Gong nui

The word Gong Nui, or Gong neoi (Chinese: 港女) can be directly translated to "Hong Kong Girls" and is commonly used on Hong Kong Internet forums as well as in the press. It represents a negative stereotype portraying Hong Kong women as worshiping money, narcissistic, being obsessed with foreign culture, and suffering from the so-called "Princess Syndrome" which means girls or non-married women requesting others to treat her like a princess.
"Gong nui" (港女) was a neutral word used to describe ordinary Hong Kong women. Hong Kong women were usually compared with Chinese women and Taiwanese women due to the Chinese family background and similar Chinese sociocultural background. In the past, compared to women in South East Asian countries, Hong Kong women were described as being independent, subjective and ambitious in work, which are much more outstanding and positive. Along with the increasing number of female occupations at the management level, Hong Kong women are even positively described as "career women" and "tough women".
The negative usage of gong nui began in 2005 when several fights and discussions started online. In February 2005, a Hong Kong girl identified as "Jenny" complained about her boyfriend for not paying $63.80 for snacks on an online forum, which was later known as the "63.8 Incident". After the posts, a lot of internet users negatively commented on Jenny's behaviour, which led to a conflict between Jenny, her few supporters, and her attackers. "Gong nui" was then used to describe Jenny. This word does not represent all women in Hong Kong but being used to describe all the women who are arrogant, proud, and shallow.
The word "Hong Kong Girls" was coined online and there are several main forums either defending or attacking this phenomenon.
The Hong Kong girl, Jenny, posted their story on the online forum, she.com and let netizens comment on it.
Jenny 2005-02-11 12:08
Jenny 2005-02-11 12:29
"Gong Nui" come from the phrase "Hong Kong's girl". Originally, it is a neutral phrase. But after many Hong Kong internet forum users use this word to describe the females they met in Hong Kong which are materialistic, snobbish, superficial, self-centered and selfish, this word become a negative phrase. There are no formal characteristics to describe "Gong Nui". According to "Kong Girls and Lang Mo: teen perceptions of emergent gender stereotypes in Hong Kong", respondents suggest that "Gong Nui" always expects others to comply, full of vanity, bad-tempered and materialistic. Although this phrase normally addresses specific individuals, it becomes a representative of Hong Kong females' characteristic when comparing with other place females. According to research, 50% of the respondents say that it is common to find characteristics of Kong Girls among Hong Kong female.
Sometime, "Gong Nui" is used to mention a lady which is combined of "gold worshipper" and "Princess Sickness". "Gold worshipper" means the workers who dig gold. In this case, it means female which consider money as a measure of all standards of behaviour. "Princess Sickness" is a popular slang expression closely related to the "by imperial decree" attitude. In the eventual development of the "Gong Nui" stereotype, "Gong Nui" becomes synonymous with women with "princess sickness", those who act as if they were princesses waiting for others to serve them.
People may think that it is a phrase that only males use it to belittle females, but some females also use this phrase to label another female. They think that those "Gong Nui" will give Hong Kong female a bad reputation. They make efforts to avoid themselves not to be assigned as "Gong Nui", thus highlighting gender as a relevant category in the number of cross-China border marriages between Hong Kong men and Mainland Chinese women is increasing. The number of cross-border marriages between Hong Kong residents and Mainland Chinese has risen tenfold from 1995 to 2005, accounting for more than one-third of registered marriages involving Hong Kong residents in 2005.
The reason that people label "Gong Nui" as a negative representative is not only because they hate those characteristics. They want to express a positive image of what females should be; females should not be materialistic, snobbish, superficial, self-centred and selfish. It is an emergent gender stereotype in Hong Kong. However, "Kong Girl" is not the sole example, as "Lang Mo" can also be such an example. Although half of respondents think that "Lang Mo" is positive in research, "Lang Mo" are criticized for using their bodies as a form of currency. Both groups of females are labelled and criticized because they violate social expectations of how good girls should behave.
"Gender stereotypes are not created in a vacuum, but rather emerge from within a particular sociohistorical context in which social participants position themselves and others in salient ways." Hong Kong is an international city, but the main gender stereotype still comes from China. For example, "Men are breadwinners; women are homemakers". According to the research of the Women's Commission, the results showed that the community, men and women alike, still generally considered that women should be responsible for housework.
In the past, the typical Chinese woman was expected to be a housewife and the typical man is expected to work outside. During that time period, the responsibility of the men was to fulfill the needs of the family, monetarily or otherwise. Thus, it is understandable that women would want a rich man to ensure a stable life. In that circumstance, it is more acceptable for women to be snobbish and superficial when choosing a companion, as it is the only place they can be, for the sake of their future.
Nowadays, women have relatively more chances to work and are thus more financially independent from men. Thus, more people expect that women should not behave in the same manner as how they did in the past. They can afford their own desires and don't need to make sacrifices in choosing between love and marrying rich. If women nowadays think that the man should be rich and pay for everything, they will therefore be labelled as greedy or as a "gold digger".
On the other hand, because women are now much more financially independent, they can have more freedom to create their own futures. They can choose not to marry and instead remain single until they find love, while not suffering under the control of family and societal norms. Therefore, due to the higher financial stability and education of women in the present compared to bygone eras, it is expected for women to desire higher quality companions.
Despite how society now encourages sex/gender equality, this stereotype still remains ingrained if instilled from childhood. Naturally, economic status, like real estate ownership, is still a significant consideration. This is reinforced by old Chinese gender stereotypes, which mention that the men must be in better standing than the women. Thus, as long as these stereotypes remain an integral part of the culture, true equality will have yet to be achieved.
Traditional media generally present a neutral view of the Gong Nui phenomenon.
Generally, men have negative feelings on 'Gong Nui'. They refuse to get married with Gong Nui as they think those girls are materialistic and above all, the girls are not looking for true love but someone who is wealthy. Besides, it is difficult to get along with Gong Nui while they are "narcissistic" according to the definition of Gong Nui. Gong Nui being self-confident, men would gradually lose their self-esteem in front of these girls and they would be afraid of having low status at home after marriage. They, therefore, do not even want to have a relationship with Gong Nui.
Most of the online forum users recognise gong nui as undesirable and greedy women, who even represent a bad image of Hong Kong girls.
Among the attackers, men expressed their fear of meeting gong nui while women expressed their anger on how gong nui reflects a bad and terrible image of other Hong Kong women.
People also compare gong nui to women in other countries, for example Taiwan and South East Asia. Hong Kong men believe Hong Kong women do not have the appropriate manners that a wife or a girlfriend should have.
However, the truth is that there is also existence of "Gong nui", narcissistic women in many countries. They are merely not publicised and talked widespread by people.
In most cases, women in Hong Kong regard the "Gong nui" label as offensive. Some of them nowadays have high education level and income, as a result, they would simply want their partner to have as same social status as they have. From their point of view, all they want is a stable future and the sense of security instead of money or material stuff. Though most of the comments are negative and attacking Jenny's behaviour, there are also few online users agreeing with Jenny's viewpoints and defending women's demand to feel how men actually care about them.
Consumerism is a serious phenomenon in Hong Kong, due to the fact that Hong Kong is an international city. No one cares how people work hard at the back of success, but only how you superficially behave gloriously. According to "After the Binge, the Hangover" Research, there are more than 50% Hong Kong respondents have brand new clothes with hangtags in their closets that have never been worn, because they have to continuously buy clothes in order to show that he or she lives well under this international city. Gong nui is definitely one of the respondents and consumers. Consumerism surely relates to materialism. In Hong Kong, many loan advertisements are existed on the TV show and they promote that Loan can help people pay off the credit card. Some even say loan can help people travelling and shopping freely. Normally, they hide the consequence and set the step of loan more earlier. The media of Hong Kong encourages people to consume, which actually encourage materialism too.
The education level of Hong Kong women has been increasing, that more and more women in Hong Kong are getting equal opportunities of higher education as men. Women can be more independent nowadays, but the old Chinese gender stereotype is still staying in Hong Kong. Although equality of male and female is encouraged in Hong Kong, the old thinking "husband should be richer than wife" is still not eliminated. An asymmetric gender stereotype change is happening. The right of the females is increasing without the responsibility. Nowadays, female can be financial independent from males, it means that they don't need males to afford their consumption. They can choose a male not only because he is rich but more about love, personality... But the old thinking "husband should richer than wife" encourage females to choose a male which more property. According to the research of the Women's Commission, more women considered objective factors such as education level and social status to be among the major considerations for choosing a spouse.
Additionally, the population proportion in Hong Kong also accounts for the reason why there is an existence of the term of gong nui. According to the Census and Statistics Department of Hong Kong government, the female population in Hong Kong in 2017 is 4.012 million, while male population is merely 3.397 million. The gender population in Hong Kong is rather imbalanced. Moreover, Hong Kong men start to search for women in other countries instead of in Hong Kong, leading to more and more Hong Kong unmarried women in excess. That is why Hong Kong women become more materialistic and arrogant, because they also do not aim for Hong Kong men within Hong Kong society.
In addition to Gong nui, there is also an existence of the term "Gong nam", referring to a typical type of Hong Kong boys. While the online platform criticises gong nui as unruly, obstinate, materialistic, picky and have princess sickness, gong nui also criticises gong nam for an equal number of shortcomings. There is an article listing 81 faults of Hong Kong boys, including stingy, horny, immature and appear to be very weak in a relationship . In 2013 October, one Hong Kong girl slapped her boyfriend publicly in the street. The man kneeled on the ground, apologised and hoped for a forgiveness from his girlfriend. The video later was uploaded online to many of the online platforms and become widespread. On one hand, people criticise the girl acting exactly like a Gong nui, however, on the other hand, people also blame the man for being coward and losing male's faces, which refers to the characteristics of a Gong nam.
The conflicts usually start with a contradiction of generosity and narrow-mind, material and body. Gong nui believe men should appropriately do a better work and be generous on the aspect of money, while gong nam criticise women in Hong Kong over-rank themselves.