A
few years ago, pre-kids, I
was mindlessly ordering
some poutine on The Peak
when it suddenly hit me: I
was being served by a teenage boy. It
was weird, and seemed a little out of
context. Then I realised – he was the
first teenager, or young adult, I’d been
served by at a fast food outlet, retail
store or bar since I’d moved to Hong
Kong. It was so strange, my poutine
pal and I had a lengthy discussion
about what young adults in Hong
Kong do for money. Ah, Sunday
afternoons before kids, all the time in
the world to hike up The Peak, grab
some greasy food and discuss the big
issues in life, uninterrupted.
In other parts of the word,
teenagers working casual jobs are an
important part of the economy. In
America, 80 per cent of students have
held down a job at some point during
their junior or senior year. Teens
stack shelves, wash cars, flip burgers,
wait tables and then graduate to
pouring beers while they’re waiting
to graduate from university. In many
countries, your first job is a rite of
passage, and casual after-school and
weekend gigs are common. In some
families, it’s even expected you’ll get
a job and start saving for important
big-ticket items, like your first car.
As a parent, it definitely worries
me that I don’t see a big culture of
young people ‘earning their keep’.
We moved away from Central a few
years ago and on Lantau, where we
live now, we see more young people
serving in cafes, but there are still no
16-year-olds manning the Wellcome
checkouts.
So the question is, are Hong Kong
youths working? What are the options
for young people who want to get a
job? And are there benefits for young
people who work a casual job while
they study?
The value of hard work
Thomas Edison famously said,
“There is no substitute for hard
work”. This is the ethic that got many
expat parents to Hong Kong, and
maintains them in senior roles.
Does this also apply to our
children? Some would say yes, as
studies find that students performing
no more than 10-15 hours a week of
In many parts of the world, it is normal to see teens ‘earning their
keep’ in casual jobs, but what is the situation in Hong Kong?
Rebecca Simpson
finds out.
A hard day
’
s work
April 2015
67
May
