Welcome to the Hong Kong History Centre’s quarterly round-up.
We take a pause from celebrating Hong Kong successes at the Paris Olympics to welcome you to this latest round up of the activities and plans of the Hong Kong History Centre. We have no medal achievements to note below, but we have much nonetheless to celebrate. Firstly, we are delighted to welcome our new Centre Post Doctoral Research Associates, Allan Pang, and Kelvin Chan. Allan joins us fresh from his PhD at the University of Cambridge, and Kelvin has joined us from McGill University in Canada. You can find out more about their research and plans through following the links to the staff profiles. We have been joined also by Samantha – Sam – Barlow who is providing maternity leave cover for our Centre Manager, Maria Korea.
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We have had other fresh faces here, in the shape of our first three Visiting Scholars. This scheme runs annually, and allows scholars at different stages of their career to join us for up to three months, to share their research, engage in discussions with us, and to explore the resources we have been developing here. Ryan Choi, a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh, working on writers in Hong Kong during the Japanese occupation, and Li Junwei, who is studying at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and focusing on housing and zoning in the city in the 1960s-1970s spent some weeks with us in the spring. Both shared their work at seminars and participated in our various events. Prof Rosaria Franco spent the month of July with us. Based at the University of Nottingham’s Ningbo campus, Rosaria has been working on Hong Kong’s role in the international refugee system after the Second World War, and spent her time here working on her book manuscript.
Our Hong Kong archive team have acquired a number of new collections since April, including the Kit Po Yeung family collection of photographs and documents, and the Nigel Spry collection, which includes over 2,500 colour slides from the 1980s. We will be working to make these available in the coming months via our online catalogue.
Members of the archive team attended the Preservica International User Group, Community Archives Annual Conference, and Oral History Festival 2024, where they were able to exchange experiences and plans with peers from projects and organisations with similar ambitions.
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We have continued to communicate the fruits of our research to academic and public audiences internationally. On 5 April, Centre Co-director Dr Vivian Kong gave a virtual book talk for the Global Hong Kong Studies @University of California group, about her recent book, Multiracial Britishness: Global Networks in Hong Kong, 1910-45. Prof Shelly Chan from University of California, Santa Cruz, served as the discussant. Dr Kong asked how colonial hierarchies, the racial and cultural diversity of the British Empire, and global ideologies complicate the meaning of being British.
On 20 April, our History Salon hosted Centre Co-director Prof. Robert Bickers who introduced his book on the history of the Swire Group, China Bound. He discussed how and why this small company, originally established in Liverpool and involved in the trade between Britain and North America, came to Hong Kong, and how it grew and stayed there.
In the same month Dr Kong was interviewed by the U-beat Magazine. She described her post graduate academic journey with the Hong Kong History Project, the predecessor of the Hong Kong History Centre, her teaching experience at the University of Bristol, reflections of historical research and education, and the visions of the Centre.
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On 3 May, our former colleague and now Assistant Professor of Department of History at University of Prince Edward Island, Thomas Larkin, gave us a talk on his book The China Firm: American Elites and the Making of British Colonial Society for the Speaker’s Series. Tom examined the Hong Kong–based Augustine Heard & Company, the most prominent American trading firm in treaty-port China, to explore the ways American elites at once made and were made by British colonial society.
On 17-18 May, Adonis M. Y. Li, Lecturer in East Asian History at the University of Lincoln, spoke to us on the attempts to preserve the Kowloon Railway Terminus in the 1970s, first in English at the Speakers’ Series, and then a Cantonese talk at the History Salon. The Kowloon railway terminus in Tsim Sha Tsui was demolished in 1978. Today, only two traces of the old station remain in the city. Dr Li explored the history of attempts to preserve the station, in which a nascent civil society searched for help from local government, London officials, and even the Queen; and how Hong Kong people and officials in both London and Hong Kong thought about the relationship between place and people.
On 22 May, our Dr. Vivian Kong was invited to present on Hong Kong History Centre at our University’s Charter Day Celebration, an annual event the University of Bristol holds to celebrate the date that it was given its royal charter in 1909. The Centre also set up a stall in the venue and shared our thoughts and research with the guests.
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On 7 June, the final episode of “Hong Kong Documented” was released, featuring our Co-Director, Prof Robert Bickers. Robert shared with us his visions for the Hong Kong History Centre. “Hong Kong Documented” is a 10-episode series co-produced by Hong Kong History Centre and the Society for Hong Kong Studies, which showcases the work of experts and scholars of Hong Kong history inside and outside universities. These committed history lovers adopt different approaches in preserving and promoting the knowledge of local history, with their fascinating works covering a wide range of issues, including fashion, military, economy, identity, heritage buildings and Hong Kong representation in Britain. Together, they uncover the resilience of the city and enrich our understanding of our past.
All 10 episodes have now been released, you can watch the video on the Centre’s YouTube Channel Playlist.
On 8 June, Gary Wong, lecturer in the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds, gave us a talk for the History Salon. In 1924 and 1925, the British government organised a British Empire Exhibition in London to promote cooperation within the British Empire. Hong Kong took part, with its own exhibition area – the Hong Kong Section – to showcase this small colony to the British public. During the talk, Gary outlined how the Hong Kong Section was developed, and the ways in which it exhibited Hong Kong, as well as reflecting on the recent discussion about decolonisation in Britain.
In mid-June, our team travelled to Hong Kong for a series of events. On 14-15 June, our post-doctoral research associate Kelvin Chan and PhD student Tracy Hoi Ching Leung attended the Society for Hong Kong Studies (SHKS) Annual Conference, and gave presentations on “Rehabilitative Colonialism: Juvenile Delinquency and probation in late Colonial Hong Kong, c1955-1980s” and “Marching to the Handover of Hong Kong: The Girl Guide Movement in transition: 1980s-1997″, while Centre Research Director Prof Ray Yep was the panel moderator. On 19 June, the SHKS held an in-person book talk by Vivian.
On 20-21 June, we co-organised with the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences an academic conference themed “Journeys” at the University of Hong Kong. We had 26 presentations by scholars from Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Britain, Taiwan, Canada, Australia, the United States and mainland China over two days. It proved to be a great feast of ideas and inspiration. The discussions, presentations, and networking were insightful and engaging. We were also grateful to have Prof. Evelyn Welch, Vice-Chancellor of University of Bristol, join us to chair Vivian Kong’s keynote lecture, and the eminent scholar, Professor Hamashita Takeshi to provide some final reflections, drawing on the hundreds of journeys he has made to Hong Kong across his career.
The Conference provided a great example of how the HKHC brings together colleagues from across the world who bring a wide range of quite diverse perspectives on Hong Kong history, both focusing on Hong Kong, and its global diaspora. We are grateful to Sophie Loy-Wilson from the University of Sydney, and Taomo Zhou, from the National University of Singapore, who provided fascinating keynotes, and of course to our co-organiser Professor John Wong and his colleagues for hosting the conference.
On the evening of 21 June, we joined the University of Bristol President’s Reception at the Hong Kong Club. We had a delightful evening chatting with our Chancellor Sir Paul Nurse, Prof. Welch, and many UoB alumni at the event, where there was strong interest in the Centre, its plans and its activities.
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So, it has been another busy quarter. In the coming months, we will advertise a Senior Lecturer position to join the team, extending its disciplinary expertise, and we are working with colleagues at WMA in Hong Kong on a significant contribution to the 2024 Bristol Photo Festival, the exhibition ‘The Weight of Witness’ which will open at the Royal Photographic Society’s gallery on 17 October. We also expect to have some more book news soon as well: Prof Ray Yep’s Man in a Hurry: Murray MacLehose and Colonial Autonomy in Hong Kong will be published in the early autumn.
On behalf of our team, I’d like to thank you for your interest and your support. To keep up to date with our activities, please follow us on social media and sign up to our mailing list, and if you’re in Bristol, or wherever we happen to be – as you can see, we travel – please join our events.
Robert Bickers
Centre Co-Director