Identity Across Two Places: PolyU Mainland Students' \"Gangpiao\" Experience and the Stay-or-Leave Decision at Graduation

The same 380-respondent survey: Wen Wei Po reads it as "roughly 44% of respondents definitely or leaning toward staying in Hong Kong after graduation"^※, while Sing Tao Headline reads it as "nearly 40% feel they have not integrated into society"^※. The figures do not contradict each other; what differs is which half gets read aloud. This is the kind of answer sheet, full of juxtaposed numbers, that PolyU's mainland students are handed as graduation approaches.

In one line: As of the 2024/25 academic year, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University had 3,785 non-local undergraduates, equivalent to 28.6% of local-student places^※. Cross-institution surveys suggest roughly 40–60% of this cohort lean toward staying in Hong Kong at graduation, but Immigration Department IANG data shows the share who eventually move from "working in Hong Kong" to "permanent resident" is markedly lower.

# 1. Is "About 44% Plan to Stay" and "Nearly 40% Feel Unintegrated" the Same Survey?

Yes, it is the same survey. According to a questionnaire published by the Youth Hong Kong Drifters Association (青年港漂总会)^※, the sample "successfully interviewed 380 people," of whom 80% were undergraduates, 15% postgraduates, and the remainder young people still working in Hong Kong within a year of graduation. The survey ran from September 2025 to May 2026, and about 44% of respondents said they "definitely or tend to stay in Hong Kong after graduation," while another 20% were still weighing opportunities in Hong Kong, the mainland, and overseas. This "undecided" group is often folded into the "not staying" side in subsequent reporting.

Read from a different angle, the same survey is what Sing Tao Headline reported as "42.6% integrating reasonably well" versus "19.5% finding it very hard to integrate and feeling clearly alienated"^※, with rent and housing costs cited as the top source of pressure (19.2%), followed by uncertainty about the future (17.6%), language and cultural adaptation (15.3%), and lack of social circle or sense of belonging (14.2%). That the same respondents produced both a "40-plus percent want to stay" figure and a "40 percent unintegrated" figure is itself evidence that "intention to stay" and "degree of integration" are not the same thing — wanting to stay does not guarantee integration, and poor integration does not guarantee leaving.

An SCMP editorial relayed the same set of figures^※ — "about 44 per cent of respondents said they were determined or inclined to stay long-term, with 56 per cent planning to leave or considering other options" — and ranked the sources of pressure much as Wen Wei Po and Sing Tao Headline had. The editorial proposed no specific policy, offering only a general call for "more coordinated efforts" to help mainland students overcome barriers around housing, cost of living, employment opportunities, and social integration.

# 2. Why Does Another Survey Put the Figure at 57%, Not 44%?

A reader's letter published by the SCMP cited a separate, independent survey^※: a March 2026 questionnaire of 220 mainland students found that "57 per cent said they were willing to stay in Hong Kong after graduation." The letter also noted that these willing-to-stay students "remain socially disengaged from Hong Kong life." Its conclusion: without deeper social engagement, "today's willingness to stay may never become a lasting commitment."

Neither survey — the 380-sample giving 44%, the 220-sample giving 57% — discloses a full sampling methodology, and this site takes no position on which is closer to the true figure for Hong Kong's mainland students. Credibility: single source (the two surveys have different organisers and samples, and do not cross-verify each other). What can be confirmed is this: whether the figure is 44% or 57%, a substantial share of mainland students do not treat "staying in Hong Kong" as the only option at graduation — "returning to the mainland" and "going abroad" remain live options on the table.

# 3. On Graduation Day, What Are PolyU Mainland Students' Actual Three Options?

PolyU's mainland-student population is already sizeable in its own right. According to HK01's compilation of non-local student data for the eight UGC-funded universities in 2024/25^※, PolyU had "3,785 non-local undergraduates, equivalent to 28.6% of local-student places." In the same academic year, HKU had 4,204 non-local students (30.1% of local-student places, of whom 69.7% were from the mainland), CUHK had 2,564 (17.3%), and EdUHK had 599 (12.6%, with mainland students making up 92.2% of its non-local intake). The specific share of mainland students among PolyU's non-local student body, and related language phenomena, are covered separately in Composition and Language of the Mainland-Student Body and are not repeated here.

At the moment of graduation, this cohort's options converge on roughly three paths: staying to work in Hong Kong (via IANG), returning to develop a career on the mainland, or moving on to study or work in a third location. PolyU's own undergraduate admission pathway already determines that most of this cohort enters as fresh graduates admitted through the mainland gaokao's JEE route or postgraduate admissions — a status that means they qualify for IANG on graduation as a matter of course, without needing to separately satisfy an "already employed" condition. That regulatory detail is exactly what the next section unpacks.

This cohort's absolute size is still growing. According to a report by CUHK student media outlet U-Beat, issue 169, on the expansion of non-local student intake^※, the government is doubling the non-local intake cap for UGC-funded universities "from 20% to 40%," so non-local places will "increase from about 3,000 to nearly 6,000." The report also recorded first-hand observations from interviewed non-local students — that local students are "somewhat shy, and more willing to speak Putonghua than English" — and noted that practical difficulties integrating into campus life remain. Although this report focused mainly on CUHK, the expansion policy covers all UGC-funded universities, and PolyU is subject to the same expansion trend; for PolyU's own non-local undergraduate numbers (3,785, or 28.6% of local-student places), see the HK01 data cited earlier in this section.

# 4. Does Getting IANG Mean You Have "Stayed in Hong Kong"?

Not entirely. According to an official explanation from the Immigration Department^※, the Immigration Arrangements for Non-local Graduates (IANG) is "not subject to a quota and not restricted to any sector"; fresh graduates applying "need not have secured employment beforehand"; first approval "permits a stay of 24 months"; subsequent extensions are "normally granted in three-year blocks"; and those meeting top-talent criteria may be granted a six-year extension. This means the bar for "getting IANG" is low — it is simply a pass that lets someone "stay to look for work," not proof that the person has settled in Hong Kong.

According to an official Legislative Council reply of 11 June 2025^※, new IANG applications have stayed high in recent years: 10,936 applications and 10,391 approvals in 2022; 27,295 applications and 26,089 approvals in 2023; 26,973 applications and 25,475 approvals in 2024. The same reply shows the number of people who ultimately obtained Hong Kong permanent residency through this arrangement rising over the past five years: 3,117 in 2020, 3,449 in 2021, 3,495 in 2022, 4,441 in 2023, and 4,128 in 2024. Placing the "approvals" and "eventual permanent residency" figures side by side shows that the number of people granted an IANG visa each year runs five to six times the number who eventually convert to permanent residency in that year — a gap that marks the threshold between "working in Hong Kong" and "settling in Hong Kong," one that not everyone crosses.

Table source: Legislative Council Question 19 reply (11 June 2025)^※. The two columns use different bases (the left column is visas newly approved that year; the right is permanent-resident status finally granted that year, and applicants in the latter are not necessarily the same graduating cohort). This does not represent a conversion rate for a single cohort, and is included for scale comparison only.

HK01's "Choices of the Gangpiao" series^※ put this threshold more directly, reporting that in 2023 "260,000 people were approved through IANG, of whom 240,000 were from the mainland," but "only about one in ten obtained Hong Kong permanent resident status through the Immigration Arrangements for Non-local Graduates." This "about one in ten" figure is not corroborated by any year-by-year conversion-rate statistic officially published by the Immigration Department; this site treats it as an informal/media estimate. Credibility: single source. According to Immigration Department data compiled by Wikipedia^※, among those admitted to Hong Kong through IANG in 2018, "about 91% were mainland residents," with 9,206 mainland residents and 944 non-mainland residents approved that year — mainland students have consistently been the main users of this arrangement.

# 5. If You Understand Cantonese, Why Still Feel Like an "Outsider"?

Language has never been the whole answer to identity. Zhou Yueyang, an interviewee in HK01's "Choices of the Gangpiao, Part One"^※, came to Hong Kong for postgraduate study in 2022, stayed to work for a year after graduating, and ultimately chose to return to Shenzhen. The report records her own words: "Although she understands Cantonese, she feels like an 'outlier,'" "I seem to always be an 'outsider,'" and "I hold a three-star Hong Kong ID card, yet I've never felt I'm a Hongkonger." The heart of this account is not language ability — she can understand it — but that something beyond language separates "understanding" from "being treated as one of us."

PolyU has not been inactive on the language-support front. According to the official page of the Chinese Language Centre's "Flipped Cantonese Classroom"^※, this online self-study platform systematically covers "20 initial consonants," "53 finals," and "6 tones" in Cantonese, along with everyday vocabulary and sentence use, for students to study before class and reinforce through in-class interaction. According to an April 2022 report in the official Pulse@PolyU journal^※, the flipped classroom is aimed at "beginner and intermediate-level students," is paired with "face-to-face interactive Cantonese classes," and also offers a MOOC open to learners worldwide, "launching in autumn, with registration starting in August." This mechanism solves the problem of "learning to speak"; the alienation Zhou Yueyang describes points to a problem that "learning to speak" does not necessarily solve — being accepted. The two are not the same hurdle: a language course can fill the first, but not the second.

According to SCMP's report on mainland student Carol Chen^※, the practical pressure of Cantonese shows up more in job-hunting: "Although the companies did not list Cantonese as a requirement, you'll still be rejected if you cannot speak it." The report says this left her "feeling out of step with local society" and now "more inclined to leave after graduation." Here, language shifts from a "cultural adaptation" issue into a hard "employment screening" one — which is also where this article's focus diverges from Composition and Language of the Mainland-Student Body: that piece covers the phenomenon and support mechanisms, while this one covers how this layer of the phenomenon presses on one individual's stay-or-leave decision.

# 6. The "Seven-Year Itch" — Is Converting to Permanent Residency a Hurdle Every Mainland Student Faces?

According to the residency rules of the Immigration Arrangements for Non-local Graduates^※, mainland residents may apply for permanent resident status after seven continuous years of ordinary residence in Hong Kong. A 2016 report by The Paper (澎湃新闻)^※ calls this milestone mainland students' "seven-year itch" — not in the marital sense, but as a moment of self-questioning over whether to formally convert one's status from "working in Hong Kong" to "permanent resident." Chen You, an interviewee in the report, had already obtained permanent residency, yet still said "in terms of identity, I still feel I'm from the mainland" — in her own account, holding the document and completing the identity shift are two different things.

The same report also recorded an earlier set of application figures: HKU's "mainland applicant numbers were 8,016 in 2009, peaked at 12,513 in 2013, fell to 9,400 in 2015, and fell again to 8,000 in 2016," while HKUST's applications over the same period fell from 6,900 in 2013 to nearly 5,000 in 2015. These decade-old figures should not be applied directly to PolyU today; they serve only as historical evidence that "mainland students' willingness to come to Hong Kong fluctuates cyclically rather than growing in one direction." For the latest non-local student numbers at PolyU and other universities in 2024/25, see Section 3 of this article and Composition and Language of the Mainland-Student Body.

# 7. Is There a Quantifiable Moment of "Becoming a Hongkonger"?

Quantification is inherently difficult for a question like identity, but some scholars have still tried to offer a reference point worth discussing. According to HK01's "Choices of the Gangpiao, Part Five," citing Hong Kong sociologist Lui Tai-lok^※, "once you start feeling averse to or uncomfortable with a place you once knew well, you may already be 5% Hongkonger." He offers another, more concrete marker of integration: "once you walk into a cha chaan teng and know how to table-share, you already understand the Hong Kong way of life." What these two statements share is pulling "identity" back from a grand narrative into specific, mundane, self-observable details of daily life, rather than a one-off, either-or declaration.

The same report traces the historical starting point of the Gangpiao population's growth in scale: in 1998, the Jockey Club scholarship scheme first set aside 150 places for top mainland gaokao scorers^※, to attract the mainland's leading gaokao candidates to study in Hong Kong; the report states the Gangpiao population has now reached roughly 300,000. From 150 to 300,000 over a span of nearly thirty years — which is why "identity" among today's PolyU mainland students is no longer the private concern of a handful of top scorers, but a daily question an entire generation now faces together.

# 8. What Support Has PolyU Itself Provided? Is It Enough to Bridge the Identity Gap?

According to the official page of PolyU's Student Affairs Office "Non-local Student Services"^※, this dedicated team is based in "Room QT308, Chan Sui Kau Building," and its stated service scope explicitly includes "Chinese Mainland and International Students," covering pre-departure preparation (checklists, insurance guidance), arrival settlement (Hong Kong ID card, student registration, SIM cards, opening a bank account), living and working in Hong Kong (visas, employment, accommodation, transport), and dedicated orientation activities and peer-support networks for non-local students. This mechanism addresses the practical problem of "how to get by in Hong Kong" — from the standpoint of institutional provision, PolyU has not left this cohort without a starting point.

This table also shows where the gap sits: the first three rows all have institutional provision from PolyU or the government, but for "social integration" and "identity" specifically, this site could not find any dedicated support material officially published by PolyU. Related informal accounts (such as the "buddy scheme") are already covered in detail, juxtaposed, in the integration section of Composition and Language of the Mainland-Student Body and are not repeated here — but this gap in institutional provision echoes precisely the mismatch, seen in Sections 1 and 2, between "intention to stay" and "degree of integration" in the survey figures: the system can guarantee that a person may lawfully stay, but it cannot guarantee that they feel accepted by the city.

# 9. What This Site Does Not Do

• We do not present cross-institution survey figures as "PolyU data." Neither of the two Gangpiao surveys cited in this piece (the 380-sample and the 220-sample) discloses which institutions respondents came from, and this site does not graft their conclusions onto a proportion specific to "PolyU mainland students." The only institution-level figure verifiable for PolyU is the 2024/25 non-local undergraduate count compiled by HK01 and cited in Section 3.
• We do not dramatise opposition. Staying, returning to the mainland, or going abroad are individual career choices; we do not generalise from individual cases to the group, and do not use inflammatory language.
• We do not include unsourced negative content naming individuals. Negative, unverified content concerning named living individuals is not included without a reliable source; the statements from interviewees cited in this piece all come from publicly published news reports, and are related using the same naming or pseudonymising approach as the original reports.
• We do not address the political narrative after 2019. Identity is a highly sensitive topic; this piece focuses on verifiable survey figures, official institutional arrangements, and student-media reporting. Highly sensitive political touchpoints are handled only as links, in the directories at 13. Governance and Reform and 14. History of Student Movements.

# Further Reading

• Composition and Language of the Mainland-Student Body (multiple sources, side by side) — mainland students' share of the non-local student body, campus language phenomena, and integration support mechanisms.
• From Gaokao Dorm Room to Unicorn: PolyU Mainland-Student Alumni's Greater Bay Area Founder Paths — individual narratives from mainland gaokao entrants to Greater Bay Area founders.
• How to Read PolyU Graduate Outcomes and the GES Survey — PolyU's official graduate employment survey, starting-salary and employment-rate methodology.
• PolyU Mainland Gaokao Admission Pathway — application routes and timeline for mainland gaokao entrants via JEE.
• PolyU's Residential System, the Hung Hom/Ho Man Tin Halls, and Hall Culture — everyday contact between mainland and local students in residential settings.