Batgung

Any expat who's been in Hong Kong long enough will hear rumors: you expats get treated better sometimes than local people do! We'll call this phenomenon 'gwai privilege'.

First, what is gwai privilege?

In a nutshell, I'd say it's a form of inverted racism, in which a gwai (i.e. non-Chinese person, specifically a westerner) is treated better than a local Chinese person would be in the same situation.

Does gwai privilege really exist?

I think it does. Let me give you a particularly trenchant example from my early days in Hong Kong: I was meeting the now-Mrs Tall for yum cha one Saturday at lunchtime. My beloved tested my devotion by asking that I precede her to a restaurant in Causeway Bay to 'get a table'. Now, those of you who have lived in Hong Kong for any time at all will recognize immediately the quixotic nature of this quest. Getting a table in a dim sum place in Causeway Bay on a Saturday after about 5:45 am is next to impossible. They're all chock-a-block with newspaper-reading men, housewives who've put down polyester roots, screeching spawn, etc.

Anyway, the things you'll do for love, and all that -- so I turned up at this place to find, as expected, a horde of yum cha wannabes clutching their little numbered chits, waiting in sullen temper outside the restaurant's main entrance. There must have been 50 or 60 people harassing the captain and captainette, who were yelling frantically into their walkie-talkies, then giving everybody the evil eye to keep them from overwhelming their little table-assignment command post.

I figured I'd just get a number so I would fit in with the crowd, wait for my girlfriend, and then we'd go elsewhere -- this being before the time of mobile phones, of course.

But as I reached for my chit, my elbow was sharply grasped by the captainette, who whisked me straight into the restaurant, over my increasingly heated protests. I told her I'd just got there, and that there were lots of other people waiting. And I certainly wasn't the only one to make this point -- most of the other people waiting immediately saw what was going on, and several started yelling, including one guy who let it fly at her -- in English, no doubt for my benefit -- 'You're giving him a table just because he's a gwailo! Aren't you a real Chinese? What's the matter with you?' and so on. I was completely nonplussed by all this, and to my shame I admit I stopped protesting, and took the table.

I don't know if something like this could happen in Hong Kong today -- the incident I've mentioned occurred over ten years ago -- but there are little things that still make me think it could. If you are a gwai -- and maybe if you're not -- you may well have noticed that we sometimes get little perks such as being waved straight into buildings by security guards, more attentive service at some restaurants and shops, particularly those catering to western tastes, and so on. We're also not likely to get stopped for ID card checks by the police, and I think our complaints and requests to government departments may often be taken more seriously than the average local person's.

But does gwai privilege make up for some of the indignities gwai face in Hong Kong -- such as being called gwai, just to take one example?

What do you think?