Edinburgh sits at the crossroads of tradition and modernity, with its cobblestone streets featuring a blend of Neoclassical architecture, new vintage-style cafes and rolling green spaces.

The quaint capital of Scotland is also a thriving international arts and cultural hub. Its annual Edinburgh Festival – in fact a collection of 11 festivals – draws hundreds of thousands of visitors a year; the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which this year runs from August 2 to 26, alone drew nearly 250,000 performers and visitors in 2023.

Since moving to Edinburgh with her family in 2022, Jasmine (who only gives her first name) feels the city, with its diverse arts offerings, has broadened her cultural horizons.

“People from all around the world come to perform, including students from other countries,” she says.

Likewise, 21-year-old Belle Li, who also moved to Edinburgh in 2022, recalls feeling awestruck by The Edinburgh Military Tattoo parade, an annual cultural spectacle that is set against the backdrop of Edinburgh Castle.

Both are among a larger group of former Hong Kong residents who over the last few years have chosen Edinburgh to be their new home.

While the city is a less popular choice when compared with larger ones like London, the Hong Kong community there is steadily growing, according to the Welcoming Committee for Hongkongers, a UK-based non-profit organisation dedicated to helping newcomers integrate into British society.

Other than culture, there are other aspects of Edinburgh to which Hong Kong settlers are drawn.

Li’s family weekends are now spent hiking in the Pentland Hills, located southwest of Edinburgh. She says that while hiking up Arthur’s Seat, a hill 823 feet (250 metres) high, is a popular choice for tourists, it is “not challenging enough” for her family.

It did not take the Li family long to start connecting with different groups in the city, she says.

“My dad joined a lot of organisations there and during the weekends, they would go to the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens and plant plants together … my mum also holds weekly English lessons for people who just moved to Edinburgh and made a lot of Ukrainian friends.”

The point of doing these different things is not so much for “adapting or assimilating” but to seek out new things to do, and to enjoy and explore the city together with new friends, she says.

When she is socialising in Edinburgh, Li is not just catching up with friends at a restaurant – like she would in Hong Kong – but also exploring the centuries-old streets and the history behind them.

For Jasmine, who loves Chinese literature and writing, she was pleasantly surprised by the small selection of Chinese books available in the city’s public libraries.

Li is still keen to retain her Hong Kong cultural roots and food is an important part of that. Her family still tries to shop in Chinese supermarkets, as well as eat at Chinese restaurants opened by Hong Kong people.

“It is really, really crucial for Hongkongers to support Hongkongers, especially when they [live together in a foreign city],” she says.

While local delicacies like pineapple buns and milk tea are ubiquitous in Hong Kong, they are not as readily available in Edinburgh. Li says her mum has “mastered” making pineapple buns at home, which has made her feel that she should not take them for granted.

A student at Durham University in England, Li admits that she occasionally misses Hong Kong, but she has made a lot of friends in the UK in the past few years, who have provided a network of support.

While she plans on pursuing a graduate scheme in London after graduation, she intends to return to Edinburgh to start a family eventually.

While Li and Jasmine are relative newcomers to the Scottish capital, Hong Kong-born Jennie Wan has been a resident for more than three decades.

She believes the city and the immigrant community have long benefited from each other socially and culturally.

The quality of local schools was a big sell for Wan, who moved to the Scottish capital after her husband began his doctoral degree at the University of Edinburgh in 1986. The couple have since raised three children there.

She says local teachers are “less concerned about homework”, a far cry from Hong Kong’s intense academic culture. Because of the reduced workload, her children could take up extracurricular activities that they were truly passionate about, such as choir singing and sports.

On the other hand, Wan also thinks it is crucial for her and her family to maintain their cultural roots, so they attend the annual Lunar New Year and Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations organised by Edinburgh’s Chinese consulate, which feature artists and performers from China.

To encourage cultural exchange, the consulate has in the past procured spots at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for locally based Chinese performers, allowing this diasporic community to exhibit their talents to a wide audience.

Wan says that over the years, she has developed close bonds with both Edinburgh’s local and immigrant communities, and she finds both generally friendly and welcoming.

Hongkongers are quietly becoming part of Edinburgh’s melting pot of cultures, adding their distinctive cultural footprint while enjoying the vibrancy of the city’s local traditions.

Jasmine, for one, is appreciating what her new home has to offer.