He and his wife, Ardis, who was a training officer for a restaurant chain, saw the way things were going early and got out with their five-year-old daughter, Ellie, before the newspaper was shut down. They headed for Leeds, popular with Hong Kongers and where Hui has a cousin. They brought just 20 boxes of possessions – as well as a not insignificant £1.2 million from the sale of their house in the New Territories.
For now, Hui is delivering meals for a Chinese takeaway, while his wife works in a warehouse. But they have already bought a three-bedroom Redrow semi which will adjoin a house bought by friends from home. And Hui is already doing freelance photography – as well as thinking of setting up his own Chinese takeaway. Ellie, meanwhile, loves her new school.
The Hui family’s is a classic story of the Hong Kong newcomer, with its themes of foresight, bravery – they had never been to the UK – self-reliance and financial savvy. There is another sub-theme, too; they are vocally grateful to Britain – and specifically to the Conservative Government – for letting them take refuge here and are patriotic towards their new country.
“We will never be able to go back to Hong Kong,” says Michael, a young former democracy campaigner, now living in Kingston, “but we’re still proud of it and we don’t want to give it a bad name.” Previously an event organiser, he quickly trained as a men’s barber when he got to London. He is now planning his own salon – before long, he hopes, a chain of them.
And therein lies one of many peculiar features of this wave of immigration, which could soon make ex-Hong Kongers one of the most sizeable groups to settle in the UK.
‘They are ready to work from day one’
Economists have taken note that almost half plan to start their own business – and have the money to do so – that most are aged 30-50 and all are well educated with good English and more than 10 years’ experience in a professional field. This makes them a huge asset – especially to a tired old country with 2.5 million job vacancies.
Politically, however, it is treading on thin ice to applaud a huge influx of anglophile, entrepreneurial Chinese people, suggesting as it does that other waves of immigration have been less successful for one reason or another. Which would be rather hurtful to millions of already successful, patriotic immigrants and their children born here.
So, search for a public figure of Right or Left saying outright that the Hong Kongers are an asset and you will not find much – even though they patently are. Conservatives, additionally, must have realised that three million or so new citizens who are effectively fleeing socialism – and are hugely thankful to British Tories – could be quite helpful at the ballot box in the near future.
Left-wing commentators, meanwhile, have already been growling that “the good migrant narrative” is racist, even if it is celebratory. Academics, similarly, have weighed in against stereotypes of Hong Kongers’ self-reliance and industriousness.
Ex-Hong Kongers are a very unusual immigrant population. Some have drawn parallels to previous waves of talented, educated settlers whose lives had been made intolerable by hateful dictators, but rose quickly to the top of all walks of British life. Think only of the Jews fleeing Hitler in the Thirties and the Ugandan Asians thrown out by Idi Amin in 1972. But numbers in each case were tiny – there were just 28,000 Ugandan Asian refugees – and both groups arrived in Britain largely penniless. Most now fleeing Hong Kong are bringing their money with them and are, as one technology company boss keen on employing as many as possible said last week: “Plug and play – they are ready to work, and work smartly, from day one. We have been hugely impressed.”
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