DOUBLE NEGATIONS: HONG KONG CULTURAL IDENTITY IN HOLLYWOOD'S TRANSNATIONAL REPRESENTATIONS

This article attempts to develop a critical understanding of the reconstitution of Hong Kong identity in Hollywood productions involving Hong Kong film talents. It argues that the ‘local’ in the city's historical context of the nineties no longer refers to any entity pertaining to a particular locality and culture but is always already determined by the framework of the transnational, which structures the perception of its local social reality. In particular, the paper suggests that the remaking of Hong Kong cultural identity in Hollywood films could be grasped in terms of the notion of a double negation. While the formation of such an identity is based on a negation of Chineseness, Hong Kong's transnational crossing to Hollywood initiates another negation that negates the very symbolic realm common to Chineseness. Jackie Chan's Hollywood blockbuster, Rush Hour, is used to illuminate the ways in which Hong Kong film stars and directors working for the global entertainment syndicate re-appropriate their agency in the production of a transnational narrative of their identity.     

FIGURES OF HOPE AND THE FILMIC IMAGINARY OF JIANGHU IN CONTEMPORARY HONG KONG CINEMA

Through an extensive allegorical reading of films, this paper attempts to capture a certain cultural form of imagination in Hong Kong during the transitional period leading up to the historical handover of power in 1997. Dwelling on the world of signification conjured up through what I call the jianghu filmic imaginary,the analysis focuses on the ideological and utopian impulses registered in relation to a whole emotional complex of anxiety, bewilderment and despair in the works of some highly creative local filmmakers of the genre: Ching Siu-Tong, Ann Hui, Tsui Hark and Wong KarWai. The study draws theoretically from Castoriadis's notion of the social imaginary and Bloch's aesthetics of hope, to focus on the textual and contextual re-constructions of a number of very unconventional martial arts swordplay (wuxia) films made in Hong Kong in the last two decades: namely, Tsui's Butterfly Murders (1979), Hui's Romance of Book and Sword (1987), Ching/Tsui's Swordsman II (1992), and Wong's Ashes of Time (1994). By identifying the ideological and affective moments in the filmic imaginary,I want to trace what has been left in a ruined culture for utopian longings, and point to the presence/absence of ‘hope’ as the cultural imagination for an unknown and unknowable future (beyond 1997). It is my contention that an understanding of that peculiar form of popular imaginary at the unusual juncture of Hong Kong's history can begin with a critical attempt to cope with this subtle practice of hope, so as to recognize (or reject) it as mediation in the process of our collective cultural crisis, anticipation and identification.     

INTERFACING FEMINISM AND CULTURAL STUDIES IN HONG KONG: A CASE OF EVERYDAY LIFE POLITICS

Cultural studies, as a cultural and political re-articulation of common sense, knowledge and community practices, aims at opening up new cultural space for criticisms, reflections and action. Originating from the women' movement and later flourishing in the academy as well, feminism espouses similar aims to cultural studies. Both cultural studies and feminist/gender studies have a strong sense of intervening into everyday life politics. This paper is an attempt to discuss how feminism and cultural studies interface with each other, largely based on examples of gender-related everyday life politics taken from the feminist movement in Hong Kong. It will examine issues concerning the conflict of consumption and female subjectivities, the reconceptualization of home and housewives, and the representation of everyday life for women and history writing. It is argued that by blurring, negotiating or deconstructing the boundary or division between positions, identities and domains–such as subject and object, housewives and workers, private and public, personal and political, consumption and production–the re-articulation of knowledge about ‘victim’, ‘exploitation’, ‘home’ and ‘history’ in the feminist movement will not only provide the movement with new impetus and insight to reconsider its strategies in fighting for more cultural, social and economic space for women and other marginal groups at large in Hong Kong, but will also ‘metabolize’ the newly developed discipline of cultural studies in Hong Kong by providing a platform to strengthen the dynamic arm of cultural studies education and research. Based on her feminist and teaching experiences in Hong Kong, the author has highlighted activism and pedagogy as the two important dimensions of feminism and cultural studies in this paper.     

HONG KONG FASHION DESIGNERS AS CULTURAL INTERMEDIARIES: OUT OF GLOBAL GARMENT PRODUCTION

This article offers a model for studying the dynamics of globalized popular musics, that fills methodological and theoretical lacunae in existing scholarly approaches. It deals with the emergence and circulation of a hybrid popular music called música ayacuchana, which over the 1990s became an important site of identification for the emergent Andean migrant middle class of Lima, Peru. Describing the role of radio stations and, particularly, DJs' actions in this process, I suggest that attention to the working practices of mediators can reveal how popular music becomes attached to new identities, particularly in the context of broader social changes. Further, I use this example to show why scholarly accounts of globalization, which rarely attend to the everyday mechanics of mediation, must take them into account, to arrive at a satisfactory understanding of the way that these processes engage, challenge, and/or reproduce social hierarchies.     

BECOMING HONG KONG,RAZING BAOAN,PRESERVING XIN'AN: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC ACCOUNT OF URBANIZATION IN THE SHENZHEN SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONE

Located just north of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, the largest and oldest of China's Special Economic Zone (SEZ) has been both a project and symbol of post-Mao modernization. In this paper, I trace how the Shenzhen built environment mediates images and experiences of ‘Hong Kong’, arguing that transnationality in the SEZ is an everyday practice where tradition, colonialism, and the Cold War provide raw materials for the local reworking of the changing relationship between the Chinese state apparatus and finance capital. My story has a double focus: the ideology of urbanization as modernization and historic preservation. On the one hand, the ideology of urbanization-as-modernization legitimates a spatial order in which the rural is always posed to be superseded by the urban. Both the rural and the urban are empty signifiers that are created through comparison and deployed to guide action. In this important sense,‘Hong Kong’ has been urban with respect to rural ‘Shenzhen’ (formerly Baoan County), even as ‘Shenzhen’ has been urban with respect to the Chinese hinterland (neidi). On the other hand, historic preservation domesticates ‘Hong Kong’ as Shenzhen's past through the figure of Xin'an County, the geographic predecessor of both Shenzhen and Hong Kong. These complimentary displacements produce a nostalgia peculiar to the SEZ: a desire for a past that entitles contemporary Shenzhen residents to Hong Kong's prosperity. This nostalgia is structured with reference to a shared origin - Xin'an County - where Hong Kong's postwar history (1950–1979) becomes the past that Shenzhen (rural Baoan) would have had, if not for a cruel twist of socialist fate.     

MATERIALISTIC VALUES IN HONG KONG AND GUANGZHOU: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF TWO CHINESE SOCIETIES

This article integrates two competing perspectives on value orientation. Inglehart's postmaterialism thesis stresses the permanent effects of childhood experience in which economic deprivation leads to materialism in adult life. The human development perspective, in contrast, emphasizes the evolution of a person's value system as life-cycle development unfolds new circumstances and possibilities. We adopt a developmental framework to test claims from these two perspectives. On the basis of micro-level data, we compare the materialistic values of two historically and culturally different Chinese societies, Hong Kong and Guangzhou. Findings support Inglehart's assertions that childhood experience has lasting effects and that rapid social changes create birth cohort differences in materialistic concerns. But life-cycle developments, such as education, marriage, and current social status, are equally important in influencing a person's value orientation. Both perspectives see only part of the picture, and an integrated approach is needed to better understand how people construct and maintain their value system.     

Sick building syndrome and perceived indoor environmental quality: A survey of apartment buildings in Hong Kong

The outbreak of a highly communicable disease, SARS, in Asia in 2003 has revealed the health risk of living in a high-density environment. To show the important connection between human health and environmental quality, this study surveys the prevalence of sick building syndrome (SBS) among apartment residents and their evaluation of indoor environmental quality (IEQ). Based on a sample of 748 households living in Hong Kong, two interesting findings are revealed: (1) nasal discomfort was the commonest home-related SBS symptom despite the absence of any central ventilation system in apartment buildings; (2) noise, rather than ventilation, was the major IEQ problem perceived by residents. Our statistical analysis further showed that residents with SBS symptoms were less satisfied with their IEQ than those without. That is, despite a positive evaluation of specific IEQ criteria with respect to the building residents lived in, if they reported feeling SBS related symptoms, the overall IEQ evaluation of their building could still be negative. This perception bias gives rise to a sample selection problem in measuring perceived IEQ, which has implications on housing management practices and the formulation of a healthy housing policy.     

城市历史建筑保护对策研究——以粤港为例

随着经济和商业社会的发展,城市开发建设不同程度地蚕食历史建筑,破坏历史街区的整体风貌。历史建筑是人类发展痕迹的见证,一定程度上反映着地域文化。保护历史建筑也是保护地域文化。粤港政府在历史建筑保护工作方面积累了不少经验,通过分析粤港两地历史建筑保护措施,提出对城市历史建筑保护与利用的对策建议。     

A strange lobster tale of self-sacrificial transversality: or,transversal poetics flourishes in the spectral ether of Deleuze,Bataille, and Shakespeare

ABSTRACT

Written from the perspective of Transversal Poetics, this essay involves an exploration of the theory’s various selves in the context of a self-immolating spectacle staged at London’s New Globe Theatre by the theory’s progenitor, Dr. Bryan Reynolds. The essay outlines the history of this scandalous affair, which was inspired by the work of Rodrigo Garcia (Accidens: Matar Para Comer), Deleuze and Guattari, and George Bataille. Transversal Poetics travels with Reynolds to London and is shocked and appalled by the lurid transgression that unfolds on stage as Reynolds is hung on a massive hook and then dismembered for the adoring crowds. Exploring the complexity of its own reactions to this new initiative by Reynolds – and his attempt to conceive an ‘offspring’ with Bataille through a highly questionable and outrageous Deleuzian approach – Transversal Poetics is itself subtly transformed. It casts a powerful light on the urban milieu surrounding the New Globe (Southwark, the City of London) as it brings the era of neoliberal financialization to a close. A lobster-city that combines both ‘central place’ and the ‘maritime’ qualities (as identified by Christaller), London turns out to be the perfect location for the demolition of the Deleuzian taboo against the sacrificial.     

Residential mobility in an era of economic transformations and population reformations: A case study of Hong Kong

This paper compares the home-moving patterns of Hong Kong citizens in the periods of 1996–2001 and 2001–2006, highlighted by economic downturns, population reformations and subsequent housing policies adjustments during the second period. It is first shown in the findings that the supply of public housing, instead of its tenure, dictates home-moving propensities and patterns. Then, housing needs among elderly and pre-elderly people appears to be overwhelmed by social needs such as attachment and existing social networks, along with direct or indirect financial constraints. Besides, spatial lock-in appears to be more prevalent among Chinese immigrants as compared to non-Chinese immigrants, owed to the former's ties to local Hong Kong residents and subsequent eligibility for government assistance. Yet, despite the availability of jobs and schools, the recent trend of people moving out of new towns gradually turns these areas into marginalized communities clustered with poor people, alienated within and in a sense excluded from the city landscape altogether. A variety of policy implications, from public finance, allocation of social resources, to land use planning of rural areas and potential social conflicts, are discussed in response to the trend of population aging and immigrations from the Mainland.     

Michael,part one: A boy of twelve in conflict with the school authorities

A single case, brought to a seminar led by the author, is presented here to illustrate a dual focus inherent in the social work task. The core of the social work task is the process by which, in the course of an ongoing dialogue, the social worker's independent point of view is brought into relation to the immediate preoccupations and point of view of the client(s). In the case illustration, that of a boy with school behaviour problems, the family presented itself implicitly, but with a persuasive sense of closure, as a mother-and-son two-person family. The social worker thought beyond this to the question of a father (and a father's authority) as a significant line of enquiry. A detailed account is given of the process, calling for tact and a finely tuned sense of relevance, by which she bridged the two points of view.     

The evolutionary dynamics of postcolonial Englishes: A Hong Kong case study

Schneider's ( 2007 ) ground‐breaking Dynamic Model is widely regarded as the most comprehensive and coherent theory to account for the evolution of postcolonial Englishes, but has yet to be validated by evidence from detailed historical research. This article seeks to bridge this gap by presenting an empirically‐grounded case study of the evolution of Hong Kong English based on the four parameters in Schneider's ( 2007 ) framework, viz. sociopolitical background, identity constructions, sociolinguistic conditions, and linguistic effects. Whereas previous applications of the framework have relied on synchronic data, this study draws on sets of primary data spanning 170 years. These diachronic datasets make it possible to demarcate distinct phases in the use of English in society and the evolution of its community of users. The study casts doubt on the accuracy of Schneider's account of the evolution of Hong Kong English and, more generally, the applicability of the Dynamic Model to Outer Circle contexts.     

Media reputation in initial public offerings: A study of financial news coverage in Hong Kong

This study investigated media reputation in initial public offerings (IPOs) by proposing eight attributes of substantive media reputation from environmental and product-resource perspectives. A content analysis on financial news coverage (2281 newspaper articles from 2004 to 2010) in Hong Kong was conducted to examine how print media reported financial and nonfinancial information on 38 IPO firms in the sectors of financial, properties and construction, and consumer goods. Results from partial least squares analysis showed that, although substantive media reputation and recency of news coverage together only explained a small proportion of changes in IPO share price, substantive media reputation has a significant positive effect on changes in IPO share price. Apart from the significant positive effect from the presentation tone of environmental attributes, the tone of social attributes had a significant negative effect on substantive media reputation. With the increasing concern on measuring media reputation attributes in financial news coverage across different contexts, this study contributes to the applicability of environmental and product-resource attributes in the specific context of IPOs.     

Sentencing Male Sex Offenders Under the Age of 14: A Law Reform Advocacy Journey in Hong Kong

The common law presumption that a boy under the age of 14 is incapable of sexual intercourse has provoked controversial debates in Hong Kong. This article describes a 6-step advocacy journey to examine how community efforts have helped modify this law so that juvenile male sexual offenders under the age of 14 who have committed the crime of having sexual intercourse with underage females can be sentenced to receive appropriate treatment. Seven court cases provided by the magistrates’ courts in Hong Kong were used in this advocacy effort for the removal of the presumption in July 2012. Although this effort has yet to reveal signs of effectiveness, it represents greater public awareness about providing rehabilitation appropriate for juvenile sex offenders through a formal sentence. Restorative justice, as opposed to retributive or punitive justice, places an emphasis on rehabilitation of the offender and restoration of victims to a place of wholeness.