Moving Family from NC to Hong Kong

[hk2006]

I will be moving my family to Hong Kong in September. We have a million questions and hoping this forum can help answer a few. I'll be commuting to Shenzhen daily while my wife and 2 young kids will be staying in Hong Kong.

Recommendations on 3 bedroom apartment complexes around 40K HKD?

TV, does US satellite TV (i.e DirecTV work in HK) is there any other way to get US TV feeds?

Thanks,
HK2006

[PDLM]

I'm curious about these type of arrangemnets too, so a couple of questions of mine for anyone who's actually doing this:

- how do you get a visa to live in HK if you are employed in the Mainland? (assuming your company doesn't also have an office in HK)

- how do you deal with taxes? (it seems to me that you're going to be taxed at the (relatively large) mainland rates rather than the HK rates since that is where you are employed, and tax goes, normally, by place of employment not place of residence)

- how do you cope with spending hours of you life each week stanind in queues at immigration? (this must be, what, a 3-4 hour per day total commute time)?


To address one of the OP's questions - where you want to live will depend on two factors:

- how you will commute to Shenzhen (train, ferry, helicopter, private car) determines the starting point so presumably you want to be near that to avoid extending the coimmute even further. The choice of the best mode of transport will depend to some extent on where exactly your place of work is in Shenzhen.

- where your kids will go to school (since many of the "best" schools are far from the Chinese border you will be trading off their commute time against yours)

[KnowItAll]

>> how do you get a visa to live in HK if you are employed in the Mainland?

PDLM, becoming very common now, for the trading / sales offices in Hong Kong to carry the visa for their expats who will be working in China on the manufacutring side of the business.

>> TV, does US satellite TV (i.e DirecTV work in HK) is there any other way to get US TV feeds?

Abandon hope of getting most US networks... specially Showtime and HBO .. their asian channels are pathetic.

For more info on the channels available .. http://www.nowbroadbandtv.com

[greentea]

I will be moving my family to Hong Kong in September. We have a million questions and hoping this forum can help answer a few. I'll be commuting to Shenzhen daily while my wife and 2 young kids will be staying in Hong Kong.

Recommendations on 3 bedroom apartment complexes around 40K HKD?

TV, does US satellite TV (i.e DirecTV work in HK) is there any other way to get US TV feeds?

Thanks,
HK2006

You can find a decent apartment in New Territories East with HKD40K/month. Suggest you to choose Shatin, where allows you to travel to SZ conveniently. Also, your kids can attend the International School in Kowloon Tong.

[hk2006]

I've actually had several people now recommend NT to me on this forum and others. My concern to this point with NT has been the number of other english speaking expats for my wife and kids to socialize and make friends with. Is this a problem? Are there certain areas, complexes that are better for this?

[ballerina]

Hi,
my husband and I moved from LKN (lake norman) to HK 4 months ago, where are you from in NC? We live on the Kowloon side, and I belive the further away you go from the HK Island side the less western people there are, 85% westerners live on the island side, 10% in the NT and 5% live in Kowloon.
We lived in a serviced apartment for 3 months, so we could take a good look around and find the best place for us.
If you happen to come to HK before you actually move, I suggest you pick up a copy of the book Routes to Roots "settling in Hong Kong" by Icy Kwok it is from 2003, but I still found some useful advise in it. They also have a website www.routestoroots.com.hk and it is available at amazon.com.
Good luck, Hong Kong is an exciting place to be.
Ballerina

[Sleuth]

It will be hard to be around most of the American expats if you are working in SZ. Might want to consider Kowloon Tong if the NT is too much of a cultural shock.

PDLM--We have been told by our tax guys (E and Y) that if you live in HK and commute to SZ you have to make sure that your corporate tax story is the same as your personal tax story; that the HK government will pull your border crossing records and try to figure out how much time you spent working on each side of the border and that they are also savvy to expats conducting email business at night back in HK. We will end up with personal returns in the US, HK and SZ. Good thing someone else is doing them because I doubt Turbo Tax could handle it.
Also, the key to the border is figuring out the crush hours but you have to be cognizant of the tax implications of returning to HK every day at 2 (or whenever).

[hk2006]

We live just outside of Raleigh, NC. We are moving with our (will be 2.5 year old and 10 month old) in September. Neither are in school, so we're not worried about schooling. Just looking for a child friendly community (close to play grounds, parks, swimming, etc). Also want to be able to walk to grocery and shopping areas. We plan on living on HK Island. Anyone ever heard of the Bel-Air complex? Any thoughts on that? Also, does anyone have any tips on furniture? We're not bringing anything from home and don't plan on buying top-of-the-line furniture for the 2 years we'll live there. Thanks for any thoughts.

[ballerina]

Hi,

there are a lot of choices for furniture, for one there is IKEA, I do not know if you are familiar with the brand, but it is very popular in Europe, it is not expensive but of course it is not the best quality, but it will last you at least for 2 years. Check it out www.ikea.com. Now if you prefer something more traditional or chinese style, there is a huge shopping plaza called Ap Lei Chau, it is off the island side by Aberdeen, it has 27 floors of furniture shops, and also some clothing outlets and some kids stores.
I loked up Bel-Air, and I found Bel-Air on the Peak, it is in Wah Fu on the other side of the island, if that is the place you are going to be, it looks a bit remote to me, there is no MTR nearby, you may heve to resort to bus or taxi to go anywhere. But maybe there is someone else here on the forum that knows the area.
I hope this helps a bit, if you wish you can also send me a PM, and I would be glad to answer any questions you and your wife have.
Ballerina

[Sleuth]

On Ikea, I brought home a HK catalog and we compared it to the US catalog. In many cases an item from Ikea in HK costs more than the same item in the US, so Ikea might not be quite the bargain it is in the US.
Have you tried searching Bel-Air in the forum searches? I seem to remember reading about it before.
Stanley and Repulse Bay are good HK island expat choices. Very child-friendly and the air is better than the air on the Central side of the island.