One of the Centre’s missions is to nurture a new generation of Hong Kong historians.
An Early Career Scholar Network was created under the Hong Kong History Centre in June 2023. It is intended to help create a community of Hong Kong historians and offer a platform for face-to-face interaction and academic exchange among young scholars. Research students and fresh doctoral graduates working on socioeconomic, political and cultural history of Hong Kong and its global relevance are welcomed. We usually meet thrice a year (February, June and October) with participants taking turn to present their works in each meeting. Financial support is provided for our network members attending these sessions.
Please write to Prof. Ray Yep, Research Director of Hong Kong History Centre, at rekmy@bristol.ac.uk, if you are interested in joining this Network.
——
In this post, we would like to introduce Tommy Lo, a member of the Network.
Tommy Lo is a Lo is a departmental lecturer in the History Faculty at the University of Oxford. In the note written by him below, he shares with us his reflections on his academic journey.
****
I have enjoyed reading since I was a child, perhaps because stories past and present are intriguing. As time went by, I realised these stories were written in the margins of a big book. That book is called life; most of its chapters, history. I then had an impulse to add a question mark to the margins of history while reading it.
One trigger for adding a question mark was perhaps a course in the final year of my undergraduate history degree. The course would fund students to do research; I was fortunate to be part of it. Initially I was just browsing the margins of history however I wished. Only later did I realise I like international and transnational history, preferring not to be bound by one city or place. The international networks of Hong Kong would be an exemplar. That was the mid-2010s, many of the documents of The National Archives would be declassified twenty to thirty years after creation, so I wanted to look at the documents of the Sino-British negotiations over Hong Kong’s future in the early 1980s. This would also be an opportunity to collect sources for my BA thesis.
My thesis examined the roles of the Unofficial Members of the Executive and Legislative Councils (UMELCO) in the negotiations. The Executive Council advised the Governor, the Legislative Council passed laws. Both councils consisted of Official Members, who were senior officials in the Hong Kong government, and Unofficial Members appointed by the Governor. UMELCO were mostly leaders of Hong Kong society such as Sze-yuen Chung and Lydia Dunn. They were the Hong Kong people closest to the negotiation table. Their actual influence was limited, but many of them inherited the tradition of Hong Kong Chinese elites after the late nineteenth century that historian John Carroll observes in his book. These people often considered themselves a ‘special group of Chinese’ different from those in mainland China; they would co-operate with the British colonists to foster the prosperity of Hong Kong. From the perspective of the history of decolonisation, most colonies became independent once they broke away from the metropoles, while Britain handed Hong Kong to China. UMELCO intended to try something different – extending British rule – but to no avail.
While consulting these documents, I had to write a research essay for a Chinese course as well. My supervisor specialised in the literature of Ming and Qing dynasties, and I wondered if I had to venture into pre-modern Chinese literature. Unexpectedly, she encouraged me to start with the literary works I was more familiar with, so I picked ‘Can Do Cha Chaan Teng’ by Chan Koonchung. Chan co-founded City Magazine, helped produce films and found a television channel, and has penned numerous essays on politics and culture. He is now primarily a novelist. ‘Can Do Cha Chaan Teng’ was Chan’s short story written in 2003. I used the concept of ‘hybridity’, which Chan commonly discusses, and analysed how the piece reflects grassroots Hong Kong culture. For Chan, ‘hybridity’ means a ‘deep cultural mingling’. More than a showcase of separate, multiple cultures, it integrates local elements and ‘begins a tradition of its own’. The short story’s protagonist recalls that ‘my dad is a fat, white Brit, my mum a thin, short Cantonese’. He himself has a ‘skin colour as dark as chocolate as if born by my mum and a Gurkha mercenary’; ‘moreover, my mum later switched partners and married a Gurkha soldier whom she had known for decades’. The protagonist assumes Can Do, the cha chaan teng, has few dishes. He comes across by coincidence, however, the nineteen series of dishes in the menu and remarks that ‘globalisation is in my Can Do, Can Do’s kitchen is truly can do’. Yet he has overlooked its financial difficulties. Literature is not simply a mirror of reality, but readers two decades ago would have no problem grasping the meanings of the piece.
After completing my BA, I began my master’s degree. The topic of my master’s thesis was late-colonial Hong Kong and the Commonwealth. Although the topic emerged out of discussions between my supervisor and me, I was a bit puzzled in the beginning: Hong Kong has never been a member of the Commonwealth and had few connections with the Commonwealth organisation. Reading the sources more closely, I had something of an epiphany: far more than an organisation, the Commonwealth was a world which originated from the British empire. Taking human movements, education and the economy as examples, I explored the many connections between Hong Kong and the Commonwealth. I pointed out that the Commonwealth was often overlooked but important in Hong Kong history. The benefit of turning to the Commonwealth world is to move beyond a bilateral history between Britain and Hong Kong and appreciate that Hong Kong was part of wider multilateral networks.
Then my interest has shifted again – I examine modern China and Asia through the perspective of global history, and my themes become among others Asianism and world-making. Hong Kong might not be at the heart of these themes. Yet what is fascinating about Hong Kong is that, lying on the ‘periphery’, it enlivens the blank space in the margins of history and refreshes that big book. Perhaps what we should do in the future is to search for Hong Kong’s imprints in the margins of history and write our question marks. If we are lucky, we might put a comma, and add more question marks.
****
小時候，我開始喜歡閱讀，或許覺得古往今來的故事有趣。之後漸漸發現這些故事原來都寫在一部大書邊上，那部大書叫人生，裏面多數章節叫歷史。我便有了衝動，想趁閱讀時在歷史邊上寫個問號。
寫問號的契機之一，也許是歷史系本科課程最後一年的一門課，會資助學生做研究，而我有幸參與其中。我本隨意在歷史邊上瀏覽，後來明白自己著迷國際史、跨國史，不限於一城一地，香港的國際網絡正是一例。時維2010年代中期，英國國家檔案館的檔案多在立案二、三十年後解密，便想看看80年代初前途談判的檔案，亦趁機收集畢業論文所需的資料。
我的論文切入點是兩局非官守議員在談判的角色。兩局是行政局（現稱行政會議）和立法局（現稱立法會）。當時兩局既有港府高級官員兼任的官守議員，也有由港督任命的非官守議員，多為社會領袖，如鍾士元、鄧蓮如等。兩局非官守議員是最接近談判桌的香港人。他們的實際影響不大，但他們大多繼承了歷史學家高馬可書中指出的十九世紀末以降香港華人精英的傳統。這些人往往自視為「特殊的華人群體」，與中國大陸的中國人不同；他們會和英國殖民者合作，促進香港繁榮。從去殖民化歷史的角度看，大部份殖民地脫離宗主國後即告獨立，英國將香港交給中國，兩局非官守議員則打算另闢蹊徑，設法延續英國統治，但事與願違。
研讀這些歷史檔案之時，我也要寫一篇中文科論文。我的指導老師長於明清文學，我曾躊躇要否涉足前現代文學。沒想到她鼓勵我由熟悉的作品入手，我便選了陳冠中的〈金都茶餐廳〉。陳早年創辦《號外》，曾任電影、電視製作人，擅政治、文化評論，近年專注長篇小說。〈金都茶餐廳〉是陳在2003年寫的短篇小說。我以陳經常提及的「雜種」概念，分析該小說如何反映香港市井文化。「雜種」指「深層的文化混合」，不限於多文化並列，還加入當地人的心思，「開始了自己的傳承」。小說主角自道「我爸係肥白英國鬼，我媽瘦矮廣東人」，他自己「膚色似發毛朱古力，似係我媽同尼泊爾籍倨喀僱傭兵生」，「而且我媽臨老改嫁相識幾十年尼泊爾籍倨喀兵」。主角以為金都菜式少，偶然看到餐單的十九個菜式系列，才歎服「全球化在我金都，金都廚房真 can do」，卻不知茶餐廳面臨財政困難。文學不是現實的倒影，但作品的含意，二十年前的讀者當能意會。
本科畢業後，我開始了碩士課程，碩士論文題目是殖民晚期的香港和英聯邦。這題目雖是我和指導老師討論所得，但起初我略有不解，因為香港不是英聯邦的成員，與英聯邦組織關係不深。細讀史料，方知別有洞天：英聯邦不僅是組織，更是一個世界，這個世界源於英國的帝國版圖。我以人口移動、教育、經濟為例，探索香港與英聯邦之間的千絲萬縷，指出英聯邦在香港歷史中常被忽略但佔一席位。看英聯邦世界的好處，在於超越英國和香港的雙邊史，明白香港身處更廣闊的多邊網絡之中。
之後，我的興趣又一轉，以全球史的角度看現代中國及亞洲，主題也變成亞洲主義、世界塑造等。香港未必是這些主題的關鍵，但香港有趣之處正因其位處「邊緣」，令歷史邊上的空白變得熱鬧，令大書讀來耳目一新。我們以後要做的，大概是追尋香港在歷史邊上的印記，然後加上我們的問號。幸運的話，補個逗號，然後再寫問號。