I've finally got my own e-mail account and can join you again!
My name is Angel M. Y. Lin. You can call me Angel (both my Chinese and
English-speaking friends call me Angel :-) )
I was on xmca for the past year when I was working on my Ph.D. in
literacy education in the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,
University of Toronto, Canada. Gordon Wells introduced me to xlchc
and then xmca, which gave me great intellectual and emotional support
when I was going through my Ph.D. journey.
I'm now teaching in the English Department of the City University of
Hong Kong. The teaching load is quite heavy, and there's a lot of
pressure on staff for research publications. (The same language game
everywhere, isn't it? :-))
Hong Kong is a small British colony, a small island located on the
Southern coast of China. If you're flying from San Francisco to Hong
Kong, it takes about 12 hours. Not too far away these days :-)
The official languages of Hong Kong are English and Chinese; the majority
of people are ethnic Chinese and speak Cantonese as their mother tongue.
There is a strong and influential international business community here,
comprising mainly of British, Australian, American, and some Canadian
foreign corporations. They have a great influence on goverment policies,
especially education policies. There is a strong socioeconomic domination
of English in the schooling system and in the society.
China's influence is growing in Hong Kong, too, as Hong Kong is going to
rejoin China on July 1st, 1997, as a Special Administrative Area (SAR) in
China. However, China has promised Hong Kong people that our systems will not
change for the next 50 years.
Hong Kong has been economically competitive since the late 1970s; along
with Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea,--we have been called the "Four Little
Dragons of Asia".
Hong Kong is however a place plagued with contradictions. For instance,
Hong Kong ranked 8th in the 24 "high-income economies" listed in _The
World Development Report 1992_, and yet none of the 24 economies'
highest-earning 20% of households took more than 50% of the society's
total income with the exception of Hong Kong. The social welfare system
here is minimal here. The business corporations have been inporting
cheap labour from other Asian countries (e.g., China, Thailand, the
Phillipines) into Hong Kong, so local labourers have been suffering
from a sustained low salary and lack of employment. Social tensions
are rising, but the government has been paying attention to other political
and economic matters, e.g., negotiating with China over how to use the
large amount of financial reserve of the government.
I see my role here as an educational researcher and an advocate for
better educational and social opportunities for children coming from
disadvantaged backgrounds (e.g., without access to the dominant English
capital). Things are changing rapidly in Hong Kong and many highly
trained people have left Hong Kong for Western countries. Those who
cannot leave feel lonely and pessimistic about our future. However, I can
see that change can be for the better, if only each of us can do our best,
whatever little we can do.
I look forward to rejoining xmca discussions.
Cheers,
Angel
****************************
Angel M. Y. Lin
Department of English
City University of Hong Kong
Tat Chee Ave., Kowloon
Hong Kong
Phone: (852) 2788-8122
Fax.: (852) 2788-8894
****************************