These two books on Hong Kong provide very different perspectives on its migration. Salaff, Wong and Greve (hereafter Salaff) examine the strategies and migration of Hong Kong Chinese in the lead-up to 1997, termed “retrocession,” and then beyond. Knowles looks at expatriates in Hong Kong: from “old China hands” to those who have arrived more recently. Both books focus on individual migrants and their families but adopt quite different methodologies.

Salaff builds on a large-scale sample survey taken across Hong Kong in 1991 that identified different types of strategies towards migration, some to move and others to stay. A much smaller sample of each type of strategy was selected for more detailed analysis and then, for this book, just nine families illustrating three strategies were selected for intensive investigation that stretched over virtually 15 years. Salaff herself lived with at least two of these families for extended periods on several occasions to generate a unique longitudinal study of families from their early plans to emigrate or stay, to what actually happened over that period, how often they moved and their successes and failures. In particular, she was able to follow family members to Canada. Rather than focusing on individual motivation she examines family strategies and how migration and success or failure were conditioned by institutional factors. Hence, this detailed study is rooted in a broad temporal and institutional context.

Knowles adopts a quite different approach, although again based upon intensive interviews that involved multiple visits to the city. She follows the migrants through their daily lives at home, work and play, placing them firmly in the landscape of Hong Kong, a technique reinforced through the fine black and white photographs of Douglas Harper. The reader is led along main thoroughfares and down narrow alleyways to offices and schools, as well as to bars and private clubs, as we follow the migrants in their daily routines. Hence, the context in this book is essentially spatial as expatriates come to terms with a different environment, culture and way of life. However, it is not simply the expatriate as a representative of a global transnational class that is the main subject of this book, although these people are certainly not missing from consideration. The less wealthy, the young teacher or the survivor of empire, as well as expatriates from South Asia, and the serving expatriate classes of maid or entertainer, are developed as subjects in the landscape.

Both books provide much information, insight and food for thought. A central theme of Knowles is that all migrants have skills and she extends the whole idea of “skilled migration” beyond employment to the skills that allow migrants to manage new and challenging situations. Looming in the background are the various ways in which expatriates come to terms with “Chineseness” and how they negotiate complex cross-cultural deals with partners, both professional and personal. Nevertheless, studying migration in the place of destination, Knowles faces the problem that those who did not have these skills may have left. Hence, not all migrants may have the necessary skills to negotiate their survival in a new environment. Salaff, based in the place of origin of the migrants, can trace those who have returned and she finds clear evidence of the lack of transferability of skills, and not just the skills that are institutionally recognized but those that are required to cross the socio-cultural divide. Social networking among the Chinese in Canada, Salaff shows, is not the same as at home in Hong Kong; the pattern of housing is different, for example, and social networks with the multiplicity of other Canadians are difficult to develop. In Knowles's terms, the landscapes are different.

However, Salaff, because she was based in the area of origin of the migrants, may have missed whole families that had left and made successful transitions to a new environment. The so-called “elite” migrant group studied in the sample is certainly wealthy and cosmopolitan but it did not seem to contain members educated at the world's top schools or universities who would have been the most likely to slip effortlessly into transnational roles. Hence, just as Knowles may have missed those whose skills let them down and who had moved on or returned, Salaff may have missed those who successfully did cross the cultural divide and integrated into other global cities. Thus, the inability to adjust may have been exaggerated. The methodological difficulties of studying something as complex as migration by focusing mainly on either origin or destination are well illustrated here, even in these two high-quality studies of the topic.

Of the two books, Salaff provides the more traditional approach with the presentation of rigorous field data but with a long time period of continuous observation that is rare in migration studies. This book is a solid contribution to our knowledge about migration, not just in Hong Kong but more widely. It brings out the detail that is lost in large-scale surveys and emphasizes the importance of institutional factors at various levels that cause individuals to migrate or stay. In particular, the central role of the Chinese family as a decision-making unit is a major theme, although the significance of class in Hong Kong society is also well developed, where the working classes had “nowhere to run” and had neither the resources nor the networks to go overseas.

Knowles adopts the more innovative approach combining text and image in an imaginative way, placing real migrants in their landscapes. The easy reading style, often using the words of the migrants themselves, contains many flashes of insight, with the temporary situation of long-term migrants particularly well brought out. Families, too, are a central consideration but, with the exception of South Asian expatriates, these appear to be much more loosely structured than in the Chinese case, and are shown to adapt and react to the experience of migration, often disintegrating and reforming as cross-cultural unions. Knowles uses pseudonyms in an attempt to protect her informants but as a once long-time Hong Kong expatriate, this reviewer found that, from both text and photographs, he could easily recognize acquaintances and friends. However, the interpretations given of the various expatriate situations seemed, according to this reviewer, to ring true. The brief final chapter on the returned expatriate bringing diversity to a quintessential “English” landscape is particularly poignant.

These two books give valuable accounts of post-handover Hong Kong and of migrants from and to the city. They complement each other nicely, dealing with similar issues but in two entirely different populations, the Chinese and the expatriate, and employing quite distinct methodologies. Together they provide a unique resource for the study of Hong Kong but can also be read singly and with profit by all who are interested in population migration, particularly sociologists, anthropologists and geographers, and by all who are seeking fine examples of how the topic should be studied.