Hong Kong Protests, History and Identity - Becoming Hong Kongers
Taking the recent 'Hong Kong umbrella revolution' as point of departure, journalist Vaudine England traces the burgeoning of a distinct 'Hong Kong identity' throughout its history of protest.
A lecture by journalist Vaudine England.
Hong Kong as we know it was founded through protests, albeit by those of opium traders in Canton (Guangzhou) who felt the rules restricting their trade were too harsh. More than 170 years later, people in Hong Kong are finding ever more to protest against. A quick survey of protests past shows that a lot of the issues are not new - demands for greater political freedom, for protection from the chaos of the Chinese mainland, for quality under the rule of law - although the techniques of protest have changed. Once it was the poisoning of bread - now it is the pitching of bright tents and yellow umbrellas on major highways. Throughout the history of protest can be traced a history of Hong Kong which shows the burgeoning of a distinct Hong Kong identity. The latest demonstrations have shown, even as Beijing’s rulers try to tighten the controls, that Hong Kong remains a different, distinct place. More than ever, the upsurge of youth activism in recent years highlights the growth of the Hong Konger - fittingly, the term made it into the Oxford English Dictionary just this year.
Vaudine England started in journalism in Hong Kong in the early 1980s, watching the negotiations between Britain and China over Hong Kong’s post-1997 future. She has since lived and worked in Indonesia twice, Thailand twice and the Philippines often, always coming back to her Hong Kong base. Her work has ranged from journalism for the Far Eastern Economic Review, the BBC, Reuters and others, to a biography of a poor white man in the colony of Hong Kong who made good. She is currently writing a history of The Hong Kong Club, an elite colonial institution still thriving to this day, and researching the lives of all the other Hong Kongers long forgotten from Hong Kong’s cosmopolitan past.
Registration is required
Lunch is provided by IIAS. Please register for this lunch lecture using the form below.
Photo sourced through Creatuve Commons © Pasu Au Yeung