Hong Kong

posts related to Hong Kong

China Labor Bulletin closes

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Source: NYT (6/12/25)
Chinese Labor Rights Group Led by Former Tiananmen Protest Leader Closes
The China Labor Bulletin, founded by Han Dongfang, tracked factory closures and worker protests in China. It cited financial difficulties for its dissolution.
By Alexandra Stevenson, Reporting from Hong Kong

Han Dongfang, wearing a blue polo shirt and jeans, sits at a cluttered desk in a small room.

Han Dongfang, the founder of China Labor Bulletin, in his Hong Kong office in 2024. The group, which tracked worker unrest in China, announced on Thursday that it was ceasing operation. Credit…Anthony Kwan for The New York Times

China Labor Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based group that tracked worker unrest in China and was started by a former pro-democracy protest leader, said on Thursday that it was shutting down because of financial difficulties. The group had also faced increased scrutiny in recent years amid a broader crackdown and silencing of civil society in Hong Kong.

The group said that because of “financial difficulties and debt issues,” it could no longer maintain operations and had “decided to dissolve.” It said it would stop updating content on its website and social media platforms.

The group was founded by Han Dongfang, one of the last remaining labor rights activists not in hiding in Chinese territory. The group continued to operate in Hong Kong, even as other China-focused civil society groups started closing or leaving from 2020, when Beijing imposed a national security law that has dismantled civil rights protections that gave the city its semiautonomous status.

China Labor Bulletin, a resource for journalists and academics about worker unrest in China, was founded in 1994 by Mr. Han, who had been one of the leaders of pro-democracy protests around Tiananmen Square in 1989. Over the years, the organization closely monitored some of China’s biggest labor disputes and secured compensation for workers with grievances against their companies. It regularly updated a map of labor strikes across the country, and published reports on companies and industries with known labor concerns. Continue reading China Labor Bulletin closes →

Periodising HK cinema

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New publication: Jessica Siu-yin Yeung, “Periodising early Hong Kong cinema (1914–41): Tianyi Hong Kong Studio, Cantonese resistance, and colonial paradox.” Early Popular Visual Culture (May 2025).

I hope this piece will help some listserv subscribers teach early Hong Kong film history. It is written with the intention of serving as reading for novice students who have no prior knowledge of early Hong Kong cinema, providing accurate information, many images, and minimal jargon. Here is the abstract:

This article asks, ‘What do we mean when we say “early Hong Kong screen culture and cinema?” It answers this question with a threefold response. Against the scholarship that has been focusing on Shanghai-Hong Kong connections, this article emphasises the overlooked Canton-Hong Kong connections. It highlights the separationist government Chen Jitang’s contribution to preventing Cantonese filmmaking from being banned by the Kuomintang government in the 1930s when the Nanking government promoted Mandarin as the national language. Also, existing studies have overemphasised ‘The Father of Hong Kong Cinema’, Lai Man-wai and his family as important personages in early Hong Kong cinema for making the first fiction film and some national defence films. Yet this article argues that it was the Shaw Brothers’ Tianyi Hong Kong Studio that inaugurated the era of quality Cantonese filmmaking. Lastly, this article periodises early Hong Kong cinema (1914–41) into three stages: the silent film and the partially-sound Cantonese film age (1914–32), the talkies, the boom, and the censorship of Cantonese filmmaking (1933–36); and the peak and decline of Cantonese filmmaking (1937–41). Hong Kong’s status as a colony paradoxically endowed it with the criteria to preserve Cantonese filmmaking, as this article shall explicate such serendipity with Barbara Ward’s framework of ‘colonial paradox’. In other words, it was the nonchalance of the British Hong Kong government towards Cantonese filmmaking that preserved this endangered indigenous art through the Kuomintang censorship and the wartime, so that Cantonese filmmaking could be continued in the post-war period.

Jessica Siu-yin Yeung <jessicayeung@LN.edu.hk>

A Shrine to Old HK

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Source: NYT (4/25/25)
Where Bruce Lee Practiced on the Roof, a Shrine to Old Hong Kong Rises
At a formerly grand hotel where the famed martial arts star once stayed, a group of collectors is trying to preserve vestiges of the city’s past as its political identity changes.
By Tiffany May; Photographs by Billy H.C. Kwok; Reporting from Hong Kong

A building with a faded sign in Chinese characters atop it, surrounded by trees on a slope.

Lung Wah Hotel in Hong Kong’s northern New Territories.

In its heyday in the 1950s and ’60s, the Lung Wah Hotel, a converted, Spanish revival villa, offered a leafy refuge from the bustle of city life, near a cove and surrounded by parks in Hong Kong’s New Territories.

Winding stairs, flanked by red lanterns, led to a sprawling Chinese-style garden. On summer weekends, people gathered for games of mahjong under a pavilion as children played nearby in sandboxes and swings. Movies were once shot there and Bruce Lee, its most famous patron, practiced martial arts on its roof.

In the decades since, the hotel stopped renting out rooms because new fire codes would require them to be upgraded. The surrounding rice fields were developed into middle-class housing. The restaurant is still turning out its famed roast pigeon, but it has struggled to fill its wood-trimmed dining rooms since its 500-spot parking lot was requisitioned for a new police station in the 1970s.

Now, the operation has been given a chance for a new lease on life — by leaning into the past. An unused teahouse on the property has been remade into Hong Kong Radiance, a hands-on museum that seeks to recreate slices of the vibrant life in the city as it transitioned from a postwar factory town producing clothes, electronics and plastics into a glittering financial center connecting East and West.

John Wu, a graphic designer and well-known local collector who curated the space, said he wanted it to resemble a film set, where each corner had a cohesive color palette.

His goal, he said, was to revive memories for older visitors while also inspiring younger generations. When giving tours, he often calls attention to unique details, encouraging visitors to feel the sturdiness of the wood, for example. “Only then can these objects get a second life,” he said in an interview. Continue reading A Shrine to Old HK →

HK Democratic Party to disband

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Source: NYT (4/13/25)
A Chapter Closes: Hong Kong’s Democratic Party to Disband
The party, once the city’s largest opposition force, long championed a moderate approach. It ended up squeezed between a discontented populace and a repressive Beijing.
By Tiffany May, Reporting from Hong Kong

A man in a hoodie stands near a table covered with microphones as journalists shoot pictures of him.

Lo Kin-hei, the chairman of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party, at a news conference on Sunday. Credit…Tyrone Siu/Reuters

The Democratic Party in Hong Kong was for decades the city’s largest opposition party. It led protests demanding universal suffrage. Its lawmakers sparred with officials in the legislature about China’s encroachment on the region.

It was born in the 1990s of an audacious hope: that opposition politicians and activists could pressure Hong Kong’s iron-fisted rulers in Beijing to fulfill their promise of expanding democratic freedoms for the city of several million people.

On a rising wave of demands for democracy, the party grew to more than 1,000 members at its height in 2008. Its effort to maintain a moderate stance drew criticism, including from within its own ranks, from those seeking to push harder against Beijing. Yet moderation could not save the party’s leaders from being caught in the dragnet as China tightened its control over Hong Kong.

Now it is disbanding, one more casualty in Beijing’s suppression of Hong Kong’s once-vibrant political opposition.

Its leaders have been arrested and imprisoned on national security charges. Its members are effectively barred from running for local office, and routinely face harassment and threats. Raising money is hard. Continue reading HK Democratic Party to disband →

Lingnan postdoc

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Applications are now invited for the following post:
Postdoctoral Fellow
The Advanced Institute for Global Chinese Studies
Lingnan University, HK

The Advanced Institute for Global Chinese Studies (The Institute) now invites applications for a postdoctoral fellowship in premodern Chinese literature.

The appointee’s job duties include publishing research output in venues of international standing, applying for external grants, assisting with the Institute’s projects on Chinese poetry and literary theory, and assuming teaching duties as required by the University. The appointee will have the opportunities to co-publish research articles with the Director. Abilities to apply digital humanities methods to literary studies will be a strong plus. The appointee will be provided funding for organizing up to two academic workshops on topics related to his/her research projects or co-organizing one international symposium.

General Requirements
Applicants should have a PhD in premodern Chinese literature or related fields. Applicants must be a good native or near-native writer of English, capable of translating classical Chinese literary texts.

Applicants should provide information about their qualifications, research interests and achievements along with evidence of quality teaching. Experiences with grant-funded research and grant applications are highly desirable. Candidates with less/more experience will also be considered for appointment at a relevant rank. Continue reading Lingnan postdoc →

HK’s last remaining activist

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Source: NYT (11/27/24)
Meet One of Hong Kong’s Last Remaining Pro-Democracy Activists
For Chan Po-ying, a labor rights leader, life is one of constant police surveillance, even on hikes. But she finds solace from tiny gestures of support.
By Tiffany May

Chan Po-ying posed for photographs in Hong Kong on Friday. Credit…Billy H.C. Kwok for The New York Times

When a court in Hong Kong sentenced 45 pro-democracy politicians and activists to prison sentences of up to 10 years, it took down the city’s once-vocal opposition in one fell swoop, making clear the risks of dissent.

But a handful still remain.

One of them is Chan Po-ying, the 68-year-old leader of the League of Social Democrats, a political party focused on labor and social welfare.

Hong Kong’s opposition was once a small but formidable presence. Lawmakers organized filibusters to block bills they saw as limiting freedoms. Street marches were common. Then, after anti-government protests engulfed Hong Kong in 2019, China imposed a sweeping crackdown on the city.

Ms. Chan took over as the party’s chairwoman in 2021 after the arrest of several members and leaders, including her husband, Leung Kwok-hung, a former lawmaker better known as Long Hair. Mr. Leung was among those sentenced last week. Continue reading HK’s last remaining activist →

HK pro-democracy leaders jailed

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Source: NYT (11/18/24)
Dozens of Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Leaders Are Jailed Up to 10 Years
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The 45 defendants, including Joshua Wong, were at the forefront of the opposition movement crushed by Beijing. Many had already been in jail for years.
By Tiffany May, Reporting from Hong Kong

Ventus Lau is one of 45 activists and politicians who was sentenced in the city’s biggest national security trial. His girlfriend, Emilia Wong, a gender rights activist, talks about the impact his case has had on their relationship. Credit…Tyrone Siu/Reuters

Anywhere else, it wouldn’t have been controversial: a public vote by pro-democracy activists trying to strengthen their hand in legislative elections, to decide who should run. More than 600,000 people took part in the peaceful, unofficial poll.

But this was Hong Kong, just after the imposition of a national security law by Beijing, and officials had warned that even a straw poll would be taken as defiance.

On Tuesday, the price of defying Beijing was made clear. Forty-five former politicians and activists who had organized or taken part in the 2020 primary by the opposition camp were sentenced by a Hong Kong court to prison, including for as long as 10 years. Continue reading HK pro-democracy leaders jailed →

Sedition in Hong Kong

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Source: NYT (9/27/24)
This Is What Can Land You in Jail for Sedition in Hong Kong
Three men were the first to be convicted under the city’s recently expanded national security law, which has greatly curtailed political speech.
By David Pierson and Tiffany May

Visitors in a museum look at a screen where Xi Jinping is speaking in front of microphones.

Visitors watching a video of Xi Jinping at the National Security Exhibition in Hong Kong Museum of History in August. Credit…Anthony Kwan for The New York Times

Wearing a T-shirt with a protest slogan.

Scrawling pro-democracy graffiti on public bus seats.

Criticizing Xi Jinping on social media.

Three men in Hong Kong were sentenced to prison last week for these acts of protest, which in another era probably would have drawn little notice — showing the power of a newly expanded national security law aimed at muzzling dissent.

The rulings, rendered over two days by a judge whom Hong Kong’s leader handpicked, highlight the political transformation that has taken place here.

A financial center and a city accustomed to freedom of political expression, Hong Kong now more closely resembles mainland China, where criticism of the ruling Communist Party is rarely, if ever, tolerated. Continue reading Sedition in Hong Kong →

CUHK position

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The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Assistant Professor / Associate Professor (Substantiable-track) – (240002GQ)
Department/ Unit: Centre for China Studies
Closing Date: November 15, 2024

The Centre for China Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) seeks to appoint a faculty member to help further strengthen the study of modern and contemporary China in a global context. An interdisciplinary research and teaching unit that directly speaks to one of the University’s strategic areas for development, the Centre offers degree programmes at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Applicants trained in humanities disciplines with a focus on modern and contemporary China, especially those from the fields of anthropology, history, cultural and media studies, are encouraged to apply. The successful candidate should be able to teach courses in English to a diverse student body and is committed to interdisciplinary research and innovative pedagogy.

Applicants should have (i) a PhD degree in a relevant academic discipline; (ii) a clear research profile that contributes to and extends the existing strengths of the Centre; (iii) a strong record or potential of quality publications and grant applications; (iv) a strong dedication to teaching and student engagement. To be considered for appointment at the rank of Associate Professor, applicants should have achieved a high standing in the relevant research field and demonstrated academic and international professional leadership. Continue reading CUHK position →

HK editors convicted of sedition

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Source: NYT (8/28/24)
Hong Kong Editors Convicted of Sedition in Blow to Press Freedom
The editors said they published stories in the public interest. A judge ruled they were guilty of a crime against national security.
By Tiffany May, Reporting from Hong Kong

Two men stand outside a building as a group of journalists photograph them.

Patrick Lam, left, and Chung Pui-kuen of Stand News leaving court in Hong Kong last year. Credit…Louise Delmotte/Associated Press

The two veterans of Hong Kong’s long boisterous news media scene didn’t shy away from publishing pro-democracy voices on their Stand News site, even as China cranked up its national security clampdown to silence critics in the city.

Then the police came knocking and, more than two and a half years later, a judge Thursday convicted the two journalists — the former editor in chief of Stand News, Chung Pui-kuen, and his successor, Patrick Lam — of conspiring to publish seditious materials on the now-defunct liberal news outlet. Both face potential prison sentences.

The landmark ruling highlighted how far press freedom has shrunk in the city, where local news outlets already self censor to survive and some foreign news organizations have left or moved out staff amid increasing scrutiny from the authorities.

During the trial, prosecutors characterized news articles and opinion pieces published by the two as biased against the government and a threat to national security. The articles were similar to those Stand News had been publishing for years. But after the authorities crushed protests that rocked the city in 2019, China imposed a national security law, and tolerance for dissent in the city’s freewheeling media began to evaporate. Continue reading HK editors convicted of sedition →

Fighting sexual temptation in HK

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Source: NYT (8/26/24)
Fighting Sexual Temptation? Play Badminton, Hong Kong Tells Teenagers.
Top officials in the Chinese territory have defended new sex education guidance that critics call regressive. Young people are amused.
By Olivia Wang and Mike Ives, Olivia Wang reported from Hong Kong.

People playing badminton in a gym.

Playing badminton in Hong Kong. Credit…Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group, via Getty Images

In Hong Kong, the authorities advise the young man to continue studying or to seek a diversion, including badminton, to avoid premarital sex and other “intimate behaviors.”

Critics, including lawmakers and sex educators, say that the Chinese territory’s new sex education materials are regressive. But top officials are not backing down, and the standoff is getting kind of awkward.

“Is badminton the Hong Kong answer to sexual impulses in schoolchildren?” the South China Morning Post newspaper asked in a headline over the weekend.

Hong Kong teenagers find it all pretty amusing. A few said on social media that the officials behind the policy have their “heads in the clouds.” Others have worked it into sexual slang, talking about “friends with badminton” instead of “friends with benefits.”

The sex ed materials were published last week by the Education Bureau in a 70-page document that includes worksheets for adolescents and guidance for their teachers. The document emphasizes that the lessons are not designed to encourage students to “start dating or having sexual behaviors early in life.” It also advises people in a “love relationship” to fill out a form setting the limits of their intimacy. Continue reading Fighting sexual temptation in HK →

Exhibit shows how China wants to remake HK

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Source: NYT (8/23/24)
A History Museum Shows How China Wants to Remake Hong Kong
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A new exhibit calls for the city’s residents to be patriotic, loyal to the Chinese Communist Party and ever vigilant to supposed threats to the state.
By Tiffany May, Reporting from Hong Kong

A person spreads their arms wide as they pose for a picture in front of a Chinese flag in a darkened museum room. Other patrons are nearby, in shadow.

A new exhibit on national security at the Hong Kong Museum of History. Credit…Anthony Kwan for The New York Times

The Hong Kong Museum of History was the place to go to understand the city’s transformation from fishing village to a glittering metropolis. It housed a life-size replica of a traditional fishing boat and a recreation of a 19th-century street lined with shops.

That exhibit, known as “The Hong Kong Story,” is being revamped. People have instead been lining up for a splashy new permanent gallery in the museum that tells a different, more ominous story about the city — that Hong Kong is constantly at risk of being subverted by hostile foreign forces. The exhibit features displays about spies being everywhere and footage of antigovernment street protests in the city that were described as instigated by the West.

As he kicked off the exhibition this month, John Lee, the Beijing-backed leader of Hong Kong, made clear that its overarching purpose was to be a warning to the city. “Safeguarding national security is always a continuous effort. There is no completion,” he said. The gallery, which is managed by Hong Kong’s top national security body, opened to the public on Aug. 7.

The exhibit points to a new aspect of the Hong Kong government’s crackdown on the city after antigovernment protests in 2019 posed the greatest challenge to Beijing’s rule in decades. The authorities have introduced security laws to quash dissent in the years since. They are now pushing to control how people will remember the recent political turmoil. Continue reading Exhibit shows how China wants to remake HK →

Backreading HK symposium–cfp

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Backreading Hong Kong Symposium on “Diaspora and Adaptation”
Call for Abstracts
Deadline: Sunday 25 August 2024

The 2024 edition of the Backreading Hong Kong Symposium will be held in person in Toronto on 18–19 November 2024. The theme of this year is “Diaspora and Adaptation”.

The concept of diaspora has profound implications for understanding cultural identity, migration, and community formation. In the context of Hong Kong, the dynamics of diaspora and adaptation are particularly poignant given its unique historical, political, and cultural trajectory. This symposium seeks to explore the multifaceted relationship between Hong Kong and the concept of diaspora, exploring not only how immigrants adapt to Hong Kong’s cultural and political ecology but also how the Hong Kong diaspora community adapts to different cultural environments globally. Additionally, the conference will broaden the scope of adaptation to include cross-genre adaptations of works of art, examining how artistic expressions are transformed to, within, and from Hong Kong.

We invite established and early-career scholars, researchers, and practitioners to present papers that address the following sub-topics, although submissions on related topics will also be considered: Continue reading Backreading HK symposium–cfp →

Open Books Hong Kong

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Open Books Hong Kong: Three Universities Launch Hong Kong’s First Open Access Books Programme

In a landmark collaboration, the libraries and university presses of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, City University of Hong Kong, and The University of Hong Kong are launching Open Books Hong Kong, a pioneering open access initiative, to foster global knowledge sharing and biblio-diversity. This is the first open access books programme in Hong Kong.

On 17 July 2024, the initiative releases nine books in the fields of humanities and social sciences. These Chinese-language works, authored by distinguished Hong Kong and international scholars, are freely accessible to the global community, demonstrating our commitment to the open dissemination of knowledge. Additional books will become openly available in the coming months.

Open Books Hong Kong not only showcases the high-calibre research published by Hong Kong’s three university presses but also addresses the significant gap in open-access resources for Chinese-language monographs. This pilot programme, currently modest in scope, is a bold step towards a sustainable model for sharing the rich insights and discoveries of the intellectual community of Chinese and international scholars. The programme aligns with the goals of the University Grants Committee of Hong Kong to embrace open access for the benefit of the academic community and the general public as well as to contribute to the global open knowledge movement.

The initiative builds on the strengths of Hong Kong as a bridge between China and the rest of the world and will foster cross-cultural understanding. Benjamin Meunier, University Librarian of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, said: “Open Books Hong Kong stands as a testament to the generosity and forward-thinking nature of Hong Kong people, offering a treasure trove of knowledge to all who seek it.”

For more information about the programme and to download the books, please visit our website at openbookshongkong.com.

Posted by: Minlei Ye minleiye@cuhk.edu.hk

HK Media and Asia’s Cold War review

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MCLC Resource Center is pleased to announce publication of Man-Fung Yip’s review of Hong Kong Media and Asia’s Cold War, by Po-Shek Fu. The review appears below and at its online home: https://u.osu.edu/mclc/book-reviews/man-fung-yip/. My thanks to our new media studies book review editor, Shaoling Ma, for ushering the review to publication.

Kirk Denton, MCLC

Hong Kong Media and Asia’s Cold War

By Po-Shek Fu

Reviewed by Man-Fung Yip

MCLC Resource Center Publication (Copyright July, 2024)

Po-Shek Fu, Hong Kong Media and Asia’s Cold War Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023. 256pp. ISBN: 9780190073770 (paperback); 9780190073763 (hardcover)

Over the decades, Po-Shek Fu has established himself as one of the most respected scholars in the field of Chinese-language cinema. His latest book on the cultural Cold War in Hong Kong of the 1950s and 1960s, with a focus on film and print media, offers the first systematic English-language study of this important but little-examined subject.

Divided into four main chapters, plus a preface and an epilogue, the book covers the period—from the late 1940s to the late 1960s—to which the cultural Cold War in Hong Kong was most germane. The first chapter offers a comprehensive mapping of the cinematic Cold War in Hong Kong and makes a convincing case for what Fu calls the “cinematic containment” of leftist or pro-communist “patriotic” cinema on the part of pro-Taiwan forces and the United States. Each of the following three chapters focuses on a case study to further explore the complex dynamics and meanings of the cultural Cold War in Hong Kong: the US-sponsored Chinese Student Weekly and its ties with the liberal “third force” movement in Republican China in chapter 2; Asia Pictures, a film studio founded by Chang Kuo-sin 張國興 with support from the Asia Foundation (a CIA-funded nongovernmental organization), in chapter 3; and the Shaw Brothers studio in chapter 4. The epilogue concludes the book by focusing on the period of the late 1960s and 1970s, when the rise of a new, local-born generation challenged and reshaped the Cold War networks of émigré cultural production, which in turn led to a gradual winding down of Hong Kong’s status as a battlefield of Asia’s cultural Cold War. Continue reading HK Media and Asia’s Cold War review →