The time is 5 in the morning. Most of the city is still asleep.
In a tiny apartment in Sham Shui Po, a Nepali worker gets up from his bed as he gets ready for work. The first thing he does is checking his phone.
There is a WhatsApp message from his employer:
“No need to come today.”
There is no further explanation from his boss, no promises of whether he’ll be called in tomorrow.
The man sighs in resignation.
It appears it will be yet another day without pay.
***
Such cases are hardly exceptions these days. With how much Hong Kong’s job market has stagnated since last year—with around 55% of recent university graduates still facing difficulty finding jobs—one can imagine how much more difficult it might be for those who do not hold a degree.
In particular, the small scene above is meant to represent the lives of hundreds of Nepali construction workers currently in Hong Kong.
I’m not suggesting that this issue exclusively affects Nepali laborers. The Hong Kong labor workforce consists of workers from across the world, from India to Pakistan and all the way to Indonesia; all are currently crippled by the same crisis. It’s because my ongoing research focuses solely on the Nepali side of the issue. Henceforth, most of my cases for this article will feature examples from their experiences.
The Nepalese have been a part of Hong Kong society for nearly a century now. This community dates back to the height of the British colonial era, when Gurkha soldiers from Nepal were stationed here as part of the British military garrison. After the handover in 1997, many of these men opted to retire and lay down their roots here, and since then, they have integrated themselves into Hong Kong’s very landscape. If you are a local, you may have already seen examples of these in the many restaurants, bars, and even entire thriving communities spanning areas such as Jordan, Sham Shui Po, and, very recently, the Yuen Long district in the New Territories.
The community today includes second and third-generation (and even fourth, in some very rare cases!) Nepalese. These are people who have only known Hong Kong throughout their lives. They include my own cousins: little brothers and sisters who attend the local schools here, learn and speak Cantonese like the rest, and essentially know this city as their home. For all intents and purposes, they are as “local” as anyone else.
And yet, many feel like outsiders. They feel a part of them does not belong. Because that question “Where are you really from?” always lingers in the air, whether intentional or not.
But this is not their story today (as unfortunate as it is for me—perhaps, another time). Alongside this long-established community, Hong Kong has also seen, in recent decades, an influx of a different group of Nepali arrivals: labor migrants.
Now, the term “labor” itself is not meant to be treated literally by its definition, as in, it’s not to be relegated to physical work alone. The current economic situation in Nepal has made life a constant uphill struggle for the average citizen, unless you place all your stakes in finding a future abroad. Migration has become a necessity for many of these families. The phrase “the first thing you do in Nepal once you become an adult is leave” comes to mind.
Some of these migrants consist of those seeking better education abroad, students such as myself (as Nepal’s education system is a failing mess in itself). But more importantly, and in greater numbers, these include the laborers who come to build Hong Kong’s vast infrastructure network.
They consist of men—almost always men—arriving on contracts and visa permits, alone, to work in the construction field. They live in cramped flats, often four or five to a room; they work twelve-hour shifts a day, toiling under the sun; and they do so to send most of their wages home to Nepal, mayhap, to aging parents, to wives and children they have not seen for years. They come to Hong Kong as an alternative because Nepal offers very few alternatives.
Hong Kong has long provided these workers with better wages and a better life (which are difficult to find elsewhere), and though the work is backbreaking, it has always provided a plentiful livelihood for noticeably large numbers of Nepalese families to build their futures on. The labor alone has covered monthly rents, paid for their children’s upbringing, and still left a good amount to support life back home. We’ve reached the point where the Nepalese nowadays occupy a large chunk of the labor force purely because that income has made a real difference. This work supports entire families as their lifeline.
But alas, that lifeline is becoming less secure.
Over the past year, construction companies have increasingly turned to hiring workers from mainland China, particularly from Shenzhen, due to its proximity to and accessibility from Hong Kong. These workers are brought in buses every morning, and taken back to the mainland at the end of every evening. They require no local housing, nor any further investment beyond paying them their wages, which are themselves cheap, and thus they are hired in large groups.
Cheaper workers obviously mean that, for your average long-time construction worker, they are no longer needed.
I’ve already alluded to how Hong Kong has been facing a significant reduction in job vacancies across almost all lines of work, to the point that even with a degree, finding a secure job is an arduous process. Everywhere you go, the market has dried up completely. So, if finding a job is already tough for degree holders, imagine how much worse it is for those without one, or a lack of education thereof?
I have spent several months observing and interviewing Nepali construction workers for my research on the diasporic field in Hong Kong. Youths, Spouses, Parents. Right next to construction sites, at their apartment homes, at bars and tea shops, they gather around. And what I’ve discovered is how crippling it is for these workers to find sustainable work elsewhere. It’s because the local language is alien to them. Many don’t speak Cantonese or Mandarin. In fact, most have trouble stringing together sentences in English, since a large portion come from villages lacking a proper educational foundation. Hence, the only work they are qualified to do abroad is physical labor.
This is not their fault, nor am I trying to paint the mainland workers or the construction companies in a negative light. This is simply the hand life dealt people with. But in a bustling city like Hong Kong, the inability to speak the local language is a death sentence in itself.
Take again, the employment market as an example. When construction work dries up, as it has over the past year, workers look for other menial jobs that do not necessitate an educational background. Catering, cleaning, delivery, security. Almost all of these tasks require Cantonese or basic Mandarin. Even the applications are in Chinese! Without knowing the language, you are locked out before you can even begin making a case for yourself.
One of the people I interviewed had worked in construction site for over seven years. When his contract ended, he tried finding work at restaurants.
He visited thirteen places. Thirteen! And he wasn’t hired because he couldn’t speak the local language. He was thankfully able to find a kitchen job in a Nepali-run restaurant, but even he’s unsure how long it will last.
Another interviewee mentioned the months-long arduous process of coming to Hong Kong and the consultancies he visited. He spoke of the absurd sum he paid to come here, of the stress he experienced while waiting for his results, only to realize it was all for naught as he watched his only lifeline snap away, just like that. Last time I talked to him, he was contemplating throwing in the towel and returning to Nepal because he had no other options left. All those agonizing months of strife and suffering, just to end up back where you started.
Even the relatives I live with, my own uncle—I scarcely used to see him as he had to wake up at 5 in the morning for work, and was gone by the time I woke up, only to return at 7 at night—now, I can’t even see him the evening as he is required to work late into the night to keep his position afloat.
Absurd, isn’t it? Whether it’s somehow intentional or a cruel cosmic joke, my research has shown me that there is a particular cruelty to all of this. The WhatsApp message that opens this essay—”No need to come today”—is almost always written in English or simple Chinese. It is brief, it’s impersonal, and it’s final. There is no room to argue, as the employer has said what they needed to say. The conversation is simply over, and the worker is left holding his phone, staring at a screen that has just erased his income for the day.
Losing wages is one thing in itself, but the impossibility of fighting back, finding an alternative is another. When you cannot read the local language or communicate in the local dialect, you have no recourse. When workers cannot read the language used around them, they are cut off from the systems that govern their lives. The best you can do is either continue looking in vain or accept the silence, while you wait for a message that may never come.
And eventually, many simply stop waiting.
I do not have a solution, nor will I claim to have one by providing options. I don’t have a call to action. I only have stories, and I have tried to tell them as faithfully as I can. The only thing I can really say is to pay heed to these struggles. The next time you walk past a construction site in Hong Kong, look up. See the men in helmets and harnesses, their faces hidden by dust and distance. These workers are someone’s father, someone’s son, someone’s last hope. And they are waiting for a message that may never come—in a language they cannot always understand.