MTR Corporation Management severely lacks cultural sensitivity
關公廟 Kwan Kung TempleAccording to media reports, the CEO of MTR Corporation (MTRC), Jacob Kam Chak-pui, is planning to hire a “special task force’, including Gurkhas, to enforce MTR regulations. Oriental Daily News describes Kam as saying “Nepalese can’t speak Cantonese, so even if they are being verbally abused, they won’t get upset, so there is a smaller chance of confrontations.”
If these reports are accurate, Hong Kong Unison finds MTRC’s approach highly inappropriate. While it is certainly commendable for the MTR to promote the hiring of ethnic minorities, if its sole reason for making these ethnic minority hires is for their lack of Cantonese proficiency, so MTRC can exploit this ‘weakness’ to deal with social conflicts, it is highly problematic. This reflects MTRC management’s severe lack of cultural sensitivity.
First, the MTRC demonstrates extreme ignorance if it believes that all Nepalese people do not speak or understand Cantonese. Ethnic minorities have a long history in Hong Kong. Many of them are third or fourth generation, born-and-raised Hong Kong residents. Even though they often face challenges within the education system to become on par with their Chinese peers’ Chinese level, most of them are at least able to understand sufficient Cantonese for day-to-day life, and may even speak Cantonese. As such, to think it expedient to hire Nepalese on the basis that they do not speak Cantonese, is based on a fundamentally flawed assumption.
Moreover, the MTRC is seriously mistaken if it believes that Nepalese employees would not be emotionally affected by profanities since they don’t understand Cantonese. In confrontations with police, the language of frustration and anger is universally understood. Just because there is a language barrier, it does not mean that Nepalese employees will not know that they are being insulted; nor will that contain the emotions of either party––those violating regulations and those enforcing regulations. Furthermore, profanities and insults don’t lose their potency just because one side does not understand the specific language. In fact, misunderstandings between the two groups can be further exacerbated by the language barriers, potentially resulting in racially discriminatory verbal abuse, and ultimately causing divisions and polarization between different ethnic groups. This is anathema to a racially harmonious society.
As such, HK Unison would like to express its grave concern regarding such measures. MTRC is playing with fire if it tries to avert confrontations by exploiting language barriers. Personnel who are enforcing regulations must be able to communicate effectively with those who violate those regulations, explain clearly what rules are being violated, and the resultant penalties. Confrontations will not be resolved by fostering a situation in which both sides could intentionally misunderstand one another. How can the MTRC think of hiring frontline staff who will interact with customers, on the basis of Nepalese people’s alleged ‘inability to communicate’? This absurd hiring criterion is way off the mark, and extremely concerning.
HK Unison urges MTRC management to examine the root causes of the recent conflicts that it ––and the rest of the society––is facing, and to proactively tackle them, instead of burying its head in the sand and resorting to exploit ethnic minority frontline workers in its bid to ‘protect the MTR stations’.
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