Using our adaptation of Thompson’s and McMillan and Chavis’ definitions of community, we can analyze the African population in Hong Kong as follows: 

From the discussion and research, we know that there is an existence of some prime locations where most Africans in Hong Kong are known to be living at. As mentioned, Chungking Mansion in Tsim Sha Tsui is very often referred to as the nerve center for the Africans in Hong Kong where majority of them live and conduct businesses. African population is growing in other areas of Kowloon such as Yau Ma Tei, Mong Kok and Jordan. There is another group exanding in the New Territories, particularly in Kam Tin. Besides our informant Atsu who is staying in Mong Kok, our other informants do not live in any of these places but all of them are aware that most Africans reside in the abovementionned locations. Some of them even have friends living there. For example, our informant Laurent told us about his friend living in Kam Tin. The fact that most of our informants do not live in these places can be explained through various reasons.

One particular reason is their purpose of coming to Hong Kong. The major locations mentioned are accessible places where people can easily conduct business. Africans living there particularly those in Tsim Sha Tsui come to HK for the purpose of conducting businesses, e.g. mobile retail business. They have a need for finding other Africans in Hong Kong in order to look for customers and potential business partners. Our informants are not involved in the retail sector. For instance, Facil came to Hong Kong to work as a professor and is probably provided accommodation from the university, Laurent came to pursue further studies and stays in the dorms of HKU and our 2 young informants are just students who have settled in HK since they were young. One stays in Fanling and the other stays in Kwai Hing. Due to this, they do not need to look for a common African place of accommodation to fit into the society. Another reason has to do with the socio-economic status of our informants in Hong Kong. Most of them are relatively of higher socio-economic status than most Africans living in Hong Kong. Therefore, they do not need to live in places that are known to have comparatively lower rents such as Yau Ma Tei, Jordan and Kam Tin.

Most of our informants however, are frequent visitors of ChungKing Mansions where they go to enjoy some of the services provided for the Africans such as hairdressing and African bars and restaurants for dining and socializing with some friends. Although they don’t live there, they often go there and in a sense, share a common place for gathering or hairdressing with other Africans in Hong Kong.

There is a degree of commonality between our informants. As hypothesized, most are Christian/ Catholic, and are very involved in religious activity. They also share the same struggles, including racism by the local Chinese population, as well as a language barrier that was particularly experienced by the older generation who cannot speak or write Chinese. 

Nevertheless, there is a diversity in jobs and economic class, with professors and PhD candidates represented alongside musicians, students, and children of construction workers. There is also vast linguistic diversity, with a total of 14 different languages spoken, including colonial languages, African languages and local Hong Kong languages. Though all of them speak English, there is no common African lingua franca; the closest we can get is pidgin English and creole. 

While the literature review shows that there are spaces for Africans to have fellowship in friendly, informal settings in Hong Kong (such as the African Community, church fellowships and spaces like Chungking Mansions that act as a de facto location of gathering due to the availability of African services), we now know that not all Africans actively seek out fellowship with other Africans. At least, none of our informants do, and as Dr. Tesfaye says, “Just because we are from Africa doesn’t make us friends”. 

Although 4/5 of our informances do mention frequenting Chungking Mansions, it is important to note that none of them do so to meet other African peoples. Rather, they do so to make use of the facilities there, namely the food (2/5) and hairdressers (2/5), highlighting that their similar biological backgrounds that inform their unique hairstyling needs and cultural backgrounds that inform their food palettes are not necessarily a strong bonding factor. 

We attribute these findings to the fact that all our informants are very internationalized Africans, who have spent enough time in countries outside their own (within and outside of Africa) to not rely on people of African descent to form their social circles. Furthermore, there are cultural differences between Africans themselves, so that it is difficult to form a pan-African fellowship/ community. For example, while the “African fellowship” at The Vine Church’s English and French medium of instruction highlights a shared linguistic background, it also shows that participants of this fellowship are from French and British colonies rather than Spanish, Portugese, or other ones. Furthermore, one participant mentioned avoiding association with Nigerians, showing that negative perceptions of other African countries and their cultural differences do come into to play even here in Hong Kong. 

From our research, we can see that Africans in Hong Kong do have their membership and shared identity to a certain extent. They share similar identity in terms of their skin color, facial features and similar background. African Community and Chungking Mansions serve as their “homes” and comfort zones where they belong. These are places that they can find African food, clothes, entertainments, more importantly, bondings and receive different kinds of supports among themselves. All the informants in our project indeed brought up that they knew about the African Community, such as their mission in addressing the needs of Africans living in Hong Kong, as well as Chungking Mansions.

One thing we ought to keep in mind is that Africans in Hong Kong, just like our informants, are from different countries. They have diverse languages and cultures. For instance, our informant Atsu is from Ghana where people there speak Akuapem Twi, Asante Twi, Mfantse, Nzema, Dagaare, Dagbanli, Ewe, Ga, Dangme, Gonja, Kasem and English while Facil is from Ethiopia where people mainly use Amharic, Oromo and English. Despite of the differences in the countries they are from and the native languages they speak, do they feel like having shared identity because they are from Africa? In fact, one interesting finding tells us that all the informants claimed that they have neither attended the meetings nor joined the activities organized by African Community. This suggests how far they are associated to the organization. Chances are the African refugees in Hong Kong might tend to conform more to the African Community where they can seek help and find security, but that is not the case of our well-travelled informants. 

As seen above, the African population in Hong Kong partially meets all of the criteria that define a community. While there may well exist a Pan-African community in Hong Kong that meets all criteria, it is not one that includes all Africans here. The reality is that Africa is so diverse a continent, and Hong Kong so transient a place, that not all Africans will be a part of a so-called African community here.