The Hong Kongness: The Emergence of Double Identity

In the pre-colonization era, China paid no attention to Hong Kong. Due to its distant geographical location and eccentric cultural practice, the Chinese hegemony used to discriminate against Hong Kong, and the people in Hong Kong were

unwilling to identify with China. The Chinese used to believe in the notion that

“China is the center of the world, and the other areas are as all barbaric” (「居天地之 中者曰中國，居天地之偏者曰四夷」) (qtd. in 王宏志 110).²³ Geographically, Hong Kong is located at the far east of China and thereby viewed as an uncivilized area;

Take the Tankas, one of the four biggest aborigines in Hong Kong for example.²⁴ They dwelled in boats and made a living on fishing, but were considered barbaric, or even dehumanized as animals; they were forbidden to receive education, to wear silk clothes, and to live ashore. Discriminated, exploited and brutalized by the mother country, the natives could hardly cultivate a sense of patriotism and nationalism toward China.

The arrival of British troops marked a turning point of Hong Kong history by bringing over the capitalist ideology which has been deep-seated in people in Hong Kong since the early 20th century. By virtue of the laissez-faire policy and economic non-interventionism, Hong Kong was transformed into an entrepôt and a financial

23 Foreigners were treated as barbarians and categorized into four groups according to the direction by China: Eastern Barbarians (Dongyi), Southern Barbarians (Nanman), Western Barbarians (Xirong), and lastly Northern Barbarians (Beidi).

24 The four biggest aborigines in Hong Kong are often known as the Tankas, the Hakkas, the Hokkien people, and the Weitou people. Only the Tankas, however, were locally born while the others were originally migrants from China.

center, which thereafter attracted loads of the Chinese in China to migrate to Hong Kong to pursue the Hong Kong Dream. Living in a greatly capitalized metropolis, the natives and the Chinese immigrants, who did not regard themselves as Hong Kongers yet, focus their goal on maximizing income and accumulating assets, sparing no time for political issues: “One of the effects of a very efficient colonial administration,”

Ackbar Abbas comments, “is that it provides almost no outlet for political idealism (until perhaps quite recently); as a result, most of the energy is directed toward the economic sphere” (5). Hong Kong has thus become well-known for its pursuit of wealth and material enjoyment: “The beauty [of Hong Kong] is the beauty, like it or not, of the capitalist system. More than a usual share of this city’s energies goes towards the making of money, and nobody has ever pretended otherwise . . .” (Morris 33); Wang Tao criticizes the Chinese in Hong Kong are “people greedy for benefits and chasing after fame” (「錐刀之徒，逐利而至」) (qtd. in 王宏志 145). Britain has succeeded in instilling the natives and the Chinese immigrants with the capitalist ideology for the sake of not arousing any attention or efforts for politics; therefore, these people have increasingly identified with the British rule and distanced from the socialist China.

Britain carried out not only economic colonization but also cultural

implantation on Hong Kong. Danlin Lu (陸丹林) assailed how the Chinese in Hong Kong were severely Westernized in the 30s: “[People in Hong Kong] think being Chinese is embarrassing; they resent that their skin color and face were not like those of the white people, which has brought them life-long misery” (「他們的心思，以為 做了中國人是投錯胎的，頂丟臉的，只恨皮膚面孔不像白種人，使他(她)一生的 倒霉」) (177-78); in addition, Yangci Tu (屠仰慈) criticizes that the Chinese in Hong Kong “lost the spirits and soul of China” (「缺失了中國的氣息，失去中國的靈魂」) (157). Both Chinese critics notice the rampant Westernization in Hong Kong culture.

After many trips to Hong Kong for thirty years in the mid and late 20th century, Jan Morris confirms that Hong Kong has been deeply Westernized in terms of architecture (31-33), hobby (37-41), language (56), table manner (56), title (57), English naming (57), and so forth. By assimilating themselves more to the British culture while retaining some Chinese customs, the Chinese immigrants gradually cultivate a hybrid cultural identity.

Accompanied with the economic colonization and cultural implantation, the Hong Kong consciousness, Hong Kongness in short, emerged when the 1967 Leftist riots happened. As the Cultural Revolution began in 1966, the leftists in Hong Kong went on demonstrations that later were worsened into riots. People in Hong Kong faced the dilemma of either supporting the British government (as a Hong Konger) or the Chinese leftists (as a Chinese). Most of them chose the former due to the threat of communism and reprimanded the pro-China protestants (Young 140). Compared with the Chinese in China, people in Hong Kong enjoyed life security and economic stability which whitewashed the negative impacts of colonization. According to Tai Lok Lui (呂大樂), colonialism was not a problem after the mid-1970s; what Hong Kongers were concerned about instead was whether or not the British government could be efficient in bringing economic growth and political stability (35-36). Being a Hong Konger literally denotes a double identity—being British in terms of economic and capitalist ideologies and structures, and being Chinese in terms of ethnicity.

Metaphorically, Hong Kongers are taking a Sisyphean journey that never ends—an eternal state of in-betweenness. The following two examples illustrate this

in-betweenness struggle and the impact of the British rule on gender relations in terms of space.