Migration
I have a friend who migrated to Canada before 1997 due to the handover the sovereignty of Britain to China. He told that he was so disappointed because he couldn’t find a suitable job in Canada. ( I suppose the kind of management job like he had in Hong Kong (HK)). His wife was a civil servant. If she had stayed in HK, her salary might be around HKD 80,000/month (USD 10,300) + attractive pension fund. That is one lump sum upon retirement plus monthly pay till death. Her husband eventually returned HK to work, while his wife and two sons stayed in Canada. He goes to Canada a few times a year.My wife, Grace heard from a CEO over the radio. He spent 2 years going to China different places, talking to different people to find out the situation. Finally, he decided to stay in HK without migration. I had been telling people before 1997-the year Britain handed over sovereignty of HK to China, that there were already millionaires in China in the 1980s. China wouldn’t confiscate the possession of HK people. There were 300,000 HK people migrated to other countries.
Migration and Early Retirement
My other friend Johnny decided to migrate to Singapore. He sent his whole family there while working with the HK Special Administrative Region (SAR) government. When I joined the government in 1990, there was no choice to retire at 55, but only at 60. So he started working with the government earlier than I did. He told me that, the government asked him three times whether he wanted to retire till 60. His replies were no for three times. When he retired at 55, he joined his family in Singapore. After some months, he returned to HK and found a job with the contractor. He told me that he only has 14 days annual leave, whereas he had 40 days annual leave while working for the government. He told me that his salary with the contractor was the starting point as with the government. So, he does not enjoy higher salary point and his experience with the government does not count into his present pay scale. I wanted to do a research on his case, but he did not want to fill in the survey form for personal reasons. Obviously, he did not make a wise decision. I can understand that he wanted to re-union with his family, so he chose to retire earlier at 55. He obviously could not find a satisfying job in Singapore so he returned HK to find a job. He should have decided to retire at 60 and enjoyed 5 more years working for the government with a higher salary and very long vocation annual leave. He would have a bigger lump sum retirement fund and a higher monthly pension pay because the retirement fund calculation is according to the number of years working for the government. I know this because I had been working for the government for 18 years. He has 26 days less annual leave now. What about the sexual need? After about 2 years, he decided to return to Singapore.