Abstraction
Vol.55, No.2
The Cultural Memories in Hong Kong
Introduction
Nicholas
L. Chan (Associate Professor, Department of Chinese Language and Literature,
The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Special Issue Article
1. A
Study on Hou Wong Temple in Kowloon City with Reference to Song Wong Toi
To-Sang
Yiu (Ph.D., Department of Chinese Language and Literature, Hong Kong Baptist
University)
Chin-Leung
Wong (M.Phil., Department of History, The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
2. The
Identity Formation and Value Realization of a Eurasian: Canon George Zimmern in
and out of the Hong Kong Periodicals
Nicholas
L. Chan (Associate Professor, Department of Chinese Language and Literature,
The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
3.
Junior Secondary History and Chinese History Textbooks and the Historical
Memory of the Second World War in Hong Kong since the 1960s
Wai-Li
Chu (MPhil Student, Department of History, Hong Kong Baptist University)
4. Legalization
of Politics: The Geopolitical Situations of Hong Kong and the Consolidation of Its
Rule of Law in the Cold War
Sam
C.W. Choi (Lecturer, Department of Asian and Policy Studies, The Education
University of Hong Kong)
Nelson
K. Lee (Lecturer, Department of Government and Public Administration, The
Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Special Issue Article
A Study on Hou Wong Temple in Kowloon City with
Reference to Song Wong Toi
To-Sang
Yiu (Ph.D., Department of Chinese Language and Literature, Hong Kong Baptist
University)
Chin-Leung
Wong (M.Phil., Department of History, The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Some Qing loyalists came to Hong Kong after the 1911 Revolution.
They expressed their memorial to the Qing Dynasty, which was their “memorial
intention”, by their writings to four historical sites of late Song Dynasty,
including Song Wong Toi and Hou Wong Temple. The sites became a group of
cultural landscape and their Lieux de
mémoire. Song Wong Toi represented the orthodox view of the traditional
Chinese politics and culture, and Hou Wong Temple represented the traditional
loyalists. These representations helped the Qing loyalists to construct their
identity. However, since their memorial intention lacked collectivization and
continuity, no local Hong Kong people understood their ideas. In the Cold War
era, The Chinese regime was handed over in 1949. Some former Kuomintang
officials and educated elites came to Hong Kong. They made use of the memory of
Song Wong Toi to express their new memorial intention that “The Republic of
China is the orthodox regime”, and negated the memory of Hou Wong Temple. So
the memory of Hou Wong Temple was “historicalised” and t became Lieux d’ histoire. The memorial
intention is the determining factor to Lieux
de mémoire and the construction of identity.
Keywords:
Lieux de Mémoire, Lieux d’ Histoire, Memorial Intention, Collectivization,
Continuity
The Identity Formation and Value Realization of a
Eurasian: Canon George Zimmern in and out of the Hong Kong Periodicals
Nicholas
L. Chan (Associate Professor, Department of Chinese Language and Literature,
The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
In the recent years, academic interest in Eurasian community in Hong
Kong, is usually focused on the identity formation and value realization of
these Eurasians. Born in a local Eurasia n family, Canon George Samuel Zimmern
(1904-1979) can be regarded as a unique case, who was deeply influenced by
Chinese and Western cultures. The routine career planning of the Eurasians of
his age was usually becoming a professional, merchant or civil servant with a Western
lifestyle. However, the humble family background in childhood and the nurture
in academic environment made Canon Zimmern’s life path after the call to the
bar a quite different one, i.e. becoming a social activist, a clergyman and an
educator, whose sinicized characteristics were well remembered. After an
introduction about his life, this article puts an eye on the records and
reports about Canon Zimmern, so as to implore how his self-value was realized
in terms of 1) a member of Diocesan Boys’ School, 2) a law practitioner, 3) a
social activist and 4) an educator, and how these identities constructed his
image of a prominent personage. Then, the attention of this article is drawn to
1) the family background and political orientation, and 2) education experience
and social concept of Canon Zimmern, so as to study how the value realization
was influenced by his identity formation.
Keywords:
Canon George Zimmern (1904-1979), Eurasian, Communities in Hong Kong, Identity
Formation, Diocesan Boys’ School
Junior Secondary History and Chinese History Textbooks
and the Historical Memory of the Second World War in Hong Kong since the 1960s
Wai-Li
Chu (MPhil Student, Department of History, Hong Kong Baptist University)
This paper discusses the relations between the historical memory of
the Second World War and junior secondary history textbooks in Hong Kong since
the 1960s. Borrowing Pierre Nora’s ‘lieux de mémoire’ framework, this study
traces how the Hong Kong colonial government’s commemoration of the colony’s
liberation from the Japanese occupation prevailed with the ‘Cultural China’
narrative in history textbooks and public discourse before 1997. This
narrative, however, was taken over by those of China’s victory of the Second
Sino-Japanese War after the Chinese government resumed Hong Kong sovereignty in
1997. The different interpretations on Hong Kong’s experience during the Second
World War thus became one of the tensions between China and Hong Kong after
1997.
Keywords:
Hong Kong Historical Memory, Junior Secondary Chinese History and History
Textbook, Second World War, Hong Kong Political Culture, History and Memory
Legalization of Politics: The Geopolitical Situations
of Hong Kong and the Consolidation of Its Rule of Law in the Cold War
Sam
C.W. Choi (Lecturer, Department of Asian and Policy Studies, The Education
University of Hong Kong)
Nelson
K. Lee (Lecturer, Department of Government and Public Administration, The
Chinese University of Hong Kong)
This paper examines the consolidation of Hong Kong’s rule of law system
in 1949-1967. It points out that Hong Kong was delicately situated in a
geopolitical environment in which it was claimed and contested by major players
in the Cold War including the Chinese Communists, the Taiwanese Nationalists and
the Americans. To sustain its rule against the geopolitical challenge, the
colonial government strategically strengthened Hong Kong’s legal framework
according to the principles of generality of law, independence of the judiciary
and independence of prosecution, making it an instrumentality of power.
Political issues could then be depoliticized as legal cases and judgments were
to be made by the courts. The government could refrain from taking sides in the
political matters involving the contesting forces. In other words, the
legalization of politics resulted in the reinforcement of Hong Kong’s rule of
law. The geopolitical analysis of the making of Hong Kong’s rule of law
presents an understanding that differs from the existing analytical approaches,
namely, the “civilizing mission” analysis, the “imposition of law” explanation,
and the perspective that focuses on the interactions between the colonizers and
the colonized.
Keywords:
Hong Kong, the Rule of Law, Geopolitics
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