Welcome to our latest round up of the Hong Kong History Centre’s activities in July to September. We have hosted a number of visitors here in Bristol, travelled out to Hong Kong, where we enjoyed working with our partners on the second Hong Kong History Day, and continued to provide a platform here in Bristol for visiting speakers, and for our own team.
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From 28 July – 1 August 2024, Dr Allan Pang, our Postdoctoral Research Associate, participated in the 13th International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS) in Surabaya, Indonesia. On 29 July, Allan presented his paper on ‘Networks of Knowledge Production: Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, and British Examination Syndicates since the 1960s‘. This examines the role of the University of Cambridge Local Examination Syndicate and the University of London Examinations and Assessment Council in developing history examinations in Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore, and explores how Asian governments interacted with former British imperial agencies to produce knowledge that suited their late- or post-colonial visions. It was part of a panel organised by Dr Florence Mok (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore), with Professor John Wong (University of Hong Kong) and Professor Edmund Cheng (City University of Hong Kong) also as panelists.
Our Visiting Scholar scheme brought us two new faces. This initiative 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 discussion, and to explore the resources we have been developing here. Dr Diki Sherpa, joined us from August to October. A research associate in Flame University’s Centre for Knowledge Alternative in India, Sherpa has been working on the interconnectedness of the 1856-60 Arrow War and the 1857 Indian Revolt, their repercussions, and Hong Kong amidst the British imperial crisis of the 1850s. Corrine Fu, a PhD student at Lignan University in Hong Kong, who is working on the shaping of Hong Kong identity from the 1950s to the 1990s, has been visiting from September to November.
On 14 September, we co-hosted the Hong Kong History Day 2024 with Society for Hong Kong Studies and Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Hong Kong. More than 100 people joined our four panels with twelve speakers who shared their work on different aspects of the history of Hong Kong: connecting Hong Kong through ideas and space; urban/spatial history; medical history; and history education beyond the classroom. This was a fascinating day, with stimulating and engaged discussion that highlighted the passionate interest of our audience for Hong Kong’s history.
On 10 September, our Centre Research Director Prof Ray Yep’s new book Man in a Hurry: Murray MacLehose and Colonial Autonomy in Hong Kong was published with Hong Kong University Press.
On 19 September, Prof Robert Bickers paid a courtesy visit to the Hong Kong Chronicles Institute, and on 23 September Dr. Kong gave a guest lecture for the HKU MA in Hong Kong History course ‘Doing Hong Kong History’.
We have been filming as well, a new series of short historical talks by the centre team and collaborators on different aspects of the Hong Kong story. These will start to be published online early in the new year under the title Hong Kong History Academy.
After the summer break, we resumed our History Salon. On 28 September, Dr Allan Pang, kicked off this year’s programme with a talk on the international influence of Cantopop. Allan invited our audience to partake in the historical stage, revisit emotions embedded in Cantopop, and investigate how the songs presented different facades of Hong Kong to Chinese communities around the world. As the new term began, we welcomed a new student to the Centre, Duncan Ma, who will be working with Professor Yep and Professor Tim Cole on a PhD project on ‘The Making of Cold War Hong Kong: A Trans-national Cultural Geography Study of the Kai Tak Airport, 1945-1984′.
We spent much time in Hong Kong and in Bristol liaising with our colleagues at WMA, and the Bristol Photo Festival team, preparing for the opening of the exhibition ‘Realms of Memory, which showcases newly commissioned work by Hong Kong artists Billy H.C. Kwok, Jay Lau, and Lau Wai who were tasked with engaging with two historical photographic archives, namely Historical Photographs of China (University of Bristol) and the Frank Fischbeck Collection (University of Hong Kong). We will report further on this collaboration between the Centre and our partners in our next report, but urge you to make your way if you can to the Royal Photographic Society gallery in Bristol, where the exhibition runs until 22nd December.
Robert Bickers
Centre Co-Director