August, 2006

Rediscovering Multicultural Community

Jason Too Kin-wai, executive secretary

About 20 youngsters of various ethnic backgrounds —Chinese, Pakistani, Nepalese, Indonesian—joined an overnight camp on the rooftop of a Christian church in a grassroots district during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. It was one of the activities of the programme Re-engineering Journey of a Multicultural Community: Building, Caring and Sharing Sham Shui Po, or ReMi.com, a programme jointly organised by a local church, two community centres providing services for ethnic minorities and the Hong Kong Christian Institute (HKCI) from September 2005 to January 2006. Its aims were to eradicate ethnic prejudice and to build an inclusive multicultural community with people of different cultural, religious and language backgrounds through a series of cultural activities.

Before the camp, the participants had begun a multicultural journey to get to know each other, to learn about Chinese and South Asian cultural and religious backgrounds and to grasp a brief profile of the Sham Shui Po community. These youths, recruited from local high schools, universities and community centres, tried to understand the communities of Sham Shui Po by mapping a community landscape, making home visits, conducting interviews and taking pictures and videos of what they saw.

Rediscovering Multicultural Dimensions of Community

People, community and relationships are inextricably intertwined together. One cannot grasp any of these without the others. As Carol Wong, a participant, observed, the general impression of the community was its "busy, dirty and chaotic." When she and the others began to explore the community though, Carol found that the people are hard working and began to appreciate the harmony between all walks of life.

People: The first experience the participants encountered was getting to know people of other ethnic backgrounds in terms initially of cultural customs, food, festivals, religions and so on. As they knew more about each other, they began to collaborate in groups in alternative tours to explore the life of the elderly, religion and food. These visits were an opportunity for them to investigate the pluralistic social space which accommodates different groups of people in the community. They found different people engaged in different activities at different times: Muslims had their morning prayer at 5:00 a.m.; workers in a Chinese barbecue shop had already roasted pigs; young men delivering newspapers and young women sorting and packing papers; old women selling vegetables dumped from a nearby vegetable wholesale market.

Community: Sham Shui Po has a higher proportion of disadvantaged people—new immigrants, elderly, low-income families and ethnic minorities—than other districts. It is often described as poverty-stricken. ReMi.com encouraged the participants to reflect upon this image by personal encounters with the people there. In family visits, participants met a Pakistani family and a new immigrant family from mainland China. A 60-year-old Pakistani father told us his story, in fluent Cantonese, that he has been in Hong Kong for more than 30 years but has no Chinese friends. He had Chinese co-workers in his workplace, but they never spoke when they were not working. He always comes across difficulties in looking for jobs. He has been given various excuses—he cannot read and write Chinese, and he has a beard, for example. Working 12 hours a day as a watchman, he barely is able to support his family. He and his son and nephew can only afford a small eighth-floor flat in an old building without an elevator—a learning experience for the participants about the struggle for subsistence.

Relationships: During the ReMi.com programme, participants were also encouraged to examine the factors behind what they saw: Why do new immigrants come from mainland China and South Asian countries, for instance? What difficulties do ethnic minorities encounter in their daily life? What are the driving forces behind urban (re)development in the community and in Hong Kong at large? Most importantly, government officials, district councillors and community leaders were exposed at a forum to the realities of life in the district. Voices from the ethnic minorities had rarely been heard previously in the community. Tam Kwok-kiu, chairman of the Sham Shui Po District Council, admitted at the forum that nothing had been done for the ethnic minorities in the district council, indicating that the forum had successfully aroused the awareness of the government and district council. A Pakistani participant, Zafar, was the first ethnic representative invited to be a committee member promoting civic education in Sham Shui Po. The Social Welfare Dept. in the district has also shown interest in cultural sensitivity training for their frontline staff as proposed by one of HKCI's partners, the YMCA Cheung Sha Wan Centre.

Although the forum was intended to be the conclusion of the ReMi.com programme, both the participants and organisers have deeply felt that we should move forward and promote the idea of a multicultural community. Having consolidated the experiences and materials, a multicultural educational kit, including a VCD and booklet, was produced for schools, churches and social service centres. As well as being a record of ReMi.com, it assists teachers, students and youth explore the local community. ReMi.com organisers are also willing to help organise multicultural workshops.

Theological Reflection on Neighbourhood

Thus far, we have been invited to share our experiences in two local churches. In addition to the experiences of ReMi.com, I also have shared my reflection on the idea of neighbourhood from the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37). The story shows that it is what we do to others that make us neighbours to others, not the other way. Neighbourhood is not defined by who you are; neighbourhood is about relationships. Moreover, this type of relationship conveys how other people relate to each other, and hence, it is a mutual relationship.

The story of the Good Samaritan has a further implication: the ethnic boundaries were trespassed and the conventional idea of neighbourhood was challenged. Neighbours not only live beside us; neighbours are no strangers to us. They can be Jews, Samaritans, Chinese, Pakistanis, Indians, Nepalese, Sikhs. When we look at the story of Hong Kong, many people came from different places of origin. Hongkongers, coined as a local identity, are not restricted to Chinese but also include Pakistanis, Indians, Filipinos, Indonesians, etc. People with different ethnic origins came and settled in Hong Kong—all are Hongkongers. Jesus' story of the Good Samaritan challenges our idea of neighbourhood. Neighbours are not people of the same origins but also of different origins. To love my neighbour demands concern and care to others. This is what a multicultural community means.