Hong Kong, a city famed for its dazzling harbor and neon lights, has quietly built a towering wall beneath its shimmering surface—a wall made of long working hours and invisible pressure, shutting out countless potential love stories.
Cora, a girl from Chongqing, has been living in Hong Kong for four years. As a doctoral student, her workdays are crammed into 12-hour blocks, and the only slivers of weekend time are "squeezed out" precious moments to meet friends. For her, love and marriage have become blank spaces on the schedule that cannot be booked, turning into nothing more than a sigh of "let it be" in the still of the night.
"Hong Kong's clock ticks especially fast." The opening and closing of MTR doors, the brightly lit office buildings, the flipping menus in cha chaan tengs—in Cora's eyes, everything is rushing; rushing to the next meeting, the next deadline, and even the next ferry. In such a rhythm, even an encounter becomes a chance event that requires precise calculation. Plenty of professionals like her, who have come to Hong Kong, have anchored their careers deep in this land, leaving marriage and love to fate.
No "thirty-year-old anxiety"
Yet, Cora sees a more inclusive side to the city. Compared to the common "thirty-year-old anxiety" found in Mainland cities, Hong Kong shows broader tolerance toward women. Age is not a label here, and life stages need not be rigidly arranged according to societal timelines. Diverse values allow everyone to breathe at their own pace, whether diving into the depths of academia or building a harbor for a family.
A kind of softness and warmth fills her heart. She remembers visiting Hong Kong as a child, when the city left an impression of diversity, its culture vibrant like a collage. Now living here, she feels more deeply the kindness and acceptance.
Cora's daily life is a microcosm of many professionals in Hong Kong. She hopes to broaden her network by participating in various activities, though she believes fate is something predestined. In an era where even love can be algorithmically recommended, she still insists that genuine encounters require time to brew.
Cora says that if she were to start a family, she would "have to work even harder." Behind these words lies a serious vision of the future.
She acknowledges Hong Kong's friendliness toward women's career development, with no invisible barriers of age or gender, and a smoother path back to the workplace after childbirth compared to the mainland. However, the reality of cramped living spaces and the weight of housing prices mean that every dream of a "home" requires a more solid economic foundation. Thus, many like Cora choose to first "plant the sapling" of their career, then wait for the wind of fate to "bring another seed."
Strive for a future home, then await fate
Perhaps, loving in this city doesn't require a dramatic plot but the resilience of a steady, flowing stream. It's the warmth of asking, "Have you eaten?" after a late night of overtime; it's the willingness to carve out two hours for a coffee date in a packed weekend schedule; it's also the heart willing to understand and draw closer when facing cultural differences.
Cora's story is like an unfinished love poem. Like many who have drifted to Hong Kong, she weaves her own tale between striving and hoping—not necessarily following a traditional narrative arc, yet sincere and resilient. However, mutual affection requires many days and nights together, and in Hong Kong, perhaps precisely because such time is so precious, those moments of meeting, knowing, and committing in the gaps of time shine like starlight in the night, faint yet bright enough to illuminate each other. After all, love and belonging are never just personal pursuits; they are also a crucial element for a city's continued prosperity.
Getting married: A taste of luxury?
Both newly arrived and local young people currently face significant economic and life pressures, Jesse Shang, Founding President of the Hong Kong Top Talent Services Association (HKTTSA), mentioned in an interview with Wen Wei Po.
According to Shang, Hong Kong's high property prices and cost of living have led some young people to view marriage as a "luxury." New arrivals, in particular, need to prioritize solving employment issues. For example, the success rate for renewing residence permits for Category C talents (recent graduates within five years) is only about 40%, making them focus more on stabilizing their careers before considering marriage.
Therefore, the association recommends that the SAR government and various sectors of society provide more employment support for new arrivals, such as job matching and industry salons, to help them stabilize their development in Hong Kong.
Low male participation in matchmaking events
Currently, networking events face two major challenges: first, attracting more local youth to participate, and second, addressing the low proportion of single male participants. In one event with 100 registrants, 88 were female, and only 12 were male, showing a severe gender imbalance, which may be related to Hong Kong's demographic structure and lower male participation enthusiasm.
In the future, the association plans to implement several measures. First, enhance romantic elements by selecting locations such as islands or beaches for events, which encourages interaction among young people. Second, targeted mobilization of men by collaborating with sports clubs favored by men, such as basketball or football teams, or with groups like disciplinary force unions and engineering institutes—organizations with a strong male presence—to attract more single men to participate. Third, expand publicity by partnering with media to increase the reach and impact of events, attracting more local and newly arrived youth. Last, diversify event formats by organizing more interest-oriented activities, such as outdoor sports and cultural experiences, to create more opportunities for natural interaction.
Besides, Shang believes that the main difficulty for newly arrived youth is still how to secure stable employment in Hong Kong. He suggests that relevant departments of the SAR government provide more job opportunities and career matching services for high-end talents. At the same time, he encourages non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and youth groups to organize diverse activities to help them integrate into society.
(Source: Wen Wei Po; Journalist: Nicholas Lai; English Editor: Darius)
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