ABSTRACT
The links between Hong Kong and Sydney, Australia’s oldest and largest city, extend back to the middle of the last century when Hong Kong was a major embarkation point for Chinese seeking their fortunes in the Australian goldfields. As in North America, Guangdong and the hinterland of Hong Kong were the major sources of nineteenth-century Chinese immigration to Australia. Since that time, when Sydney was primarily a staging point for the Chinese sojourners en route to the goldfields and work in the country areas, the circumstances of Chinese settlement in Sydney have changed. The transitory gold miners have been replaced by professionals and highly skilled workers, families, students, businesspeople, and tourists. Just as Hong Kong has grown from a tiny entrepôt over the last century, Sydney, too, has become a modem economic and financial center with an ethnically very diverse population which includes Chinese from many parts of Southeast Asia, as well as Taiwan, mainland China, and Hong Kong. Within this very diverse population, Hong Kong Chinese have come to occupy an increasingly prominent place. This chapter examines the nature of Hong Kong settlement experiences and patterns in the context of both the changing features of Hong Kong and Chinese settlement in Australia and the national structures and social policies which have influenced Sydney’s contemporary character.
