When I was 4 months old my family moved to Hong Kong (from Australia) for work, and I lived there until I was 12. I look back at my time in Hong Kong with fond memories.
Hong Kong is surprisingly amazing and fun and not what you would expect from a country that crams 7.5 million people into land that’s 1.4 times the size of New York City. Firstly, there’s 3 different Hong Kong’s: Expat Hong Kong, local Hong Kong, and Foreign domestic worker Hong Kong. It’s like three different worlds that co-exist in one. Hong Kong used to be under British rule until the handover to China in 1997.
Expat Hong Kong is filled with Internationals, families who have moved to Hong Kong for work, usually in Finance and Banking. Mostly from the UK, USA, France and Australia, there were around 300,000 at that time. Generally, they live in a few pockets of Hong Kong, the kids go to international schools and play sport against other expats (rugby, soccer, cricket, and basketball being the most popular but there was Aussie Football also).
We lived in apartment blocks that had great facilities – tennis courts, swimming pools, a gym and would play with other kids in the complex after school.
It’s because I lived in Hong Kong that I took up soccer. My best friends at the time were from the UK and Argentina and played soccer so I joined them. It was the international sport. Both the expats and locals played soccer. Had I grown up in Melbourne, Australia I would have played Australian Football mostly.
I played Soccer and Rugby at the Hong Kong Football Club with Leo Doyle ‘25 for many years. I also played soccer with Jeremy Tsang ’23 and Turner Jackson ’23. The junior soccer in Hong Kong was very strong, probably better than in Australia. I think it’s because there are good international coaches there from Brazil, UK, and Spain for example. We also had a lot more access to soccer. Premier League teams would regularly visit Hong Kong as would famous players. I met Ronaldo (Brazil), Alan Shearer, Harry Kane, Robbie Fowler and watched PSG, Tottenham, and other teams play live.
During holidays, families would travel in the Asian region because everything was close by and relatively cheap. The bad part about Expat Hong Kong was that families were transient. Friends would move back home or go off to boarding school or move to another country. It was sad but it means I now have friends all over the world.
Then there’s local Hong Kong. I had some exposure to this side also because I played soccer for the local Professional team’s academy – Kitchee FC for a few years. I was the only Expat. The soccer was very much Barcelona-style passing and disciplined. We played tournaments in China a lot and I was lucky enough to go to Spain with them.
I also spent my last 1.5 years at a local school which was an eye opener. Education is a big thing in Asia and the discipline and attitude of the students in the local school was very different to an international school. At the local school, after every test, the teacher would announce the rankings in the class. In Hong Kong, there is a lot of pressure to do well in primary school so that you can get into a Tier 1 high school and then get into a university (limited places).
Foreign domestic worker Hong Kong consists of the 400,000+ domestic workers employed by Hong Kong families (including expats) to perform household chores and childcare. They comprise 5% of the Hong Kong population and are from the Philippines mostly. On Sundays (their day off), you can see the streets in the city populated with these workers socializing en masse.
Hong Kong also had great events. Like the HK Rugby Sevens where people would go to the stadium and dress up and the event was like a party with music blaring and people cheering for their country. The stadium would be singing “Sweet Caroline”, it was so much fun!
Chinese New Year was celebrated with red packets of small notes exchanged. Halloween was also fun as we’d go trick or treating in our apartment complex.
Living in Hong Kong was very different to Australia or the USA. We lived in a small apartment, not a house. Life was a lot more social though and we traveled in the region a lot more. I really enjoyed meeting people from all over the world and learning about different cultures. I see myself as an international kid. That’s probably why I love Northwood School so much as we have so much diversity here. Living in Hong Kong was a special time and those that have experienced it will know what I mean. I will always have a special connection with the other Northwood HK expats – Noah Leddell ’23, Jeremy Tsang ’23, Liam Doyle ’22, Leo Doyle ’25, Hamish Riddell ’26, James Martin ’26 and Shreeniket Bhat ’25.
