Thanks for this insight. Both my boys will eventually attend school in DB. The wife and I also dread moving there. Maybe a few more years of driving them to Tsing Yi and I might change my mind.
Thanks for this insight. Both my boys will eventually attend school in DB. The wife and I also dread moving there. Maybe a few more years of driving them to Tsing Yi and I might change my mind.
Thank you for your comment. I was going to take the advice of the other person, who said I had better not write any more about this sensitive subject.
Only two or three years ago, this kind of Moslem/Middle-Eastern shroud and veil was never, or hardly ever, seen in residential districts of the New Territories. There has been a social change, which is interesting and worth noting. If the change had been in the other direction - if women were discarding their veils - I think that every commenter here would have welcomed it, and no-one would have said that it was not important, just a fuss about a bit of fabric.
It was careless of me to imply that all Moslem families want to be integrated. However, I daresay there are a few Moslems in HK who do not approve of the trend: they do not want their co-religionists in Tuen Mun to be trench-diggers from generation to generation, and they do not want the women's lives to be thwarted.
As for the women themselves: why have they changed? Has there been peer-pressure, or pressure from the mosque, or compulsion from husbands and fathers? Or, after thought and prayer, have they made a free choice?
I didn't know that. Thank you.
Years ago, I spent quite a long time in India and Pakistan. It may be different now, but at the time 'Moslem' was the word used in both countries, so that's where I picked it up.
[There was a British television discussion programme where a senior politician was berated by a member of the audience because he said 'Afro-Caribbean', not 'African-Caribbean'.]
I didn't read the whole discussion, but here are my 2 HKD:
1. The fact that many "westerners" keep guzzling Stella and fish'n'chips and in general keep behaving as if they never left East End even after 25+ years in HK doesn't mean that it's good to have 4-th generation of Pakistani boys here speak only Urdu or restrict the freedom of their girls
2. Luckily, Chinese seem to be much less susceptible to the political correctness disease currently afflicting the "western" democracies. So, if, *if* there is real danger coming from such self-segregated slices of society, they won't threat too much before taking harsh measures.
Another discussion for another thread, but the NAACP (National Association for Advancement of Colored People) comes to mind. I don't think they represent Brown or Yellow people and I thought that Black is not a color.
(Pin removed, grenade thrown at the crowd.. /over-and-out again)
The muslim community is rather small in Hong Kong, compared to UK, Germany, Sweden or France. So, there is little threat & pressure to the local society to adjust to their needs.
However, even in Hong Kong I noticed that more and more grocery products are halal-certified, such as yogurts, milk, cereals and even tooth paste (!). I was never asked if I wanted to support "The Incorporated Trustees of the Islamic Community". Pathetic.
Larger number of muslims than you'd think - Malaysian, Singaporean, Indonesian.... but they're usually not the conservative types.However, even in Hong Kong I noticed that more and more grocery products are halal-certified, such as yogurts, milk, cereals and even tooth paste (!).
If you don't want to support the trustees, then you know where the pork flavored toothpaste is!