By Li Li in Hong Kong

Illustrations: Peter C. Espina

Franky hails a cab on a busy Hong Kong street and it slows toward a halt. Then as it gets closer, the taxi suddenly turns away and accelerates off.

"It must have been my South Asian face," says Franky, a 32-year-old Indian businessman in Hong Kong who refused to give his last name. "This has happened to me many times."

Hong Kong likes to present itself to the outside world as an international metropolis with a cosmopolitan cultural diversity. Yet scratch beneath the harmonious facade and it soon becomes apparent that not all ethnic minorities in Asia's booming financial center are happy campers in a 96-percent homogenous society.

As Hong Kong's first anti-racism law, the Racial Discrimination Ordinance, went into effect in July, the city has now pledged to tackle the roots of its indigenous racism with greater openness and maturity after centuries of clumsy progress.

During the early colonial period when racial segregation was de rigeur, white Europeans, especially the British, enjoyed a prestigious social status while the native Chinese served as their subordinates. If history is not doomed to repeat itself, then certain facets of an otherwise-impressive success story will have to change.

"I hate to go shopping in the vegetable market," said Ruby, a 24-year-old maid from Luzon, an island of the northwest Philippines, who asked to use her given name only.

"Some local vendors shout at me and cheat me on prices."

Like many other Filipino domestic helpers, Ruby left her own 3-year-old boy at home and came to look after her employer's child in Hong Kong. Nine months after she arrived, Ruby said she already felt "looked down upon" here.

About 400,000 non-Chinese live in Hong Kong, the majority of South Asian descent. Some are here for historical reasons, but many more, like Ruby, came for a better life. Racial discrimination remains a daily fact of life: They say they are stopped more frequently by police, that few Chinese sit next to them on the bus, that hospital doctors are ruder toward them, that they receive poor restaurant service and that their children are teased at school.

Survey

Two-thirds of Hong Kong ethnic minorities felt themselves treated less favorably and almost half believed they are treated like second-class citizens, according to research by the Faculty of Social Work of Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2005. Racial tensions have been highlighted this year by two controversial stories: A young homeless Nepalese man was shot dead by a Hong Kong policeman on March 17 after a violent altercation in which he refused to show his identity papers. Nearly 5,000 South Asians demonstrated on the streets of Hong Kong, demanding an independent investigation into the killing.

Ten days later on March 27 Hong Kong-based columnist Chip Tsao mocked the Philippines as a "nation of servants" in a satirical HK Magazine article headlined "The War At Home".

Thousands of Filipinos gathered in Central and demanded an apology with banners stating "workers with dignity".

Tsao's few defenders claimed his clumsy pastiche had backfired, particularly among non-native English speakers who had failed to tune into the humorous intent. The dispute escalated and within days, Tsao was apologizing to both the Philippine government and its people.

Tsao's big foot had trampled onto a touchy stereotype of South Asians as undeveloped and underprivileged: 42 percent of surveyed Hong Kong Chinese were unwilling to have Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis or Nepalese as their friends, colleagues or neighbors, according to a 2009 survey by the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department.

While 20.5 percent listed "body odor" and 7.6 percent "appearance/skin color" as reasons for unpleasant experiences with other ethnic groups, those ethnic groups themselves tend to identify another culprit – the language barrier – as the main reason for Chinese rejecting them.

Language

"Often when I first approach Chinese people, they are cold to me," said Hehan Sagar, a 38-year-old Pakistani born and raised in Hong Kong, "but when I started speaking Cantonese to them, they are all kind and nice again."

Sagar believes Chinese people tend to avoid or reduce verbal exchange when there's no common language, and that's why they seem indifferent or rude.

There are South Asians like Sagar who speak fluent Cantonese, but most cannot.

Even fewer can read or write Chinese. Although employers are required by law to prepare recruitment materials in English, in practice this principle is not fully implemented, especially in the construction and security guard sectors where many South Asians seek jobs. Many job application forms are printed solely in Chinese and most jobs in Hong Kong require Chinese skills. Translation services provided by the government and non-government organizations (NGOs) are rarely known or used by ethnic minorities, meaning many are excluded from the job market.

New recruits to the police force must be able to read and write Chinese and speak fluent Cantonese: as a result, Hong Kong's police force is 99 percent Chinese, with only a handful of officers of an ethnic minority heritage.

Policing

"Hong Kong cannot keep a totally Chinese police force," says 63-year-old Indian merchant Mohan Chugani, a member of the Ethnic Minority Working Group of Yau Tsim Mong District. Growing up in this major ethnic community of Hong Kong, Chugani has valuable experience and advice to share.

"It's much easier for a Pakistani policeman to handle a Pakistani minority issue and a Punjabi policeman to handle a Punjabi minority issue," Chugani says, "instead of a Chinese policeman struggling with communication."

The Tau Tsim Mong District police bureau is training its police force in minority language abilities.

"They could have simply employed a few more ethnic minority policemen," Chugani says.

Police forces in cities like Toronto, London and New York employ a more diverse mix of ethnic minorities and Chugani suggests Hong Kong adopt more flexibility in its language requirements.

Cantonese speaker Gulzer Hussain Sagar has been helping members of his Pakistani ethnic minority with housing and job problems, translating and accompanying them to hospitals. Sagar, 68, has an office with a library of more than 4,000 books that he invites his fellow Pakistanis to read and learn.

"They need more knowledge," Sagar says. "With more knowledge, they have a greater chance of a job and gain more respect."

The Hong Kong government organization responsible for implementation of the new anti-racism law has been running an anti-racism campaign since the beginning of this year.

Mainland migrants

The Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) campaign has included outdoor advertisements, radio and TV shows, public seminars and funding programs in schools and NGOs.

EOC Senior Communication Officer Sam Ho believes these educational activities will gradually change Hong Kong people's attitude toward other races.

"We need to educate Hong Kong people using daily examples of racial discrimination," he says, "to create a public awareness of mutual respect between different races."

Laudable as it may seem, the new anti-racism law does not protect migrants from the Chinese mainland who suffer from a similar local bias. As the new law only addresses ethnicity, the Hong Kong legislative bodies have been criticized for leaving out mainland migrant workers, among the lowest-income groups in the Cantonese city.

It's been 40 years since Hong Kong signed one of the first United Nations human rights treaties: the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

How much longer will it take to make Hong Kong live up to its anti-racism slogan of an "inclusive society in harmony"?

"Thirty years ago, when I walked down the streets of Hong Kong holding my Chinese girlfriend's hand, her friend asked her 'Can't you do any better?' and that broke my heart," says the 63-year-old Indian merchant Mohan Chugani.

"If my son walks down the streets of Hong Kong today holding a Chinese girl's hand, I hope there will be no problem at all."

Hong Kong racial discrimination law: fast facts

95.5 percent of the population in Hong Kong are Chinese, 4.5 percent non-Chinese

The average monthly income for Chinese is HK$7,300 ($949)

The average monthly income for non-Chinese is HK$3,700 ($481)

The Hong Kong Legislative Council passed the first anti-racism law of Hong Kong, the Racial Discrimination Ordinance (RDO) on July 10, 2008, coming into effect on July 10 this year

Offenders face up to a HK$ 100,000 ($13,000) fine and two years in prison.