Charting a Postcolonial Hong Kong Identity Through the Tv Screen
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NARRATIVES / AESTHETICS / CRITICISM DECODING THE TRADING FLOOR: CHARTING A POSTCOLONIAL HONG KONG IDENTITY THROUGH THE TV SCREEN WINNIE L. M. YEE Name Winnie L. M. Yee ABSTRACT Academic centre University of Hong Kong This article adds to the analysis of Hong Kong TV culture E-mail address [email protected] by investigating recent trends in television production. It demonstrates that the small screen has become a means KEYWORDS of grappling with postcolonial Hong Kong identity, most Hong Kong; Financial Crime Thriller; Postcolonial Identity; noticeable in its reinvention of the genre of the financial Local; Transnational. crime thriller. This analysis must be considered against the background of two new developments in television: the growth of transnational collaborations intended to appeal to the Asian market, and the advent of TV series that replicate the experimentation of American shows and dispense with the traditional episodic narrative. 83 SERIES VOLUME V, Nº 2, WINTER 2019: 83-94 DOI https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2421-454X/9159 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TV SERIAL NARRATIVES ISSN 2421-454X SERIALS IN EAST ASIA NARRATIVES / AESTHETICS / CRITICISM > WINNIE L. M. YEE DECODING THE TRADING FLOOR 1. INTRODUCTION After providing a brief background of Hong Kong tele- vision culture, this article will focus on two shows that deal TV dramas are not among the most widely researched with financial issues, The Greed of Man (1992) and The Trading products of Hong Kong popular culture. But we should not Floor (2018). The controversial 1992 TV drama The Greed of therefore assume there are fewer TV viewers than cinema Man (translated also as Great Times, Dashidai) created new audience members, or that Hong Kong TV does not appeal expectations in Hong Kong audiences and served as a proto- to a shared sense of Chineseness. The few studies of Hong type for the transnational miniseries The Trading Floor. Rather Kong television that have been published tend to focus on than simply reinforcing the stereotype of Hong Kong as finan- the many renowned directors and actors who received their cial centre, The Trading Floor, produced by Andy Lau’s Focus training in TV before embarking on their film careers. This TV for Fox Networks Group, appropriates the genre of the article is intended to contribute to this under-researched financial crime thriller to re-establish a new flexible postco- field by providing an analysis of recent trends in Hong Kong lonial identity. television production. It demonstrates that the small screen has become a means of expressing postcolonial Hong Kong identity, most noticeable in its reinvention of the genre of 2. THE BACKGROUND AND HISTORY the financial crime thriller. This analysis must be considered OF HONG KONG TELEVISION SERIALS against the background of two new developments in televi- sion: the growth of transnational collaborations intended to Unlike many national TV industries, Hong Kong’s TV industry appeal to the Asian market, and the advent of TV series that has always relied on the free market. The leading television follow the experimentation of American shows and dispense network is Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB), which was with the traditional episodic narrative. established in 1967. The oligopolistic ownership of Hong Hong Kong is often perceived as an economic miracle. Kong’s television industry reflects the colonial political and A fishing village transformed into a cosmopolitan financial capitalist economic structure of the city. The primary goal centre, Hong Kong has attracted the world’s attention. The of TV stations is to generate profits. As Lisa Leung observes, critical question is how the return of political sovereignty will affect the city as a vibrant financial and cultural hub. From the heyday of TV production (early 1970s) The urgent need to confirm the city’s unique status has until the government’s announcement to grant prompted scholars to revisit its long history of cultural pro- three more TV licenses, Hong Kong has (for 40 duction. While Hong Kong cinema and literature have re- years) been living with only two functioning TV mained the focus of international scholarship, the ways in stations. Hong Kong is only comparable to Japan which TV has shaped the Hong Kong identity and created a in the (low) number of free-to-air TV licenses, and “viewing community” among diasporic subjects should not much worse when compared to neighboring areas be underestimated. such as Taiwan and South Korea (Leung 2015: 424). It is important to note that the collective identity of Hong Kong people is built not only on a sense of community but Television before 1997 strove to be apolitical. It did not also on tradition of segregation. Sociologist Kit-wai Ma, in his critique the British colonial government or the motherland; seminal work on Hong Kong TV culture, argues that, instead, it provided programming that was largely enter- tainment. Nevertheless, it played an important cultural role: Television centripetally drew on to itself the public “Almost all of the approximately 6 million inhabitants of Hong antagonisms against the outsiders, constructed a Kong in the early 1990s had at least one television in their social stigma for them, and projected it centrifu- homes and turned to television as their central source of infor- gally into social discourses and practices. But since mation” (qtd. in Wilkins 2009: 59). The prevalent view is that the early 1990s, mainlanders have been gathering Hong Kong’s television industry is complicit in cultivating po- political power, and there has been a deeply felt litical indifference among the general public. As Wilkins notes, identity crisis and resentment against the ‘invasion’ of mainlanders (1999: 17). The elite, based in global capitalist structures, continue to dominate and prosper, strengthening 84 SERIES VOLUME V, Nº 2, WINTER 2019: 83-94 DOI https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2421-454X/9159 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TV SERIAL NARRATIVES ISSN 2421-454X SERIALS IN EAST ASIA NARRATIVES / AESTHETICS / CRITICISM > WINNIE L. M. YEE DECODING THE TRADING FLOOR a clique of profit-driven industrialists at the ex- tity are shaped, we need to examine what kinds of shows pense of substantive political debate and critique. become popular and how transnational collaborations such In essence, the economic conditions of the indus- as The Trading Floor have affected their viewership.Hong try, coupled with restrictive political agencies, limit Kong’s TV industry has transformed in tandem with the po- the potential for more participatory, democratic litical history of the city. A movement towards celebrating engagement (2009: 65). Hong Kong’s identity emerged in the 1970s when the colonial government promoted the idea of “Hong Kong is our home” While it is true that Hong Kong TV stations are reluctant and undertook campaigns to boost a sense of citizenship (Ku to portray politically sensitive matters in the TV dramas, they 2019: 452). When China indicated its intention to resume do deal with issues such as identity formation and cultural sovereignty of Hong Kong at the beginning of the 1980s, it differences among Chinese communities, which can be highly was at a time when the colony itself was experiencing rapid political. As many scholars contend, the consumption of media economic growth and the Conservative Party in Britain had plays a significant part in shaping the cultural public sphere just won its election and returned to power. The Sino-British (Iwabuchi 2015: 109). Television plays an important role in Joint Declaration signed by China and Britain represented forging and challenging the collective idea of Chineseness. both a compromise among China, Britain, and Hong Kong, TVB owns the world’s largest Chinese television library and a compromise among different classes in Hong Kong. It and exports the greatest number of programs (Zhu 2008: 66, is generally agreed that “China’s strategy focused on building To and Lau 1995). TVB launched its first satellite cable service a united front with the capitalist class, the social class that TVBS in Taiwan on 17 October 1993, and within a year was was expected to assume a leadership role in running a capital- available in more than half of Taiwan’s households, or 90 per ist SAR” (Lui et al. 2019: 7). The institutional design of “One cent of the entire cable audience (Ma 1999: 47). According to Country, Two Systems” was the ultimate political compro- Zhu Ying, Hong Kong’s TVB remains the biggest international mise. However, as a result of growing political discontent and broadcaster in Chinese, “serving international media markets crises such as the SARS outbreak in 2003, post-1997 Hong from the Asia-Pacific region and Australia to North American Kong has undergone an identity crisis and feels in danger of and Europe” (2008: 67). It is estimated that TVB delivers 1000 losing its exceptional status as a financial hub and gateway hours of programming each year to the TCC (The Chinese between Mainland China and the rest of the world. Channel), which has a European audience of 850,000 (Zhu Lee notes that successful television serials have gradually 2008: 67). Because of its wide dissemination, TVB has played changed from family sagas to dramas featuring middle-class an active role in exporting Hong Kong culture to the rest of professionals (lawyers and doctors), which reflect the evolu- the world. It also contributes directly to the interpretation of tion of Hong Kong’s economy: “Hong Kong’s television’s focus Chineseness among Chinese communities within and outside has shifted away from the rags-to-riches myth of corporate of Hong Kong. Scholars such as Cindy Wong (1999) and Amy family melodramas (or epics) to the cosmopolitan lifestyles Lee (2009) argue that feelings of connectedness are cultivat- of young professions” (2009: 186). While Lee’s observation ed through TV programs, and a sense of communal identity is quite true, there has been a more recent development in has always been key to the international marketing strategy Hong Kong TV that has also had large ramifications.