I work with a small fund, and part of an even smaller HK office. Just relocated to HK trying to establish the HK office as a 4 man team; 3 of us are white (2 Americans, 1 Brit) and 1 Chinese from Beijing. We have not begun to hire any locals or any staff for that matter.

We have had to travel back to NYC about once a month for half a year now. I've been trying to be more active in the expat community so I've read about the "gwai" advantage, and how it applies to CX, but does anyone else think it is a Gwai disadvantage now? Perhaps I was a lowly SL and havent flown since being GO, but... My observation:

- They seem to think the "gwai's" are more likely to complain thus they stay out of our way. We've seen better service being directed to other local Cantonese speakers many times (because so many FA's are now from HK) and they seem less willing to help us out. Meal options to us were denied ("Sorry, none left") and I see them carrying the EXACT option that I wanted 3 minutes later to... you guessed it, someone who asked in Cantonese.

- "Mainland" Chinese get treated like sh*t, there's no way to get around it. I dont know how else to put it, maybe cause our mainland colleague barely speaks English or Cantonese (only Mandarin) but I can confirm this.

Anyone else have similar experiences in recent times, aka 2010 onwards? observations??? maybe I should change my name Chris Colby to Chris Chan, to thorw them off on the manifest!