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A City of Two "Winds": The Hybridity of Hong Kong and Hongkong Yan CHAN ChingYee Rose A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Philosophy in English (Literary Studies) © The Chinese University of Hong Kong June 2006 The Chinese University of Hong Kong holds the copyright of this thesis. Any person(s) intending to use a part or whole of the materials in the thesis in a proposed publication must seek copyright release from the Dean of the Graduate School. 統系館書闺 2 0 1 m^ UNIVERSITY ABSTRACT The thesis examines three contemporary Hong Kong literary works, two in English and one in English translation, and explores how the authors express their anxieties about the “Handover” as an underlining motif in their writings. The fact that Hong Kong as a capitalist British colony was handed over to her communist motherland in July 1997 was not only a dramatic spotlight for international media, but also a historical event that had profound impact on Hongkong yan ("Hong Kong people") and their sense of identity. The literary works that I have chosen for discussion express vividly Hongkong yan,s concern about their own culture and identity: Xi Xi's Flying Carpet: A Tale of Fertillia (2000) focuses on the development of Hong Kong from the beginning of colonial history to the time before its reunification with China. David T. K. Wong's novel The Evergreen Tea House (2003) depicts the rise and fall of a Chinese entrepreneur in Hong Kong from 1952 to 1985 with the undertone of the ups and downs of the British rule. Xu Xi's The Unwalled City (2001) tells an intriguing story of Hongkong yan and their Western expatriate friends in this metropolitan city shortly before and after the "Handover." Regardless of their different perspectives, all i these works point toward the common issue of hybridity of Hong Kong culture and Hongkong yart's identity. Drawing on Homi Bhabha's theoretical analysis, my study examines the ambivalent vacillation of postcolonial subjectivity between Self and the Other, and between the East and the West. By exploring the unconscious desire and fear of Hongkong yan as well as their ambiguous identity, we will have a better understanding of Hong Kong literature not as a showcase of “a borrowed and shared past," but as the reflection of a new local cultural space. ii Acknowledgements I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Prof. Benzi Zhang, my thesis supervisor, for his invaluable advice, insightful comments and ceaseless encouragement throughout the completion of this thesis. Special thanks also go to Prof. Tarn Kwok Kan who initially inspired me to work on the topic. I also want to thank Prof. Wong Lai Ming, and other members of the Department of English who are always helpful and supportive. I am also grateful to Prof. Bonnie TuSmith, my external examiner, for her invaluable support. Finally, I would like to say "Thank you" from the bottom of my heart to Prof. Ching Yuet May. Without her recommendation I would never have a chance to start my journey in literary studies. iv 內容提要 於很多人來說，一九九七年七月一日只是月曆上的一天。但對香港人而言，其影 響卻是深遠的。那天，全世界的傳媒都聚焦於香港，見證這前英國殖民地如何從 西方資本主義社會回歸中國共產主義母體。一百五十年的殖民歷史，把香港從中 國南隅的小漁港發展爲亞洲的現代大都會。「香港人」是一種文化及身份認同。回 歸母體，香港的歷史不但從始改寫，香港人亦失去了舊有的身份，陷入惶恐及不 安。本文通過硏讀三本香港現代小說：西西的《飛氍》�Davi Td. K. Wong的《長 春茶樓》、XuXi的《城外城》來探索「香港」文化及「香港人」身份的中外混雜 和複合性。文中引用了 Homi Bhabha的後殖民理論來探究搖擺於東洒、主/客、 他/我的香港人的矛盾和惶恐。香港的文學作品，不單純記錄了這片殖民地「借來 的光陰」，它們更切實地反映了這都市的本土文化，及展示了本土作家所開拓的混 雜而複合的「香港」文化空間。 iii Table of Contents Abstract i 內容提要 m Acknowledgements iv Contents v Chapter One: 1 The Location of Hong Kong and Hongkong Yan Chapter Two: 29 Hongkong Yan on a Flying Carpet: The Duality of Chineseness and Foreignness Chapter Three: 56 The Splitting of Stereotype in The Evergreen Tea House Chapter Four: 83 Decadence and Unhomeliness in Hong Kong: The Unwalled City Chapter Five: 109 The Hybridity of Two "Winds": The Essence of Hongkongness Bibliography 133 V Chapter One The Location of Hong Kong and Hongkong Yan "Life in the short term" is not, of course, unique to Hong Kong, but something unique has been emerging from Hong Kong's cities: it is Hong Kong Man. He is go-getting and highly competitive, tough for survival, quick-thinking and flexible. He wears western clothes, speaks English or expects his children to do so, drinks western alcohol, has sophisticated tastes in cars and household gadgetry, and expects life to provide a constant stream of excitement and new openings. But he is not British or western (merely westernized). At the same time he is not Chinese in the same way that the citizens of the People's Republic of China are Chinese. Hugh D. R. Baker Life in the Cities: The Emergence of Hong Kong Man On 1 July 1997，Hong Kong was returned to China after a 150-year interlude as a British colony. This transition is not only political in nature, it is also a cultural transition. At present, two broad constructions of Hong Kong cultural identity vie for the allegiance of Hong Kong's people: “Hong Kong as a part of China" and ‘‘Hong Kong as apart from China." ... Hong Kong people have only lately begun 1 to define themselves as having an autonomous cultural identity. "Hongkongese" as a cultural identity involves a "Chineseness plus" that has three clusters of meaning: "Chineseness plus affluence/cosmopolitanism/capitalism,，， “Chineseness plus English/colonial education/colonialism," and "Chineseness plus democracy/human rights/the rule of law." Gordon Mathews Heunggongyahn: On the Past, Present, and Future of Hong Kong Identity After the handover fireworks burnt out, Prince Charles and Mr. Chris Patten, the last governor, sailed into the night on the Britannia with 150 years of Hong Kong's colonial past. The termination of Hong Kong's colonial history marks, on the one hand, the end of humiliation of the "unequal treaties" — the Treaty of Nanking in 1842 and the Convention of Peking in 1860 whereby Hong Kong island and Kowloon were ceded to Britain, and on the other hand, a new milestone in China's quest for national reunification and international redemption. The political victory of China won the heart of every Chinese on the mainland and overseas. The undeniable complexity and ambivalence of Hong Kong people during and after the transition were broadly covered by Western and Chinese media. As Hugh Baker observes, “Hong Kong Man" seems to be a cosmopolitan hybrid of the East and the West living for today. However, in the crucial years of 1980s when the British and Chinese heated negotiations about Hong 2 Kong's future went on, no voice from Hong Kong people was allowed. Gordon Mathews conducted an analytical study on the formation of Hong Kong identity after 1997. He articulated the complexity of Heunggongyahn as the "Chinsesness plus," due to the impact of colonization. No scholars would ignore the fact that the hybridity of Hong Kong, which comes with its special geopolitical and cultural setting, would continue to mark the significant characteristics of Hongkong yan after Hong Kong has become a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Over the 150 years of colonization, Hong Kong had to face the political turbulence and tension in the last 50 years that came side by side with cosmopolitanism, globalization, crisis of confidence, and crisis of identity. The original goal of British occupation of Hong Kong was to establish a stronghold on the coast of South China to protect British military, commercial, and political interests in the Far East] The colonial administration was to practice limited governance and the legislation of British Parliament for Hong Kong was limited to areas of defense, aviation, nationality and treaties only. The economic policy has been labeled laissez-faire, and the colonial 1 Lynn T. White, "Chinese Globalism in Hong Kong," Hong Kong's Reunion with China, eds. Postiglione and Tang, (New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1997) 5 3 administrators have incorporated local Chinese elites 一 mainly business people and professionals into the establishment to save the colonial regime from being challenged. The sudden increase of Hong Kong population after the Communist victory in mainland China in 1945 shocked the colonial government and community alike. The massive influx of Chinese immigrants across the border laid the cornerstone for Hong Kong's economic growth and subsequent globalization. Hong Kong population is largely made up of immigrants from China. The several waves of immigration, according to Lynn T. White, were formed by Chinese from mainland who sought refuge from Taipings after 1850, from radical nationalists after 1900，from Japanese troops after 1937, and from Communists after 1945.2 Early post-World War II immigrants brought machinery and know-how from Shanghai and other Chinese coastal cities, and formed a local entrepreneurial class that mainly produced textiles and started the "take-off of industrialization."^ The influx of immigrants after 1945 was the source of low-cost labour. The confrontation of communist China with Western capitalist countries during the Cold War gave way to Hong Kong's development into a manufacturing centre. The entrepot role of Hong 2 Lynn T. White, "Chinese Globalism in Hong Kong," Hong Kong's Reunion with China, eds. Postiglione and Tang, (New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc.,) viii. 3 Siu-lun Wong, Emigrant Entrepreneurs: Shanghai Industrialists in Hong Kong, (Oxford UP, 1988) 4 Kong between China and the developed, industrialized countries earns her the label of “international city." Financial trade in Hong Kong makes it a world hub of regional trade; the prosperous tourism connects Hong Kong globally. As a prosperous meetingpoint in the new Asia-Pacific region, Hong Kong emerges as a remarkable city-state in the 1980s.
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