An increasing number of Chinese migrants to Hong Kong are changing the spelling of their surnames to avoid discrimination in the former British colony, a report said yesterday.
Lawyer Raymond Tang told the South China Morning Post that his firm was seeing more China-born clients legally changing the romanized spelling of their names to appear more like local Hong Kong residents.
For example, some Mandarin-speaking Chinese clients would ask to have “Zhu” changed to “Chu,” and “Zeng” to “Tsang,” he told the paper.
The romanization of names in China and Hong Kong is based on the pronunciation of Chinese characters in their respective languages — the Chinese dialect Mandarin and Cantonese in Hong Kong.
“Some names in Putonghua [Mandarin] pronunciation start with ‘X’ or ‘Z’ and many new migrants from the mainland want to change the spelling of their names to [local usage] in order to sound like a Hong Konger who grew up in the city,” Tang told the newspaper.
“Some whose names are only two characters also want to change them to three, as names with two characters are more common on the mainland,” he was quoted as saying.
Statistics from Hong Kong’s Immigration Department showed there were a monthly average of 105 name-change applications in the first nine months of this year, higher than in the previous four years, the paper said.
Despite their geographical proximity, the cultural and economic development of Hong Kong — which was returned from British to Chinese rule in 1997 — and China are vastly different.
In the past, Chinese visitors to Hong Kong often complained they were discriminated against and laughed at because of their accent and “cultural backwardness.”
The situation started to change in recent years, however, as China becomes a strong backbone for Hong Kong’s economic development. Recent cases have seen Hong Kong people complain that some businesses, especially high-end retailers, are focusing their attention on super-wealthy mainland Chinese customers instead of locally born shoppers.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
Myanmar yesterday published a parliamentary bill proposing the death sentence for those who detain or violently coerce people into working in online scam centers. Internet fraud factories have flourished in Myanmar, part of Southeast Asia’s scam economy, targeting Internet users worldwide with romance and cryptocurrency investment cons. The multibillion-dollar black market attracts many willing employees, but repatriated foreigners have also reported being trafficked to sites in Myanmar and tortured by scam center operators. The draft legislation would allow capital punishment for “violence, torture, unlawful arrest and detention, or cruel treatment against another person for the purpose of forcing them to commit online scams.” The
RSS