Hong Kong people Oxford English Dictionary in March 2014. Hong Kong people do not comprise one particular ethnicity, and people that live in Hong Kong are independent of Chinese citizenship and residency status. The majority of Hong Kongers are of Chinese descent and are ethnic Chinese (with most having ancestral roots in the province of Guangdong); however there are also Hongkongers of, for example, Indian, Filipino, Nepalese, Indonesian, Pakistani, Vietnamese, and British descent. Expatriates from many other countries live and work in the city. During the years leading up to the 1997 handover of sovereignty from Britain to China, many residents left Hong
British Hong Kong Empire. In 1861, Governor Sir Hercules Robinson introduced the Hong Kong Cadetship, which recruited young graduates from Britain to learn Cantonese and written Chinese for two years, before deploying them on a fast track to the Civil Service. Cadet officers gradually formed the backbone of the civil administration. After the Second World War, ethnic Chinese were allowed into the service, followed by women. Cadets were renamed Administrative Officers in the 1950s, and they remained the elite of the Civil Service during British rule. The stability, security, and predictability of British law and government enabled Hong Kong to flourish as a