SUNY Series in Global Modernity. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2013. viii, 219 pp. (Tables.) US$80.00, cloth. ISBN 978-1-4384-4645-5.
A content analysis of world press coverage of Hong Kong in recent years would certainly show the predominant themes to have been business and politics. Both are fast-moving topics that are in many respects quantifiable. But of equal interest to these two spheres is the less tangible one of cultural change. This is not of course a separate sphere since it relates closely to both politics and economics. Culture requires some form of economic base to exist and, in a society where democratic activity is as narrowly circumscribed as it is in Hong Kong, it becomes a proxy arena for political conflict.
Interest in Hong Kong is rising again. This partly reflects the installation of a new chief executive in Hong Kong completely different in character to the first two, and this has been accompanied by the rise to power of a new regime in Beijing: a regime, it seems, with a new and distinctive ideological mission. Added to these political shifts are current predictions that in the business field the “One Country Two Systems” framework will be dead by about the year 2020.
In these circumstances a serious study of the cultural dimensions of contemporary Hong Kong is much needed, and this is what Yiu-Wai Chu provides in his new book. Much of this work has appeared in other formats as events unfolded, but here he sums up and extends his research in an impressive way.
The basic thesis of the book is that in the process of transition from colony to Special Administrative Region the vitality that local culture exhibited so vigorously in the 1970s and 1980s has been lost. The paradox implicitly addressed here is that this decline in grassroots local culture has taken place at a time when Hong Kong has, increasingly, been attempting to assert an identity in the face of potentially crushing commercial, political and cultural pressures from the mainland.
In the 1960s and 1970s most Hong Kongers were too pre-occupied with everyday life and careers to be introspective. Meanwhile, the Hong Kong government reinforced the contemporary tendency to ignore the realities of the mainland until, finally, the shock waves of the Cultural Revolution irrupted onto the political scene in 1967. Reflections on Hong Kong’s special characteristics were thus largely left to Western journalists such as Richard Hughes (Hong Kong: Borrowed Place-Borrowed Time, 1968) while the images known best to the outside world were provided by films such as Love is a Many Splendoured Thing (1955) and The Countess from Hong Kong (1967).
The situation changed radically in the 1980s and 1990s. The economy was strong at the time and this supported a surge of film making and musical activity. At the same time local academics and others began to reflect much more seriously on what aspects of Hong Kong might be sustainable under the One Country Two Systems regime.
The core of the author’s book is the story of how the Hong Kong government (and in particular former chief executive Donald Tsang) has attempted to foster a “top-down” culture of values, images and activities that differentiates Hong Kong, while combining these policies with a strong, pro-mainland Chinese nationalism.
In its early stages this cultural “branding” policy was more or less independent of other policies, but after the world financial crash of 2008 cultural policy suddenly assumed much more importance as the basis for potential new pillars of the economy. New pillars were needed because the old four pillars had not delivered the high growth of the colonial period, and financial services in particular were seen as being unlikely to increase their share of local GDP for the foreseeable future.
The book includes detailed case studies of both the film and music sectors to illustrate the author’s argument that truly local cultural initiatives have been weakened rather than strengthened by the top-down government activities.
Yiu Wai Chu is particularly critical of the “neo-con” Central District values which he sees as underlying recent cultural policies. There are, however, other obstacles to cultural policy success not really explored here. Leadership is one problem. It is always relatively easy to fill high profile, highly paid, top jobs in Hong Kong. What is missing is the next level down, where what is needed is well-trained and experienced staff who know the Hong Kong situation and can implement plans effectively. Linked to this is the problem of higher education and its contribution. To respond to government initiatives requires a rapid and serious re-orientation of the Higher Education sector, but inertia and vested interests at every level of the system seem likely to ensure that this will not happen in the near future.
Finally, there is the wider issue of the state of freedom of culture and expression. Googling Hong Kong/academic freedom produces some depressing reading these days. Holding, let alone attracting, cultural talent and activity will be hard if current trends persist. Ironically, pressures on Hong Kong may well encourage migration northward, since in the large, more localized world of the mainland, there may in practice be more degrees of freedom than can be found in the city state model of Hong Kong.
Christopher Howe
University of London, London, United Kingdom