Dr Isabella Ng Fung-shu shares the secret of good research work: sensitivity in your observations, passion for the research, and the desire to uncover the truth

Dr Isabella Ng Fung-sheung, Assistant Professor of the Department of Social Sciences and Policy Studies (SSPS), obtained her MPhil in Journalism and BA in English Literature from Hong Kong Baptist University. After which, she went to the UK to study for a MA in Comparative Literature in the University College London. Dr Ng holds a PhD in Gender Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London.

Dr Ng’s research focus is on Gender and Development in Asia, Feminist Geography, Feminist Research methods, anthropology of migration, migrants and diaspora (Hong Kong and Southeast Asia), rural villages in Hong Kong and China, and media studies. When conducting her research, she draws mainly on her training in anthropological research methods.

Before joining EdUHK, Dr Ng taught at the University of Macau and the Community College, City University of Hong Kong. She also worked as a reporter for Time magazine, covering Greater China region. Dr Ng is the co-founder of Hong Kong Society for Asylum-Seekers and Refugees, which fights for the rights and support the needs of asylum-seekers and refugees in Hong Kong.

Dr Ng’s team is currently working on an EU-funded three-year transnational research project on migration. The project, coordinated by the Université libre de Bruxelles of Belgium, was awarded a grant of more than EUR3.5 million.

Dr Ng: The name of the project is “Decision making of aspiring (re)migrants to and within the EU: the case of labour market-leading migrations from Asia” (AspirE) (Note 1). The project is funded by Horizon Europe, which is Europe Union’s (EU) flagship research and innovation programme.

Europe has long been a destination for transnational immigrants, especially those from Asia and Africa. The AspirE project, which is taken over a three-year period between January 2023 and December 2025, is a collaborative research effort by 13 higher institutions in 11 Asian and European countries. It investigates the situation and thought process of people from the five Southeast and East Asian countries — China (Hong Kong included), Japan, The Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam – who want to migrate or re-migrate to and within the six EU countries — Belgium, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Italy and Portugal.

The project will find out to which extent EU immigration policies influence decisions on migration issues of aspiring (re)migrants. Other factors that affect their migration decisions will also be explored. Through understanding the decision-making process of these migrants, this research project conceptualises the idea of ​​transnational migration, hence contributing to a deeper understanding of the phenomenon.

Dr Ng: The project is designed in such a way that each Asian country is paired up with a European country. In the case of Hong Kong and China, we are paired up with Portugal. My team at EdUHK is responsible for the research work on the migration pattern between Hong Kong and China, and six selected European countries: Belgium, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Italy, and Portugal.

The three-year project is divided into eight Work Packages. Four of which are research-oriented. We have already completed three Work Packages of the project. In the beginning of the research, we conducted document analysis on the mobility policies in six key areas, namely labour migration, family reunification, tourism, investment-based migration, student migration, and Schengen policies, that involves Work Package 2 and part of Work Package 3.

After completing Work Package 2 and part of Work Package 3, the team was required to submit a report on the behaviour of aspiring migrants from Hong Kong and mainland China The concerned report has also been completed (Note 2). It examines the relationships between Hong Kong and China and the six selected EU nations with regards to the six mobility policies being studied in the AspirE project. It also analyses the population and emigration situations of Hong Kong and China to the six selected European countries. It examines the (im)mobility policies of Hong Kong and China within their socio-historical context too.

Dr Ng: The next stage of the project involves interviewing a host of parties who are involved in the migration process. Till now, we have already interviewed concerned government officials, respective consulates of the six selected European countries, immigration lawyers, and agents. Currently, we are conducting interviews with prospective migrants.

Through these interviews, we aim to understand the factors, such as public goods, cost of living, and job opportunities in the relocation countries, that affect aspiring migrants’ decision of moving. In some cases, new migrants moved to another country again after living in their first target country for a while. There are even cases in which migrants returned to their original places. In this phase of the study, we will uncover the reasons behind the movement from Hong Kong and China to the six selected European countries and within these six countries.

In this stage, we also aim to produce a network canvas, which consists of identifying those who helped migrants during their migration process. These people include their friends and family members, and so forth. We target to find out who are most likely to help and influence aspiring migrants during the migration process.

Aspiring migrants might change their views during the course of application and preparation for the migration. To capture the changes of their thoughts and considerations, we will do a series of four video records throughout their migration journey. Focus group interviews with people planning to move to Portugal will also be conducted in Hong Kong. Similar focus group interviews will be carried out in Portugal, capturing the thought process of Hong Kong and mainland Chinese migrants who have started their new lives in Portugal. A final photo exhibition about all the interviewees from the 11 countries will be held in Portugal towards the end of the project.

Dr Ng: My doctoral research was in gender studies. It was during the second year of my PhD studies at SOAS that I came to Wing Ning Lei of the Wang Toi Shan area in Pat Heung North, New Territories (八鄉北橫台山永寧里) for the first time to conduct fieldwork. It was 2008 and the fieldwork was about female villagers who challenged the right for building small houses in villages that only male indigenous villagers are entitled to.

When conducting my fieldwork, I found that there were a noticeable number of ethnic minorities residing there. I also discovered that most of them came from South Asian or African countries who carried a recognizance letter (行街紙). In Hong Kong, asylum seekers can apply for non-refoulement treatment which protect them from being expulsed, returned or surrendered from Hong Kong to another country. The application for the non-refoulement protection usually takes several years to process. During the application, the non-refoulement claimants are issued a letter of recognizance by the authority. These claimants are waiting for their refugee status to be verified.

For a long time, Hong Kong people have an image that villages in the New Territories are places where only indigenous villagers live. I was caught a bit off guard when I saw Africans and South Asians living in these villages. If it wasn’t for my PhD project, I would have never known that there were asylum-seekers and refugees in Hong Kong from South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Africa.

I found that there were not many studies about this cluster of people: their legal status, their situation, their difficulties, and so on. It was as if they were like casted out and forgotten by our society. When I returned to Hong Kong after completing my PhD, I began to get in touch with these ethnic clusters in Hong Kong. I learnt that they had many worries, such as their refugee status. I decided to continue to research this topic. I think such research is very valuable in helping us to understand them and stimulate more worthwhile data about them. I hope my work can educate our society and bring more attention to these refugees and forced migrants.

Dr Ng: Wang Toi Shan area is a diverse community of different ethnic groups. There are Africans holding Hong Kong identity cards, Nepalis who came to the city as Gurkhas, Pakistani who have been working as security guards in villages in the New Territories for many generations, and even asylum seekers from different countries.

Hong Kong people have mixed attitude towards them. Even in the villages these ethnic minorities live in, different villagers feel differently about their presence. Some still think that these people are strangers and villagers should not rent out their flats to non-locals. Those who are willing to rent out their flats to “outsiders” think that letting them to live in the villages is just a matter of business. They think it is acceptable to earn money from the rent.

Some villagers have biased views that ethnic minorities are dark-skinned and indecent. People holding such views tend to avoid contacts with ethnic minority people. However, some South Asian women told me that there are elderly female villagers who gave them food and toys. Attitudes of villagers are varied.

Dr Ng: Some indigenous villagers complained that the ethnic minorities harassed young Chinese girls from the villages. I know that some African people like greeting village girls. However, some village people think that such acts are already improper, and even consider it a harassment. In one case, a group of African people gathered at a playground to mourn the pass-away of their head of state. This act also triggered some of the villagers.

I think most of these complaints were caused by misunderstanding and lack of communication. If the African people had explained to the villagers why they gathered, the villagers would understand. Language is often the first barrier which hinders communication between people from different ethnical backgrounds. Insufficient mutual trust also contributes to tension between the two groups of people.

But situation has improved over the years. When I did a follow-up fieldwork during 2018-2019, I discovered that individuals from different ethnic minority groups were invited to join the annual “Poon Choi” dinner to celebrate National Day, an activity that assumably only indigenous inhabitants and their local friends can attend. I also noticed that there were many interracial relationships in the villages. As more interactions take place between the two groups of people, stronger trust is fostered between them.

Dr Ng: I think my studies enlightened me and others working on Hong Kong studies that our city is a place where people from different cultures meet and interact. Having ethnic minorities living in Hong Kong shows that the city is really a melting pot. It is a place where different people, whether they are South and Southeast Asians, Africans, local Hong Kong Chinese, westerners taking Hong Kong as their home, expatriates working here for a few years, or mainland Chinese migrants, can all live together harmoniously.

In fact, Hong Kong is never a homogeneous place in terms of language, culture, and ethnicity. However, there is nothing bad about being heterogeneous. On the contrary, it is the blend of different cultures and people that makes the city interesting. Many of these ethnic minorities can speak fluent Cantonese. Their children study at local schools. They bring in new elements to our culture. They have already become an integrated part of Hong Kong. They made the city multicultural, hence more colourful. Because there is such a diverse spectrum of people living, studying, and working in this city, there are always interesting things happening in different corners of it.

Dr Ng: In recent years, I have expanded my research to cover displacement of Shan migrants in Thailand. Shan is a state of Myanmar bordering on northern part of Thailand. Shan people, also known as Tai Ya, and Thai are ethnically related and share similar language. Many Shan people crossed the border to leave Myanmar to seek jobs in Chiang Mai of Thailand. My research is to understand more comprehensively about the factors motivating their move.

In another part of Southeast Asia, thousands of thousands of Rohingya people have fled Myanmar since 2016 because of discriminations, persecutions, and even life threats they faced. In fact, the scale of the forced displacement of Rohingya people was so huge and the situation they faced was so severe that it was once the world’s most urgent refugee crisis. Even though media attention to the crisis has waned, it still affects thousands of thousands of Rohingya.

In Southeast Asia, Malaysia has received one of the biggest populations of Rohingya refugees in the world. I stayed in Malaysia for five days in December 2023 to get in touch with the displaced Rohingya people for a potential media research project . During that time, I visited some Rohingya people who have resettled in Malaysia.

Dr Ng: I adopt an ethnographic approach in my research. That means I need to observe subjects of my research from an insider perspective. I need to be in the real-life environment of the people I’m studying when I talk, mingle, and interact with them. To make good ethnographic observations, the researchers need to be sensitive to the cultural differences between themselves and the people being observed.

I believe my journalism background helps me in this regard. When I was a journalist, I was trained to be sensitive about all things coming to me during my reporting work. Good journalists can pick up important hints from the ocean of information and various observations they made that lead to major breakthroughs in the news reporting. Journalism work has nurtured my ability to observe things that other people seldom observe.

Passion about your research is another key to the success of a research project. A research project usually lasts for several years during which the researchers might encounter many unexpected circumstances. If you embark on a research work merely by following the academic trend, there is a high chance that you will be discouraged by the difficulties, setbacks, and mishaps occurred at different points of the research. Without real passion, you can’t substantiate your research for a long period of time. A simple test of whether you possess passion for your research work is whether you are empathetic about the situation that the people under your research face. You need to have a love for the people you are studying.

Like journalist work, research is also a truth-seeking process. While adopting the appropriate methodology is crucial, it is no less important that the researcher has a desire to find out the true picture behind all the figures, information, and observations.

Notes:

1. AspirE examines the decision-making of aspiring (re)migrants in 11 countries across Asia and Europe
2. Mobility policy report: Hong Kong and mainland China
3. Self-perceived mental health and factors associated with the mental health of Hong Kong's asylum-seekers and refugees - A mixed methods study
4. An unusual refuge: A case study of a South Asian and African multi-ethnic cluster in a Hong Kong rural walled village