In comments about a survey showing that Hongkongers prefer to marry foreign partners over locals ("Still in love with expats," The Standard, July 10), CUHK professor Wong Chak is quoted as saying: "This is not an act of admiring the West. Hongkongers do not admire South America, Africa or Eastern Europe. We only admire the richer Western countries." South Americans and Eastern Europeans can eloquently talk for themselves but as an African in Hong Kong I am offended by such loose talk. First, I am not even sure the vast majority of Hongkongers will agree with him for proposing this mercantilist reason for why people select partners.
Second, this thinking is on very shaky grounds until we see the real distribution of which countries come on top in terms of people who have married locals and, more importantly, how rich such partners are.
If we follow Wong's warped logic, then sooner or later Hongkongers will be jumping into African beds in droves because statistics show that many African economies are growing faster than most in the West, leading to more and more Africans becoming increasingly richer than many Westerners.
Adams Bodomo
