets up

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a formalized mediating relationship, an organized form of “intercommunication” between two realms, the human and the divine. Gathering around an incense burner, a group of people not only become a “unified community” but also a type of lineage established by the deity and all its worshippers in the community. This type of clan bond, rooted in ritual, can be constructed by incense offerings. When a community expands enormously or some of its members decide to emigrate, as happened frequently in the coastal regions of Southern China, the ashes in the community’s “brazier” are divided (fenxiang, divided body), with a portion placed in a new brazier that will be remembered as the “child” of the first. This is a lineage-style community formed by a cult of the burner, which constitutes a communicative link between the community member and the divine—a human-divine opposition and reciprocity—made harmonious by its patronage of a deity who becomes the divine parent. Rituals that reinforce the sense of community and its communitarian virtues are performed each year to pacify the loitering, marauding spirits and protect community members from being spirited away by hungry ghosts. In a multicultural society like Singapore, the integrative role of religion and ritual is less clear (Chan and Tong 1993). Many younger Chinese Singaporeans today embrace Christianity, whereas the older generation adheres to a Chinese religion. This cultural conflict is resolved willy-nilly. Yet, there is a small fraction of Chinese Singaporean Christians who still practice Chinese rituals, such as by accepting food that has been offered to a Chinese deity in a ritual ceremony. At a minimum, this could be taken as a sign of cultural hybridization or ambivalence, whereby those concerned are not certain whether they have done the right thing but do it anyhow, ritualistically, kind of going through the motions. At a maximum, this is denoting over-conformity with cultural mores, or total indifference and apathy toward them— again, a sign of alienation. Tham (1985) argued that the motivation to seek wealth and economic security is prominent among Chinese Singaporeans and has both cultural and historical causes. It is not surprising that the observance of rituals and cultural festivals among Chinese Singaporeans is often characterized by the concern to ensure auspiciousness. Despite the growth of science, technology, urbanization, and the emphasis on personal achievement, rituals that are associated with desirable value-objectives and their compatible motivation have not weakened. Tham argued further that in the Chinese case, there has been a selective reinforcement of certain rituals, suggesting that cultural hybridization is happening.

Ethnic Chinese Community Development As De-alienation We argue that to escape from a state of alienation, besides getting involved in a revitalization of religio-cultural movement, Chinese transmigrants develop trustful relationships in their own communities. We also argue that despite the ravages wrought by the unforgiving forces of globalization, options for creating trustful and meaningful relationships in the commonwealth of ethnic communities remain. The point here is how to recognize the new possibilities afforded by the communities;

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promote relationships of diversity, solidarity, and sustainability; and identify connections between the state, economy, and culture in the Chinese diaspora at different levels of geographical space and political governance. On the basis of the available evidence, we argue that Chinese transmigrants can free themselves from the clutches of an alienating (and alien) power by developing “social capital” gains. Since Chinese transmigrants identify with no special community or country but live multinational (and, one may add, supranational) lives, they may fall prey to fragmentation of self and social alienation in an anomic society. The remedy here is a re-attachment and commitment to community, re-selfing, reconstructing a communal conception of multiple relational networks, and replacing individualism with relational processes and a new focus on the significance of interpretive or, if you wish, symbolic ethnicity, within the context of the Chinese diaspora. Feeling a sense of existential isolation in the diasporic cosmos, Chinese migrants are already enmeshed in “relatedness” and connectivity in a macro-theoretical sense. Yet, a feeling of “cultural relativity” that is rampant in postmodern thinking can confer on the co-ethnics a certain sense of “relative autonomy” as well as authenticity and uniqueness of the Chinese culture. The haunting fear of Chinese immigrants “not belonging” is already, ironically, symptomatic of becoming a new community (Chan and Tong 1993), though, in the eyes of most non-migratory Chinese nationals, it is a conduct unbecoming. Despite this, the logical conclusion is none other than a happy “homecoming” for the Chinese migrants, certainly not a “Pilgrim’s Progress” to the “Celestial City” (Bunyan 1975). But before a happy family reunion materializes, it is necessary for them to first divest themselves of a sense of “aloofness,” a sense of overconfidence in their cultural pilgrimage, of a mental state of being adrift at sea. To this end, a kind of relational interpretation of human sociability aimed at deconstructing alienation and stimulating the process of connectivity and de-alienation is needed. To transcend the limits of postmodernism and to explore new horizons as suggested in these propositions, we propose to further interrogate the Chinese diasporic experience. Chinese immigrants often bring with them their own cultural heritage and, one may add, historico-cultural baggage, to the host countries. Group cultures are emergent, evolutionary, and transformative as they respond to the exigencies of new circumstances. Chinese culture is far from a monolithic block of anachronism, but is rather syncretic and evolving through the ages. Hence, a Chinese cultural mosaic defies any clear-cut simplistic definition of “Chineseness” or any such notion that is suggestive of a singular, monolithic Chinese culture. The Chinese diasporic community is varied and diverse, with ethnic identities equally varied. With China rapidly emerging as a world power, Chinese around the world are taking pride in identifying themselves with China which in some manner starts to strengthen their communities. This process of “resinification” begins to give some coherence to the ethnic Chinese cultural kaleidoscope. Many Chinese immigrants have become reluctant businessmen. They began their small business not of their own volition but due to a lack of career opportunity in mainstream society (Chan and Chiang 1994). Where no other alternatives are available, such ethnic immigrants are highly dependent on

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the cultivation of useful ethnic ties to make up for their lack of access to political power. An example is the forming of mutual aid organizations that act as a rallying point to counter external threats and shore up internal solidarity. To consolidate internally, the employment of clan-like trust becomes a vital asset, though trust is often built on economic expedience and social convenience because ethnic Chinese do not trust government institutions any more than they trust their own kind by instinct. They are forced to cultivate personal trust and guanxi as a hedge measure against political abuse (Chan 2000; Chan and Chan 2011). The concept of guanxi refers to interpersonal connections tinged with loyalty. It is also a variety of “social exchange” based on sentiments and reciprocity. Guanxi networks are varied, ranging from shared social attributes of kinship ties to mere chance encounters. Guanxi puts enormous stress on unwritten codes of conduct to guard against opportunistic behavior. Business networks are an example of “moral communities” (Chan 2000). Trust can be loosely defined as xinyong or “trustworthiness” in the Chinese context. Francis Fukuyama defined trust as “the expectation that arises within a community of regular, honest and cooperative behavior based on commonly shared norms.” He saw trust not simply as a component or indicator of social capital, but as its precondition: “Social capital is a capability that arises from the prevalence of trust in a society or in certain parts of it” (Fukuyama 1995, cited in Fran et al. 2000:79). Increasing one’s social capital means increasing one’s trust in the community, hence enhancing solidarity. To preserve that solidarity, community members ought to observe their own set of codes of behavior, and fulfill their contractual obligations, even though most of these contracts are non-binding in the legal sense. These codes are integral to Confucian ethics. As Confucians would have it, being held accountable to one’s word is a manifestation of the Confucian precept of xin or trust. Trustworthiness certainly enhances the public image of businesspeople as successful individuals, thus further expanding commercial activities and promoting personal development. The quality of being trusted by one’s business associates is certainly an asset a trader cannot do without in the world of business. It is social capital that transcends its immediate economic implications. Confucian behavioral norms are therefore part and parcel of this social capital that empowers community solidarity by boosting mutual trust, a precondition for cultural contract. James Coleman (2003:136–158) explained how he regarded norms as social capital. Coleman went beyond George Homan’s “exchange theory” in arguing that the realities of many social actions and transactions are such that they generate external constraints which serve to exercise control by way of sanctions on the action—external constraints that signify the investment of a collective interest in maintaining the status quo, which therefore may come to be regarded as a legitimate right. Social norms together with the accompanying sanctions are expressions of that right. Where social norms exist to allow actors some measure of appropriate control over the action of others (through a social contract), the result is a socially efficient (optimal) outcome in the sense that the action of others is constrained by its social costs. Such is a rationalist view of the social contract. It is in this sense, Coleman contended, that social norms constitute social capital and their existence ensures higher levels of satisfaction for the majority of the population. In a similar

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vein, we argue, a “cultural contract” safeguards the cultural right of the contractual parties to engage in trustful communication and recognition, a social mechanism that results in a higher level of fulfillment for the majority of contractors. In this view, it can be argued that norms and networks are the key components of social capital. They are embedded within economic exchanges and social behavior as exchange (as in exchange theory). The successful development of social capital is a prerequisite for the emergence of a “moral community” within the Chinese diaspora. That is, it is a certain social arrangement organized through mixtures of personal ties, institutional networks, rules, and norms of conduct. We thus argue that Chinese business networks and family ethics are part and parcel of the social capital that are indispensable to the development of trustful and meaningful relationships within the Chinese diasporic community. However, such social capital can be abused in a community of people as some members at times succumb to abuse of power and corruption. Therefore, it takes an awfully long time to build trust before anyone is initiated into a network. As Chan (2000) explained, community development is a dynamic social process; institutional networks in the ethnic community are born out of distrust (or, more commonly, “mistrust”), rather than trust. It is hard enough for Chinese around the world to create a “moral community” or an “ethno-religious” community because of ambient racial and political discrimination in recipient countries, like the USA, the UK, Australia, or Canada, and because of the widely held dubious metaphor that tends to view Chinese people as “a large basin of loose sand” (yipan sansha) highlighting the difficulty of organizing or uniting Chinese people. Chinese merchants are often faced with a hard choice of “to be, or not to be, a trader” or “to trust or not to trust someone.” They are confronted by “inner struggles” of an existential nature. In reality, their choice turns out to be a Hobson’s choice, a choice to become “reluctant merchants” or “reluctant heroes” in the eyes of their compatriots. Ethnic networks, once formed, have a tendency to feed on themselves in the regenerative process of creating and recreating a more cohesive community. But this, we argue, is not to condone the fact that Chinese immigrants hide themselves in the ethnic enclaves (e.g., Chinatowns) and are ghettoized in a way that native Americans or Canadian Inuit or Australian aborigines are segregated on their native lands. Such have been the causes and effects of the problem of “ethnicity” invented by the dominant society since colonialism. We argue also that Chinese networks should also expand their spheres of connectivity into mainstream life. The reason is that the much-touted ethnic Chinese business acumen is in fact an adaptive response to the structural constraints of the host society where the law and logic of negativity in the politics of ethnic relations is most acutely felt. The logical conclusion about discrimination against Chinese in the West is that the Chinese minority start to invent a certain set of coping strategies in response to the challenges of an anomic society. For those Chinese immigrants who are stuck in Chinatowns, various plans of self-defense or even counterattacks are drawn up: for example, pooling communal resources to expand networks of families, kin, friends, neighbors, and even clandestine societies and invoking the utilitarian value of NGOs and other outreaching resources, all intended to drum up community support (Chan 2005a, b). Often heard

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are the harrowing stories of the third and fourth generations of immigrant Chinese who were supposedly fully assimilated in the host society but frequently found themselves caught in a cultural bind between their marginality because of their ethnic origin and race on the one hand and the mainstream society of their adopted country on the other hand (Ngan and Chan 2012). These Chinese immigrants are “tortured” by “double alienation,” trapped in a double bind (double disadvantages)—having been estranged in both societies not of their own volition, but blamed for trying to play roles that are alien to them. This alienation can be considered as a universal fate of the modern migrant, indeed of almost all modern humans. Kierkegaard alerted modern individuals to a deepened awareness of “the tragic sense of life” (cited in Pappenheim 1959). Not only are the modern individuals alienated from others but also from their work, and indeed, from God. Although the modern individual’s estrangement from God is by no means the only cause of his remaining strangeness in the world, the modern secularization movement certainly gives rise to the individual’s loss of his primordial union with the divine. “The essence of sin is disbelief, the state of estrangement from god” (Kierkegaard, cited in Pappenheim 1959). Ferdinand Tonnies (1965 [1887]) has intimated man’s inevitable fall from the grace of God in his study of the antithetical social category of “Gesellschaft.” In a Gesellschaft-like society, disunity is the rule, so much so that everybody is a stranger to everybody else. They exist in a state of tension, opposed to all others. Tonnies asserted that societies are in transit from Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft. This was a road of no return. The purest form of Gemeinschaft is within the family. The traditional Chinese family is a closely knit social unit. Confucian scholars see Chinese family relations and behavior as the central feature in the moral life of the common folk. Modern Chinese values also develop in tandem with Confucian values of the past, such as the willingness to work hard, the deferring of rewards, loyalty, filial piety, brotherly harmony, ritually correct (class-based) marriage, ancestor worship, and funeral practices. Being nurtured in the same process of family socialization and organization, Chinese family members have a similar way of thinking and do similar jobs, just as described in Gemeinschaft. In this sense, Chinese families are “tribal families.” Chinese families tend to coincide with Chinese networks. Chan (2000:10) explained that “ethnic capital” (a variety of social capital as discussed below) embedded in familial and kinship affinities contributes to the practice of self-help and mutual aid throughout the Chinese diasporic communities worldwide. The age-old cultural practices to reciprocate guanxi in business undertakings and social dealings have survived the challenge of modern management science. The networking practice extends to the uncritical incorporation into Chinese family businesses of non-kin or non-familial members. There is an instrumental aspect to this network capital in the Chinese diaspora. However, in countries where the state can provide dependable and equitable infrastructural support to ethnic Chinese businesses, the functional role of networks becomes less important and is gradually replaced by formal institutions (Chan 2000). Chinese networks appear to be like a sort of harmonious and cohesive entity where members of the diaspora seem, to the uninitiated eye, to be similar in looks, thinking, and behavior. But such an imagery

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of the Chinese may be quite deceptive. It is, however, true that Chinese immigrants feel psychologically good to put up a front of ethnic solidarity before outsiders (Chan 2000). On the basis of our brief foregoing review of the Chinese diasporic experience, we can now begin to tackle the question of how Chinese migrants free themselves from their state of alienation in their adopted countries. We have argued earlier that a possible coping strategy is the practice of Chinese migrant transnationalism conceived of as a revitalization of religio-cultural (or ethno-religious) movement (or a religio-cultural pilgrimage to the Celestial City), such as the continuation of Chinese ritual ceremonies. We have also argued that Chinese migrant transnationalism involves the ability to expand on and strengthen the social capital in the heritage arsenal embedded in Chinese community networks around the world. A key element of this ethnic social capital is the participation in and development of Chinese diasporic business networks and family ethics: that is, building trustful and meaningful relationships within Chinese diasporic communities and, broadly conceived, NGOs brought about by the growing secularization movement in civil society. All this testifies to the coming of a new era when alienation is no longer tied to human fate. We propose here an inner change of intersubjectivity, a spiritual rebirth in a religio-cultural renaissance that will enable Chinese migrants around the world to return to the fold of a community of “Greater China,” to overcome alienation without committing themselves to any institutionalized religion of any denomination, to explore ways toward an encounter with reality founded on communal participation and trust. The focus is on generating and empowering a feeling of neighborliness and grassroots responsibility, and active involvement in the tasks of community development. This kind of collective action is essential because, as Chan (2000) argued, it reveals the “agency” of man, an idea that is downplayed in Durkheimian and Parsonian functionalism but which we try to emphasize in our “new’” concept of “cultural functionalism” for the study of Chinese migration. Chinese migrants no longer resign themselves to their fate of estrangement in their adopted countries, but are exploring possibilities of conquering it. Chinese migrant transnationalism is just one of these possibilities. It is, in our judgment, a crucial first step toward self-empowerment and self-fulfillment, as the recent surge of new religio-cultural or ethno-religious movements testifies. Chinese migrants get involved in these religious or quasi-religious movements in an attempt to free themselves, not so much through worship of God or other deities for spiritual salvation, as for reflection on the instrumental value of religious faith or ritual. It is for this reason that rituals play such an essential role in Chinese culture. Ritual process in Chinese culture is able to unite Chinese migrants in diasporic communities by creating and sustaining spiritual bonds. This is spiritual work, an important vehicle in the process of de-alienation. Through ritual practice, the gap of the individual, objective existence, and the inner self are bridged and reunified as a whole person, no longer feeling alienated in mind and body, but fulfilling an innermost need for belonging or homecoming, or escaping from an objectified existence. To rediscover the self and cultural identity in the journey of life, living and existing, Chinese migrant transnationalism is a “cultural pilgrimage,” qua spiritual process. A Chinese transmigrant

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can be termed a “pilgrim migrant,” not merely a transient migrant. This cultural pilgrimage is not transience, but a long and seemingly never-ending journey; Chinese transmigrants are anonymous strangers who are “othered” in chance encounters. Yet, they travel the way that leads to the “Celestial City” (as depicted in Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress [1975] wherein that city is the goal of a Christian’s journey). In cultural pilgrimages, the faith of Chinese migrants in their own culture and their earnest desire to return to it is severely tested at every stage of the journey—a journey fused with inner struggles, self-doubt, and temptation from all sides, from family, neighbors, would-be friends, friends, foes, individuals, community, and society. During this pilgrimage, Chinese migrants listen to the admonition (and premonition) of their consciousness to be themselves, to be their real inner selves. As they make and remake their solitary pilgrimage to the Higher Authority, their sacrifice is to give their best in total involvement and full commitment, and a belief in the moral validity of the communion of the sacred and profane, as a vindication of the overwhelming desire to return to the bonding experience of their community—and to flee from their alienated existence in the host society. It is worth repeating that there is a spiritual life in migrant transnationalism which, if carefully managed, could be a tremendous source of ultimate happiness for transmigrants who have made the journey and attained the goal. But at the start of this journey, their conviction in their own culture and their self-confidence is at a crossroads. To ignore that conviction is to miss the way that they must go. In this cultural pilgrimage, there is room for tolerance and diversity; the individual migrant does not have to go it alone. But their faith in their own culture is indispensable, and they need to be vigilant to keep that faith. They exercise that faith when they refuse to dodge in the ambience of the hegemonic and homogenizing forces of globalization. They find constant nourishment for their faith in making that cultural voyage by discovering and rediscovering their own cultural moorings, which have been cut loose since they left home. These cultural moorings are adrift at sea in moments in history, yet still individually connected at all times, no matter how far the distance in between. This points toward the beginning of a process of de-alienation, toward a rebirth of cultural recentralization and revitalization, toward the end-goal of cultural pilgrimage—it fosters an active participation in the affairs of the transnational community, as an “insider,” not “outsider,” as an equal partner, not a silent partner.

Return Migration, Social Action and Public Policy The loss of professionals and skilled labor migrants to another country could be a permanent one. A number of countries have introduced incentives to encourage return, e.g., South Korea, South Africa, Israel, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, and India. Other countries have opted for economic and social reform to produce a local environment that is attractive to return migrants. Returnees who have been elsewhere and gained international experience are in general more educated and

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professionally trained than the locals who have not (yet) emigrated. But some countries like China and India in previous decades, unlike Hong Kong, Israel, and more recently, Singapore, have registered low rates of return graduate students and scientists from the West. It is expected that after considerable economic growth in these countries of low rates of return, more and more returnees will change their mind and head homeward bound. Nevertheless, it is prudent not to overexaggerate the so-­ called “value-added” expertise obtained overseas by the returnees because emigration is “self-selective,” if not “self-fulfilling,” as these return migrants in many cases are among the most able, talented, or well-off in the first instance and are therefore more useful to national growth than their compatriots in the origin countries. However, these global migrants are, not without exception, more useful to home countries across the board than the home-grown experts. Nonetheless, this does not deter many countries from wheedling (sometimes indiscriminately) professionals out of emigration. A migration policy of this sort sometimes could pay off handsomely in view of the vast pools of returnee talents, if and when the problem of reintegrating them can be resolved satisfactorily. There is another side to the “self-­ selection” process of return migration. That is, many able and highly trained migrants choose not to return for multiple reasons, not least of which being an anxiety over reintegration difficulty. There are limits to the extent of successful return, though no limits to the kind of imagination researchers invoke in explaining failures and successes of return. As it happens, perhaps not surprisingly, the reasons for emigration and for return overlap in all three places we studied for this book. In reality, return migration is indivisible from other types and forms of human migration throughout history, notably since the nineteenth century. However, return migration has long been a relatively neglected area of study. This is because there has been a paucity (until recently) of data on return migration; also, most social theories were constructed around the idea of “permanent,” not “temporary,” migration. Without doubt, the academic literature on return migration has been growing in recent decades, with academic researchers of cross-over disciplines jumping onto the migration studies bandwagon, thus swelling the international migration literature, perhaps as a result of the advance of economic-telecommunications technology and the globalization movement since the 1970s. The global shift to temporary migration (of labor of seasonal workers and task-based outsourcing professionals) triggers a paradigm shift which attracts global scholarly attention. In this study, therefore, we view return migration as a combined product of social action and public policy—as demonstrated in Israel, Singapore, and Hong Kong. We consider return migration decision-making separately from that of international migration and mobility in general (which include refugees, political exiles, victims of human smuggling and trafficking in the sex and narcotics trades, etc.) because return migration studies focus first and foremost on economic behavior following return (e.g., in our Hong Kong and Singapore studies) and secondly on social and cultural-religious behavior and motivation for spiritual and/or intellectual challenge (as in the case of Israel). In general, it is fair to say that financial incentives are the prime mover behind return migration and the mobility of human resources in general—which include factors such as wage differentials between places as explained

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in neo-classical economics. In examining the migration decision-making process, some researchers use a behavioral (instrumental) approach, while others prefer a psycho-motivational (expressive) approach. Yet still others, including the authors of this book, adopt a combination of both approaches—an integrative perspective. Of the many and various reasons for return migration to transpire in a contextualized situation, it is instructive to revisit Francesco Cerase’s (1974) classification of the major reasons for immigrants to return: (1) Return of failure: Failure to find a job in host country and/or failure to cope and to adjust, and so the process of integration/assimilation (and possibly of reintegration back home) has never really started. (2) Return of conservatism: This is a planned move that is typically affected when the migrant has saved enough to achieve his or her desired economic goals. The migrant has tended to remain oriented to the home country, with a nostalgic inflection, and to have experienced relatively limited acculturation, not to mention assimilation, throughout the time spent abroad. (3) Return of innovation: The migrant returns with the intention of being innovative or transformative back home (a place that he/she reckons badly needs reform), perhaps on the assumption that he or she has reached the limits of what can be achieved overseas with the newly acquired expertise and knowledge; the marginal utility of his/her newly acquired skills is greater at home than abroad. (4) Return of retirement: This type of return is often fused with economic obstacles and problems of reintegration if the migrant has been away for a long time, and is no longer in tune with local values, practices, and networks in the origin-­ country, or himself or herself having undergone a personality change due to cultural clashes here and there, now and then (e.g., the dilemmas of a social hybrid). Each of these broad types of reasons for return has behavioral-instrumental and motivational-expressive consequences for the returnees, hence requiring special government efforts to design policies that would facilitate return—and stay. In our study, we use the microeconomic theory (a version of the neo-classical economic approach) to make sense of return migration decision-making and a cost-­ and-­benefit analytical framework to ferret out factors associated with return to Hong Kong, Israel, and Singapore. This is a theory of return migration based on individualized economic rationality (or economic individualism) and push-pull factors. From this perspective, migrants are seen as “rational” individuals responding to diverse pieces of information or misinformation, that is, either perfect or perverted asymmetrical information about economic opportunities in both the host and origin countries. Our return migrants are “utility maximizers” bent on maximizing income, employment opportunities, and/or other human capital gains. While we examine the behavioral-instrumental aspects of migration decision-making, we also emphasize the often-neglected effects of socio-psychological factors by exploring the intricate problems of reintegration as impacted upon by public policies. Our study also gives

Analytic Procedure and Aims of Study

37

attention to the role of families and their coping strategies and treats family as a locus of attention in migration decision-making—though we are the first to admit that families in Asia are seldom “unified strategic actor-units.” Moreover, this study favors an integrative approach (if only to make up for the limits of the explanatory power of a pure classical economic approach) by incorporating “social (or migrant) networks theory” into our analysis. The role of the state in terms of effectuating policy goals targeted at return migrants in each of the three sites under study is also considered. This helps illuminate how individuals and families adopt coping strategies to respond to public policy impacts (the state being a political-economic stakeholder, besides individuals and households who all have a political or financial stake in ensuring migration plays a constructive role in self-development). Of course, networks theory has its own limitations (and it has to clean up its own house, so to speak) because worldwide community networks have to overcome the geo-political barriers created by the sovereign need of each country to guard its national border against illegal immigrants. There is a dark side to the much-praised reality of “social/migrant networks/communities” when such networks become too close or closed for comfort, hence their “in-house rules” becoming too restrictive and oppressive for the free-willed, innovative, democratic-minded immigrants. Some negative aspects of nationalistic ghettoization may take roots on foreign soil, as in building criminal transnational networks. Elite ethnic networks may shape new immigrants’ lives in a harmful way—by being overly control-oriented—since many immigrants do not always turn out to be transnational migrant elites (transmigrants) and may not need as much social support “supervision” of the ethnic/social networks as other non-elite immigrants would. In such a case, social capital or networks are counter-productive to personal growth and are unsupportive of migrants’ innovative attempts at adapting to each and every new, unfamiliar, hostile, even threatening milieu.

Analytic Procedure and Aims of Study This book is based on a comparative study of policies, programs, measures, and strategies that the governments of Hong Kong, Singapore, and Israel have adopted to attract, develop, and retain returnee talents. Our study has three phases. In the first phase, we analyze documentary sources and the scholarly literature from the three sites to reconstruct the evolution of their policies on return migration while noting the economic, social, political, and ideological factors at the national level which interact with the regional and global contexts to produce such policies. In the second phase of our study, we analyze the adaptation and adjustment of samples of returnees in the three places. In the third phase, these returnees are asked to comment on their own governments’ policies and to make suggestions and recommendations for change for themselves and others like them. Our study has five aims:

38

1  Introduction: Cost-and-Benefit Analysis: Decision-Making in Migration

1. Examine the government policies of Hong Kong, Singapore, and Israel in attracting their emigrants to come home, in developing their talent further, and in retaining them so that they will contribute to society. 2. Identify, describe, and explain the variety of adjustment difficulties and behavioral patterns of adaptation of returnees from Hong Kong, Singapore, and Israel upon their homecoming. We examine the returnees’ difficulties in and adaptation to the following areas: (a) work and career, (b) family relations, (c) children’s education, (d) social participation, and (e) attitudes toward work organization and culture. 3. Using the Hong Kong, Singapore, and Israel experiences, recommend universal as well as place-specific public policies on how to reintegrate returnees into society such that they will settle down, feel at home, and make their contribution. 4. Theoretically assess how well a cost-and-benefit analytical framework explains return migration decision-making and the motivational and behavioral patterns of returnees in migrant adaptation. 5. Put to use the Chan TAPA Experiential Cycle (Chan et  al. 2013:308–310) in terms of probing its utility in informing and elucidating the relations between theory, analysis, policy, and action. Figure 1.1 indicates the four stages of the Chan TAPA Experiential Cycle which have policy implications on Singapore, Hong Kong, and Israel. These four stages are: 1. Theory: Reading and thinking—constructing ideas/theories 2. Analysis: Doing research and testing ideas/theories—collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data 3. Policy: Writing sociology and constructing policies for change 4. Action: Implementing policies—putting policies into action. Between Stage 4 and Stage 1, there is critical reflection on the results of action and practice. Fig. 1.1  The Chan TAPA Experiential Cycle

Analysis of consequences of policy and action

1

Theory

Collection of experiences and field data

4

2

Action

Analysis

Policy formulation

3

Policy

Analysis of experiences and data

References

39

The Chan TAPA Experiential Cycle interconnects several activities of an applied sociologist and of the actual stakeholders: theory construction, research, policy formulation, policy implementation, and policy evaluation through research. In this cycle, the kind of learning that happens is experienced-based; thus it is called experiential learning, while the research being undertaken is called action research, meaning it has immediate consequences for practical and theoretical change. Regarding policy change, it involves both the government concerned and individual immigrants and their families in their immediate and long-term plans—to stay in their source countries or emigrate to yet another country. In conclusion, the elite returnees’ potential capacity to transfer and expand on social capital back home is an invaluable asset which can be used to overcome the difficulties of readaption and reintegration in the country of origin. Government leaders must heed this fact in their formulation of policy programs and measures which encourage returnees to stay. Otherwise, elite returnees will only return temporarily before re-emigrating, as they cannot adapt to or reintegrate into the native country which they had left many years previously, resulting in what is commonly known as a “double brain drain” of a “two-time loser” or “quitter,” as opposed to a “stayer.” Surely, a responsible government will not make the same mistake twice in “pushing” its own highly sought-after citizens out.

References Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. Baldassar, L. (2007). Transnational families and the provision of moral and emotional support: The relationship between truth and distance. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 14, 385–409. Baldassar, L. (2008). Missing kin and longing to be together: Emotions and the construction of co-presence in transnational relationships. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 29(30), 247–266. Baldassar, L. (2011). Italian migrants in Australia and their relationship to Italy: Return visits, transnational caregiving and the second generation. Journal of Mediterranean Studies, 20(20), 1–28. Barrett, A. (2002). Return migration of highly skilled Irish into Ireland and their impact on GNP and earnings inequality. In OEDC, International Mobility of the Highly Skilled (pp. 151–160). Paris: OIEC. Basch, L., Schiller, G. N., & Blanc, S. C. (1994). Nations unbound: Transnational projects, postcolonial predicaments and deterritorialized nation-states. Langhorne: Gordon and Breach. Beck, U., & Adam, B. (Eds.). (2000). The risk society and beyond. London: Sage Publication. Bell, C. (2001). Acting ritually: Evidence from the social life of Chinese rites. In R. K. Fenn (Ed.), The blackwell companion to sociology of religion (pp. 371–387). Oxford: Blackwell. Bhabha, H. K. (2009). In the cave of making: Thoughts on third space. In K. Ikas & G. Wagner (Eds.), Communicating in the third space (Vol. ix). New York: Routledge. Brickell, K., & Datta, A. (2011). Translocal geographies: Spaces, places, connections. Farnham/ Burlington: Ashgate. Bunyan, J. (1975). [1678], The Pilgrim’s progress. Roger Sharrock and J.B. Wharey (Eds.) Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Fukuyama, F. (1995). Trust: The social virtues and the creation of prosperity. London: Penguin. Glick-Schiller, N., et al. (1995). From immigration to transnational migration: Theorizing transnational migration. Anthropological Quarterly, 68(1), 48–63. Greiner, C., & Sakdapolrak, P. (2013). Rural-urban migration, agrarian change, and the environment in Kenya: A critical review of the literature. Population and Environment, 34(4), 524–553. Guarnizo, L. E. (1997). The emergence of a transnational social formation and the mirage of return migration among Dominican transmigrants. Identities, 4, 281–322. Guarnizo, L.  E. (2000). Notes on transnationalism. In Transnational migration contemporary theory research perspective. Oxford. Guarnizo, L.  E., & Smith, M.  P. (1998). The locations of transnationalism. In M.  P. Smith & L.  E. Guarnizo (Eds.), Transnationalism from below (pp.  3–34). New Brunswick/London: Transaction Publisher. Harbison Sarah, F. (1981). Family structure and family strategy in migration decision making. In D. J. Gordon & W. Gardner Robert (Eds.), Migration decision making: Multidisciplinary approaches to microlevel studies in developed and developing countries (pp.  225–251). New York: Pergamon Press. Hay, C. (2003). Globalization and public policy. In M.  Moran, M.  Rein, & R.  Goodin (Eds.), Oxford handbook of public policy (pp. 587–604). New York: Oxford University Press. Hedberg, C., & Carmo, D.  R. M. (2012). Translocal ruralism: Mobility and connectivity in European rural spaces. In C. Hedberg & C. d. R.M (Eds.), Translocal ruralism: Mobility and connectivity in European rural spaces (pp. 1–9). Doedrecht: Springer. Hondagneu-Sotelo, P. (2001). Doméstica: Immigrant workers cleaning and caring in the shadows of affluence. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hugo, G. (2002). Migration polices designed to facilitate the recruitment of skilled workers in Australia. In OECD (Ed.), International mobility of the highly skilled (pp.  291–320). Paris: OECD. Ikas, K., & Wagner, G. (Eds.). (2009). Communicating in the third space (Vol. ix). New  York: Routledge. IOM 2003 World Migration. (2003). Managing migration: Challenges and responses for people on the move. Geneva: IOM. Itzigsohn, J. (2000). Immigration and the boundaries of citizenship: The institutions of immigrants’ political transnationalism. International Migration Review, 34, 1126–1154. Itzigsohn, J., et al. (1999). Mapping Dominican transnationalism: Narrow and broad transnational practices. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 22(2), 316–339. Joshi, R. M. (2009). International business. New Delhi/New York: Oxford University Press. Kurien, P. (2001). Religion, ethnicity and politics: Hindu and muslim Indian immigrants in the United States. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 24(2), 263–293. Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, Appraisal and Coping. New York: Springer. Levitt, P. (2002). The changing face of home: The transnational lives of the second generation. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Levitt, P., & Jaworsky, N.  B. (2007). Transnational migration studies: Past developments and future trends. Annual Review of Sociology, 33, 129–156. Lewis, A. (1980). The ritual process and community development. Community Development Journal, 15(3), 190–199. Lewis, A. (1986). Reconstructing the ‘cult’ experience. Sociological Analysis, 41(2), 151–159. Massey, D. (1991). A global sense of place. In Marxism Today (pp.  24–29). United Kingdom: Communist Party of Great Britain. June. Mayr, K. and Peri, G. (2008). Return migration as channel of brain gain. NBER Working Paper No. 14039. Cambridge: National Bureau of Economic Research. Mazzucato, V. (2008). Transnational reciprocity: Ghanaian migrants and the care of their parents back home. In E.  Alber, S.  V. D.  Geest, & W.  Geissler (Eds.), Generations in Africa: Connections and conflicts. Munster: Lit Verlag. McDowell, L. (1997). Capital culture: Gender at work and the city. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.

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Morawska, E. (2009). A sociology of immigration, (Re)Making multifaceted America. London: Palgrave MacMillan. Ngan, L. L. S., & Chan, K.-b. (2012). The Chinese face in Australia: Multi-generational ethnicity among Australian-born Chinese. New York: Springer. Núñez-Madrazo, C. (2007). Living ‘here’ and ‘there’: New migration of translocal workers from Veracruz to the Southeastern United States. Anthropology of Work Review, 28(3), 1–6. Oakes, T., & Schein, L. (2006). Preface. In T.  Oakes & L.  Schein (Eds.), Translocal China: Linkage, identities, and the reimaging of space. London: Routledge. OEDC. (2008). International Migration Outlook, Sopemi 2008 Edition. Paris: OEDC. Pappenheim, F. (1959). The alienation of modern man: An interpretation based on Marx and Tönnies. New York: Monthly Review Press. Parrenas, R. (2005). Long distance intimacy: Class, gender and intergenerational relations between mothers and children in Filipino transnational families. Global Networks, 5(4), 317–336. Pearlin, L.  I., & Schooler, C. (1978). The structure of coping. Journal of Health and Social Behaviour, 19, 2–21. Portes, A. (1997). Immigration theory for a new century: Some problems and opportunities. International Migration Review, 31(4), 799–825. Portes, A. (2003). Conclusion: Theoretical convergencies and empirical evidence in the study of immigrant transnationalism. International Migration Review, 37, 874–892. Portes, A., & Rumbaut, R.  G. (1990). Immigrant America: A portrait. Berkeley: University of California Press. Salaff, J. W., Shik, A., & Greve, A. (2008). Like sons and daughters of Hong Kong: The return of young generation. In H. F. Siu & A. S. Ku (Eds.), Hong Kong mobile: The making of a global population (pp. 201–222). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Salih, R. (2003). Gender in transnationalism: Home, Longing and Belonging among Moroccan migrant women. New York: Routledge. Schacht, R. (1971). Alienation. London: Allen and Unwin. Smith, M. P. (2001). Transnational urbanism: Locating globalization. Malden: Blackwell. Tham, S. C. (1985). Religion and modernization: A study of changing rituals among Singapore’s Chinese, Malays and Indians. Singapore: Graham Brash. Tian, F., & Ma, Z. (2006). Explaining socio-economic well-being of immigrants and returned migrants. Journal of International Migration and Integration, 7(4), 473–491. Tong, C. K., & Chan, K.-b. (2001). Rethinking assimilation and ethnicity: The Chinese of Thailand. In C. K. Tong & K.-b. Chan (Eds.), Alternate identities: The Chinese of Contemporary Thailand (pp. 9–40). Singapore: Times Academic Press, and Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. Tonnies, F. (1965 [1887]). Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft (Community and Society). New York: Harper and Row. Trager, L. (2005). Introduction: The dynamics of migration. In L.  Trager (Ed.), Migration and economy: Global and local dynamics (pp. 1–45). Walnut Creek: Alta Mira Press. Urry, J. (2000). Mobile sociology. British Journal of Sociology, 51(1), 185–203. Vertovec, S. (2001). Transnationalism and identity. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 27(4), 573–582. Wang, C. (1995). Shehui Liu Dong He Shehui Chonggou: Jingcheng Zhejiang Cun Yan-jiu [Social mobility and social restructuring: A study of the Zhejiang Village in Beijing]. Zhejiang Renmin Chubanshe: Hangzhou (In Chinese). Wang, Chunguang (2000) Bali de Wenzhou ren: Yige yimin qunti de kuashehui jiangou xingdong (Wenzhou People in Paris: The Trans-Societal Construction Action of One Migrant Group), Jiangxi People’s Publishing (In Chinese). Weimer, D., & Vining, A. (1989). Policy analysis: Concepts and practice. New york: Prentice Hall. World Bank (2000: 39). Annual Report. Wortzel, L.  M. (1987). Classes in China: Stratification in a classless society. New  York: Greenwood Press. Zweig, D., et al. (2006). Rewards of technology: Explaining China’s reverse migration. Journal of International Migration and Integration, 7(4), 449–471.

Chapter 2

The Hong Kong Study

Hong Kong is an immigrant society: all who live there know that and do not pay much attention to it anymore. Although the inflow of immigrants under British rule is now merely a part of history, the city’s most valuable assets are indeed its millions of hardworking immigrants. In 1994, one in every 130 Hong Kong residents moved to Canada. In that year, 44,223 people—most of them professionals and businesspeople—fled across the Pacific to escape the anxiety of the city’s handover back to China. At the height of the pre-handover exodus from 1992 to 1997, nearly 300,000 people left. Almost 70 percent chose Canada as their new home. At the time, pundits made grim predictions about Hong Kong’s future with many of its best and brightest living in Vancouver and Toronto. But would the prodigal sons and daughters return? And if so, what would happen? Fifteen years after the handover, Hong Kong’s streets were full of Canadians. In this age of globalization and transnationalism, world cities are in fierce global competition for talent. Hong Kong has recently positioned itself as a world city, and return migrants constitute a significant segment of its human capital. Many of these returnees are what Salaff terms “cosmopolitan emigrants,” immigrant entrepreneurs and professionals (Salaff et al. 2010). A 1999 General Household Survey by the Census and Statistics Department of the Hong Kong Government estimated that there were 118,400 returnees in Hong Kong, apparently an underestimate due to underreporting. This also seems to be an underestimate given that Canada renews 20,000 passports in Hong Kong annually. Some social scientists put the figure of returnees in Hong Kong at 300,000. The chairman of the Chinese Canadian Association in Hong Kong estimated in July 2007 that there were 250,000 Chinese Canadian returnees in Hong Kong alone. Also, in 2007 an estimated 11 percent of the Hong Kong population had right of abode outside of Hong Kong. According to the Hong Kong Transition Project’s 2007 survey, the average age of returnees from Canada was 38, and 56 percent were in the broad working years (20–59). These include the younger generation who returned after higher education in Canada (Salaff et al. 2007; Waters 2004). © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 K.-b. Chan, W.-w. V. Chan, Return Migrants in Hong Kong, Singapore and Israel, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40963-0_2

43

44

2  The Hong Kong Study

In the past few years, there has emerged a governmental and public discourse on the desirability of such returnees to Hong Kong’s future social, economic, and political development. Return migrants have useful human, social, and cultural capital and are fluent in English and Cantonese. They have obtained valuable degrees, skills, and experiences abroad—local employers view their degrees as prestigious. Their knowledge and work-related overseas social contacts are seen as useful inputs to local firms. Most have kin and social contacts in Hong Kong and are able to find work and accommodation upon homecoming, although they may need some support. Their return and integration will thus surely pay off by boosting ideas and productivity. Other nations have enacted concrete measures to attract and improve returnees’ contributions, focusing on employment-related information and support. In subsequent chapters of this book, we shall discuss in detail the cases of Israel and Singapore. Italy and Spain provide information about relevant posts in their native countries for scientists trained in European programs (Gill 2005). Repatriation policies in Korea and Taiwan give returnees travel subsidies, job placement information, short-term job contracts, better wages for scientists at public research centers and universities, and short-term travel funding for research and business (Chang 1992; Yoon 1992). Science parks in Taiwan and elsewhere strive to attract scientist returnees. Several studies on return migrants apply socioeconomic and rational choice models, whereby individuals compare the returns to their labor in the countries from which they emigrated and their place of origin, and go to places with the highest returns (Aydemir and Robinson 2005; Zweig et  al. 2005; Borjas and Bratsberg 1996; Tian and Ma 2006). This framework problematically assumes that people have complete information and overlooks the role of social, especially family and kin, ties in their return and resettlement. This socioeconomic approach uses a neo-­ institutionalist framework that links variations in returnees’ integration with the structures of society (Alba and Nee 2003). Key factors affecting labor force integration can be grouped into industry-level factors and social relations. For industry-level factors, the work sphere of returnees figures in whether they are in demand, or whether they lose connection with their careers by returning. Careers are often embedded in local labor markets, with institutionalized expectations of legitimate employees (Granovetter 1988). Hong Kong professional bodies and societies have strong control over many occupations and may see returnees as ill-fitted to the Hong Kong labor market (Levin 2009). Such returnees need to re-­ qualify or accept lower-paid jobs than what their human capital warrants. Whereas accountants’ credentials are transferable, physicians, lawyers, and engineers with “foreign” education have to pass overseas qualifying examinations (e.g., see http:// www.hklawsoc.org.hk/pube/admission/oversea.asp). Returnees may be advantaged in Hong Kong if, for example, they have practised in Canada as re-­qualification is less time-consuming. For other industry-level factors, networked transnational businesses seek returnees to exploit their close links to their countries of immigration, foreign experience, and English language competence. Those hiring for jobs in cultural industries negotiate returnees’ cultural fit before considering them able to do

2  The Hong Kong Study

45

the job (Lee 2006). Although the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) addresses cross-border licensing and practice, returnees’ credentials also need addressing. Another area of our concern is the barriers returnees face in re-qualifying. The timing of return also matters because some growth industries may accept outsiders more readily at a particular time. In the late 1990s, returnees with a computer background were welcomed. Today it is those in finance and banking. Self-­ employed emigrants may have lost out in Vancouver (Ley 2006) but have returned to find Hong Kong a good site for global trade and business (Tian and Ma 2006). Although Tian and Ma 2006 assert that those with science and engineering backgrounds neither gain nor lose upon return, we need to know more about how such professionals fare upon coming home. The web of social relations is central to people’s departure, return, reintegration, and length of stay. Personal contacts help people find jobs and build careers and are differentiated by social class, educational attainment, gender, age, and other institutional attachments (Bian 1997; Granovetter 1974; Burt 1992; Erikson 1996; Lin 1999, 2001). If their social networks cannot reach into the fields that skilled returnees aim for, they will get poor job outcomes (Salaff and Greve 2006). Although there has been research on the role of work-related networks in careers for stayers and immigrants, returnees’ networks require deeper analysis (Gill 2005). We need to investigate how returnees with diverse contacts are integrated into social systems, which affects their careers in Hong Kong. Returnees with local social networks should more easily resume their careers, as those who know them help them ease into jobs. Many pre-handover Hong Kong immigrants to Canada maintained their work-related networks in the city, which enabled their job reintegration (Salaff 2006). However, their children, the 1.5 immigrant generation who undertook their higher education in Canada and have not yet built career networks of their own, will depend on others’ networks in Hong Kong at first. As useful networks take time to develop, policies need to address how those without personal networks can find jobs. For example, research shows that when firms advertise vacancies online, immigrants get better jobs than if they depend on social ties. How can more Hong Kong firms be motivated to advertise vacancies online (Salaff et al. 2007)? There is also social liability (Gabbay et al. 1999). Conflicts in the work sphere impede adjustment. Returnees are often seen by those who did not leave as being parachuted into and disrupting existing employment hierarchies. After understanding what determines legitimacy and what fosters jealousy, mechanisms need to be developed to handle these issues effectively. In a recent study, Salaff investigates similar dilemmas experienced by returnee professionals (Salaff et al. 2010). The family is a magnet, the center of gravity. For those with kin in Hong Kong, practical and emotional factors and other interactions influence sons and daughters to return and rejoin significant others (Chang 1992; Salaff et al. 2010). In contrast, those without social relations in Hong Kong need to be wooed, another policy arena that needs attention (Salaff et al. 2007). Few policies for attracting returnees have

46

2  The Hong Kong Study

addressed family issues. Although a husband returns to Hong Kong because he can develop a better career, his wife and children may be more reluctant to come home. Are both spouses able to work? How do we go about helping returnees develop a harmonious family? Associational, cultural, and religious forms of civic participation, important forms of social integration in themselves, also affect finding jobs. There are suggestions in the literature that emigrants and returnees seek help in finding jobs through church fellowships (Inglis 2006).

 esearch Methods and Demographic Characteristics R of Returnee Respondents in Hong Kong Drawing on personal contacts, resources of international schools, and voluntary organizations in Hong Kong and overseas alumni associations of universities in the West and using an open-ended interview schedule, in-depth interviews were conducted between March and October 2007 with 40 returnee respondents who had lived and/or worked in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the USA, Sweden, England, France, Spain, and Columbia. They had returned to Hong Kong for between one and 25  years. There were 16 males and 24 females. The youngest respondent was 25 years old, and the oldest was 61. Most were first-time returnees, though seven had returned to Hong Kong for a second time. Lasting between one and a half hours and three hours, all but one of the interviews were conducted in Cantonese. They were all tape-recorded and later transcribed verbatim. The entire set of interview transcripts was then subjected to content analysis for themes, patterns, and insights. Another analytical technique used was the construction of four personal profiles, using the case study method. Invitation letters to participate in our study in the form of granting us an interview were sent to embassies and high commissions of ten countries including the USA, Canada, the UK, Finland, Spain, Australia, and New Zealand. We also sent letters to 34 overseas alumni associations of universities in the UK, the USA, Canada, and Australia and to international schools and voluntary organizations that might have had contacts with return migrants. Contacts were also made through our own friends and colleagues. In terms of source of referrals, almost half (47.5 percent or 19) of the respondents were found through our own personal networks, while 35 percent (or 14) were referred by our own contacts who had granted us interviews earlier. Only 17.5 percent (or seven) were found through embassies and alumni associations. We found informal personal networks to have been much more effective and useful than formal ones in finding and recommending returnees (Table 2.1).

M F

F

14 Canada 15 England

16 Sweden

M

F F

9

M M

12 New Zealand 13 Australia

Canada

7 8

F

M

USA USA

6

F F

11 Australia

Canada

4 5

F

Canada Canada

1 2 3

Sex F M F

10 USA

Country of immigration USA Canada USA

Married

Married Married

Marital status Single Single Single

Single

Married Single

Single

34

Married

40+ Married 44 Divorced

28 40

40

30+ Single

35

25 Single 50+ Married

45

42 50

Age 28 41 38

1990

1988 1979

1995 1995

1991

1995

1989

1995 1973

1974

1983 1975

Year of emigration 1990 1993 1987

18

20+ 16

17 29

24

15

18

16 17

14

19 19

Age at emigration 12 28 19

1st: 1994∗ 2nd: 2006

1995 1992

2003 2000

1st: 2003∗ 2nd: 2005 1997

2001

2005 1985

1989

Year of return migration 2005 1997 1st: 1999∗ 2nd: 2000 1995 1995

Table 2.1  Characteristics of sample of 40 returnee respondents in Hong Kong

34

30+ 29

25 34

1

12 15

4 7

10

2

23 30

6

10 22

18

12 12

No. of years since return migration 2 10 7

30

25 29

29

31 39

Age at return migration 27 31 28

Present occupation Senior tax consultant University professor Associate— Headhunting company University professor Embassy department manager Associate— Headhunting company Marketing manager Accountant—self-­ employed Part-time translator at university Associate— Headhunting company Statistical assistant in government Architect Assistant insurance manager Insurance manager Architect—self-­ employed Editor

Research Methods and Demographic Characteristics of Returnee Respondents… 47

F M

M F

F F

F M

M F

F

F

F

F

F

18 USA 19 USA

20 Australia 21 England

22 New Zealand 23 Canada

24 Canada 25 Canada

26 Canada 27 France

28 Canada

29 Spain

30 Canada

31 USA

32 Canada

Single Single

Married

61

31

Married

Single

30+ Single

50+ Married

38

51 Married 40+ Single

25 Single 50+ Married

28 Married 50+ Married

26 35

40+ Married 42 Married

Marital Sex Age status M 40+ Married

Country of immigration 17 England

1983

2001

1985

1974

1990

1990 1987

1990 1989

1996 1972

1999 1981

1989 1979

Year of emigration 1960’s

37

25

10+

17

21

34 26

8 30+

19 15+

19 9

20+ 16

Age at emigration 8

1992

2005

1996

1992

1993 1st: 1990∗ 2nd: 1992 1997

2005 1997

2000 1982

1995 1st: 1987∗ 2nd: 1995 2005 1997

Year of return migration 1995

46

29

25+

35

28

37 30

23 40+

21 30+

25 24

30+ 32

Age at return migration 30+

13

2

11

15

10

14 15

2 10

7 25

6 10

12 12

No. of years since return migration 12

(continued)

Present occupation Regional manager (finance) Real estate agent Assistant vice-­ president (bank) Logistics officer Senior graphic designer Senior accountant Accountant—self-­ employed Project coordinator Information technology manager Businessman Boutique—self-­ employed Assistant vice-­ president (call center) Translation service—self-­ employed Accountant—self-­ employed Part-time university lecturer Retired. PhD student

48 2  The Hong Kong Study

M

F

M

38 Columbia

39 New Zealand

40 Canada

First return to Hong Kong

∗

F M

36 Canada 37 USA

31

27

47

29 34

Married

Single

Married

Married Single

Single Single

M M

34 USA 35 Canada

25 26

Marital Sex Age status F 39 Married

Country of immigration 33 Canada

Table 2.1 (continued)

1994

1994

1986

1995 1976

2000 1998

Year of emigration 1992

17

14

26

17 3

18 17

Age at emigration 24

1st: 2002∗ 2nd: 2005 2001

2000 1st: 1995∗ 2nd: 2001 2006

2005 2005

Year of return migration 1996

24

25

46

22 28

23 24

Age at return migration 28

6

2

1

7 6

2 2

No. of years since return migration 9

Deputy executive director

Trading—self-­ employed IT support in bank

Present occupation Embassy department manager Urban designer Garment maker—self-­ employed Marketing Research assistant

Research Methods and Demographic Characteristics of Returnee Respondents… 49

50

2  The Hong Kong Study

Vignettes of Four Returnees As a case study method, four vignettes of the returnees were constructed and are presented here to tease out themes, patterns, and insights embedded in the migratory lives of the returnees interviewed. Vignette 1: Ms. Ann (pseudonym)  Sex: Female Age: 40s Current occupation: Real estate agent Education: Two years of university education Year of migration: 1989 Place of migration: Hawaii, United States Year of return to Hong Kong: 1995 Marital status: Married without children Religion: Devout Catholic Ms. Ann migrated to the USA because of marriage. Her husband had first returned to Hong Kong in 1987, but there was uncertainty about 1997. The Tiananmen Movement further aggravated the anxieties of many over the future of Hong Kong. Ms. Ann persuaded her husband, who was then her boyfriend, to go back to the USA to enjoy a more stable life. She thus contracted the “migration fever” and moved to the USA. Ms. Ann views herself as a simple person, not very ambitious. She is content with her job and her family. The US lifestyle suited her goals in life very well. Her work was going well, and her personality and the American work culture were in harmony. She was able to adapt quickly to American society, and she was happy with her relaxed and simple home life. Although Ms. Ann enjoyed her happy life in the USA, her husband was miserable there. He felt that his career was held back because of racial discrimination. He thought he had no rapport with his work colleagues, as they shared no common interests or topics of conversation. Ms. Ann’s husband changed jobs four times within the span of five to six years, but remained dissatisfied. He felt his career was going downhill. Forced to choose between her husband’s career and her personal goals, Ms. Ann sacrificed her own goals to return with her husband to Hong Kong in 1995. Ms. Ann had lived in Hong Kong for more than 20 years before her migration to the USA. Although she had only been absent from Hong Kong for six years, her readaption was not as easy as she had thought it would be. The challenges that she faced at work far exceeded her expectations: People who knew me before my migration from Hong Kong viewed my personality traits as Western. I’m a direct person as I speak up about how I feel. However, I found that I have to curb this behaviour in Hong Kong. I felt very comfortable in the US since my personality blends very well with the American culture. I had a good living experience in the US, whereas in Hong Kong I feel constrained.

Ms. Ann perceives her personality style to be Western – direct, vocal, and team-­ spirited. In the USA, she could integrate well into the local work culture. In contrast,

Vignettes of Four Returnees

51

she encountered many obstacles when working in Chinese companies in Hong Kong. She found it hard to cope with the rank consciousness, the power struggles, and the empty, meaningless teamwork slogans. Her colleagues regarded her cordial relationship with the management, who had also returned from overseas, to be currying favor. When she genuinely needed guidance from her immediate superiors, they would misconstrue her request for guidance as a challenge to them. Viewing her as a personal threat, her superiors always picked on her. She was unhappy at work. Moreover, Hong Kong’s work culture has “work as the top priority.” Overtime is highly valued, even glorified. Self-worth is measured by how busy a person is and how much responsibility he or she has within the company. Ms. Ann had always treasured quality family life; however, her busy life in Hong Kong widened the gap between ideals and reality. This gap also upset her plans for a family. She had hoped to slow down her career and have children. However, she could hardly find the time and energy to consider family-related issues when she was driven by the day-to-day demands of a fast-paced lifestyle. When she finally decided to have children, the time had passed. Missing the opportunity to conceive a child is Ms. Ann’s deepest regret in life. She feels that she has paid a huge price for her work, a price that she will never be compensated for. She feels that the commercial world is ruthless, that it is fixated on profit and returns. In 2003, Hong Kong experienced an unprecedented crisis—SARS, a contagious viral illness—during which it underwent major economic restructuring. Many companies had to move their departments to China, and Ms. Ann was also asked to relocate at that time. As she had moved back to Hong Kong primarily in consideration of her husband’s career opportunities, she did not want to separate from him. She requested that her company allow her to stay in Hong Kong, and she was eventually retrenched. She could not find another job in the banking industry and ended up teaching in a nursery school run by a friend. She quit after nine months because she did not have much job satisfaction, and she is now working as a real estate agent. The transition from the highly regulated banking industry to an industry with ambiguous guidelines, unpredictability, and competitiveness has not been an easy one for her. This setback in Ms. Ann’s professional life has been a heavy blow. It has required more adjustment than the changes in her social life, as she feels she is wasting her 10  years of banking experience. She gives the following analysis of her forced career switch: I regard resignation as a form of change. I was let go by the bank at 30 something. I could feel the painful experience of my friends who had also been sacked. However, when I look back, I count myself lucky. In fact, there are so many other things that I can learn besides working in a bank. Although the transition process has involved a lot of fear and anxieties, it’s been worthwhile to gain more experience.

Ms. Ann was forced to change her career. At first, she felt helpless. Ms. Ann’s active religious life has given her a lot of strength. She prays to gain the calm energy she needs to deal with her resentment about her unhappy situation: Human beings are so weak. When situations are working against us, we must find a way to control our ego.

52

2  The Hong Kong Study

Ms. Ann’s husband’s career, in contrast, has experienced smooth sailing in the ten years since their return to Hong Kong. He is now the assistant vice-president of a multinational bank. His busy workload takes him on business trips to different countries. The husband’s achievements may, to a certain extent, justify the couple’s decision to return to Hong Kong. The high level of remuneration may also be gratifying, but the gratification is incomplete. Although Ms. Ann has been back in Hong Kong for ten years, she still misses the life she had with her husband in the West. There, they would finish work around 5:00 pm, go to a ball game, and then cook dinner. She dreams of retiring to the USA and enjoying a better quality of life with her husband. When a wide gap exists between dreams and reality, nostalgia becomes an emotional tranquillizer. Considering the current career success of the husband, it may not be easy for the couple to make a U-turn. Ms. Ann can remind her husband of how contented they used to be, but how can she persuade a high-flyer to fly lower? Ms. Ann belongs to the type of return migrants who come back to Hong Kong for the benefit of others. In her case, she came back for the development of her husband’s career. Her own professional life has posed the greatest challenge. She has had to cope with a high level of work stress, tough challenges, and keen competition. Her coping strategy is not task-oriented, but rather emotion-oriented. She tries to rationalize her behavior by participating in religious activities, reminiscing about the past, and dreaming of her future in the West. Although her husband’s career is advancing, Ms. Ann’s career is less secure. It may even be regressing. When Ms. Ann was asked about her suggestions for those who are planning to return to Hong Kong, she offered the following: For sure, one should not return!

Ms. Ann has many internal conflicts. She feels that she has paid a high price for returning to Hong Kong. Vignette 2: Mr. Man  Age: 42 Current profession: Assistant vice-president of a bank Education level: Master’s degree Country of migration: USA Year of first emigration: 1979 (aged 18) Year of first return to Hong Kong: 1987 Year of second migration: 1989 Year of second return to Hong Kong: 1995 Marital status: Married with no children Religion: Catholic Mr. Man migrated to the USA in 1979. He was 16 at the time, studying secondary three. He considers the move entirely his parents’ decision as he was merely following their wish to study in the States. His deep emotional attachments were with his birthplace, Hong Kong. Moreover, he found that developing his career in a foreign land was tough. He reckoned that “no matter how talented I am, I’ll soon hit the ceiling.” To explore better career opportunities, Mr. Man decided to return to Hong Kong after obtaining his Master’s degree in 1987.

Vignettes of Four Returnees

53

Hong Kong enjoyed vibrant economic growth in 1987. Mr. Man joined a multinational accounting firm. Despite a heavy workload, he was well remunerated, doubling his salary in two years. His love life also blossomed when he met his wife-to-be. He had intended making Hong Kong his permanent home, but anxiety about the Tiananmen Movement and the 1997 handover led him to change his mind and follow the “migration trend” to leave for the USA again. The decision was also motivated by his preference for a steady and peaceful life in the USA. In 1989, Mr. Man gave up the job he liked and returned to the USA with his wife. The USA was not unfamiliar to Mr. Man as he had studied there from 1979 to 1987. But he did not truly like the place, and his career did not progress smoothly during his second emigration: I wasn’t happy working in the US as career opportunities were limited. I had worked for one of the big eight accounting firms with 300 over employees in Hong Kong. In contrast to this, the branch in Hawaii had only 50 members of staff. One can imagine how I felt moving from a big organization to a small branch, knowing that opportunities for advancement were meagre. Even when opportunities might exist, they would be limited. My relationship with my colleagues was not any better. As our family backgrounds were different, we had no common conversation topics. After staying in Hawaii for six years, my wife and I returned to Hong Kong in 1995. By then, I had worked in the States for over five years, having taken four jobs and changed jobs three times. I found no satisfaction in any of the jobs.

Dissatisfaction with career progress was the main push factor for Mr. Man to move back to Hong Kong. Other factors that prompted his return included the lack of savings in the USA and examples set by returning friends. Due to the high cost of living and heavy taxes, Mr. Man had no savings despite his five to six years of working in the USA. His decision to return followed a process of weighing the pros of having better opportunities in Hong Kong and the cons of going against his wife’s desire to stay on in the USA. For Mr. Man, the hardest aspect in his readaption to Hong Kong was the fast-­ paced lifestyle and the exceedingly long working hours: When I first came back, I wasn’t used to the fast-paced lifestyle. My five years of work life in the US were different. The working hours were from 8 am to 5 pm. The staff started to wind down, going to the washroom at 4:45 pm. By 5 pm, everybody had left the office. Although I had experienced the long working hours in the two years of my previous return, I still had to get used to those hours. After all, the five years in the US were leisurely. My wife and I finished work at 5 pm. We then played tennis in the neighborhood before going home to cook dinner. By 10 pm, we called it a day. In Hong Kong we leave the office between 8 and 9 pm, go home and cook dinner. By the time we finish dinner, it’s already 11 pm. In principle, we work a five-day week. In practice, we still go to the office on Saturday and Sunday.

Exceedingly long working hours are a feature of the Hong Kong work culture. Mr. Man regards having the right mindset as the key to coping: I must say that it took me some effort to adjust. However, I told myself this: firstly, I had worked in Hong Kong before; secondly, if you enjoy your work, the job satisfaction will offset the pressure from the long hours. This helped me to come to terms with the Hong Kong work habits within a year.

54

2  The Hong Kong Study

Mr. Man’s goal is to achieve success in Hong Kong and reciprocate the support of his wife, who sacrificed her preferred Western lifestyle to return with him. Her sacrifice has energized him to overcome the obstacles in his path to career success. In reality, his career path is progressing well. He first worked in a multinational investment bank for ten years. Then he moved to his current position as assistant vice-president in a foreign investment bank. Mr. Man attributes his career development to his professional knowledge and his “US plus Chinese work style”: I relate differently to people of different backgrounds. I am consciously adapting to who my audience is. There are many foreigners in the company. When I’m with Dutch or British nationals, I’ll show them my Western background; I’ll behave like an American. With Chinese, I’ll adopt my Chinese identity as a returnee from overseas studies. I’ll impress them with my Hong Kong origin. These are effective ways of building rapport with people of different cultural backgrounds.

To succeed in a multinational company operating in Hong Kong, one needs to strike a balance between Eastern and Western work attitudes, bridging the difference between the mindsets. Mr. Man is able to apply a mix of the influences from his Western education and from his upbringing in Hong Kong to drive his career development. This enables him to excel in his performance, to thrive on opportunities, and to gain recognition from his bosses. Career achievements boost one’s self-esteem. Although Mr. Man is very busy, he finds time to keep in touch with his secondary school alumni. He often plays tennis with his old friends and even organizes many events. Mr. Man represents a characteristic type of return migrant. His key motivator in returning was to land an ideal job and to advance his career, which eased the rest of his concerns. Mr. Man has displayed high energy levels in three areas: self-esteem, emotional bonding, and social participation. He is often self-driving in his coping process: 1. He actively manages his work progress and achieves results. High remuneration gives him gratification and self-worth. 2. He is able to rationalize in his coping. 3. He is maintaining his social networks with old friends, especially his secondary schoolmates who have returned from overseas studies. This network of return overseas graduates is cohesive and supportive. The network members often create a “chain migration” in encouraging other overseas friends to return to Hong Kong. When Mr. Man was asked about his suggestions for people contemplating returning to Hong Kong, he said they should make mental preparations for the congested living environment and exceedingly long working hours. But he has a soft spot for Hong Kong and thinks he will retire here. However, he feels strongly about one thing: the pollution problem is very serious. Vignette 3: Ms. Ying  Age: 34 Present job: Senior graphic designer Education level: University

Vignettes of Four Returnees

55

Year of migration: 1981 (nine years old) Migration destination: England Year of return to Hong Kong: 1997 (25 years old) Marital status: Single Religion: None In 1981, Ms. Ying, her mother, and her four brothers and sisters left Hong Kong to move to England to be reunited with her father. Ms. Ying was only nine years old when she left Hong Kong. At this young age, she said, migration “seemed like something that could be lots of fun.” Ms. Ying resided in England for 16 years. Merging into local life in England was not a difficult matter for her, but her parents, together with the other Chinese people around her, continually reminded her: “You are Chinese.” She explained: When we were young, our parents made us attend classes at the Chinese school on weekends, but we really didn’t like attending these classes back then, preferring to play. You understand, we went to the English school on regular school days, then on weekends we had to attend Chinese school, too. We really didn’t like it, but our parents always forced us to study Chinese, all the way until we were sixteen. In addition, throughout the process of growing up they were always reminding us that we were Chinese, not British. From youth to adulthood I always knew I was different from the others, that I wasn’t “part of them”, not totally an English person. Yet it was easy for me to blend into their culture, as everybody had similar views on most matters. However, while growing up there were always Chinese people around, and they were always reminding you, “You’re Chinese”, “You should be better at using chopsticks”, etc. Such reminders were always being given, and mother and father were always reminding us that we were Chinese [sic.].

Sixteen years is not a short time—from primary through middle school and into university, from childhood curiosity through inquisitive adolescence—and Ms. Ying felt that her intrinsic self was in fact not much different from that of the English youth, as their patterns of thought were very similar. However, her yellow skin and dark eyes—these extrinsic markers—seemed to have eternal, unchanging significance. On the one hand, they were a constant reminder to Ying that she should be aware of her difference from the blue-eyed, blond-haired Englishmen, and, on the other hand, as far as the locals were concerned, these objective differences to a certain extent engendered subjective differences: I never felt that there was any real difference between myself and my English colleagues. If there were, I think it was mostly due to my being under the influence of my mood at the moment, but we got along quite normally. And yet, while we did get along, there was always a certain distance, a gap between us, because although you got along with them in real life there was always the feeling that you couldn’t truly understand them, couldn’t completely know them, because we were after all somewhat different. While there I got to know some Chinese who had all grown up in England, and you felt that there were things that you and they could relate to.

In 1995, Ms. Ying and a close friend made the joint decision to return to Hong Kong: After university graduation, my parents wanted me to return to Hong Kong to work, because I had grown up here. After all I was a Hongkonger, and we also had relatives here in Hong

56

2  The Hong Kong Study Kong, so they wanted me to come back and seek employment. What’s more, at that time I was dating a Westerner. My parents were really afraid I might marry a foreigner, and they had always hoped that I would marry a Chinese, though by then I had already been dating the foreigner for a few years. Also, it was very hard to find a job in England after graduation, so, for the first year after graduation I had two part-time jobs, and my parents urged me to return to Hong Kong. Frankly, it didn’t matter much to me, as I was bored with London and wanted to expand my horizons, to experience something fresh, so I decided to come back. My best friends in England all had similar backgrounds to my own, all had spent their childhood in Hong Kong before migrating to England, where they grew up. I came back with a good friend who was one of them, and within a few years they had all come back too. All of us loved good times, wanted to have a taste of life here, to experience what sort of place Hong Kong is after all, since it was basically our home, but none had ever really experienced life here.

Return migration often involves a mingling of personal feelings with utilitarian goals. It involves a consideration of career on the one hand and the pursuit of one’s feelings towards “home” on the other. Return migration is also rarely a matter of an individual’s decision alone, but is usually the result of interaction with others. Parental hopes that their children will leave the non-Chinese world of Western countries are complex and contradictory. Ms. Ying’s parents, who had an emotional attachment to their “Chinese” identity, had the deeply embedded hope that they wouldn’t have a foreigner for a son-in-law, but this was a hope they would be embarrassed to reveal. Parental encouragement, the company of good friends, and boredom with life in England are a combination of factors that encourage Ms. Ying to return to Hong Kong. Travelling with her backpack and brimming with ambition, she arrived in the city with optimism and ideals. But the road “home” is not always paved with sweetness: I think at first, just after I returned, I was a bit naive in my thinking. I felt I should be able to blend in rather easily, because I was after all a Hongkonger who had grown up here, but once I went out in search of a job, and opened my mouth to communicate with others, they would be surprised that I’m not a Hongkonger after all! I had to go through a period of adaptation in job hunting before later realizing that I wasn't really “one of them”. I experienced many situations like this: every time I opened my mouth to speak Cantonese, people would laugh at my non-standard pronunciation or my misuse of certain words. This kind of problem existed for the first few years after returning to Hong Kong, and it required adaptation. I know several other people who, like me, had returned to Hong Kong to work, and they weren’t very happy either, because these problems were encountered every day, and you were constantly reminded by others that “You are different!” Some people are more sensitive to situations like this: “I want to be part of the whole society”. But when others constantly remind you that you are not a true member of society, you will feel that you are not accepted.

Ms. Ying had felt all along that she was a Hongkonger. While in England, she always felt that there was a “gap” between herself and the locals, and she felt a lack of “resonance.” Returning to Hong Kong, she thought she was coming back to the “home” where she had grown up, but in fact the local Hongkongers didn’t regard her as really one of their own. In the West, Ms. Ying had felt that she wasn’t 100 percent English, but when she returned to Hong Kong, she was faced with the same kind of identity distance. Both sides, England and Hong Kong, were both familiar and unfamiliar to her, and this sense of psychological estrangement seemed to her to be the

Vignettes of Four Returnees

57

inevitable score of her “Symphony of Destiny.” In addition to these emotional and social challenges, another problem for the returning migrant is unfamiliarity with the workplace culture: In my experience, Hong Kong office politics are very obvious, and I’m not accustomed to the Hong Kong-style workplace culture. I’m a graphic designer, and on my first assignment I just couldn’t assimilate. The style of my designs was not the style they wanted. They needed a Chinese style and felt that mine were too Western. The most outstanding feature of Chinese-style corporate culture is “polishing the boss’s shoes”. You pretend to be busy even when there’s nothing to do. For example, you work until six o’clock even though your assignment for the day is already finished, but the boss hasn’t left yet, so the subordinates don’t dare to leave, they just sit there for another half hour or even an hour. All of this seems to be nothing but a pretense, something I just can’t do. I’ve learned that office politics are really hard to deal with, because I’m a candid person who doesn’t know how to act, except very straightforwardly. People say I’m too straightforward because I grew up overseas. Hongkongers would never be so straightforward. Some things are unclear to me, and I just can’t understand them, so it’s quite possible that I’ll say something offensive to others without even knowing it. Then they won’t tell me directly, but will find an indirect way of letting me know later. So my first two jobs were hard on me, really confusing. I didn’t know how to handle these things, and work became an unnatural act, so it couldn’t last very long. Later on, I found a foreign company, which involved more mixing.

In the nine years since her return to Hong Kong, Ms. Ying has held five different jobs, and she currently works for an English language newspaper. She found working in a Chinese-style corporate culture to be unbearable, especially having to flatter superiors and pretend to work. She found such practices disgusting, and her “straightforward” foreign personality made it impossible for her to blend into the local corporate environment. Ms. Ying has learned to face such challenges through trial and error and, as a result of many years of work experience in Hong Kong, she now has an appreciation of the importance of seeking “alternative strategies.” In other words, to get along with her colleagues and to perform well at work, the best way is to “comprehend Hong Kong’s culture,” and to “use alternate methods of self-­ expression.” If things become truly unbearable, however, then she feels that “flight is the supreme strategy,” as evidenced by her move to a company with a more Western corporate culture. Discrimination is the result of fear, and fear comes from unfamiliarity. Returning migrants, such as Ms. Ying, do not seem to be purely Chinese to the locals, but nor are they purely English. Rather, they are both Chinese and English. The impression she makes on the people around her is not necessarily verbalized, but it is felt profoundly by all of the parties involved. Just after her return, Ms. Ying earnestly wanted to “localize” herself by taking part in leisure activities and associating with local friends, but after a period of time, she discovered that there was a lack of mutual understanding between herself and those local friends who had no immigrant experience—there was a lack of “intimacy.” She began to change her circle of associates from those who were of the “Hong Kong style” to those who were similar to herself. She gradually became inclined to associate with other returned migrants who had a similar background to her own, thus creating a circle of “people like us,” in which she felt more comfortable.

58

2  The Hong Kong Study

Ms. Ying, a returned migrant who is young and full of vitality, always depicts herself as a person who “loves to have fun.” She enjoys the energy-filled lifestyle of Hong Kong, and going out after work with friends is one of her pleasures. In her view, Hong Kong is a place brimming with entertainment. She hopes that all young people have the opportunity to return and have a look at Hong Kong and to experience for themselves the Hong Kong feeling of “fun.” A place for entertainment and fun, Hong Kong is dominated by Chinese culture. Having left, returned, and seen Hong Kong from the perspective of an outsider, Ms. Ying has the following hopes for the place: Actually, Hong Kong is more than Hongkongers, for there are also many from Africa and India and many Westerners as well. The government should do more to advertise the social awareness of our diversity, advocate the pluralism of races and ethnicities in our society. Proprietors should open up their minds, become a bit more international and avoid being overly traditional. In doing business, they should pay attention to universal cultural differences.

Hong Kong is her home, and yet it is not like home. Will she still be in Hong Kong in the future? For Ms. Ying, this is a question that has no firm answer: I might use the word “nomad” to describe myself, travelling and experiencing life in different places. This is how I would describe myself, as I don’t see myself taking root here. One day, if I should retire, would I retire in Hong Kong? Possibly. But then again, I might go to some other place. I still don’t know.

Vignette 4: Daisy  Age: 43 Current position: Architect Education level: Master’s degree Year of migration: 1979 (at age 16) Migration destination: England Year of return to Hong Kong: 1992 (at age 29) Marital status: Divorced Religion: None Daisy is the youngest in her family. At the age of 16, because many in her family had emigrated to London, she quite naturally followed in their footsteps and undertook the last year of middle school in England, where she also completed her undergraduate studies and obtained her master’s degree in architecture. After graduation she worked as an architect in one of London’s major construction companies. Daisy felt that London was a perfectly cosmopolitan city. There were very few “pure” English people living in the city, which was rather more like “a gathering of foreigners.” Such a metropolis of mingling races and ethnicities, when the majority come from other places, hastens the understanding between different nationalities and cultures: London is a place inhabited by many foreigners living together, and hardly anyone would ever think in terms of where they’ve come from. Everyone puts emphasis on mutual understanding in the workplace, with very few markers of where you’re from. When I was living in London, we ordinarily would have frequent get-togethers, and everyone I knew didn’t

Vignettes of Four Returnees

59

place much emphasis on what country they came from. Some of my friends were Italian and some were from Brazil, there were people from all over the world, but they seldom took pains to be with others from their own country. They associated with friends from their own country for sure, but they wouldn’t necessarily take the trouble to seek them out. Since each person’s background was quite different, whenever they met each other it was very interesting. For example, if a friend invited people home for a meal, a Polish colleague would bring along a Polish sauce, and Italian friends would bring along something they had prepared themselves. Every time we would go to a different friend’s place for dinner, everyone would bring along something special from their home country to treat us, so I could never forget about my own background, and would keep it in my memory, because in London everyone is different, and everyone would engage in mutual exchange. We wouldn’t talk about our differences all the time, rarely emphasizing where we came from.

There is always something in the core of our being that we cling to, but at the same time, in the individual’s emotional world, there are also many other elements that can change or be changed. Daisy feels that through her 13 years of living in England, Chinese concepts and Western ways of thinking both coexisted and had a marked effect on her personally: I think my Chinese conceptions are deep, but I have also been greatly influenced by Western ways of thinking. I really did merge myself into life over there. I had good friends from all over the world – Brazil, Poland, Italy, France, England, with no single category focus, as basically everybody who goes to work in London is psychologically prepared to mix and mingle with people of many different kinds, otherwise they wouldn’t have gone to London. Since you’ve gone there, and there are so many people from foreign lands there, you would have anticipated linking up with a lot of them. We discussed personalities more than where we came from.

When living in England, Daisy felt that her emotional identity was comfortable and stable. But in 1992, the English economy went into decline, and although the company where she was employed was large, with 300 employees in the London branch alone, people were laid off every week. Daisy felt very unhappy at the daily sight of people close to her facing the pain of unemployment. As it happened, she had the opportunity to go on a trip back to Hong Kong, and she witnessed the onset of a flourishing Hong Kong economy, with markets enjoying healthy growth and signs of prosperity everywhere. So she felt that maybe that was the right time to come back to work in Hong Kong. Returning to the Hong Kong where she had spent the first 16 years of her life, Daisy at first thought it was just like “coming home,” but, in fact, this city she thought she knew so well had changed a lot: Thinking back on it all, you could say that I came back ill-prepared. At the time, I looked upon it as returning home, which was not something to worry about, since I just needed to come back. But actually, I was not prepared. My return was a culture shock. This shock had a huge influence on me, as it never occurred to me that Hong Kong would be like this. If you were going to go to England now, you would be well prepared, because you would have already been prepared to meet new friends, going to new places, but I had made no such psychological preparations for my return to Hong Kong, because it was a homecoming. The changes that had taken place here were enormous, just enormous! After my return I felt ill-­ adapted. A year had passed, and I felt out of place. I thought about leaving right away, but then again, I also told myself, “Why not give living here a try?”

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Daisy felt she could blend into local life quickly, but coming from London back to Hong Kong, she was facing greater adjustment difficulties than she had ever experienced while in London: The attitude towards work here in Hong Kong, the mode of working, is very different from England. There is no free space here, and personal connections here are so important. Social connections are not so important in England; they have their conflicts and struggles, but they are pretty well limited to senior management. Working people in general, regardless of whether they are senior or junior, get along quite well at work and are really quite earnest at what they do. Everyone wants to do a good job, and won’t haggle over not getting enough credit or having put in a little more effort than others—their spirit of cooperation is strong. Hong Kong is different, with a much weaker spirit of cooperation, something I can feel even today: many people not really wanting to cooperate with you. I think such people are rather selfish, concerned with nothing but their own work. People here have a much stronger zeal for their own personal causes, so much so that many will concentrate their efforts on arranging for their own career advancement rather than doing their best in their job. For me, this was a huge culture shock.

Faced with the problems of complex interpersonal relationships in Hong Kong companies and with the fondness of her local colleagues for gossiping about others behind their backs, Daisy made up her mind to leave companies that made it impossible for her to concentrate on work: I think it’s right that I should persist in my way of doing things, but of course I find this to be problematic. Perhaps my attitude towards work is insistent, but then precisely because I am insistent, I have established a space of my own, a place where I can put things into practice by myself alone.

Four years elapsed between the time of her return to Hong Kong and when she became a boss, but starting her own enterprise was not the rose garden she had blueprinted for herself. The professional training that she had received in the West gave Daisy the freedom to choose, but in the architectural design field led by men, it is not at all easy for a woman to make good. Discrimination, setbacks, and disappointments are tormenting, but they are also character-toughening. For Daisy, “a determined mindset” is her torch in the heart: I didn’t want to fail. If you can’t find a way to establish yourself, you will easily succumb to drifting with the flow, doing whatever others do, because you have lost yourself. When no one in Hong Kong identifies you as a particular entity, if you’re not careful you will sink into merely following the group, chiming in with everyone else. I guess it was precisely for this reason that for the first while I insisted on my own way of doing things.

The dialectic between individual and society lies in this drama: people on the one hand are under the control of society, but on the other hand they are also redesigning society. For returning specialists like Daisy, the professional knowledge obtained in Western countries is a form of cultural capital with long-term value. Yet the tracks engraved in her by her immigrant life experiences are obvious: Daisy manifests a toughness and resilience unique to an immigrant. She states: My company has been established for ten years. Over the past year I’ve come up with a new way of thinking. It’s not that I have completely changed my outlook, but since we feel that we’ve now established our “status”, I think we can change, and we don’t have to go on

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“persisting”. When I say we don’t have to go on persisting, I don’t mean that we can abandon the things we are carrying out right now; rather I think we can blend in with Hong Kong, merge with them and learn why they think the way they do. We can begin to merge into their midst and work with them. I dare not say we can change them, but we won’t engage them confrontationally as we are already merging into their midst. I think it is right that we should merge with them, because only by so doing can we make even greater contributions. So, I now take part in several governmental public offices, such as in certain committees, because I want to rejoin society now. I backed out of society before because we wanted to persist in establishing our own enterprise; otherwise we wouldn’t be able to get anything done. Today, since we have several accomplishments to our credit and since others know who we are, we can now merge in with the others as we now have earned a status and a place in society. I think this is the way we should go now, gradually merging into society. This has been my thinking over the past year. We must have established something ourselves before we can practise our livelihood together with them. This is the only way we can let them know how our things are different from theirs. This is a very special personal transformation! We feel that the process is a very special one.

Daisy has the following hope regarding the Hong Kong government: I would suggest that government be not so stern and draw upon a few more enlightened minds. I think the returnees can really contribute with their deep, creative thought. A society needs balance, and different types of people are needed by society. If a society cannot achieve balance in this respect, then it will certainly have to pay a price for their inability.

Factors Associated with Return Migration Why did the returnees come back to Hong Kong? At one level, the respondents gave reasons that could simply be divided into two categories: factors that “pushed” them out of countries in the West and factors that “lured” them back to Hong Kong (Table 2.2). But at a deeper, psychological level, our respondents invoked both push and pull factors, sometimes simultaneously, in their attempts to explain, make sense of, and rationalize their return migration—often in the form of a cost-and-benefit analysis, a mental calculus of comparing and contrasting the merits (socioeconomic and psychic benefits) and demerits (the said costs) of working and living in Hong Kong and in the West, resulting in “positive comparisons” that favored the decision to come home in order to reduce anxiety and cognitive dissonance. One push factor identified by a large majority of the returnees was work dissatisfaction and the perception of a lack of opportunities for upward occupational mobility or further business development in the West. Wives followed their husbands back to Hong Kong because their husbands experienced difficulties in their work. Hong Kong was perceived as a place that would offer opportunities for personal growth and mobility at work—a potent pull factor that was attractive to both the individual return migrant and to thousands and thousands of others who quickly constructed a public discourse that underpinned a collective behavior, a “return migration fever.” Our respondents spoke about their classmates, friends, colleagues, and relatives having already returned to Hong Kong and offering them enticing information about job and business investment opportunities and the promise of a better life in Hong Kong:

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Table 2.2  Reasons for returning to Hong Kong 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

Felt unhappy at work in the West as work opportunities there were limited Followed my husband back to Hong Kong because he was unhappy at work in the West Life in the West was stable but boring while life in Hong Kong is full of energy and vitality Felt like a second-class citizen in the West, having been subjected to discrimination as a Chinese Felt the obligation to look after elderly parents and other family members in Hong Kong There were many relatives in Hong Kong who could help each other out Most of my friends in the West were Chinese; my identification with being Chinese was strong, so the desire to return to Hong Kong was also strong Most friends, close relatives, and classmates had returned to Hong Kong Friends in Hong Kong provided information about the market and the economy Seeing friends in Hong Kong doing so well gave me the confidence to return to Hong Kong Wanting to witness the return of Hong Kong to China The taxes in the West were too high, not leaving much for personal savings Returned to Hong Kong to follow children, wanting to live with them Escaped from unhappy circumstances in the West: broken marriages, tense in-law relations, work dissatisfaction, etc. Children should re-learn Chinese culture and the Chinese language I missed Hong Kong Hong Kong is my second home. Felt rather comfortable in Hong Kong Having been trained in the West and being proficient in English gave me a competitive advantage in Hong Kong Believed I could scale new heights at work in Hong Kong

I returned in 1996. I was going nowhere doing the same job in the States, especially after my graduation. I reflected on the lack of advancement in my job, and I was wondering if the situation would be better if I returned to Hong Kong. The economy was not doing very well in 1998; therefore, I was laid off. I spent about six months looking for a job. I wasn’t interested in secretarial work. I lost my direction entirely. Seeing no prospects, I had to go back to the States! It was a dilemma; but I finally went back to the States in 1999 and worked there for one year. As my desire to return to Hong Kong was still keen, I eventually came back to Hong Kong. I’m convinced that my career prospects should be better in Hong Kong. (Case 3) I could say that I’m a stubborn person. I always believe that developing my career in foreign countries is tough. Men should build their careers, that’s very normal. I think that in the States even if you’re really outstanding, they will eventually decide that you have come to the end of the career ladder. You may be treated differently even when you are local born. I mean ABCs, American-born Chinese, are different. In fact, even for those who are born in the States, there are not many successful cases. I don’t aspire to reach very, very high, but I still want my career to be a success story. Therefore, I decided to return to Hong Kong and get a better opportunity to develop my career. (Case 19)

Individuals thought hard about returning to Hong Kong because parts of their networks were already there. Just as when thousands of Hongkongers emigrated in the 1990s due to collective handover anxiety, now thousands are returning—the potential individual migrant is often subject to the peer influence of the masses,

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feeling both pulled and pushed by a quickly emerging chain migration. The return of social networks from the West to Hong Kong justifies, institutionalizes, and solidifies massive return migration. In a way, such a collective discourse socially constructs a “myth of return”: I left Hong Kong when I was in Secondary Three. But until today, my best of friends are all from that secondary school. It’s also amazing that many of my secondary school friends, who had left for overseas studies, all returned to Hong Kong. Therefore, the secondary reason for my return to Hong Kong has to do with my best friends being here. (Case 19) My secondary school friends are mainly returnees from overseas. (Case 7) My two best friends are Hongkongers. They are also return migrants to Hong Kong … Some of my schoolmates in Canada have also returned to Hong Kong to work. I like to chat with my ex-schoolmates about many issues. After all, we all have similar experiences studying overseas. When I share with them, they tend to understand me better. (Case 24)

As the rationalization goes, life in the West is stable but boring, while life in Hong Kong is exciting and enjoyable. Taxes in the West are too high, and one would not be able to save as much as one would in Hong Kong. One is a second-class citizen in the West, often vulnerable to racial prejudice and discrimination, while Hong Kong is home where one belongs, identifies with the Chinese culture, and feels comfortable. Hong Kong is close to China, a bridge to the enormous mainland market. As it happens, the techniques of justification and rationalization multiply to strengthen and deepen the myth of return which, when revealed and deconstructed, requires the returnee to face up to the gap between fantasy and reality. Like all myths, the myth of return contains elements of both truth and untruth, the latter often resulting in disillusionment and shock on the part of the homecomers: There is a gap between work reality and the ideal career. I had high aspirations when I returned, expecting to achieve a lot. However, the reality is far from desirable! At that time, I felt a strong hatred of Hong Kong. (Case 3)

Analysis of the factors associated with return migration reveals that those factors indeed operate on different levels and could be classified in various ways. As already discussed, both “push” and “pull” factors are associated with return. Some of these factors are economic or material in nature, such as about work and business, while others are social, emotional, or cultural, such as missing Hong Kong, having family members who had already returned to Hong Kong, wanting children to learn things Chinese, or filial piety. Still other factors are political, such as identification with Hong Kong and China. Thinking about leaving the West and returning to Hong Kong operates at different levels: personal, about the self; familial, about family and kin members; social, about friends, former schoolmates, and colleagues; macro-­ structural, about the economies of Hong Kong and China; and transnational, about maintaining networks both in Hong Kong and in the West, thus diversifying personal investment portfolios and “not keeping all eggs in one basket” while also reducing risks and maximizing rewards and returns. In assessing the pros and cons of staying and leaving and in deciding when, how, and who to move with, there was a complex and intriguing mental calculus of a

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myriad factors, reasons, and forces, some personal, some social, some political, yet some more transnational. There was a complicated dialectic of self and others; past, present, and future; here and there; and local and global. The individual, the family, and social networks, together, looked back and forth, being deeply involved in “positive comparisons” which rationalized migration, life, and the future.

 light and Delight of the Mobile Migrants: Hidden Injuries P of Global Mobility Our interviews offered unexpected insights into the marital/gender and generational politics of immigrant families, an unfolding drama of conflicts and power struggles between husbands and wives, parents and children, leavers and stayers, cosmopolitans and locals (Table 2.4). Three unintended consequences can be articulated. First, there is a sense that returnees have become homeless. They are at the margin of two worlds as locals and expatriates; the returnees desire to belong to both worlds, but are accepted by neither: I do feel being marginalized. In the job I’m holding now, people regard me as a member of the camp of the American colleagues. They simply do not identify me as a Hongkonger. However, when I am in the midst of the Americans, they consider me a foreigner. That makes me feel deeply ambivalent … I feel tragic being a Hongkonger sometimes, as I don’t know where my roots are. What do I get from this painful experience? (Case 22) The most uncomfortable thing is when you react differently to some daily life issues, people would say, “Damned barbarian, go back to Canada!” What can I do about this situation? I have also been sworn at: “Go back to China!” Even when I travel with a Canadian passport, some people may wonder why a yellow-faced Chinese is holding a Canadian passport. They may ask, “Who are you?” (Case 9)

Table 2.3 lists 115 strategies of migrant coping that were gleaned from our 40 returnee interviews. The strategies are classified into three broad categories: perceptual, behavioral-expressive (with subtypes of intrapersonal, or doing emotion work within and to oneself, and interpersonal, or doing emotion work in relation to others), and behavioral-instrumental. As a grouping, perceptual coping strategies include positive thinking (e.g., I look on the bright side of things), positive comparison (e.g., unlike life in Hong Kong, the Western way of life, though stable and comfortable, makes one lose the urge to perform, to compete, to excel), flexibility (e.g., I alternate my identities: I can be something this minute, and something else another minute; I am flexible), futuristic thinking-hope (e.g., I tolerate the present because I imagine a rosy future beyond Hong Kong), acceptance (e.g., I look at life realistically and accept the changes), rationalization (e.g., I rationalize about staying in Hong Kong rather than leaving), identification (e.g., I was born here, I grew up here, and Hong Kong is my kind of place, my home), and familism (e.g., I see the big picture, thinking of the well-being of my family, not just myself). Behavioral-­ expressive coping is either intrapersonal (e.g., I feel good in Hong Kong because it is my second home) or interpersonal (e.g., I feel very happy being with my old

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Table 2.3  Strategies of coping among Hong Kong return migrants I. (1). 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. (2). 9. 10. 11. 12. (3). 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. (4). 21. 22. 23. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. (5). 31.

Perceptual Positive thinking It is better to think more positively than negatively about my experiences Hong Kong provides a good business and investment environment to self-employed people I appreciate the good sides of the Hong Kong people, who are efficient, time-saving, and exciting I tell myself returnees are respected in Hong Kong because we were trained overseas I look on the bright side of things I try not to personalize things; I separate the person from the matter I look at Hong Kong and the US in a more detached manner than before I relish the many challenges of life Positive comparison I think there are better opportunities for growth in Hong Kong and China than in the West I think favorably of Hong Kong, after comparing the good things with the bad things here I think positively about being a returnee, knowing I have a comparative advantage and a competitive edge Unlike life in Hong Kong, the Western way of life, though stable and comfortable, makes one lose the urge to perform, to compete, to excel Flexibility I take life as it comes, being tentative, experimental, non-committal I tell myself I have the option of returning to the West, that I have a place to fall back on just in case I don’t know where my next station of life will be, so it all depends, and I am open-­ minded, letting fate to take its natural course I have several passports, I have lots of options, I am free Both the local and foreign culture have long been part of me—I have many possibilities and options, I can be this, and I can be that I am a US-plus-Chinese, I am unique and original because I am mixed, hybrid I alternate my identities: I can be something this minute, and something else another minute; I am flexible I am selective about the Chinese culture; I take some of it, and reject some of it Futuristic thinking-hope I live for tomorrow, not for the present, which I tolerate I don’t think my future is in Hong Kong I keep my hope and expectations about Hong Kong I fantasize about the future to moderate my present suffering I tell myself all bad things that happen to me in Hong Kong are short-lived I look forward, not backward I tolerate the present because I imagine a rosy future beyond Hong Kong I think China is where my future will be I delay gratification Acceptance I have come to accept that there are things that cannot be changed, or won’t change (continued)

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Table 2.3 (continued) 32. 33. 34. (6). 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. (7). 42. 43. 44. (8). 45. 46. (II). (1). 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. (2). 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65.

I look at life realistically and accept the changes I accept the status quo I set a realistic time limit to my sojourn in Hong Kong Rationalization I rationalize about staying in Hong Kong rather than leaving Hong Kong is close to and a bridge to China Hong Kong’s education sector offers good salaries I find explanations for my misfortunes and sufferings I see my wife’s sacrifice for me as a motivating force for me to work even harder I tell myself not to raise my expectations too much; I need to know my own limits I tell myself Hong Kong is a place to work and make money quickly, not a place to live well and comfortably Identification I was born here, I grew up here, and Hong Kong is my kind of place, my home I work hard to get rid of my sojourners’ mentality I try not to assimilate myself into the local culture and lose my identity Familism I shift my focus on myself to my family, my children I see the big picture, thinking of the well-being of my family, not just myself Behavioral-expressive Intrapersonal I comfort and console myself I feel comfortable about being here in Hong Kong because it is a Chinese place I miss Hong Kong/I miss Canada (New Zealand, England, etc.) I feel good in Hong Kong because it is my second home I feel confident about Hong Kong because many of my friends are doing better than me since their return here I like Hong Kong being a place of vitality and variety; I feel stable but bored living in the West I pray to calm myself down, telling myself not to hate too much I make myself feel good I feel good about my much better salary in Hong Kong as a compensatory reward I do transcendental meditation I sometimes get nostalgic, thinking about the good old days I don’t feel lonely because I am too busy I take holidays with my friends to escape from my plight Interpersonal I look for places in Hong Kong for entertainment, leisure and cultural nourishment I often go out rather than stay home and feel miserable I seek out events and activities that will make me happy I feel very happy being with my old schoolmates and friends I feel good being here, being able to look after my aging parents I do volunteer work for NGOs or professional associations to balance my emotional life (continued)

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Table 2.3 (continued) 66. (III.) (1). 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. (2). 73. 74.. 75. (3). 76. 77. 78. (4). 79. 80. 81. 82. (5). 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. (6). 95. 96. 97. 98. 99.

I go out a lot to make up for the lack of space where I live Behavioral-instrumental Accommodation I make compromises I seek and build consensus among my colleagues I try to accommodate others I try to become less self-centered, less critical of local culture I quicken my pace of life at work to fit into local culture I stop feeling arrogant and superior to the local people just because of my Westernization Suppression I hide and isolate myself and I withdraw from social contact I suppress my feelings I keep myself quiet to avoid conflicts with others Hard work I work long hours and through the weekends I am too busy to feel lonely and miserable I have no time for leisurely activities Self-improvement I work on being creative, crossing boundaries, and finding a third way I change myself to adjust to the changing situation here in Hong Kong I do deep thinking and read philosophical works I am cautious Learning I learn to adapt to local culture I learn to be tolerant; I have become less hard-headed I listen to local radio and watch local TV to have things to talk about with my colleagues I learn to adapt by trial and error; I learn from my mistakes I have learned about the importance of face-saving, social connections and human sentiments amongst the Chinese I have learned that we all have different ways of doing things I have internalized traditional Chinese morality I have experienced a cultural awakening, suddenly re-learning things Chinese, being re-sinified, re-socialized I learn to prepare myself in various ways even before returning to Hong Kong I learn to prepare myself for cultural clashes and conflicts I have re-learned Cantonese and to read in the Chinese language I learn to do things one at a time Social affiliation I gravitate towards people of my own kind, other returnees like me I help build an enclave, a little community, a social circle, for ourselves I attend associational functions and contribute my services I try to re-build for myself a sense of community and neighborliness I seek and build family support (continued)

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Table 2.3 (continued) 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. (7). 106. 107. (8). 108. 109. (9). 110. 111.

I seek out former elementary school, high school and university classmates, and old friends I try to maintain cordial relationships with my relatives I spend time with friends to build social support I turn to my old friends or relatives in the West for support in times of difficulty I turn to others to let my emotions out I try to integrate myself into local society Religious participation My religious activities make me less serious about and demanding of myself I go to church, to contribute my service, at a particular time, at a particular place Seeking information and help I seek information about the job and business opportunities here in Hong Kong I turn to psychiatrists and counselors for advice and support Changing job or company I do plenty of job-hopping I seek transnational or foreign companies to work in

schoolmates and friends). Behavioral-instrumental coping strategies include accommodation (e.g., I make compromises); suppression (e.g., I keep myself quiet to avoid conflicts with others); hard work (e.g., I work long hours and through the weekends); self-improvement (e.g., I think deeply and read philosophical works); learning (e.g., I have learned about the importance of face-saving, social connections and human sentiments amongst the Chinese); social affiliations (e.g., I gravitate towards people of my own kind, other returnees like me); religious participation (e.g., I go to church, to contribute my service, at a particular time, in a particular place); seeking information and help (e.g., I seek information about the job and business opportunities here in Hong Kong); and changing job or company (e.g., I seek transnational or foreign companies to work in). The second unintended consequence of return is that the returnees have begun to engender in themselves an ambivalent sense of hybridity, complete with both its upside and its downside. The upside is that of creativity and innovativeness of the returnees because, to them, what is done in one way by the locals can be done in another way according to returnees; returnees fully understand the artificiality of things, all of which can be debunked, deconstructed, and reconstructed. This insight is their genius, their creativity, and their source of delight. The downside, or even dark side, of hybridity is that cultural hybrids are distrusted by both insiders (locals) and outsiders (expatriates), thus forcing some of them to hide their hybridity, to practice passing as people who they are not, which often entails considerable emotional, or psychic, costs. Two interviewees commented: Internal conflict arises strongly and mostly from work situations: for example, during a meeting with the attendance of both Chinese and Westerners. When the meeting members get into disagreement which results in some grey areas—with no absolute black or white—I feel the conflict. In those moments, I may take the position of the Chinese party; I may also take the position of the Western party. When asked about my opinion, I feel too perplexed and confused to take sides. (Case 19)

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Table 2.4  Migrant adjustment difficulties as social costs to returnees and origin-country 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

Conflicts and difficulties at work Industries and businesses in Hong Kong are too singular and uni-dimensional Can’t find work, getting worried as money is running out Lack of fit between my job skills and market demands The return migrants’ competitive advantage is quickly diminishing Language deficits in Cantonese and written Chinese are work and social handicaps Unemployment Underemployment Large discrepancy between the real and the ideal in the work conditions, so much so that I am beginning to hate Hong Kong Too long work hours and there is little life left Work culture being too Chinese: top-down, authoritarian, undemocratic, prejudicial, sexist and racist Local work culture is rather oppressive Cut-throat office politics There is little teamwork and cooperation in Hong Kong Company not appreciative of my creativity and innovation, just asking employees to do what they are told Personal creativity punished because it is threatening to those in power Creativity of returnees is seen by locals as egoism and self-glorification Seniors blocking the upward mobility of creative staff because of jealousy I find it hard to catch up with Hongkongers Difficulty in developing deep, meaningful relationships with colleagues; too much competitiveness at work Hongkongers treat people with talent as personal threats Prejudice of locals forces returnees to hide themselves Lack of fit in culture between returnees and locals forces returnees to job-hop Interpersonal conflicts Being treated as a stranger in one’s birthplace: reverse culture shock and discrimination Large differences in culture and character between myself and Hongkongers Hongkongers are too loud, too impolite, too “uncultured” Cold relationships with neighbors, which are a contrast to my experiences in the West Detachment from local community and neighborhood Hongkongers are pragmatic people; they have a motive even during social gatherings It is hard for me to understand Hongkongers’ jokes Interpersonal conflicts with old classmates because of deep cultural differences Hongkongers guard their space and privacy so intensely that it is hard to get close to them Stuck between local Chinese and foreigners; stigmatized, even mistreated, by both Hongkongers treat me like a Westerner, but I am too Westernized to their liking I don’t feel like a Chinese when dealing with a non-Chinese Return migrants being isolated and forced to socialize amongst themselves, forming a small circle, an enclave Tensions and conflicts between locals and returnees Returnees’ hybridity means that they are not trusted by both locals and foreigners (continued)

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Table 2.4 (continued) 38. Being tested for loyalty by both locals and foreigners Conflicts in the family 39. Lacking in quality family life 40. Interpersonal conflicts with relatives because of deep cultural differences 41. Inexplicable and unspeakable conflicts between returnees and their parents who have never left Hong Kong 42. Intergenerational conflicts between stayers and movers 43. Husband and wife quickly drifting apart from each other, both looking for different things in life 44. Problems with children’s education 45. Helping children to adjust to Hong Kong 46. Sacrificing oneself for husband, children, and family Identification and emotional problems 47. I feel inferior, especially when my work is causing me troubles 48. Afraid of premature assimilation into Hong Kong culture, and of losing my uniqueness 49. Frequent emotional flip-flops (unpredictable mood swings—very happy now, and very unhappy shortly later) 50. Feeling different, lonely, and isolated 51. A sense of inner self-contradictions and marginality 52. I feel confused about my identification with Hong Kong: I feel like a stranger, an outsider, a foreigner 53. Uprooting, uprootedness, and rootlessness 54. Lost sense of community 55. Mid-life, mid-career crisis 56. When in the West, think about Hong Kong; when in Hong Kong, think about the West Difficulties in adjustment to local cultures and physical conditions 57. Life in Hong Kong is tense and stressful 58. Life in Hong Kong is all work and no play 59. Hongkongers are too busy to live, having no time for anything except work 60. Not enough time left in the day to relax and socialize 61. Hong Kong being a money-minded society makes living here rather alienating 62. Hong Kong is a highly competitive, capitalistic and materialistic society 63. The lack of attention to non-economic values in Hong Kong leads to alienation among people, even within the family 64. Hong Kong being a resource-scarce society, children and older people are neglected 65. There is not a public awareness of multiculturalism, diversity, pluralism and tolerance in Hong Kong society 66. Overcrowding in public and private spaces 67. Backward and under-developed civic consciousness 68. Bad air quality 69. Hong Kong is lacking in the kind of aesthetics and beauty I used to find in the West

Plight and Delight of the Mobile Migrants: Hidden Injuries of Global Mobility

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What is the dark side of “hybridity”? It may involve ambiguities—you find it hard to build work focus. You may swing your thoughts from one side to the other. You may base your decisions on one side this time, but you may favor the other side another time. Sometimes it is confusing, with no direction. I am like a pendulum. (Case 6)

The third unintended consequence of return is a result of the foregoing two conditions being compounded: the returnees as “cultural misfits” may drift even further and move overseas yet one more time, a condition we call “circuit migration.” Mobility, whether physical, emotional, or intellectual, has thus become an existential condition as far as the migrant is concerned. The returnee is now a stranger in his own home, or worse, he may become a stranger to himself, inflicted by a sense of self-estrangement. An interviewee said: You pay a price for emotional adaptation when you practise the multicultural approach. If I were a one hundred percent Hongkonger, I would have an easier time. If I could accept the values of my colleagues who behave like the characters in Gum Chi Yuk Yip (a popular 2006 Hong Kong television drama serial), I might feel more comfortable. Since I can’t accept my colleagues’ values, I have to fight them. I need to get used to this challenge. Some may achieve this more easily by taking a shortcut. For me, it takes a longer process to reach my goals. When I can’t accept certain behaviors, I feel an emotional turmoil, which causes me to become moody … When I’m in this situation, I feel lonely and I miss my family in the States. I wish I could be with them in the States. Sometimes, I truly wish to have more friends who would share my views. On such occasions, I identify myself as a New Yorker as most New Yorkers are like me with an immigrant status but without a distinct racial or ethnic identity. We are all marginalized. (Case 10)

There is a dark side to the social capital gains acquired overseas and at home— one being the feeling of being rejected socially by the local community and another of being overwhelmed by the highly cohesive, yet oppressive-conformist and closely knit networks of the traditional Hong Kong ethnic communities, which tend to stifle personal innovation and restrict freedom. Our returnees “fall between two stools,” having experienced double ruptures of their social networks, first during their departure from Hong Kong years ago and then upon bidding farewell to the West; such dual uprootedness makes their return adaptation stressful. They are living on a line where the past is cut off and the future is unknown. They have found themselves in a condition of alienation in Hong Kong, objectively (structurally) and subjectively (psychosocially), of loss or demise of community, of a sense of “dis-community,” with little or no participation in civil society, in professional, occupational, trade organizations. The returnees have broken or diminished ties with old friends, schoolmates from primary and secondary schools and universities left behind in Hong Kong; the locals have all changed, so have the returnees themselves: “you don’t step into the same river twice.” Their social fabric has been torn and split. Now back in Hong Kong, the returnees find themselves socially and emotionally dependent on ties and networks left behind in the West. On the positive side, this is a sign of transnationalism, of a two-legged existence, one leg in Hong Kong and the other leg still in the West. But this is also a paradoxical existence. Their dependency on the second leg prevents them from full participation in Hong Kong society. The following typifies these feelings: Yes, I sometimes feel marginalized, a feeling of isolation. At times, you would like to network with one side but find little rapport; you would also like to network with the other side,

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2  The Hong Kong Study but you feel alienated. In the end, you feel disconnected from both sides. I mentioned to you earlier that I had returned to Canada; however, I did not stay on. I eventually came back to Hong Kong. When I decided to return to Canada, I experienced the feeling of disconnection. When I was in Canada, I wondered if I could re-adapt with my network of friends since I had left. The feeling of disconnection was caused by my association with the Hong Kong living experience and the mindset here. Alienation is painful, very hard to describe. (Case 6) Leaving Canada to return to Hong Kong is like emigrating a second time. I wouldn’t know if I should describe myself as a “return migrant” or a “second-time emigrant”. When I compare my impression of Hong Kong, as it is now or as it was four to five years ago, to my impression of the Hong Kong that I knew when I grew up, I realize that things have changed. For example, I’ve lost contact with a lot of my old friends. Our differences are many! I had been away for ten years. If I were to share my ten years’ overseas experience with those who have no overseas living experience, they wouldn’t understand me. Even if they could understand me, they wouldn’t be able to empathize with my feelings. There’s a gap. About my new friends, the majority of them have no experience of migrating overseas or of living away from a place for long. A lot of them studied for a few years overseas; that experience is not the same as migrating. A real emigrant is the one who cuts his roots from his homeland. Therefore, I find it hard to communicate with others in many respects. I feel like I’m in a new place. It’s a funny feeling because the perceived new place brings back some memories of familiarity, while other elements of the reality are so different from the past perception. The situation is ambiguous. (Case 9)

Having been in the West and now back in the East, the returnees have earned their hybridity, their cultural doubleness. This hybridity offers moments of delight and could be a positive force. Returnees command competencies in both cultures, and they possess local knowledge in both places—they get the best of both worlds. Extended cultural horizons often make returnees more socially intelligent, more able to understand complexities because they themselves are complex. They can harness some of the conflict they feel each day. Hybridity is the returnees’ asset as mentioned in the following quotes: Reflecting on my life and experience overseas, I realized that I was able to have a broader perspective. It’s like seeing yourself in the mirror, a mirror that offers you more angles to observe and analyze. I would consider that an advantage. (Case 9) I studied overseas and had the opportunity of travelling to different countries. Compared with the locals or with those who live only in the States, I may be more global in my exposure as I have diversified experience … I have interacted with people of different cultural backgrounds. My academic major also allowed me to broaden my horizons. Moreover, I am more open-minded. I can’t say I’m more creative than others; but I do think that I have an advantage. With a broad cultural perspective, I find it easy to work with foreigners. I may also relate to the knowledge in books and current affairs with deeper insight. (Case 7) I consider myself a global person. A global person is open-minded, does not stick to a certain culture. A typically traditional Chinese person sticks to a particular cultural pattern. A global person, however, integrates the advantages of different cultures … I am amazed by different cultures to which I keep an open mind. Even though I have not lived in a certain place, I will not form any prejudice against it. (Case 16)

But hybridity has a dark side. If the returnees are not in a position of power, their hard-won creativity can be shackled. Managers pinpoint difference and stigmatize it, close it down, and eliminate it. Their difference has become a stigma, a spoiled

Adjustment to Local Environment

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identity, something being relentlessly marked out by the locals for differential treatment. So, what do stigmatized returnees do? Some of them hide themselves. They try to pass as stayers, but often not successfully. They form hybrid ghetto communities, they swap jobs often, or they move on. Two interviewees explained: I find myself quite creative. However, Hongkongers do not appreciate this as they are conservative. Although I’m working in an American company, the work culture is not American at all. The company follows the Chinese culture. Chinese have a bad habit, they believe in this: you err more when you put in more work; you err less when you put in less work; you don’t err at all when you don’t work! If your boss feels that you are smarter than she is, she will suppress you. She won’t give you opportunities for advancement. Chinese are selfish. (Case 20) What’s the dark side of hybridity? Often others do not understand your practice. They don’t see that your bottom line is under the influence of two cultures. Obviously, you need to manage issues that are ambiguous to both cultures, with no knowledge of what causes the ambiguities. These are usually work issues … Not only do you need to be creative, but you also need to be creative in the Hong Kong context; for example, dealing with the changes and restructuring at the university. On the one hand, you would like to speak with conviction while expressing your views; on the other hand, you need to consider the Chinese way of preserving harmony. You’re caught between speaking up in the Western way and keeping to the Chinese behavior of being docile and conformist. “Hybridity” allows you to have a broad perspective; but it prevents you from being understood, thus causing inner confusion. (Case 4)

Adjustment to Local Environment The returnees have serious concerns about a number of problems during their adaptation to Hong Kong society: air pollution, noise level, high housing costs and small living space, high population density and overcrowding, traffic congestion and jams, the high costs of education and the scarcity of places for their children at international schools, and difficulty in both spouses finding jobs comparable to those they gave up in the West. Another problem is having to face occupational competition not only from locals but also from new immigrants from the mainland, thus the need to learn to speak Putonghua and to brush up on their written Chinese. Some returnees complained about the general lack of recreational, sports, and cultural amenities that would enhance the overall quality of one’s lifestyle. Hong Kong society seems to have overinvested itself in work achievement and wealth accumulation, with far less investment in the arena of high and popular culture and leisure—a situation that does not seem to match its claim for “world city” status. While the Cantonese constitute the large majority of Hong Kong’s population, other ethnic and racial minorities have quickly become invisible groups, seen but not seen, not heard, not cared for. There has not been a public discourse on multiculturalism, ethnic and cultural pluralism, racial diversity and tolerance, and anti-­ discrimination against prejudice, racism, and sexism. Each and every one of these problems do not seem to be solvable or even controllable in the foreseeable future,

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thus a general sense of unease among the returnees about the future—as exemplified in the following quotes: It’s busy in Hong Kong. All work, but no life. (Case 18) I don’t find it hard to adapt to Hong Kong’s work culture. The lifestyle, however, is very different. Canadian society is more tolerant and more diversified. People are more friendly. The government there also upholds social security policies to protect the welfare of marginalized people. Hong Kong is different. Hong Kong aspires to be a commercialized and competitive society. It is rather unidimensional. (Case 14) Hongkongers seldom engage in a deep conversation with you or share their personal side with you. On the contrary, Westerners are more open about themselves. When I am with them, they talk about their views. The locals prefer to talk about leisure, TV, gossip about others, and so on. I find my Hong Kong friends immature. I prefer to network with my Western friends as the Hongkongers are too focused on money issues. When we get together, we usually sit around and do small talk. We seldom go to karaoke. I truly feel there’s little rapport between me and the locals. The gap could be because of a lack of common interests. They are always interested in who has bought a new item and where to go for pleasure. (Case 22)

Return migration generates interpersonal conflicts and tensions. Most noticeable is conflict between husbands and wives, the gender politics within the family and marriage. A husband who returns to Hong Kong because he cannot develop a satisfactory career in the West could bring with him a wife (and children) who are reluctant to return. The wife could miss the quality of marital life in the West, where the husband had much shorter working hours. She would be making a self-sacrifice for her husband and also for her family. There is a deep paradox here—the wife’s self-sacrifice has become a powerful motivating force that pushes her husband to work hard, but in so doing he spends increasingly less time with his wife and children. So, the wife, herself unwittingly, and husband collude in the wife’s misery. Not surprisingly, there is an ongoing drama between husband returnees who want to stay in Hong Kong and wives who want to leave Hong Kong once again: I’m not the career-minded type of person. I think Australia suits me better because I’m not competitive. I wouldn’t mind being an employee, working under someone, for my entire life. I wouldn’t mind not having any promotion prospects. However, it seems that in Hong Kong you’re under pressure to upgrade yourself and to get a promotion. Even if you don’t want a promotion, you’re forced to take the promotion … I came back because of my husband. His family is here. Therefore, we need to come back somehow… I don’t like Hong Kong as a place, I don’t like the Hong Kong people. I don’t like a lot of things here. (Case 12) In the States, my husband’s career wasn’t very smooth; he was very unhappy. We decided to return to Hong Kong in January 1995 … It’s been many years since our return. I would like to retire in the States. I’m not an ambitious person. It’s hard work in Hong Kong. I’m simple as I’m fine with a job and a family. However, you’ll be bypassed and treated as a nobody in Hong Kong if you don’t exert yourself. Whenever you feel you can do it, you’ll drive yourself hard in doing it. Life is so busy in Hong Kong that you have no time to plan for family-related issues. There was a time when both my husband and I wanted to have a child. Nevertheless, he had to go on many business trips, and I had to go on business trips as well. We had no time for any rest. My chance has passed. I can no longer conceive. If we hadn’t come back, I would have had children. I have no children now. (Case 18)

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Also widespread is the conflict between movers and stayers, which is often generational. Young sons and daughters who have returned to Hong Kong realize they have changed, but their parents, and others of their parents’ generation who stayed behind, have not. This also occurs with their own generation, with former friends, peers, and schoolmates. Returnees are frequently treated by locals as “different.” Two returnees stated: Since my return, I’ve had some conflicts with my parents. I used to have a lot of freedom when I was in Australia. Now that I’m back, my parents take the same approach they used in my pre-Australia days to discipline me. When I go out in the evening, they’ll call me and check when I will reach home and say they’ll keep a vigil for me. When we don’t think alike, conflicts arise. Sometimes, I like to be alone in my room to enjoy some personal space. My parents resent this as they feel that I do not give them any attention. This is not the case as all I want is to wind down and relax; however, they regard this as indifference towards them. I don’t know how to explain this; I can’t explain. I resort to leaving the door open, so they’ll know what I’m doing in my room. They are conservative. The conflicts with my parents bother me a lot because I don’t expect to spend energy to deal with such conflicts after a hard day’s work. (Case 20) My ex-schoolmates consider that I’m superior to them since I have been exposed to Western culture. They may be putting themselves down for the wrong reason. I find that tertiary education may not determine who is superior. They, however, focus very much on money. When we meet, there seems to be a gap; I find it hard to clique with them. Work experience might have influenced my friends to be materialistic … I ask myself whether they are too snobbish in making certain remarks. Why are they like that? I don’t see eye to eye with them. However, to maintain our relationship, we need to accommodate each other. Although I disagree with them on some issues, I keep them all to myself. I won’t speak about my disagreement. (Case 22)

The returnees’ “resocialization” in the West engenders in them certain values and beliefs that are typical of modernity: meritocracy, gender equality, democracy, out-­ spokenness and open-mindedness, being critical of authority, transparency, creativity, and innovativeness, among others—which to them are the “good things” in life that underpin “a good society.” They have been transformed by their sojourns in the West—in a way, they have become better people: more modern, more open, more communicative, more democratic, more liberal-minded, more global. Yet Hong Kong society has also changed; it is retaining, if not further strengthening or deepening, much of its Chinese character in terms of a solidified vertical hierarchy, lack of transparency, conservatism, authoritarianism, overemphasis on “guanxi,” and prejudice towards and intolerance of the “unfamiliar others,” such as racial and ethnic minorities. As Hong Kong has slowly gone through a process of “resinification” since its handover to China in 1997, the returnees have suffered acutely from a “reverse culture shock.” They explained: I worked as an editor for a Chinese newspaper in my first job in Hong Kong. My first boss scolded me on my first day of work. His officious behavior might have to do with his being Chinese. I wouldn’t accept this management style; I chose to confront him. (Case 9) I think that Hongkongers tend to follow a laissez-faire style in management, disorganized, ad hoc without any system. Things are done in an inefficient manner, they just carry on. (Case 10)

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2  The Hong Kong Study Chinese-owned companies are not very transparent. The bosses usually have their pre-­ conceptions in setting policies or in discussing issues. Meetings that are meant for consulting your opinion are just for show. Most bosses simply do not comply with the policies nor do they follow work procedures set by the company. However, in American or British companies, you have a limit to your authority regardless of your position. You need to follow the rules and regulations. The Chinese-owned companies do not have such a practice. (Case 17) I aspired to fly high in my career when I returned. I was ready to achieve better career development, bringing with me my experience of having studied and worked in Australia. The reality is disappointing … My manager is very rank-conscious. He feels that he has to play his role as a senior to instruct me in my work. This is so different from the management style in Australian companies. My Australian managers regard me as their peer. They would approach me and ask me to enlighten them. Hong Kong managers do not practice this approach. My manager always wants to suppress my performance. He can also be moody. I wanted to apply the Australian management style in Hong Kong; but it’s not applicable … In Australia the management values teamwork and communication. They respect your thinking because they do not believe that seniority in rank or in years of service means better work performance. Perhaps only Chinese societies dismiss the constructive opinions of new employees. (Case 20)

The occupational experiences of the returnees varied, showing a close relationship between personal fortunes and larger structural forces. Returnees who were in accounting, banking, and financial services before and after return to Hong Kong fared rather well. So did those who worked in transnational or foreign companies or organizations (e.g., embassies or consulates) that had close links with their countries of immigration in the West, because they had foreign experience and competence in the English language. Other returnees in the field of education found better and more job opportunities and enjoyed higher salaries in Hong Kong. Those who ventured into self-employment and entrepreneurship found Hong Kong a good site for global trade and business. Those in machines, technology and engineering faced the prospect of work dislocation or mismatch between skills supplied and demand in the market, thus being forced into part-time employment, job-hopping, or even unemployment. Returnees in the IT industry followed the sector’s ebb and flow. An engineer stated: At first, I found it incredible that I couldn’t get a job! I had never thought of being caught in this situation. I’m experienced in operating some advanced technology; I’m also well versed with engineering. How could I accept receiving no response to my many application letters? I started to doubt my ability; I then considered switching my career. If I abandoned engineering, what could I pursue? I contemplated entering finance because I’m pretty good at math; therefore, the choice was logical. I tried looking for a job as financial analyst in order to make a living. Unfortunately, the economy was bad in 2004. My getting a job even in finance was in vain. I was totally demoralized. My boyfriend was in the States. Our plan was for me to find a job in Hong Kong first. He would then follow me here. As I continued to be jobless, the two of us started to quarrel. He wanted me to go back to the States; but I didn’t want to. That was the toughest time for us. In fact, my adaptation to Hong Kong life had not been smooth. I went back to the States a few times; but I didn’t feel happy there a single time. I was without a job. My boyfriend showed no empathy for me. He’s a foreigner growing up in the Western world with no Hong Kong experience. There’s no way he could understand my struggle to adapt to my family, friends and culture. He believed that one could live anywhere; he didn’t agree with my choice of staying in Hong Kong. Therefore, I always ended up quarrelling with him when I saw him in the States. I also didn’t have other friends there. (Case 10)

Adjustment to Local Environment

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Despite their English language advantage, those in the culture industry, e.g., journalism and communications, had to cope with an economy that continued to require competency in the written and spoken Chinese language. Three interviewees explained: When I spoke in Cantonese, my boss commented that I was speaking Indian. My friends also said that I had an accent; I didn’t think so. I truly didn’t feel anything was wrong with my Cantonese … I asked myself what to do! I felt lost as I couldn’t catch some Chinese words or sentences of the locals at times; my Chinese was perceived as Indian! When I first returned, I felt scared … In fact, language is often a matter of confidence or lack of it. Initially, I couldn’t relate to my Chinese or my foreign identity. I lacked self-­confidence, even before starting work. (Case 36) My greatest regret is that I don’t know much written Chinese. Not being able to read Chinese deprives me of the opportunities to read all kinds of Chinese newspapers. Even when I try reading, I don’t understand much. I’m pretty alright with speaking and listening; however, I’m truly lost in reading. It was such a pity: I left Hong Kong when I was very young. I was obliged to pick up English quickly in the foreign country. As I didn’t speak a single word of English at the time, I lost no time learning the language. English was my priority. Besides English, I learnt French, German, and Latin to follow the system. I didn’t learn any Chinese at all. (Case 14) In comparison with those who grew up here, I think I have lost my proficiency in Chinese. My Chinese is not as good. In the midst of other Chinese people, I have little chance to speak. Their ability to articulate in Chinese is amazing. I fully understand what they say. However, when you ask me to express my thoughts in Chinese, I find it hard. At work, I can’t function without a good vocabulary. If you are perfectly bilingual, you’re superior in your performance. I can read Chinese, but only to a certain extent. (Case 1)

The disjuncture between the returnees and Hong Kong society is most apparent in the workplace: returnees experience conflicts with their bosses and their colleagues—they have become “cultural misfits.” They are oddballs, outsiders, or as one interviewee put it, “outliers” located in either of the two tails of a normal distribution, not normal, not usual, kind of deviant, if not rebellious. However hard the returnees attempt to integrate themselves into Hong Kong society and its workplaces, others draw visible and invisible lines between them and others, a condition worsened by their “non-native” ways of speaking Cantonese, their incompetence in the written Chinese language, their lack of local knowledge, their social inappropriateness, their awkwardness. They are frustrated by not being able to understand the jokes of the locals. They feel stressed when spending informal time with locals over tea, meals, in parties, at picnics. They dread such social occasions, which dramatically remind them of their outsider status, their marginality. They related: I do sense discrimination by the locals. I may seem like a novelty to them, not part of them because I’m a “little barbarian girl”… After a while, I realized to some degree I couldn’t relate to them. I didn’t feel any intimacy … The gap does exist as I do feel the prejudice from my local colleagues. When you face prejudice, you need to cope with the situation skillfully. You’ll need to read the situation carefully and respond appropriately. I feel that they may be testing me. They want to test me and see if I give the right response and adopt the right position as a foreigner. (Case 21) Overseas graduates like us and the locals simply can’t mix. I find it strange and incomprehensible why we can’t mix with each other. Even when you try to strike up a conversation with them, they may not respond. They show a lot of reluctance … They probably have

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2  The Hong Kong Study some form of discrimination against the overseas graduates. In the beginning, we invited them to meals; but we gradually knew that the local colleagues really wanted to keep a distance from us. They found it hard to clique with us as they might have thought that we had a sense of superiority. They gradually didn’t want to speak to us. This group of people was comprised of junior staff members. As they made up the majority of the staff, sometimes they had a lot of influence. When we became closer to the senior management, two parties were formed. We are not sure about the reason for the lack of rapport between the two parties. Cultural differences or rank differences? (Case 22)

Returnees push for democratization, equality, open communication, transparency, meritocracy, open resolution of conflicts, creativity and innovativeness, and accountability—all of which raise deep, fundamental questions about the status quo, the taken-for-granted, the prevailing power structure. Both knowingly and unknowingly they pose a threat to those in power, creating moment after moment of jealousy, interpersonal tension, and conflicts. The non-conformists must be eliminated because they are rivals in the eyes of the powerful. This is an instance of the returnees’ “lack of fit” between self and society (family, work organization, and society). The returnees drift from one job into another; and when they do that, they can be accused by locals of job-hopping, of not being loyal, not being faithful. The following experiences illustrate this: In the States, I could consult others when I was unsure about certain work issues. It’s different here. I once tried to seek the opinion of a colleague, who did his PhD here; he implied in his response that I meant to challenge him. My intention to seek his opinion was indeed genuine. At last, I told him I truly didn’t know the answer and I was sincere in asking him. He still didn’t feel comfortable. Such a situation would never happen in the States. I felt uneasy as I didn’t know how to work with him. (Case 10) In fact, it took some adjustment to work with my boss. He has worked here for a long time. However, his academic qualifications are not as high as mine; he also does not have experience living in Canada. I need to keep a low profile. I remind myself to slow down sometimes by refraining from exerting my level of competence … He may regard my consulting him as a threat. (Case 5) Here in Hong Kong, teamwork is but a slogan. In reality, it doesn’t happen. My first job was as a regular reporter for a finance company. Nobody told me what I should do. My department head wasn’t sure of his role. When I approached him for help, he appeared uncomfortable. He might think that I meant to challenge him. (Case 18)

Some of the returnees have experienced job dislocation in Hong Kong. Having broadened their job skills and experiences in the West, they have learned to their dismay that the Hong Kong economy and market is rather singular or one-­ dimensional in nature, certainly not diversified or pluralistic enough to accommodate those who are not in the business and banking sectors. The dislocated returnees include those in fields such as the arts, design, and culture. The work careers of some of the returnees have been interrupted, injured, or even broken up. Return migration causes work discontinuity and disruption, underemployment and even unemployment. One returnee explained: When I returned in 2003, it was difficult to get a job. It was really hard. I first worked as an engineer in a semi-conductor manufacturing company in Tsuen Wan. During my three months’ employment, I realized there were many problems in that company—long working hours, low pay, tiring work with no prospects for advancement. Therefore, I resigned … Further efforts to find an engineering-related job were in vain. (Case 10)

Migrant Coping Strategies as Responses to Immigration Policies: Migrant’s…

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Hong Kong is an achieving society par excellence, stressing things such as material success, accumulation of wealth and capital, hard work, and long working hours. Material success has long been a cardinal value among Hongkongers, suppressing alternative values such as spending quality time with children and family; the capacity for aesthetic, artistic, and cultural pursuits; leisure and its regenerative functions; and charity, philanthropy, and care for the unfortunate and the disabled. The returnees were very quickly “resocialized” into the dominant ethos, but at the same time lamented the lack of time after work for some of the things they used to enjoy doing in the West. Work is so hard and so long in Hong Kong that there is very little time left for anything else, not even sleep. Other than work there is nothing, which further fortifies the isolation of the returnees from their community, neighborhood, and society. They feel lonely, detached, and alienated after work, outside work, or during weekends and long holidays. They explained: It’s exhausting to work here—that’s what I find the hardest to adjust to. It’s so different from my life in England. In Hong Kong, work always comes first; personal life comes second. Your employers not only demand extra work with no extra pay, but they also expect you to deliver fully. (Case 17) Hong Kong is a society with resource constraints; therefore, it is full of competition. The economic pressure imposed by society has probably deprived the elderly and the children of our care. This lack of care may also be due to the resource constraints. We attach little importance or show little alertness to certain values which may be described as non-­ economic, spiritual, moral values. We are uncertain of our identity. (Case 14)

 igrant Coping Strategies as Responses to Immigration M Policies: Migrant’s Cost-and-Benefit Analysis The coping strategies most often used by the return migrants were behavioral-­ instrumental (Lazarus and Folkman 1984) in nature, particularly those pertaining to changing jobs or companies—to maximize the degree of fit between self and work organization. This is not surprising because seeking better work and/or business opportunities and economic returns were the primary reasons for their return to Hong Kong. This is especially true among the mid-career males of between 31 and 40 years old. They wanted to work in foreign-owned companies where they could find foreigners or returnees like themselves. For example, Case 18 related: Getting along with local bosses was difficult. My manager regarded my rapport with the senior management a threat. My manager was unhappy with my request for guidance, as the move was considered as a challenge. The solution was to get a transfer to another department with some non-locals. Another option was to move on to a foreign company to work with foreigners or return migrants.

Seeking social affiliation and support, familism, and religious participation constituted another dominant group of coping strategies, irrespective of the returnees’ gender, age, or type of occupation. The returnees had a propensity to gravitate towards others like themselves, being eager to rebuild a sort of enclave or

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community for mutual aid and reciprocal socio-emotional support. They preferred to mingle with foreigners or those who had worked and lived outside of Hong Kong. One returnee stated: During the first years of my return, my living environment, leisure activities and my social circle followed closely the Hong Kong Chinese style. I found it fun and exciting to sing Karaoke, to spend time in Hong Kong bars and to meet local people. After a while, I realized we couldn’t fully relate to one another. There were obstacles to forming intimate relationships. Normally one would consider staying in Hong Kong or leave after three to four years. I decided to stay on. My social circle has become more Western as I’ve started to befriend many foreigners. My current friends are foreigners, return migrants like me, or those who had left Hong Kong for overseas studies while very young and subsequently returned here to work. Although we may not have identical backgrounds, we share common overseas living experiences. These friends’ mindset is different from that of the locals. (Case 21)

Like many others, one returnee even remarked that she would approach her Canadian-Chinese colleagues and friends for emotional support in times of difficulty—a form of transnationalism that serves both instrumental and expressive functions. She said: I keep in regular contact with my Canadian former colleagues via telephone and email; I visit them every year or every other year. I’ve kept up the longest with those who are Hong Kong immigrants. The interaction with my Hong Kong friends and my Canadian friends is different. I only got to know my Hong Kong friends upon my return to work here, whereas my friendship with my Canadian friends is totally free of any competition. They are purely friends. When I face any problems, I immediately think of contacting my Canadian friends. I won’t naturally consider approaching my Hong Kong friends; I can’t think of anybody here that is in particular close. After all, we may not share the same feelings. (Case 6)

Two returnees articulated very well the importance of family support and religious participation in terms of both the instrumental and expressive functions of social support: I may not easily get sympathy for my reluctance to give up my sentimental attachment to New Zealand. Others won’t know why I desire to return to New Zealand. This desire can only be experienced by those who have also returned from New Zealand. Therefore, my family support is vital. Although we don’t see one another often, as we don’t live together, my family members know how I feel. (Case 12) Do as the church tells me to … I feel that I’m following God’s plan for me. Children have also inspired me a lot; they are like a mirror for my reflections. I’m truly happy … I’m at peace with myself, restraining myself from hatred. I had hated my boss so much; however, prayers released me from hatred. I should thank my boss for the opportunity of building my strength while I managed the difficult situations posed by him. I prayed for the ability to forgive him … I’ve gained so much from church support with the certainty of finding peace at a regular time, in a regular place. (Case 18)

There were some gender differences in the returnees’ construction of their social ties. Female returnees’ social networks seemed a lot more socio-emotional, diversified, and horizontal than those of their male counterparts. The friends of these women came from all walks of life and served multiple functions. The friends of the male employees seemed to be confined to either work colleagues or former schoolmates. Comparatively speaking, women’s social worlds were wider and deeper in

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reach and scope. The women coped with their emotional problems by making contact with a variety of others, sometimes overseas through the telephone and the Internet, while men typically coped with their distress on their own, alone. In terms of age difference, young returnees seemed to spend little time at home, often being out there with friends and colleagues, having a good time, not being alone feeling miserable and lamenting their problems. So, they seemed to be a lot more interpersonal in their coping. They saw Hong Kong as a challenge, while the older ones were more intrapersonal, working hard on their emotional and psychological problems. One salient finding is rather surprising: many returnees resorted to behavioral-­ instrumental strategies that had to do with accommodation; making compromises; keeping quiet; suppression of feelings, opinions, and views; tolerance; and learning to internalize or adjust to local Chinese culture to fit in. Three returnees explained: In a meeting with six locals, I would know it’s time to keep quiet because only the boss would speak. In a Chinese environment, the lower rank does not get a chance to speak up. I let the boss do all the speaking. I only speak when I’m invited to by the boss. In an environment with foreigners, I may not need to wait for my boss to speak first. I may offer my ideas. Foreign bosses are happy with subordinates’ input. In my conversations with relatives who have no experience living overseas, I accept that I can’t fully get across to them. On such occasions, I am aware of how to behave in the Chinese way. I refrain from disagreement and let them conclude. After all, there’s no absolute right or wrong in this world with so many grey areas. It doesn’t matter if you go left or right. Take whichever direction you like. (Case 19) Face is important to the Chinese. They articulate and resolve an issue differently from foreigners. I have learned from my blunders that I can’t use a single approach to address different issues. Chinese and foreigners are so different. I can’t say we are in conflict; I must know which approach suits the type of people with whom I interact. (Case 17) I read the situation carefully. For example, I’ve experienced many occasions when I wanted to voice my opinion; but I was aware of the Chinese boss’s preference for minimum input from subordinates. There are many such incidents. I have learned the importance of being polite. I do as the Romans do, although practising the action or not might not make any difference. When there are many Chinese around, I’ll just follow them. I may find another way to suggest what is on my mind. I never try to upstage my boss in a meeting. I always uphold the principle of not challenging my boss. However, when I have an idea to perform my work better, I’ll find a subtle way to suggest it. (Case 21)

Several returnees seemed to have been assimilated by the local Hong Kong culture in its negative sense: they have become less vocal, more quiet, more aware of office politics and the importance of conformity, not rocking the boat, practising the “shoe-shining” wisdom to avoid punishment in a Chinese work culture where everyone has a place and must behave and learn when to speak, and when not to. This is unfortunate because many returnees seemed to have forsaken what they learned in the West: independence of mind, outspokenness, frankness, and authenticity. Assimilation may be good for the individual, but it may not be so good for the organization and society in the long run because returnees soon lose their criticality, their creativity, their innovativeness. The returnees become conformists, often trying to second guess what is on the boss’s mind. Assimilation has its own organizational and societal costs.

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What people do in their coping behavior also includes how they perceive and think about their problems of living, which brings us to their perceptual coping strategies. One salient coping strategy was positive comparison. Our returnees continually made spatial (the West versus Hong Kong) and temporal (past, present, future) comparisons, the function of which was to persuade or convince themselves that they were now better off in Hong Kong than before in Canada, the USA, New Zealand, Australia, England or Spain. As a perceptual apparatus, comparison allows returnees to develop a sense of relative, rather than absolute, happiness. Another form of positive comparison takes the form of fantasizing about a promising future, as in having the option of retiring in the West, which makes present suffering bearable. Now is tolerable as long as it is temporary and as long as tomorrow will be better. As Leonard Pearlin and his co-authors put it, “where one sees one’s present circumstances either as an improvement over the past or as a prelude to future improvement, existing strains are assuaged” (Pearlin and Schooler 1981:346). The returnees have long learned to play tricks on their minds, reconstructing their time and space to their comfort and solace—an emotional-cognitive transnationalism that literally leapfrogs time and space. These yearnings are exemplified in the following two comments: All my family members have returned to Hong Kong. However, we’ve all left our hearts in New Zealand. I may explain this through an association with the religious faith: “I belong to another world. I’m here to stay briefly”. The feeling is similar to our religious belief that heaven is our home. Therefore, our being on earth is temporary. Similarly, our return to Hong Kong is temporary. (Case 12) Despite the long return of over ten years, I still want to go back to the States. I’d like to retire in the States … Life is indeed short. How much can we bring along? I’ve kept telling my husband that he shouldn’t work so hard. Why so much stress? We have enough to live on. There’re only the two of us. How much is enough? (Case 18)

Another prevalent coping strategy among our returnees was behavioral-­ expressive, much of which was intrapersonal, or internal, manufacturing nostalgic feelings about the past and constructing intimate ideas about “home.” Feeling dissatisfied with Hong Kong, the returnees deal with the situation by recalling a nostalgic past. They miss the clean air, the open space, ample personal and private time in family life, and easy access to nature, fine arts, high culture—basically a more free, more open, more communicative and democratic society in the West. They also miss the cultural, artistic, and aesthetic climate of the West. They used to enjoy the interpersonal intimacy between people, abundant leisure and family time, and the vastness of physical space. Hongkongers interviewed by Ley and Kobayashi (2005) made similar remarks about Canada. Mentally they return to “the good old days” in the West, knowing very well that they have already packed and gone and that they cannot easily go back, even though seven of the interviewees had returned to the West and had then come back to Hong Kong again. Nostalgia is a severe form of critique of the present, making the unpleasant present more bearable, and so many returnees tend to live in their memories. For example, three interviewees reminisced as follows: There are many parks in Canada. We were so close to nature. It was so convenient and easy. We were as close as 15 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes’ drive to nature and scenery. Hong

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Kong does not offer this closeness to nature. On the one hand, I don’t have time. On the other hand, I can’t find such scenic places. (Case 4) I visited Canada in the sixth year of my return to Hong Kong. At that time, I really appreciated how nice Canada was. I was thinking it would be wonderful to move back to Canada one day to enjoy the big houses and the good environment. (Case 5) I was used to the view of natural beauty in Australia and New Zealand. I preferred not to be boxed in at the office. I liked to spend some time outdoors or to look out the window during my New Zealand days. Although I can also look through the window here in Hong Kong, I don’t see any beautiful scenery. The serene natural beauty framed by the window in New Zealand always relaxed me from my work tension. (Case 12)

Nostalgia about the West was most often expressed by women and children who followed their husbands or parents back to Hong Kong. The West is a much better place for women and children to live because it is there they could partake in a public discourse about the democratization of work, familial, and political relationships and about sharing of power in the family, in the workplace, and in society where the individual and the individual’s rights are valued, treasured, and championed. In a deep sense, there is broader community sympathy for the plight of women and children in the West than in Hong Kong and a public eagerness there to do something about it, to change it. One interviewee explained: My brother in Hong Kong thinks that women should take up jobs requiring them to perform duties that are similar to those of a secretary. Women should try to please, work leisurely and comfortably. Men don’t like women to disagree with them on their principles. They also dislike women’s ability to articulate their views as men never think that women are right. In their eyes, women are always wrong and always short-sighted because they are not deep enough. You realize from interacting with men that gender equality is a big question mark. In the circle of engineering design, it’s impossible to chat with the men. They simply don’t think we can get across to each other. They may not regard you as inferior, but they don’t need to chat with you because they have their own in-group. It’s different in England. When men and women get together, they talk about international topics, work issues and anything else, regardless of gender. Hong Kong is not the same. (Case 15)

While in the West, they wanted to return to Hong Kong; while in Hong Kong, they are nostalgic about the West, the past. The returnees have deep ambivalence, or love-hate feelings, about both the West and Hong Kong. Will they stay or even retire in Hong Kong? If not, what will be their next stop, their next station in life? Many see Hong Kong as just a stop to make quick money and then leave—for them, Hong Kong is still a borrowed place, on borrowed time. Others cast their eyes over China. Yet others desire to return to the West one day. Several simply said they honestly don’t know what they will do: I stayed in Canada for over ten years; I was getting bored … I decided to give up a steady life with little excitement, taking up the challenge of adapting to a different environment. In Hong Kong, I sometimes wonder if it’s better to go back to Canada. When work is tiring me out, I miss my family. I live alone. Although I have relatives, I miss my family and hope to return to Canada. My parents think that I will only stay in Hong Kong for one to two years; they expect me to go back to Canada. They always ask me if I’m returning and encourage me to return if my work pressure weighs me down … Sometimes, I feel put off by the Hong Kong lifestyle. When you always have a sense of urgency and have to rush, time is wasted. (Case 24)

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Some of the returnees said they were Hongkongers. Some said they were Hong Kong Chinese. Some said they were citizens of China. Many insisted they were Americans, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, British, etc., reminding themselves of their dual citizenship and double identity, sometimes pained by a deep sense of divided loyalty. There is a clear sense among several returnees that they aspired to be cosmopolitan or, perhaps more appropriately, “cultural hybrids.” Identity is certainly in flux, changing, multiple, contextual-situational, even alternating. Loyalty or patriotism may be a serious, sacred matter to nation-states, but it is not to the returnees. Their sojourns in different places in the world, including colonial and post-colonial Hong Kong, have taught them the importance of pragmatism and the dire consequences of excessive nationalism and patriotism. Two interviewees put it this way: My work style and my work attitude are not totally Chinese or entirely Western. Some may find me very Western (barbarian); some may find me Chinese. I’m no longer sure of my identity. For example, when I eat with our friends, the food is not purely Chinese or Western; the food is fusion. (Case 5) Sometimes, I feel like a nobody. I’m not a true Canadian; neither am I a true Hongkonger. At times, I reflect on what caused this ambiguity. I don’t find the ambiguity too painful; I only find it difficult to be true to both identities. (Case 24)

Migration, immigration, and emigration and their concomitant as well as subsequent consequences in terms of uprooting, uprootedness, and readjustments, present to the returnees a plurality of life worlds and living conditions that are themselves in perpetual motion, relentlessly changing and shifting, thus perplexing, confusing, and challenging. It may not be too much of an exaggeration to suggest that return migrants often need to try to understand, make sense of, and manage an otherwise self-contradictory, alienating, chaotic world. Existentially speaking, the migrant as a social person, true to oneself, struggles to create order out of chaos, just enough to carry on. One hallmark of the returnees interviewed is their cognitive flexibility, which allows them to see life as full of options, possibilities, choices, and alternatives. What is done in one way can be done in another way. Life is more than what it seems. This profound insight into the complexity and perplexity of a migrant’s life stems from an informed awareness of artificiality, and thus “makeability,” of all things. Migrants are meaning-making animals, who use their minds, their intelligence, to construct an order for themselves, who ensure their lives are meaningful and are informed and guided by a deep sense of coherence (Antonovsky 1973, 1986; Chan 1977, 2008). Indeed, these returnees are more than merely cognitively flexible; they have lived and worked elsewhere. They have several passports; continue to maintain social and economic ties in the West; practise emotional, social, cultural, and economic transnationalism; and lead lives that are characterized by hypermobility which allows them to live confidently on the world stage. Their flexibility is thus simultaneously cognitive, emotional, material, structural, and, if you want, political. They are quickly becoming a kind of new migrant who will constitute a dominant force in the new China and the new Chinese diaspora.

Suggestions to Other Returnees: Looking Beyond the Horizons of Costs and Benefits

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 uggestions to Other Returnees: Looking Beyond S the Horizons of Costs and Benefits Our interviewees were rather forthcoming in giving advice to others who might be thinking of returning to Hong Kong and those who had already returned and were making adjustments. Table 2.5 lists 35 suggestions, covering a wide spectrum. Do not return to Hong Kong until you have found work. Work for a few months in Hong Kong before deciding whether to return or not. Prepare yourself psychologically and economically before return. Ask yourself if you can adjust to the quick tempo of everyday life here and whether you know your real needs and desires upon return. You will experience reverse culture shock and face the many deep differences between Hong Kong and the West. Hong Kong has changed much and so have you. Be prepared to have enough cash reserves to tide you over at times of underemployment and unemployment. Approach a church or other religious organization for help. Rebuild and create your social networks in the community and work hard to nurture a sense of belonging to Hong Kong. More detailed advice included the following. Hong Kong is unlike before – you will hardly find an ideal job. You may set a timeframe of three to six months to try your luck. There’s no need to make a radical decision to break totally from Canada. Come and assess. If you land a good job, then you may consider bringing your family over here later. (Case 2) It’s better to secure a job first before moving back to Hong Kong. One needs also to think hard about one’s ability to adapt to local life. The number of years having been away is another consideration. Hong Kong is very crowded; the culture is so different. One must assess if the lifestyle suits oneself. (Case 10) It’s unrealistic for you to expect to stay long in one job. Many things keep changing as well, such as mindset and lifestyle. In England, you can plan your career step by step. You can project your future in the company in the coming ten years. However, nothing is certain in Hong Kong. We’re talking about a dynamic place … Hong Kong is indeed full of competition. It’s very competitive. (Case 17)

The interviewees offered two main kinds of advice to other return migrants, covering what they needed to do before returning and what they needed to do after returning. The pre-return advice emphasized the importance of making psychological-­emotional and economic-practical preparations before returning to Hong Kong. Potential returnees were advised to anticipate resocialization in Hong Kong. They were told to prepare themselves psychologically for matters ranging from mundane things such as no longer having a car to issues that require considerable personal adjustment to realities such as the cultural divide between East and West; a work culture that demands long working weeks and extended hours, superefficiency, conformity, and even obedience to authority; and a capitalist economy that is market-driven, dynamic, ever-changing, and competitive. In offering the second kind of advice about after returning, the returnees were keenly aware of the psychological and practical consequences of their uprootedness from whatever communities they had left behind overseas. In an attempt to grapple with alienation and uprootedness, they emphasized the importance of rebuilding

Table 2.5  Suggestions to other returnees 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

Making preparations prior to return to Hong Kong Be psychologically prepared that re-adjustment to life in Hong Kong will not be as easy as you think Be psychologically prepared for a lack of living space and privacy, and overcrowding Be psychologically prepared for hassles in daily transport now that you don’t drive to work Be prepared for long work hours as part of Hong Kong’s work culture Be prepared for Hong Kong’s quick thinking and fast work pace Do not return to Hong Kong unless you have found work here, or try it out for a few months before really deciding whether to return or not Get yourself economically prepared and ensure you have enough reserves to enable you to handle economic downturns Figure out what you exactly want to achieve in Hong Kong Building community, sub-culture, and social affiliation Try to involve yourself in your neighborhood and your local community Do some volunteer work at NGOs in the local community Seek out other returnees, develop your own community and sub-culture, discuss among yourselves common adaptation problems, perhaps in public forums Participate in religious activities Participate in alumni activities and seek out your former schoolmates Make friends with local Hongkongers Nurture relationships with your parents, siblings and relatives Doing identification work Decide on and develop your sense of identification with Hong Kong Be careful about not over-assimilating yourself into the local Hong Kong culture—keep your uniqueness Keep a certain detachment from local things and people Try to get rid of your sojourner’s mentality as soon as possible Doing thinking work Look to the future, focus on the present, not yesterdays See the bigger picture in life and don’t let little things bother you Try to appreciate the good side of Hong Kong and its people Doing emotion work Don’t worry too much about this and that Find a confidant to help you manage your feelings Keep yourself in a happy mood and be prepared to accept having to face many cultural differences Go out to see people, try not to stay home too often Seek professional help for emotional problems Adjusting personal attitude and conduct Be flexible and experimental, and don’t over-commit yourself Be realistic, practical and pragmatic Make compromises and seek consensus Be tolerant of differences Learn to adjust to Hong Kong being dynamic, changing, and challenging Try to learn about the local work culture and find ways to adjust to it Take holidays and avoid working long hours and through the weekends Be cautious in your speech and action in public

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social ties, linkages, or bonds to obtain a sense of community neighborliness and belonging. Other returnees advised to seek help, solace, and comfort from religious places and organizations; rebuild extended family and kinship ties; seek out former classmates; participate in neighborhood associations to nurture a sense of belonging to a district; and seek out other returnees, build social networks with them, and organize events and activities such as public forums to facilitate mutual understanding between migrants and locals, as well as among migrants themselves.

What Will the Future Hold? And that brings us back to “circuit migration” or “serial migration.” Four of the returnees had actually returned to Hong Kong twice, caught in a cycle of racism and dismay at the glass ceiling in the West and the pull of Hong Kong, where they no longer feel at home. It’s likely that some of these people will be posted to mainland China in the future, taking with them local knowledge of Hong Kong and some part of the West. Perhaps they could be seen as pathbreakers, but they will probably just be displaced again. These returnees seem destined to be eternal drifters, which is reminiscent of observations in two classic sociological essays from the 1960s by Alfred Schutz: “The Stranger” and “The Homecomer.” Schultz pointed out that the return migrant has often become a stranger in his own home, in his birthplace. Homecoming isn’t such a heart-warming experience after all. Two interviewees summed it up this way: I know from the bottom of my heart that my roots are not in Hong Kong. To which place do I really feel a sense of belonging? I know that I grew up in England, but I don’t consider myself English. Having worked in Hong Kong for ten years, I however do not find myself a one hundred percent Hongkonger either. I have a strange feeling: I don’t know to which side I belong. When you asked me about my identity, I didn’t know how I should answer. (Case 21) I find that it’s not easy to detach myself when the psychological state is unstable; it is difficult to anchor myself to one place … For those who have lived in many places, isolation is a frequent experience … I also would like to know truly who I am. I can say that I am a Hongkonger, or a Canadian or I’m a human being. (Case 9)

A majority of the returnees were in mid-career, anxious to build, develop, and consolidate their work prospects, particularly in view of the huge potential of China’s economy. Work being their primary consideration, most of them will probably stay in Hong Kong for a while. But the decision to stay will ultimately depend on how their careers fare. The men have stayed so far out of consideration for their own selves, with migration as a matter of personal achievement, an interviewee (Case 19) admitted: As far as my career is concerned, I’ll try to stay in Hong Kong as long as possible; the other issues will be secondary. To build my career, I’ll stay here. I’m 42. In consideration of the current economy and the development in the mainland, I believe that career prospects will be fine for the next ten years. As there’s no more construction industry in Hong Kong, we rely entirely on the service industry. Banking is the vital sector. I believe its prospects are still good. I hope that will be the case.

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Fantasizing about a rosy, better future allowed this returnee to tolerate his suffering and enabled him to make the present more bearable. A certain portion of our returnees, especially the women, were very anxious to leave Hong Kong, but these feelings were not translated into action, thus remaining at the emotional, psychological level. For them, to leave or not to leave Hong Kong depended largely on the career development of their husbands and on the well-being of their parents and other family members. They made self-sacrifices, in the name of and for the sake of the family. To the female returnees, migration was a “family affair.” This was brought out by the following quotes: I have to struggle a bit. Since my family and my boyfriend were here then, I didn’t have much choice. The feeling of having no choice has lasted for a long time. It still exists now. If I could leave now, I would. I’ve no worries about going back to New Zealand to find a job because I’ve many years of work experience there. Besides, I did my studies there; being considered for employment should not be a problem. However, my contribution may not count as much in Hong Kong. After all, my career growth has not been as significant as my husband’s. He’s now doing better and better. The same level of growth is more difficult in New Zealand. He’s staying here because of his career. I’m not leaving because of my husband. (Case 22) I plan to return to New Zealand … If possible, I would like to retire at 40. Whether I can do this depends on whether my husband and my parents will be around. I would have to deliver on all my commitments here before I could leave. At that time, I might be tied down by my commitments to other family members. It’s not that easy to leave Hong Kong behind. However, my heart has left long ago. Honestly, my desire to leave has been around since the day I arrived here. I don’t like it here. (Case 12)

For the returnees, Hong Kong is a place to work, to make plenty of money quickly, not a place to live or retire in. The majority were certain that they would not spend the last years of their lives in Hong Kong, finding the place too expensive, too polluted, and too crowded. Where would they retire? Where they once emigrated to, the Western world, for two main reasons: better medical services and social welfare, and still having family and other networks there to provide social and emotional support. Two interviewees explained: I returned to Hong Kong in 1993. I had taught at Shu Yan College before my departure to Canada. Why did I return to Hong Kong? You may say that opportunities are not as good in Canada. It’s not easy to find teaching jobs there … My plan is to go back to Canada because of my parents. I need to take care of my parents. Moreover, I can enjoy the Canadian lifestyle. (Case 2) Ever since my return to Hong Kong, I’ve identified myself as a Hongkonger. However, I’ll go back to Australia. My nationality is Australian as I hold Australian citizenship … About my future, I plan to work here for three to four more years before going back to Australia. I hope to get married in Hong Kong in the next few years. My parents are aware of my desire to go back to Australia. They support my plan very well as they would like me to apply for their immigration to Australia once I get back there. (Case 20)

In the minds of the returnees, Hong Kong is not a place to enjoy life, but a place to do hard work. Rationalized as such, suffering at work is understandable and temporarily tolerable because working now is an investment in a future of leisure and pleasure in the West.

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Having worked and lived elsewhere, the returnees have expanded their intellectual and cultural horizons, improved their adaptational abilities, and enhanced their professional knowledge and competencies. They have achieved a sort of inner mobility, a natural propensity to adapt, adjust, and self-transform, a wanderer’s or adventurer’s personality. To them, the future is provisional, tentative, experimental, non-committal, a kind of “wait and see.” They have a Taoist outlook, in which life will take its natural course, emerging tentatively. One returnee said: Will I continue to stay in Hong Kong? I honestly don’t know. I’m a mobile person. I have many activities in Hong Kong. My next destination will have to do with a few factors: my direction, my future, my preferred lifestyle or a place to which I could contribute. My options include England, the mainland, or Hong Kong. I could also consider going to a totally new place which values my contribution. Therefore, it’s not important where I end up in. I follow the Taoist thinking, taking the natural course. I may be able to build on something that drives me to another place, just go along. There’s no need to plan too hard. (Case 15)

The returnees are asking, where is my next stop? At which station will I get on, and off, and then on again? Their answer is simple: I don’t know. I don’t need to know. Life itself, and the future, is one big unknown, which makes life interesting, indeed challenging.

Some Reflections This chapter began with a “simple” social fact: Hong Kong is an immigrant society. Now it is important to articulate what an immigrant society is and should be. A society made up of immigrants is a place where incoming migrants harbor individual and collective hope of making it, of seeking a better life than the life they have hitherto been leading. An immigrant is living a futuristic existence, with a life-time project, a dream, that must be realized. All projects are by nature provisional, experimental, and future-looking. This is an age of mobility, indeed of hypermobility. Immigrants have a deep inner life energy, a restlessness or, if you like, an anxiety, an eagerness for achievement, that cries out for actualization. Being in a restless whirlpool, in an inner turmoil, is the immigrant’s existential condition, fate, or inevitability. The immigrant’s restlessness, harnessed by years of having worked and lived at the crossroads of diverse, sometimes contradictory, cultural currents, is the fountainhead of hybridity, creativity, and innovation. To the immigrant, what is done in one way can always be done in another way, better, faster. The emergence of highly skilled immigrants as a creative class has caught the imagination of many nation-­ states, which are eager to entice migrants to come home, stay, contribute, and be happy. However, a good sociologist will always offer the sober reminder that innovativeness and creativity are best not seen as a personality type, or an inner psychological attribute, but as a social process that emerges, develops, and waits for social realization, depending upon the nature of the interactions between self and society, persons and others. In other words, the “ins” of creativity await the “outs” of external circumstances to be socially “brought out,” “released,” and “realized.” Creativity is a social process, not a personal characteristic.

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One distinguishing characteristic of immigrants in general, and the return migrants considered in this book in particular, is their differentness, which often marks them off against the sameness of locals, the stayers. This differentness is often in tension with sameness, which is not without its deleterious consequences. Differentness, to the return migrant, means creativity, but it is also a threat to the sense of security, certainty, and continuity of the locals. One of the operating principles of tradition is that things must go on as usual. Seen as such, traditional forces tend to be self-sustaining and self-protecting on the one hand and prejudicial, even discriminatory, towards different others on the other hand—labeling, stigmatizing, marginalizing, punishing, and even eradicating whatever is deemed as foreign and unfamiliar. Viewed sociologically, the fate of a return migrant, who himself has become more open-minded than before but who now lives in a society that is less than tolerant or appreciative of differences, depends largely on how his differentness is socially treated by the local others. You are or you become how you are treated by others. Social treatment, as an outer force, determines the inner psyche of the immigrant. It is here one locates the wisdom, and foresight, of classical sociology. Upon coming home, the returnees found themselves continually job- and company-­hopping; they were looking for a better fit between self and work organization. Maladjustment, maladaptation, or stress is a sign of a lack of fit between self and non-self or society. To reduce this lack of fit, the returnee has several behavioral possibilities at his disposal. According to the sociologist Robert Merton (1968), first is conformity or ritualism, whereby the person does what society wants, sometimes ritualistically, sort of going through the motions: the conformist or ritualist is rewarded by society for compliance but loses his creativity, his authentic self. The second possibility is withdrawal or retreat, whereby the person opts out, hides, selfcensors, experiencing alienation and unhappiness. The third possibility is to be innovative, even rebellious, daring to be independent, unusual, even spectacular, eye-catching, surprising, or shocking. Ideologically, innovativeness and creativity are eulogized by most cultures as virtues, but when they are put into practice, they are often stigmatized and punished because they are seen as subversive to the status quo, or threatening the social order and those in power (Chan 2008). There is a deep irony here: return migrants, or for that matter all immigrants, are desired and hated for the same thing—their different ways of doing things—because human nature is simultaneously attracted to and repelled by the strange, the unfamiliar, the unknown. It is here that the sociologist locates society’s, culture’s, and civilization’s many moments of ambivalence, of love-hate emotions, towards the newness of all things. The dark side of the returnees’ inner emotional landscapes has much to do with the nature of the outer discourse on such values of modernity as democracy, equality, pluralism, transnationalism, cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism, diversity, and freedom for all irrespective of age, gender, class, religion, or political orientation. All immigrant societies, Hong Kong and Singapore included, must in time engage in a public discourse on these values and chart a future course for themselves. Hong Kong needs to ask itself several questions immediately: what should be done with people, ideas, and things that are different and foreign? How tolerant or appreciative is our society of differentness? What has Hong Kong’s record been in treating ethnic

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and racial minorities in its midst? Are Hongkongers ready to listen to return migrants when the latter tell them that they do not often feel welcome in their own homes, that homecoming is not a heart-warming experience after all? The modern man is a marginal man, a stranger par excellence, a drifter, a traveller. For him, the “circle game,” that of circuit migration, is the only game in town. But as the old Chinese saying puts it, “What this place discards, another place keeps.” Unlike a social worker, a physician, or a psychiatrist, the sociologist, if he is worth anything, would tell the government, the policymaker, that the important thing to do is not to fix the individual, the return migrant, but to fix the place, the workplace, the community, the society, if one in truth desires to ensure a better degree of fit between self and society. As it happens, the analytical focus, and thus the policy focus, should not be on the mind of the returnee, the inside, but on work organization, culture, social structure, community, and society, the outside. This chapter integrates mobile sociology (or the sociology of mobile people, capital, networks, ideas and values), the sociology of migration and the diaspora, family sociology, the sociology of emotions and the economic theory of cost-andbenefit analysis, with the social psychological theory in stress, adaptation, and coping—seeing return migration as a life transition which, like all transitions, is problematic and stressful and requires readjustment and the mobilization of all available and accessible resources on the part of the return migrants. But coping and adaptation are no individual matters. A good sociologist would insist that individual experience is ultimately inseparable from the larger social circumstances that penetrate the lives of people like a cold new razor blade. Major human difficulties, such as the negative social treatment of difference, are not responsive to individual coping responses, however hard the person tries. As the sociologists Pearlin and Schooler (1981) argue, coping with these may require efforts by institutions rather than by individuals. Many of these problems, being deeply embedded in social and economic organization, may exert a powerful impact on personal life but be immune to personal efforts to change them. Coping with failures, therefore, do not necessarily reflect the weaknesses of individuals: they may represent the failure of social systems in which the individuals are enmeshed. The sociologist does not see imperfect individuals, but rather imperfect social organizations. In the end, when the return migrant conforms, behaves ritualistically, retreats, innovates, and rebels, not merely because of inner forces or personality factors but because social circumstances “call these forms of behavior out” and institutionalize them. As another sociologist, Charles Wright Mills (2000), put it in his articulation of the sociological imagination: private troubles are often caused by public issues. The private must be taken care of by the public—thus the burden is on the government and society to spark off a public discourse about Hong Kong as an immigrant society, now. Before Hong Kong society evolves into a better place for “outsiders”—those people who constitute a rather substantial group that can loosely be called outsiders both in the West which blocks their upward mobility (moment 1 in Fig. 2.1) (Chan 2008) and in Hong Kong, as opposed to the natives, the “insiders”—these very “outsiders” would need to strategize on coping, adjustment, and adaptation to manage their social atomization and alienation (moments two and three) in a

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1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Antecedent Condition of Change

Immigrants as Agents of Change

Catalysts of Change 1

Catalysts of Change 2

Coping Strategies 1

Coping Strategies 2

Utopian Conditions of Change

Failure of the dominant Western ideologies of assimilation/ multiculturalism as blocked opportunities for immigrants compounded by ethnic and cultural implosions to spew out intercultural/trans-local tensions.

Strains on aspiring immigrants who strategize on coping, adjustment and adaptation.

Weakening of Western regulatory religio-cultural norms and withering away of the state apparatuses in (post)modernity and growth of neo-liberal individualism, consumerism, expressionism and social atomization.

Emergence of a postmodern condition of immigrant alienation in a deepening cultural crisis and clash of identities and civilizations.

Pursuit of adaptive/ innovative social practices of transnationalism and of integration by relatedness to others and to one’s authentic selfhood to regain a cultural identity in a redefined social space for a newly conceived flexible citizenship as the jural bases of selfactualization.

A protean process of dealienation of migrants through connectivity with significant others and one’s selfhood through an individual pilgrimage of transpersonal spirituality and freedom.

Birth of a hope for a new era of cosmopolitanism in a borderless, deterritorialized brave new world.

Fig. 2.1  Origins of transnational practices, migrant coping strategies, and the many moments of the social process of migrant adaptation

postmodern condition of immigrant alienation as a result of a deepening cultural crisis and clash of identities and civilizations (moment 4). These people seek integration by intimate relatedness to the familiar others (other return migrants like themselves, forming an ethnic enclave) and to their authentic selfhood to regain a cultural identity in a redefined social space for a newly conceived flexible citizenship (moment 5). This is a protean process of de-alienation through connectivity with emerging migrant communities which offer comfort and recognition within a society that frustrates and alienates (moment 6). Meanwhile, the migrant hopes for the birth of a new era of cosmopolitanism in a borderless, de-territorialized brave new world, a utopia that they feel may or may not happen, depending on how optimistic or pessimistic one is (moment 7). If the return migrant in Hong Kong gravitates towards his own kind, forms his own ethnic enclave, becomes a conformist or ritualist, loses his creativity, retreats into himself, or, worse, rebels, it is not because he wants to, but because he must for the sake of self-care. When that happens, both returnee and receiving society lose out. On the individual level, our analysis of the strain and stress of return migration and returnee coping strategies suggests that the sociologist may want to make a conceptual distinction between coping and adaptation in that coping refers to specific responses or forms of behaviour aimed at managing life strains, while adaptation subsumes all strategies of coping and is thus a broader social process of the

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coper making transactions with the environment that is making demands on him. Conceptualized as such, adaptation is a dynamic, continuous process through time and space, marked by stages or moments of development or growth. In the case of returnees to Hong Kong, their adaptation starts early in the West, before their actual homecoming. Such a process is what family sociologists call “anticipatory socialisation” whereby the returning migrant learns from his peers to make preparatory arrangements in material, social, emotional, and economic terms, the earlier the better. Even there, though looked at analytically in individual terms, adaptation is no personal matter. Although at the very least it is a family affair, migrant adaptation is essentially a social matter in that our analytical gaze must be at the degree of embeddedness of migrants in their social milieus—family and kin relations, social networks, community, and neighborhood. Adaption involves improving and strengthening migrants’ social bonds if their social integration is weak. This sociological view of coping and adaptation thus focuses our attention on the strength of migrants’ social linkages and ties, largely helping them to rebuild a fractured or lost community as a critical de-alienation strategy.

Policy Recommendations to the Hong Kong Government What can and should the Hong Kong government do, according to our interviewees? Table 2.6 offers a list of their suggestions. Most importantly, they suggest that the government needs to contact potential returnees overseas to let them know that they are welcome and desired and that their contributions to society will be recognized. Emphasizing the role of their many embassies in outreaching to Singaporeans overseas now working and living elsewhere, Singapore’s government has been doing exactly that for more than 30 years. Several suggestions were repeated and emphasized by the bulk of our respondents: develop elements of “soft culture” to meet returnees’ leisure and entertainment needs, such as fine, performing, and visual arts; improve air quality and the environment and fight pollution of all kinds; improve the local schools and offer quality education similar to what is offered in international schools but at affordable fees; strengthen civic education in the areas of humanistic values and beliefs; and fight racism and sexism and initiate and promote a public discourse on multiculturalism, cultural diversity, and tolerance of as well as appreciation of racial, ethnic, and gender differences. Politically, the returnees urged the Hong Kong government to maintain objectivity and neutrality, balance the interests of the central government and those of the Hongkongers, discover the competitive advantage and positioning of Hong Kong, and do everything to maintain its uniqueness in the larger scheme of modern China. The following excerpts epitomize these views: I feel that Hong Kong’s education system is complex. In England, I went to a public school. You don’t pay an enormous fee to get into a good school. However, it seems that the primary schools here are very complex. Why so complex? Why so problematic? When I watched the news about the announcement of public exam results, I saw cheers and tears. Why are people so emotional? It’s so strange! The education system here needs improve-

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Table 2.6  Recommendations to Hong Kong government 1. 2. 3. 4.

5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

Policies and services to be executed before returnees’ arrival in Hong Kong: Set up Hong Kong consulates in the West to help prepare returnees in their re-adjustment to Hong Kong’s ways of life months before they return to Hong Kong Provide information to returnees about taxes, labor laws and regulations, social welfare, etc., months before their departure from the West Launch campaigns overseas to inform Hongkongers there about work opportunities and prospects in Hong Kong and China Let Hongkongers overseas know that their contributions to Hong Kong will be welcomed and treasured Policies and services after returnees’ arrival in Hong Kong Help returnees to organize themselves into a community for mutual aid Organize public forums for returnees to discuss among themselves their issues and concerns Help returnees to develop close contact with and understanding of local people Enrol returnees in free Putonghua classes Promote bilingualism Economic policies Formulate industrial and business policies to help indigenous small and medium enterprises, and avoid over-dependence on foreign and multinational companies Avoid singular dependence on the banking and finance sectors Identify and help develop high-value manufacturing industries Social policies, public administration, and governance Quickly and dramatically improve the air quality of Hong Kong Improve all levels of the educational system in Hong Kong Strengthen civic and civil education Improve the quality of Hong Kong’s health care Develop two-way communication with lawmakers and the political parties Avoid public policies that are too interventionist Formulate long-term public policies to attract foreign talent and keep those who are already here in Hong Kong Formulate long-term policies to strength families and marriages and to support the psychosocial development of young children and youth Launch public campaigns to promote a sense of neighborliness and identification with the local community Launch public campaigns to promote politeness and courtesy Improving the image of the Hong Kong Government Place open-minded officers in important government posts to promote and develop a pluralistic and tolerant society Keep Hong Kong lawful, free, open, and transparent Maintain the high efficiency of the civil service Help Hong Kong to move towards a fully democratic society Building a multicultural and tolerant society Improve on culture, arts, and entertainment in Hong Kong Promote a public discourse on racism, sexism and racial/ethnic tolerance (continued)

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Table 2.6 (continued) 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

Promote multiculturalism Take full advantage of the cross-fertilization of Chinese and Western cultures Recognize and embrace the hybridity of Hongkongers Promote cosmopolitanism Articulating Hong Kong’s place in China and in the world Articulate the posture, identity and niche-role of Hong Kong, and guard against excessive and speedy sinification to ensure that the city does not become just another Chinese city Remain politically neutral in respect to the interests of Hongkongers and of the central government Look to the world, think global and international Formulate long-term public policies for Hong Kong’s future development, focusing on their feasibility and avoiding pompous, abstract posturing Develop a vision for Hong Kong as a world city

ment. A return migrant would find this absurd and ridiculous. Even if you could manage under this kind of education system, you might still ask what it is for! How could studying bring so much pain? Why is one under so much pressure—and without a choice? It seems that the whole situation arises from manipulation, just like speculations in the property market. This is a major issue. If the government would like to retain people and to encourage them to build their families here, it needs to take care of children and the elderly, not just adults. (Case 17) The Hong Kong government should promote diversity and multiculturalism in the city. There’s no such awareness here now. Maybe this kind of awareness is not enough. In terms of classification, there seem to be two categories of people—local Hongkongers and foreigners. The two groups seem quite divided. People like us are unnoticed, invisible. We are regarded as being part of the locals as we have the same skin color. In fact, I know a lot of Westerners in Hong Kong who were born here; they grew up here and speak Cantonese. They are local Hongkongers at heart; but they don’t feel that they are treated as part of the whole society … Hong Kong society pays little attention to the non-Chinese. I think the government should promote social awareness of the multiple facets of ethnicity. (Case 21) I may greet my neighbors, but I don’t know them well. I think the government should launch campaigns to promote the idea of getting to know your neighbors, greeting each other … The neighbors don’t even know each other; the government could exert some effort to build community spirit. (Case 21)

The interviewees were conscious of the lack of social organization among returnees. Migrants are characterized by their tentativeness, flexibility and mobility, which in themselves are conducive to work performance and achievement. However, these same qualities can be the cause of organizational looseness and lack of inner cohesiveness. What is beneficial to individual performance on one level may well be detrimental to collective solidarity on another. Our interviewees called on the Hong Kong government to contribute to the adaptation of return migrants even before their departure from the West. Perhaps following the Singaporean example, government officials could well be travelling overseas to inform expatriate Hongkongers of business and work opportunities in Hong Kong to ensure a better fit between market demand and migrant competencies and to tell potential returnees that they

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are welcome back; that their skills, experiences, and competencies are valued; and that they will make great and unique contributions to developing Hong Kong and China. The interviewees also advised the government to provide assistance and expertise in reaching out to and organizing the otherwise loosely connected return migrants, helping them to form public forums to discuss issues of concern to them, and providing information on areas such as labor and immigration laws and local schools for their children, which would ease their adaptation to living and working in Hong Kong. The interviewees were clear and articulate in their hope that the Hong Kong government would soon find and maintain a niche and posture for the city; put open-minded, worldly people in important government posts; and work steadily toward an open, multicultural, pluralistic, tolerant, and democratic society to which all can contribute their best and feel a deep sense of pride and belonging. In the same spirit, they asked employers and business leaders to develop a global vision, retain some elements of tradition but also let others go, and learn to be broad-minded and tolerant of cultural differences. Several respondents gave the same useful and creative suggestion to the government: organize returnees and appoint them as volunteers to provide advice and counseling to Hongkongers who intend to emigrate overseas. Having lived and worked elsewhere, these returnees are well equipped to provide insights into immigrant adaptation in the West. They are in a good position to act as a bridge, as good-­ will ambassadors, as go-betweens, between Hong Kong and the “Hong Kong diaspora” the world over. When asked about their assessment of the Hong Kong government, the interviewees had both positive and negative views, compliments as well as criticisms. On the positive side, the government was admired in a number of areas: Hong Kong is a relatively free, open, and law-abiding society where the government has put in place a system of laws and operations that work, offering the residents a sense of safety and security, an efficient and competent civil service, and quality medical services and social work practice. On the negative, pessimistic side, the government was criticized for lacking in long-term planning. An interviewee explained: The Hong Kong government has not set any direction for citizens to follow. We have no idea of the rationale of their governance. They tend to take one step at a time, without a broad vision for Hong Kong’s future … While they present a view that change is underway for everything, we perceive the view as an empty promise with no concrete actions. (Case 25)

Much dissatisfaction was expressed about a government that has leaned too one-­ sidedly on the banking, finance, and service sectors while lending little support to small- and medium-sized manufacturers as well as high value-added, high-tech industries. There were also severe criticisms of the government bent on looking after the interests of multinational and foreign enterprises, but not those of the homegrown entrepreneurs and their workers. For example: We must build on our own strengths to develop our local economy. We ought to strive for self-support for Hong Kong—to build an entrepreneurial environment and a pool of talents. Hong Kong’s prosperity depends on how it is able to keep talent. The departure of the talent is a big loss to Hong Kong. Currently, 48 percent to 49 percent of the population has a secondary three education and below. On the one hand, this high percentage is worrying. On the other hand, we have no manufacturing to absorb this segment of the population. I

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think that the government must keep some manufacturing industries, such as value-­added industries, despite the high cost. (Case 23) I think the government should be open to other innovations, not only focusing on being a finance centre. It wouldn’t hurt. The working class can’t integrate into this set-up. Working class people, who form the majority of the population, will lose out. Why can’t the government make some efforts to build construction and manufacturing industries? Although labour costs are a drawback, could the government consider collaborating with the mainland to perform high-end processing in Hong Kong? How about giving some incentives to manufacturers or workers? That move may attract more return migrants. (Case 25) In Canada, the government offers aid to the small-to-medium sized enterprises. In Hong Kong, all companies are treated the same. The big corporations and multinationals enjoy the support of the government. Since all of the big companies are benefiting from its support, the Hong Kong government needs to do something for the welfare of Hong Kong. For example, the government may require companies to ensure support for the development of Hong Kong, to show responsibility for the Hong Kong people, not just for the foreigners or multinationals … The government should care for the small-to-medium-sized enterprises by creating ground for their survival. If small-to-medium-sized enterprises can’t survive, Hong Kong’s economy will suffer. Return migrants will only use Hong Kong as a steppingstone to move north. The talents will all emigrate and those who remain in Hong Kong will suffer. (Case 23)

In the area of politics, our respondents were of the view that Hong Kong society does not have “real” democracy and were worried about the democracy movement facing many formidable obstacles and setbacks. They saw Hong Kong as a contested society, which is deeply divided, oftentimes torn apart by local politicians who are more interested in being popular than in the real interests of the average Hongkonger. The younger returnees would like the Hong Kong government to maintain an open, liberal attitude, a kind of laissez-faire outlook, and to restrain from making too many interventions in the affairs of the citizens. In general, these youngsters were optimistic as far as Hong Kong governance is concerned. The middle-aged and older returnees, in contrast, were more cautious, tentative, even negative, in their judgment of the government. As professionals with unique skills and work experience, this group would like the government to better understand their plight and to devise appropriate and effective public policies to further their careers and move society forward. One returnee said: In my conversations with a few friends who are also return migrants, I realize that they are not optimistic about Hong Kong. It’s a pity that Hong Kong has not thrived on its advantages. We are only counting on the finance sector. The logistics sector has already ceased to grow. However, the logistics and the manufacturing industries are interlinked. The future of the logistics industry is gloomy as manufacturing has totally vanished … We feel pessimistic about the political future of Hong Kong. We can’t change that perception quickly enough. We only hope that the situation will improve; we’ll then be able to think otherwise. (Case 23)

The sort of urgency in community-building that the returnees suggested applies to the government. Hong Kong is an immigrant society, and it will strengthen and prosper, both economically and socially (the connection here is extremely important), only when there is a clear understanding of what all immigrants, including returnees with their incipient “foreign-ness,” can offer to the collective whole. It is

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not the individual, regardless of talent, vision, or responsibility, who should be forced to change, but society. The government can thus work to ensure open and honest public debate about the benefits of the returnee experience. Otherwise, Hong Kong’s unique hybrid culture will become staid, and its much-vaunted innovativeness will fade. When return migrants, or any migrants, one day leave Hong Kong once again and move further afield, it is Hong Kong’s loss – and another place’s gain.

References Alba, R., & Nee, V. (2003). Remaking the American mainstream: Assimilation and contemporary immigration. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Antonovsky, A. (1973). Health, stress and coping. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Antonovsky, A. (1986). Unravelling the mystery of health. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Aydemir, Abdurrahman, and Chris Robinson (2005) Return and onward migration among working age men. Ottawa: Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series, No. 273. Bian, Y.-j. (1997). Bringing strong ties Back in: Indirect ties, network bridges, and job searches in China. American Sociological Review, 62, 266–285. Borjas, G. J., & Bratsberg, B. (1996). Who leaves? The outmigration of the foreign-born. Review of Economics and Statistics, 78(1), 165–176. Burt, R. S. (1992). Structural holes: The social structure of competition. Cambridge, Ma: Harvard University Press. Chan, K.-b. (1977). Individual differences in reactions to stress and their personality and situational determinants: Some implications for community mental health. Social Science & Medicine II, 2, 89–103. Chan, K.-b. (2008). Transnationalism and its personal and social consequences for Chinese transmigrants. World Futures, 64(3), 187–221. Chang, S.  L. (1992). Causes of brain drain and solutions: The Taiwan experience. Studies in Comparative International Development, 27(1), 27–43. Erikson, B. (1996). Culture, class and connections. American Journal of Sociology, 102, 217–251. Gabbay, S.  M., Roger, T., & Leenders, A.  J. (1999). Corporate social capital: The structure of advantage and disadvantage. In R. Th, A. J. Leenders, & S. M. Gabbay (Eds.), Corporate social capital and liability. Boston: Kluwer Academic Press. Gill, B. (2005). Homeward bound? The experience of return mobility for Italian scientists innovation. The European Journal of Social Science Research, 18(3), 319–341. Granovetter, M. (1974). Getting a job: A study of contacts and careers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Granovetter, M. (1988). The sociological and economic approaches to labor market analysis: A social structural view. In G.  Farkas & P.  England (Eds.), Industries, firms, and jobs: Sociological and economic approaches. New York: Plenum Press. Inglis, Christine B. (2006). Australian Transnationalism: A Comparison of the Forms Among Turkish, Hong Kong and PRC Groups in Australia”. Paper read at International Sociological Association Annual Meeting, at Durban, South Africa. Lazarus, R.  S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal and coping. New York: Springer Publishing Co.. Lee, M.  Fatima Wai-Bun. (2006) Thou Land of Hope for All Who Toil: The Effects of Social Resources on Job Search and Job Outcome of Skilled Immigrants in Toronto. Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, Toronto.

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Levin, D. A. (2009). Professional bodies and professional regulations in Hong Kong. In H. F. Siu & A. S. Ku (Eds.), Hong Kong mobile: The making of a global population. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Ley, D. (2006). Explaining variations in business performance among immigrant entrepreneurs in Canada. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 32(5), 743–764. Ley, D., & Kobayashi, A. (2005). Back to Hong Kong. Global Networks, 5(2), 11–27. Lin, N. (1999). Social networks and status attainment. Annual Review of Sociology, 25(1), 467. Lin, N. (2001). Social capital: A theory of social structure and action. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Merton, R. K. (1968). Social theory and social structure. New York: Free Press. Mills, C. W. (2000). The sociological imagination. New York: Oxford University Press. Pearlin, L. I., & Schooler, C. (1981). The stress process. Journal of Health and Social Behaviour, 22(4), 337–356. Salaff, J. W. (2006). Different crossings: Migrants from three Chinese communities. In E. Fong (Ed.), Inside the Mosaic. Toronto: University of Toronto. Salaff, J.  W., & Greve, A. (2006). Why do skilled women and men emigrating from China to Canada get bad jobs? In E. Tastsoglou & A. Dobrowolsky (Eds.), Women, migration and citizenship: Making local, national and transnational connections. Aldershot/Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company. Salaff, J. W., Shik, A., & Greve, A. (2007). Like sons and daughters of Hong Kong: The return of the young generation. In H. F. Siu & A. S. Ku (Eds.), Hong Kong mobile: The making of a global population. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University press. Salaff, J. W., Wong, S. L., & Greve, A. (2010). Hong Kong movers and stayers: Narratives of family migration. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Tian, Fangmen, and Zhongdong Ma (2006) Explaining Socio-Economic Well-Being of Immigrants and Returned Migrants: An Econometric Analysis of the Hong Kong and Canadian 2001 Censuses.. Research on Immigration and Integration in the Metropolis Working Paper Series No. 06–01. Waters, Johanna L. (2004) The Geographies of Cultural Capital: International Education, Circular Migration and Family Strategies between Canada and Hong Kong. Department of Geography, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Yoon, B.-S. L. (1992). Reverse brain drain in South Korea: State led model. Studies in Comparative International Development, 27(1), 4–26. Zweig, David, Wilfried Vanhonacker, Chung Siu Fung, and Stanley Rosen (2005) Reverse Migration and Regional Integration: Entrepreneurs and Scientists in the PRC. Paper read at conference titled Remaking Economic Strengths in East Asia: Dealing with the Repercussions of Increased Interdependence, at Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 8–9 April 2005.

Chapter 3

The Singapore Study

Many developed countries in the world have recently launched programs to attract foreign talent who can contribute to their economic growth (McLaughlan and Salt 2002; Pang 2004). Singapore has been an example of such a foreign labor policy, which has proven to be indispensable from the day of the nation-state’s inception (Pang 2006). Singapore makes a distinction between “foreign talent” and “foreign workers,” the former referring to foreigners with professional qualifications and academic degrees, earning high salaries, and the latter, semi-skilled or unskilled workers who work mainly in the manufacturing, construction, and domestic service sectors. Singapore’s economic growth owes a great deal to the importation of both skilled and unskilled foreign labor. It was estimated that 41 percent of Singapore’s GDP growth in the 1990s was related to the inflow of foreign workers, skilled and unskilled (Pang 2006). Thirty-seven percent of the GDP growth was due to skilled foreign manpower holding employment passes. These estimates imply that although skilled foreign workers consisted of only a quarter of the total number of workers with work permits, they contributed a disproportionately larger percentage (nine times more) to Singapore’s GDP growth than unskilled foreigners (Pang 2006). Singapore’s search for foreign talent has been a central part to its foreign labor policy for three decades—which aims to achieve economic, social, and political goals. Until today, this remains unchanged. In 2000, foreigners constituted about 29 percent of Singapore’s total labor force. This represents the highest proportion of foreign workers in Asia (Yeoh 2007). Over the last decade, Singapore’s non-­resident workforce has increased by 170 percent, from 248,000 in 1990 to 670,000 in 2006. By 2006, there were 90,000 skilled foreign workers who were employment pass holders and about 580,000 lower-skilled foreign workers in Singapore (Yeoh 2007). By December 2007, the foreign workforce had reached a record high of 900,800,

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Table 3.1  Employment passes in Singapore P1 Pass P2 Pass Q1 Pass

Applicants earning a fixed monthly salary of at least S$8000 and possessing acceptable qualifications Applicants earning a fixed monthly salary of at least S$4500 and possessing acceptable qualifications Young graduates from good institutions with a salary of at least S$3000 Older applicants will have to command higher salaries to qualify, commensurate with the work experience and quality they are expected to bring

according to the Ministry of Manpower. This meant that foreigners made up one-­ third of Singapore’s workforce1. Singapore has developed a number of price- and non-price mechanisms to attract and regulate the flow of unskilled foreigners who are granted work permits only (Chan and Abdullah 1999). Employers may hire them only from certain countries (e.g., India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and Thailand) and only for particular sectors, e.g., construction and domestic work. There are strict penalties, even jail sentences, for hiring workers without work permits. In sharp contrast to its restrictive policy on unskilled foreign workers, Singapore gives employers much more flexibility to import foreign professionals with skills not available in Singapore. Singapore ranks third among countries with the least restrictive immigration laws on the importation of talent. Singapore’s talent management policies are among the friendliest in the world (Chan and Abdullah 1999:159), although entry requirements have been tightened since 2011 to “moderate the growth of Singapore’s non-resident population and help ease the pressure on our social infrastructure” (Ministry of Manpower website, http://mom.gov.sg/foreignmanpower/passwhose top rate is 16 percentesvisas/Pages/default.aspx). To hire foreign talent, employers need to satisfy certain criteria relating to qualifications, skills, and minimal salary set by the Ministry of Manpower. There are several types of employment passes, each with its own requirements and benefits (Table 3.1): “P” passes are valid for two years in the first instance and normally for a longer period upon subsequent renewals. Exceptional “P” pass holders may be granted renewable work passes of up to five years. “P” pass holders can work in all sectors of the Singapore economy with no levy or restriction on the number of “P” pass holders a company can employ. Dependent’s passes can be obtained for spouse and children. P1 pass holders (but not P2 pass holders) may even apply for long-term visit passes for parents. Concerning “Q1” passes, there is no levy or restriction on the number of Q pass holders a company can employ. “Q1” pass holders may work in all sectors in Singapore. Q1 pass holders can apply for Dependent’s passes for their spouse and children. An EntrePass Scheme was started in 2003 to facilitate the entry of entrepreneurs and innovators who plan to start business ventures in Singapore. The scheme waived

“Foreigners one-third of Singapore workforce,” 31 January 2008, Asiaone.com

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an earlier requirement that entrepreneurs and innovators must possess the educational qualifications mandated under the employment pass scheme (Chan and Abdullah 1999). The EntrePass, with a validity of one year, is issued upon the submission of a sound business proposal. The EntrePass allows the immediate family of the applicant to live in Singapore while he/she starts and grows the business. With the EntrePass, the entrepreneur may leave and re-enter Singapore with ease. It is renewable on a yearly basis as long as the business remains viable. In 2007, another category called the “Personalised Employment Pass,” or PEP, was introduced. Applicants need to earn a fixed monthly salary of at least S$12,000 in order to qualify for the PEP, which is valid for three years. In addition, PEP holders also need to have a minimum annual fixed salary of S$144,000. They can apply for Dependent’s Passes for their parents, spouses, and children. The main advantage of PEP is that its holder can switch jobs without re-applying for a visa as long as the holder is not unemployed for a period longer than six months. In July 2004, a new “S” work pass was introduced to meet the needs of industries for middle-level skilled manpower. The large gap between the employment pass and the work permit made it difficult for companies to bring in middle-level people (associate professionals and technicians). The “S” Pass is intended to fill this gap and increase the flexibility of foreign employment. Applicants qualify for the “S” pass if they have a minimum salary of S$2000 and an acceptable qualification which could be diploma or technical qualifications. Apart from these two criteria, the Ministry of Manpower will consider other criteria, such as category of skills, job type, and work experience, when assessing eligibility. The number of “S” pass holders in each company is capped at 20 percent of the company’s total workforce. Unlike work permit holders, “S” pass holders earning a basic monthly salary of at least S$4000 can bring their dependents (spouse and children) with them, and they are eligible to rent public housing, unlike unskilled foreign workers. Officially, the term “foreign talent” has been used to refer to those who are employment pass holders. Now it has been widened to refer to “S” pass holders as well. Government policy encourages “P,” “Q1,” or “S” pass holders as well as investors and entrepreneurs with appropriate cultural and social characteristics to apply for permanent residency and, eventually, citizenship. The spouse and unmarried children (below 21 years old) of a Singapore citizen or permanent resident, whether male or female, can also apply for permanent residency. This is a relaxation of a previous rule which made it difficult for female Singapore Citizens/PRs to apply for PR for their spouses. In recent years, more people who were granted employment passes originated from China and India on local contracts without the usual perks or fringe benefits. A growing network of recent immigrants has made Singapore a home and a place for them to work and settle. Singapore ranked first among 29 economies with a population of under 20 million in attracting top-notch talent (Kuptsch and Pang 2006:160). A number of factors explain the ability of Singapore to attract more than its fair share of internationally mobile talent: (1) the government’s unwavering commitment to the policy of importing foreign workers; (2) the implementation of policies and rules on employment pass applications is clear, explicit, and fast; (3) the

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establishment of a new agency in 1998 dubbed Contact Singapore to attract talent to Singapore (apart from Singapore, Contact Singapore has offices in Australia, Beijing, Shanghai, the UK, India, and North America. These offices disseminate essential information overseas, help match foreign talent with potential employers in Singapore, and facilitate the return of trained veteran Singaporeans who are studying or working abroad.); (4) the cost of living for expatriates is lower in Singapore than in Hong Kong or Beijing; (5) Singapore is seen as a safe, clean, and secure place to live and bring up children; and (6) Singapore’s relatively low tax rates and tax incentives as non-resident workers are taxed only on incomes derived from or accrued in Singapore. Workers are exempt from income tax if they work in Singapore for 60 days or less in a calendar year. The rates of taxation are relatively low compared to countries like Japan, Australia, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Canada. Singapore trimmed its top personal tax rate from 22 percent in 2003 to 20 percent in 2006 to keep up with its rival, Hong Kong, whose top rate is 16 percent2. In 2002, then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong declared in his National Day Rally Speech: We need to bring down our tax rates to among the lowest in the world, in order to attract investments and talent to Singapore. With increasing competition among countries for MNCs (Multinational Corporations), tax rates have become a key element of competitiveness.

In 2007, Singapore also started a Work-Holiday Pass (WHP) Programme with 2000 places to attract undergraduates and graduates from Australia, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, the UK, and the USA to serve internships in Singapore. Eligible candidates have to be between 17 and 30 years of age and from universities which must be ranked among the top 200 in any of the wellestablished international rankings (e.g., Times Higher Education World University Rankings). Candidates also need to be residents and full-time undergraduates or former students of their university at the point of application. They are not restricted to specific types of work; however, existing licensing, registration, or accreditation requirements in medicine, law, and architecture will apply. Applicants need to declare they have sufficient funds for their stay and departure. Singapore offers unique opportunities for economic advancement for foreigners from within the Asia-Pacific region and from other parts of the world. Political stability and policy continuity have encouraged immigrant workers with the right qualifications and skills to work and live there. English is the first or second language of highly educated people in the world, hence a talent-attracting factor since English is the lingua franca of the government and business in Singapore. Singapore’s attractiveness also derives from its multi-ethnic and increasingly cosmopolitan society, which offers a lifestyle that appeals to educated people from all over the world (Kuptsch and Pang 2006:164).

“Countries dangling tax carrot to draw top talent,” The Straits Times, 8 November 2008.

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Scholarly and policy research on return migration to attract, retain, and develop return migrants is a recent area of study, internationally and in Singapore (Lin 2008). The National University of Singapore has hosted several conferences relevant to the subject. One such conference, held in November 2007, “In and Out of Asia: Migrating Talent, Globalizing Cities,” included the topic of return migration. The feature write-up of the conference notes the shared concern of Asian economies with global competition for talent, and with the “return” of migrants to their home countries. In a paper titled “‘Homing’ Cosmopolitanism: Singapore’s Cosmopolitan Returnees,” Lin (2008) noted the Singapore government’s encouragement of “a distinctive class of ‘cosmopolitan Singaporeans’ to go global” (as a regionalization drive). He stated a paradox: regional migration and regionalization are intermixed with an associated fear that Singaporeans, “being rootless, would fail to return to the country.” Lin also identified a government discourse on an “a-geographical cosmopolitanism” in terms of a sense of roots untethered to place which “motivates” various state initiatives to be designed to “help the cosmopolitan Singaporeans remember to come home.” Lin’s paper is an extension of his honors thesis on return migration titled, “Grounding Cosmopolitanism at ‘Home’: Investigating Singapore’s Cosmopolitans in the Context of Return.” He interviewed 21 Singaporeans who had lived in different parts of the world, e.g., China, the USA, Australia, and France. His respondents were mainly Chinese and included one Indian and one Malay. He set out to investigate whether emigrant Singaporeans, who are popularly regarded as “cosmopolitans” (or “transnational elites”), are indeed footloose and rootless who have no particular loyalty to any nation-state or no sense of home, as the political discourse and literature seem to imply. He found that his respondents continue to “invest in the city-state emotional meanings of home, identity and belonging, albeit in ways that also distinctively fluctuate with the context of their migrancy” (Lin 2007:30). Whereas some consider home in Singapore to be synonymous with possession of citizenship, other respondents consider home in Singapore to be a sense of “culturally inflected national self-consciousness” that is influenced by one’s childhood memories and “repository of shared experiences” (ibid:32). He also reported a phenomenon: respondents’ perception of home is a “reactive category that is activated while ‘away’, and retracted at return” (ibid:35). On the basis of these findings, Lin makes two policy recommendations: policymakers (1) include these emigrant Singaporeans as the nation’s ambassadors (e.g., through dual citizenship); and (2) make the “home-ground” more “livable” in order to retain “returned” cosmopolitans (ibid:62). In his analysis of Singapore government’s return migration policies, Lin notes that the government’s intention to support both Singaporeans leaving (as part of the regionalization drive) and returning to Singapore is motivated by the economic needs of the country in both situations. He thinks that people’s intentions are not something the government can tinker with, and the push to leave seems stronger than the impetus to return. He feels that it will take further research to find out why Singapore policies “don’t get people to return.” His view is that the Singapore

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government’s policy initiatives are not much of a major policy when placed alongside those of other countries, such as India. The Indian government offers status privileges to any Indian of the world; for example, NIR (Non-Resident Indians) provides citizenship-like status to overseas Indians. The Singapore government, in contrast to India, mainly articulates a discourse that “Singapore is your home and will give you the chance to develop your career.” Yap’s (1991) study of 100 Singaporeans who had emigrated to Australia and Canada delved into the motivations of Singaporeans for leaving the country. She interviewed Singaporeans and ex-Singaporeans based in Perth, Sydney, and Vancouver over a five-week period in 1991, relying on the help of Singapore clubs in these cities and personal referrals. Of the 100 respondents, the majority left Singapore during the period of 1980 to 1989. However, it was noted that as early as 1960, emigration out of Singapore was already taking place. By the time of the interviews, nearly half of the respondents in Australia (referred to as “Australian respondents”) and Canada (referred to as “Canadian respondents”) had acquired citizenship of their adopted countries. She found that the Australian and Canadian respondents “emphasized a different set of factors in their decision to emigrate.” For the Australian respondents, the most frequently cited “push” factor was “children’s education” (34 percent). This category included “problem with second language, dissatisfaction with the quality of education in Singapore (viz. high pressure and lack of creative thinking), limited number of university places available and consequent concern about the affordability of overseas university education for their children” (Yap 1991:16). The second most frequent “push” factor (22 percent) was the socio-economic and political environment in Singapore which was described by respondents as “regimented, unbalanced and over-dominated by work concerns, lacking in compassion and intolerant of failure” (ibid:17). For the Canadian respondents, the most frequently cited “push” factor was the socio-economic environment in Singapore (38 percent). The data suggested that concern with their children’s education did not seem to be an important factor among the Canadian respondents. To minimize the level of emigration, Yap (1991) made several policy recommendations: 1. Improve the quality of education and extend education opportunities. Yap noted that the Singapore government was already working on increasing the number of university places in Singapore, and the government has begun working on making other changes in the education system. She also recommended that the government re-evaluate the necessity of students obtaining at least a pass grade in the mother tongue for admission into university (ibid:40). 2. Overcome the smallness of the country. Yap mentioned that the government was exploring this through globalization. 3. Improve the style of the government. Yap suggested that a consultative style of government is favored by the people as the country matures.

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4. Improve the quality of society. Yap commented that Singapore can be made more pleasant by inculcating in the people a kinder, more charitable attitude, particularly toward those who tried but failed as well as the less fortunate (ibid:42). She also suggested that the Singapore Civil Service take the lead in making the move toward a more gracious society as it represents the government, and recommended that the government remove rules and regulations that were not essential. With regard to incorporating overseas Singaporeans, Yap suggested that the overseas communities be viewed as a “resource” rather than a “loss” in light of their “potential contribution to the country’s globalization strategy” (ibid:47). She recommended that (1) the government consider dual citizenship for overseas Singaporeans; (2) increase the availability of boarding facilities for children of overseas Singaporeans to return for studies; (3) make information available on employment opportunities for those who wish to return; and (4) establish ties with overseas Singaporeans. Except for dual citizenship, the Singapore government has already implemented or is working on implementing all of the above recommendations. Velayutham’s book, Responding to Globalization: Nation, Culture and Identity in Singapore, (2007) examines Singapore’s nation-building “project” vis-à-vis its globalization efforts and points out the contradictions that emerge as a result of both processes taking place concomitantly. He gives a detailed analysis of how the Singapore government controls the populace from becoming too westernized, cosmopolitan, or rootless, and suggests that the government’s earnestness in creating a “homely” Singapore may not work well because its approach reflects an “managerial intent” and lacks spontaneity (ibid:206). Further, the Singapore government’s rhetoric of “survivalism” (i.e., constant anxiety about the ability of Singapore to survive) causes stress in its people and undermines the relationship between the nation and its citizens. Uncertain of its future, Singaporeans look outward toward other countries that can provide stability and social upward mobility—both perceived as not attainable in Singapore. He also highlighted that the government’s “overzealous” efforts at building a global city has resulted in many of the country’s historic cultural formations having been “bulldozed,” “banned,” or “simply never recognized.” What remains is a Singapore that lacks identity and belongingness. He emphasizes: The task of creating a committed and affectively-bound citizenry cannot simply be imposed from above. The government can only nurture an ethics of mutual obligation if its ‘gift’ of social life is a “well-given gift.” (ibid:207)

By gift, Velayutham is using an analogy from Marcel Mauss’s idea of gift exchange and reciprocity (ibid:191). Velayutham suggests two ways to resolve the contradictions: The Singapore state needs to cultivate (1) “an active sense of belonging and ownership over the nation’s destiny” and (2) “a sense of hope among its citizens” (ibid: 208). Koh (2010) gave Velayutham’s ideas a similar though deeper and richer articulation.

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 esearch Methods and Demographic Characteristics R of Returnee Respondents in Singapore In-depth interviews were conducted with ten returnee Singaporeans in 2008. Eight were interviewed face-to-face using an interview schedule, and two were interviewed on the telephone. An average interview took 60 minutes in English or Chinese. The personal characteristics of the respondents are summarized in Table 3.2. Pseudonyms were used. Return migration—as an integral strategy of competition for global talent—has recently become an important focus for the Singapore government and the subject of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s National Day Speech in 2006 in which he announced ways to encourage the return of Singaporeans working and living abroad. It is important to note that return migration had existed in different forms in Singapore history. During the colonial period, early Chinese and Indian migrants, after a protracted period of work in Singapore, returned to China and India for visits, or for retirement. In another form of return, Singapore-born sons of wealthy Chinese businessmen were sent to China for a Chinese education, returning to Singapore afterward. With political developments in the 1940s (the formation of People’s Republic of China in 1949) and in the early 1950s (the granting of citizenship rights by the British colonial state through less restrictive residence requirements for British citizenship), the traditional pattern of return to Singapore was disrupted. It was intensified with Singapore’s post-independence (after 1959) wherein return was no longer a viable option and the Chinese and Indian communities began to construct their identity as citizens (Singaporeans) in the context of state-driven nation-building and economic (mainly industrial) development. In two decades of state-directed, export-oriented development, Singapore’s economic future continued to be closely linked to developments in the global economy. By the 1980s, with the relatively high costs for labor and Singapore-based MNCs moving their operations to low labor-cost countries as a consequence, the Singapore government initiated an economic strategy to move into areas of valueadded production. By the 1990s, the Singapore state was urging its citizens to venture abroad and become involved in business ventures with other nations, for example, China, thereby developing its “second” industrial wing. Thus, given its close reliance on the global economy, Singapore views globalization as giving rise to opportunities and challenges in which the competition for global talent, needed for building a knowledge-­based economy, is essential for the survival of the nation-state.

Australia

Australia

Canada

Australia

USA

Australia, NZ∗ Australia

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Country of immigration USA

F

F

M

M

F

M

M

49

43

49

45

43

43

33

M

M

M

M

M

M

S

Marital Sex Age status M 48 M

42

41

38

31

24

Age at emigration 43

2000

41

1987, 2000 21

2002

2004

2004

1996

1999

Year of emigration 2003

Table 3.2  Characteristics of returnee respondents in Singapore

2008

2007

2005

2004

2008

2000

2006

Year of return migration 2006

48

41

44½

41

42

35

31

Age at return migration 46

1

2

4

5

1

9

2

No. of years since return migration 2 Ethnic group Indian

(continued)

Reason for leaving Singapore (SG) Posted overseas because of work Entrepre-­ Chinese To experience neur overseas lifestyle Chief finance Eurasian To seek a more officer affordable and less stressful way of life Teacher Chinese To experience a different way of life; Singapore’s education system is too stressful Financial Chinese Singapore’s planner education system is too stressful Pastor Chinese Singapore’s education system is too stressful, seek out better quality of life Contracts Chinese To accompany manager family emigrating Chinese Singapore’s Adminstr-­ education system is ation too stressful manager

Present occupation Director

Research Methods and Demographic Characteristics of Returnee Respondents… 109

F

32

M

Marital Sex Age status M 49 M

2003

Year of emigration 1989

26

Age at emigration 42

*Respondent went to Australia in 1987 and New Zealand in 2000

10 Australia

9

Country of immigration Canada

Table 3.2 (continued)

2008

Year of return migration 1999

31

Age at return migration 44

1

No. of years since return migration 10 Present occupation Regional technical manager Doctor Chinese

Ethnic group Chinese

To do graduate studies; disliked Singapore’s lifestyle

Reason for leaving Singapore (SG) To experience an overseas lifestyle

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 volution of Government Policies and Programs: Cost-­andE Benefit Calculation in Historical Perspective  easons for Increased Momentum in Attracting and Hiring R Foreign Talent The Singapore government’s proactive approach in attracting and hiring foreign talent, which took on a quickened pace in 2001 and was further accelerated in 2006, is due to several reasons. First, Singapore has always had a dependence on foreign talent. With a population of 5.86 million in September 2020, Singapore is hungry for talent that will add value to its economy. A commentator, Rosemary Chung, remarked: “Without foreigners, there would be no Singapore3.” Recognizing that foreign talent brings with them needed skills not found in Singaporeans, Singapore considers skilled foreign labor to be an indispensable sector of the economy. In his 2001 National Day Rally Speech, former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong commented: Foreign talent is a matter of life and death to us in the long term … If we do not top up our talent pool from the outside, in ten years’ time, many of the high-valued jobs that we do now will migrate to China and elsewhere, for lack of sufficient talent here.

Concerned with the hostility that some foreign talent received in Singapore, he reiterated in his 2002 National Day Rally Speech the importance of having foreign talent and urged Singaporeans to welcome foreign talent, especially those who have made Singapore their home. He said: Indeed, the strength of a country does not depend on the size of the population, but on its quality and organization. The US has only five percent of the world’s population, much smaller than China and India. But the US is the world’s undisputed superpower, not only in the political and economic arenas, but in many other fields. This is because the US has always warmly welcomed foreign talent to its shores. Albert Einstein was born in Germany. Andrew Grove, co-founder of the highly successful Intel Corporation, was born in Hungary. Investment guru George Soros was also born a Hungarian. Henry Kissinger, former US Secretary of State, was born in Germany. They all became US citizens later in life, and made remarkable contributions to US society and economy. Americans have accepted all these foreign imports as one of their own. If a huge country like the US has embraced foreign talent, we, with only three million people, must be crazy not to do so. Because of the quality of our people, and our economic success and social progress, we are taken seriously by other countries. We enjoy an influence disproportionate to our size. But if we now shut our doors to talent, we will soon become like any other Third World city of three million people. Then we will find life quite different. We will become a small fish—a guppy—in a small pond. To swim among the big fishes in the ocean, we have to top up our population with international talent.

3  Chung, R., “Foreign yes, but all talent?,” Singapore Magazine, Nov-Dec 2000, www.singapore21. org.sg/art_talent.html

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Former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Minister Mentor in 2003, commented at that time: If we do not attract, welcome and make foreign talent feel comfortable in Singapore, we will not be a global city and if we are not a global city, it doesn’t count for much … There are four million people in Singapore: one million of which are foreigners. You get rid of this one million and many will not find jobs (Chong 2003).

The second reason is Singapore’s intention to pitch the republic as a global player and a global city. Foreign talents have long been known to possess a certain creativity, global outlook, and experience that may not be found in local Singaporeans. In his 2001 National Rally Speech, former Prime Minister Goh called such foreign talent “MNT,” multi-national talent. He explained: We have to bring in multi-national talent, like the way we brought in MNCs. Like MNCs, multi-national talent, or MNTs, will bring in new expertise, fresh ideas and global connections and perspectives. I believe that they will produce lasting benefits for Singapore.

Although aware of the potential backlash from locals who may react adversely to the recruitment of foreign talent, Singapore continues to hire foreign talent to fill top positions in banks, government-linked organizations, and research institutes. The past president of Nanyang Technological University is Professor Bertil Andersson, a Nobel Prize winner from Sweden while its current president is Professor Subra Suresh, an eminent American Scientist, engineer and entrepreneur. The long list of scientists and researchers in the Genome Institute of Singapore hails from different parts of the world. In its bid to do more business with China, Singapore has announced it is interested in recruiting people with in-depth knowledge of Chinese language and culture to “engage with China.” It has set its heart on Chinaborn scholars who come to Singapore to study and who may become Singapore citizens. At a dialogue on 17 December 2008, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew openly said: So maybe we can co-opt 50 of them, and then we can bring them back to China to do business on our behalf [sic.]4.

The third reason for attracting and hiring foreign talent is Singapore’s much publicized falling fertility rate. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has referred to this as a “national problem” in his 2004 National Day Rally Speech. The total fertility rate (TFR) has been continuously falling from 4.55 in the 1960s to an all-time low of 1.2 in 20115, well below the replacement rate of 2.16 (The National Population and Talent Division of Singapore 2012). Singapore’s TFR is one of the lowest in the world, just slightly higher than that of Hong Kong and Macau. The TFR is lowest among Chinese women in Singapore. This trend continues despite the government’s introduction of family-friendly measures to offer tax rebates to couples with ­children, longer maternity leave, paid child leave to look after sick children, and direct monetary deposits to spend on children’s educational needs in its “Marriage  “Needed: People who can engage China,” The Straits Times, 19 December 2008  Yearbook of Statistics Singapore, 2012 6  CIA – The World Factbook, Singapore 4 5

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and Parenthood Package.” Singapore’s falling birth rate has been blamed on long working hours, the trend of singles delaying or opting not to get married, women’s preference to pursue a career, educational stress, and the high cost of living (Ee, Pluss and Chan 2013). The “dismal” birth rate prompted sociologist Angelique Chan at the National University of Singapore to comment: I think dual citizenship is something we should consider in the Singapore context, particularly if we’re interested in maintaining the numbers in the Singapore population7.

She added that immigration was only a short-term solution and that in the long run, Singapore needed to come up with policies that enable families to grow and which help families to better balance work with family life. According to statistics released by the National Population Secretariat8, Singapore’s population hit 5.3 million in June 2012 and 5.8 million in 2020. The resident population grew by 0.9 percent, while the number of non-residents (foreigners working, studying, and living in Singapore on a non-permanent basis) grew by 7.2 percent in 2012, down from the peaks of 15 percent in 2007 and 19 percent in 2008. The number of permanent residents increased by 0.2 percent in 2012. The size of the permanent resident population has remained stable at about 500,000 since the immigration laws were tightened in late 2009. Reflecting the aging population, the proportion of Singapore residents aged 65 years and above rose from 10.4 percent in 2011 to 11.1 percent in 2012 (The National Population and Talent Division of Singapore 2012). In 2011, the number of persons granted permanent residency was 27,521 while the number of persons granted citizenship was 15,777. This is a significant difference from the “bumper crop” in 2008 when 79,167 persons were granted permanent residency and 20,513 persons were granted citizenship. In 2007, Singapore announced that it planned to increase its population to 6.5 million in 40 to 50 years’ time. This sparked some debate as to whether Singapore could sustain such a figure because of its limited land area, a mere 693 square kilometers. The Minister of National Development, Mah Bow Tan, commented in 2007: We will need to optimize land use … whether it is through reclamation, building upwards, or using subterranean space. We will also need to invest in the necessary infrastructure, such as roads and rail networks, and power and utilities to meet future needs9.

He also gave a reason for the increase in projected population growth, which was a jump of one million, compared to earlier projections: What we are looking for is a viable and self-sustaining population profile—one which helps us to grow a bigger economic pie, and a livelier and more vibrant society.

 “Singapore’s birth trend outlook remains dismal: sociologist,” Channelnewsasia.com, 7 Feb 2007  “Population grew to 4.84 million, boosted by strong non-resident growth,” Channelnewsasia. com, 26 September 2008 9  “Government re-looking at land use in view of change in projected long-term growth,” Channelnewsasia.com, 9 February 2007 7 8

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Although there were skeptics, nonetheless, the announcement generated optimism, especially with the idea that more people meant more demand for services, hence more business. To reach its target of 6.5 million, immigration and hastening the return of overseas Singaporeans were seen vital. Another reason for the Singapore government’s efforts to boost population by enhancing immigration of foreign talent is that Singapore’s population is aging “rapidly.” The first batch of post-war baby boomers (babies born between 1947 and 1965) reached 65 years of age by 2011. In addition, the proportion of Singapore residents aged 65 years and above rose from 10.4 percent in 2011 to 11.1 percent in 2012, which means that in 2012, one out of every nine Singaporeans was aged 65 or above. Singaporeans aged 65 and above over the years are: 1 in 8, or 440 thousand in 2015; and 1 in 6, or 590 thousand in 2020. By 2025, this ratio will become one out of five, which is 20 percent of the population (www.population.sg). Bringing in a batch of younger foreign talent is, therefore, seen as a way to reduce the impact of a rapidly aging population10. The seriousness of the issue has prompted the government to convene a committee to look into the aging issues faced by Singaporeans (www.mcys.gov.sg/successful_ageing/Report.html). The ongoing brain drain from Singapore constitutes yet another reason why the government is increasing the foreign talent population. Referred to as the “diaspora” by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in his National Day Rally Speech in 2006, the government has recognized that the trend of Singaporeans going overseas for work or study or to settle permanently is a very real phenomenon that is not likely to be reversed. According to Wong Kan Seng, former Home Affairs Minister, about 1000 Singaporeans give up their citizenship each year (The Straits Times, 23 July 2008). The number of applications for the Good Conduct Certificate, a document needed for would-be emigrants, increased to 12,707  in 2007, compared to 4996 in 199811. Previous prime ministers have commented on the brain drain phenomenon. In 2002, when Singapore was experiencing a downturn in the midst of a global pessimism due to September 11 and SARS, many left Singapore for supposedly greener pastures. Former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong called Singaporeans who had emigrated “quitters,” he said: Fair-weather Singaporeans will run away whenever the country runs into stormy weather. I call them “quitters”. The majority of Singaporeans are “stayers”. “Stayers” are committed to Singapore. Rain or shine, they will be with Singapore. “Stayers” include Singaporeans who are overseas, but feel for Singapore. They will come back when needed, because their hearts are here. The Singapore nation is not just those of us living here, but also the thousands of loyal Singaporeans who live around the world.

 “Migration Issues in the Asia Pacific, Issue Paper from Singapore” by Asia Pacific Migration Research Network, UNESCO, www.unesco.org/most/apmrnw13.htm 11  “1,000 Singaporeans give up citizenship each year,” 23 July 2008, The Straits Times. “Parliament Briefs,” 26 August 2008, The Straits Times 10

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Faced with increased competition within the region, especially with the rise of China, Goh commissioned a committee tasked with “remaking” Singapore, which went beyond economics. One of the key issues that the committee looked into was how to ensure that Singaporeans remain rooted to Singapore. Goh’s12 concern was whether enough Singaporeans would stay to ensure the country’s long-term survival and whether Singaporeans would return to Singapore to fight for their country if necessary: If they feel Singapore is home, then they will stay and fight for Singapore. Even if they are overseas, they will return and fight.

The then Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew13 lamented over the fact that Singaporeans who were better educated and talented were leaving Singapore. Acknowledging that their mobility came from Singapore’s success in educating them, he questioned these emigrants, “Can you leave with a clear conscience?” And then stated, “I cannot.”

 overnment Programs and Initiatives Targeted at Overseas G Singaporeans: The Long Arm of Global Capital Accumulation The Overseas Singaporean Unit Lee Hsien Loong’s marked change in attitude toward overseas Singaporeans set the tone for a series of programs intended to connect with overseas Singaporeans, now seen as a valuable source of human resources, and to persuade them to return. In January 2006, the Singapore government set up the Overseas Singaporean Unit (OSU) (www.overseassingaporean.sg) which comes under the purview of the Prime Minister’s Office. Based in Singapore, the role of the unit is to: 1 . Actively provide information to overseas Singaporeans 2. Provide an interface between overseas Singaporeans and potential employers for employment opportunities 3. Create a “home away from home” which enables overseas Singaporeans to bond and network among themselves and with locally based Singaporeans Specifically, the OSU is tasked to do the following: 1. Organize programs to keep the overseas Singaporean community informed of the latest economic, political, and social developments in Singapore 2. Provide a channel for overseas Singaporeans to communicate their aspirations 3. Develop channels to facilitate the return of overseas Singaporeans who wish to do so

12 13

 12 February 2008, The Straits Times  “MM: My job to look after those who built nation,” 23 April 2007, The Straits Times

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The OSU also coordinates multi-agency programs and initiatives that are aimed at engaging the overseas Singaporean community. If, for instance, the Economic Development Board and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research were to organize a recruitment drive in a foreign country that focuses on certain promising industries requiring Singaporean talent, OSU would be the coordinating body. With the help of OSU, Overseas Singaporean (OS) Clubs were set up in Beijing, Shanghai, and Xiamen in 2008. Clubs in Sydney and London had already been established in September 2007. Before the setting up of these clubs, there were already about 90 OS clubs in existence. The older clubs were normally run on an informal basis by interested Singaporeans who simply wanted to mix with fellow Singaporeans. They usually began in an “organic” way, could be home-based and were led by professionals or housewives (personal communication with SIF, 2008). The new OS Clubs are government-led and branded as “true watering holes” for all homesick overseas Singaporeans. They are located in Singapore-owned hotels and properties in major cities all over the world. OS club members enjoy discounts on food and special room rates at selected hotels. The OSU portal was set up in August 2006. It offers a wide range of information and services such as the latest happenings in Singapore, toolkits in the form of an electronic brochure to prepare for overseas relocation, as well as links to various e-services to facilitate different kinds of applications. Singaporeans who wish to use the portal have to register their details on the OSU website first. The OSU portal has a blogging facility that allows Singaporeans to keep in touch with each other. Running through the blogs, one would find that it is well-utilized, and Singaporeans share information easily. Examples of blogs posted include: New get-together dinner for returnees in Singapore at 7 pm, 18th July. No venue decided yet, but further details will be posted. San (Jul 8, 2008) I think I may be free to attend. I’m in Malaysia now with my wife and kids. Oop, please disregard my last post. I see this meeting is for Singaporeans that have returned. I on the other hand will be visiting for just a weekend. (Jul 11, 2008) Hi, I would be grateful to receive any recommendation for shipping services from UK to Singapore, preferably cheap and reliable. (Feb 27, 2007) Is it a must for you to ship all your things to UK instead of buying them there? I find that it’s cheaper to buy them new than ship them over. (Feb 28, 2008) For anybody in UK who are interested [sic.], try this website: http://www.sevenseas.co.hk you will get an online quote, depending on where you are shipping to. I used them to ship things to Singapore five years ago, six – eight weeks and pretty reliable. (Mar 15, 2008)

Apart from providing the latest information on Singapore, the website has a section on “Returning Home.” If one clicks on it, one will find information on finding a job, professional associations, starting a business, children’s education, and relocation tips. The OSU is also in charge of organizing “Singapore Day,” an annual carnival held overseas and dedicated to celebrating Singapore culture and peculiarities.

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Started in 2007, the first one held in New York’s Central Park drew 6000 people, and the second one, held in Melbourne, drew 11,000 people. In 2012, the event was held in New York’s Prospect Park in Brooklyn.

Singapore International Foundation Before the setup of the OSU, keeping in touch with overseas Singaporeans was handled by a not-for-profit organization, the Singapore International Foundation (SIF). Established in 1991, SIF’s role is to nurture Singaporeans to be active global citizens and to provide networking opportunities for Singaporeans all over the world. Apart from keeping in touch with OC Clubs, SIF also keeps in touch with about 120 overseas Singapore Student Associations, providing funding for social activities organized by these clubs. For example, in 2018–2019, SIF has sponsored 3709 people to be the “Friends of Singapore” and 346 to be “Citizen Ambassadors” (Singapore International Foundation, 2019). With effect from 1 January 2008, the portfolio of keeping in touch with overseas Singaporeans has been moved to the OSU. SIF also organizes an annual camp called Camp Singapore, which is targeted at children of overseas Singaporeans. These children may not be Singaporeans, but they are normally back in Singapore during their summer vacation, which falls between June and August or during the winter break in December. The camp, priced at S$350 per participant, is a 2-week non-residential activity that gives participants (aged 6–13) a chance to get to know Singapore’s history and landmarks and provides them with an opportunity to link up with a Singapore friend each. The camps have been popular since they were started, and some children participate for a second or even third time since the theme for each camp is different each year. Some fly into Singapore especially for the camp, according to an SIF official.

Contact Singapore Apart from OSU and SIF, another unit that has relevance for overseas Singaporeans is Contact Singapore. Set up by the Prime Minister’s Office, Contact Singapore is the government’s overseas talent recruitment arm. Its website (www.contactsingapore.sg) provides a wealth of resources that can be accessed by foreigners as well as overseas Singaporeans for the purpose of migrating or relocating to Singapore. On its website, one can find information on emerging or “growth” industries, how to find and apply for a job in Singapore, and employment packages. Blogging is also possible on the website.

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Ministry of Education In August 2006, the Ministry of Education (MOE) issued a press release that spelled out how overseas Singaporeans could seek enrolment in Singapore schools when they return to Singapore. Parents of primary-level children could approach the schools directly or seek the help of MOE for assistance at any time of the year. Parents of children going into secondary schools or junior colleges could approach the schools directly or seek the help of MOE in its centralized school placement exercise called “School Placement Exercise for Returning Singaporeans” (SPERS) which is held at the end of the year for those planning to join the schools at the start of the academic year in January. This was intended to obviate the need for returning Singaporean children seeking admission to take multiple school-based tests but with no certainty of obtaining a place. In 2007, two venues were provided for SPERS: Singapore and Shanghai. In recent years, SPERS has been conducted in Singapore only. To help returning students, MOE stated that the entrance tests (only for English and Mathematics) will contain non-language-based and non-content-based items that will help minimize the disadvantage of Singapore children who attended overseas schools with curricula different from Singapore’s14. Over the past two years, MOE has been giving some schools greater flexibility in their admission of pupils to allow a more diverse range of pupil achievements and talents to be recognized. In an exercise called the Direct School Admission exercise, secondary schools, junior colleges, and polytechnics could select some of their students using criteria other than their end-of-year exam results. These criteria are decided by the school and aimed to allow a greater range of student achievements and talents to be recognized. The talents may be in science, art, music, drama, or sports—whichever the school itself would like to emphasize. To assess these qualities in applicants, schools may conduct tests, interviews, or trials as necessary. The Direct School Admission exercise provides a path for returning Singaporeans to gain entry into Singapore schools, among them some high-performing schools, without relying solely on academic results. This information is highlighted on the Overseas Singaporean portal (www.overseassingaporean.sg). To further help returning Singaporeans, MOE has also introduced a scheme called the Immersion Program for Singaporeans who are back in Singapore on a short stay and wish to experience a taste of Singapore school life—so as to help ease their re-entry into the system should they eventually return. They could be admitted to Singapore schools on a short-term basis, ranging from one month to several months. To help returning Singaporeans cope with the demands of the Singapore school syllabus, MOE has also allowed returning Singaporean students to apply for exemption from Mother Tongue (referring to Mandarin, Malay, Tamil, or some other  Press Release “School Admission Framework Made Easier for Returning Singaporeans,” 25 August 2008

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designated ethnic languages) if they have lived overseas for several years and lost touch with the language. The difficulty in passing the Mother Tongue examination has often been cited as a major reason for families seeking emigration. By allowing parents to apply for easy exemption from the Mother Tongue requirement, which was unheard of in the past, the government is now seen as dangling yet another carrot to coax Singaporeans to return. The Ministry of Education also set up an email address (moe_returnhome@moe. gov.sg) for potential returnees to correspond with the Ministry. Further, some schools now display admission information for “Returning Singaporeans” on their websites.

Singapore Customs The government helps returning Singaporeans further by exempting them from paying the Goods and Service Tax (GST) when they move their household effects back to Singapore. To qualify for the GST relief, the returnees need to have resided in a foreign country for more than six months.

The Balance Sheet of Migrating There has always been a stream of people who leave Singapore, some for good and some for short spells. The government has long acknowledged this phenomenon and has referred to it as the Singapore diaspora. The current figures put the number of Singaporeans who are overseas (for whatever reason) at about 200,000. It has been said that the number of Singaporeans leaving peaked at 4700 in 1988, when Singapore was undergoing a recession (Velayutham 2007:93). The figure dipped to 2000 in the 1990s (ibid). The current figures remain unknown, although it has been reported that 1000 Singaporeans renounce their citizenship annually.

Why Leave Singapore? There are many reasons why Singaporeans choose to leave Singapore15. The push factors are displayed in Table 3.3. The pull factors are displayed in Table 3.4.

 Sources come from various blogs, e.g., http://byon.wordpress.com/2008/12/08/why-are-singaporeans-emigrating/; http://forums.asiaone.com/showthread.php?t=19738&page=2

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Table 3.3  Push factors associated with Singaporeans emigrating Political

One party rule by PAP is tyrannical Lack of confidence in Singapore’s ability to defend itself in a war Compulsory military service in Singapore Lack of confidence in the new political leadership once Lee Kuan Yew retires Failure of opposition political parties to make an impact Lack of freedom of speech Perceived lack of independence between judiciary system and political party Perceived interference of state into personal lives of its citizens Harsh criminal laws, especially on capital punishment Government does not admit it makes mistakes

Economic

Perceived high cost of living Singapore’s growth is limited (due to lack of natural resources and absence of hinterland) Singapore’s performance is volatile due to heavy reliance on the global economy Unease/disgust that foreigners are imported to take over Singaporeans’ places Singapore lifestyle is materialistic Singapore only values paper qualifications Lack of social benefits

Psycho-social Singapore lifestyle is stressful Singaporeans feel alienated in Singapore Too much control Government wins all the time Singaporeans work all the time; there is no life apart from work Singapore is run by scholars (as opposed to people with “on the ground” experience) Nepotism is perceived in Singapore No family life in Singapore Feeling of rejection or disappointments at workplace or school (eg, not able to get a job or enter school for learning) Singapore has no place for late bloomers Educational

Overemphasis on academic excellence; hence children’s development is not holistic “Learn mother tongue” policy is stressful

Geographical Singapore’s growth is limited due to its inherent smallness (hence, limited room for personal innovation) Lack of natural landscape High urbanity and density in Singapore Insecurity that Singapore is surrounded by Muslim neighbors

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Table 3.4  Pull factors associated with Singaporeans emigrating Political

There is true democracy out there

Economic

The possibility of owning a (big) car and a (big) house, and, possibly, one with a garden Better employment opportunities Higher pay abroad Social benefits (i.e., welfare) provided by country of emigration

Psycho-social The sense of adventure of living in a foreign country The romanticized idea of a Western lifestyle (as propagated by the media) The recreational possibilities in a big country with natural landscape The idea of being free from stifling rules and annoying fines The attraction of a more relaxed pace of life Higher quality of life Educational

A more relaxed and less competitive education system A more creative education system Children develop at their own pace

Geographical The lure of open space

Certainly, for many, Singapore is a relatively peaceful and secure place to live. However, it is the rise of the educated middle class that has challenged the premises on which Singapore is built. They are the potential emigrants. One cannot deny that Singapore has put on an impressive economic performance since its independence, with a GDP per capita of SGD 88991 in 2019, estimated to be SGD 88268 in 2020 (Source: Department of Statistics Singapore, at http://www. singstat.gov.sg/stats/themes/economy/hist/gdp.html). However, because Singapore is a relatively small country, it is often seen as culturally lacking or “artificial.” Everything about Singapore is perceived as planned, organized, and efficient. There is a lack of spontaneity in expression, or life in general. Its citizens often feel they are confined, restricted, and limited by rules and regulations. Due to its smallness, some people feel its economic performance, though impressive thus far, cannot be sustained.

 easons for Return: Weighing the Costs and Benefits R of Recouping a Socio-economic-Financial Stake For more than half of the respondents, the main reason for returning to Singapore was to find better-paid jobs. While abroad, some had experienced difficulties in looking for a job commensurate with their qualifications and experience. Some faced barriers in obtaining a job. The other reason commonly cited for returning was

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Table 3.5  Reasons for return Original country Respondent of emigration Reason Mr. Anand USA Wanted daughter to be educated in Singapore; to spend time with aging parents Mr. E. Chee Australia To obtain higher-paid job in Singapore Mr. Australia Offered a better-paid job in Singapore; wife did not like Fernandez Australian lifestyle Ms. Wu Canada Better job prospects in Singapore; preferred children to be educated in Singapore; too much crime in Canada; to spend time with aging parents Mr. L. Loke Australia Higher-paid job in Singapore Mr. G. Lee USA To take care of aging father Ms. Australia To seek better-paid jobs in Singapore D. Gwee Ms. G. Ling Australia Daughter had reached age of independence and had enrolled in Australian university, so she and husband felt they could return to Singapore; jobs in Singapore pay better Mr. Tan Canada Did not like job in Canada, and preferred higher-paid job in Singapore Ms. Serene Australia To be reunited with husband stationed in Singapore

that parents were aging and respondents wanted to spend more time with them. For those with children, they returned because they preferred their children to be educated and raised in Singapore (Table 3.5).

Preparation for Return For most returnee respondents, securing a job before they made the move home was of prime concern. Ms. Serene applied online for a job beforehand, Mr. G. Lee flew back to Singapore for an interview before flying back to pack to return to Singapore, and Ms. D. Gwee obtained a job transfer to the Singapore branch of the company she was working for before she returned to Singapore with the family. Another returnee (Ms. G. Ling) related that her husband contacted his former company in Singapore which offered him his old job back before he returned to Singapore— although he had been away from Singapore for nearly eight years. She, herself, was offered a job by her church that she used to attend in Singapore before she returned. She said: He has always kept in touch with the organization, and they said, “Well, if you’re serious about coming back, you’ll have the job here.” And the construction business was good, so when he said he was coming back, they said, “Sure!”

A returnee with school-aged children, Ms. Wu, contacted the Ministry of Education in Singapore via email several months in advance before returning to obtain information about her children rejoining the Singapore education system.

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This respondent related that she also corresponded with several schools in Singapore about vacancies and was pleasantly surprised when one principal replied to her email directly. She further related that an officer from MOE telephoned her while she was overseas to offer help with enrolling her children in Singapore schools. Most of our respondents had maintained a residence in Singapore while away, hence having no problems with housing upon return to Singapore. One respondent, Ms. D. Gwee, related that her husband flew to Singapore a couple of months ahead of time to rent an apartment before the family moved back to Singapore. Another returnee, Ms. G. Ling, requested her sister in Singapore to help her select and buy an apartment before she returned to Singapore. For two of the returnees, Ms. G. Ling and Ms. Wu, their husbands returned to Singapore several months before the rest of the family. This was to ensure their homes in Singapore were ready and also to first obtain employment in Singapore. Most returnees returned with their entire families intact except one (Mr. L. Loke), who returned to Singapore alone while his wife and three children remained in Australia because he did not want his children to be educated in Singapore. He visits his family five times a year, each time staying for six weeks. Because they maintain ties with family and friends in Singapore, many returnees found that coming home was relatively hassle-free. Mr. Anand said: “The biggest challenge we had was to pack.” Ms. D. Gwee said: “The only preparation we did was renting a place. That was it.” For two returnees, Mr. G. Lee and Ms. Wu, returning to Singapore was a difficult decision to make. Mr. Lee, in particular, said it was an “agonizing” decision, stating: Returning to Singapore is a very agonizing decision. We weighed all the pros and cons and then, in the end, determined what we want in life. One reason why I came back was my father was old and there was nobody to take care of him. My brothers and sisters were not doing a good job at that. They were too busy. I’m closest to my father, so my father asked me to come back. It was very heart-wrenching.

Adjustments in Singapore All returnees face adjustment problems and dilemmas. The ease with which they manage the adjustment process is critical to whether they will one day leave their native country again. Lifestyle Differences in lifestyle are a challenge for returnees. Some found the Western culture more gracious and cultured. In contrast, people in Singapore, in the eyes of the Singaporean returnees, appear more selfish and self-centered. Mr. Anand said: In the US, we find that there is graciousness everywhere we go. In the shop, you are greeted and there is good customer service. When you drive on the road, people give way to you. You have all kinds of graciousness generally. And in the shopping mall, even strangers will hold the door for you, especially if you’re a lady. They will open the door for you. So, you see these acts of courtesy and graciousness everywhere. In the restaurant, people will serve you, come to you, and greet you, and ask you if you need any help.

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When we came back, we began to see the contrast and I felt people here are quite rude. People stare at you, they speak loudly, and they don’t apologize. When I hold the door for my little girl to get through, some people will run ahead to get through first … So these are all quite irritating. In the supermarket, people will just stand in front of you and try to jump queue. Or they will park their trolley there and then go two meters away to take something; they don’t care about others. In America, they will say “excuse me” or “sorry”.

Work Environment Other than lifestyle, some felt the work environment in Singapore was also different from that in the West. They found that in the West, people were more resultoriented; the end product was all that mattered. Bosses and supervisors were not concerned with the process. However, in Singapore, where work ethics are more aligned to an “oriental approach,” work hours are fixed, and there is little room for flexibility. One returnee, Mr. Anand, mentioned he could work at home and enjoy flexible working hours in the USA, but this was an exception to the rule in Singapore. He explained: In the West, the emphasis is on a balanced, healthy life. However, in Asian countries like Singapore, work occupies most of people’s time and is far more stressful than in the West.

Some were glad Singapore has begun to change: I think we need more balance in life. It is gradually changing, for example, the government sector now only works five days a week, not five and a half days. For my family’s sake, I’m quite glad that it is happening. (Mr. Anand)

Of the ten returnees, at least six of them had experienced some negative incidents at work in Singapore. For instance, Ms. Wu shared: I think people are too quick to disagree here, and they said, “No” right away, without thinking about my feelings. But later, they actually agree with what I said and do exactly what I proposed.

Ms. Wu also related another incident from her workplace: At a meeting with a colleague, she was only interested in getting what she needed from me, and in making sure I do my work according to her instructions. But I told her off, because I said, I would certainly get the work done according to what she wanted and she didn’t need to worry about it, but I was more interested in nurturing the friendship between us. I think, that was the last thing on her mind. To her, it was just work and that’s it.

Mr. G. Lee commented that at the workplace, he is able to offer a different angle because of his experience that others may not have. He also faced some obstacles: In terms of suspicions, some people choose to see my new ideas as weird, or they cannot accept them. I guess there will always be these kinds of fellows around, small-minded people … I will not blame them because I was like them before I went away. So, I just ignore them.

Ms. D. Gwee also found she had to adapt to the work environment in Singapore: In Australia, people are shrewd. If they want to tell you off in your face, they’re very direct about it, but they’re still quite civilized. They can be super-sarcastic but they’re very civilized. Over here, at the first meeting I had with a client, the person started yelling, and I thought that was quite infantile—and this is a senior person.

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Ms. G. Ling, who works in a church in Singapore, also mentioned that taking initiative at the workplace may not be acceptable. She related that she went ahead with some projects in her workplace without consulting the management and later realized that it was not the right way to do things. She related the following in colloquial English: When I came back, I started a few projects here and they think they were good but at the same time, after a while, they sort of go, “No, you can’t do this; no, you can’t do that; oh, this is not how we do things.” You got to literally fight for everything you do. They say, “Oh now, you’re the admin person, so you do what is necessary to improve.” So I did, changing the photocopier, for example, and changing the computer system. Then after a while, they said, “Oh, this girl is spending a lot of money.” I think the structure there (in Australia) is different. They have elders and then they have pastors and there the staff run all the programmes. Over here, you have elders and then the deacons. Basically, there are two groups and they do a lot. You know how it is, elders and deacons are directors of the church. So, there are a lot more voices. Making decisions becomes a lot harder.

Ms. Serene, who is a doctor in a Singapore hospital, finds that the workplace is systematically organized, and she was happy she was given an orientation tour and informed about the systems and procedures in the hospital. However, she finds that her colleagues are all too accepting of the status quo. She often hears comments like, “Let’s not try to change the system,” or “Let’s leave it. Why rock the boat?” She also feels that people in Singapore are too focused on achievements, and they work “too hard.” She lamented: “We spend all our waking hours working.” She finds that she is too tired to do anything in Singapore apart from work. In Australia, she was more engaged with hobbies and outdoor activities like hiking and fishing. Also, she commented that while she also has to work during weekends in Australia, she is paid for it, unlike in Singapore. She finds this “hard to swallow.” Physical Environment As the population increases (partly due to the influx of foreigners), public places become more crowded, especially when compared with spacious Western countries. Returnees realize they will need to adjust to this aspect of life in Singapore and to do something about it, rather than sitting around and complaining. Mr. Anand says: The population is growing very fast and it’s more crowded. We are used to going to the mall in the US on the weekends, and it is very big, not as crowded as Singapore. We have adjusted to that. Since it is crowded on the weekend, we try to go to the mall on weekdays in Singapore.

Ms. G. Ling felt the heat in Singapore was something she had to get used to: Initially, at home, I kept turning on the air con. It was humid. I don’t know if it was because it was particularly humid during those months, May and June. It was hot and humid. But after a while you just get acclimatized. Then it is ok.

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Political Environment and Perception of Change in Singapore Before departing for Western countries, some returnees had negative perceptions of Singapore’s political environment. But after having lived in democratic Western countries like the USA, their attitude toward Singapore’s system became less negative. Some grew more receptive to Singapore’s political system and saw the former negatives now as positives. For example, three returnees explained: I used to be negative about it, but I become positive after I lived abroad. Firstly, Singapore is a very small country with only 4.5 million people. So, the system must be very rigid and straight. Once you have lived overseas many years, you will appreciate Singapore more. Secondly, while we have freedom of speech in many other ways, you should and have to justify what you say. Over there in the US, you don’t have to. You can lie, and people believe you, and what happens? More and more people believe the falsehoods, and then they may have problems, like fighting and others. Because Singapore is too tiny and there are too many people, we have to be very careful. (Mr. Anand) Singapore is a one-party system. Singapore is more straight-forward, it’s more stable and attracts foreign investments. Australia has two parties. The parliament debates are not about issues. Usually, they spend a lot of time attacking each other, one party attacking another party. Sometimes, it is a personal attack, or a scandal may break out and a lot of time is wasted … If there is a change in government, some policies also change. (Mr. E. Chee) While Singapore is run by a majority party, Canada is at the other extreme being governed by a minority party, which means the party in power wins with only a very thin margin … My husband and I came to the conclusion it is better to have one majority party running the government than several ineffective minority political parties that are always putting self-­ interests above national interests. (Ms. Wu)

Mr. G. Lee said he viewed Singapore differently since he came back, stating: I think there are many things we can be grateful for, the convenience of things, the security, the employment, the job opportunities. These are Singapore’s strengths.

However, he also offered his perspective on how Singapore can be improved: Our weakness is that we are too kiasu16. There’s a lot of control, less space, less freedom. It doesn’t nurture a creative and entrepreneurial spirit. People may feel stifled by all the bureaucrats and the bureaucracy we have to bear. It’s a very conforming kind of society basically, very top-down. I think there should be more diversity and more acceptance of alternative views, certainly. I think Potong Pasir should be upgraded unconditionally, because I think there are a lot of old people there and some of them cannot climb steps. I have a church member there who has an aged mother, and they have to move the wheelchair-bound mother to Pasir Ris for a while, because the mother needs to see a doctor and couldn’t climb down the steps. Every time she sees the doctor, you need a few fellows to carry her down. I think that kind of protectionism should go. I think there should be more alternative voices so that we can be a better people, a better society.

 Kiasu means “afraid of losing out” in Singapore colloquial English. This is said to be a trait of most Singaporeans.

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Mr. E.  Chee had this observation on the changes taking place in Singapore: “Singapore is more open now and the demography is changing. There are more new immigrants here.” Ms. Wu had this to say about her changing view of Singapore: Definitely we are now more positive about Singapore. Singapore has made great strides despite being a relatively young country. It has a very positive reputation abroad. Other people (Canadians) tell us so! I think Singapore is beautiful. I love Singapore, especially in the evening. It is continually evolving and remaking itself. There is more art in the city, in that some old buildings are being refurbished and new functions are being found for them. I feel the Singapore government is trying to be more accommodating. They did put together a committee to study how to “remake” Singapore some years ago. I can sense the government is trying to implement some of these recommendations.

Ms. D. Gwee said this about returning: I think I now appreciate Singapore more, probably not so much the lifestyle, the way of living. It’s safe to a certain extent. It’s probably because I grew up here, I spent more time here than I had over there (Australia). This will always be home. The sense of belonging is here, you’re not second class.

There were two returnees who expressed indifference to what was happening in Singapore. When asked whether he kept in touch with what was happening in Singapore, Mr. L. Loke, who divides his time between Singapore and Australia, said: I don’t know, I rarely read the newspapers these days. I’m busy, and I’m also not here all the time, and then when I read, I just skim through the headlines.

Ms. G. Ling said: I’m totally out of touch with it (the political situation in Singapore) actually, and I don’t know who is who now. I just managed to catch up with some of the news recently, with who’s the new DPM (Deputy Prime Minister), otherwise, I think Singaporeans … don’t really care or bother too much about politics.

Children’s Adjustment Problems: Family Solidarity as the Foremost Consideration Four of the returnees emigrated because they found the Singapore education system too stressful for their children. Ms. G. Ling returned after her daughter entered university in Australia; Mr. L. Loke returned but left his three children in Australia, and another, Mr. G. Lee, returned when his eldest son reached 18, the age of enrollment into the Singapore army. Ms. Wu returned when her eldest son turned 13, the compulsory age for Singaporean boys to report to the government under a new policy. Mr. G. Lee and Ms. Wu applied for exemption for their school-going children from studying Chinese, which is a requirement in the Singapore education system. All school children have to study their “mother tongue” apart from English in Singapore. Both Mr. Lee and Ms. Wu had their application approved. Mr. Lee is happy that his second and third children have been able to cope with the Singapore system. However, he knows that they have “lost out” in some ways because they did not do very well in the examinations in Singapore although he

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feels they are gifted academically. His second son was able to secure a place in one of the private universities in Singapore using his American high school results, not the Singapore A-level results. Mr. Lee looked on the bright side of things. He said this of his son: He became more creative, actually. He lost his academic edge, but he gained his business edge and became more enterprising, because over there (the US), teenagers are already managing directors of certain companies. They start up their own companies, you know? Anybody can become a managing director over there. My son learnt from those Caucasians, so he’s now earning money through the Internet by selling bicycle parts. He wants to do business. He would never have done business if he had not gone to the US. He’d probably end up in some civil servant job here … So I guess he lost something but also gained something else.

Ms. Wu had three children and they were all enrolled in Singapore schools. Her younger children seemed to have adapted to the local school system, but her eldest son, thirteen, encountered some bullying at school. Local students teased him because he could not speak “Singlish”17 and often told him to go back to Canada. Because he missed his Canadian friends, he found it hard fitting into the Singapore system. However, Ms. Wu was very pleased that her eldest son was enrolled in a premier school in Singapore through the Direct School Admissions exercise, which seemed like a bonus for returning to Singapore. In Canada, her children would be engaged in various outdoor activities, but in Singapore, they tended to be indoor with extra tuition classes in school and at home. They had to do a lot of “catching up,” particularly in mathematics and science.

 atisfaction of Return: Tipping the Balance of the S Cost-­and-Benefit Scale Six of the ten returnees expressed satisfaction with the fact that they are enjoying higher family income now back home in Singapore than when they were overseas. Mr. Anand had this to say of returning: I think coming home is more exciting than the thought of living there (US). We enjoyed the peace and quiet over there, and the shopping. But for some compelling reasons, there is a lot more pull for us to return.

For two returnees, Mr. E. Chee and Ms. Wu, their income has more than doubled since they returned to Singapore. Another returnee, Ms. G. Ling, is happy there is “more buzz here” compared to quiet Perth where shops close at 5 pm. One returnee (Ms. Wu) is happy her children have re-entered the Singapore education system as she believes her children can learn in a safe, structured school environment as

 Singlish refers to colloquial English, a mix of different languages such as English, Chinese, and Malay.

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compared to Vancouver where crime is relatively higher—and where there are no examinations and little homework. She said: My husband and I are happy to be back here because our children can go to school on their own and play outside the home. In Vancouver, they were prisoners at home because of the high crime rate.

One returnee, Mr. Anand, is happy that his daughter is now able to have the company of relatives like uncles, aunts, and cousins because in the USA, “most of the time, there were just the three of us (him, his wife, and daughter)”. Mr. G. Lee is happy to be back in Singapore because he enjoys the safe environment in Singapore, and there are no drugs in the schools. Also, he is happy that his wife can have a career of her own and has her own income. She was not allowed to work in the USA. However, he revealed that the quality of family life has declined in Singapore: Back here, we don’t really have time for one another in our family, sad to say. We all lead our own individualistic lives. Over there, we had more family time together, enjoying nature, and all that.

Although he has been back in Singapore for four years, he said: I still struggle (concerning the decision to return) —there are days when I wish I was back there (US). There are days when I think I should be here, but since I made the decision, I will live with the consequences. There will always be a push-pull kind of thing. But if my children have a good education, I am able to put them through varsity, give them the basics in life, then I guess, that’s my mission or priority in life, the rest is secondary.

Two returnees, Mr. L. Loke and Ms. Serene, are not happy to be back. For Mr. L. Loke, because he flies to see his family in Australia five times a year, staying at least a month each time, his income has been halved by the interruptions to his work. For one returnee, Ms. Serene, coming back has been “miserable.” The reasons are as follows: (1) she is not happy with the crowds in Singapore; (2) she finds that people are not as gracious, e.g., people in a lift do not hold the door for others; (3) the traffic bothers her and she does not like the way people drive in Singapore; (4) she yearns for space as she went hiking in Australia every weekend; and (5) having lived apart from her husband (who remained in Singapore while she was in Australia) for several years, she finds that there are more marital conflicts in Singapore. One returnee, Mr. Tan, expressed ambivalence regarding his decision to be back in Singapore. On the one hand, he has better job security and more savings in Singapore, but on the other hand, he does not like the education system here. He has three daughters, 24, 28, and 11. Although he is a chemist, he is quite aghast at the level of difficulty of the science textbooks, which he finds “very frightening.” He is not happy that he is sending his daughter to “tuition after tuition.” He asked: “Are we pushing our children too hard?” He thinks that if his daughter does not keep up with the schoolwork, she will end up at the ITE (Institute of Technical Education), which he views negatively. He is also not happy that he has to drive his daughter for English tuition on Saturdays. He wonders how they could find time to go to a park as the tuition classes end late. He understands that the government has to set high standards for the country, and he thinks the Singapore “government is excellent,” but he also commented: “We are all on this conveyor belt. If we do not keep to what is required, we will fall off the belt.”

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 eturnees’ Perception of Personal Gains and Losses: Weighing R the Costs and Benefits of Migration Most of our returnee respondents feel their migration experience has enriched, even changed their lives. One returnee, Mr. E. Chee, said if he did not go to Australia, he would be just like his peers in Singapore who have stable jobs and normal lives. But as a result of his overseas experience, he treasures what he has now more than before. He even had the courage to open his own retail shop after returning to Singapore. He elaborated: I might have earned more if I had stayed in Singapore. But I have gained much more in my personal life journey while overseas.

To Mr. Anand, his overseas experience has helped him to deal with different kinds of people: No, I don’t think I lost anything. I was in the US for a few years, I know how Americans work and how to work with different people. From the management perspective or career perspective, I’ve learnt some principles of Western management, so I apply them to my work here now.

Mr. Fernandez also gained from his overseas exposure: Now the table is completely turned. If you are a Singaporean without international exposure, then you are very much behind … When I left, I was one of the people who were being hired. When I came back, I was in the position of hiring people.

Mr. G. Lee, who is a pastor, also feels that his overseas experience has helped him: I find that my experience there helps me to grow, first in the area of social concern, because I tended to do more evangelism at the expense of social concern, but over there, I learnt that if your faith is not translated into loving your neighbors, those unfortunate or marginalized people, then your faith is not much good. So when I came back, I was very active in the HIV ministry, which is something that Singapore churches are still quite slow in engaging with because we are very scared, or we tend to associate AIDS with homosexuality so we don’t want to go there. I become a better person, I think, more open-minded, more compassionate, more understanding. I think quality of relationships at the end of the day is what is most important to me now.

Ms. Wu said: “I am more open to possibilities because things can always be done in a different way.” Ms. G. Ling thinks she is probably more confident as a result of her migration experience. Ms. D.  Gwee realizes that she has lost out in career advancement since she returned; however, she explained: I would say I lost out in career progression. If I had stayed in Singapore, I would have been at a different level than I am now. But do I regret it? No, I’m happy with where I am now. I think I’m richer for all the experiences I’ve gained. I’m not upset that I’m only a VP or something, the only thing I’ve lost out on.

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Returnees’ Participation in Singapore Community When asked whether they foresee themselves playing an active role in the Singapore community, most of our respondents expressed reservation, except Mr. G. Lee and Ms. Wu. Since his return to Singapore, Mr. Lee has started a ministry helping those infected with the HIV virus. He sees himself as helping to change Singapore society through his ministry and his writings. Ms. Wu has joined the teaching profession because she thinks she can contribute to Singapore society. She said: Having seen what ineffective leaders do to a country, I want to serve my country. I want to shape young minds, so they know what is right and wrong.

She sees herself playing a role in helping Singaporeans think positively about themselves: I would like to help Singaporeans have pride in themselves, and to think well of their country. Singaporeans talk bad about their country all the time. It is good to start saying good things. I found myself correcting a cab driver one day, and I think I will continue to do that … If there is a need to speak up, I would. If there is a need to question, I will do so.

Returnees’ Evaluation of Re-adjustment Experience Most of our returnees did not have problems adjusting to Singapore. Mr. Anand said: “We don’t have adjustment problems because we came back every year, and being adults, it’s much easier.” Another returnee, Ms. D. Gwee, said: Because I’m local, I don’t look different. Apart from the little bit of reverse culture shock, I could plunge straight back in. No problems.

Ms. Gwee elaborated: I guess when you’ve been away for so long, you don’t realize that you have changed until you come back to your old environment and you compare the new “you” to your old environment.

She cited an incident at work as an example of the “reverse culture shock” (a term used by her) she experienced: [Previously in Singapore], if a phone rang during a meeting and someone went to answer it, I did not bother since it was a common practice, but now, I find it very rude. Like if you were talking to a person halfway, and he went, “Hold on, hold on, let me answer the phone”, and indeed off he went. I think it’s quite unprofessional.

All respondents said they did not face discrimination or hostility in any way since their return. They felt that family and friends accepted them. One returnee, Mr. Fernandez, related that he rejoined the same army unit where he reported for military service although he had been out of Singapore for five years:

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I went back to the same unit that I was with before I left … My friends asked me where I had been all these years. It was back to the same thing again, so integrating back to Singapore was easy. They asked me all kinds of questions. They asked me how I did it (migration). I said I was away, and I was working. They said, “I’ll try that too!” It was quite a fun group. It was a special group.

For Ms. G. Ling, her friends welcomed her back, and she was happy when they said: “Oh good, you’re back, we can go on holidays together again.” However, she later revealed that she felt people were wary of her: They look at you like they’re suspicious of you … I don’t feel I’m not welcomed back, but at the same time, they think that I’m too open-minded, approaching or saying things with less reservation.

She added: Over there (Australia), they’re willing to listen, they encourage you to talk, to speak up, to share, and they always give affirmation. Over here, people don’t affirm you. They tend to be judging, they like to say “no” before they even start to think.

Mr. G. Lee feels that relationships in Singapore are quite “cut and dry,” and that the quality of relationships can be compromised: I think Singapore is a very utilitarian society, a very pragmatic place, and I think if we are into using people to get things done, or being used by people, then I think life is very shallow here. I think there’s a better way of life. I think it (relationships) should be deeper, and there should be more sincerity.

Ms. Wu also commented on the nature of relationships in Singapore: I have always felt that Singaporean friends do not place a high premium on friendship. In Canada, for instance, when I was ill, friends came to visit, offering food and medicine, but in Singapore, people are just too busy, and you take care of yourself. I, therefore, do not expect a lot from my friends here.

Returnees’ Problems and Dilemmas Ms. Wu’s biggest concern since she returned has been her eldest son’s adaptation. He did extremely well in the Canadian system but has to start from scratch in Singapore. She related: In Singapore, he was always put into the worst class because he did not pass his Chinese. In Canada, it was different. The schools he went to recognized his talents. The principal took him under his wings, and gave him special responsibilities and nurtured him. His teachers gave him a lot of positive reinforcement. Even the school secretaries had a good word or two to say about him. They loved him and gave him encouragement all the way. He collected awards, certificates and medals with his name inscribed on them. He was asked to give speeches in front of the whole school, represented the school in district meets and competitions. He performed in musicals and school concerts. It was a very enriching time for him, and one of his teachers even wrote, “It is an honor to teach you”.

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She and her husband hope that he would adapt eventually and appreciate Singapore, but she is also prepared to let him return to Canada should he wish to do so when he is independent. Mr. Fernandez and his wife, who have young children of three and a half and seven, are concerned with the stressful education system in Singapore, especially since both their children have learning disabilities. His wife voiced their concern: Everybody speaks English in our family. She (daughter) has a Chinese mother but a Eurasian father. Because of her Chinese, her grades are going to be dragged down. Why? She can’t go to a better secondary school because of her Chinese. It’s not fair. Her Chinese kills her interest and makes her feel lousy. Who says you must know Chinese to be somebody in Singapore? A whole generation of Singaporeans emigrated because of that.

For Ms. D. Gwee, her biggest concern is that her husband manages to find a suitable job and has an affinity for Singapore. Her husband is an Australian of Indian descent and has not lived in Singapore before. She was worried how her Indian, westernized husband, would be treated in Singapore and may not be accepted by Singaporeans as he is rather assertive and direct. She said: “I was worried whether he could get used to Singapore. All my fears have come true!” For Ms. G. Ling, her problem is that she cannot decide which place (Singapore or Australia) is better for her and which country she should eventually settle in: If I have to make a choice, I really don’t know. You know, I’m not prepared to give up either. It’s like really having the best of both worlds. They’re different. When I’m in Singapore, I like Singapore, you know? It’s convenient, accessible, our friends are here, family here.

For Mr. G. Lee, although he has been back in Singapore for four years, he still thinks about whether he made the right decision to return. Another returnee, Mr. Tan, occasionally gets chastised by his wife for returning to Singapore. Until today, more than ten years after their return, his wife is not happy that they returned. When they were in Canada, they only had one daughter who was three years old. Now they have three children, and although two are grown up, the last one is only eleven and has to be in the Singapore education system, which is a source of stress for him and his wife. His wife was happier in Canada because she enjoyed her work there. Ms. Serene is another returnee who does not feel at home in Singapore. She is not playing an active role in the Singapore community: “I am constantly thinking of how I’m going to get out of Singapore again.”

 eturnees’ Personal and Collective Strategies for Coping R as Responses to Government Policies All the returnees have retained their networks and ties with their family or friends in Singapore despite having been away. They received social support in finding work or even buying houses. Most of them retained a residence in Singapore, which they normally rented out while away. This produced an income for them and also gave

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them psychological security in that there will be a place to fall back to when they return. All retained their Singapore citizenship, did not withdraw their CPF18 monies, and did not entirely cut ties with their home country. To prepare for return, a few of them staggered the process—normally, husbands returned to Singapore ahead of time to get the house ready. This reduces the anxiety of return. Women returnees did not start work in Singapore immediately on return. They allowed a break of at least two months to help their family members settle in. Returnees who needed to look for work in Singapore were realistic, focused, and knew what they wanted. They did not waste time but sought the job that they were most familiar with and that could give them the highest pay so that the family could stabilize quickly. Returnees with school-going children contacted the Ministry of Education (MOE) or people they knew (e.g., at the church) way in advance to obtain admission information. This gave them the assurance of suitable schools they could send their children to. They also sought exemption for their children from studying Chinese, which is allowed by MOE for returning Singaporeans. This reduced the stress of return considerably. To help their children adapt to Singapore, one respondent, Ms. Wu, related she and her husband had a lot of “pep talks” with their children before returning so that they could understand the reasons for return. Ms. Wu also mentioned that she and her husband realized that they had to depend on each other for support when they returned. They talked about possible problems they would face and were aware of a Singaporean returnee who moved back to Canada six months after she returned to Singapore. This form of anticipatory socialization eased possible re-entry anxiety. Back in Singapore, Ms. Wu and her husband spent a lot of time with their children to make sure they were adjusting, consciously making special effort to take them to good restaurants and enjoyable places so that the children would have good impressions and fond memories of Singapore. Despite their efforts, their teenage son pines for return to Canada. Despite their problems and dilemmas, most returnees prefer to look on the bright side of things. They prefer to see that they and their families have gained from the experience. Having a positive outlook seems to be an effective way of coping. Ms. Wu said: My husband and I think it is good for my children to go through this process. They need to go through some adversity in life and, perhaps, they will turn out better.

Respondents do a lot of rationalizing to help them cope with their “duality,” their existence in two worlds. Ms. Wu says: I have decided it is best that we stop comparing both countries. Every place has its merits, and each place means something different to different individuals. We cannot make our children share our views about a certain place. They have to go through life to realize what suits them best.  CPF stands for Central Provident Fund. Singaporeans contribute 20 percent of their income to this retirement fund, which they cannot withdraw until age 55. CPF monies can be withdrawn if one renounces Singapore citizenship. This is often taken to be a symbol of one’s loyalty or affiliation with Singapore.

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 ill They Stay or Leave? Migration Decision-Making Within W a Cost-and-Benefit Framework Although most respondents (80 percent) mentioned they were happy to be back in Singapore, almost all of them also indicated they may or may not eventually leave Singapore. Table 3.6 displays their next possible destinations and their reasons for such choices. Emigration is often a subject of perplexity for the Singapore government. If the country is doing well, which is how it sees itself, why are Singaporeans leaving? As an Asian country with a creditable economic performance, boasting a GDP per capita that is second only to Japan in the region, the Singapore government is baffled to see its citizens leave its shores. Emigrants are thus often called names, such as “quitters,” and described as “heartless” or “disloyal.” The Singapore government is often likened to a devoted but autocratic father who cannot let go of his children. The tide of emigration is, ironically, fueled by the government’s call to “diversify.” In 1993, the Committee to Promote Enterprise Overseas (CPEO) was formed to help Singapore companies invest overseas, to create the “external wing” (MITA

Table 3.6  Returnees’ next destinations Original country of Respondent emigration Mr. Anand USA

Mr. Fernandez

Australia

Next destination Singapore or Asia (China, India) Australia or elsewhere Australia

Ms. Wu

Canada

China

Mr. E. Chee Australia

Mr. L. Loke Australia Mr. G. Lee USA

Unknown USA or elsewhere Australia

Ms. Australia D. Gwee Ms. G. Ling Australia Mr. Tan Canada

Unknown Canada

Ms. Serene

Australia

Australia

Reason The future is in Asia

To try a different lifestyle, experience different culture and more open society His children have learning disabilities, and the Singapore education system does not have a lot of funding for students with special needs For career advancement and adventure; a lot of development there Wait and see To do Christian work If husband cannot adapt to Singapore Undecided He has some dissatisfaction with Singapore lifestyle Prefers Australian lifestyle

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1998:57). After the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997, Singapore companies were urged to seek out new business opportunities globally instead of just regionally. They were given state assistance and consultation to develop this second wing. Many, always obediently and dutifully, packed their bags, set up international offices, and then decided they liked where they had settled. They did not want to come home. This was not going according to script. Companies were told to go international, but Singaporeans were supposed to come home. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong highlighted the growing concern of overseas Singaporeans in his 2006 National Day Rally speech: In fact, we encourage Singaporeans to go abroad, spend time abroad, gain experience, understand how the world operates and then come back to Singapore. But of course, while it’s good to have people abroad, we also hope that they don’t spend all their life there and at some stage, they will decide to come back to Singapore. And we also worry. We worry because if every trained and skilled Singaporean is abroad, then who’s going to be here in Singapore, jaga rumah19, looking after the home, keeping Singapore dynamic, vibrant, beating, and if we have so many people overseas but not many in Singapore, where will the next generation of Singaporeans come from? How will we get talented and skilled Singaporeans to keep this place going?

This ever-present stream of emigrants may be considered a wake-up call to the government that its citizens want more than infrastructure, hardware, or reputation. People desire space, leisure, arts, and other intangibles of life, such as freedom of expression, freedom of choice, freedom to experiment, desire to have a bigger say in how their lives are to be lived out. Many aspects of a Singaporean’s life are lived out within a boundary which they detest. This prompted the Singapore government to think about how it could get Singaporeans connected to the home base. It began to work harder on hard-selling the importance of home. Through songs, poems, stories, and emotion-filled speeches, leaders drummed in the concept that Singapore is a home, not a hotel (Velayutham 2007:99). At the same time, the government focused on turning Singapore into a world-­ class global city of excellence (Velayutham 2007:84). Over the past few years, several iconic structures have sprung up, e.g., the Esplanade and the Singapore Flyer. Two casinos have been built. Even bungee jumping is now available in Singapore. Make Singapore homely yet global—this paradoxical approach is the Singapore government’s response to the emigration phenomenon. Emigration, therefore, can be seen as a side-effect of Singapore’s success. Its citizens are highly educated, English-speaking, hardworking, very marketable, and, therefore, very mobile. A nation-state is defined by a boundary, and citizens are kept within the boundary. A nation-state naturally wants to control its citizens. Yet, emigrants pose a challenge to the nation-state. How can it control citizens who are “out of range”?

19

 Jaga rumah means “looking after one’s house” in Malay.

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As it became obvious that more and more Singaporeans were staying out, the government quickly transformed a “problem” into an advantage. The solution was to build a network of ties so that citizens could be connected. “You don’t have to come home but we want you to miss home” seemed to be the message. This is coined “affective nationalism” (Velayutham 2007:83)20. Hence, the setting-up of the Overseas Singaporean Unit and Contact Singapore, and the birth of overseas Singapore Clubs, one after another, and the organization of Singapore Day. “Remember to keep in touch, and come home sometimes,” overseas Singaporean are told. Now, the return of the highly mobile, wordly, wise Singaporeans adds another twist to the migration story. These are Singaporeans who want to come home. The fact that Singaporeans miss the comfort and security of home is a feather in the cap for the government. Returnee Singaporeans are social capital, assets that can be utilized in the machinery of ceaseless production. They are globalized Singaporeans who have become local again. Once rebels, prodigals, or mavericks, the returnees are now considered citizens with precious networks, experience, skills, and perspectives that the nation-state can exploit or harness. They are now not “quitters” but “seekers.” Because of the benefits that returnees bring with them, one respondent hopes that more can be “sent out” and more can return. He states: I think all those people who come back have a lot to contribute, having lived in two kinds of society. They can see things a lot clearer now. Living and growing up here, we all have blind spots which we cannot see. We need an outsider to tell us what these blind spots are, then we will wake up. I hope more will come back, I hope more will go out as well for a while, then come back. I hope we can send more out and get more back, and then Singapore will become better overall as a result. (Mr G. Lee)

 Affective nationalism is a convenient term to refer to what the Singapore government hopes to see in every Singaporean, that is, that they will imbibe the Singapore identity, feel proud of being Singaporean, and call Singapore home. The government invests heavily in this area. In 1997, a committee called Singapore 21 was assembled to study ways to make Singapore “the place of choice to live a fulfilling life, to make a good living and raise a happy family” (Goh Chok Tong, National Day Rally Speech 1997). After a year of consultation, a report was produced, and the following five ideals were published:

20

1 . 2. 3. 4. 5.

All Singaporeans matter (later refined to “Every Singaporean counts”) Strong Families: Our Foundation and Our Future Opportunities for All The Singapore Heartbeat: Feeling Passionately about Singapore Active Citizens: Making a Difference to Society

Affective nationalism refers specifically to the fourth ideal: The Singapore Heartbeat: Feeling Passionately about Singapore. “The more international Singapore becomes in the 21st century, the more must our national bonds be strong. Singaporeans must develop a strong sense of belonging and commitment to this country.” “Whether we live in Singapore or overseas, we must embrace a common vision of the country as a place worth coming home to and if need be, fighting and dying for” (Singapore 21, 1999:13).

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This continual push-pull, global-local tension creates dilemmas in returnees who may experience “anomie” and, most likely, “duality,” a sense of belonging to two worlds, yet not knowing which side one should give up or align with. Returnees defy the nation-state’s control and are sought after by other countries. They can fit anywhere and are internationally mobile. They will emigrate and re-­ emigrate. This is a new phenomenon. The cosmopolitan challenges the nation-state which has a natural tendency to control. Our Singapore study reveals the tentative plans of our ten respondents. Almost all said they will move again. An analysis of their backgrounds shows that they are indeed highly mobile. Examining their life histories, it was discovered that some respondents have left Singapore more than once. To deal with this new reality, both nation-state and citizens need to face up to this fluidity, ambiguity, and transience. Return migrants represent a challenge to nation-states. Should they be penalized or rewarded? They are too precious to lose. Because too much is at stake, much investment has been put in; with the falling birth rate, the nation-state compromises, tolerates, and courts its citizens, hoping they stay within the family, or at least within the “radar.” The new slogan is “Every Singaporean Counts,” and it does not matter if you are physically present or not21. The nation-state recognizes that “transnationalism,” “hybridity,” and “hypermobility” are the new buzz words (Chan 2012a and b). The nation-state has no choice. The challenge is staying connected, The Prime Minister said: Because our people are all over the world and because we are bringing in people from all over the world and because of the digital age bombarding us with new ideas and all kinds of new communications, it becomes all the more important that we strengthen our heart-­ ware, our emotional ties which bind Singaporeans to Singapore and to one another. It’s critical in this age. You may be more connected than ever, but to be connected as a people, as one Singapore, as four million of us, I think that’s something which we have to make the effort to do. How do we get Singaporeans to feel this, to feel that we are Singaporean, that we belong here, we are not just some citizen in cyberspace, passport issued by the Republic of Cyberspace? I think you have to do it in many ways. First, we have to tell the Singapore Story and we must know the Singapore Story. (Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, National Day Rally 2006)

Some Reflections This Singapore study is an attempt to present the experience of a group of Singaporeans who have returned to the city-state after a sojourn overseas. The background of our returnee respondents and their experiences are varied, but each person  Singapore’s bilingualism policy requires every child to study English and another language, normally one’s mother tongue, which is classified as one of the three official languages (Chinese, Malay, Tamil). Many families find it difficult to master Chinese.

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Some Reflections

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has provided some input which will help policymakers understand the phenomenon of return migration and make or refine policies that can induce emigrants to return to their home base and, hopefully, stay long enough to contribute to Singapore society. The findings are as follows: 1. There were more push than pull factors that led people to leave the country. 2. Emigrants left Singapore chiefly for political and economic reasons. 3. For those with children, to escape a stressful educational system was one prime reason for leaving Singapore. 4. The process of emigration and the experience of having been elsewhere changed the attitudes of some emigrants toward their home country. Many became more positive than before toward their home country, and some started to appreciate the institutions here, even the political ones—although, ironically, they had left due to a dissatisfaction with an authoritarian regime in Singapore. 5. Emigrants returned mainly to look for better-paid jobs and also because of emotional ties with the home country (e.g., to spend time with aging parents). 6. Some returned because they preferred to have their children re-enter the Singapore education system, although, again ironically, they had once left Singapore because of the stressful school experience. 7. Emigrants did not cut ties with Singapore. Most retained a Singapore residence and maintained ties with Singaporean relatives and friends. Some have been returning to Singapore on a regular basis, e.g., once a year, while they were abroad. 8. Emigrants slipped back into the routine of life in Singapore quite well although there were some adjustment difficulties. 9. For returnees with children, getting them back into the local school system was a priority. Whether their children could adjust to the education system affected the adaptation of the entire family in Singapore considerably. 10. Returnees did not regret their emigration experience, although some had suffered loss of income or loss of seniority in the professional field. They felt they had gained in terms of life experience, interpersonal relations, and professional knowledge. 11. Most returnees did not seem to play a very active role in their home community. They preferred to keep a low profile. 12. Most returnees said that they would probably emigrate again, for reasons of career advancement, adventure, and life enrichment. For some, it was because they remained dissatisfied with certain aspects of life in Singapore. The data of our study indicate that Singaporeans who return are motivated by economic and family reasons. They seem more realistic than before, and more accepting of Singapore’s perceived shortcomings. Some choose to remain connected to their country of emigration, thus practicing dual loyalty. They remain unsure whether they would stay in Singapore in the long run and regard themselves as potential emigrants again.

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To attract Singaporeans to return and to plug the emigration process, in recent years, the Singapore government has been working on the idea of “Remaking Singapore,” making attempts to democratize greater sectors of the society and also rebuilding the physical structure of the city, hoping to transform it into a global metropolis. The government is working to shed its workaholic and straitlaced image, hoping that people will find Singapore an ideal place to live and to work in, and that people will develop psychological and emotional ties with the country. There have also been signs of the government making efforts to maintain healthy work-life balance, develop innovation in education, accept diversity in learners, and amend laws to suit the populace. Whether returnees remain in Singapore eventually will depend on how genuine these initiatives are perceived to be and how successful they are in their re-settlement. But then, returnees, who have been elsewhere, are “trans-­ nationals.” They may have their own agendas.

Policy Recommendations to the Singaporean Government Provide One-Stop Information on Schools The Ministry of Education in Singapore has a website (www.moe.edu.sg) to enable returning Singaporeans to find information about schools. Some schools have websites to provide admission information for returning Singaporeans. The Direct School Admission exercise was set up by the Singapore government in 2006 to enable returning Singaporeans to re-enter the school system using criteria other than school results. This exercise would lessen the stress of re-entering the Singapore education system. (See http://www.moe.gov.sg/education/admissions/dsa-sec/.)

Improve the Education System Western education has been admired for being creative, fun-filled, student-centered, and stress-free. This may or may not all be true, but it is still important for education experts to study Western models of education, such that students can benefit from the best practices of both sides—East and West. Very often, Asian educational models tend to be result-oriented, emphasizing the product instead of the process of learning, and not considering student or parent satisfaction, but score high on accountability. Western models tend to be less structured, and students are not burdened with excessive homework and frequent assessments. Children who have been exposed to the Western style of education may find adapting to the Asian model an uphill task. If re-entering the education system is overly stressful, returnees may move away, once again.

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It is recommended that the school system provides support for children of returnees to help them adjust. This could take the form of teachers or other educators being assigned to give assistance, whether academic or emotional, to these children.

Establish Information Websites For the potential returnees, three important decisions would have to be made: how and where to find employment, where to live, and, if they have children, which institution of learning to enrol their children in. It is important that the government websites contain information on these three areas. Also, it may be worthwhile to consider having a “hotline” or an email address for would-be returnees to direct their queries about returning. There has to be a lot of empathy when attending to such queries. The websites should make it easy for would-be returnees to apply for jobs online.

 evelop Reintegration Programs Based on Multiple Stages D of Return Migration Reintegration assistance programs should take into account the three different stages of the return migration movement: (1) pre-departure assistance: for example, information dissemination and counseling in cooperation with partner agencies, travel arrangements, and coordination with origin country agencies, institutions, and departments; transportation such as departure assistance and transit assistance; (2) post-­arrival assistance: for example, reception and onward transportation and information and referral services; and (3) follow-up evaluation of the adaptation of the returnees after the initial one to two years.

Integrate Various Policies into a Coherent Whole It is important to anticipate and avoid the frustrating experiences of returnees having to seek information, support, and assistance from different departments, centers, or ministries for their diverse needs. Reintegration programs must avoid a fragmentation of institutions in aims, methods, and processes. A coordinated and internally cohesive horizontal approach is needed to ensure that programs of services are complementary, supporting, and reinforcing each other. Coordination on the regional and national levels is crucial for successful reintegration of the returnees. A well-­ coordinated reintegration program of this sort should be planned and implemented in tandem with the national development strategy, which attempts to connect the problems of return migration with strategies of national development.

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Provide Services That Would-be Returnees Need If they have been out of Singapore for a long time, returnees may need services like language classes, cultural adaptation, or psychological services. The government may have to sponsor such services.

View Returnees Positively One returnee suggested that the government view returnees positively. This requires a change in the bureaucratic attitude and mindset which would affect policymaking. When asked, “What would you recommend to the Singapore government to facilitate the return of Singaporeans?,” Mr. G. Lee gave this reply: They (the government) have to take the initiative, they have to be proactive. They cannot just sit there and expect us to go and knock on their doors. They must value us when we come back. Nobody wants to come back because, I think, there is some kind of stigma or suspicion. People may ask, “Why do you come back? You can’t make it over there?” People will look at you negatively. So, I think when they come back, they should not be treated as “second-hand”. They should be valued. People like to be valued. If one place doesn’t value them, another place will. Canada or America or Australia will. So, value them when they come back. Give them good posts, don’t put them on a shelf, value their experiences and synergize with them.

Furthermore, the overseas experience of returnees should be valued, and they should be awarded salaries that match their years of experience and qualifications in Singapore and overseas. They should not be made to start from the bottom all over again.

Manage the Relations Between Returnees and Locals The relationship between returnees and local residents of the home/origin countries is a long-neglected, under-studied area in reintegration in particular and in migration studies in general. A favorable disposition of the local residents toward the returnees must be fostered. If and when the home/origin government gives preferential treatment to the returnees, the local residents would feel discriminated against and get jealous. Tensions and animosities would then occur between the leavers/ returnees and the stayers. The home government should have a policy that contributes to the lessening of any such ethnic/diasporic polarizations by taking into account the perception and grievances of the local residents vis-à-vis the returning migrants.

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Develop Affective Ties Getting citizens to develop a passion for the country/region involves both hard-sell and soft-sell techniques, perhaps more of the latter. While the elders are emotional about their place of birth, the youth may not have formed affective ties with their parents’ homeland. The government might want to focus on the younger generation’s emotional identification and attachment.

Examine Recreation Possibilities Returnees may favor the Western lifestyle because of the many recreational possibilities that Western countries offer. It is recommended that the Singapore government examine ways in which recreation and leisure can be improved. As in most Asian cities, shopping and eating are favorite pastimes of Singaporeans. However, returnees are atypical Singaporeans. More than one returnee we interviewed spoke about having the time to explore nature while overseas, which seems to be one thing they miss badly. How can we discover nature within a concrete jungle? Or are there oases of hidden beauty that have been overlooked?

Healthy Work-Life Balance The government needs to introduce a 5-day work week. Since Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong took office in 2001, there has been more emphasis on ensuring work-­ life balance. Recently, Singapore’s past Minister for Labor, Lim Swee Say, challenged employers to redesign jobs to make them more attractive to local workers. He said: You cannot expect the Singaporean workers to work six days a week, 12 hours a day. If he were to take on that kind of job, where and when is he going to live his family life?22

He also posed this question to employers: “How can we ensure that every job would offer better work-life balance” (ibid.)?

22

 “Make jobs attractive for workers, bosses urged,” The Straits Times, 30 May 2009

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 reate Change: Accept Diverse Opinions and Build C an Inclusive Society The Singapore government commissioned two committees to study how Singapore could be improved. In 1997, the Singapore 21 committee was born, and in 2001, the Remarking Singapore committee came into existence. Both committees sought the opinions of ordinary Singaporeans as well as experts from different fields. Many ideas were aired, resulting in the publication of reports and establishment of websites (e.g., www.singapore21.org.sg). As a result of these two committees, there have been changes in many areas, for instance, the reduction of red tape and a perceived willingness of the Singapore Civil Service to consider diverse opinions and to make exceptions to the rule if necessary. Also, there have been calls to build a more inclusive society, as exemplified by more funds having been set aside to develop programs to support the elderly and children with special needs23. As Singapore must strive to stay relevant beyond the twenty-first century, the efforts of these two committees go beyond being a mere public relations exercise. When genuine change is experienced, the likelihood of people identifying with Singapore, and making it their home, increases.

References Chan, K.-b. (2012a). Hybrid Hong Kong. London/New York: Routledge. Chan, K.-b. (2012b). Cultural Hybridity. London/New York: Routledge. Chan, R.  K. H., & Abdullah, M.  A. (1999). Foreign labour in Asia. New  York: Nova Science Publishers. Chong V. (2003). ‘Foreign Talent Policy Here to Stay: Lee Kuan Yew’, The Business Times, 19 February 2003. Chung, Rosemary. (2000). ‘Foreign yes, but all talent?’, Singapore Magazine, Nov-Dec 2000, www.singapore21.org.sg/art_talent.html. Ee, A. H. L., Pluss, C., & Chan, K.-b. (2013). To be or not to be: Chinese-Singaporean women deliberating on voluntary childlessness. In Chan, K.-b. (Ed.), International handbook of Chinese families (pp. 231–248). New York: Springer. Koh, E. (2010). Singapore stories: Language, Class and the Chinese of Singapore 1945–2000. New York: Cambria Press. Kuptsch, C., & Pang, E.  F. (Eds.). (2006). Competing for global talent. Geneva: International Labour Organization. Lin Weiqiang (2007). ‘Grounding’ Cosmopolitanism at ‘Home’: Investigating Singapore’s Cosmopolitans in the Context of Return. Academic Exercise. National University of Singapore. Lin Weiqiang (2008). ‘Homing’ Cosmopolitanism: Singapore’s Cosmopolitan Returnees, Paper presented at conference ‘In and Out of Asia’, Migrating Talent, Globalising Cities, National University of Singapore.

 “A competitive economy, an inclusive society” (President S R Nathan), The Straits Times, 3 November 2003

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McLaughlan, G. and J. Salt (2002). Migration Policies Towards Highly Skilled Foreign Workers. Report prepared for the UK Home Office, March. 2002. Ministry of Trade & Industry (MITA) (1998). Committee on Singapore’s Competitiveness. Government of Singapore. Pang, E. F. (2004). Attracting Global Talent: The Experience of Six High-Income Countries. Mimeo. Pang, E.  F. (2006). Foreign talent and development in Singapore. In C.  Kuptsch & E.  F. Pang (Eds.), Competing for global talent (pp. 155–170). Geneva: International Labor Organization. Singapore 21 (1999). Together, We Make the Difference. Singapore: S21 Facilitation Committee. http://www.singapore21.org.sg The National Population & Talent Division of Singapore (2012) Population in Brief 2012, http:// www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1155998/1/.html). Velayutham, S. (2007). Responding to globalization. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Yap, M.  T. (1991). Singaporeans overseas: A study of emigrants in Australia and Canada. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Yeoh, B.  S. A. (2007). Singapore: Hungry for foreign workers at all skill levels. Singapore: Migration Policy Institute.

Chapter 4

The Israel Study

The State of Israel was proclaimed in 1948. At that time, its total population was 806,000. By 1951, the state had absorbed nearly 685,000 immigrants. This rapid and intensive demographic growth laid the basis for development in other areas of Israeli society. The young Israel of the 1950s had two universities—the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Technion in Haifa. These two universities had a combined senior faculty of 118 professors who taught 1635 students. Within the subsequent two decades, five research universities were added. By 1973, these universities had a senior staff of 4389 professors and 50,000 students. Today, all seven universities are ranked among the top 500 in the world, while four of them—Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University, the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, and the Weizmann Institute—are among the world’s top 150 (Ben-David 2008). By 1971, the total Israel population numbered 3,069,300. New immigrants accounted for nearly half of the increase during this period. Only in the last decade has immigration lost much of its demographic weight, accounting for 19.1 percent of growth since 1973. Nevertheless, the population of Israel reached four million in 1983, a fivefold increase within a span of 55 years. During 1990–2005, about 800,000 Russian-speaking Jews from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) arrived in Israel. About 60 percent of them had higher education; the huge immigration wave brought to Israel over 80,000 engineers, 12,000 scientists (7000 immigrants held PhDs), 30,000 doctors, and over 38,000 teachers. The number of professionals who came from FSU often outnumbered the number of professionals trained in Israel. Although one of the main reasons for this immigration wave was said to be economic, for many Russian Jews, the immigration was motivated by the ancient dream of living in Israel. For centuries, returning to the land of Israel has been one of the main themes of Jewish traditional celebration songs, prayers, and yearnings. In addition, Jews leaving Israel are called “going down,” while those who immigrate to Israel are called “going up.” There is a rhetoric according to which every immigrant is perceived as contributing to the country’s survival. In Zionist discourse the term “aliyah” (or “going up,” immigrating to Israel) includes voluntary immigration for ideological © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 K.-b. Chan, W.-w. V. Chan, Return Migrants in Hong Kong, Singapore and Israel, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40963-0_4

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and emotional reasons as well as Jews’ flight from persecution. While Israel is commonly recognized as a “country of immigrants,” it also is to a great degree a country of refugees. The last word of most English versions of the Bible book of Chronicles (36:23) is a translation of “veya’al,” meaning “let him go up” to Israel. Thus, although the return to the “Promised Land” may not be a crucial consideration for returning to Israel while economic considerations are, the value of “going up” to Israel and living there may always be in the collective conscious or unconscious mind. The research design and method of the Israel study followed two stages. During the first stage, information regarding brain drain and return migration and attempts of the Israeli government to persuade talented migrants to return home was collected from the scholarly literature, special reports by research institutes, newspaper articles, and Internet sites. The research strategy at this stage attempted to identify social, cultural, economic, personal, and professional factors associated with leaving and returning. Stage two involved nine in-depth interviews with the migrants in Israel. Some of the migrants interviewed lived in Israel, while others were living overseas but were interviewed during a visit to Israel. At this stage, the research approach was phenomenological, as we sought to understand how the “objective reality” constructed and presented in public documents and the scholarly literature was perceived and “read” by the migrants—to see through their eyes the relative importance of social, cultural, economic, personal, and professional factors that influenced their decisions to leave and to return (or not to return). The interviews took about two hours on average and were conducted between August 2008 and March 2009. Two additional interviews were conducted with Israeli officials. The first official was responsible for implementing policies of the Ministry of Immigration and Absorption (known from 2017 as Ministry of Aliyah and Integration). The second official was running the contact center in the Academy of Sciences. Three in-depth interviews with economics professors from Bar-Ilan University, Tel Aviv University, and Hebrew University were also conducted.

 uman Capital and Economic Growth in Israel: Successes H and Dilemmas Human capital is “the knowledge, skills, competencies and attributes embodied in individuals that facilitate the creation of personal, social and economic well-being” (OECD report 2001:19). This definition recognizes both natural qualities (age, gender, and health) and learned abilities (education and training) that can be translated into well-being. Human capital has always been one of Israel’s main assets, and highly skilled manpower is its main resource. One of Israel’s main goals is to enable human capital to contribute to economic growth.

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 evelopment of Information Communication Technologies D Sector and the “Dual Economy” The strategy taken by Israel over the last three decades was to introduce support for research and development programs (R & D) and commercial projects that satisfy the criteria of innovativeness, technological and commercial feasibility, risk management, socioeconomic-politico spillovers, etc. These investments were very successful, and the Israeli economy received a boost. Israelis have generated a stream of innovations including Intel’s Centrino, AOL’s ICQ, M-Systems’ DiskOnKey, and Checkpoint’s Firewall, to name a few. Virtually all multinational technology companies have strategic design centers in Israel. The Information Communication Technologies (ICT) sector, which employs only eight percent of the business sectors’ employees, was responsible for about 30 percent of Israel’s business sector GDP growth during the 1990s (Lach et al. 2008). Lach et  al. (2008) remark that the fast-growing high-tech sector can be contrasted with the low productivity of non-tradable, non-ICT sectors (sectors not related to information and communications technology, such as services, retailing and business services, manufacturing, transportation, construction, etc.).These authors (2008:13) remark further that “a dual economy growth strategy is problematic not only from a normative perspective but also because it may dramatically affect the growth potential of the economy by restricting the future pool of skilled labor and by laying the basis for frictions and tensions that are detrimental to growth.” Related to this disparity is, for example, the growth of socioeconomic inequality. It is also important to note that the governmental support was mainly export-­ oriented and invested in products (e.g., chemicals) rather than in process. The Israeli ICT sector is overwhelmingly export-oriented (over 70 percent of its output is exported), so most of the local industries do not enjoy the benefits from the ICT-­ producing sector. Thus, most benefits go abroad, so that Israel can be called a “powerhouse in generating innovations,” but not quite in benefiting from them. In other words, spillovers from inventors to users flow mostly out of the country, without benefiting the rest of the local economy. These authors (2008:26) suggest that facilitating the adoption of ICT in traditional industries should be a key component of a more balanced growth strategy and government intervention may be required to motivate the adoption of ICT by non-hig-tech users. In addition, supporting growth in other sectors besides ICT requires additional incentives for the higher education system in additional chosen areas. As one of the leading Israel economists said in an interview in Globes (April, 8, 2008): “If hi-tech had been run like … the country’s higher education system, we would have achieved nothing.”

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 rosperity of the Israeli Academy and Recent Decrease P in Research Staff While supporting R & D in the commercial sector, Israel’s support for R & D in the higher education sector is low in comparison with the USA. Ben-David (2008) reports (www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/984): After the relatively poor Israel brought its teaching and research staff size per capita to near-­ American levels in the mid-seventies, the much wealthier (by then) Israel chose a markedly different course than America’s. While the number of teaching and research personnel per 100,000 people in the States rose by 29% from 1976 to 2005, this measure fell in Israel by 35% between 1978 and 2005. Even the addition of non-research academic institutions in recent years did little to change this overall picture. By 2005, the number of teaching and research personnel in all of Israel’s institutions for higher learning fell to a level 40% below America’s.

Brain Gain from Former Soviet Union Immigration Another factor contributing to Israel’s economic success was a major immigration wave from the Former Soviet Union. In 1988–1989, prior to the beginning of the wave of immigration, Israel’s economy had been experiencing a downturn. By 1995–1996, a period of significant growth was experienced. In contrast to other immigration waves, the 1990s immigration was noteworthy for its high levels of human capital: 55 percent of FSU immigrants had at least 13 years of education; some 41 percent of the 1989–1990 arrivals engaged in academic professions in their country of origin; and 34 percent were technicians or members of other free professions (Caplan and Goldmann 2000). Multiple programs have been established to assist the immigrants enter the Israeli market. The Centre of Scientists’ Absorption operated programs to subsidize the salaries of scientists for three to four years. About 400 scientists were employed by this program yearly. Other programs (e.g., Bashan program) provided scientists with scholarships and helped others in technological areas to realize their potential. Still, despite these attempts, it was estimated that only 55 percent of “Russian” immigrants holding academic degrees were employed in academic, technical, free professions or administrative positions in comparison with 73 percent in the general Jewish population (Tikva 2003  in the Neeman Center report compiled by Dafna Getz and others 2007). In spite of this rich human capital, in the year 2000, Rachel M. Friedberg argued that a gap in earnings will be eliminated only after 35 years (2000). There is evidence that the imported skills brought by the immigrants were not properly rewarded in the local labor markets (Flug et al. 1997). To some extent, the Israeli economy succeeded in absorbing a large influx of workers—unemployment declined from 9.6 percent in 1990 to 6.8 percent in 1995—but it may have been at the cost of assigning the newly arrived workers to low-skilled, low-productivity jobs. Most

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professionals in the language and culture-dependent areas, such as medicine and education, had low chances of regaining their occupational status (Remennick 2002). Their skills were not tuned to the demands of the Israeli labor market. Certain country-specific skills are not easily learned either. For example, in spite of some governmental support, only about ten percent of teachers who had immigrated from the FSU found similar jobs in Israel, and most of them were teachers of exact sciences. The reason is that a different set of values and deep skills are necessary to teach in the new culture and only few were capable of acquiring them. Friedberg’s (2000) study demonstrates that the most important factor determining the gap in the standard human capital-corrected earnings of immigrants and natives is the source of their human capital. The national origin of an individual’s human capital is a crucial determinant of its value. Education and labor market experience acquired abroad are significantly less valued than human capital obtained domestically. As Yinon Cohen and Yitchak Haberfeld (2007) put it: From the Israeli perspective, the results cast doubt on popular and scholarly views that FSU immigrants of both the 1970s and the 1990s have fully assimilated, or are well on their way to full assimilation in the Israeli society, economy, and labor market (Beenstock and Ben Menahem 1997; Friedberg 2000; Leshem 1997). Although the integration of FSU immigrants in Israel has been impressive in other dimensions (labor force participation, political participation, home ownership, and language acquisition), they have failed, despite their high level of education, to reach the earnings levels of the leading group in the Israeli society — the native-born of European origin —and there is no reason to believe that they will ever achieve it. (2007:19)

 rain Drain and Cost Accounting of Human B Capital Accumulation Recently, Israel has been concerned with a sharp increase in brain drain from the country. Reversing it is a major challenge for Israel. Numerous studies show that human capital is flowing to where it is already abundant (Easterly and Levine 2001). In this case, the brain drain is from Israel to the West, as opposed to countries where it is in short supply. The consequences of brain drain for the “losing” countries have recently become a focus of many studies. Docquier and Rapoport (2007) examine the possible negative consequences of highly skilled migrants moving out of developing countries: First, skilled migrants are net contributors to the government budget and their departure, and, therefore, increases the fiscal burden on those left behind (fiscal externality). Second, skilled labor and unskilled labor complement one another in the production process; in a context of scarcity of skilled labor and abundant unskilled labor, as is the case in developing countries, skilled labor migration may have a substantial negative impact on low-skilled workers’ productivity and wages (intra-generational spillover) and increase domestic inequality. Third, human capital depletion through emigration would seem to impact negatively on a country’s growth prospects, in as much as human capital formation is now viewed as a central engine of growth (intergenerational spillover). Fourth, as demonstrated in various new economic geography frameworks (e.g., Fujita, Krugman and Venables,

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1999), skilled labor is instrumental in attracting FDI and fostering R and D expenditures (technological externality); hence, the mobility of human capital is contributing to the concentration of economic activities in specific locations, at the expense of origin regions. (2007:3)

Alongside the negative consequences of brain drain, positive effects for the sending countries have also been proposed: for example, brain drain may create incentives to acquire education in the sending country and “feedback effects” such as remittances, return migration after acquiring additional knowledge and skills abroad, and the creation of business and trade networks (Docquier and Rapoport 2009). Docquier and Rapoport (2007) investigated how positive and negative effects of brain drain balance out. They found evidence that countries with low levels of human capital and low emigration rates of their highly educated are positively affected by brain drain. By contrast, brain drain appears to have negative growth effects in countries where the emigration rate of the highly educated is higher than 20 percent or where the proportion of highly educated in the total population is above five percent. They also found that the most populated countries (China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Egypt, Bangladesh) are all among the “winners” (having experienced brain gain), while losses are concentrated in the relatively small countries (with a population less than ten million). In contrast to brain drain experienced by less-developed countries to developed countries, Israel is a case of a developed country that loses a significant percentage of its educated citizens to other developed countries (Gould and Moav 2007). In Table 4.1, comparative data of emigration from some European and Asian countries to the USA are presented (Gould and Moav 2007:5). Table 4.1 shows that the average index of emigration, i.e., the number of migrants per 10,000 residents, is 33.36, with the index for Israel being nearly three times as high: 95.51. Only two countries have a higher index—Ireland (143.9) and Portugal (99.21). When examining the index for educated migrants, the average index is 12.41, and Israel’s index is more than three times higher, 41.45. Using this index, Israel is now higher than Portugal, and the gap between Israel and Ireland (49.09) decreases. Having no natural resources and a high rate of educated people, it seems that Israel cannot afford to lose from brain drain. Economists in Brosh’s Association of Manufacturers estimate that the loss of human resources costs Israel some $1.9 billion each year. Shalem Center’s Institute for Economic and Social Policy found that brain drain from Israel picked up pace during the years 2002–2004 (Gould and Moav 2006). During those three years, about 19,000 Israelis left the country per year (Moav and Gould 2007). In November 2003, the Ministry of Immigrant and Absorption published an estimate that 750,000 Israelis were living abroad (mostly in the USA and Canada), which represents about 12.5 percent of the total Jewish population in Israel. Moreover, the number of Israelis leaving the country in 2005 exceeded 25,000. Gould and Moav (2006), the authors of the Shalem Center’s report, state in the report’s abstract:

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Table 4.1  Indices of emigration to the USA for some countries (US Census of 2000) College graduate Immigrants immigrants for every Population of for every Percentage No. of No. of 10,000 10,000 country of immigrants of college college Country of residents residents aged 30–50 graduates graduates origin origin Denmark 10,275 52% 5329 5,368,854 19.14 9.93 Finland 8170 55% 4487 5,172,033 15.80 8.68 Norway 9030 55% 4943 5,183,545 17.42 9.54 Sweden 17,174 56% 9584 8,876,744 19.35 10.80 UK 307,694 42% 128,600 59,778,002 51.47 21.51 Ireland 55,877 34% 19,061 3,883,159 143.90 49.09 Belgium 12,034 53% 6397 10,274,595 11.71 6.23 France 89,213 47% 42,323 59,765,983 14.93 7.08 Netherlands 34,318 49% 16,691 16,067,754 21.36 10.39 Switzerland 17,295 60% 10,300 7,301,994 23.69 14.11 Greece 70,825 27% 19,366 10,645,343 66.53 18.19 Italy 147,789 27% 39,532 57,715,625 25.61 6.85 Portugal 100,044 10% 9700 10,084,245 99.21 9.62 Spain 46,546 39% 18,020 40,077,100 11.61 4.50 Austria 15,936 43% 6877 8,169,929 19.51 8.42 Czechoslovakia 19,990 41% 8230 10,256,760 19.49 8.02 Germany 429,158 34% 145,130 83,251,851 51.55 17.43 Hungary 20,498 39% 7969 10,075,034 20.35 7.91 Poland 176,737 27% 47,587 38,625,478 45.76 12.32 Romania 48,294 43% 20,877 22,317,730 21.64 9.35 Russia 271,364 53% 143,202 144,978,573 18.72 9.88 China 709,415 55% 387,300 1,284,303,705 5.52 3.02 Japan 225,484 48% 108,981 126,974,628 17.76 8.58 Korea 388,783 45% 173,128 70,548,195 55.11 24.54 Thailand 57,773 35% 19,987 62,354,402 9.27 3.21 India 667,434 65% 432,037 1,045,845,226 6.38 4.13 Israel 57,589 43% 24,994 6,029,529 95.51 41.45 Turkey 39,649 45% 17,974 67,308,928 5.89 2.67

The Shalem Center’s report assesses the emigration rates from Israel between 1995 and 2002 according to education, employment, income, family status, and number of years in the country. The research is based on the 1995 census, including an indication of the status of emigration in 2002. According to the data, among population with a higher education, the tendency to emigrate is greater than among those with a lesser education. More than 2.6% of all married, college-educated Jews in the 25-40 age group in 1995 are emigrants, in comparison with only 1.1% among those with a lower education. The phenomenon is most noticeable among new immigrants. Among immigrants in the 25-40 age group, approximately 4.65% of those with a higher education left the country during that period comparing to about 2% of those with a lower education. The findings are consistent with the

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claim that Israel’s socioeconomic policies exact a heavy price in terms of encouraging many of its best and brightest citizens to leave the country.

Professor Dan Ben-David’s (2008) findings also emphasize the severity of the brain drain phenomenon. According to Ben-David (2008), at the Department of Public Policy, Tel Aviv University the 1409 Israeli academics residing in the States in 2003–2004 represented 25 percent of the entire senior staff in Israel’s academic institutions that year—twice the Canadian ratio and over five times the ratio of other developed countries. The numbers of Israelis working in the USA were equal to one eighth of all Israel’s chemists, 15 percent of the country’s philosophers, 29 percent of top Israeli economists, and 33 percent of computer science experts. Ben-David emphasizes the importance of strategic planning and a change in Israeli national priorities to improve this situation. To a large extent, brain drain seems to be a permanent loss. The statistics show that 96 percent of educated people who left Israel starting in 1995 have remained abroad, often turning their extended sabbatical into permanent residence, as Gould and Moav (2007) observes. In addition, Russian immigrants are returning to their homeland to make money. Moav disputes the claim that most emigrants are Israelis going abroad to work for a few years. Rather, he claims that hig-tech experts working abroad and sabbaticals taken by Israeli university professors across the world can be seen as emigration. The American universities draw researchers from all the world over as a result of their enormous economic power. Brain drain is happening not only among scientists but also among hi-tech specialists. According to the Manufacturers Association, Israel has lost more than 25,000 hi-tech workers to electronics and software companies in the USA over the past seven years (The Jerusalem Post 2007). According to the results of Gould and Moav (2007), new immigrants are not only more likely to leave than natives, but brain drain is much stronger for immigrants than for natives. To illustrate the possible mechanisms at work, the case of engineers can be considered: the emigration rate is an extremely high one of 7.8 percent for new immigrants but only 1.37 percent for natives. Although the exact reason for this difference has not been established, Gould and Moav suggest that one of the factors may be the high entry barriers to enter government-created monopolies (electricity, water, etc.) Native Israelis are more likely to have the necessary connections to find high-paying jobs in these sectors. Another factor may be that new immigrants’ training suits other countries no worse than it suites Israel while the training of the native Israelis is tailored to the Israeli market. Thus, it is not surprising that, having not found a job they desire, many new immigrants decide to leave. Many of the young, educated immigrants from the FSU left Israel to go to Western countries, and, surprisingly, there is a considerable phenomenon of emigrating back to Russia. Russia, which is much poorer than Israel, does have a flexible labor market which rewards successful workers by a low-­ income tax rate—about 13 percent. According to Eliezer Feldman, a sociologist, some of the new Israeli citizens returned to Russia and the Former Soviet Union following disappointments and inability to “translate” their high skills in Israel.

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These people with Western know-how and a globalized outlook are usually in high demand across the Former Soviet Union. Others saw Israel as a stepping-stone to a third country (news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/crossing continents/4,038,859.stm).

 hat Causes the Israeli Brain Drain and Loss W of Human Capital? According to Ben-David (2008), the whole phenomenon of the brain drain from the academy is a result of a long-term change in national priorities that includes reduction in the research and teaching staff per capita in Israel. In his opinion, there are four main reasons for the emigration of many of Israel’s leading researchers from its universities: (1) insufficient positions; (2) relatively low salaries; (3) inadequate funding of research laboratories; and (4) an “archaic institutional organization of the university system that inhibits change, adaptation and competition.”

Insufficient Positions Ben-David (2008) describes changes in senior staff positions during the last decades: As the number of academic positions per capita in Israel was being reduced, the number of students soared. In 1970, the United States granted three times as many degrees per capita as did Israel. Over the course of the next three and a half decades, the number of American academic degrees per capita rose by 31%. In Israel, the number of degrees per capita rose by 355% and surpassed the American mark by 13% in 2005. The number of undergraduate degrees conferred per senior faculty member in Israel is 2.4 times the number in the States. The ratio of graduate degrees to senior faculty in Israel is 2.8 times the US ratio.

Low Salaries and Tax Burden Ben-David (2008) remarks that academic salaries in Israel have fallen during the last decade while it has risen in the USA, so that the gap that had already existed between American and Israel academic salaries has increased. Gould and Moav (2007) also claim that one of the main reasons for the brain drain is the differences in both wages and tax burden between Israel and the Western countries. A particularly successful Israeli researcher, for example, would earn a gross salary of $60,000–$70,000 annually. In contrast, a researcher in the economics faculty at an average US university would earn twice as much. They found that because of the tax burden among Israel’s middle class, the gap becomes even more severe between Israel and the USA when it comes to net salary. According to Gould and Moav, brain drain is global, but countries like Germany, the UK, and Canada found ways to cope with it by adjusting immigration policies to attract educated workers.

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Inadequate Funding of Research Laboratories Israel’s pool of funds for scientific research is small. At the heart of the country’s funding mechanism is the Israel Science Foundation (ISF) which, in its support of basic science research, serves a function similar to the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the USA and government-run agencies in other countries. Chemistry professor Klafter explains about ISF funding: Our total budget is $60 million per year. It really is a very small amount. In contrast, NSF doled out $5.6 billion in 2006, while the corresponding German agency awarded $1.6 billion. For comparison, the Swiss and Austrian government organizations that fund basic science research awarded $350 million and $120 million, respectively.

“Archaic” Institutional Organization of the University System By “archaic” institutional organization, economists mean unified salaries, increase of salaries with age mainly, tenure, and high retention of faculty. Gould and Moav make this comment: Israeli universities provide an eye-opening example of the way in which high taxation and labor market rigidities have encouraged the emigration of some of Israel’s finest academic talents. The university system is governed by a collective labor agreement which does not allow for payment of competitive salaries based on achievement, and does not allow universities to match offers given by universities outside of Israel. In the US, market forces and the competition for outstanding lecturers/researchers dictate salaries. University salaries are based on personal contracts, so that wage differentials among professors reflect differences in their achievements and differences in the demand for their field of study. For example, a “star” professor in a highly demanded field (such as economics, business, law, and medicine) can often command a salary that is four or five times greater than a mediocre researcher in a low-demand field like English literature. In contrast, salaries in Israel are equalized across all fields of study and are determined only by rank and tenure. This policy creates almost no correspondence between achievement and salary in Israel. Consequently, although some may argue that the low level of inequality in the Israeli system versus the American system is a virtue, the result of such a policy leaves Israel out of the running in certain fields in terms of being able to recruit and retain the most productive researchers in Israel (2007:18).

Some Israeli professors do not agree that there are not enough incentives in the university community. For example, Yinon Cohen, from Tel ­Aviv University, suggests that promotion to one of four ranks is made on the basis of published materials and teaching and that the system of incentives is capable of driving researchers to work hard and excel when they are young and that it motivates experienced professors even when they have reached the highest rank. There is a view that senior workers are paid high salaries not so much for their current research output, but as a reward for past productivity and as a motivator for the current productivity

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of younger researchers (Lazear 1995). The main reasons for brain drain, as claimed by Cohen, are lack of positions and budget cuts. Menachem Natan from the School of Electrical Engineering also expresses doubt that the differential wages will attract the best Israeli researchers back home. He also claims that the brain drain is the result of the policy of reducing the number of positions. Finally, an additional cause of the brain drain was the “academic atmosphere.” By “academic atmosphere” the scientists mean research infrastructure and conditions, as well as presence of a developed community of researchers in their own field. These factors have often topped their list of reasons to go abroad, as did the sense of being isolated in the periphery of studies, a situation that is exasperated by the limited number of researchers who come to conferences or participate in research in Israel. Hart from Hebrew University explains: It is a fact that Israel has outstanding scientists. Financial conditions are not everything, and the scientific environment is important as well … We must try and create an environment that encourages and facilitates scientific research. Young people today see that they have nothing to do here.

 actors Influencing Decision to Leave Israel: Economic F Determinism or Pro-humanism? Moav and Gould (2007) performed a survey among 320 Israelis living abroad to identify factors associated with leaving Israel. The general issue of employment was highly relevant to the decision to emigrate. A large majority of respondents stated that their spouse’s job was “highly relevant,” and 81 percent stated “unemployment in Israel” is a very relevant factor in the emigration decision. Respondents also mentioned that they were worried about the burden of high taxes and the high cost of living in Israel (“highly relevant” for 66 percent and 75 percent, respectively). Interestingly, respondents were more worried about the quality of schools in Israel than about the political situation. Overall, these results support the idea that the decision to emigrate is directly related to the economic and self-realization opportunities that people find in Israel and overseas (Table 4.2).

Factors Influencing Israelis’ Decision to Return A survey conducted by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Employment and the Applied Economics and BioAbroad forum (2008) showed that at least half of the researchers in the field of biotechnology are considering a return to Israel. The main reason to return is a wish to be close to Israel and to one’s family. The emotional bond with Israel is very strong.

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Table 4.2  Degree of relevance of various factors in decision to leave Israel (percent) (Moav and Gould 2007:16) Partner’s/spouse’s work Unemployment in Israel Interest at work Income from work Taxation in Israel Studies Quality of schools Political and security situation Extent of regulation Cost of living in Israel

Highly relevant 71 81 34 43 65.6 43 75 65.5 81 75

Relevant 6 12 28 21 15.6 25 6 21.8 12.5 12.5

Not relevant 21 6 37 34 18.75 31.25 15.6 15.6 6 12.5

Table 4.3  Factors influencing Israelis’ decision to return to Israel (percent) Chances for suitable professional employment Prospective salary and standard of living Family considerations Education of children Cultural and social considerations Political considerations Security considerations Religious considerations

Positive 66 43 88 65 80 21 12 16

Negative 31 44 5 18 9 43 38 21

Not important 2 13 7 17 11 36 49 62

In February 2007, the Academy set up an online registry of young Israeli scientists and students abroad. About 1000 men and women filled out a detailed online questionnaire, from which a clear picture emerged, showing that their chief motivations for returning to Israel are family and cultural ties, their children’s education, and their chances of finding suitable professional positions. Political and security considerations as well as salary and standard of living were found to be less important to the respondents (Table 4.3). The table illustrates the considerations and estimations of these researchers (n = 911) regarding their return to Israel: The migrants wish to give their children an education in Israel although the level of schooling abroad is often described as higher. A possible explanation of this is that they desire to bring up their children in a familiar cultural environment. The main reasons for not returning to Israel were lack of professional challenge and few positions available (both in industry and in the academy). Most academics working as researchers (90 percent) thought that returning to Israel would mean making a compromise in terms of salary and professional challenge. Seventy percent of the respondents held positive attitudes toward the intellectual quality of the Israeli higher education system, 47 percent held positive views on the

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level of teaching in the universities, and 40 percent had a positive opinion on the quality of scientific labs and libraries. It can be concluded from the survey that it is not the quality of Israeli research or the academy that stops the migrants from returning but mostly the limited opportunities to find a suitable position, both in academy and industry.

Kate and Alexander Kate and Alexander immigrated to Israel in 1990, and both earned PhDs there. Shortly thereafter they left for America with the intention of gaining foreign work experience and then returning to Israel. But currently, they are no longer planning to go back. They explained: We went to America with the clear intention to return. We were adjusted in Israel, got used to it. We have even experienced some kind of “scorn” towards those [Russians] who perceive Israel as a kind of a “springboard” to get to another country. We thought they just “want too much” and are ready to leave Israel for more money. They kind of wanted to get to a “big world”. We liked Israel. Besides, we heard a lot of “bad” things about America. That people there are insincere, that sincere relations between people are impossible. We have understood later that what is routine politeness for Americans (smiling, for example) is a way to reveal friendship for Russians. People who grew up in Russia do not easily perceive this. We had some kind of Russian chauvinism. So, we intended to return. But objective conditions make us stay. Children study at school, they don’t know Hebrew. Where shall I go? I have worked here, house, my children speak English. We have been here for eight years already. And still … we would return if we found work. You see, In Israel the values “feel right”. Israel is a healthier society. The value of family is much more dominant in Israel. In America there is a lot of distance between parents and children. And I don’t like this. They care too much for material possessions. If we were born in Israel, we would leave everything and go home. A man must be connected to the land on which he lives. My children grow up in a foreign situation, they speak a foreign language. I would like them to speak Russian. But there aren’t enough Russian people around. I experience difficulties organizing their friendships. In Israel, all this is much easier.

Paulina Paulina is also living in the USA and is reluctant to return. She explained: My husband is currently an assistant professor (chemistry) in California, and I have a doctorate in mathematics. He would gladly return if he found similar work in the academy. He looked for such a job five years ago, but found none. He has totally lost hope to find one. He wants to do research in the academy. We haven’t discussed teaching in colleges. To tell the truth, “just teaching without doing research” is not good enough. Neither is research in industry good—it is usually pragmatic and of lower quality than in the academy. Besides, salaries are much lower in Israel. You can’t compare. In short, he is not “ripe” enough yet to sacrifice the level of his work in order to return. If we didn’t have good work there in America, we would certainly return.

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Brain Drain From Non-academic Sector: Two Stories The following interviews with two women underscore the importance of cultural compatibility. According to Geert Hofstede’s (2001) typology, Israeli culture is characterized by low power distance (less formal relations are observed between the more and the less powerful members of society) and lower individualism than most European cultures. These and other cultural characteristics of Israeli society may be attractive to some people in some contexts but difficult for others. The following example shows that low power distance in the education system can make finding fulfillment in one’s work difficult. Meirav is a 38-year-old single woman born in Israel. She holds an MA in education counseling and special education and worked as a school counselor for 12 years before she decided to immigrate to New Zealand to work there as a teacher in special education: I decided to leave because I felt I could not realize myself in my work in the field of education. Work is very important to me. I felt there wasn’t enough professionalism in education in Israel. In contrast, too much place is given to all kinds of internal power games: who is stronger, who’s more important. The teacher is not measured by his abilities and professionalism, but rather by his abilities to adjust himself to the system. The system does not really help the children, does not really “hear” the children. Then I just decided to try to find my place in New Zealand. I have lived there for two years and worked as a teacher. What I really liked about it was that teachers are much more respected there. I also liked the clear separation between school and home. In Israel, parents are very much involved in school decisions. In New Zealand, parents would never call a teacher at home; in Israel, parents call me daily. I really enjoyed this separation between me as a professional and me as a private person. Here, in Israel, the boundaries are too blurred. I enjoy the higher power distance between school personnel and children’s families which is characteristic of New Zealand’ schools. Besides, I really like the beautiful, clean appearance of schools in New Zealand, but here in Israel I was depressed by the ways the schools look. The budget cuts do not enable big investments in the aesthetic aspect of schools. I feel we don’t teach children universal values, including respect for the human beings, the right to express one’s opinion, etc. I came back to Israel, hopefully for a short period of time, to fix a health problem. I still think that our health care is very good. Good services attract people. I will then go back to New Zealand and live there. The only thing that would lure me back is a change in the civil culture, in the civility. Of course, it is possible that after several years in New Zealand I will miss this emotional strain that sometimes gives burst to creativity and really deep interactions.

It seems that Meirav feels uncomfortable with certain characteristics of Israeli culture, such as low power distance, more informal relationships, and high levels of emotional involvement versus professionalism and competence. While Meirav’s feelings and preferences are personal and subjective, they may be caused by objective factors. Indeed, Israel’s education system, weakened by government budget cuts and by the discontent of underpaid teachers, is often criticized by Israeli citizens and scholars. Israel was among the top in international rankings for science and mathematics in the 1960s but dropped to 33 out of 41 nations in a 2002 survey. Wages for Israeli

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teachers are low compared to other industrialized countries according to a survey by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development—which motivated many to leave education for better-paying jobs or work abroad, causing a brain drain. While one can argue that the informal style of interactions, blurred boundaries between personal and professional identities, and other cultural characteristics of life in Israel can either attract the migrants or push them away, the current education quality is almost universally mentioned as a disadvantage. Alona, a 32-year-old married woman and a mother of two, left Israel three years ago together with her husband who was offered a postdoc position in the USA. She liked her life in Israel, but the war in Lebanon shattered her desire to live in Israel; so she agreed to go to the USA. She says, “My son was one year old, and as a fresh mother, I was emotionally distressed with the war.” She was not sure if they would return to Israel as her husband insisted he had more chances to find a position in the USA. In the USA, Alona found a job in programming similar to her job in Israel. However, she did not really enjoy her work because she did not like the “American formal organization culture.” She explains: In America they waste a lot of time in formal meetings. They like to feel they control things. Every morning they waste half an hour on the meeting in which everyone tells everyone else what he or she is doing. Believe me, it makes no sense, nobody is really interested, and it is not helpful to anyone. Another thing I hated was lots of reports. Monthly reports, in which I am not only accountable to what I am doing, but I must also show what I am especially good at, and what I am not very good at. Every month!! In Israel you have to do it only once a year. In practice, in Israel you just talk to your boss. The funniest thing is they also adjust salary on the basis of these reports!

Thus, the low power distance allows for faster and more productive communication in the hig-tech sphere but may become a hassle in the field of education. In fact, there was only one thing that Paulina liked in the USA: the private education system: There are good private schools in America. They are not very expensive. They are great. That was the only thing that made me stay. They taught my daughter manners, internal discipline; the teachers were very attentive to her. Of course, nothing of the kind happens here. I wish there were private schools in Israel.

Although Americans look sociable and friendly, Alona did not succeed in starting any new friendships with them. At the end of her husband’s postdoc tenure, Alona decided she wanted to go back to Israel: “I couldn’t help it. In Israel I feel at home.”

 evelopment of Migration Policies: Costs and Benefits D of Human Capital Growth The Gordian Knot The complexity of the brain drain situation in Israel seems to be a Gordian knot when it comes to formulating a clear policy. Professor Ben-David (2008) suggests that to solve this problem, the national priorities should be reconsidered. He

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advocates: “Rethinking what the value of a higher education means for those who attain it and what the resultant knowledge spillovers mean for the economy and society in general.” While Ben-David stresses the importance of allocating funds for higher education and the need for reform, Eugene Kandel from Hebrew University reverses the emphasis. He calls for enhancing the principles of accountability and transparency in decision taking. In 1967–1975 Israel went through a drastic change in the number of students and faculty: five universities were added to then two existing ones. Although the increase in number of universities is viewed by many as a success, Kandel suggests looking at the drawbacks of the expansion: This expansion has resulted in lower hiring standards, lower academic quality and a large cohort of faculty of similar age. Israel did what was politically palatable, and increased the number and the size of the research universities without considering the consequences. And the consequences are that our universities are not very attractive to the world’s leading scientists. Add the union, demands for low tuition, high retention of the faculty, unified salary, and you get the current mess (…).

In Kandel’s view: The government cannot set national priorities: the university system is autonomous and is governed mostly by faculty representatives. The government can only determine the budget and salary restrictions across the board. There is a need for deep structural reforms that would touch upon the following issues. There is no connection to future demands of the industry in either teaching or research. No long-term planning. No one tries to figure out what Israel’s comparative advantages are, and which areas should be developed. Probably we need to reorganize our brains inside the Academy and to enhance the quality. We should understand how many researchers we need in each area, and whether we hire enough, and whether we export the best, and how we should organize the brains that we have (Brain Drain Conference, Israel, 2008).

In spite of the complexity of the brain drain problem, public statements to bring talented academics back from overseas have been made by a number of prominent individuals, including ministers, professors, and hi-tech and bio-tech industries representatives. Also, attempts to attract Israeli talented migrants by providing them with information on available positions, relieving the tax burdens of those who do decide to return, and partially subsidizing their salaries during the initial years have been made by the ministries, universities, and non-profit organizations. However, policy on the national level with allotted budgets and long-term planning has not yet been formulated.

The Shochat Committee As a reaction to the crisis in the academic world caused by student increase and budget difficulties at universities, the Israeli Prime Minister and the Ministers of Education and Finance initiated the Shochat Committee in 2006. Issues discussed by the committee were recruitment of additional academic staff, bringing back researchers from abroad, and incentives for excellence in research and teaching.

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Recommendations included building research laboratories to recruit academic staff from abroad, giving university presidents “administrative flexibility” to attract leading researchers and lecturers—including monetary grants for limited periods— expanding international research activities, and establishing placement centers that would connect and mediate between Israeli researchers from abroad and the Israeli academy. The recommendation to attract leading researchers and lecturers replaced the idea of employing a small number of staff members under contracts. Lecturers’ unions vehemently opposed this idea because it would have broken collective wage agreements now in place at the universities. Committee Chairman Avraham Shochat argued the reform would “bring home the brains” and lead to excellence in Israeli research. When presenting the budget for 2008, Finance Minister Roni Bar-On said that the focus will be on social issues and education and that higher education reform will be carried out according to the Shochat Committee recommendations—including giving higher salaries and housing assistance to promising young researchers, as well as increasing research budgets.

The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities In July 2007, the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities established a Contact Center for young Israeli scientists currently residing abroad. In its initial stage, the Center’s purpose is to help Israeli scientists and researchers abroad find suitable positions in Israel’s academic community. Eventually, it will extend these services to local Israelis as well. The President of the Academy, Menahem Yaari, was a member of the Shochat Committee and headed the subcommittee for furthering academic research. Following its examination of the existing state of affairs, the subcommittee explored ways to maintain contact with Israeli academics living abroad, with the aim of easing their return to Israel and integrating them into the higher education system. Further, the website of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities (www. academy.ac.il) says that the Academy is concerned about Israel’s brain drain and that large numbers of Israeli researchers abroad have expressed their desire to return to Israel on the proviso that they can find appropriate, challenging academic positions. “It is widely felt,” says the site, “that Israel does not do enough to maintain contact with these young academics.” In light of this situation and the results of their own survey, the Academy decided to take action and, on Yaari’s initiative, established its own Contact Center. Through the Center, Yaari sent a personal letter to researchers who had responded to the survey, explaining that the Academy intends to raise the situation of young Israeli scientists abroad with the appropriate authorities and to assist them in their specific concerns. He also stated, “the Academy’s belief that Israel’s higher education system must make a significant effort to offer them a respectable professional future.” In the months since its establishment, the

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Center has been collecting up-to-date information on available positions at all the universities and research institutions in the country and sending it to groups of researchers selected according to their professional fields. The Contact Center also assists individuals who approach it for help in establishing direct communication with the relevant people in their fields. According to the official operating the Center, at the time of writing this book, there was not enough feedback to evaluate its success. The official stated: We receive information on available positions in Israel’s various universities and colleges, as well as in industry, and we send this information to the relevant researchers, according to their fields or disciplines. The people contact the hiring facility directly, not through the Contact Center. In some cases, we approach Academy members to receive information for a particular candidate, but the Academy doesn’t recommend anyone for a position. We just provide the information for people who are otherwise cut off from what is available in Israel. So far, we don’t have enough feedback to evaluate our success rate. Not all the facilities are aware of how their candidates came to them. Recently, we have been asking them to keep track so that this information will be available to us. We have also been asking the candidates to update us periodically regarding their employment status. From time to time people inform us they have returned, some with jobs and some without. We really don’t have any statistics.

I-CORE (Israeli Centers for Research Excellence) I-CORE is a new and significant initiative of the Planning and Budgeting Committee of the Council for Higher Education (CHE) and the Government of Israel, launched in March 2010, as part of these institution’s Reform Plan to establish leading research centers specializing in a wide range of disciplines. I-CORE aims to reinforce Israel’s intellectual capacities and promote synergy among Israel’s leading research centers: universities, colleges, hospitals, and research institutes. Researchers from all such institutions are invited to submit collaborative proposals to establish an I-CORE center—an association of researchers—in a range of key disciplines. It is hoped that the influence of these new research clusters will extend beyond Israel and contribute to scientific and intellectual collaborations across the globe. It is anticipated that I-CORE will become catalysts for new academic publications and creative scholarly ventures, intellectual property, technologies, and start-ups that will have a profound impact on the enrichment of Israel’s long-term scientific and intellectual progress, positively impacting its industry, economy, sustainability, and society at large. In March 2010, the total budget of the I-CORE program was $360 million (about NIS 1.35 billion), of which one third is a budget guaranteed directly by the government, one third by the participating research institutions, and the remainder by foundations and strategic partners. Each I-CORE center will be given the mandate to appoint a select number of Israeli researchers, including many who may currently be working at prestigious research centers overseas, to join its collaborative venture. The appointment will be

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accompanied by both a start-up grant and an annual research grant for five years. It is anticipated that more than 20 I-CORE centers will be established in the subsequent five years in a range of disciplines in exact sciences, life sciences, social sciences, and the humanities. The topics for the first four Israeli Centers for Research Excellence which started operating on October 1, 2011, were announced by the I-CORE Steering Committee on July 2010. They are: • Systems-Level Analysis of the Molecular Basis for Human Diseases: From Genomics to Personalized Therapy • Advanced Approaches in Cognitive Science • Advanced Topics in Computer Sciences • Renewable and Sustainable Sources of Energy Another ten I-CORE centers, established in 2012, were chosen on the basis of leading proposals in topics of exact sciences, life sciences, engineering, and medicine, as well as in social sciences, humanities, education, and law.

Ministry of Immigrant and Absorption In 2007, to mark Israel’s 60th anniversary, the Ministry of Immigrant and Absorption launched an unprecedented campaign to return Israelis living abroad to the country by offering them a NIS 100 million ($24 million) incentive package. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, some 750,000 Israelis are defined as “yordim” (“going down”)—Israelis who have been living outside the country for at least two years. The Ministry of Immigration and Absorption offered tax breaks for all emigrants who return to Israel by December 31, 2008, and who notify authorities of their expected return six months in advance. A tax exemption on income earned overseas during the period of ten years was offered. The Absorption Minister says the plan of the tax exemption “combines, for the first time, value-centered incentives and immigration out of Zionist motives with economic incentives.” In addition, the six-month waiting period for the health insurance was annulled (the returning migrants who made a special payment to the National Insurance Institute received a refund and were eligible for health services upon their arrival). Within the framework of the new campaign, the Ministry of Immigrant and Absorption drafted a plan to integrate the thousands of returning emigrants into the local workforce and help others move their businesses back to Israel. The ministry also helped physicians and scientists returning to Israel find jobs in hospitals located in northern Israel and offered them two NIS 250,000 ($59,000) research grants during their first two years. It should be noted, however, that in 2011 this kind of assistance was reduced to $59,000 in the first year and $30,000 in the second. Researchers who incorporated into the biotech field could receive a grant of NIS 450,000 ($106,000) over a three-year period.

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In an interview for this study in August 2008, the official responsible for the Ministry of Immigration and Absorption campaigns said Israel has only managed to attract a few scientists, suggesting the Ministry’s initiatives are not effective enough. This is probably because such incentives cannot compete with research laboratory funds migrants enjoy abroad. He said: What we are doing is more like sporadic actions and not implementing a formulated policy. The whole thing is at its very early stage. We made two experimental attempts to attract Israeli scientists from abroad in the fields of medicine and biotechnology. We have created four positions for doctor-researchers—a combination that is very common in the US but did not exist here, in Israel. We wanted to enable some of the physicians to find challenging positions here, so that they could practice as physicians in the hospitals half of the time and do research in the other half. The positions were offered in the North and the South of the country, not in the center. We thought that at least thirty candidates would apply for these four positions. But that didn’t happen. We didn’t find even four candidates. The same has happened in the field of biotechnology. I would explain it in the following way: the Israeli companies are small, they are “stuck” at the pre-clinical stage and are far from commercialization. There are some big companies in the central part of Israel, for example, Teva. But again, they are only a few. We should have made a major investment in the field of biotechnology, as we have made with hi-tech. We were planning to do so in 1995. However, the investment had not been made, and we lost our best specialists to America.

 he Efforts of “BioAbroad”: The Largest Network of Israeli T Scientists and Managers Abroad BioAbroad is a non-profit organization operating outside Israel. The organization’s goals are to connect Israeli scientists and managers abroad with the Israeli industry and academia and to reduce “brain drain” by assisting members in finding suitable positions in Israel. The association’s activities include organizing professional events, social events, and job fairs in different locations. It works together with Israeli universities to raise funds and to increase available research posts; it also raises money for scholarships and to provide grants for scientists to visit Israel to attend job interviews; and it locates employment opportunities from within Israel and advertises them to Israelis living abroad. One of the big Israeli pharmaceutical companies, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., affirmed in 2008 that it has recruited 14 BioAbroad members to positions in Israel. Teva announced that it will continue to collaborate with BioAbroad to find suitable positions for Israeli scientists living abroad and enable their return to Israel. About 450 Israeli researchers from the bio hi-tech field in the USA are on the waiting list to return to Israel through a project initiated by BioAbroad and BenGurion University (working with Professor Varda Shoshan-Barmatz). While the number of people ideologically, socially, or culturally interested in living in Israel who may qualify to benefit from this project is relatively large, the number of available positions in Ben-Gurion University’s National Institute of Biotechnology in the Negev is few. Furthermore, those who do return are still concerned that they will not remain competitive with their US colleagues because less money is available in Israel for research.

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 ilemmas and Challenges of Current Migration Policies: D Costs and Benefits of Global Innovative Knowledge Transfer Attracting the “Stars” or Human Capital in a Broader Sense? The present policies seem to have attracted only a few talented migrants. There are no exact numbers nor other clear indicators available, as the project is young. Halfon, the Immigration Minister, said: The project aims to bring 10,000 ex-pats back to Israel in the first year and double that number in the next few years. Between 18,000 and 21,000 Israelis emigrate each year. The estimated cost of the campaign is NIS 140 million a year, an amount the ministry believes will be paid back by the returning Israelis themselves.

However, a comprehensive reintegration program is necessary to achieve the desirable effect (Bertrad Report). In August 2008, the Ministry of Immigration and Absorption official we spoke with mentioned less than 100 talented returnees a year, although more people may have returned as not everyone is registered with the Ministry. In 2012 the Ministry of Immigration and Absorption reported that during the preceding three years, an average of 180–200 researchers a year have returned to Israel. The Jewish Agency for Israel offer different figures. According to this source, the overall number of Israelis returning to Israel is more significant with a 50 percent increase in the number of returnees in 2008, and even a greater increase was expected the year after, as 9000 people indicated that they would return to Israel in 2009 (Jewish Agency for Israel Report, December 2008). According to Eli Cohen, the Jewish Agency Director, the number has increased due to Israel’s relative economic stability in times of world crisis. In fact, during 2002–2011, 61,709 returning residents arrived in Israel (6856 a year in average) (Nathan 2017). In spite of the window of opportunity created by the crisis, it is vital to answer the question, “What can be done to attract a more significant number of talented migrants and to make their adjustment optimal?” The official we interviewed from the Ministry of Immigration and Absorption said, “There is a need to change our outlook: we should choose to focus on those who are the excellent, who are the best. This means investing a lot of money in a relatively few people, the best ones, hoping that others will also benefit from that. Politicians usually don’t like this kind of idea.” Another idea suggested by the Ministry of Immigration and Absorption official we interviewed is to raise the level of employment in the public sector and in industry. The public sector wages are more than one third less than the private sector (Romanov et  al. 2008). This official further suggests that learning to utilize the skills of highly educated people in the public and private sectors and raising their salaries would attract talented people to Israel. He said: A director that has performed research in his area would be a better director. Elevating the standard level of employees might also be checked as a solution to the “over-qualification” problem and the problem of generating too many Ph.D. degrees. This is a real utilization of our brains. We should find a way to convince employers to try this.

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Eugene Kandel, an economist at Hebrew University, suggests that Israel needs to find ways to organize its own brains and PhD holders: “Maybe, too many Ph.D. degrees are generated. Who decides how many do we need?” (Brain Drain Conference, Jerusalem 2008). Indeed, about 2000 PhDs are generated a year, while only about 200 can be absorbed by the academy, so the rest have to leave. Kandel mentions additional possible causes of the brain drain: lack of long-­term planning, lack of understanding of which areas to develop, and lack of coordination between industry and research.

Bringing Postdocs Back: “No Rules” It is very difficult to get a position in the academy for the majority of newly graduated postdocs. Gregory, a 34-year-old single, physics postdoc, immigrated to Israel from Ukraine when he was 16. He graduated from Technion, which has one of the best physics departments in Israel, and got his PhD in the Weizmann Institute, a world-renowned center of physics in Israel. He went to the USA for postdoc experience and came to Israel to apply for a position in any of Israel’s seven universities in 2008. He has been interviewed by four university faculties. He offered this observation: I think an extremely talented scientist will find a position anywhere. But there are few people like these, and even fewer would want to return to Israel. I am speaking of simple postdocs, not stars, people like me. To get a position in Israel, you must do a postdoc in a prestigious place, like Harvard, have several articles published in good journals and have recommendations of important people from Israel. Luck is crucial. I know many examples. You also need to have specific social skills, the ability and will to collaborate with local people. In Israel, many things depend on who your friends are. There are no rules. My friend, who is currently a professor in the US, was strongly supported at Tel Aviv University but at the final stage his candidacy was rejected by a rector. My other friend got a position in Ben-Gurion University with only one professor supporting him. Well, this looks incomprehensible to me.

Gregory mentions the importance of “country-specific skills” for finding a position in Israel. A theoretical model developed by Gould and Moav (2008) emphasizes the difference between “general” skills (such as education) that are transferable to another country and “country-specific skills” (“personal connections, local knowledge of product and labor markets, language and communication skills, legal knowledge of the local environment, licenses which are country-specific, and luck [being at the right place at the right time]”) that are not easily transferable to another country. According to this model, people most likely to emigrate are those with unobservable (to econometricians) high general skills and low country-specific skills. This may explain the tendency of new immigrants from Russia to immigrate to the USA for postdocs. Gregory did not find a position in Israel and is now working as a professor’s assistant at one of the US universities. He is upset by the fact he couldn’t get a position in Israel: “My family is here, my friends are here. I miss all of them very much.”

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Then he adds with a note of humor: “My postdoc advisor in the US compared the process of finding a position in Israel with wooing a woman—now you can easily understand why I didn’t make it.” Some talented migrants decide to return even when there is no job waiting for them, but with the hope of finding it in the future. A need for a richer social and cultural life may drive them to take such a chance. Leo, a 38-year-old postdoc in chemistry, came to Israel from Russia at the age of 20: I got my Ph.D. degree from Hebrew University in organic chemistry at the age of 31. I wanted to get a position in the academy, so the necessary condition was to do a postdoc in a prestigious US university. I easily found a place, and although I was asked to come with my own fellowship, I convinced my professor to accept me as a highly qualified professional. I was the only postdoc working for the salary ($2,000). In general, I was satisfied by expanding my knowledge and getting important experience. After finishing my postdoc, I realized it wasn’t so easy to find a position in the academy or in industry in the US. So, I decided to return home, to Israel. I missed my parents. Besides, in America we didn’t have a social life we could have in Israel. Actually, we had no social life at all. So, we decided to return to Israel in spite of the fact I couldn’t find a job. I returned to Israel and tried to apply for an academic position. But I was rejected by Hebrew and Bar-Ilan Universities. So, I understood I needed connections, which I just hadn’t. I was accepted as a researcher to the Weitzman Institute for a temporary position (one year). During this time, I was looking for some work in industry. The recruitment company suggested three or four places for the interview. In all these places I was rejected as “over-qualified”. That was a hard time, as I needed a solid job: my wife was unemployed and was taking care of our two small children. Finally, I found a place in the Beer-Sheva chemical plant. However, after half a year the project was closed, and I was fired. Fortunately, I found a start-up company in Rehovot region—mere luck!—and I am working now there as a senior chemist. Gradually I started serving as an advisor in the Weitzman Institute and two start-up companies. Most of my acquaintances who returned are having problems finding work. One of the problems is that the leading pharmaceutical companies, for example, “Teva”, prefer to hire college students or even graduates of one-year courses, because the scientific part is insignificant.

“Bringing postdocs back to Israel is a complicated problem that has no magic solution,” says Ron, a scientist in one of the most prestigious research institutes in Israel. He explained: A solution I can see is creating some kind of hierarchy that would enable more postdocs to find academic placements. Maybe they should be integrated in some kind of intermediate-­ level universities, and if they succeed, they can advance to the top. There is no such thing as a university market in Israel. In the US, there is such a market. There are all kinds of universities, of all levels, and high mobility between the universities. In Israel we don’t have such a thing. In this way, we could have our main resources back, the human capital. I think this is our main resource, maybe the best in the world.

Ron, 44  years old, came back as a postdoc from Stanford University. In two years, he succeeded in getting a position in one of the best scientific institutes in Israel. Unlike Gregory and Leo, who immigrated to Israel about 18 years ago, Ron was born in Israel. He emphasizes the importance of cultural and social compatibility in his life and work, stating: There is also another thing which I think is unique for Israeli. This is not happening in other places. Most Israelis really want to go back to Israel and to live in Israel for different reasons that are not connected to the amount of money they would get. I could have earned

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much more money in the US, and my wife really enjoyed living there. She volunteered there, was happy and satisfied with the children’s education. She didn’t really want to go back but she wasn’t really against coming back. What had brought us back was not connected to the money issue. And I think this is right about most Israeli researchers. And it isn’t so for researchers from other places. I think, neither German researchers nor the Chinese ones would like so badly to come back no matter how much they would earn. I think it is very, very comfortable for Israeli researchers to live in Israel. It’s a cultural thing, a mentality. I am talking about the social relations, a certain kind of social relations. These social relations cannot be found in other places. Israelis staying in the US or somewhere else abroad usually surround themselves with other Israelis. They live as Israelis, not as Americans. Like community inside a community. This is the way we lived, this is the way everyone we knew lived. It’s not because we cannot integrate into American society. We were always interacting with American society—at work, everywhere. But there was no “real” communication. It’s because of the cultural gaps. It’s much more comfortable to get close to an Israeli. So, you live in the micro-Israeli environment. And this micro-Israeli environment is what is important. That’s what brings Israelis back to Israel: in Israel you not only have friends, but everything and everywhere feels more compatible, “tastier”. Work with students, for example. I cannot imagine myself working with American students. This would be much less fun. The interactions there are not so free, the level of understanding of each other is different. It’s a cultural thing. There are many more barriers between people there. The work with administration is different there. Here you understand them, they understand you, we speak the same language. It’s transparent. I don’t mean to say it’s better here than there. It’s just more compatible. For me it feels “tastier” (more compatible, more fun) here than in the US. This is what is unique about Israeli. Well, among Israelis in the States you can see groups for which this is more important, and groups for which it isn’t. There seems to be no socio-economic difference between these groups. But one of them is much more compatible with American society. I refer to two groups: academic researchers, and hi-tech people and businessmen. The latter are searching for the economic success. The two groups are similar in terms of education and background, but are very different in terms of their motivation. The former usually want to come back to Israel, while the businessmen prefer to stay in the US. For the postdoc researchers, as far as I know, what usually are important are social relations, comfort of interpersonal interactions, education you get in Israel, and less—the economic benefits.

Although Ron suggests that cultural compatibility is especially important for Israeli residents, it should probably be seen as a universal phenomenon. Most Russian Jews in Israel tend to stick together for the same reason. The feeling of belongingness, the homely feelings, is of importance for many people, and for some they can outweigh the economical and professional benefits one gets in a strange land. It is worth noting that the newly graduated postdoc researchers are not the group targeted to benefit from the government program on returning Israeli researchers home. The scientists who are helped by the Ministry of Immigration and Absorption must have at least three years of research experience abroad. Postdocs with one or two years of experience are forced to search for a continuation of their academic career outside Israel, which increases their chances of staying abroad.

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 ong-Term Planning: Investments in Biotechnology L and Innovative Human Capital Recently, it has been expressed more and more often that a serious investment in biotechnology will make this field as successful as the Israeli hi-tech field. In 2008, Palo Alto Attorney, Dr. Gladys Monroy expressed her opinion on the need for long-­ term investments in Israeli biotechnology: You have world-class biological sciences going on here. There’s an enormous amount of science that’s formed the basis for biotech companies, but somehow it’s been lagging behind the medical device practice. And if I ask “why?”, the answer is that biotech is a long-­ term investment which many [Israeli] venture capitalists don’t want to make, and [Israeli] biotech doesn’t have the angel community that the Bay Area or Boston area has—people who had good fortune in biotech and then came back to form the groundwork for start-ups.

It seems that the Israeli government, and the Office of the Chief Scientist (OCS) in particular, has taken a decision to make a long-term investment in life sciences. Indeed, in recent years, the investment in life sciences has increased considerably. Roughly 30 percent of OCS grants were dedicated to the life sciences in 2009, a percentage which has doubled since 2000. Biotechnology is a defined preferred grant sector by the OCS, and biotech projects benefit from more flexible conditions. Biotech projects are funded for up to two years, and biotech companies can apply to receive further fund injections at any time rather than once a year. Ronald Cape, a partner at PureTech Ventures in Boston, a founder of genetic engineering pioneer Cetus and of the Industrial Biotechnology Association (now BIO), calls Israeli technology “superb—but far from markets.” He points out that the supply of money is beginning to get sophisticated and there is a supply of Israeli scientists trained in the USA wishing to return home. This reverse brain drain, Cape says, will be Israel’s salvation.

Do It Now… “It is precisely now, during the economic crisis in the US, that we have an opportunity to return the brains that have recently left us,” announced Steven Stav, CEO of Israel’s Council for Higher Education, in 2008. Thus, an interim program has been offered to the Ministry of Finance. This interim program envisages returning 25 talented migrants, recruiting 100 excellent young staff members in the academy a year, and investing a million and a half in research infrastructure to attract excellent researchers in experimental sciences. The program was defined as an emergency step (on the individual level) until the Shochat Committee recommendations are implemented. Israel cannot become part of the “brain exchange” that is the result of globalization because of Israel’s language and unique conditions of life, education, and

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security. For this reason, it is claimed, Israel should focus on preserving its human capital, emphasizing the importance and centrality of the Hebrew language in light of the country’s young age and necessity to build and deepen the national and cultural identity, and on the national and religious versus universal and global values in children’s education—in the context of the constant insecure situation as a result of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For months in 2008, President Shimon Peres has been working on the formulation of his own economic plan together with senior economists, army heads, and leaders of the three political parties: I forecast that the industry of the future will be based on five central areas, which are renewable energy, water technology, stem cell research, homeland security and interactive education technology. In all of these areas, Israel already has a reputation and thus should use the global crisis as an opportunity and a chance to keep its leadership position. For this purpose, the government should implement a 10-year tax exemption for everyone who wants to invest in these fields, in research, development, and production, from the date that the investment begins yielding a profit. The new economic agenda needs to include efforts to bring back Israeli scientists from abroad and in parallel the government must expand the research and development budgets of the Chief Scientist to NIS one billion for investment into these five areas rather than the addition of the NIS 200 million as planned.

 valuation of Migration Policies: Legitimatizing the “Unholy” E Alliance of Brain Strain, Brain Gain and Brain Drain in the Migration Drama 2009: First Results The Ministry of Finance and the Council for Higher Education’s Planning and Budgeting Committee has announced that 104 Israeli scientists returned from overseas positions during the 2008–2009 academic year and had already been absorbed into new positions created at the country’s seven universities. Salary levels were not the deciding factor for leading academics returning to Israel; the highest priority of Israeli scientists overseas was maintaining their research infrastructure and being able to continue their work unabated once they return, the committee said. Ninety new university positions for the returning scientists who held senior posts were created. The Planning and Budgeting Committee also said that although this was a one-time program, it intends to fight for further investment in bringing scientists home and that it is seeking a similar amount of money or more for future years. According to the Ministry of Immigration and Absorption, about 180 scientists and researchers have been returning each year since 2009. They estimate that the I-CORE initiative would also attract about 200 researchers for each center.

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 conomists’ Comments on the Current Migration Policies E in Action The current situation with brain drain in Israel raises the question whether the current policies should concentrate on returning migrants or rather on dealing with the causes of the brain drain phenomenon and making Israel’s education, tax, and other systems more attractive to everybody—both inside Israel and throughout the world. Some economists express doubt over the effectiveness of the governmental policy of investing money to return the talent back to Israel. “Most economists would say that policies introducing distortions are not the best policies”, says the head of the economics department of Bar-Ilan University. By distortion economists mean any departure from the ideal of perfect competition. Distortions are said “to interfere with economic agents maximizing social welfare when they maximize their own.” In an interview conducted for this study, he further related: Why should we invest money in returning people while we may do something to keep people? The goal is to have good people in the academy, so the policy should be to help the universities that would be attractive for good scholars, independently whether these are people from abroad or the locals. The general goal should be to have an attractive university system, so we should do the reforms to enhance attractiveness. The discriminative policy can introduce perverse effects. For example, people could start going abroad to benefit from the program. Instead, we should try to have good competitive environments, which we apparently do not have now—people vote with their feet. Attractiveness is about academic excellence, working conditions, salaries, research budgets. We also should do more to benefit from the business and academic connections with the diaspora. Businesspeople are doing this spontaneously, but academic contacts should be favored with institutional support. We should advance international supervision, use people as bridges. We can also curb some brain drain by having more attractive tax systems, but again not in favor of scientists from abroad. To my mind, the answer to the brain drain should be global and should not discriminate between the “brains” from abroad and local scientists.

A professor in economics from Hebrew University expressed a similar opinion: The point is not how we should return the scientists. Only those who want to live in Israel will return, not necessarily the best ones. I decided to come back from the US. I liked it there, but here I am at home (i.e., patriotism). So, I came back in spite of the ridiculous salary and other problems here. Besides, we have few positions here, and this cannot be drastically changed. The real problem is that we cannot compete with the academic departments abroad (brain strain at home). We should think about the quality of our departments, the people who can really advance the science, not the quantity. We have too many little departments. If we had just a few, but very good departments, people will come, money will be released. At the moment, the universities receive the money mostly according to the number of students and, to a very little extent, according to research output.

Both scholars propose that it is more important to focus on the causes of the brain drain and improve conditions inside Israel (universities’ attractiveness, quality, taxation, basic research versus applied research) rather than concentrate solely on creating incentives for Israeli from abroad to return home which may forestall more brain strain (i.e., the existence of a very competitive job market for the highly trained Israelis) at home. In addition, both economists express an opinion that policies

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aimed specifically at bringing back Israeli scientists from abroad may lead to a situation where not the best professionals return but rather those who have other reasons to return (which are referred to as “distortions”).

Some Reflections One of Israel’s great successes is in the development of the hig-tech sector. However, more traditional sectors are lagging behind which can restrict the future pool of skilled labor and affect the economic growth of the country. In addition, according to an official we interviewed from the Ministry of Immigration and Absorption, which is responsible for recruiting Israeli scientists back to their homeland, “In spite of a great developmental potential in the field of life sciences, Israel is still not on the map.” Israel’s academy has greatly expanded since the nation’s establishment in 1948. Today four Israeli universities—Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University, the Technion, and Weizmann Institute—are ranked among the top 150  in the world. However, governmental budget cuts have led to many problems, including lack of positions, low salaries, low quality of research, etc. In this Israel sutdy, we have defined the phenomenon of brain drain, stated briefly the theoretical views regarding its positive and negative consequences for the sending countries, and shown the unique situation of Israel as a developed country which loses talent to other developed countries. We have also identified the following five unique characteristics of the brain drain from Israel: 1. Senior academic staff leave the country if they find a position with much higher wages and greater research budgets. 2. Former Russian immigrants did not succeed in applying their skills and education on a desirable level. 3. People holding doctoral degrees often leave Israel to acquire postdoc experience in the USA. This experience is perceived as necessary if one is to find a position in the Israeli academy. 4. Hi-tech specialists are leaving Israel for higher salaries and promotion prospects. 5. Teachers, doctors, and businessmen feel cultural incompatibility with communication styles, values, etc., in Israeli culture. The causes of brain drain in Israel and the factors affecting young people’s decision to leave Israel and to return have been presented. Unemployment and economic opportunities are the main reasons for leaving Israel. Family ties and culture (reconnecting roots) constitute the main reasons for considering a return. We have presented two examples of people from non-academic sectors who decided to leave and return to Israel. Interviews with these people indicate the importance of cultural compatibility with social norms in various contexts—especially, the informal relations and low power distance facilitate work in hi-tech industries but not in the field of education.

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We have shown the great complexity of the brain drain phenomenon in Israel and described the emerging policies on encouraging the return home of migrants. The policies concentrate on providing information regarding available positions both in the academy and in industry and investing money in returning some of these researchers and in creating new positions for them in universities and industry. Some of the dilemmas have been discussed. One of the questions asked is: Who do the programs aim to help? Just a few “stars,” or human capital in a broader sense? Another question deals with difficulties in returning the postdocs and whether the policies dealing with the issue are effective in the short term and the long term. Local economists call for focusing on the causes of brain drain, making Israeli universities and the tax system attractive for Israeli and non-Israeli alike. The Israeli government has named brain drain as a very important problem and proposed a number of policies to resolve the phenomenon. It has promoted a general program which helps returnees ease into Israeli life by offering incentives in the field of taxation and medical insurance, research grants for researchers with five-year experience, etc.; it has invested in the academy to attract scientists from abroad; it has considerably increased the long-term investment in basic research and life sciences. Our Israeli study has arrived at several conclusions: 1. The government should first of all institute internal systemic reforms in different fields inside Israel to deal with the problem of brain drain. These include a more attractive tax system, less taxation on foreign income, high-quality universities, better financing of universities, more investments in basic research in technology rather than only in the applied fields, building more pragmatic connections between the academy and industry, improvements in the education system, and utilization of the local PhD holders. 2. The policies should try to make Israeli universities and other sectors more attractive to Israelis and non-Israelis, including Israelis living abroad and locals. Policies favoring migrants over local talent should be treated with caution in light of the rich human capital inside Israel that is still not put to use. Probably investing money in the scientific diaspora is less costly and more efficient. 3. Single-shot investments in returning the scientists do not take into account the relationship between brain drain and the forces that have caused it. 4. It is important to have detailed follow-up statistics regarding the returning migrants, so that effects of the policies can be evaluated more accurately. 5. Some of the above-mentioned issues are included in the socioeconomic agenda for 2008–2010 presented by the Israeli Prime Minister’s office (Fig. 4.1). Culture and social life are important in that they carry a deep meaning of “feeling at home.” This feeling is particularly crucial in light of Jewish history of the last 20 centuries. It seems that under otherwise equal conditions, talented people would prefer to return to Israel or not to leave it. The importance of “feeling at home” was commented on by most of the interviewees in our Israel study. However, for most young PhD holders, staying in Israel is not an option as there are few positions available in the Israeli academy, hence the problem of brain strain.

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Increasing the effectiveness of the tools by streamlining databases

Infancy

*Improving the standard of care in daycares and nurseries *The “Good Start” Program

Children and Teens

*Re-starting education reforms *Implementing the Schmidt Report

Pre-Employment

*Civil service, procuring skills and removing obstacles *Reforms in higher education

Working

*Individual tools – “Mehalev”, “Tevet”, professional training *Negative income tax *Enforcement of labor laws, the matter of foreign workers *Encouraging innovation in traditional industries and services *Dealing with poverty and unemployment

Retirement

*The streamlining and concentration of the system of old age allocation *Mandatory pensions *Reverse mortgage plans, encouragement of community volunteering

Fig. 4.1  The socioeconomic reform agenda and policy for Israel, 2008–2010

In addition, each year, another thousand and a half people become PhD holders. The current policies in regard to returning scientists may succeed in bringing back about 200 scientists, although even this is not certain: the Ministry of Immigration and Absorption is currently criticizing the Ministry of Finance for investing only 95 million Israeli new shekels to finance 104 scientists. “This is a drop in the ocean,” they say. But how would this investment solve the problem of keeping human capital in the country? How is it possible to factor the cost and benefit of local training and foreign recruitment into the equation of human capitalization in the country? How would it increase the overall number of positions? Thousands of young scientists are about to emigrate due to brain strain and other factors such as fighting with the Palestinians. No simple solution has been offered by Israeli scholars. Most of them emphasize the quality of the universities and development of contacts with the diaspora scientists. These recommendations are in line with the Shochat Committee’s recommendations. Besides, high-quality universities will attract more senior staff, and more joint work with scientists abroad will become possible. The issue regarding a fuller realization of Russian immigrants’ human capital is not likely to become a center of attention in the Israeli public discourse. Most people are of an opinion that the Russian Jews are well integrated. Indeed, the fast

References

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integration of almost a million people in such a small country seems miraculous. The fact that this human capital has not been fully realized does not appear to be a major concern either to the Russian immigrants themselves or to the host society, as there are many other urgent matters at hand, for example, security problems, a financial crisis, etc. It is interesting to note, however, that Russian immigrant teachers have initiated a wide independent after-school network in which children can study mathematics, physics, languages, etc. It seems that the Ministry of Education might try to incorporate such a great educational potential into the formal education system in light of the fact that only ten percent of Russian immigrant teachers are currently working in the Israeli education system and that the educational system itself needs improvement. As the Israeli government expects a continuous movement of return migration to Israel, a specific strategy to cater for the reintegration of returning migrants is necessary in order to avoid repeating the loss of talents.

References Beenstock, M., & Ben Menahem, Y. (1997). The labor market absorption of CIS immigrants to Israel: 1989–1994. International Migration, 35, 187–224. Ben-David, D. (2008). Brain Drained: A Tale of Two Countries. Centre for Economic Policy Research Discussion Paper No. 6717. Caplan, T. & Goldmann, G. (2000). Immigration and the labour market: A comparison of the labour market absorption of immigrants to Canada and Israel in the decade of the 1990s. Paper presented at the 8th Biennial Jerusalem Conference in Canadian Studies, Jerusalem – June 25–29. Cohen, Y., & Haberfeld, Y. (2007). Self-selection and earnings assimilation: Immigrants from the former Soviet Union in Israel and the United States. Demography, 44, 649–669. Docquier, F., & Rapoport, H. (2007). Skilled migration: The perspective of developing countries. IDEAS Working Paper Series from RePEc, IDEAS Working Paper Series from RePEc. Docquier, F., & Rapoport, H. (2009). Skilled migration: The perspective of developing countries. In J. Baghwati & G. Hanson (Eds.), Skilled migration today: Prospects, problems and policies (pp. 247–284). New York: Oxford University Press. Easterly, W., & Levine, R. (2001). What have we learned from a decade of empirical research on growth? It’s not factor accumulation: Stylized facts and growth models. World Bank Economic Review, 15, 177–219. Flug, K., Kasir, N., & Gur, O. (1997). The absorption of Soviet immigrants into the labour market: Aspects of occupational substitution and retention. In N. Lewin-Epstein, Y. Roy, & P. Ritterband (Eds.), Russian Jews on three continents: Migration and resettlement. London: Frank Cass. Friedberg, R. M. (2000). You can’t take it with you? Immigrant assimilation and the portability of human capital. Journal of Labor Economics, 18, 221–251. Fujita, M., Krugman, P., & Venables, A. (1999). The spatial economy: Cities, regions and international trade. Cambridge, Ma: MIT Press. Gould, E.D. & Moav, O. (2006). The Israeli brain drain, Report to The Institute for Economic and Social Policy, The Shalem Center. Gould, E. D., & Moav, O. (2007). Israel’s brain drain. Israel Economic Review, 5, 1–22. Gould, E.D., & Moav, O. (2008). When is ‘too much’ inequality not enough? The selection of Israeli emigrants, www.cepr.org/pubs/dps/DP6955.asp Lach, S., Shiff, G. & Trajtenberg, M. (2008). Together but apart: ICT and productivity growth in Israel. CEPR Discussion Paper 6732, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. Lazear, E. (1995). Personnel Economics (p. 118). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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Leshem, E. (1997). Immigration from the FSU and its absorption: Social research in Israel (1990-1994). In E.  Leshem & D.  Sor (Eds.), Immigration and absorption of Former Soviet Union Jewry. Jerusalem: Henrietta Sold Institute. Ministry of Industry. (2008) Trade and employment and the applied economics and bio-abroad forum http://www.shasnet.org.il/Front/NewsNet/reports.asp?reportId=127643. Nathan, G. (2017) The OECD Expert Group on Migration Annual Report: International Migration – Israel, 2016–2017. Remennick, L. (2002). Survival of the fittest: Russian immigrant teachers speak about their professional adjustment in Israel. International Migration, 40, 99–121. Romanov, D., Tur-Sinai, A. & Eizman, G. (2008). Over-education, Job Mobility, and Earnings Mobility among Holders of First Degrees in Israel. Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. The Jerusalem Post. (2007). Brain-drain threatens to set back hi-tech. Retrieved from https://www. jpost.com/printarticle.aspx?id=81365 on 29 December 2019.

Chapter 5

Conclusion

Migrants typically strive to have two main types of needs gratified: instrumental needs and expressive needs. This instrumentality-expressiveness typology of needs corresponds to two types of functions, namely, instrumental and expressive functions of all social systems ranging from societies, communities, and organizations to families, small groups, and dyads (Guzzetta 2004; Gmelch 1980). In this study of return migration, we note that Israeli, Singaporean, and Hong Kong return migrants, whether they are deciding to leave their countries of origin in the first place, or subsequently deciding to leave their host societies to return home, negotiate and strategize to find a balance between both types of needs and, if possible, to meet all of these instrumental and expressive needs. Instrumental needs refer to economic, physical, material needs that accrue from gainful work, business enterprise, or investments which ensure a person’s daily livelihood and economic survival or well-­ being. We may call these tangibles, countables, accountables, or the more objective, “hard” needs, which many economists, pragmatists, policymakers, journalists, and even migrants themselves would consider as “primary needs,” needs of the first order, or Type 1 needs. Expressive needs refer to emotional, cultural, sentimental, or what social psychologists would call socio-psychological needs, which have much to do with feelings, compatibility, intimacy, closeness, kinship, sense of comfort with others, neighborhood, community, nationhood, or even peoplehood. We may call these intangibles, less countables and accountables, or the more subjective, “soft” needs, which anthropologists, culturalists, psychologists, social psychologists, poets, novelists, travelers, and dramatists would consider as “secondary needs,” needs of the second order, or Type 2 needs. Although considered “soft” or “secondary,” these needs are equally powerful, more inner, more lingering, perhaps belonging more to the heart, the soul, than to the mind which often preoccupies itself with economics, rationality, and physical survival. Type 1 and Type 2 needs represent two contrasting needs of the migrants, or two contrasting motives or functions of migration, be it emigration, immigration, re-­ emigration, or return migration. Contrasting and contradictory they may be, however, instrumental and expressive needs, according to this conceptualization, © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 K.-b. Chan, W.-w. V. Chan, Return Migrants in Hong Kong, Singapore and Israel, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40963-0_5

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together constitute the core of the migrant’s cravings, yearnings, and desires. When both are met, the individual is satisfied, contented, even happy. When only one type of need is met, the individual remains dissatisfied, discontented, restless, unhappy, and in limbo—thinking of moving yet one more time, and then again, and again. We have observed that Singaporeans and Hongkongers have decided to leave the West and return home for two main reasons: to fulfill instrumental and expressive, or economic and socio-emotional, needs. They have found better work and enjoyed higher income in Singapore and Hong Kong, and they want to be closer to or take care of aging parents or relatives. The Singapore government has put into practice a host of policies and measures to meet their economic as well as non-economic needs, the latter increasingly a lot more so than before, having to do with the so-­ called heart-ware, a rhetoric of the sense of home, belongingness, and peoplehood. Hong Kong falls behind on both counts. In the West, these Singaporeans and Hongkongers encounter racial discrimination at work and in everyday life, living out a life of social distance from mainstream society in an ethnic enclave of other Asians. They also complain about the high crime rate, the heavy tax burden, and a Western-style democracy that does not work. Unhappy at work and at play, they come home. Now, having been back home for years, these returning natives, while being happy with their improved economic well-being and with a government that strives to meet their diverse needs, have discovered that friendships are superficial and shallow in a fast-paced, capitalistic society and a work culture that remains unreceptive to return migrants’ ideas about creativity, innovation, and changes. They find themselves working in an organizational and governmental bureaucracy that is top-down and controlling (though recently, especially in Singapore, this shows signs of easing up), and living in a community that by and large treats the returnees with suspicion and distrust. While Type 1 needs are met, Type 2 needs are not. These return migrants from Singapore and Hong Kong are still in disequilibrium—a state of psychic restlessness, a doubleness, a duality. Failing to sink permanent roots in Singapore or Hong Kong one more time, they cast their sights beyond the homeland, perhaps back to the West where they once were. The underlying driving force of their continued mobility probably takes the form of an “expressive lack” because their Type 2 needs of emotionality or expressiveness remain unfulfilled in a society whose main value is materialistic. The life stories and experiences of the Israeli migrants in our study present a contrasting picture. Israelis left their homeland primarily for occupational reasons: to obtain professional qualifications, to gain overseas work experience, and to acquire work skills, values, competencies. One can say that their needs at the time of emigration to the West were Type 1. While in the West, these Israelis, like the Singaporeans and Hongkongers, lived among their own ethnic kind, in an enclave community which keeps a social distance from the majority of Anglo society—a lifestyle which has proven to be alienating, dissatisfying, demoralizing. These Israelis are not exactly happy at work in the West either, complaining about a kind of distant formality and calculatedness in the overall work culture which could be rather prejudicial to the ethnic outsiders. So, some of these native sons and daughters of Israel decide to return, to go home. It is clear that cultural, familial,

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socio-emotional rather than economic or work considerations predominate in their deliberations about return migration. Coming home is motivated by a desire to be back with the people of homeland, the family, the kin, the culture, the local ways of everyday life. The Israeli returnees speak freely and sentimentally about the meaningfulness of cultural compatibility, kindred feelings, interpersonal intimacy, domesticity. Parents want their children to receive their education in Israel. The returnees now feel close to the ground, the native soil: they feel “at home,” emotionally integrated, psychically all in one piece. But not all is well. Our Israel returnees, being professionals, scientists, intellectuals, academicians, are discontented with many things: the lack of a job market in universities or research institutes; the academia being an archaic institution that resists change; a reward system in academia based on seniority and connection, not on performance; an inability to transfer skills learned in the West because of the lack of local, culture-specific knowledge. They face downward occupational mobility, a mismatch between skills and work placements, and opportunities for only seasonal employment, or worst of all, unemployment. The Israel scenario is the opposite of the Singapore and Hong Kong scenarios. While Type 2 needs are met, Type 1 needs are not met. Though for different reasons from those of their Singaporean and Hongkonger counterparts, our Israeli returnees share with them a similar state of inner turmoil, a disequilibrium, a restlessness, which may drive them to move on. Their continued mobility, after their sojourn in their native land, may be driven by an “instrumental lack” because their Type 1 needs of economic pragmatism remain unfulfilled. Thus far, our analysis and interpretation of the dynamics of decision-making about migration and of the dual needs of the migrants takes the individual return migrant as the locus of attention which is typically the case in migration theory and research. Our picture of the Type 1 and Type 2 needs of the migrant is further complicated when we—and we should—take the family as the unit of analysis, and see the migrant family as a contested terrain in which the drama of gender and generation politics is being played or acted out. For example, in the cases of the Singaporeans and Hongkongers (Chan 2008, 2013), husbands go home for economic reasons, while their wives and children trail behind, following the major “breadwinners,” but feeling disgruntled. The wives lament about an Asian work culture that exploits family time and emotions, and merely pays lip service to the rhetoric of work-life balance. They thus yearn for the quality of family life in the West, now all gone in Singapore and Hong Kong and pushed into the background, a place of nostalgia, a past mode of life sacrificed for the gratification of Type 1 needs while Type 2 needs are put on hold. Children and adolescents of return migrant families experience a different kind of life trajectory. Having been exposed to a kind of schooling in the West that is exploratory, democratic, fun-filled, creative-­ innovative, free and open, these children now suffer from serious psycho-social problems of adjustment at school and at play. Being vocal, assertive, expressive, and critical, the children present a differentness to their teachers and peers that is often constructed as an ethnic stigma, an easy target of prejudice and discrimination. As it happens, like their mothers, these children yearn to return to the West from Singapore or from Hong Kong—which set off the acting out of gender and generation politics at the heart of the return migrant families (Chan 2013).

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Complex as it may be, our portrayal of the migrant family drama is necessarily further complicated by forces of globalization, now that the Singaporean, Israeli, and Hong Kong returnees have worked and lived in the West and have experienced the cross-currents of multiculturalism and transnationalism. Many of them report profound personal change. They have learned that things done in one way can often be done in another way. They are aware of the artificiality and, therefore, changeability of all things. There are no givens, but only possibilities, options, alternatives—alternatives to loyalty, commitment, citizenship, nation-state, nationalism, patriotism, even the idea of home. Having been in more than one place, these returnees have earned their multiplicity, their hybridity, their plurality, their doubleness (Chan 2012). Now back home in Singapore, Israel, or Hong Kong, they cannot help looking over their shoulders, casting their eyes “over there,” a home they once set up in the West, their friends and colleagues left behind but still in touch with—a form of transnationalism in the Chinese or Israeli diasporas. Home is no longer confined to one place, one site, one people. An old order of one loyalty, fixed boundaries, singular locale, family togetherness, fixed or unchanging friendships, and parochialism has been displaced by dual or multiple loyalties, porous or invisible boundaries, geographical scatteredness, family dispersal, transient and superficial friendships, and world-­smartness. Home, and belongingness, is here, there, everywhere—or nowhere. The simultaneity of such postmodern binaries as past and present, global and local, East and West, here and there, instrumental and expressive, husband and wife, parents and children, male and female, self and family, citizenship and nation-­ state—which together constitute the core of the personal and collective imaginaries of the return migrant—poses a formidable challenge to the migrants as individuals and as members of migrant families, as well as to the nation-states which, like it or not, have already been deeply implicated in a global race for the talent of the creative class which include these worldly, world-smart, intercultural return migrants. Our conceptualization of the dual needs of the migrants, their Type 1 and Type 2 needs, has deep implications for governments that are tasked with developing strategies and policies to lure their prodigal sons and daughters to come home, to help further develop their talents and skills acquired while overseas, and to persuade them to stay home to make their filial contributions. It is clearly the primary responsibility of the governments in Hong Kong, Israel, and Singapore to formulate innovative policies to meet the return migrants’ work, business, and other economic needs, the so-called hard needs of Type 1. An equally important but often overlooked responsibility is that of emotionality and expressiveness which pertains to the “soft needs” of Type 2 and which are more difficult to fulfill because they are more subtle. One wonders if such “emotional labor,” or what family sociologists or feminists call “doing emotion work,” is best done by informal, voluntary groups in civil society, communities, neighborhood districts, professional, religious or leisure organizations, family and kinship networks, or even the workplace. The overall goal is for migrants of Hong Kong, Israel, and Singapore to each find their own pathways to a good life in a good society. A person would say he is living a good life when he is physically and psychologically content. A good society seldom loses sight of the

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duality of material and non-material needs. Besides a social contract of pragmatism and practicality, a good society also needs to be compassionate and sympathetic, and to have a heart. To do that, society would need to work out a cultural, even psychological and spiritual, contract with her members—be they locals or migrants— which strives to achieve internal solidarity, sociality, and even sentimentality.

Comparing Public Policies on Return Migration Despite their diverse overseas experiences, the returnees of Hong Kong, Singapore, and Israel responded to their respective government’s call to return to their countries of origin to make a contribution: be it building a new homeland for survival among the Jewish people returning to the Biblical “Promised Land” (“aliyah” in Zionist discourse) in post-War Israel; promoting a pragmatic policy of economic-­ technological re-vigorization and competitiveness in Singapore or Hong Kong; or achieving a global ethno-religious reunification and reconciliation in Israel, Singapore, or Hong Kong. On a macro-level of policy analysis, it can be observed that these government policies are premised largely on push factors (circumstances that push migrants away from their host countries) and pull factors (forces that lure them back home). These push-pull factors, when couched in macro-level policy terms, could be seen to be driven by a combination of political, religious, economic, social, cultural, or even mythical measures currently adopted by the state. Viewed from a more micro/meso-level, returnees from Hong Kong, Israel, or Singapore thought that their countries of origin would be a desirable place to resettle in—with the hope that they would reconnect with their former community networks that were severed after emigration. But after a careful assessment of the personal or familial costs and benefits of return, they were greatly disappointed. Many returnees soon found that they had miscalculated or underestimated the risks and benefits of return and were consequently caught in the thorns of conflicts. The cost of miscalculation resulted in massive re-adjustment difficulties in the workplace—largely in terms of an incongruity of work ethics and management culture between the origin and host societies. For example, Hong Kong’s work culture manifestly stresses Western-style meritocracy, equality, transparency, and accountability, while the unwritten latent rules are ones of authoritarianism and hierarchy that reward conformity and engender discriminatory practices. Western-style work creativity and innovativeness are paid lip-service, overlooked, or even punished because they pose a threat to the status quo and to the vested interest of those in power. It also mirrors a problem of a more micro-level (or even hidden) nature involving social-psychological dynamics and interpersonal relationships that macro-government policy often fails to detect, arbitrate, and resolve. On the policy level of political-economy, the “outsider” returnees, be they Israelis, Singaporeans, or Hongkongers, are often locked into conflicts of interest and power struggles with the local stayers, be they professionals or rank-and-file

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blue-collar workers. Other returnees are troubled by a mismatch between their skills acquired overseas and the local market demand. Returnees and locals are divided by different life experiences and cultural values. As a result, few returnees in Israel, Singapore, or Hong Kong saw their source countries as a place to retire in permanently. These places are merely a stopover in the never-ending odyssey of “circuit migration.” On the labor-economics policy front, employees’ job-hopping practices were common among the highly qualified returnees who sought in their countries of origin a fulfillment of their ambitions and expectations that they had developed overseas, while trying to fit it and reintegrate upon their return. Social integration has been a major issue on the policy agenda of many Eastern and Western governments which have traditionally received a large number of immigrants, especially when their economies are weak. They eagerly seek to integrate immigrants into society’s mainstream life. On a personal level, many returnees have succumbed by “falling into” conformity, adjusting or accommodating their selves to the prevailing work norms and ethos. But, meanwhile, sadly, they begin to lose their creativity and innovativeness earned while overseas. For other returnees, it is a withdrawal—whether from work, family, or society. Some returnees find consolation in religious and cultural organizations, but are nevertheless cut off from the mainstream, facing alienation at home. In response to such a disheartening condition, our return migrants have developed a range of coping strategies which include perceptual techniques whereby the returnees adjust their styles of thinking to fit the external realities, as well as behavioral techniques comprising seeking out others who are like themselves for social affiliation, comfort, and support. Many returnees build their community beyond Hong Kong, Israel, or Singapore, accessing resources left behind in the West—an effective practice of transnationalism. Still others respond to blocked opportunities by putting to good use their entrepreneurial and transnational communication skills acquired in their migratory experience. When asked to give advice to others who might be considering a return to Israel, Singapore, or Hong Kong, our returnees stressed the need for “anticipatory preparation” prior to their departure from the West—a psychological readiness for a stressful, fast-paced way of life and “reverse culture shock” upon coming home.

 oward a Universal Policy on Return Migrants T and their Reintegration Different attempts have been made to articulate policies, measures, and programs within a universal, non-country specific framework to bear on return migrants and their reintegration in their origin countries (The Advisory Committee on Aliens Affairs 2004; Rien van Gendt 1977). Several dominant themes emerge from these attempts, which provide a broader universal framework to inform and rationalize

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policy recommendations specific to countries and cities—as we have put forward in our preceding chapters on Hong Kong, Singapore, and Israel: 1. Utilization of Savings Concerted economic activities combining the employment of returning migrants and the utilization of their savings are a constructive strategy from a developmental point of view. When a return migrant spends his money in a productive way, in exchange he does not only receive a rate of return on his capital, he also may be employed and becomes actively engaged in the productive activities of his origin country. There are various ways in which the relation between utilization of a migrant’s savings and employment in the origin country can be materialized: the establishment of co-operative ventures; a system of buying shares in public enterprises; savings banks creating job opportunities by offering credit to enterprises but requiring them to hire returnees; government and commercial banks stimulating return migrants to deposit their savings or apply for low-interest loans and to embark on a concerted effort of creating enterprises or other forms of business ventures. 2. Employment Services Origin countries may need manpower for different sectors of their economy, while returnees may not on their own find a job on their return. This relates to how information could be obtained both with respect to the supply of work and its demand. Information is needed about the supply of job opportunities and vacancy situations to provide returnees with the support needed for their reintegration. A network of employment services on the regional and/or local level is essential. Information about the demand for work will come from the returnees ideally when they are still abroad and want to return. Such information could be obtained by foreign offices and representatives of the origin country. There should be close cooperation between local employment services, authorities of the home/origin countries and host countries, which could be facilitated by regular exchange of government officials, seminars, and other forms of fact-finding visits—to improve the flow of information about potential returnees’ needs as regards employment and other resettlement services. Job creation in economic sectors in collaboration with industrial and commercial proprietors can be achieved not only through job creation projects with other institutions (e.g., education, religion, agriculture, the public sector) but also through the stimulation of mobility to other newly created sectors and regions, i.e., a redistribution of workers instead of jobs. 3. Training Needs and Structures The need to organize training courses for returning migrants is self-evident. Even if some skills and training are acquired abroad, this may often turn out to be not very useful to the home/origin country since the host country and home country may be at different levels of socio-economic development and have different manpower needs, hence the need for training courses geared toward the reintegration of return migrants. Such courses can be organized by both public and private sectors. For the public sector, it could be in the form of cooperation between departments, ministries

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(especially labor and education), and vocational training organizations. Bilateral agreements may be negotiated between host country and home/origin country about organizing such courses. At the same time, the private sector should be encouraged to recruit and retrain/retain returnees for tailor-made (purpose-designed) tasks—in some cases, with government subsidies and bonuses or tax concessions. 4. Social Services Special educational provisions will be needed in the home/origin country to facilitate the readjustment of children of returning migrants, notably in the mastery of their native language and other problems caused by their long stay abroad. Such children may not only be torn between two languages but also between two cultures without being versed in either, a condition of a bilingual semi-literacy that requires remedial education. Measures need to be taken to avoid downgrading children’s academic qualifications acquired abroad, while formulating rules concerning school admission qualifications and validation of certificates obtained overseas. Good housing is a very important part of successful reintegration. Returnees typically use up a considerable part of their savings in the purchase of a flat or the construction of a house. In some cases, the government restricts the freedom of returnees to construct houses where they like. 5. Information Provision For an effective reintegration of return migrants, the provision of information is extremely important—on employment, salary, cost of living, housing, education of children, transfer of social security entitlements, vocational training and utilization of savings, etc. An extensive network could provide information during the various stages of the return movement, utilizing the press, TV, radio, special brochures, churches, orientation meetings, NGOs, associations or societies in overseas ethnic/ religious communities, and embassies and consulates abroad. The relationship between returnees and local residents of the home/origin countries is a long-neglected, under-studied area in reintegration in particular, and in immigration in general. If and when the home/origin government gives preferential treatment to returnees, the locals often feel discriminated against and get jealous, and tensions and animosities may occur between the returnees and the local residents who have never emigrated. The home government should have a policy that anticipates any such ethnic/diasporic polarizations, taking into account the perceptions and grievances of the locals vis-à-vis the returning migrants. A two-way stream of information flows and feedback system should be set up by the host and home/origin governments with the participation of the returnees themselves as the central link. This way, the perception and experience of the return migrants themselves could be considered. Neglecting the voices of the return migrants themselves detracts from and distorts the quality of decision-making on public policies. At least three periods could be identified during which feedback from the return migrants could be sought: (1) while they are still abroad; (2) shortly after their return; and (3) a certain time after their return when the reintegrating services would have already accomplished at least partially their missions.

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Decision-­making on reintegration could also be improved if officials from both the host and home countries could spend some time in the host country to learn about the problems of the returning migrants. Bilateral agreements on a wide range of reintegration measures could be reached between the two governments. 6. Need for an Integrated Public Policy The reintegration programs should be seen in the broader framework of a national development strategy of both the host and home countries, comprising a variety of policies on employment, wages, education, health (mental and physical), and housing. The dual (host-origin) function of reintegration means actual support being given by the host country to the returning migrants and relating this support to the general development of the home/origin country. To establish and nurture such a relationship, the respective objectives and tasks of reintegration on the one hand, and of national development on the other, should be compatible with each other. Reintegration programs should not provide a permanent preferential treatment of returnees but rather a well-meaning, positive discrimination strategy for only a limited period of time to facilitate re-adjustment. There should be equality between returnees and local residents, for example, in employment, welfare benefits, and other social services. A well-coordinated reintegration program of this sort should be an integral part of a coherent national development policy-strategy—with a vision about a future, a vision that anticipates an intimate relationship between migration and development. Reintegration policies and programs should avoid fragmentation of institutions in aims and methods. A coordinated horizontal approach is needed to ensure that measures, policies, and programs are complementary to and reinforcing each other, for example, as regards the relations between employment and training, utilization of savings, construction and purchase of residences, and vocational training and education of migrants’ children.

In Reflection: Thinking Back and Forth, Back and Forth Returnees have been elsewhere, most having sojourned in the West for many years and thus undergone some profound personal transformations at a deep existential level (Sussman 2011, 2013; Salaff, Wong and Greve 2010; Salaff and Greve 2013; Chiang 2011). They have learned through re-socialization in foreign lands during their life journeys of migrancy to put on a pair of comparative-relative lens to see life, living, existence, and the world. Upon coming home, Singaporeans and Hongkongers were nostalgic about having lots of time and space while in the West to amuse themselves as family on picnics, fishing trips, or long-distance driving in the countryside. This sense of nostalgia is embedded in mourning the loss of freedom, individualism, and self-autonomy which are taken for granted in the West but are an everyday struggle back home—resulting in suffering in the workplace, in politics. In the public sphere, they gave up their hard-earned creativity and have

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begun to behave just like the locals, conforming, going through the motions, following others, keeping things to themselves. In the private, domestic sphere, they recreated, reproduced, and transplanted, as often as possible, a Western lifestyle back home (Sussman 2011, 2013). While in a foreign land, the migrants and their families agonized over whether, when, how to return home (Salaff, Wong and Greve 2012; Salaff and Greve 2013). This was a complex, painstaking decision-making process marked by a calculus of costs and benefits at both individual and familial levels, which indeed is the core of our study reported in this book. Now back home, they cannot help comparing their life experiences in their native homes and former host societies. While Tsuda (2009) argued “most ethnic return migration has been primarily a response to economic pressures,” we in this book reiterate that returnees strive to obtain satisfaction in both instrumental-economic (Type 1) and expressive-­emotional (Type 2) needs. Failing to fulfill either of these two types of needs, the returnee remains unsatisfied and continues to think about moving on, once again, once more (Chiang 2011). Tsuda (2009), and Markowitz (2012), who reviews the former’s book, asks: What happens when the diasporas come home? Why do the natives and the homecomers “find fault with each other as they discover differences and then delineate boundaries that divide one uniting nation into opposing cultural groups?” Why are both sides mutually frustrated and what explains this mutual hostility? Why do returning ethnic migrants (the movers) disappoint and are disappointed by their sedentary hosts in the homeland (the stayers)? Why are hopes on both sides dashed?

There are several answers to these questions. For one, Tsuda (2009) points to the importance of not assuming a “seamless fit between co-ethnics,” a common mistake in policy formulation and folk wisdom. The mover-returnees are unhappy and disappointed because they have been profoundly changed by their migrancy (Gmelch 1980). There is the paradox of the “problem of similarity” (Tsuda 2009): returnees are expected to be similar to their sedentary co-ethnics, who are shocked to discover they are not and thus insist such differences must be disciplined and subject to punishment. Feeling mistreated and disappointed, these returnees have come to realize their homecoming does not mark the end of their journeys of onward mobility. When and where will these returnees move next? Are they billiard balls whose fate are in the hands of players who themselves must mediate between their skills and hopes on the one hand and laws of physics on the other? Or are they captains of their own ships which themselves are at the mercy of nature, of fate and destiny, of God? Now back “home,” they eke out an existence betwixt and between a changed past and an unknown future, in limbo, a third time-space that bears all the hallmarks of postmodernity: ambivalence, provisionality, precariousness, disequilibrium, contradictions.

References

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References Chan, K.-b. (2008). Transnationalism and its personal and social consequences for Chinese transmigrants. World Futures, 64(3), 187–221. Chan, K.-b. (2012). A returnee’s hybridity: Its upside and downside. In C. Pluss & Chan, K.-b. (Eds.), Living intersections: Transnational migrant identifications in Asia (pp.  19–35). Dordrecht: Springer., 2012. Chan, K.-b. (Ed.). (2013). International handbook of Chinese families. New York: Springer. Chan, K.-b., & Chan, W.-w. (2011). Mobile Chinese Entrepreneurs. New York: Springer. Chiang, N. L.-H. (2011). Return migration: The case of the 1.5 generation of Taiwanese in Canada and New Zealand. The China Review, 11(2), 91–124. Gmelch, G. (1980). Return migration. Annual Review of Anthropology, 9, 135–159. Guzzetta, C. (2004). Return migration: An overview. In D.  Drachman & A.  Paulino (Eds.), Immigrants and social work: Thinking beyond the borders of the United States (pp. 109–118). New York: Howorth Social Work Practice Press. Markowitz, F. (2012). Ethnic return migrations—(are not quite)—Diasporic homecomings. Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, 16(1/2), 234–242. van Gendt, R. (1977). Return migration and reintegration services. Paris: OECD. Salaff, J.  W., & Greve, A. (2013). Social networks and family relations in return migration. In  Chan,  K.-b. (Ed.), International handbook of Chinese families (pp.  77–90). New  York: Springer. Salaff, J. W., Wong, S. L., & Greve, A. (2010). Hong Kong movers and stayers: Narratives of family migration, Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Sussman, N.  M. (2013). Reforming family among remigrants: Hongkongers come home. In  Chan,  K.-b. (Ed.), International handbook of Chinese families (pp.  53–76). New  York: Springer. The Advisory Committee on Aliens Affairs (The Netherlands). (2004). Return migration: Policies and practices in Europe. Geneva: IOM-OIM. Tsuda, T. (Ed.). (2009). Diasporic homecomings: Ethnic return migration in comparative perspective. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Author Index

A Abdullah, M.A., 102, 103 Adam, B., 2 Alba, R., 44 Antonovsky, A., 84 Appadurai, A., 24 Aydemir, A., 44 B Bailey, A., viii Baldassar, L., 18 Barrett, A., 1 Basch, L., 17 Beck, U., 2 Beenstock, M., 151 Bell, C., 27 Ben-David, D., 147, 150, 154, 161, 162 Ben, M.Y., 151 Bhabha, H.K., 7 BIan, Y. J., 45 Borjas, G.J., 44 Bratsberg, B., 44 Brickell, K., 20 Bunyan, J., 29 Burt, R.S., 45 C Caplan, T., 150 Carmo, D.R., 20 Cerase, F.P., 36 Chang, S.L., 44, 45 Chan, K.-b., vi, vii, viii, 11, 16, 18, 19, 23, 24, 26–33, 38, 84, 90, 91, 102, 103, 113, 138, 181, 182

Chan, R.K.H., 102, 103 Chan, W.-w., vi, vii, 18, 19, 30 Chiang, C., 29 Chiang, N. L. H., vii, viii, 187 Chong, T.-m., 19, 30 Chong, V., 112 Chung, R., 111 Cohen, J.H., 17 Cohen, Y., 151, 156 Coleman, J., 24, 30 Conway, D., 17 D Datta, A., 20 Da Vanzo, J., 15 Docquier, F., 151, 152 E Easterly, W., 151 Ebrey, P.B., 25 Ee, A.H.L., 113 Erikson, B., 45 F Faist, T., 3, 17 Featherstone, M., 16 Flores, J., 1 Flug, K., 150 Folkman, S., 23, 79 Fran, T., 30 Friedberg, R.M., 150, 151 Fujita, M., 151 Fukuyama, F., 30

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 K.-b. Chan, W.-w. V. Chan, Return Migrants in Hong Kong, Singapore and Israel, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40963-0

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Author Index

192 G Gabbay, S.M., 45 Gill, B., 44, 45 Glick-Schiller, N., 13 Gmelch, G., 179 Goldmann, G., 150 Gould, E.D., 152, 154, 155, 157, 158, 168 Granovetter, M., 44, 45 Greiner, C., 19, 20 Greve, A., vi, 45, 187, 188 Guarnizo, L.E., 17, 20 Guzzetta, C., 179 H Haberfeld, Y., 151 Harbison, S.F., 16, 20–22 Hay, C., 6 Hedberg, C., 20 Hondagneu-Sotelo, P., 18 Hugo, G., 14 I Ikas, K., 7 Inglis, C.B., 46 Itzigsohn, J., 17 J Jaworsky, N.B., 18, 19 Joshi, R.M., 17 K Kobayashi, A., 82 Koh, E., 107 Krugman, P., 151 Kuptsch, C., 103, 104 Kurien, P., 19 L Lach, S., 149 Law, A., viii Lazarus, R.S., 23, 79 Lazear, E., 157 Lee, M., 45 Leshem, E., 151 Levin, D.A., 44 Levine, R., 151 Levitt, P., 13, 18, 19 Lewis, A., 24 Ley, D., 45, 82

Lin, N., 45 Lin, W., 105 M Markowitz, F., ix, vi, vii, 188 Massey, D., 20 Mayr, K., 15 Ma, Z., 23 Mazzucato, V., 18 McDowell, L., 16 McLaughlan, G., 101 Merton, R.K., 90 Mills, C.W., 91 Moav, O., 152, 154, 155, 157, 158, 168 Morawska, E., 13, 14 N Nathan, G., 167 Nee, V., 44 Ngan, L.L.S., 32 Núñez-Madrazo, C., 20 O Oakes, T., 20 P Pang, E.F., 101, 103, 104 Pappenheim, F., 32 Parrenas, R., 18 Pearlin, L.I., 23, 82, 91 Peri, G., 15 Pluss, C., 113 Portes, A., 8, 17 R Rapoport, H., 151, 152 Remennick, L., 151 Robinson, C., 44 Romanov, D., 167 Rumbaut, R.G., 8 S Sakdapolrak, P., 19, 20 Salaff, J.W., vi, viii, 10, 43, 45, 187, 188 Salih, R., 19 Salt, J., 101 Schacht, R., 10 Schein, L., 20

Author Index Schooler, C., 23, 82, 91 Seet, C.S., viii, 11, 27–29 Smith, M.P., 20 Stefansson, A.H., vi Sussman, N.M., vi, viii, 187, 188 T Takeyuki, T., vi Tham, S.C., 28 Tian, F., 23, 44, 45 Tong, C.K., 26 Tonnies, F., 32 Trager, L., 20 Tsuda, T., 188

193 Venables, A., 151 Vertovec, S., 17–19 Vining, A., 4 W Wagner, G., 7 Wang, C., 16, 26 Waters, J.L., 43 Weimer, D., 4 Wong, S.L., 187, 188 Wong S.L., vi Wortzel, L.M., 27

U Urry, J., 17

Y Yap, M.T., 106, 107 Yeoh, B.S.A., 101 Yoon, B. S. L., 44

V van Gendt, R., 184 Velayutham, S., 107, 117, 119, 136, 137

Z Zhongdong, M., 44, 45 Zweig, D., 23, 44

Subject Index

A Acceptance, 64, 65 Accommodation, 67, 68 Adaptive strategies, 22 B BioAbroad hi-tech field, 166 reduction, brain drain, 166 Brain drain, 148 academic positions, 155 costs, 2 factors influencing Israelis’ decision to return, 157, 159 Kate and Alexander, 1990, 159 low salaries and tax burden, 155 non-academic sector, 160–161 Paulina, 159 reasons, 155 scientific research, funds, 156 from Singapore, 114 Brain gain, Israel country-specific skills, 151 Former Soviet Union, 150 FSU immigrants, 150 human capital-corrected earnings, 151 C Capital transfer, 2, 22 “Chain migration”, 54, 63 Chan TAPA Experiential Cycle, 38, 39 Chinese culture, 29 Chinese diasporic communities Chinese transmigrants, 29

community development, 23 component/indicator, 30 de-alienation, 24 ritual process, 24 social capital, 25 Chinese migrant transnationalism, 24, 25, 33 Chinese-style corporate culture, 57 Chinese transmigrants, 24, 25, 28, 33 Community development, 23, 24, 31 Conflicts at work, 69 Confucian ethics, 26, 27, 30 Confucianism, 25, 27 Contact Singapore, 104, 117, 137 Contemporary professionals, 20 Coping behavioral-expressive, 23 behavioral-instrumental, 23 behavioral strategies, 23 Chinese migrant transnationalism, 33 definition, 23 responses/strategies, 23 Coping strategies, 184 ‘Core transnationalism’, 17 Cost-and-benefit analysis analytical framework, 3 external factors, 4 host and origin country, 4 impact efficiency/efficacy, 3 imperfect market information, 21 location-specific capital, 21 migration and re-emigration decision-­ making, 3 multi-goal policy analysis approach, 4 policy impacts, 4 policy options, 5 to state policy, 3

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 K.-b. Chan, W.-w. V. Chan, Return Migrants in Hong Kong, Singapore and Israel, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40963-0

195

Subject Index

196 Cost-and-benefit analysis (cont.) sub-national government, 4 targeted groups, 4 Cost-and-benefit analytical framework description, 3 micro-economic theory, 36 public policy forecasting, 22 Singaporeans attracting and hiring foreign talent, 111 migration decision-making, 135–138 Costs and benefits of human capital growth gordian knot, 161, 162 I-CORE, 164, 165 Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 163, 164 Ministry of Immigrant and Absorption, 165, 166 Shochat Committee, 162 Council for Higher Education (CHE), 164 Country of immigrants, Israel, 148 Cultural contract, 31 Cultural differences, 8 Cultural hybridization, 26, 28 “Cultural misfits”, 71, 77 Cultural relativity, 29 Cultural remittances, 1 Cultural revitalization, 27 D De-alienation human sociability, 29 ritual process, 33 Decision-making in migration behavioral-instrumental aspects, 36 and cost-and-benefit analysis, 36 family-based migration, 16 individual’s migration, 15 international migration and mobility, 35 migration and re-emigration, 3 “Diaspora”, 114 Dilemmas and challenges bringing postdocs back, 168–170 comprehensive reintegration program, 167 economic plan, 172 emergency step, 171 long-term investments, biotechnology, 171 Discrimination, 57, 60 Disintegration, 7 Domestic anxiety, 10 “Double brain drain”, 39 Dual economy, 149

E Economic determinism/pro-humanism, Israel, 157 Economic globalization, 6, 7, 24 Economic immigrants, 12 Economic integration, 13 “Economic remittances”, 1 Education, 5, 22 Elite returnees, 2, 3, 39 Emigrants, Singaporeans, 105, 121, 135, 136, 139 Emotional-cognitive transnationalism, 82 Emotional distress, 9, 10 Employment, 5, 30 EntrePass Scheme Singapore, 102 Ethnic networks, 31 Ethnicity, 19, 31 Exchange theory, 30 Expanded transnationalism, 17 Expressive needs, 179 F Factors influencing Israelis’ decision to return, 157–159 Familism, 64, 79 Family, 15, 16, 45 Family-based migration, 15, 16 Flexibility, 64, 65 “Floating identity”, 11 Foreign direct investment, 13 Foreign talent, 111 in Singapore economic success and social progress, 111 employment pass holders, 103 fertility rate, 112, 113 government policies and programs, 111 hiring, 102 as MNT, 112 skilled labor, 111 welcomeness, 111 “Four Modernizations” movement, 27 Futuristic thinking-hope, 64, 65 G Gendered migration behavior, 15 Gesellschaft-like society, 32 Global governance, 6, 7, 13 Globalism, 7

Subject Index Globalization, 14 Globalization and public policy constraining effects, 7 economic globalization, 6 global policy strategies, 6 “invisible hand”, 6 “nomads”, 7 public policymaking, 6 transnational behavior, migrants, 7 Globalization movement, 1, 13, 14, 35 Globalized economic space, 17 Goods and Service Tax (GST), 119 H Hard work, 67, 68, 74 Homecoming, 12 Hong Kong to Canada, 43 Chinese-style corporate culture, 57 “cosmopolitan emigrants”, 43 economic growth, 53 economic reasons, 181 entertainment and fun, 58 job dislocation, 78 office politics, 57 prosperity, 96 return migrants (see Return migrants in Hong Kong) returnee respondents, 46–49 returnees, estimation, 43 society par excellence, 79 Tiananmen Movement, 53 work culture, 51, 53 Housing, 5, 22 Human capital, Israel, 148, 150 Human capital transfers, 2 Human sociability, 29 Hybridity, 68, 71–73 I I-CORE (Israeli Centers for Research Excellence), 164, 165 Immigrants to return of conservatism, 36 of failure, 36 of innovation, 36 of retirement, 36 Immigrants’ transnational activities, 13 Immigrants’ transnational engagements, 13 Immigrant transnationalism efficiency impact, 14

197 globalization, 14 transnational activities, 13 Individual perceptions, 21 Information Communication Technologies (ICT), 149 Instrumental vs. expressive needs, 179 Instrumental needs, 179 Intentional family strategy, 20–21 International mobility, skilled labor, 13 Internationalization, 13 Interpersonal conflicts, 69 Involuntary migration, 15 Israel aliyah, 147 brain drain, 148 demographic growth, 147 immigration wave, 147 Jewish traditional celebration, 147 occupational reasons, 180 promised land, 148 Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 163 Israel Science Foundation (ISF), 156 L Learning, 67, 68 M Marginality, 70, 77 Medical care, 5, 22 Merchants, Chinese, 26, 27, 31 Micro-economic theory, 36 Migrant adaptation, 92, 93 Migrant adjustment difficulties, in Hong Kong conflicts in the family, 70 creativity of returnees, 69 identification and emotional problems, 70 interpersonal conflicts, 69 language deficits, 69 adapting to local cultures and physical conditions, 70 work culture, 69 Migrant coping, Hong Kong return migrants behavioral-expressive coping, 82 interpersonal, 64, 66 intrapersonal, 64, 66 behavioral-instrumental coping, 79, 81 accommodation, 67, 68 changing job/company, 68 hard work, 67, 68 learning, 67, 68

198 Migrant coping, Hong Kong return migrants (cont.) religious participation, 68 seeking information and help, 68 self-improvement, 67, 68 social affiliations, 67, 68 suppression, 67, 68 community sympathy, 83 family support and religious participation, 80 identity, 84 perceptual coping strategies acceptance, 64, 65 familism, 64, 66 flexibility, 64, 65 futuristic thinking-hope, 64, 65 identification, 64, 66 positive comparison, 64, 65, 82 positive thinking, 64, 65 rationalization, 64, 66 transnationalism, 80 Migrant transnationalism and family-based migration, 15–16 and globalization movement, 1 transnational engagements, 13 Migrant’s challenges and coping strategies, 8, 9 Migration, 8 as implicit insurance, 18 motivation, 21 myths, 9 by nature, 10 processual, 8 “push-pull” theory, 10, 15, 36 Migration decision-making returnee Singaporeans “affective nationalism”, 137 benefits, 137 challenge, 138 destinations, 135 emigration, 135 nation-state, 136, 138 return migrants, 138 Migration policies, 172–174 costs and benefits (see Costs and benefits of human capital growth) dilemmas and challenges (see Dilemmas and challenges) Migration propensities, 1, 20 Multiculturalism, 8, 10 Multi-national talent (MNT), 112 Mutual aid organizations, 30

Subject Index N National Science Foundation (NSF), 156 Non-white immigrants, 8 O Overseas Singaporean Unit (OSU) blogs, 116 Contact Singapore, 117 GST, 119 MOE, 118, 119 multi-agency programs and initiatives, 116 OS Clubs, 116 portal, 116 programs, organization, 115 role of unit, 115 SIF, 117 “Singapore Day”, 116 P Personalised Employment Pass (PEP) Singapore, 103 “Pilgrim migrants”, 24, 34 Planning and Budgeting Committee, 172 Plight and delight, Hong Kong return migrants adjustment difficulties (see Migrant adjustment difficulties, in Hong Kong) creativity and innovativeness, 68 “dis-community”, 71 global person, 72 hybridity, 68, 71 migrant coping (see Migrant coping, Hong Kong return migrants) returnees as “cultural misfits”, 71 social capital, 71 Policy efficiency and efficacy, 5 rational, 6 Policy recommendations Hong Kong government after returnees’ arrival, 94 articulation, 95 assessment, 96 business and work opportunities, 95 democracy, 97 dissatisfaction, 96 diversity and multiculturalism, 95 economic policies, 94 education system, 93 executed before returnees’ arrival, 94 labour costs, 97

Subject Index multicultural and tolerant society, 94, 95 open-minded officers, 94 skills and work experience, 97 small-to-medium-sized enterprises, 97 social policies, public administration and governance, 94 “soft culture”, elements, 93 work performance and achievement, 95 younger returnees, 97 Singaporean government affective ties, development, 143 buildings and functions, 127 coordination, regional and national levels, 141 Direct School Admission exercise, 140 diverse opinions and inclusive society, 144 education system, 140, 141 globalization, 106 healthy work-life balance, 143 policymakers, 105 quality and extend education opportunities, 106 quality of society, 107 recreational possibilities, 143 reintegration assistance programs, 141 returnees and local residents, relationship, 142 returnees, need services, 142 style of government, 106 view returnees positively, 142 websites, information, 141 Policymakers, 1 Political allegiances, 3 Positive comparisons, 61, 64, 65, 82 Positive thinking, 64, 65 Potential migrant, 21 Power geometry of time-space compression, 20 Powerhouse in generating innovations, Israel, 149 Prosperity of the Israeli academy and research staff, 150 “Push and pull” factors, 2 “Push-pull” theory, 10, 15, 36 R Rationalization, 63, 64, 66 Reintegration assistance programs, 141 Religion Chinese migrants, 26 cultural conflict, 28 practicing rituals, 27 and rituals, 25

199 Religion-cultural revitalization, 26 Religious participation, 68 Remittances, 17, 18, 21 Repatriation policies, 44 “Re-sinification”, 29, 75 Re-socialization, 75, 85, 187 Resource allocation, 5 Returnees “floating identity”, 11 in intercultural situations, 12 modern, 11 social hybrids, 12 social integration, 7 Returnees’ difficulties and coping strategies, Hong Kong attitude, 60 career development, 54 contagious viral illness, 51 culture shock, 59 dissatisfaction with career progress, 53 emotional and social challenges, 57 emotional bonding, 54 emotion-oriented, 52 internal conflicts, 52 lifestyle, 53 mutual understanding, 58 parental encouragement, 56 personality style, 50 professional training, 60 racial discrimination, 50 readaption, 50, 53 religious life, 51 remuneration, 52 self-esteem, 54 social participation, 54 Returnees’ problems and dilemmas Singaporean, 132–133 Return migrants in Hong Kong adaptation, 73 community, sub-culture and social affiliation, 86 English language advantage, 77 family, 45 hiring for jobs, 44 identification, 86 industry-level factors, 44 interpersonal conflicts and tensions, 74 occupational experiences, 76 personal attitude and conduct, 86 socio-economic and rational choice models, 44 “re-socialization”, 75 timing of return, 45 web of social relations, 45 wife’s self-sacrifice, 74

200 Return migrants in Israel benefits, 149 brain drain, 174 cost and benefit, 176 culture and social life, 175 dual economy, 149 economic growth, 174 friction and tension, 149 human capital, 176 long-term investment, 175 nine in-depth interviews, 148 non-academic sectors, 174 objective reality, 148 research and development programs (R and D), 149 single-shot investments, 175 socio-economic reform agenda and policy, 176 unemployment and economic opportunities, 174 Return migrants in Singapore adjustments, 123 “children’s education”, “push” factor, 106 conferences, 105 cosmopolitan Singaporeans, 105 economic needs, 105 economic performance, 121 emigrant Singaporeans, 105 job transfer, 122 level of emigration, 106 lifestyle, returnees, 123–124 OSU (see Overseas Singaporean Unit (OSU)) personal gains and losses, 130 physical environment, 125 pull factors, emigration, 119, 121 push factors, emigration, 120 re-adjustment experience, 131–132 reason for returning, 121, 122 returnee with school-aged children, 122 returnees’ participation in Singapore community, 131 the Singapore diaspora, 119 work environment, 124–125 Return migrants’ re-integration employment services, 185 information provision, 186 public policy, 187 social service, 186 training courses, 185 utilization of savings, 185 Return migration anticipatory preparation, 184

Subject Index coping strategies, 184 economic-technological re-vigorization, 183 expressive-emotional (Type 2), 188 global ethno-religious reunification and reconciliation, 183 in Hong Kong adaptation, 93 circuit migration, 87, 91 factors associated with return migration, 61–63 “family affair”, 88 mobile sociology, 91 parental hopes, 56 rationalization, 63 as huge benefit, 2 human migration, 35 instrumental-emotional (Type 2), 188 job-hopping practices, 184 micro/meso-level, 183 motivation, 3 policy implications, 13 political-economy, 183 postmodern binaries, 182 postmodernity, 188 problem of similarity, 188 pull factors, 183 push factors, 183 push-pull factors, 183 risks/benefits, 183 “self-selection” process, 35 in Singapore characteristics, returnee respondents, 109–110 early Chinese and Indian migrants, 108 family solidarity, 127–128 government’s polices, 105 political environment and perception of change, 126–127 regional migration and regionalization, 105 satisfaction of return, 128–129 social action and public policy, 35 social integration, 184 and transnational migration, 2 Return migration movement Singapore, 141 Returning to Singapore, 105, 123, 130, 139 Revitalization movement, 26 Ritual process Chinese culture, 33 Chinese diaspora, 24 defined, ritual, 25

Subject Index diasporic communities, 24 mobilization, 24 and religion, 25 revitalization, 26 in Singapore, 26 Russian immigrants, 150 Russian immigrant teachers, 177 S Scathing post-colonial critiques, 7 Secularization movement, 32, 33 Self-improvement, 67, 68 Singapore adjustments, 123 attractiveness, 104 birth rate, 113 citizen/permanent resident, 103 cost of living, 104 economic growth, 101 economic reasons, 181 employment passes, 102 EntrePass Scheme, 102 foreign labor policy, 101 foreign talent (see Foreign talent) GDP growth, 101 government policy, 103 internationally mobile talent, 103 “national problem”, 112 non-resident workforce, 101 PEP, 103 political stability and continuity, 104 price- and non-price mechanisms, 102 “S” work pass, 103 talent management policies, 102 tax rates, 104 TFR, 112 WHP Programme, 104 Singapore government economic strategy, 108 emigration, 135, 136 encouragement, 105 immigration of foreign talent, enhancement, 114 “remaking Singapore”, 140 return migration polices, 105 “survivalism”, 107 university, 106 Singapore International Foundation (SIF), 117 Single-shot investments, 175 Social affiliations, 68 Social capital description, 24

201 development, 31 social norms, 30 Social costs and immigration trade-offs, 23 Social integration of returnees, 7 Social liability, 45 Social norms, 30 Social welfare, 5 Socio-economic inequality, 149 Special-need education, 20 Strategies for coping returnee Singaporeans, 133–134 Structural context, 21 Suppression, 67, 68 T Technocratic elites, 27 Third space, Homi Bhabha’s theory, 7 Tiananmen Movement, 50, 53 Total fertility rate (TFR), 112 Translocalism, 19, 20 Translocality, 19, 20 Translocal life experiences, 20 Transnational migrants authenticity, 19 capitalism, 17 political impacts, 19 “push and pull” factors, 2 social and cultural impacts, 18 “superiority of one country two systems”, 19 Transnationalism definition, 17 forms, 17 immigrant transnationalism, 13 mobile immigrant entrepreneurs, 18 patterns, 17 topographies, 17 translocality, 19–20 (see also Transnational migrants) ‘transnational communities’, 17 Tribalism, 8 Trust, 30 Trustworthiness, 30 U Universal policy on return migrants, see Return migrants’ re-integration W Web of social relations, 45 Work-Holiday Pass (WHP) Programme, 104