London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Sep 18, 2025

Think twice before leaving Hong Kong for Britain

Think twice before leaving Hong Kong for Britain

An expat reader offers up-to-date information and advice from a long trip to Britain which exposes the wide gulf between the country as advertised and as it really is.

Years ago, a long stay in Britain was one of the most memorable overseas trips I ever had. I once visited the British Museum over four consecutive days and that was the most educational experience of my life, well, aside from going to college. But it bored my then girlfriend to tears and no doubt that contributed to our break-up. She was Irish and considered the museum an imperialist institution, which it most certainly was and is. The Elgin Marbles, anyone?

But I digress.

Well, there is a vast gulf between visiting and living in the country. As a British friend wrote recently, the bureaucracy there in both the private and public sectors, and the general irresponsibility and inefficiency, create a toxic combination that “makes everyday life nearly always stressful and at times a literally Kafkaesque experience”.

A long-time expatriate reader in Hong Kong has responded to that earlier column (August 2) and told me his daughter and her fiancé are relocating back to Hong Kong from London to start a family.

Visiting their children and about to become a grandfather, he has been in the UK in the past 1½ months.

“Apart from London we have taken the opportunity to explore both Cornwall and Scotland. For me this is the first time to travel extensively in the UK on trains and in a car,” he wrote.

You think traffic is bad in Hong Kong?

The reader wrote: “Very extensive traffic jams caused by four-lane highways ending in roundabouts and/or traffic lights and followed by standard two-lane roads – creating material inefficiencies as well as non-necessary air pollution.

“We sat in one such jam for close to one hour, moving about 1.5 miles only. From King’s Cross to Shoreditch, it took us one hour in an Uber car, leaving King’s Cross on a Saturday night at around 11pm and covering the distance of only some 4.4km.”

He added: “If a Chinese mayor would not be able to solve such an issue within a short period of time, no doubt he would be fired.”

There are many homeless people, “with many entrances to supermarkets being ‘guarded’ by them”. That wasn’t right for a developed country, he said. “Before arriving, my perception of the UK was more in line with that of being a leading member of the group of G7”, he wrote. “Now it has been downgraded – looks and feels more like a developing nation to me.”

The streets aren’t safe either, especially if you or your friends look Asian. The same reader related several close calls. He wrote: “Walking back from the restaurant to our hotel in Inverness, we were met by a group of young drunken Scotsmen who hurled racial abuse at the Asian members of our group of five consisting of two Chinese persons, two Eurasians and me the only Caucasian.

“Arriving back around midnight on a Saturday in Shoreditch from Edinburgh, we had to make a small detour to avoid a group of mature males who appeared ready for some inappropriate physical fist action.”

Meanwhile, finding a proper job is very difficult, even if you have a university degree.

“I ran just a few days ago into a Mr Wang from Beijing,” the reader wrote. “He studied at a UK university graduating around 20 years ago. Mr Wang stayed put in the UK. Today his career is being a barista at a small coffee shop located on track No 3, Guildford station southwest of London … a bit of an overkill to be a barista with a university degree.”

Well, not at all, actually a rather common occurrence in North America and Australia as well; and the large population of homeless people, too. The baristas at my neighbourhood Starbucks in Toronto probably have more university degrees collectively than most offices in Hong Kong.

The reader continued: “UK politicians seem to (be able to) prioritise the building of new warships to be sent to Asia-Pacific in order to ‘protect freedom of navigation in the South China Sea’ over building of flyovers, completing four-lane highways, turning homeless persons into active members of society, establishing an efficient/complete communication network, pushing the agenda of more friendly interracial interaction & communication and establishing an efficient high-speed rail network including electrifying currently diesel-driven train lines.”

And the subway and trains have non-existent or weak internet connection; good thing they have banished Huawei’s 5G for national security.

The reader concluded: “If I were a HK resident, these are the points that I would seriously look into and consider before pushing the migration button.”

Wise advice, indeed!

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
×