What you do together
Yum cha — dim sum and tea, usually at the weekend and usually with family — is the central social ritual. Beyond that: hiking, which Hong Kongers do seriously; the islands; and short flights to the rest of Asia, which are cheap and frequent. Homes are small, so socialising happens out.
Meeting the family
- Bring fruit or pastries, and present and receive with two hands.
- Address relatives by their title rather than by name — the Cantonese kinship terms are specific and getting them roughly right signals respect. Your partner will coach you.
- At a banquet, the seating is not random and the host serves the guests. Let yourself be placed and served.
- Red packets — lai see — are given at Chinese New Year and at weddings by married people to unmarried ones, in new notes, in even amounts, avoiding the number four.
- Face matters. Disagreement is expressed indirectly and correcting someone publicly causes real damage.
If there is a wedding
Typically a tea ceremony in the morning, in which the couple serve tea to the elders of both families in order of seniority and receive jewellery or red packets in return; then door games at the bride's home; then a banquet of ten or twelve courses in the evening. The bride may change between a Western gown and a qun kwa, the embroidered red dress. Guests give money rather than gifts.
What actually weighs on the couple
- Housing. Hong Kong has the least affordable property in the world, flats are very small, and multi-generational living is common. This is the most concrete constraint on a couple's life here, and it also affects the dependant visa, which requires the sponsor to demonstrate accommodation.
- The sponsor's visa category, which determines whether the arriving spouse may live and work here at all.
- Working hours. They are long, and the expectation of availability is high — a real strain on a couple settling in.
The money question, settled once
It is the subject that wears down most binational couples, and it wears them down far less when it is raised early.
- Decide in advance what you do and do not do, say it plainly, and hold to it. A constant rule is infinitely better than irregular generosity, which creates expectation on one side and resentment on the other.
- Separate one-off help from recurring help. The second is a budget line; it is discussed together, with an amount and a duration.
- Never send money through a third party to reach the family: it creates obligations you do not control.
- What you give one person, everyone knows. In an extended family there is no discreet transfer.
Meeting the family
It is not one more step, it is the step. Come with something — a modest, shareable gift beats an expensive present given to one person. Greet the elders first, accept what you are offered, and learn three sentences in the language: the effect is out of all proportion to the effort.