Crafting Home Away from Home: Sojourn Students’ Experiences Between Mainland China and Hong Kong

Students from mainland China who pursue their studies in Hong Kong have increasingly constituted a significant contingent of cross-border migrants in the present day. From the theoretical perspective of mobility, this study regards them as sojourn students who relocate and settle temporarily in a new locale for educational purposes. Despite some commonalities between Hong Kong and the mainland, sojourn students still face a sense of unfamiliarity and differences that need to be addressed. Previous studies have found that mainland students learn Cantonese to overcome language barriers, adapt to local social interaction patterns for better integration, and avoid engagement in political issues to prevent conflicts (Yu & Zhang, 2016). However, this study suggests that when people migrate to a new environment, they not only adapt to the established life and culture of the host society but also bring their own features and proactively shape the living spaces to align more closely with their own habits.

Inspired by the theoretical concept of home-making (Blunt & Dowling, 2006), this study explores the agency of sojourn students in crafting their sense of home. The concept of home transcends a physical or material space; it encompasses emotional and identity dimensions, providing individuals with a sense of security and belonging (Morley, 2002). Home is not simply a given existence but is made by individuals in a particular social context. The home-making practices denote the activities of creating familiar experiences in material and physical space, personal lifestyle, emotional feelings, and social networks (Arnold, 2016).

Therefore, based on this concept, this paper explores how mainland students in Hong Kong navigate their temporary sojourn and settle themselves in new environments more comfortably. Since media technologies are increasingly significant in their lives for maintaining old connections and creating new ones, this paper also investigates the role of media technologies. The research questions are as follows: a) what home-making practices do mainland students engage in while in Hong Kong? b) what's the role of media technologies during these processes?

The primary method employed in this study is the in-depth semi-structured interview. Sixteen participants, seven females and nine males, were interviewed, with their ages ranging from 23 to 35. The questions predominantly focused on several thematic concerns: the challenges encountered by respondents in their daily lives in Hong Kong, the strategies they employed for adaptation, the preservation of pre-existing social connections, and their media use.

This result shows that when mainland students move to Hong Kong to study, they encounter some difficulties in their daily lives, including language diversity, inconvenience caused by the low level of platformisation in Hong Kong, and cultural distinctions. The home-making practices of students to deal with these challenges can be investigated in several ways. First, on a physical basis, students decorate their home space according to their own preferences, thereby making it more compatible with their own living habits. Second, they try to continue some of their previous routines while adapting to the new environment, thus gaining a sense of familiarity. Third, migrant students connect with their families and friends in the mainland through media technologies and build new relationships to satisfy basic social interaction needs in a new context. It should be noted that, as cross-border immigrants, the students perceive their life in Hong Kong as a temporary settlement. Accordingly, their practices show the feature of temporality and mobility.

Furthermore, this study reveals that lots of students frequently travel to Shenzhen, a modern city on the mainland adjacent to Hong Kong. In Shenzhen, students can benefit from lower living cost while enjoying their previous entertainment habits and accustomed lifestyle. This study termed this practice as “home-seeking”, a more dynamic way of adaptation compared to “home-making.” This concept suggests that migrants are not merely passive in establishing a “home” in given places of the host society; rather, they actively seek out spaces that in common with their hometowns, thereby gaining a sense of familiarity and continuity.

In a broader sense, examining the adaptation issues of cross-border students can provide implications for understanding the adaptive challenges of other cross-border or transnational migrants and diaspora.