Abstract
This chapter reports on a study of mobile Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs in Hong Kong who migrated from China and who now frequently shuttle between their present place of residence (Hong Kong), their hometown (China) and their business site(s) (China). A sample of 18 entrepreneurs and their family members, friends, and business associates were interviewed. This study found out that mobility is a double-edged sword. A coin has two sides: while a high-mobility lifestyle affords many business opportunities and personal rewards, identity alienation and self-estrangement are common outcomes. “One face, many masks”—the ability in changing behaviours and in differential performances depending on the nature of the audience is part and parcel of the identity performance of these mobile entrepreneurs. However, people associated with these hypermobile businessmen, including their spouses, children and parents, often doubt the latter’s earnestness, sincerity, honesty and authenticity, and treat them as strangers, which causes the entrepreneurs considerable psychological pain.
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Notes
- 1.
Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department: “Social Data Collected via the General Household Survey: Special Topics Report—Report No. 38.” The “Hong Kong residents living in Mainland China” therein does not only include those who travel to China only for the purpose of negotiating business, and/or attending trade exhibitions, conferences and business gatherings. Further, it does not include people engaged in transport between Hong Kong and mainland China and fishermen or seamen working in the seawaters of mainland China.
- 2.
Jean-Paul Sartre (trans. H. E. Barnes), Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Existential Ontology (London: Methuen, 1957), p. 623.
- 3.
Chan Kwok-bun and Tong Chi Keung, “Yizhang liankong, duoge mianju: Xinjiapo Huaren de shenfen renting wenti” [“One Face, Many Masks: Problems of Self-Identity Among the Singapore Chinese”] in Ming Pao Monthly (September 1999), p. 20–23.
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Wai-wan, C. (2013). A Double-Edged Sword: Mobility and Entrepreneurship. In: Kwok-bun, C. (eds) International Handbook of Chinese Families. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0266-4_7
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