Hong Kong political situation boosts demand for Portuguese lessons

  • Lusa
  • 19 October 2020

The political situation in Hong Kong is leading to a growing demand for Portuguese language lessons.

The political situation in Hong Kong is leading to a growing demand for Portuguese language lessons, with one school in the territory offering “intensive courses to emigrate” that are for now being taught online because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Each Saturday, for two hours, Anaïs Barroso teaches a dozen students who have enrolled in one of the courses, launched by the Portuguesinho.hk school, of which she is a co-founder, via the Zoom online application.

As the students “enter” the virtual class, she greets the seven women and three men living in Hong Kong with an “Olá, tudo bem?” (Hello, how are you?).

At times the computer screen serves as a blackboard, displaying exercises and dialogues in the manual provided by the Instituto Português do Oriente (IPOR), a Macau-based institute founded in 1989 by the Fundação Oriente, a Lisbon-based foundation, and Instituto Camões, the Portuguese state entity for the promotion of Portuguese language and culture.

“Today we will study the days of the week and telephone numbers: it is important to know how to say your mobile number in Portuguese,” explains Barroso in English.

One of the students tries the exercise and lists the digits with surprising speed: it’s already the second time he has taken the introductory course and “he’s very motivated,” notes the teacher.

“Most people who are interested in learning Portuguese at the moment, it’s because they want to emigrate, and we prepare them for that [with] day-to-day matters that they may need when they come to Portugal,” she explains.

The teacher also answers many questions such as which cities have the best quality of life or where there are international schools for their children.

In one of the windows of the application used for the class are a couple who agree to speak to Lusa but ask not to be identified. Both in their forties, and with two young children, they are computer analysts in Hong Kong, and thinking about emigrating.

“The situation in Hong Kong is getting worse with regard to freedoms,” the man says. “In my circle, among my colleagues, we are talking about emigrating and discussing whether our children should go abroad to study.”

Born in Macau, he has a Portuguese passport, but would like his wife to obtain citizenship as well; to do that she needs to learn the language up to A2 level, according to Portuguese law. “To support her, I am also learning.

“It is a way of opening up a possibility for us and for our children,” he adds. “This way we can have more choice in the future.”

From Portugal, he only has the image conveyed to him by a cousin from Macau who often travels to the country: a “nice place, with good weather”. “I want to know what makes him go there so often,” he jokes.

But when asked if they are thinking of emigrating to Portugal, the answer is “maybe”, admitting that “learning Portuguese to obtain nationality is the first step to allow us to emigrate to Europe.”

Both have already enrolled in the next Portuguese course, after finishing the first 10-lesson module.

The course or prospective emigrants was launched in June and “the vast majority” of students – around 100 so far – are thinking of moving to Portugal, according to Barroso.

The 25-year-old teacher, who returned to Portugal two years ago after living in mainland China and Macau for four years, says that “the growing demand from the inhabitants of Hong Kong” for language classes is due to the political situation. There was, she says, a “big increase in the summer” after the approval of the national security law in the former British colony.

In June, following protests against the Hong Kong government that shook the territory last year, China’s national government imposed a law to punish subversive activities, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces with sentences up to life imprisonment.

“People had already begun to hear about Portugal, also because of golden visas,” Barroso explains, referring to the fast-track residence permits that can be issued to big investors from non-European Union countries. “But I think that their interest in coming to Portugal has to do with political instability.”

Sam Lo, 29, is one of the rare exceptions: despite being enrolled in the course for emigrants, he says he decided to learn the language because she had a Portuguese boyfriend who aroused his curiosity about the language, which in his view “doesn’t look like any of the [other] languages in Europe”.

She is also the only student who agreed to be identified, at a time when most decline to speak or ask to remain anonymous, fearing consequences if they speak to the foreign media.

“Hong Kong is becoming like mainland China: people feel they can’t say anything”, she laments.

The school, which was founded in January this year, was named Portuguesinho (literally, little Portuguese) at the suggestion of one of its founders and directors, Jan Hung, a Hong Kong native and resident.

“It was Jan’s idea, because she thinks it’s very funny that we use so many diminutives”, explains Barroso.

The two met at an exchange event organised by the Portuguese-Chinese Translation and Interpretation course, a partnership between the Polytechnic Institutes of Leiria and Macau, and became friends.

“Jan was already teaching Portuguese in an association and started to notice a growing demand,” Barroso recalls, adding that while “in Macau there is a lot of supply” in terms of courses, that is not the case in Hong Kong.

“Macau has always had more of a relationship with Portuguese, and I’m glad that in Hong Kong there are also people who want to learn the language,” she says.