Wang Tao in Hong Kong and the Chinese “Other”

Meeting Place ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Sinn
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Chinese Language ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Chinese Identity ◽  
Southern Chinese ◽  
Chinese Overseas ◽  
Colonial Government ◽  
Inferior Class

Wang Tao, a prominent member of the Chinese literati, arrived in Hong Kong in 1862 and found it a baffling place, inhabited not only by foreigners but also by southern Chinese, who were (in his view) uncivilized, unable to speak his dialect and possessing weird tastes in food. Merchants, who belonged to an inferior class in China, played a prominent role in society, flaunting their wealth and status with little restraint, funding charitable works, claiming political influence over the colonial government and earning respect from officials in China and Chinese overseas. During his 20 or more years in Hong Kong Wang Tao came to terms with the colony. He made history by founding the first Chinese-language newspaper, the Xunhuan ribao. He came to appreciate the different versions of Chineseness that had at first bewildered him, and molded new versions of Chineseness out of this jumbled assortment of Chinese identity.

scholarly journals CANTONESE DIALECT IN MODERN CHINA: THE PROBLEM OF CONSERVATION

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 152-166
Author(s):  
Sergey A Barov ◽  
Maia A Egorova
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Chinese Language ◽  
Modern China ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Chinese Nation ◽  
National Minorities ◽  
Southern Chinese ◽  
History Of

The artice is devoted to the problem of preserving the Cantonese dialect (language) in modern China, where for several decades the government persistently pursued a policy of disseminating of the nation-wide Chinese language (“pǔtōnghuà”). Cantonese is the largest language by speakers among all Chinese languages and it is native to most residents of Guangdong and Hong Kong, however, unlike the languages of the national minorities of China, it is not fully protected by law and is consistently ousted from the education system and out of business communication. In the article the authors carefully analyze the linguistic history of China, the role of dialects in the system of Chinese languages and the historical and political significance of a single written norm. According to the authors, the division of China into two large cultural and historical communities (northern and southern) corresponds to the established linguistic division, but unlike many other countries in the world, the ethnolinguistic and ethnocultural differences between the northern and southern Chinese due to the centuries-old unifying efforts of the central government do not lead to the division of the Chinese nation. The article examines in detail the history of Cantonese, a linguistic analysis of the differences between Cantonese and Putonghua, and on this basis concludes that Cantonese should be considered not as a dialect of Chinese, but rather as a separate language of the Sino-Tibetan language group, albeit closely related to the Chinese language. Analyzing the role of Cantonese in the formation of a special cultural and historical community in Guangdong and Hong Kong, the authors conclude that the declining of the Cantonese dialect (language) will probably occur over the next several decades, unless the language and education policies of the Chinese government are changed. Otherwise this tendency will lead to the loss of the province's identity, which is part of the intangible cultural heritage of the entire Chinese nation.

use of Putonghua subject as a vehicle for a pan-Chinese identity

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Scott Clark
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Education Policy ◽  
Chinese Language ◽  
Han Chinese ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Primary Reason ◽  
Chinese Identity ◽  
Legislative Council ◽  
Chinese Ethnicity

In April 2015, a meeting of a Hong Kong Legislative Council Panel discussed the potential for using Putonghua, as opposed to Cantonese, to teach the ‘Chinese Language Subject’ within the Hong Kong curriculum. Their primary reason for making this suggestion was based on the idea that Putonghua and the Han Chinese ethnicity are somehow inherently linked – if you are Han Chinese, you should be able to speak Putonghua. This paper discusses the validity of this assertion and examines language-in-education policy related to Putonghua in Hong Kong from the late-colonial period and the contemporary period to establish whether Putonghua is used by the Hong Kong Legislative Council to encourage Hong Kong pupils to identify with a pan-Chinese ethnicity and by dint, a pan-Chinese language, Putonghua.

scholarly journals Stigma, Discrimination, and Hate Crimes in Chinese-Speaking World amid Covid-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianhua Xu ◽  
Guyu Sun ◽  
Wei Cao ◽  
Wenyuan Fan ◽  
Zhihao Pan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Data Mining ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Chinese Population ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Chinese Language ◽  
Hate Crimes ◽  
Overseas Chinese ◽  
Mainland Chinese ◽  
Media Reports

AbstractThe Covid-19 pandemic has given rise to stigma, discrimination, and even hate crimes against various populations in the Chinese language–speaking world. Using interview data with victims, online observation, and the data mining of media reports, this paper investigated the changing targets of stigma from the outbreak of Covid-19 to early April 2020 when China had largely contained the first wave of Covid-19 within its border. We found that at the early stage of the pandemic, stigma was inflicted by some non-Hubei Chinese population onto Wuhan and Hubei residents, by some Hong Kong and Taiwan residents onto mainland Chinese, and by some Westerners towards overseas Chinese. With the number of cases outside China surpassing that in China, stigmatization was imposed by some Chinese onto Africans in China. We further explore how various factors, such as the fear of infection, food and mask culture, political ideology, and racism, affected the stigmatization of different victim groups. This study not only improved our understanding of how stigmatization happened in the Chinese-speaking world amid Covid-19 but also contributes to the literature of how sociopolitical factors may affect the production of hate crimes.

scholarly journals Cultural Differences in the Hedonic Rewards of Recalling Kindness: Priming Cultural Identity with Language

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-90
Author(s):  
Lilian J. Shin ◽  
Seth M. Margolis ◽  
Lisa C. Walsh ◽  
Sylvia Y. C. L. Kwok ◽  
Xiaodong Yue ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Chinese Language ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Cultural Identities ◽  
Weak Ties ◽  
Recent Theory ◽  
Emotional Experiences ◽  
The Usa

AbstractRecent theory suggests that members of interdependent (collectivist) cultures prioritize in-group happiness, whereas members of independent (individualist) cultures prioritize personal happiness (Uchida et al. Journal of Happiness Studies, 5(3), 223–239 Uchida et al., 2004). Thus, the well-being of friends and family may contribute more to the emotional experience of individuals with collectivist rather than individualist identities. We tested this hypothesis by asking participants to recall a kind act they had done to benefit either close others (e.g., family members) or distant others (e.g., strangers). Study 1 primed collectivist and individualist cultural identities by asking bicultural undergraduates (N = 357) from Hong Kong to recall kindnesses towards close versus distant others in both English and Chinese, while Study 2 compared university students in the USA (n = 106) and Hong Kong (n = 93). In Study 1, after being primed with the Chinese language (but not after being primed with English), participants reported significantly improved affect valence after recalling kind acts towards friends and family than after recalling kind acts towards strangers. Extending this result, in Study 2, respondents from Hong Kong (but not the USA) who recalled kind acts towards friends and family showed higher positive affect than those who recalled kind acts towards strangers. These findings suggest that people with collectivist cultural identities may have relatively more positive and less negative emotional experiences when they focus on prosocial interactions with close rather than weak ties.

Toward Critical Patriotism: Student Resistance to Political Education in Hong Kong and China. By Gregory P. Fairbrother. [Hong Kong University Press, 2003. x+218 pp. £26.95. ISBN 962-209-622-0.]

2004 ◽  
Vol 178 ◽  
pp. 521-523
Author(s):  
Agnes S. Ku
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Civic Education ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Weak Sense ◽  
Student Resistance ◽  
Hong Kong Students ◽  
The Face ◽  
Colonial Government ◽  
Legitimacy Crisis

Fairbrother's Toward Critical Patriotism is a timely publication in the “Hong Kong Culture and Society” series: political squabbles and conflicts over the idea of patriotism in the context of the national security legislation in Hong Kong are inflamed following the spectacular mass demonstration by 500,000 people on 1 July 2003. As the author points out, patriotism and nationalism are relatively recent historical phenomena in China. In mainland China, Marxist-Leninism became the guiding ideology after 1949. Yet, from the early 1980s, in the face of a legitimacy crisis, the leadership shifted toward patriotism as a unifying and justificatory ideology while professing ultimate objectives in line with Marxist principles. In Hong Kong, civic education had been de-emphasized under the ideology of de-politicization by the colonial government until the handover in the 1990s. The book rejects the typical characterization of Hong Kong students as simply having a weak sense of patriotism and nationalism, and of mainland students as patriotic dupes under the state and presents a more nuanced analysis.

scholarly journals HONG KONG SAR IMMIGRATION IN THE DYNAMICS OF POLITICS, POLICY AND INSTITUTION

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 69-81
Author(s):  
Andry Indrady
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Transition Period ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Power Domination ◽  
The Public ◽  
Hong Kong Sar ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
The Government ◽  
Colonial Government ◽  
And Control

The Bureaucratic System of the Immigration Department of Hong Kong SAR is one of the legacies from British Colonial Government seen from legal and also immigration bureaucratic perspectives reflect the executive power domination over immigration policymaking. This is understandable since Hong Kong SAR adopts “Administrative State Model” which means Immigration Officer as a bureaucrat holds significant roles at both stages of policymaking and also its implementation. This research looks at transition period of the Immigration Department and its policies since the period of handover of Hong Kong SAR from the British Government to the Government of China especially throughout the concern from the public including academics about the future of immigration policies made by the Department that arguably from colonial to current being used as political and control tools to safeguard the interest of the Ruler. This situation ultimately will question the existence of Hong Kong SAR as one of the International Hub in the Era of Millennium.  

scholarly journals Formation of Hong Kong’s Administrative System in the 1840-1870s

2021 ◽  
pp. 61-65
Author(s):  
G.Z. Papashvili
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Chinese Language ◽  
Colonial Administration ◽  
Qualitative Characteristic ◽  
Chinese Community ◽  
Administrative System ◽  
Qing Empire ◽  
Administrative Control ◽  
Control Pattern

The article considers the process of Hong Kong’s administrative system formation after its placement under the administration of the British Empire in 1842. A brief description of the local Chinese and expatriate communities is given and the character of their interaction is identified. The transformations of Hong Kong’s administrative system at the various stages of its formation are analyzed and its qualitative characteristic is given. The significant language and other barriers to the establishing of interaction between colonial administration and the Chinese community and inefficiency of the administrative control pattern in the 1840-50s are identified. Inefficiency of this pattern is considered as a prerequisite for its development by establishing of the new scheme of civil servants’ selection with the aim of teaching them Chinese language and creation of the team of interpreters ready to communicate with the local Chinese. The abovementioned scheme turned out to be efficient and practically laid the foundation for creating Hong Kong’s administrative system. The author comes to the conclusion that the new scheme trained specialists made an important contribution to the development of Hong Kong, which from the periphery of the Qing Empire was transformed to the autonomous outpost of the British Empire.

Colonial governance and state incorporation of Chinese language: the case of the first Chinese language movement in Hong Kong

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chi Keung Charles Fung
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Chinese Language ◽  
Historical Case Study ◽  
Official Language ◽  
Historical Case ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Symbolic Process

Purpose Despite the importance of the first Chinese language movement in the early 1970s that elevated the status of Chinese as an official language in British Hong Kong, the movement and the colonial state’s response remained under-explored. Drawing insights primarily from Bourdieu and Phillipson, this study aims to revisit the rationale and process of the colonial state’s incorporation of the Chinese language amid the 1970s. Design/methodology/approach This is a historical case study based on published news and declassified governmental documents. Findings The central tenet is that the colonial state’s cultural incorporation was the tactics that aimed to undermine the nationalistic appeal in Hong Kong society meanwhile contain the Chinese language movement from turning into political unrest. Incorporating the Chinese language into the official language regime, however, did not alter the pro-English linguistic hierarchy. Symbolic domination still prevailed as English was still considered as the more economically rewarding language comparing with Chinese, yet official recognition of Chinese language created a common linguistic ground amongst the Hong Kong Chinese and fostered a sense of local identity that based upon the use of the mother tongue, Cantonese. From the case of Hong Kong, it suggests that Bourdieu’s conceptualisation of state formation paid insufficient attention to the international context and the non-symbolic process of state-making itself could also shape the degree of the state’s symbolic power. Originality/value Extant studies on the Chinese language movement are overwhelmingly movement centred, this paper instead brings the colonial state back in so to re-examine the role of the state in the incorporative process of the Chinese language in Hong Kong.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document