01.00.00.00

Music

00.16

Children running around

Jane VO: Mrs. Kwok, perhaps more than most mothers, treasures time with her children.

Mrs Kwok (thought track): I love all of them because they are all from me.

00.31

Jane VO: She has taken them from a country she doesn't care for, to a place that doesn't care for them ... but they can't stay ... soon they'll be deported.

Mrs Kwok (thought track): I'm very upset. When someone rang me up telling me that I was to be deported all my children cried.

Tour guide on bus

Tour guide: Hello everybody, welcome to Hong Kong.

01.16

Jane VO: Tourists from mainland China peruse their new acquisition, a place that bears very little resemblance to their home across the border, a place all Chinese know about, but few have seen ...

Tour guide: Today we'll be visiting the Peak, Repulse Bay, and Ocean Park.

01.40

Jane VO: These people are wealthy enough to afford a package tour, but Hong Kong's riches are for looking only.

Tour party on top of peak

Tour operator: On your right, you can see a building which is the new lookout ... if you want to enjoy the panoramic view, you can head for the Lion Pavilion. All right it's 9.30 now, let's meet back here at 10.00 ... so walk around and enjoy the view.

02.09

Jane VO: Mainlanders come in droves to a city they believe is paved with gold. Nearly all who come here want to stay, but that's the preserve of a privileged few. So far away from the postcard scenery they come here illegally. It's dangerous, costly and for those who actually make it, their struggle has just begun.

Natsot playground with children

02.34

Mrs Kwok watching children

Jane VO: Mrs Kwok has been smuggled into Hong Kong and deported back to China five times.

Children playing

Mrs Kwok: I tried not to be scared, I just kept thinking that when I got there I would see Hong Kong, my husband and children.

02.50

Children playing together

Jane VO: She bribed border officials to allow her two eldest into Hong Kong but has left behind a five year old daughter in China ...

Mrs Kwok: The children often say "when our sister comes to Hong Kong, we can play and eat with her." They miss her a lot. Even the youngest daughter does. She often says "save some for our sister."

03.24

Mrs. Kwok brings photo's out of cabinet in apartment

Mrs Kwok: These photo's are of my daughter in China. This was taken when she was three years old.

Young child (San Man) looking at photos

Jane VO: Who's this?

San Man: That's my older sister.

03.43

04.05

Jane VO: Mrs Kwok's fourth child is Sau Man. Unlike the others she was born in Hong Kong and so has the right to live here ... but she's far from the lucky one. She has asthma and suspected epilepsy and is to undergo a brainscan in a few weeks.

Mr Kwok is showing early signs of lung cancer.

The family is trying to convince the authorities to let Mrs Kwok to stay on humanitarian grounds.

Mr Kwok: If my wife does get repatriated, the child and I are destined to die soon. My young daughter suffers from asthma and convulsion attacks; and I fainted and fell. If the police come to our flat, I will fight with them. I won't be kind with them. I have all the medical proof to justify that  my wife should stay to look after our daughter.

04.54

Jane VO: Mr Kwok is nearly 30 years older than his wife. Unable to work the family survives on welfare in a government subsidized flat . It's a situation created by misguided pragmatism - the desire for a better life.

Mr Kwok: It's a well known tradition back home for some one to marry a man from Hong Kong, to lead an easier life in the future. I was sick and tired of farming in China. Everyone wants to come here to take a look, let alone those who have a husband here. Everyone thinks the same. Many people want to come here.

05.43

Jane VO: The border and beyond mainland China, where the Kwok's youngest daughter lives. From July the first, all of the Kwok children aswell as tens of thousands of other mainland children will have the right to live in Hong Kong because one of their parents has residency here. But while they have the right to be here, not all of them can come at once.

06.21

Natsot - border immigration queue rush

Jane VO: Everyday, thousands cross the Hong Kong Chinese border - testament to the growing economic and human links. Only a fortunate few get the right to live in Hong Kong.

06.40

Special queue - small crowd sitting on chairs. Customs officers look where those getting the permits are from.

Separate from the throng are the few lucky ones ... just 150 a day gain a coveted one-way permit to Hong Kong. The backlog of applicants may take upto 20 years to clear.

07.09

Deportation footage

Jane VO: For those who can't wait, and enter illegally, the Hong Kong government send a clear message, making a public spectacle of deporting a mother and her eight year old child.

The mother's handcuffs are visible, the child is lost in the melee.

07.29

And there may be upto a hundred thousand illegal immigrants, already hiding in Hong Kong.

Lift doors slamming shut

07.39

Professor Nelson Chow - Hong Kong University

Chow: I think that it will be the first government crisis that the SAR government has to face, because I am sure in the first week of July 97, a lot of children who are hiding will surface. And also I think a lot of people will try to come to Hong Kong because they may think that now we have a new government, there may be new measures.

Jane VO: And this could happen as soon as the first week of the handover?

08.10

Chow: I'm sure, because I do think a lot of children are hiding in Hong Kong, who have come to Hong Kong illegally, those who are born of Hong Kong residents.

08.43

Entering building

Jane VO: So is Shum Sho Po an area where we find a lot of immigrants both legal and illegal

Sze Lai Shan: Yes, yes.

Jane VO: Sze Lai Shan is a social worker who well understands the problems faced by new migrants.

Knocking on door

Sze Lai Shan: Hello-Mrs Chang?

09.05

Jane VO: Sixteen years ago, she herself legally came to Hong Kong from China.

Sze Lai Shan: Hello, I thought I had knocked on the wrong door.

09.19

Jane VO: Mrs Cheng and her family of four, live in a room of an apartment. Five families share the same bathroom and kitchen.

Sze Lai Shan: Hello Kuuan Kuuan ... do you remember me ... hello ... where is your elder brother?

09.47

Mrs Cheng gets out permanent residence card

Jane VO: Amongst her few possessions is the most treasured of all, her permanent residency ... which means her children, unlike the children of illegal immigrants, can go to school.

Mrs Cheng: Fortunately my kids are not too academically too poor, their school results are not too bad, they passed the examinations and managed to get a place.

10.09

Jane VO: Despite her circumstances, Mrs Cheng feels lucky her family is together in Hong Kong.

Mrs Chang: This place is so expensive and my husband doesn't earn much - but my relatives told me that if my sons and daughters are here then it will be an easier life.

Rubbish

10.39

Jane VO: At the Migrant Enquiry Centre, it's a different story . Every Sunday Ms Sze answers queries from divided families anxious to be reunited. Most of her clients can't read or write.

10.56

Their dreams of a better life have founded through naiveté.

Blubbing woman

Woman 1: When we were informed I had to be sent back on the 4th of June my husband started to cry. He said he wanted to leap to his death. He's undergone a major operation. I'm here applying to stay here. I'm giving my case, if I fail, I'll be repatriated to the mainland.

Woman 2: The government should have made it clear that it would take so long for someone marrying a Hong Kong man to have to wait to come here. If I'd known about this, then even at gunpoint, I would not have married a Hong Kong man.

11.39

Jane VO: These families have been split apart by ignorance and kept apart by ignorance and kept apart by a corrupt and unfair system in China.

Woman 3: The rich ones can come here very easily, but the poor ones can find it hard to do the same. If they know your case is very urgent and you've been allotted a place in the quota, if you don't pay them some money they will take it away from you.

12.10

Jane VO: Mrs Kwok knows the story well.

Mr Kwok: I borrowed some money to finance my two way permit, after I paid the guy said "fine" and I could come here. But when I returned to the village and asked if the two-way permit was ready they said "no". Then we spent two thousand dollars to treat the guys involved to a meal and a few karaoke sessions and on the third day they told me I could come here.

Mrs Kwok handing out pamphlets outside immigration centre

12.49

Jane VO: Driven by desperation, Mrs Kwok stages her own protest. Last year she finally received a temporary permit from mainland China to buy herself some extra time here, but she is trying the patience of the immigration authorities and now the police.

Cop talking into radio

Cop: Ah Kiu please come to the entrance of the Immigration Tower on the walkway on O'Brian road ... Who are these people?

Mrs Kwok: They belong to the Mothers without Permits Association.

Cop: Do you have your Chinese Identification Papers here?

Mrs Kwok: No I only have my temporary entry permit.

Cop: Can I take a look?

13.43

13.59

Mrs Kwok in vision

Mrs Kwok (thought track): They were checking my papers to see if they'd expired, looking over and over again. But it's not expired yet.

The immigration officials are demanding we leave soon, but my husband and one of my daughters have not recovered from their illness yet. If they come to my flat, I will explode an LPG gas cylinder and die with them together. Not just myself, but with the police and those who come to take us.

14.15

Jane VO: The mainland mothers attract little sympathy from Hong Kong's self-made people.

14.21

14.42

Chow:  I think no-one in Hong Kong, even the local people can expect the government or the society as a whole to provide everything for you, that's not the kind of society they should expect when they come to Hong Kong.

Personally I cannot accept those who try to come to Hong Kong illegally saying that they should be allowed to stay here.

I have more sympathy for those who are staying behind in China.

14.48

Jane VO: Time is running out for Mrs Kwok.

Mrs Kwok gets letter from immigration department

14.52

Mrs Kwok: The letter was sent here from the Secretary for Security, demanding  that we leave Hong Kong soon. But my daughter is not well and is still waiting to undergo surgery on the fourth of July and repeat consultations later. So we're all very taxed and don't know what to do.

15.20

Jane VO: Like Mrs Kwok, tens of thousands of mainland Chinese will continue to run the gauntlet of the authorities on both sides.

Now that this lucky capitalist entity is part of China, will it's communists masters ask that it opens the door to allow others to share in it's phenomenal success ... or will China preserve Hong Kong's historical role as a home for the financial elite.

15.48

Whichever path, desperate families like the Kwok's will do anything to stay in Hong Kong; a place they believe is infinitely better than the motherland they left.

16.09

ENDS