Normalization9812(Cecilia Chan & Tomofumi Oka)
Self-Help Groups in Hong Kong
An Email Interview with Cecilia Chan
December, 1998
Normalization: the Welfare of People with Disabilities 18(12), 51-55 (in Japanese only)
by the Japanese Society for Rehabilitation of Persons with Disabilities.
After editing, the Japanese version is a little shorter than this because space is limited.
This is the final of my e-mail interviews in which we find out about support systems for self-help groups around the world. This time, I have chosen Hong Kong as our region to investigate, because, like Japan, it is located in East Asia. The Japanese people could learn a great deal from Hong Kong's experiences in self-help because, although these two areas have great differences in their social welfare systems, their people seem to share similar social values.
I got to know about Cecilia (her home page) when she and I participated in producing a book on self-help (1). Also, she and I have been members of a mailing list on self-help research (2), and we had exchanged information before undertaking this interview.
Tomofumi
Could you describe what you do for self-help groups in Hong Kong?
Cecilia
People are helping each other in the Chinese societies but they do not
form themselves into groups. Self-help group is new to the culture
although there are a lot of informal support among the neighbours,
friends and relatives. I started my work in promoting self-help groups
in 1990. There were only about thirty groups in Hong Kong. I started working
with chronic patients and in 1992 Alliance of Patients Mutual Help
Organisation (picture) was formed.
It had twenty-four groups at that time. Now, there are
more than one hundred groups in Hong Kong. There are a lot of things that we
can do.
Tomofumi
What social factors caused such a rapid growth in self-help
groups in Hong Kong in the 1990s?
Cecilia
The reason for a rapid growth is because of the community awareness that
self-help is one of the most effective way of bringing about change in
their own lives. The government at that time was responsive to public
pressure and self-help groups earned concrete benefits as a result of
collective bargaining. Therefore the number of groups increased rapidly.
Besides, I aroused a group of professionals to help in getting groups
organised. The movement gained a momentum which has grown strong.
(A festival of a self-help organisation.)
Tomofumi
Roughly how many groups for people with disabilities (physical or mental)
do you have among those one hundred or so groups in Hong Kong?
Cecilia
Among the one hundred groups, about forty are for people with disabilities. We have
Blind Persons' Association, and groups for physically handicapped,
mentally handicapped, Down Syndrome, autistic children, hearing
impairment and so on. There is
especially a large number of parents group for children with mentally handicap.
Another forty groups for cancer patients, chronic
patients. Another twenty for miscellaneous purposed such as single parents,
rape survivors etc.
There are also groups of divorced women, elderly persons, and abused wives.
Tomofumi
There seems to be very few self-help groups for rape victims in Japan.
Are there many groups for rape victims in Hong Kong ?
Cecilia
There is only three groups which is looking into this matter. Two are women
organisations with a concern. One agency formed a informal group for
survivors of sexual abuse within the family, i.e. incest. The main group is
formed for only one year. The chairlady is a social work teacher in one of
the universities. She herself was raped when she was nine. It is actually very
hard for women to come forward to say that they are rape survivors.
Tomofumi
In Japan, people with visual impairments set up their national self-help organisation in 1909, and
those with hearing impairments established theirs in 1915. Were there many self-help groups
in Hong Kong before World War II?
Cecilia
The oldest group is also for the blind and deaf which were established
in the 1950s. Hong Kong was a barren land and the population increased
from 600,000 to 2.4 million from 1949-1950 because of the large refugee
influx from China upon the communist took over of China. Blind and deaf
are the two most established group in the movement of self-help and
rehabilitation. These more established groups are not active nor
politically powerful. Younger population were not interested in joining these
more established groups.
Tomofumi
In the USA, the first self-help group to be established was probably Alcoholics Anonymous. In Japan, under the influence of Alcoholics Anonymous, self-help groups for alcoholics started in the 1950s. These groups were the first generation of self-help discussion groups, whose main purpose was to allow members to share their personal feelings and information. Which groups were among Hong Kong's first generation of self-help groups?
Cecilia
There is also an AA in Hong Kong but it is dominated by English speaking
population in Hong Kong.
The Chinese are not comfortable with the AA type of very confrontative
group format. Therefore it is not popular.
Chinese men drink rice wine every evening but
most of these people are single, their drinking do not bother any body.
These people obviously do not like to share personal information and
commit to abstain from drinking as drinking is their only source of
satisfaction in life.
Tomofumi
I find that very interesting because anonymous groups like AA are becoming more and more popular among Japanese people. We already have AA, GA, SA, OA, NA, EA, and so on. I thought that the Chinese and the Japanese would have many cultural attitudes in common, but it seems that they think somewhat differently about self-help.
What do you mean by confrontative group format? Could you describe it in detail in terms of Chinese culture and mentality?
Cecilia
The AA type of 12-step group use strategies of admitting wrong doing, saying
sorry and then restart living again. Chinese care about face a lot. It is
very hard for them to admit in front of strangers that they have done wrong.
It is very hard, especially for Chinese men, to apologise and say sorry.
Members of AA type of group will have to confront each other on their common
mistakes, either gambling, drinking, whatever. This will be hard for Chinese.
Our groups have to emphasise mutual help and they have strength to help
each other and contribute. Making them feel important in being able to receive
help and help other people are important. Therefore, the crucial issue is
safe face. Let the people feel pride and dignity as well as avoid talking
about their wrongs or mistakes. This is what I mean by the confrontational
strategies of AA type of group which is not suitable for us. You may tell me
about the face issue as applied to the Japanese case?
Tomofumi
Although I admit that the Japanese people have a similar issue to deal with, I believe that theirs is not as serious as that of the Chinese. How about other addictions?
Cecilia
Gambling is actually a more important addiction.
It affects large numbers of family's quality of life. But there is also
no services for these people as well.
Tomofumi
You have no self-help groups for gambling addicts, do you?
Cecilia
There is no groups for gamblers. No. If I can get some resources, I am
actually interested in it. Gambling is one of the key source of divorce
besides extra-marital affairs. This habit of gambling actually break up a
lot of families.
Tomofumi
Do you have any self-help groups that are unique to Hong Kong?
Cecilia
I can't think of any at this point. I shall tell you if I think of some.
Tomofumi
What support systems operate for self-help groups in Hong Kong? How do they operate?
Cecilia
I founded a Community Rehabilitation Network which is the now acting as
a clearinghouse. I have also worked with groups for divorced women and
there is no clearinghouse for groups not for chronic patients.
Tomofumi
Could you tell me more about the Community Rehabilitation Network? Is this a private concern? Is this a network of self-help groups or agencies? When was it established?
Cecilia
I went to visit the Metro Toronto Self-Help Clearinghouse in 1991. When I
returned to Hong Kong in 1992, I was determined that I should set up a
new service to promote self-help groups in Hong Kong and especially for
chronic patients as they are not served by social service agencies nor
more established self-help groups. I persuaded a few organisations to
support me and we got a big grant from the Jockey Club (money from
horse-racing). We hired fifteen social workers, two nurses, two OTs, two PTs and a
groups of clerical staff in two centres. One in Kowloon and in on Hong
Kong Island. These staff get doctors and nurses as volunteers and
provide training to patients. Then the patients help as peer counsellors
to other patients. After two years, the centres were funded by the Hong
Kong Government.
Tomofumi
What social policies does your government have concerning the development of self-help groups? How do you evaluate these policies?
Cecilia
There is verbal support but no financial support. Lip-service only.
Tomofumi
How do your culture and history make your
self-help groups different from those of other countries?
Cecilia
We call our groups mutual help instead of self-help. This is probably
similar to the Japanese culture.
Tomofumi
This is an interesting point. I am often asked to give public lectures on self-help groups in Japan. I always say, "This is not mutual help, but self-help," because I believe Japanese people have become fed up with mutual help, which has been forced upon them by successive governments. Also, as I said, in Japan there are many mutual help groups of the old type and I don't think they are very helpful to people. I want to make clear the differences between the new self-help groups and the old mutual help groups. Therefore, I say self-help, not mutual help.
From the point of view of a non-Westerner, it seems that some western people, whose tradition is very individualistic - for example, people in the US - seem to be attracted to mutual help.
However, the worst image of mutual help among Japanese people is, probably, mutual help during wartime. Actually neighbourhood mutual help organisations, which were forcibly established by Central Government during World War II, still exist and are still operating actively in many places in Japan. They have almost never been supported by the public sector since the end of the War, but some are still active.
Do you think your traditions hinder the development of new self-help groups in Hong Kong? I always feel that our old-fashioned traditions are impeding the development of Japanese self-help. Also, I believe many new self-help groups in Japan have to struggle against old-fashioned organisations, which are very often male-dominated.
Cecilia
The male domination is quite obvious in Hong Kong as well. More
traditional organisations are obviously male dominant.
I do not have this problem of the polarisation of old groups and new
groups. There are very few old groups in Hong Kong, except trade and
industrial organisations which I do not include in our list of self-help
organisations. We also have kinship and neighbours organisations which
are sort of like your old groups. When people first come to Hong Kong
from China in the 1950s, they participated. Now these old groups are being
dominated by old men at their 70s, 80s and 90s. They do not have enough
energy to bring about change nor get into the way of other people.
I think your resentment is the government lead movement. Hong Kong being
a colony till 1997, the government do not support nor lead any form of
mutual help. The Hong Kong government help multi-story buildings to
establish Mutual Aid Committees to run the buildings. But this movement
is also not very effective. People don't care very much about their
environment.
I worked as a community worker in a slum area for six years. Getting
residents mobilised to care for their environment is relatively
difficult. Now I am mobilising deprived groups such as mentally
handicapped youth, persons with cancer, mental health survivors, single
parents etc. to organise to fight against the system injustice and
social discrimination, it is much easier.
Tomofumi
During the process of interviewing you, I have come to the conclusion that Hong Kong and Tokyo have quite different cultural backgrounds relating to self-help groups, although these East-Asian cities look very like each other with their crowded streets and skyscrapers.
I think there are two factors that make these cities different: One is their different ages, and another is whether or not they had been colonised. While Hong Kong is a relatively new city that was revitalised by a large influx of refugee in the 1950s, Tokyo is an old, stable city that has been the Japanese capital for over four hundred years. Compared to Hong Kong, Tokyo has many more traditional organisations among its people. The people of Tokyo still follow the custom of joining mutual-aid organisations within their communities although this custom is rapidly declining. These old-fashioned organisations may hinder the development of new self-help groups in Japan. People in Hong Kong are probably free from the influence of such old-fashioned organisations.
What has impressed me more is the fact that until recently Hong Kong had been a colony, which may have had an effect on the present state of its self-help groups. In Japan, under the traditional feudal system, underprivileged people were forced to form groups to help each other and to watch over each other to prevent resistance movements from forming against the rulers. After abolishing the closed-door policy that was maintained for about three hundred years, the Japanese people faced, for the first time, the idea of democracy and human rights that were brought to Japan from the West. The feudal mutual-aid groups, which the rulers enforced, became the foundations on which modern mutual-aid groups were built. Good examples of these are self-help groups for people with visual impairments and those with hearing impairments. It seems the establishment of these groups in the beginning of this century would have been impossible without such a feudal system.
On the other hand, Hong Kong and the Chinese people were colonised or
semi-colonised societies. The Qing dynasty (1644-1912) saw an ethnic minority in control, and those rulers probably prevented Chinese majorities from helping each other. Under such circumstances, Chinese people have not had much chance of developing a social custom of establishing mutual-aid organisations as the Japanese have done.
Cecilia
You are right by saying that the culture of the two metropolitan cities
are common in its Confucian roots but there are differences in terms of
the political apathy of people in Hong Kong due to its colonial roots of
99 years. The refugee mentality of not participating and dare not making
demands on the government are common among the people. This is what we
call refugee mentality. Thus, people do not initiate contacts, and
especially not with the officials. That is why the Westerners have
self-help groups but it never can reach to the local Chinese population.
Mutual help remain within the kinship and lineage networks but not
beyond that. Thus the lineage affiliations and kinship networks form
themselves into support organisations which later develop into trade and
non-governmental organisations which runs schools and kindergarten.
Tomofumi
Thank you very much for your co-operation.
Note:
(1) F.Lavoie, T.Borkman, B.Gidron (Eds.).(1994). Self-Help and Mutual Aid Groups: International and Multicultural Perspectives. New York: Haworth Press.
(2) The list (SLFHLP-L) is located at listserv@listserv.utronto.ca.