[Poll] Stay or Leave Hong Kong

[Michael Tsang]

Move to Ottawa, Canada. There's a lot of IT industry there that pays good salaries and they constantly have races, triathlons, etc. There's also a massive provincial park starting almost at the centre of the city which is hilly terrain and excellent for trail orienteering. The weather is cold, but it does have hot summers. People speak English to boot. With good IT qualifications you should have no problems immigrating. Property is also cheap. For HKD 2.4 million you can have a house right next to the provincial park with 1 acre of land.

I want to go to Europe, not North America because of orienteering and better labour protection. In particular, I will not emigrate to the U.S. under any circumstances because there are no annual leaves, and no medical protection in the U.S. It is even worse than mainland China.

[civil_servant]

I want to go to Europe, not North America because of orienteering and better labour protection. In particular, I will not emigrate to the U.S. under any circumstances because there are no annual leaves, and no medical protection in the U.S. It is even worse than mainland China.

I see. Good luck to you then.

[HK_Katherine]

I want to go to Europe, not North America because of orienteering and better labour protection. In particular, I will not emigrate to the U.S. under any circumstances because there are no annual leaves, and no medical protection in the U.S. It is even worse than mainland China.

Canada is very different to the USA. I would not group them together in any decision.

[Bernadette J W]

You could decide on places in Europe that you think might be good and apply for jobs there.

[Mrs. Jones]

I want to go to Europe, not North America because of orienteering and better labour protection. In particular, I will not emigrate to the U.S. under any circumstances because there are no annual leaves, and no medical protection in the U.S. It is even worse than mainland China.

Sounds like The Netherlands might be a good fit for you! I would move back there in a heartbeat if I could.

[Skyhook]

Now just over a year since we left, I've noticed a few positive benefits over this period of time:

We have not come down with anything in regard to cold and flu, no coughs or sniffles the whole time we have been back.

LOVE food and ingredient shopping again, it really has been great. A lot easier for us getting all manner of ethnic ingredients, be they Asian, Continental European, Mediterranean or Arabic, we're very happy as a result.

Traffic and parking.. I cant even remember the last time i was bothered by either, and its quite nice being able to park your car out front of a friends home or a childs activity and not clock watch or having to be forced to park your car in a privately owned car park, as there is more than enough publicaly available free parking. LOVE IT !

Waiting in queues ? I was thinking about this yesterday, as I visited the our local Queensland transport department, as I popped in at 9;15am to order classic ( black and white ) number plates for our car as the front standard one on our car looked a bit tatty, so, decided to get a better looking set of plates a our car is black metallic.. all done and dusted in 15 minutes ! I find things actually work quite well minus lots of people around, again, we LOVE IT!

The Aesthetic of where we live.. Its very nice driving up to our home as we enter a very pretty tree line street with in flower poinciana trees and our 75 year old leopard trees, which is very pleasant and to me looks nice having wide fronted properties dotted along our no through road.

The best thing of all for me though, is, I'm being a local for a change. Not having to reexplain vernacular to other token expats and if there are any present they generally play nice. Ive noticed socially it's back to the way it used to be before I left, streets are quiet during the evening, and people invite you over to their place for dinner parties where we drink and eat together and it's just so chilled and relaxed... no more silly political arguments or mind numbing discussions about sport that I've never had any interest in, which is bloody fantastic .I also really enjoy eating out at mid to high end restaurants here, appreciating skilled chef plated food without any disappointments. so far so good.

Overall, it is just so very easy to go about ones day to day activities, our children love the variety that they have now, and as parents we enjoy doing those things with them because it is just so easy and care free.

Another thing I've noticed is that, our outgoing expenses to run our household in a healthy manner, has dropped off dramatically, we arent spending anywhere near what we were in HK. Utility costs for the size of home and the land that we have, vehicle maintenance and running a car, clothing, food, and very fortunate that we don't drink regularly or smoke, so for us, our costs have been quite low.

Most importantly, thanks to the environment of where we live, people are friendly and easy going, we are very relaxed and content. I've also noticed that our pets ( dog and two cats) are also very happy with their new space here in Australia.

In a nutshell, we have had a very successful move back ' home ' without any negative side affects, in fact I'm even ok with the tax differential, these days I have nothing to prove and we have enjoyed our international sojourn, but it really was time to get off the merry go round and start ' living ' life on our terms, nobody else's.

If you are finding HK a bit much as a family, moving back home will be well worth the effort, relocating..it was very straight forward for us and hitch free..

zero regrets

[MABinPengChau]

Umm, leaving Monday...moving date up from 19 August...now it's rather sudden...business partner is afraid I will get stuck here so off to Taipei for an exciting two weeks of quarantine...good times coming...

[vmlinuz]

I am feeling the time of leaving approaching...

[pumi23]

We are also leaving after 16 years in Hong Kong :-(

[Gatts]

Umm, leaving Monday...moving date up from 19 August...now it's rather sudden...business partner is afraid I will get stuck here so off to Taipei for an exciting two weeks of quarantine...good times coming...

Why would you be stuck?