Cosmopolitan Capitalists: Hong Kong and the Chinese Diaspora at the End of the 20th Century, by Gary G. Hamilton (ed.)

 

5: Hong Kong
Cultural Kaleidoscope on a World Landscape

Helen F. Siu

 

The Meaning Of 'Sovereignty' At The Margins: Then And Now

On June 1997, the world watched Hong Kong go through the ritual of reuniting with China, and the dynamic energies that had to do with sovereignty, the physical embodiments being the flag and the national anthem. At midnight of June 30, the blue flag of Hong Kong with the British crown was lowered and the red flag with the five stars raised. No individual preferences could have reversed the solemn occasion, which was shaped by larger structures of history and power.

Although these physical symbols cannot be arbitrarily changed, empires have related to subject populations with notions of the political quite differently from those of modern nation-states. The meaning of sovereignty at the political center also differed from that in the margins. Numerous historical landmarks related to these notions have churned the cultural kaleidoscope we now call Hong Kong. We are all-too-familiar with how the political history of these events is told today. I would, however, explore the social and cultural meanings of people's lives on the ground, which may not always fit political categorizing.

Chinese official documents consistently use a neutral phrase, "China resumes sovereign control over Hong Kong," to describe the political handover. However, the popular term "reunification" (huigui) is loaded with emotions. The question is, while sovereignty is resumed, should historical experiences be reclaimed? The notion "one country, two systems" is a unique one. "One country" refers to sovereignty. "Two systems" on the other hand involves complex histories and contradictory sentiments. ₁ If the region's populations are urged to trace their ancestral roots (renzu guizong) and exert their nationalistic commitments toward a political center, shouldn't they begin by respecting and appreciating their own historical experiences? Maybe only on that basis can the "two systems" side of the political formula be realized.

One often associates sovereignty with images of stately capitals and national pride, with clear-cut notions of "we" and "they." In 1842, however, the emotions of local populations on the South China coast might have been ambivalent. Who was in the region then? Although at the margins of empires, Hong Kong was not a barren rock when the British came. There were historic sites in the general area around Hong Kong. Tuen Mun, Fat Tong Mun, and Kap Sui Mun were along major trade routes during the Tang and Song dynasties. Traders came from Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia on their way to China. Local settlements developed unique cultures and occupations. They produced commodities ranging from salt and lime to pearls and incense. Imperial officials kept their disdainful distance, except for occasional excursions to punish real or imagined rebels. History tells us that battles were fought that determined dynastic fortunes. Those between the supporters of the child emperor Bing of the Southern Song dynasty and the pursuing Mongols were the most prominent. They left a repertoire of myths and memories.

During the Ming and Qing, commerce in the area grew with agricultural development. River marshes in the delta were sought after by single-surnamed territorial groups who claimed origins from the Central Plains. Market towns mushroomed. Land and trading rights were contested. Local elites used the imperial metaphor to support their claims and to create alliances. These land-based settlements developed a cultural complex strongly identified with the literati and authority. Similar processes took place in the New Territories. ₂

While landed elites eagerly sought Confucian cultural symbols, unorthodox trading networks thrived along the South China coast and in Guangzhou, Macao, and the Pearl River delta. One would have found Chinese junks flying Dutch and Portuguese flags for convenience and protection. Foreign traders came to conduct business with China and used the region's waters for replenishing their fleets. Local populations did the provisioning. ₃ There were conflicts, but local and foreign traders were also partners in many ways. The extent of their involvement and their multiethnic affiliations alarmed officials, who often termed them "yiyu jiangun," and lamented that "this situation in the south had always meant trouble." ₄

Encounters with foreigners in the general area were not limited to the material. Missionaries who aimed to sink roots in local society encouraged indigenization. ₅ One may summarize that from the sixteenth century onward, despite official displeasure, there was much cultural borrowing and tolerance. Identities were fluid. Emergent Han lineages, mobile and multiethnic traders, religious practitioners, pirates, and officials competed and mingled in this open and diversified ecology.

On the eve of the Opium War, the livelihoods and cultural affiliations of people on the South China coast were tied to imperial and foreign interests in complicated ways. Take Xiangshan county as an example. Its proximity to Macao and the commercial networks of Guangzhou prompted officials to comment with dismay that its residents "had been tainted with foreign ways" (jianran yisu). But many innovative comprador/officials in Guangzhou and Shanghai came from this county–the prominent ones were Yung Wing, Zheng Guanying, Xu Run. Modern historians have noted their progressive political beliefs and entrepreneurial energies.

When Hong Kong was ceded to Britain, local traders in the area were, at best, intrigued bystanders quite beyond the reach of formal state apparatus. No doubt conflicts arose from competition and prejudices among the settlers, and between them and foreign interests. But one wonders if the populations at the southernmost frontier of the empire shared the wounded pride of those at the political center. ₆ According to official Chinese historical accounts, the Sanyuanli incident in Guangzhou in 1841 was an anti-imperialist patriotic act by local masses, just as the occupation of Guangzhou by British and French forces in 1857 and 1860 was regarded as national humiliation. However, a closer look at the culture of local resistance reveals divergent meanings: acts against foreign encroachment did not necessarily mean loyalty to the imperial center. No doubt the residents of Sanyuanli fought the British troops. The reason could have been simple: when someone pressed against one's door and looted one's property, resistance could only be expected. Community feuds could have triggered similar actions. Moreover, in 1899, major lineages in the New Territories fought the British for fear that the "barbarians" would take their land and side with their competitors. The significance of the dispute revolved around "lineage land" rather than the emperor's land. Would the aggressors be regarded as representatives of Britain as a country, or as "bandits" who happened to be foreign acting in their own interests? These emotions were probably too complicated to explain as local patriotism. Moreover, for the governments involved, their sense of humiliation or triumph had less to do with the territory's fate than their own. In fact, both officials at the negotiating table, Qishan and Charles Elliot, were disgraced for having chosen Hong Kong as a point of departure.

 

What Were The Emotions On The Eve Of 1997

In 1997, the stakes were much higher, because the fortunes and sentiments of millions were now rooted in the territory. A colonial perspective downplayed the role of either China or the local populations before the Opium War and it claimed credit for the miraculous transformation of the territory. ₇ On the other side, like any sovereign state, China was eager to reestablish authority. At a time when its own legitimacy on the mainland was being redefined, it was most concerned about the integrity of its territory. The government wanted reassurance that subject populations "at the margins" could identify with the center as its own people. As Ernest Gellner (1985) said, when culture and power are combined to define a homogenizing, exclusive political unit, one finds nationalism. These contests were not limited to formal pronouncements on each side of the political divide. They have been diffused into everyday life–even in the naming of streets, in public ceremonies, and in proposals for civic or patriotic education in the schools. ₈

For this momentous plunge into the future, subject populations also looked back to evaluate the territory they have traversed and selectively retrieved memories. True to the Hong Kong spirit, the scholarly community and the popular media have already presented competing histories. Books on Hong Kong's past have appeared with increasing frequency. ₉ Emotions among the general populace have been mixed. Some staged exhibitions and made plans for various commemorations. Others watched with unease the crowds on the mainland celebrating the impending return of Hong Kong. As the clock at Tiananmen Square ticked away the minutes, designers for the Hong Kong room in the Great Hall of the People debated whether Ming and English furniture should be juxtaposed. A "reunification plaza" as a historical landmark in the Central District in Hong Kong was no longer a farfetched proposal.

The idea of a plaza leaves one with a sense of déjà vu. Harbin, after prolonged Russian occupation, was reclaimed by a warlord in the 1920s. Some Chinese merchants erected a temple in the city center, which was lined with Russian churches, schools, and a cemetery. The Jile Si (Temple of Paradise) was a monument with which the residents could work themselves into the orbit of China. They were eager to present, in their view, a Chineseness appropriate to the rising nationalism. ₁₀ The efforts of these Chinese residents of a "Russian" city paralleled an occasion in 1847, when merchants in Hong Kong enlarged a Man Mo Temple in the Taipingshan area where Chinese residents congregated. Associated with the Tung Wah Hospital in 1869, the complex became a powerful "public arena" for Chinese elites to negotiate with the colonial government on the affairs of an emergent Chinese community. Between the construction of the Man Mo temple in 1847 and the plans for the reunification plaza in 1997, there is a history of Hong Kong I would like to tell. It is a narrative in which events concerning China's territorial concerns have continued to redraw a local cultural landscape. It defies the imposition of any clear-cut lines of commitment in nationalistic terms.

 

Colonial Experiences Revisited

Narratives about Hong Kong have been increasingly politicized in the period immediately before and after the handover. Complicated social and cultural experiences are framed in dichotomous terms. The crucial political event is presented as the end to a partitioning of China imposed by foreign imperialism, which marked the subjection of Chinese populations to colonial discriminations. Despite the maturing of a post-war generation of Chinese who may identify more with Hong Kong than China, 1997 has been seen as the moment that washes away national humiliation as the territory returns to its motherland. ₁₁ The first part of the nationalistic story expresses the wounded pride of the political center–be it the Qing dynasty, the Nationalists, or the regime in Beijing today. It also assumes that conflicts that arose from the day-to-day encounters of the colonizers and colonized rigidified along racial and national lines. "The British" appear as a category of relentless profit seekers who have conspired against "the deserving but wounded Chinese." The tenuous relationships between governments and their own people are left unexplored. The creative energies used by local populations to weave components of their worldly activities into a unique ethos are also ignored by such rhetoric.

Historical evidence of course tells of a more nuanced process. From the start, Chinese business elites played significant mediating roles. Like the traders in the previous centuries, their operations were worldly. They could also afford to buy orthodoxy. As with many sojourning merchants, they were eager to cultivate an identity with their native place, real or imagined. Attached to a territorial base that displayed the language of lineage, land, charity, and academic honors, they and the imperial order held common ground. One may say that wealthy merchants were co-opted into the imperial system before they could be effective challengers. On the other hand, they could subvert that system with their worldly resources, Aiming in all sincerity to find themselves respectable places within the empire. The cover photograph of Dr. Elizabeth Sinn's book Power and Charity (1989) illustrates this dynamic process. It was taken in the 1850s and shows the Tung Wah Board of Directors, in Qing official attire, presiding over the planning of a hospital, an institution quite foreign to the Chinese at the time and later legitimized by the Hospital Ordinance under British law. The question is, how "colonial" were their Hong Kong experiences, at once marginal and committed to the imperial enterprise?

Moreover, both foreigners and Chinese worked to build institutions that had lasting impact. No doubt many colonial administrators were discriminatory. The government moved slowly on enfranchising the Chinese on the formal political front. British merchants were major beneficiaries. That was the nature of empires: frontiers were exploited rather than incorporated. However, with unrelenting effort, the Chinese sought opportunities. Tens of thousands chose to arrive within the first two decades–pirates, fishermen, craftsmen, and wealthy families escaping from the Taipings. They shrewdly used British commercial law in Hong Kong and their trading networks in China to extend business worldwide. In the 1860s, the first Chinese newspaper Zhongwai xinbao was established to provide shipping and commodity information, headed by Huang Sheng and Wu Tingfang. Following this the jinshan zhuan (239 in number) and nanbei hang (84 in number) were founded. They were guilds representing the largest group of import-exporters. By the 1870s, the Chinese, supporting a population of over 150,000, moved into real estate. ₁₂ According to a correspondence of then Governor Sir John Pope-Hennessy in 1880, Chinese residents paid over 90 percent of government taxes. Moreover, a government gazette in 1882 noted that of the 20 largest property owners and ratepayers (in 1881), 17 were Chinese. ₁₃

The important point here is that through a combination of efforts from all sides, intentional or otherwise, the Hong Kong environment provided unique opportunities for people to extend themselves. Creative energies unbound to link two merchant cultures. Amidst boom and bust, Chinese merchants sank roots in the territory side by side with foreign interests. ₁₄ This was due partly to their ability to speak the colonizers' language. Many of their children went through local schools to become bilingual, bicultural professionals. ₁₅ The real advantage was their links to the Chinese mainland, as shown by the strength of the import-exporters. Yuan Fat Hang and Kintyelung were prime examples of these enterprises, which maintained roots in China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Southeast Asia, and North America. In 1847, The Man Mo Temple signified the merchants' entry into the political arena. The Tung Wah Hospital, the guilds that were corporate board members, the Po-Leung Kok, the Chinese schools, and the District Watch Committee, were woven into a complex of culture, power, and charity for the Chinese community in Hong Kong. ₁₆

The merchants' contribution to their native place on the mainland, real or imagined, was also significant. For example, Chen Xuanyi, the founder of Kintyelung, invested in substantial ancestral estates in his native village of Qianxi, Chaozhou (Chiuchow), only ten years after they established themselves in Hong Kong. ₁₇ Yuan Fat Hang, under the leadership of Gao Man-wah, started in Hong Kong around 1853. His businesses included shipping, banking, import and export, warehouses, and numerous properties. Gao was elected to the first board of the Tung Wah Hospital. His grandson, a nationalist at the turn of the century, invested in modernizing Shantou's (Swatow's) city infrastructure–electricity, tap water, mail, and modern banking services. Would it be appropriate to brand these commercial energies as merely colluding with colonial interests? These merchants worked with foreigners, but not always for them.

 

Straddling The World And The Nation

The merchants' success could not have been secured without the services provided by a generation of Hong Kong-educated professionals. They were accountants, lawyers, educators, public health workers, surveyors and builders, specialists on shipping, and banking. By the time Wu Tingfang, Huang Sheng, Sir Kai Ho Kai, and Wei Yu were appointed as members of the legislature from the 1880s on, Chinese commercial and professional circles had representative voices in the formal political processes. ₁₈

Like the merchants, they had impact in China and the West. Wu Tingfang (1842-1922), a native of Xinhui county in Guangdong who spent his early years in Singapore, was educated in St. Paul's and Central College in Hong Kong through missionary connections. He went on to study law in England and graduated in 1877. After returning to Hong Kong, he was appointed a legislator in 1880. Two years later, he joined Li Hongzhang in China and in 1896 was ambassador to the United States, Spain, and Peru. Not only did he negotiate major treaties, he also restructured civil, commercial, and criminal law codes in the late Qing. In the early Republican years, he stood by Sun Yat-sen against the warlords.

Sir Kai Ho Kai (1850-1914) was a graduate of Central College in Hong Kong who went to England in 1872 to study law and medicine. He returned to Hong Kong to practice law and promoted Western medicine. In 1887, he financed the building of the Alice Memorial Hospital and played a key role in the establishment of Hong Kong's first medical college. A constitutional reformer, he was active in publishing new political works, such as True Interpretations of Political Reform (Xinzheng zhenquan). He later turned to support the Republican revolution, influenced by his student, Dr. Sun Yat-sen. ₁₉

Even Sun Yat-sen himself, in his speech to students at the University of Hong Kong in 1923, pointed out how he could envision positive links between his Hong Kong experiences and China's future. The speech may sound anachronistic under the present circumstances but is worth contemplating:

"On returning to Hong Kong this time, it feels like coming home. I was educated hereŠ. People have asked me, where did you get your revolutionary ideas? To be honest about it: they came from Hong Kong.... Although China had a revolution twelve years ago, there was hardly any improvement, and people's suffering deepenedŠ. Now Hong Kong's six hundred thousand residents live in relative comfort. This is due to good government. I earnestly hope that all of you who pursue studies in Hong Kong consider the West and Hong Kong as your models in order that when you return to the motherland, you can help build a good government..." ₂₀

These professionals, among others, had contributed to the institutional bases of Hong Kong society and to China's modernity and nation building. ₂₁ All of them were Chinese nationalists. They gave China what they had gained from the unique environment of Hong Kong. Moreover, they were comfortable with their multicultural qualities and did not harbor a colonial chip on their shoulders. At times, they fought against colonial abuses with a sense of social justice that came, ironically, from their Western education. Peers from China and the West respected them. Would it be fair to ignore the positive aspects of their Hong Kong background, label them merely colonial products, and belittle their multifaceted contributions to China?

It should not surprise us to find their contemporaries from the mainland dwelling on these politicized sentiments. ₂₂ Famous intellectuals–Wen Yiduo, Lu Xun, and Ba Jin, among others–visited the colony in the 1920s and 1930s. Many took refuge due to persecution and war on the mainland. One detects tension in their perceptions–a sinocentric subjectivity, reinforced by acute nationalism in the wake of the May Fourth Movement. Hong Kong was censured for not being China–not the real China then embroiled in turmoil, but rather the ideal China held firmly in the minds of the visitors. They saw Hong Kong as bearing the blood and tears of the Chinese for over a hundred years. Although they were impressed with her cosmopolitan civility and orderliness, she was despised as a "bastard," and pitied as "orphaned." As Lu Wei-luan, a scholar of Hong Kong literature observes, "Whenever there were major upheavals in the Mainland, Hong Kong displayed unusual capacities to accommodate visitors. The sojourners brought her advantages, but their hearts belonged elsewhere. They hated this place of temporary residence more than they loved it. This intertwined quality of interdependence and distance is Hong Kong's melancholy." In their eyes, Hong Kong was objectified as a place that reminded China (and them) of hurt and humiliation. However, this view tells us more about the speakers themselves than the subject of their description.

I can sympathize with the sentiments of Lu Xun and others. The 1930s, was a trying time for nationalists and revolutionaries alike. Torn apart by foreign aggression as much as by warlords, China was on her knees. Some also encountered personal harassment from petty officials, both in Hong Kong and on the mainland. ₂₃ But today, must we dwell on mentalities that have transcended their historical circumstances? ₂₄ If we do, we may as well equate the predicaments of Hong Kong with those of a traditional Chinese woman: patriarchy judges her for her many uses, but seldom appreciates her for what she is. She is condemned if her background and sentiments do not match the agenda of the beholder who claims her. ₂₅

 

Post-War Baby Boomers And Their Hong Kong Identity

If a nationalistic mind-set prevents us from appreciating the Hong Kong cultural universe of the past, have we allowed it to shape our assessment of the present and future? Some may dismiss the issue. They argue that people today see through political rhetoric and ignore its straitjacketing. However, others point to the ways in which everyday language frames the way we see the world around us. Their uncritical use can put a limit to "what is thinkable." In view of the recent debates on the Hong Kong identity and the surge of nationalistic emotions, we should examine our lenses and assumptions all the more urgently.

I would argue that a pluralistic cultural universe has continued through the efforts of post-war generations in the territory–local-born immigrants and emigrants who have created a unique ethos from their diaspora. This universe is connected to the world as much as it is attached to the real or imaginary China. Their efforts in the last 40 years tell a different story from traditionalist, colonial, or nationalist narratives. The identities and emotions are as complex and energized as those of the generations before them. If experiences do not fit into highly charged political categories, we should take a moment to appreciate them on their own terms.

Public opinion across the ideological spectrum would agree that from the 1960s on, a distinct Hong Kong ethos emerged. It came with a generation of post-war baby boomers whose education and professional achievements had been tied to the territory at a time when China was turned inward, with Hong Kong projected to the world almost by default. This coincided with the Hong Kong Government's decision to invest heavily in the territory's future after long-neglected social issues exploded in the riots of the late 1960s. Hong Kong's eventual role as an Asian financial hub triggered a surge of upward mobility from the late 1970s on. Life in Hong Kong became brashly luxurious, and its impact diffused through popular media and conspicuous consumption worldwide. The values, emotions, and identities of these cosmopolitan Hong Kong residents were relatively shielded from those of the mainland Chinese. Although few would deny their Chinese ancestry or cultural bearing, many have made it clear that cultural identification does not automatically lead to unquestioned political commitment. In my ethnographic encounters in China, I also detect a change in the popular term for Hong Kong residents, which has been shifting since the mid-1980s, from "Gang Ao tongbao" (Hong Kong and Macao compatriots) to "Xianggang ren" (Hongkonger). ₂₆ These mutual perceptions of difference zoomed into sharp focus on the eve of 1997.

Whether these differences can be bridged depends a great deal on how we view the Hong Kong experience. ₂₇ I am quite surprised by some of the extreme positions taken in recent debates. ₂₈ Most of us probably would not share these positions, but they are emerging in public forums. First, Hong Kong's cosmopolitan city-life and associated Western civic values are posed against a reified "Chineseness." The commercial ethos, which has always been seen in positive union with Confucian values to fuel a business ethic in Hong Kong, is treated with a touch of disdain–as lacking cultural depth or a collective sense of mission. Second, Hong Kong's political arena, based on liberal assumptions of institutional procedure, social justice, and respect for the individual before the law, is seen as a colonial product working against Chinese nationalistic agendas. The third extreme position is more implicit. If one tries to transcend the colonial and nationalistic frameworks to appreciate Hong Kong on her own terms, one is often accused of harboring Hong Kong chauvinism against a Chinese identity.

Again, historical evidence refuses to be discussed in these terms. On the cultural ethic front, both Yü Ying-shih and William Tay have argued strongly that despite the severing of ties with mainland China, post-1949 Hong Kong provided a space for intellectual contemplation unmatched in China or Taiwan. From the late 1940s to the 1970s, the political persecutions under the Kuomintang in Taiwan and the equally intense campaigns on the mainland denied even loyal opposition. Hong Kong was the precious little island, linked to networks of the Chinese diaspora, which kept intellectual discourse alive. Qian Mu (Qien Mu), Quan Hansheng (Ch'uan Han-sheng), Luo Xianglin (Lo Hsiang-lin), Jian Youwen (Chien Yu-wen), Tang Junyi (Tang Chun-yi), Mou Zongsan (Mou Chung-san), and Xu Fuguan (Hsu Fu-kuen) were intellectual giants associated with the new Confucianism–a philosophical force that has swept China with a vengeance today. ₂₉ These scholars enjoyed an environment relatively free of ideological impositions, as Xu Fuguan was said to have commented that "the government and he were non-existent for each other." ₃₀ Moreover, one wonders if their "escape from predicament"–the creative fusion of scholarly integrity and mission with modern agendas–has been shaped by their experiences in a society in which personal vulnerability is minimized by the respect for law, professionalism, a liberal frame of mind, cosmopolitan civility, and worldly horizons. ₃₁ Those years in Hong Kong were not marked by material affluence, but the intellectual richness contrasts favorably with the tragic, last 20 years of Chen Yinke's life across the border. ₃₂

One may say that philosophical musings were limited to a privileged few, while the rest of the society remained mired in vulgar materialism. However, recent support for Hong Kong's Olympic gold medalist, Lee Lai-shan, tells a different story. The "Hong Kong spirit" is equated with Lee's achievements and enthusiastically promoted in the media. There was extensive commentary on the fact that the 1996 ceremonies were the last occasion at which the Hong Kong flag would be raised. Political rhetoric framed the issue as a contest between Hong Kong chauvinism and Chinese patriotism. But if we go beyond the political, the emotions of these ordinary citizens crystallize an appreciation for an unrelenting work ethic and respect for professional and personal integrity, which have been major ingredients to Hong Kong successes. I recently came across a photographic album of life in Hong Kong in the 1960s and 1970s by Yau Leung (Qiu Liang). I was as deeply moved by the poverty of a vast majority of the population as I was by the human warmth, sense of community, self-respect, and the innocence on children's faces. These emotions are still very much woven into our lives. They occasionally resurface amidst the brash consumerism of the 1980s and 1990s, and allow us to appreciate the hardships generations of Hong Kong residents went through to achieve their positions today. It also makes an important point: in the foreseeable future, Hong Kong will remain a land of immigrants and emigrants. If Hong Kong cannot maintain its existing social order and legal institutions, the new immigrants may not have any reasonable and healthy way to settle into mainstream Hong Kong life. Ironically, the "get rich quick by whatever means" mentality, as opposed to the Lee Lai-shan spirit, seems to be closely tied to Hong Kong's reintegration with a post-Mao China reeling from decades of deprivation.

Last but not least is the issue of the Hong Kong identity. In contrast to the nationalist narrative, the Hong Kong experience has been neither entirely colonial/Western or narrowly territorial. In education, Choi Po-king and Bernard Luk have pointed to the significant Chinese component in the schools. In ritual practices, elements of tradition continue to be recycled in an urban setting. In popular culture, scholars emphasize its multi-cultural, all-encompassing qualities. Growing up in such an environment, where the population continues to be made up of immigrants and emigrants, where family processes are truncated and personal choices reconfigured in the world metropolis or in cyberspace, the territory's residents have acquired overlapping identities of Hongkonger, Cantonese, Chinese, and global citizen. In sum, the Hong Kong identity is attached to a territory without clear boundaries. It constitutes fluid layers of social meaning, economic interests, and political preferences and has grown global without losing its Chinese bearing. ₃₃ The world, as much as China, engages this identity in order to communicate. In the 1970s, Hong Kong students who demanded social reforms were swept up in radical thinking worldwide. Many were inspired to look to China for the socialist utopia. In the 1990s, the world's interest in China as market became a lifeline for a post-industrial Hong Kong. What Hong Kong has offered in this unique position has fueled China's reentry into the world community.

As Elizabeth Sinn comments, "Hong Kong culture grew in a unique environment full of historical contradictions. Hong Kong is a window to the world for China, as well as a one for the world to look into China. In Hong Kong, the Chinese, the foreign, the new, the old, the orthodox, and the unorthodox are mixed in a melting pot, with various contradictions as catalyst, out of which arises a pluralistic, fluid, exuberant cultural uniqueness. If we used a one-dimensional, flat, non-processual framework to understand it, it may be too narrow, too unfair."

I have tried to show that from the Ming dynasty to the end of the twentieth century, local populations have been quite beyond the reach of formal state apparatus and have foiled any serious imposition of rigid categories. Interacting with these state efforts, the merchants, the turn-of-the century professionals, the revolutionaries, the refugees, the post-war baby boomers, and the new immigrants have exerted tremendous ingenuity to accommodate, to maneuver, and to absorb. They have created the phenomenon we now call Hong Kong. I sincerely hope that there is no closure to the historical narrative. If one asks what Hong Kong can contribute to China, I suggest that Hong Kong should insist on the social institutions it has built and bring the world to the territory on that basis in order to engage China positively in the nexus. That has been Hong Kong's historical role, and its residents should have the self-confidence to maintain that role in the future.

In a way, Hong Kong is fortunate to be at the margins of empires. Although physically cramped, its residents, migrants and local born, have collectively created an unusual cultural and political space, where they can choose and act on agendas most meaningful to them. The history of Lingnan (south China) tells us a similar story. From the Ming dynasty on, a unique regional culture evolved with local elites who willingly grappled with the cultural symbols of central authority in order to seek legitimate places in the imperial order. By the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, one saw a "Chinese" culture that was intensely diverse yet, once embraced, offered a unifying sense of identification. The relationship between region and center is a dialectic one: if the center is confident enough to accommodate the region by giving it the necessary space and allowing multiple systems to exist on their own terms, the authority of the political center can in fact be appreciated.

Every turn of political events has triggered a remarkable churning of cultural energies. My story will be only one among many. Wherever we choose to place our faith, I hope that this story can be testimony to the open society of Hong Kong, where public forums are vibrant and different voices respected. May be we should not build anything at all in the future reunification plaza–let it be that open, tolerant "public space" representing what is truly a Hong Kong experience.

 

Notes

This chapter is based on a talk given in the Hong Kong Lectures, the University of Hong Kong, December 7, 1996.

Note 1:  For a similar argument, see Bai Shi (1997).Back.

Note 2:  See the works of Maurice Freedman and later scholars on the lineage complex in south China and the New Territories of Hong Kong. For recent revisions of the lineage complex, see David Faure and Helen Siu (1995).Back.

Note 3:  In the Ming, the language for trading in the general area was Portuguese. It was later replaced by a Cantonese version of pidgin English. At times of conflict, the Chinese government had threatened to order local populations not to provision foreign ships. See Chen (1894: 10-12).Back.

Note 4:  On Guangdong coastal trade with Southeast Asia during the Ming, see Li (1985); in the same volume, see also the essay by Zhang (1985). In the early Qing, Zhangzhou traders often manned Dutch boats operating in and out of Guangzhou. For more on this, see Zhang (1985: 317), who quoted Qu Dajun [1700]. Zhang also notes that the collaboration between jian and yi in the Ming was as intense as on the eve of the Opium War, and that scholar/officials at the time saw it as a serious problem which was difficult to resolve (Zhang 1985: 319).Back.

Note 5:  Benedict Anderson, in a talk on Philippine nationalism, concurred with this idea about the indigenizing missionary agendas. Also see Bays (1996) and Leung (1993). Back.

Note 6:  See Chapter 26 in Hong Kong 1996 (Howlett 1996) for some hint of this. By the time the New Territories were leased in 1898, lineages there did resist. Their fears were specific: land rights and the potential loss of revenue from their "mixed surname" tenants. Their reactions were different from those of the merchant community in the city and of literati elites on the mainland. The local "Chinese" were by no means united in their "nationalistic sentiments." See also Tsai (1993); he makes a useful distinction between anti-foreign, patriotic, and nationalistic sentiments. These sentiments were also crossed with other factors such as class and gender.Back.

Note 7:  Scholars try to counter the image of the "barren rock" in colonial narratives. See Chan (1993).Back.

Note 8:  A colonial history can also be diffused into everyday life. Take the naming of streets, for example. On Hong Kong Island, most streets are Chinese translations of British names, associated with particular colonial officials. Those in Kowloon are mixed. New Territories street names are mostly English translations of Chinese names. See Leung To's study (1992) of street names in Hong Kong. See also the cynical explorations in Lo Dayou's popular music in the films of Tsui Huk and Cheung Kin-ting. The recent debates on "national" and "civic" education put these narratives in sharp focus. See Choi (1996a, 1996b) and, in the same volume, Lin (1996) and Lau (1996); see also Yuen (1996) on the different facets of nationalistic emotions. See also Ren (1997) on museum exhibits in the narration of Hong Kong history.Back.

Note 9:  Many are from colleagues from Hong Kong–Drs. Fok Kai-cheong, Ming Chan, Elizabeth Sinn, Choi Po-king, and Rey Chow, among others.Back.

Note 10:  This is the topic of a dissertation by Jay Carter, a student in the History Department at Yale University.Back.

Note 11:  Again, see the essays by Choi (1996a, 1996b), Lin (1996), and Lau (1996). See also an essay by King (1997).Back.

Note 12:  On the history of this period involving merchants, foreign traders, and laborers, see Elizabeth Sinn (1989). See also Tsai (1993) and Chan (1991).Back.

Note 13:  See Yu (1994) p. 330. See also similar observations in Lin (1993).Back.

Note 14:  Many scholars have argued that Hong Kong has a double-tracked colonialism, under which Chinese interests were not always subordinated. For instance, see Fok (1992).Back.

Note 15:  Efforts to set up Chinese schools were not lacking. In fact, Wah Yan, with the help of the Jesuit fathers, represents one such effort to balance the achievements of the Queen's College. For government support for Chinese schools in the early decades, see Ng (1984). For a more detailed history of the different school systems, see A. Sweeting (1990).Back.

Note 16:  Another overlapping arena for the flexing of political muscles was the District Watch Committee. Beneath the appearance of its formal mundane duties was the politicking that earned it the name of "The Chinese Executive Council." See Ng (1984).Back.

Note 17:  Their business network linked Chaozhou, Hong Kong, and various Chinese communities in Southeast Asia through the rice trade, remittances, and shipping, among other ventures. Chen started as a fisherman who became a boatman for a sea merchant, Gao Yuansheng of Chaozhou (Choi 1995).Back.

Note 18:  See the records of the meetings of the Pok Leung Kok, where Sir Kai Ho Kai interacted confidently with the Registrar General as a professional equal. The records are included in a manuscript prepared by David Faure (1996). On Sir Kai Ho Kai, see also G. Choa (1981), and Linda Pomerantz-Zhang (1992)Back.

Note 19:  See G. Choa (1981).Back.

Note 20:  The speech, "Guofu yu Xianggang Daxue yanjiang jilue," was originally published in Huazi ribao, 1923, February 21. It was been reprinted in Lu (1983: 243-245).Back.

Note 21:  For examples, see Wu Ting-guang (1922a, 1922b). See Fok Kai-cheong (1992) for numerous examples of prominent Hong Kong Chinese who contributed to China's nation building. Others have emphasized the efforts of the Hong Kong laboring classes that stood with Chinese workers on the mainland. See M. Chan (1994) and Tsai (1993).Back.

Note 22:  The labels, such as "comprador" (maiban), "colonial lackeys" (nucai), or even "coolies", and "laboring masses," are terms with specific historical context and are loaded with political meanings. Using them uncritically as analytical language is problematic. See Faure (1994) for a review of Tsai's book. See also Choi Po-king and Ho Lok-sang (1993) for a critique of the modern version of this mentality. The essays in the volume, according to Choi (1993: xxiv) are wary of the ethnic and cultural purists who harbor a restrictive nationalism and related anti-foreignness.Back.

Note 23:  See Lu Xun, "Lue tan Xianggang" and "Zai tan Xianggang," about his trip to Hong Kong and the harassment from customs officials, reprinted in Lu Wei-luan (1983).Back.

Note 24:  See, for instance, Hong (1997) and Xu (1997).Back.

Note 25:  Margaret Ng made this point in a public talk given at Yale University in October 1996.Back.

Note 26:  Pamela Crossley has made similar observations.Back.

Note 27:  On the cultural front, see Sinn (1995). For the sociological and political-economic front, see Ming Chan and Postiglione (1996); also see Choi Po-king and Ho (1993).Back.

Note 28:  See the essays in the Ming Pao Monthly volumes. Some authors dwell on dichotomous categories, while others look for mediating frameworks.Back.

Note 29:  These were Chinese scholars who took refuge in Hong Kong after 1949 and who trained a generation of Confucian scholars under the auspices of the Xinya Yanjiusuo. Some were later associated with the New Asia College of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and others with Academia Sinica in Taiwan.Back.

Note 30:  Personal conversations with William Tay. See also Yü Ying-shih (1993), who argues that one has to maintain a world perspective in order to appreciate the tremendous intellectual space Hong Kong has historically provided.Back.

Note 31:  The formal political processes may not be democratic in practice, but the Hong Kong government is more or less held accountable to a democratic tradition in Britain.Back.

Note 32:  Chen Yinke was an intellectual giant in China–historian, literary critic, philosopher, and linguist. He was regarded as a "national treasure" and given special treatment during the difficult years. He spent his last years in Zhongshan University in Guangzhou and died in the early 1970s. See Lu Jiandong (1995).Back.

Note 33:  On the issues of how meanings about space and place are established, and how identities are increasingly de-territorialized, see a theoretical piece by Gupta and Ferguson (1992). Using that framework, I published an essay on "Cultural Identity and the Politics of Difference" (Siu 1993).Back.

 

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