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Social Change in Hong Kong: Hong Kong Man in Search of Majority

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Hugh D. R. Baker
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Extract

In 1983 when The China Quarterly published a special issue on Hong Kong, I attempted to synthesize the history of its urban social life, coining the term “Hong Kong Man” to describe what I considered to be the emergence of an identifiable unique social animal. Hong Kong Man, I suggested, was neither Chinese nor British. I characterized him as quick-thinking, flexible, tough for survival, excitement-craving, sophisticated in material tastes, and self-made in a strenuously competitive world. He operated in the context of a most uncertain future, control over which was in the hands of others, and for this as well as for historical reasons he lived “life in the short term”.

Type
Greater China
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 136 , December 1993 , pp. 864 - 877
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1993

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References

1. Hong Kong Man of course includes Hong Kong Woman, the attitudes I describe being common to both.

2. I am especially grateful to Professor Wong Siu-lun for his perceptive and constructive comments on my original draft and I have incorporated many of his suggestions in this final version.

3. Unless otherwise indicated statistics are taken from the Hong Kong Government's Annual Report Hong Kong 1993 or from earlier reports in the same series.

4. Watson, James L., “Rural society: Hong Kong's New Territories,” The China Quarterly, No. 95 (09 1983), pp. 480–490CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5. Baker, H. D. R., A Chinese Lineage Village: Sheung Shui (London: Cass, 1968), p. 4Google Scholar.

6. In Hong Kong Sessional Papers, No. 93 (1900)Google Scholar.

7. Choo, Ng Kwee, The Chinese in London (London: Institute of Race Relations, 1968), p. 10Google Scholar.

8. Shang, Anthony, The Chinese in Britain (London: Batsford, 1984), p. 27Google Scholar.

9. Baker, H. D. R., “Life in the cities: the emergence of Hong Kong Man,” The China Quarterly, No. 95 (09 1983), pp. 469–479 at p. 472CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10. Chow, Nelson, “The past and future development of social welfare in Hong Kong,” in Cheng, Joseph Y. S. (ed.), Hong Kong in Transition (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 403–419 at p. 409Google Scholar.

11. Hong Kong Government, Hong Kong 1993 (Hong Kong, 1993), p. 160Google ScholarPubMed.

12. Lau, Emily, “The news media,” in Cheng, , Hong Kong in Transition, pp. 420–446 at p. 420Google Scholar.

13. The 1921 Census returns, for example, were thrown out by under-reporting of children, a rumour having spread that the information was required to locate babies who would be buried under the piers of a planned cross-harbour bridge to strengthen the foundations (Lloyd, J. D., “Census report,” in Hong Kong Sessional Papers (Hong Kong, 1921)Google Scholar). Similar rumours spread at the time of a labour dispute over the Plover Cove Reservoir dam in the 1960s, and more recently there have been panic rumours over “ghosts” seen on a television advertisement for the Kowloon Canton Railway.

14. Hong Kong Government, Hong Kong 1992 (Hong Kong, 1992), p. 105Google ScholarPubMed.

15. Siu-lun, Wong, Emigration and Stability in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong Social Sciences Research Centre and Department of Sociology, 1992)Google Scholar.