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There are on average around 140,000 Filipinos in Hong Kong, of the the vast majority work as foreign domestic helpers. Filipino maids are known by the locals as amahs, or more often feiyungs and the slang bun muis or bun buns. A Hong Kong work visa requires some amount of higher education; and in some cases Filipino women with university degrees are willing to work as maids and nannies for the higher salary and better living conditions they will receive in Hong Kong than they could make at home.
On Sundays and on public holidays, thousands of feiyungs gather in Central, Victoria Park and around Hong Kong Cultural Centre to socialise.
Domestic Helpers
It is estimated that over 95% of Filipinos in Hong Kong are domestic workers while some have chosen to work in bars as 'waitresses' who double as sex workers.
Filipinos are also nearly ubiquitous as singers and musicians in bars and hotels. The first Filipinos to have worked professionally in Hong Kong were these groups who went to Hong Kong during the post-World War II years and following the fall of the Mainland to the Communists in 1949. Many Filipinos also work in service industries in the Central business district and Wanchai, and also in Hong Kong Disneyland as entertainers or other cast members.
There is a minority of female Filipinos who have married expatriates, mostly a decade or two older than themselves from Western countries, and have settled down in Hong Kong. The future for them is uncertain since these couples are illiterate in Chinese and as non-Chinese they cannot be granted Chinese nationality.
There is a website (www.ofwhk.com) created by a group of Filipino residents that contains helpline, free services and business directory lists of Filipino shops (eg: employment services, cargo services, Phil products, employment agencies, etc..) for Filipino community in Hong Kong.
Language
Most Filipinos in Hong Kong communicate with the local population in English (usually a second language for both parties). However, they communicate with their own friends and community in Tagalog or in another Filipino dialect. Most of them also have picked up a few Chinese (Cantonese) phrases in everyday life. A few are adept at Cantonese usage.
Filipinos haven't settled long enough in Hong Kong to have a large number who know Cantonese fluently, unlike some of the other ethnic minorities such as the Pakistanis and the Indians who often speak Cantonese like locals. Typically, the 140,000 Filipinos are transients -- each year, a large number of these leave Hong Kong permanently, to be replaced by a different set of Filipinos who have to learn Cantonese from the beginning.
Community life
Commerce
The World-Wide House arcade in Central is popular with the Filipinos, as many of the shops are run by Filipinos. The wide assortment of typically small shops caters to their needs, selling telecommunications and banking services, to food, and magazines.
Entertainment
On Sundays, one can usually encounter a large number of Filipino maids gathered at various spots in Central, including the ground floor of the HSBC Hong Kong headquarters building. Many maids in Hong Kong have Sunday as their fixed once-a-week working day off, during which they socialize, eat self-prepared food, sing, and even sell various items. This weekly gathering is such a long-standing practice that the "No littering" signs in the vicinity are written in three languages: Chinese, English and Tagalog.
Religion
Most Filipinos in Hong Kong are Christians, the majority Roman Catholic. There are also a sizeable number who congregate in Protestant and non-denominational churches. A minority are Muslims. Many spend at least a part of their Sunday mornings attending Mass and various church services. Numerous Catholic parishes in Hong Kong offer Masses in Tagalog or English geared towards the Filipinos, who make up a large part of the membership of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong (2005: 353,000, but it is unclear whether Church statistics include them).