Hello! This is Rita Chang from Hong Kong Branch, a member of Social Value and Well-being Committee (SVWC) in FY2022.

Are you curious on South Asian culture especially when you walk pass the Chungking Mansions in Tsim Sha Tsui? It is a famous place in Hong Kong where many of Hong Kong’s minorities gather at. It attracts a multicultural crowd to its maze of shops and restaurants, which offer some of the best Indian and halal food in Hong Kong.

In November 2022, we collaborated with WEDO Global – a South Asian Game Workshop called “Let’s Explore and Discover South Asian culture!”.

WEDO Global is a social enterprise established in Hong Kong since 2011. They plan and arrange community tours, cultural workshops and training programmers for participants to understand more and interact with people from different cultural backgrounds.

At the beginning of the workshop, WEDO Global’s goodwill ambassadors shared their difficulties faced in Hong Kong:

1. Language– most of them have to study more than four kinds of language. For example, Urdu, Arabic, Cantonese, mandarin and English and some of their village languages;
2. Dress style– for female, they need to cover their hair, face and bodies every moment;
3. Food – No pork is allowed.

As they told us, the biggest challenge in daily life is food! As halal food style is required in their culture, they do not have many choices when dining out with their friends in Hong Kong.

It is very difficult to find food without pork ingredients in Hong Kong, such as the specialty snack – siu mai, there is still pork ingredient in it. Also, mooncakes are made with lard. Therefore, they need to be very careful when they are buying food in Hong Kong.

Even with the limited choice of food, they are still willing to live in Hong Kong as Hong Kong is famous for its diversified culture and embrace different ethnicities.

We had mini game during the activity and we learned how to speak some of their simple languages. Besides, we tried to write their words under their instruction which the language composition and style are completely different from the way we are familiar with. Halal language is novel to us.

Nevertheless, we also guess riddles through images. From these games, we deeply feel that languages are definitely not an obstacle to our communication.

If we can know more about each other’s culture, we can give a helping hand when others are in trouble, for example, when we meet the South Asian who is being confused in the supermarket, maybe we could tell them thoughtfully that which food is made with pork that they cannot take!

It’s so simple that it can bring people warmth and happiness!