Sidney C. H. Cheung

The meanings of a Heritage Trail in Hong Kong.

Abstract Tourism is often described as an encounter between foreigners and locals, but in this transnational world such a polarization is too simple. This paper describes the contested struggle for meaning and interests of four different parties involved in a Heritage Trail. First is the government which constructed the site; second, the agency trying to attract international tourists to the exotic East and “old China” as part of the Hong Kong image; third, local organizations bringing domestic tourists to rediscover aspects of their own culture and identity; and fourth, the sites owners fighting the government to re-establish the sacred harmony of their landscape.

Remembering through Space: the politics of heritage in Hong Kong

This is an ethnographic study depending on long-term fieldwork for a better understanding of the way in which remembrance would be affected by the social change and the political environment involved, especially with the self-awareness of indigenous identity among local inhabitants brought by heritage preservation. In this paper I seek to examine the emergence of Hong Kong Heritage and how its establishment reflects the relationships interwoven between the indigenous inhabitants of the New Territories and Hong Kong government. Moreover, I will focus on several episodes collected in Ping Shan, where Hong Kongs first heritage trail is located, to explore the socio-political meanings of heritage preservation and gain a closer look at how heritage recalls a collective memory transforming a traditional settlement into a political arena of heritage.

Visualizing Marriage in Hong Kong

ABSTRACT In this article, I propose using bridal photography and wedding video-recording to gain a better understanding of the meanings of romance and the ideal life among young generations and to consider how relevant images of getting married shed light on the changing social life in Hong Kong. Bridal photography and wedding videorecording not only play the role of documentation but also reflect the social change and values among new married couples in the society. By examining packaged bridal photography and the process of wedding video-shooting, I propose to state how visualization brings subtle influences into the new dynamism of marriage as a ritual and reflects the changing social contexts in todays Hong Kong everyday life.

Advertising Modernity: Home, Space and Privacy 1

For most people in Hong Kong, buying ones own apartment seems to be the biggest purchase, and conditions to be measured for the final decision should not be overlooked. Advertisements for living environment have been changing so much, with the deal always related to existing social values. In this article, we show how Hong Kongs lifestyles have been changing in the last five decades, based on change in housing development and on how people are educated in the form of idealized lifestyles through housing advertisements. By using data from newspaper and television advertisements, we seek to understand such changing concepts as home, space and privacy in contemporary Hong Kong society. We seek to analyze how the two factors—government policy and media advertisements—have contributed to our present ideal of the home, and the new town development in Ma On Shan is used as a demonstrative case in this study. To be modern is to find ourselves in an environment that promises us adventure, power, joy, growth, transformation of ourselves and the world—and, at the same time, that threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, everything we are. M. Berman, All That is Solid Melts into Air [1988].

Consuming “Low” cuisine after Hong Kong's handover: Village banquets and private kitchens

Food and eating practices currently, as in the past, function as important markers of cultural identity providing insights into social change, power relations, class structure, gender roles and national ideology, especially in our globalising societies (Mintz and Du Bois, 2002). Early anthropological research on food and eating largely addressed questions of taboo, totems, sacrifice and communion, and employed the approach of cultural symbolism (Douglas, 1966; Levi-Strauss, 1969). From around the 1980s, however, social and cultural anthropologists expanded the parameters of their studies to analyse food choices and eating practices as indicators of social relations – specifically, food used as gifts in exchanges at special occasion banquets and feasts (Bourdieu, 1984; Sahlins, 1976) – as a symbol of caste, class and social hierarchy (Goody, 1982; Mintz, 1985) and as a metaphor for constructing the self with regard to ethnicity and cultural identity (Gabaccia, 1998; Mintz, 1996; Ohnuki-Tierney, 1993). On the one hand, it appears evident that food and foodways are powerful indicators of cultural practice and social change (Camp, 1989); yet, it is often difficult to trace the channels through which these entities perform meaning as they are so much a part of the mundane material “stuff” of everyday life. In addition, the same food may have different meanings to different people, depending upon the social interaction in which it is enmeshed. This dynamic characteristic of food and foodways is clearly indicated in the growing scholarship on the changing eating habits of people in Asia generally (see Lefferts, this issue), and specifically of people in Hong Kong, especially since the handover of this region to China in 1997. In this paper, I argue that an analysis of the current popularity of Hong Kong’s “low” (everyday) cuisine, which includes traditional village food and homestyle eating venues, contributes to understanding how local residents have reacted to cultural, Asian Studies Review September 2005, Vol. 29, pp. 259–273

Ainu culture in transition

Abstract While indigenous rights are being widely discussed and cultures of indigenous peoples are becoming more known to the world, the current status of the indigenous Ainu people and their culture in contemporary Japanese society has not been fully explored. According to a 1999 Hokkaido local government survey, there are approximately 23,767 Ainu people living in Hokkaido and about 5000 in the Kanto area. However, very few of these individuals speak any Ainu language or practice the traditional way of life. This paper discusses the history and culture of the Ainu, and examines the social transformations that have taken place within this society since the enactment of the Ainu New Law in 1997, and the intervention of some innovative institutions aimed at supporting and revitalizing Ainu culture. It also presents material from ethnographic fieldwork interviews that reveal how some Ainu consider their cultural traditions and identity in Japan.

Men, women and “Japanese” as outsiders: A case study of postcards with Ainu images

The depiction of the Ainu in photography, as created and circulated in Japan starting from the Meiji era, provides us with a case study to investigate how gender and ethnic differences are related to the construction of self/other relations in modern Japan. I consider the imaginary relations between Japanese viewers and Ainu images ranging from paintings to photographs and, in doing so, make use of metaphorical meanings and imaginary mythical structures for the analogy of contentious ethnic relations from the age of mechanical reproduction, as Walter Benjamin suggested. I will examine the different images of Ainu men and women interwoven with an imaginary Japaneseness regarding the cultural meanings of insider and outsider within the process of colonization in Hokkaido during the Meiji era. Likewise, with the notion of stranger‐king political transformation emphasized by Marshall Sahlins in his Fijian studies, this article serves as a challenge to discern the construction of Japaneseness in terms of mythical motifs and stranger‐king political transformations from a visual perspective.

From foodways to intangible heritage: a case study of Chinese culinary resource, retail and recipe in Hong Kong

Chinese foodways is a complex mix of regional elements including a wide range of ingredients and culinary skills, and is considered a system of knowledge not only inherited from the past but also determined by socio-political changes in different eras. Even though great differences can be found between northern and southern ingredients and culinary skills, there are common characteristics shared among cuisines in various regions through internal migration as well as importation of ingredients and cooking skills. Apart from studying Chinese foodways as regional traditions in the historical context, we should look at it as intangible heritage from the socio-political perspectives regarding the current debate on cultural preservation. In this article, I aim to investigate Chinese foodways related to heritage preservation focusing on culinary resource in agricultural and cultivation system, wholesale/retail trade network and family recipe, in order to have a better understanding of food heritage in the fast-changing Hong Kong society. With the three cases provided, I would draw attention to the paradox of defining heritage for preservation and the dilemma of whether we should preserve traditional foodways that have been modified for market interest as they are discredited for loss of authenticity.

Keeping the Wetland Wet: how to integrate natural and cultural Heritage preservation

Discusses the relationship between tourism strategies and heritage conservation in Hong Kong, using the example of the wetland conservation site of Mai Po. The author describes the importance of the site as a resting place for migratory birds. Nevertheless, tourism is expected to grow rapidly in the region in the next decade, due to government policies favoring development. In recent years the number of visitors to the Mai Po site has been increasing, which could put the area at risk. Visitors need to be informed of the significance of environmental conservation. The author also explains how traditional fishpond farming contributes to wetland conservation. Residential development pressures are changing the fragile equilibrium and reducing the area given over to the fishponds.

The politics of wetlandscape: fishery heritage and natural conservation in Hong Kong

The north‐western part of Hong Kong is a marsh with traditional freshwater fish farming; however, this brackish area has been agriculturally diversified to include cultivation of red rice, reeds, shrimp and fish, and has only largely concentrated on freshwater fish farming starting from the 1960s. By looking into the geographical and social changes that have taken place in the brackish area, I will explain how the coastal landscape was changed in the 1910s through the introduction of large‐scale rice production in Tin Shui Wai which has turned into a high‐density residential new town, and the wetland conservation of Mai Po marshes. This article aims at understanding the meanings of intangible as well as agricultural/fishery heritage and the local politics among indigenous communities, conservation groups, the government and developers in post‐handover Hong Kong society. Inland freshwater pond cultivation was actually a major industry in the 1970s since it supplied most of the freshwater fish for the local market. Nowadays, the industry is shrinking because of lack of manpower and high operation costs compared to the mainland. With various kinds of social, economic and physical pressures, the local communities which are located at the buffer areas of the wetland in Mai Po are actually facing the tremendous dangers of losing those fishponds; most importantly, the fishponds have been serving not only as mitigation zone and source of a traditional local food but also as a major food supplier for migratory birds, adding to the conservation value of the Mai Po marshes and Inner Deep Bay in Hong Kong at large.