2025
【歷史沙龍】追尋香港早期博物館 
日期：2025年6月7日 （星期六）
時間：下午2:30至4:30
地點：Research Space, Arts Complex, 7 Woodland Road, University of Bristol, BS8 1TB
語言：廣東話
----
備註：
– 實體活動。
– 請於Ticketpass報名，屆時會有少量港式茶點提供。
https://tktp.as/EIJRFF
----
我們都喜歡到博物館重溫不同歷史，但你有沒有想過博物館自身的歷史呢？這場講座將會帶大家回到十九世紀的香港，探索這座城市第一批博物館是如何誕生和發展。我們會一起看看這些早期博物館展示了什麼，當時的市民如何獲得參觀資格，以及它們爲何消聲匿跡。此外，是次講座亦會探討香港早期博物館與大英帝國之間的關係，從另一角度瞭解香港殖民地過去。
----
曾啓泓是香港大學歷史系的講師，專攻東亞及東南亞的博物館史與殖民史。他於牛津大學取得歷史學博士學位，其學術著可見於《Museum History Journal》及香港大學出版社。他亦積極參與公共歷史，並共同創辦了「香港歷史及文化顧問有限公司」。
----
【History Salon】Tracing the First Museums in Hong Kong
Date: 7 June 2025
Time: 2:30 – 4:30pm (UKT)
Venue: Research Space, Arts Complex, University of Bristol
Language: Cantonese
----
Additional Information:
- In-person only.
- Please register on Ticketpass. A small amount of Hong Kong-style refreshments will be provided.
https://tktp.as/EIJRFF
----
We love visiting museums to revisit different chapters of history, but have you ever wondered about the history of museums themselves? This sharing will take you back to nineteenth-century Hong Kong to explore how the city's first museums were born and developed. We will examine what these early museums displayed, how the public gained access to them, and why they eventually disappeared. Additionally, this sharing will delve into the relationship between these early museums and the British Empire, offering a fresh perspective to look into Hong Kong’s colonial past.
----
Reynold Tsang is a lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Hong Kong. He specialises in the history of museums and colonialism in East and Southeast Asia. Reynold earned his DPhil in History from the University of Oxford. His scholarly work has been published in the Museum History Journal and with HKU Press. Reynold is also actively engaged in public history and co-founded the Hong Kong History & Heritage Advisory.
HKHC Speaker's Series, Dr. Jenny Huangfu Day, Skidmore College, United States
Transborder Fugitives, Extradition, and Political Crimes in Modern China
Speaker: Dr. Jenny Huangfu Day, Skidmore College, United States
Date and Time: 23 May 2025, 9:30 – 11am (UKT)
Venue: Microsoft Teams
Language: English
Online event. To attend, please register on Microsoft Teams.
https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/4312663a-6b62-4a79-a3ed-547b91f63f61@b2e47f30-cd7d-4a4e-a5da-b18cf1a4151b
----
Why were there no extradition treaties between China and most Western countries historically? Jenny Huangfu Day traces how the fugitive rendition clauses in the Opium War treaties evolved into informal extradition practices and argues that China’s inability to secure reciprocal treaties was rooted in the legacy of extraterritoriality and semi-colonialism. Through an examination of a series of landmark but often overlooked extradition cases between China and foreign powers — especially between Canton and the colonial government of Hong Kong — she challenges the notion that “political crimes” in modern China emerged solely as a domestic legal construct, instead situating them in transborder legal and diplomatic processes open to interpretation and maneuvering by both state authorities and the broader transborder population.
----
Jenny Huangfu Day is an associate professor of history and the Francis Tang ‘61 Chair of China Studies at Skidmore College. She is the author of Qing Travelers to the Far West: Diplomacy and the Information Order in Late Imperial China and a forthcoming book, Transborder Fugitives, Extradition, and Political Crimes in Modern China.
【歷史沙龍】聯繫匯率前世今生
日期：2025年5月17日 （星期六）
時間：下午2:30至4:30
地點：Research Space, Arts Complex, 7 Woodland Road, University of Bristol, BS8 1TB
語言：廣東話
----
備註：
– 實體活動。
– 請於Ticketpass報名，屆時會有少量港式茶點提供。
https://tktp.as/ECTKRJ
----
時局變化莫測，香港人既因港幣與美元掛鉤而受益，亦時有受損。聯繫匯率制度確保了香港與全球經濟的持續聯繫，同時也使香港的金融狀況受到美國利率波動的影響。我們當初是怎麼做到這種安排的？為什麼 1997 年過去了幾十年，掛鉤匯率依然存在？本次演講探討了聯繫匯率制度的歷史起源、其在香港及其他地區的持續重要性，以及其對香港在全球金融中的作用的影響。
----
王迪安，中國企業史權威，芝加哥大學經濟學學士、史丹佛大學工商管理學碩士、哈佛大學歷史系博士、特許金融分析師(CFA) 。現職香港大學香港人文社會研究所暨現代語言及文化學院教授及文學院副院長（本科生事務）。研究主要集中在人、貨、資金及資訊的流動，尤其對香港及大灣區/珠三角地區具興趣。其第一本著作 Global Trade in the Nineteenth Century: The House of Houqua and the Canton System研究 十九世紀初全球交流情況中的中國貿易。其新著Hong Kong Takes Flight: Commercial Aviation and the Making of a Global Hub / 《香港振翅》探討香港如何轉變成為航空業樞紐，旨在敘述源於亞洲間及區域結構的全球化，以及全球網絡成形的過程。
----
【History Salon】Why the peg? Then and now.
Date: 17 May 2025
Time: 2:30 – 4:30pm (UKT)
Venue: Research Sapce, Arts Complex, University of Bristol
Language: Cantonese
----
Additional Information:
- In-person only.
- Please register on Ticketpass. A small amount of Hong Kong-style refreshments will be provided.
https://tktp.as/ECTKRJ
----
Depending on the global environment, Hongkongers have both benefited from and suffered due to the Hong Kong dollar’s peg to the US dollar. While the peg ensures the city’s sustained connection with global economies, it also subjects Hong Kong’s financial landscape to fluctuations in US interest rates. How did we end up with this arrangement in the first place? Why is the peg still in place decades after 1997? This talk explores the historical origins of the peg, its continued importance in Hong Kong and beyond, and its implications for Hong Kong’s role in global finance.
----
John D. Wong is a professor and an associate dean in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Hong Kong, John D. Wong’s research focuses on the flow of people, goods, capital and ideas. With a particular interest in Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta/Greater Bay Area, he explores how such flows connected the region to the Chinese political center in the north as well as their maritime partners in the South China Sea and beyond.
Studying the China trade in the context of early-nineteenth-century global exchange, his first monograph—Global Trade in the Nineteenth Century: The House of Houqua and the Canton System—demonstrates how China trade partners sustained their economic exchange on a global scale long before Western imperialism ushered in the era of globalization in a Eurocentric modern world. In his recently published Hong Kong Takes Flight: Commercial Aviation and the Making of a Global Hub, John explores the development of commercial aviation in Hong Kong as the city grew into a powerful economy after WWII. By not accepting Hong Kong’s development into a regional and global hub as preordained, this study aims to describe globalization and global networks in the making.
HKHC Speaker's Series, Dr. Stella Meng Wang, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Space and Everyday Lives of Children in Hong Kong: The Interwar Period
Speaker: Dr. Stella Meng Wang, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Date and Time: 8 May 2025, 1 – 2:30pm (UKT)
Venue: Zoom
Language: English
Online event. To attend, please register on Ticketpass.
https://tktp.as/EQBIEB
Zoom details:
https://bristol-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/93245766019?pwd=TCOsV8mthhPoSTS0dgu9WEQKsoymBU.1
Meeting ID: 932 4576 6019
Passcode: 616966
----
This talk examines five transnational cultural movements in interwar Hong Kong: the garden city movement; the modern hygiene movement; nationalist sentiments; the Young Women’s Christian Association; and the Girl Guides. It highlights the new experiences transnational movements of ideas and practices created for children in a burgeoning urban culture that brought flourishing changes in residential architecture, neighborhood planning, school architecture, print culture, vocational education, and youth movements. Touching upon women’s activism in the fields of philanthropy, public health, and medicine, the talk exposes the imperial, professional, and transnational philanthropic networks European and Chinese females helped to build.
----
Stella Meng Wang’s research uses transnational perspectives and approaches to examine history of education, history of migration, and history of women, health, and medicine, with specific references to Hong Kong. It addresses the critical intersection of transnational cultural movements and the history of women’s education, health, and medicine, with a broader contribution to the field of historical and contemporary inquiry into Chinese migration and diaspora studies.
【歷史沙龍】「三年零八個月」：香港的戰爭經歷
日期：2025年4月12日 （星期六）
時間：下午2:30至4:30
地點：Research Space, Arts Complex, 7 Woodland Road, University of Bristol, BS8 1TB
語言：廣東話
----
備註：
– 實體活動。
– 請於Ticketpass報名，屆時會有少量港式茶點提供。
https://tktp.as/ELLZEL
----
1941年12月8日，日軍入侵香港，經18天戰鬥後，英聯邦軍投降，香港進入為期三年零八個月的日據時期。在此期間，日軍建立軍政體系，控制香港的政治、經濟與社會生活，實施軍票、糧食配給，以及強制疏散等措施，又推行嚴苛法規，市民面對饑餓和憲兵的統治。盟軍對香港的空襲又造成嚴重傷亡。是次講座將以時人在香港的不同經歷和新近發現的史料為中心，討論香港在大戰期間的角色和經歷。
----
鄺智文博士現為香港浸會大學歷史系副教授，其研究興趣為近代東亞軍事歷史，尤以中日甲午戰爭（1894-1895）至20世紀70年代的軍事和海軍史為重心。其著作包括《東方堡壘：香港軍事史，1840-1970》（HKUP 2014）和《英軍中的港人》（OUP 2022）。其論文亦見於《Modern Asian Studies》,《War in History》和《Journal of Military》等期刊。最近，他亦製作關於戰時香港的數位人文研究項目，例如「日據香港空間史研究」：https://digital.lib.hkbu.edu.hk/japanese_occupation_of_hongkong/
----
【History Salon】'Three Years and Eight Months': Experiencing the Second World War in Hong Kong
Date: 12 April 2025
Time: 2:30 – 4:30pm (UKT)
Venue: Research Space, Arts Complex, University of Bristol
Language: Cantonese
----
Additional Information:
- In-person only.
- Please register on Ticketpass. A small amount of Hong Kong-style refreshments will be provided.
https://tktp.as/ELLZEL
----
On December 8, 1941, Japanese forces invaded Hong Kong, and after 18 days of fighting, the British Commonwealth forces surrendered, marking the beginning of a three-year and eight-month period of Japanese occupation. During this time, the Japanese established a military administration system, controlling Hong Kong’s political, economic, and social life, implementing military currency, food rationing, and forced evacuations, as well as enacting strict regulations. Civilians faced hunger and the rule of Kempeitai. Allied bombings of Hong Kong also resulted in severe casualties. This lecture will focus on the different experiences of people in Hong Kong during the war and recently discovered historical materials, discussing Hong Kong's role and experiences during this turbulent period.
----
Dr. Kwong Chi Man is an associate professor in the history department of Hong Kong Baptist University. He specialises in the military and naval history of modern East Asia, particularly from the Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) to the 1970s. He has published Eastern Fortress A Military History of Hong Kong, 1840–1970 (co-authored) and Hongkongers in the British Armed Forces. His works can also be found in Modern Asian Studies, War in History, and Journal of Military History. Recently, he released a number of Digital Humanities projects, such as the Japanese Occupation of Hong Kong: A Spatial History Project: https://digital.lib.hkbu.edu.hk/japanese_occupation_of_hongkong/
Spatial History as Method: Using the Japanese Occupation of Hong Kong as Example, 1941-1945 
Speaker: Dr. Kwong Chi Man, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong
Date and Time: 1 Apr 2025, 3:30 – 5pm (UKT)
Venue: Lecture Room 8, Arts Complex, University of Bristol / Zoom
Language: English
Hybrid event. To attend, please register on Ticketpass.
https://tktp.as/ESNOUC
----
Previous research on Hong Kong during the Japanese occupation period often focused on the brutal rule of the Japanese army and the suffering of civilians and prisoners of war. However, these descriptions sometimes lacked details on space and its changes. The speaker's recently completed "Japanese Occupation of Hong Kong: A Spatial History Project" attempts to reconstruct the urban space of Hong Kong during the occupation period. The project team collects historical materials from Chinese, British, American, and Japanese sources, and uses Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to establish details about the Japanese military government's administrative planning, economic activities, military deployment, public health, and underground resistance. This allows researchers and readers to understand different events and trends in specific spatial contexts. This lecture will discuss in detail the historical materials and technical aspects of this project, introducing the possibilities of revisiting history using digital humanities and spatial history methods.
----
Dr. Kwong Chi Man is an associate professor in the history department of Hong Kong Baptist University. He specialises in the military and naval history of modern East Asia, particularly from the Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) to the 1970s. He has published Eastern Fortress A Military History of Hong Kong, 1840–1970 (co-authored) and Hongkongers in the British Armed Forces. His works can also be found in Modern Asian Studies, War in History, and Journal of Military History. Recently, he released a number of Digital Humanities projects, such as the Japanese Occupation of Hong Kong: A Spatial History Project:
https://digital.lib.hkbu.edu.hk/japanese_occupation_of_hongkong/
【歷史沙龍】日常的不平常：香港茶餐廳的歷史回顧 
日期：2025年3月29日 （星期六）
時間：下午2:30至4:30
地點：Lecture Room 8, Arts Complex, 7 Woodland Road, University of Bristol, BS8 1TB
語言：廣東話
----
備註：
– 實體活動。
– 是次活動地點有別慣常，將在同一建築物的另一課室Lecture Room 8舉行。
– 請於Ticketpass報名，屆時會有少量港式茶點提供。
https://tktp.as/EUXOYW
----
茶餐廳是香港不可或缺的一部份；更大膽的說法是，香港的每個人都一定去過或吃過茶餐廳的食物。但若退後一步，茶餐廳與其他地方大多數餐廳相比，顯然是不正常的：它是如此便宜抵食，卻會有樓面侍應，而任何相類近的餐廳均需要客人自己捧餐; 它供應最奇怪的食物，將意大利粉放於清淡的罐頭湯中，還要加上數片叉燒。是次沙龍將帶大家瞭解茶餐廳的歷史發展，瞭解這香港創造的光怪陸離，在香港被視為理所當然的餐廳及食物。
----
黎的琛現為倫敦大學亞非學院人類學及社會學系博士候選人，研究範疇及興趣包括飲食及餐廳人類學、交互服務性行業、社會關係和體現及技術。
----
【History Salon】 The Normalized Abnormal: Historical development of Hong Kong Caacaanteng
Date: 29 March 2025
Time: 2:30 – 4:30pm (UKT)
Venue: Lecture Room 8, Arts Complex, University of Bristol
Language: Cantonese
----
Additional Information:
- In-person only.
- This time our event is in another classroom in the same building instead of the usual research space.
- Please register on Ticketpass. A small amount of Hong Kong-style refreshments will be provided.
https://tktp.as/EUXOYW
----
Caacaanteng is in the life of everyone staying in Hong Kong; The bolder claim may even be that everyone in Hong Kong must have gone to or consumed cuisines from caacaanteng. But should we take a step back, we would come to the realization that it is markedly abnormal comparing to most restaurants elsewhere: it is so cheap yet someone would wait your table, when anything of the same calibre may be self-serviced; it serves the most bizarre thing where spaghetti is put in a bland broth topped with Cantonese barbequed pork. In this presentation, I wish to walk us through the historical development of caacaanteng, understanding the weird created by Hong Kong people, turning it into what we take for granted.
----
Samuel Dic Sum Lai is currently a PhD Candidate at the Department of Anthropology and Sociology, SOAS, University of London. His research interest includes anthropology of food and restaurant, interactive service work, social relations and embodiment and skills.
HKHC Speaker's Series, Dr. Liza Wing Man Kam, University of Vienna, Austria 
Learn to oppress: Intellectual trajectory in constructing the colonies in Hong Kong and Taiwan
Speaker: Dr. Liza Wing Man Kam, University of Vienna, Austria
Date and Time: 7 Mar 2025, 3:30 – 5pm (UKT)
Venue: Research Space, Arts Complex, University of Bristol
Language: English
In-person only event. To attend, please register on Ticketpass.
This presentation introduces components of Kam’s recent project, which aims to comprehend the cultural and intellectual exchange networks in and between Hong Kong and Taiwan. In her previous works, Kam contended that infrastructural and socialization frameworks work together to subtly and overtly exert control on the colonials’ bodies and minds. This presentation, however, focuses on Japan’s learning from British colonialism in Hong Kong to understand how the early form of control got in shape. Since the early colonial period, metropolitan London has played a significant role in shaping the spatial design and planning, law-making, and so on in Hong Kong. By the end of the Second World War, the majority of Hong Kong’s public architecture and planning were dictated by British colonial architects. However, Taiwan’s case is not as straightforward. In becoming a modern state, Japanese officials such as Ohara Shigechika, the head of the Office for Gaols (shugokushi) were sent to visit the Victoria Prison in Hong Kong in 1871 to learn about the construction of modern prisons during the Meiji Restoration. In 1872, Ishida Eikichi, the Superintendent of Police for Kanagawa Prefecture travelled to Hong Kong to research police systems (Umemori, 2002). The modernization of metropolitan Tokyo was significantly influenced by the colonial experience in Hong Kong. These ideas, which were tested in Tokyo, were subsequently exported to colonial Taiwan. During the early Japanese colonial era in Taiwan, it functioned as a laboratory for Japanese colonial architects such as Ide Kaoru (1879-1944) and Moriyama Matsunosuke (1869-1949). These architects were educated at the then Tokyo Imperial University (Tōkyō teikoku daigaku), where they were, in some ways, instructed by British architecture professors.
Still in its inaugural shape, the project explores the intellectual trajectories involved in the (re)making of the infrastructural and socialization frameworks established since the two respective colonial eras, while identifying the legacies that persist as physical and ideological control in the everyday.
Dr. Liza Wing Man Kam’s research interests include Hong Kong and Taiwan’s colonial architecture and the transmutation in their particular postcolonial settings, postwar cultural and urban spaces, and culinary cultures. She conducted her PhD research at the Bauhaus in Germany and have been teaching and researching in Germany, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the US and Japan.
【歷史沙龍】大都會與江湖：戰後香港的文化空間 
日期：2025年2月15日 （星期六）
時間：下午2:30至4:30
地點：布里斯托大學 | Arts Complex, 7 Woodland Road, University of Bristol, BS8 1TB
語言：廣東話
----
備註：
– 實體活動。
– 請於Ticketpass報名，屆時會有少量港式茶點提供。
https://tktp.as/EPMRNO
----
金庸（查良鏞，1924-2018）與劉以鬯（1918-2018）以小說創作聞名於世，他們的作品對華語世界的文學與電影皆舉足輕重。同樣重要卻不常被討論的，是這兩位大文豪於戰後香港作為新聞從業員的貢獻。查氏於 1953 年創辦的《明報》成為他與中國共產黨多年「筆戰」的戰場。1950 年代，時任《香港時報 • 淺水灣》、《星島日報 • 大會堂》等副刊主編的劉以鬯，更利用這些副刊宣揚香港的自由大都會形象，意圖與當時被視為經濟落後的中國大陸形成對比。甘詠雯將與大家一起探索這些於戰後香港創造、非常獨特的文化空間。
----
甘詠雯博士，現任奧地利維也納大學東亞研究所助理教授。德國包浩斯建築博士，專研香港與台灣殖民時代建築及其後殖民轉變。研究興趣亦包括港台戰後文化與建築空間及東亞地區飲食文化。曾為於德國、台灣、香港、美國及日本從事教學及研究。
----
【History Salon】 Metropolitan and Gongwu (river and lake): Cultural Space in Postwar Hong Kong
Date: 15 Feb 2024
Time: 2:30 – 4:30pm (UKT)
Venue: Research Space (1.H020), Arts Complex, University of Bristol
Language: Cantonese
----
Additional Information:
- In-person only.
- Please register on Ticketpass. A small amount of Hong Kong-style refreshments will be provided.
https://tktp.as/EPMRNO
----
Jing Yong (Louis Cha, 1924-2018) and Liu Yichang (1918-2018) are renowned for their novels, which influenced the Sinophone world of literature and cinema. Equally remarkable was the two novelists’ simultaneous contribution to journalism in the early postwar period. Cha founded the pivotal newspaper Ming Pao Daily in 1953, which served as his ideological battlefield where he engaged in years of ‘pen-fights’ with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Liu, editor-in-chief of supplements such as the Hong Kong Times: Repulse Bay and the Sing Tao Daily: City Hall in the 1950s, instrumentalized these supplements to project the metropolitan image of the liberal colony of Hong Kong in contrast to what was perceived as the economically backward mainland of China. In the talk, Kam explores such fascinating cultural spaces that were created and accommodated in the postwar Hong Kong.
----
Liza Wing Man Kam, Assistant Professor, Department of East Asian Studies (Chinese Studies), University of Vienna.
Kam’s research interests include Hong Kong and Taiwan’s colonial architecture and the transmutation in their particular postcolonial settings, postwar cultural and urban spaces, and culinary cultures. She conducted her PhD research at the Bauhaus in Germany and have been teaching and researching in Germany, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the US and Japan.
Speaker's Series, Prof. David Clayton, University of York, United Kingdom
Hong Kong and Modern Global History: A Panel Discussion
Speaker: Prof. David Clayton, University of York, United Kingdom
Commentators: Prof. Robert Bickers, University of Bristol
Prof. Su Lin Lewis, University of Bristol
Prof. Simon Potter, University of Bristol
Date and Time: 24 February 2025, 3:30 – 5pm (UKT)
Venue: Research Space (1.H020), Arts Complex, University of Bristol
Language: English
Hybrid event. To attend, please register on Ticketpass.
Zoom details:
https://bristol-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/96412017600?pwd=q4VkQf6Wp81nslQf1pM1wK0Aqxg1WB.1
Meeting ID: 964 1201 7600
Passcode: 277080
----
The Hong Kong History Centre is excited to announce that Prof. David Clayton from the University of York will deliver a talk on his latest research, exploring Hong Kong’s place in modern global history. The talk will be followed by a panel discussion featuring historians from the University of Bristol.
Panel
Arguably, Hong Kong history’s is local history. Some of the best examples take the form of micro-histories shorn of master narratives. Historians of Hong Kong have focused on particular peoples, curious situations and unique happenings. But how do we connect our intriguing stories to the ‘big’ debates—including about the economic rise of the West and the ‘Rest’, world geo-strategic instability/stability, the spread of representative democracies/autocracies, the clash between local, national and cosmopolitan identities? This panel debates this problem of method.
To kick-start discussions, David Clayton draws his three-decade long effort to improve our understanding of Hong Kong’s economic history. He reflects on how his work has tackled near-universal questions about the role of markets and laws. The panel, featuring Robert Bickers, Su Lin Lewis, and Simon Potter, will offer comments and discuss the paper.
Paper abstract
As historians we tend to focus on particular people, curious situations and unique happenings. We write local history. Drawing on fifty years of international scholarship, this paper explores how historians of Hong Kong have also contributed to our collective understanding of the origins and effects of our current interconnectedness: modern global history. The paper divides into three parts. The first surveys how Hong Kong was slotted into debates about modernisation theory, an agenda that traced convergences and divergences in paths of development between the ‘East’ and the ‘West’. The second surveys how imperial historians placed Hong Kong within the patterns and puzzles of British decolonisation. The third examines transnational linkages into and out of Hong Kong, with a particular focus on flows of ideas, including across the Pacific. The purpose of this paper is to stimulate a discussion regarding the appropriate historical method with which to study the Hong Kong past. The presenter will also take this opportunity to revisit his contributions to Hong Kong history which, coincidently, date back to 1997.
----
David Clayton is a Professor at the University of York. He published Imperialism Revisited in 1997 which included an exploration of British government policy towards Hong Kong during the early 1950s. He teaches the political, cultural, social, economic and environment histories of Hong Kong, 1945-1997, at York.
Robert Bickers is a Professor of History at the University of Bristol, and a Co-Director of the Hong Kong History Project. He specialises in the history of colonialism, and in particular of the British empire and its relations with China and the history of Shanghai, Hong Kong, and modern Chinese history. His most recent book is China Bound: John Swire & Sons and its World.
Su Lin Lewis is Professor in Global and Asian History at the University of Bristol. She specialises in the social history of cities, transnational activism, and decolonisation, with a focus on modern Southeast Asia. She published Cities in Motion: urban life and cosmopolitanism in Southeast Asia 1920-1940.
Simon Potter is Professor of Modern History at the University of Bristol and works on global and imperial histories of the mass media. In 2022 he published a centenary history, This is the BBC, with Oxford University Press.
HKHC Speaker's Series, Prof. Catherine R. Schenk, University of Oxford, United Kingdom | Dr. Nora Yitong Qiu , University College London, United Kingdom 
Payments Across Financial Sanctions: The Case of Shanghai Commercial Bank in Hong Kong 1949-65
Speaker: Prof. Catherine R. Schenk, University of Oxford, United Kingdom | Dr. Nora Yitong Qiu , University College London, United Kingdom
Date and Time: 5 Feb 2025, 3:30 – 5pm (UKT)
Venue: Lecture Room 8, Arts Complex, University of Bristol
Language: English
Hybrid event. To attend, please register on Ticketpass.
This talk explores the intricate dynamics of cross-border payments and financial integration in East and Southeast Asia from 1949 to 1965, focusing on the role of Shanghai Commercial Bank in Hong Kong. During this period, the geopolitical landscape was marked by significant events such as the Indonesian confrontation, the Malayan Emergencies, the Korean War, and the US occupation of Japan. These events, coupled with stringent financial sanctions against China, shaped the region's economic interactions and strategies.
Amidst these tensions, Hong Kong emerged as a crucial financial hub, navigating complex international sanctions and facilitating remittances and trade payments. The US-led dollar blockade against China compelled Chinese entities to adopt alternative currencies and devise innovative payment routes. Shanghai Commercial Bank in Hong Kong played a pivotal role in this financial adaptation, leveraging its strategic location and financial acumen to bridge economic exchanges despite sanctions.
Our study examines how the bank's operations and strategies contributed to regional economic stability and integration. We analyze archival records, financial data, and contemporaneous accounts to provide a comprehensive view of the bank's role in mitigating the impact of financial blockades. This historical inquiry offers valuable insights into the resilience and adaptability of financial institutions under geopolitical pressures, with implications for understanding contemporary financial sanctions and their effects on global economic systems.
Prof. Catherine R. Schenk is Professor of Economic and Social History at the University of Oxford and Professorial Fellow at St. Hilda's College. Her research has focused on the history of international money and banking since 1945 and she is the author of several books and many articles. Her current project, funded by the European Research Council, uncovers the architecture of the global payments system from 1870-2000.
Dr. Nora Yitong Qiu is a permanent research and teaching lecturer at UCL Department of History. She is a historian of modern East Asia. She investigates China’s modernity and economic disparity from three lenses: identity, finance, and legal institutions, using quantitative and qualitative methodology. Currently, she is working on four major projects: the material culture of China; legal pluralism; the origins of East Asia's payment systems and international trade; and environmental history of Jiangbei.
【History Salon】 “The Metropolis of the East”: Tourism and Postwar Recovery in Hong Kong 
Date: 18 Jan 2025
Time: 2:30 – 4:30pm (UKT)
Venue: Research Space (1.H020), Arts Complex, University of Bristol
Language: English
----
Additional Information:
- In-person only.
- Please register on Ticketpass. A small amount of Hong Kong-style refreshments will be provided.
https://tktp.as/ENQXPM
----
In the wake of World War II, nations and colonies struggled to rebuild their economies – including by promoting tourism. Apart from generating much-needed revenue, government and business planners hoped this “invisible export” would help build a new era of peace and understanding. This talk discusses how Hong Kong became a major travel destination, with tourism eventually becoming one of its most important industries and its largest source of foreign-exchange revenue. At least until the mid-1950s, however, this owed less to local efforts and more to changes beyond Hong Kong’s initiative or control: the revival of passenger shipping and the global expansion of civil aviation, the reopening of Japan to tourism under the Allied occupation, and the Korean War.
----
Prof. John Carroll is Principal Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Hong Kong, where he directs the world’s first MA programme in Hong Kong history. He is the author of several books on Hong Kong history. This talk draws on his current research project on Hong Kong tourism.
History in the Public Sector
Date: 16 Jan 2025
Time: 4:15 – 5:15pm (UKT)
Venue: Research Space, Arts Complex, University of Bristol
Language: English
In-person only event. To attend, please register on Ticketpass.
On 16 January (Thursday) at 4:15-5:15, the Hong Kong History Centre will host a panel discussion on what history, and historians, can do in the public sector. Centre Research Director Professor Ray Yep, a public intellectual who has served on numerous government bodies in Hong Kong including the Central Policy Unit and civil society organisations, will be joined by two Bristol History PhD graduates, Dr. Chris Wemyss, now of Department for Science, Innovation & Technology, and Dr. Gemma O'Neill, of the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. This panel will be chaired by Professor Josie McLellan, Co-Director of Research, Department of History. In the session, the panelists will discuss how their research background informs their work in and/or with the government, and what might history, and historians, do for policymaking and more widely the public sector.
Decolonising Colonial History: Why Hong Kong History Matters
Date: 16 Jan 2025
Time: 1 – 2pm (UKT)
Venue: LT3, Arts Complex, University of Bristol
Language: English
*This event is aimed at undergraduates
Why is it important that we study the history of British colonialism? How might we decolonise this history, and what does this actually entail? At this History Showcase session, we consider these important questions, by drawing on the research and teaching experience of three historians of Hong Kong, a British colony between 1841 and 1997. We will be joined by Professor John Carroll of the University of Hong Kong, and Bristol's very own Professor Robert Bickers and Dr. Vivian Kong.
2024
HKHC Speaker's Series, Dr. Jessica Siu-yin Yeung, Lingnan University, Hong Kong
Remaking Lubitsch in Hong Kong Cinema: The Ninotchka Trope in Her Fatal Ways
Speaker: Dr. Jessica Siu-yin Yeung, Lingnan University, Hong Kong
Date and Time: 22 November 2024, 3:30 – 5pm (UKT)
Venue: Research Space (1.H020), Arts Complex, University of Bristol
Language: English
In-person only event. To attend, please register on Ticketpass.
Hong Kong cinema has a history of remaking Ernst Lubitsch films. Sit Kok-sin and Cho Kei respectively remade Love Parade (1929) into Romance of Jade Hall (1934) and the trilogy of My Kingdom for a Husband (1957), The Prince’s Romantic Affairs (1958), and My Kingdom for a Honeymoon (1958). In the early 1990s, Hong Kong cinema enjoyed certain liberty while film censorship guidelines were relaxed. Alfred Cheung remade Ninotchka (1939) into Her Fatal Ways (1990) (表姐，你好嘢！). This crime comedy narrativises Hongkonger’s fearful response to the Tiananmen massacre (1989) towards the end of British colonial rule (1997). It is about a Chinese communist envoy’s uproarious encounter with a Royal Hong Kong Police superintendent. Due to colonial film censorship during the Cold War era, Hong Kong cinema was devoid of overt political representations to avoid upsetting the geopolitical ties with neighbouring countries. Her Fatal Ways’ political gags were fresh, rare, and popular, so the film got three sequels (1991—1994).
Despite being a staple in popular culture, Her Fatal Ways remains unexamined in film studies. This chapter studies Ninotchka as a trope in Her Fatal Ways by contextualising it in the Hong Kong screwball comedic tradition of the 1960s, which pokes fun at the northern/ southern cultural differences. Adopting the lens of cultural translation and remake, it argues that Lubitsch and Cheung’s political rom-coms aim not to undermine the political regimes in question, but emphasise the individual agency to make humane choices during political upheavals. By extension, it considers Lubitsch’s legacy in Hong Kong cinema in the National Security Law era (2020—) as allegories of compassion in extraordinary times. As Ninotchka realised in tipsiness, “Wars will wash over us, bombs will fall, all civilisation will crumble, but not yet, please. Wait, wait, what’s the hurry? Let us be happy. Give us our moment.”
Dr. Jessica Siu-yin Yeung is research assistant professor at the Centre for Film and Creative Industries of Lingnan University. Her research interests are Asia’s Cold War cinema and culture (especially comedies) and Chinese-dialect cinemas (especially Cantonese and Taiwanese language). Her essays have appeared in Cultural History, Archiv orientální, Journal of World Literature, a/b: Auto/Biography Studies, and some anthologies. She is working on a few journal articles on early Hong Kong Cantonese cinema (1914–41), post-2019 Hong Kong cinema, Cantonese opera stardom, and Taiwan literature, and writing a book on allegorical films from Taiwan and Hong Kong (Edinburgh University Press). Her latest publication is a book chapter on Stephen Chow’s Bond spoofs in The Cinema of Stephen Chow (Bloomsbury), and another book chapter on Hong Kong-Taiwanese film circulation and mutual influences is forthcoming this November in Taiwanese-Language Cinema: Rediscovered and Reconsidered (Edinburgh University Press). She is coediting a special issue on Hidden Luminaries: Obscure Actresses and Women Filmmakers in Chinese Film History at the Journal of Chinese Cinemas and ReFocus: The Films of Chor Yuen (Edinburgh University Press).
【歷史沙龍】邁向政制發展的年代——80年代地方行政與政制改革：一個初級政務官的觀察 
日期：2024年11月23日 （星期六）
時間：下午2:30至4:30
地點：布里斯托大學 | Arts Complex, 7 Woodland Road, University of Bristol, BS8 1TB
語言：廣東話
----
備註：
– 實體活動。
– 請於Ticketpass報名，屆時會有少量港式茶點提供。
https://tktp.as/EKRYDQ
----
1980年代是殖民香港邁向有限度地方行政及政制改革的年代。那年代也是比較具規模的選舉政治出現的時候。這次演講除了會回顧和分析當時的地方行政和政制改革之外，講者也會根據其在當時殖民政府的工作經驗，分享他對這些改革和殖民政府的管治特色的觀察。
----
張楚勇在2022年7月退休前，於香港城市大學任教政治和公共行政的課程。張氏最感興趣的學科是政治理論和香港政治，並認為閱讀政治哲學的經典，是深刻地了解政治和人類境況的一個好方法。張楚勇曾經兩次加入香港政府的政務職系，並在政務總處、皇家警務處、教育統籌科、香港電臺任職。1987-1994年他在倫敦的英國廣播公司中文部工作。張楚勇是以下學術著作的作者：The Quest for Civil Order: Politics, Rules and Individuality (Imprint Academic, 2007), The Poetic Character of Human Activity: Essays on the Thought of Michael Oakeshott (與Wendell John Coats, Jr. 合著, Lexington Books, 2012) ，《弗雷德里希•海耶克》(聯經，2018) ，Hayek and Post-War Chinese Liberalism: Beyond the Enlightenment and National Salvation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024) 。
----
【History Salon】 Towards an era of political development—District administration and political reform in the 1980s: observation from a junior administrative officer
Date: 23 Nov 2024
Time: 2:30 – 4:30pm (UKT)
Venue: Research Space (1.H020), Arts Complex, University of Bristol
Language: Cantonese
----
Additional Information:
- In-person only.
- Please register on Ticketpass. A small amount of Hong Kong-style refreshments will be provided.
https://tktp.as/EKRYDQ
----
The 1980s started the era of limited district administration and political reforms in colonial Hong Kong. It was also from this time that we witnessed the emergence of territory-wide electoral politics in the colony. This talk will review and analyse these political developments, and the speaker, based on his working experience in the colonial government, will share his observations on these reforms and on the characteristics of colonial governance.
----
Chor-yung Cheung taught politics and public administration before his retirement at the City University of Hong Kong in July 2022. He is most interested in studying political theory and Hong Kong politics. Cheung believes that reading the classical works of political philosophy is one of the best ways to develop a more profound understanding of politics and the human condition. He was twice an Administrative Officer of the Hong Kong Government and had served in City & New Territories Administration, The Royal Hong Kong Police, Education and Manpower Branch and Radio Television Hong Kong. He was a journalist working in the BBC Chinese Service in London from 1987-1994. He is the author of the following academic books: The Quest for Civil Order: Politics, Rules and Individuality (Imprint Academic, 2007), The Poetic Character of Human Activity: Essays on the Thought of Michael Oakeshott (co-authored with Wendell John Coats, Jr., Lexington Books, 2012),《弗雷德里希•海耶克》(聯經，2018), and Hayek and Post-War Chinese Liberalism: Beyond the Enlightenment and National Salvation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024).
HKHC Speaker's Series & History Department Seminar, Dr. Christopher Cowell , London South Bank University, United Kingdom
From Fever to Form: Malaria and the First Construction of Hong Kong
Speaker: Dr. Christopher Cowell , London South Bank University, United Kingdom
Date and Time: 12 November 2024, 3:30 – 5pm (UKT)
Venue: Lecture Room 8 (LT8), Arts Complex, University of Bristol
Language: English
In-person only event. To attend, please register on Ticketpass.
During the first half of the 1840s, the earliest decade of Hong Kong’s colonisation, the island gained a terrible reputation as a diseased and deadly location. Settlers re-evaluated the topography, geology, society, and buildings of the early city settlement along the northern shoreline of Hong Kong Island in a desperate attempt to understand the nature and causes of a sickness that was killing them. This leveller was called ‘malaria’, as in ‘bad air’, believed to be a gaseous emanation from the land. Since malaria was considered a low-lying gas, it soon compelled the young city to be conceived of in ‘section’ as a divided community living at differing heights and (perceptually) different atmospheres, a stubborn morphology of status that has continued to the present day.
This well-known but barely researched history lies at the core of a new book by the speaker. Form Follows Fever: Malaria and the Construction of Hong Kong, 1841–1849 (Chinese University of Hong Kong Press), is the first in-depth historical account of the beginnings of the city. Early Hong Kong society and its urban form were hurriedly assembled—through borrowing, inventing, copying, and adapting from local and transnational sources—all manifested in its physical and cultural construction. This talk, drawing from the book, uses a wide range of visual evidence—from land cartography and hydrographic charts to architects’ studies and China trade paintings—demonstrating the complexity of this ‘construction’, in which the technologies of the image reveal both the anxieties of precarity and the technologies of recuperation.
Christopher Cowell is lecturer in architectural history and theory at London South Bank University. He studied architectural history at Columbia University. He has taught worldwide, including in Hong Kong, New York, and Dublin, where he was assistant professor of modern and contemporary architectural history at Trinity College. His longstanding historical research focuses on both southern China and northern India, exploring the entanglement of modernity within European imperialism and its participation in architecture and urbanism. Cowell’s writing examines the relationship between the practice and theory of architecture against the cultural complexity of colonialism. This intersection draws upon the study of urban militarism, spatial security, hinterland ecologies, cartography, property, climate, disease, and race, among others.
HKHC Speaker's Series, Nadine Attewell, Simon Fraser University, Canada 
A Matter of Life and Death: Relation Work in Wartime Hong Kong
Speaker: Prof. Nadine Attewell, Simon Fraser University, Canada
Date and Time: 28 October 2024, 4 – 5:30pm (UKT)
Venue: Zoom (Online)
Language: English
Online event, to attend, please register on Ticketpass.
On December 25 1941, the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong became a temporary possession of the Japanese empire. The experiences of the thousands of white British and other Allied soldiers and civilians who were imprisoned in urban camps for the duration of the war have been extensively plumbed by memoirists and scholars alike. In this talk, in contrast, I reflect on the complicated affordances of the colonial archive as a starting point from which to map the cross-class and multiracial networks of relation through which mixed-race and other Chinese women from lower-class (including sex-working) backgrounds struggled to survive the occupation, both within and across the lines dividing the camps from the city.
Given the complicated gender, sexual, racial, and labour politics of care, how might we make sense of women’s practices of relation-making in a wartime context where the uneven distribution of precarity not only intensified, but itself became an object of interimperial contestation? To British and Japanese observers, colonized people’s practices of relation-making mattered principally insofar as they hindered or furthered the reproduction of imperial life. Mobilizing the insights of queer of colour and leftist feminists, I think with women’s efforts to elaborate other orders of value through acts of relation, improvising new supports for life in the face of colonial state abandonment and mass death.
Prof Nadine Attewell is Associate Professor of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at Simon Fraser University, where she also directs the undergraduate program in Global Asia. She is the author of Better Britons: Reproduction, National Identity, and the Afterlife of Empire (University of Toronto Press, 2014) and has published articles in Postcolonial Text, TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures of the Americas, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Journal of Asian American Studies, Verge: Studies in Global Asias, and Trans Asia Photography. She is currently at work on a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada-funded book entitled Archives of Intimacy: Racial Mixing and Chinese Lives in the Global Port City.
【歷史沙龍】 華僑商人：胡文虎的香港足跡與虎豹別墅的光與影
陳雋琦 x 郭浩忠
日期：2024年10月26日 （星期六）
時間：下午2:30至4:30
地點：Auditorium, Royal Photographic Society, 337 Paintworks, Bristol, BS4 3AR
語言：廣東話
----
備註：
– 實體活動。
– 請於Ticketpass報名，屆時會有少量港式茶點提供。
https://tktp.as/EGZERU
----
香港一直是連結東南亞華人與中國的重要樞紐，本次歷史沙龍聚焦於虎標萬金油和星島日報的創辦人胡文虎。胡文虎在新加坡開展醫藥事業，並於1930年代將總部遷至香港，通過對慈善、建築和媒體的投資，他成為歷史上最成功的海外華商之一。那麼，他為什麼來到香港？海外投資如何影響香港和近代中國的歷史？陳雋琦將探索華人移民的歷史，深入探討中國、香港與東南亞之間的聯繫，並通過虎豹別墅感受胡文虎留下的文化遺產。同場，攝影師郭浩忠將分享如何利用AI生成軟件擴展對虎豹別墅的記憶與想像，同時質疑這些受指令操控的生成影像及其衍生的記憶，如何在真實與虛妄間穿梭。
----
【同場加映】
展覽導賞｜Realms of Memory：郭浩忠、劉家俊、劉衛 (2-2:30pm | Optional)
歷史沙龍舉行前將備有「Realms of Memory」的廣東話展覽導賞。展覽位於英國皇家攝影學會（Royal Photographic Society）二樓，為布里斯托攝影節的節目之一，邀請藝術家重新詮釋與香港相關的歷史檔案，包括來自布里斯托大學的中國歷史相片計劃及香港大學圖書館的Frank Fischbeck珍藏集。
導賞將由香港非牟利藝術機構WMA帶領。WMA為是次香港歷史沙龍及布里斯托攝影節的合作夥伴。
----
【History Salon】 Overseas Chinese Merchants: Aw Boon Haw and the Tiger Balm Mansion
Kelvin Chan x Billy H.C. Kwok
Date: 26 October 2024
Time: 2:30 – 4:30pm (UKT)
Venue: Auditorium, Royal Photographic Society, 337 Paintworks, Bristol, BS4 3AR
Language: Cantonese
----
Note:
- In-person only.
- Please register on Ticketpass. A small amount of Hong Kong-style refreshments will be provided.
https://tktp.as/EGZERU
----
Hong Kong has been a crucial site for connecting overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia with China. This History Salon focuses on the story of Aw Boon Haw, the founder of Tiger Balm and Singdao Daily. He began his medical business in Singapore and shifted the headquarter to Hong Kong in the 1930s. He became one of the most successful overseas Chinese merchants by investing in philanthropy, architecture, and media. So, why did he come to Hong Kong? How did overseas investment shape the history of Hong Kong and modern China? Kelvin Chan will discuss the patterns of Chinese migration, explore the connections between China, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia, and highlight the lasting legacies of Aw through the Tiger-Balm Mansion. In addition, photographer Billy H.C. Kwok will share the ways he employs AI generation software to contest the memories and imaginations of the Tiger Balm Mansion, and how the derivative memories from these AI-generated images traverse between reality and illusion.
----
【Additional Tour】
Pre-Salon Exhibition Guided Tour | Realms of Memory: Billy H.C. Kwok, Jay Lau, Lau Wai (2-2:30pm | Optional)
Join the Cantonese tour of “Realms of Memory”, an exhibition on view at the Royal Photographic Society which is part of this year’s Bristol Photo Festival. “Realms of Memory” invites artistic re-interpretations of historical photo archives surrounding Hong Kong, including the Historical Photographs of China project (University of Bristol), as well as the Frank Fischbeck Archive (University of Hong Kong Libraries Special Collections).
The tour will be led by WMA, a Hong Kong-based art organisation. WMA is the programme partner of this Hong Kong History Salon, as well as a cultural partner of the Bristol Photo Festival 2024.
Building Collections: Pasts, Presents and Futures | A Hong Kong History Centre Panel Discussion 
Date: 22 October 2024
Time: 3:30 – 5pm (UKT)
Venue: Lecture Room 8 (LT8), Arts Complex, University of Bristol
Language: English
In-person only event. To attend, please register on Ticketpass.
----
The Hong Kong History Centre at the University of Bristol is starting to build up a new set of Hong Kong Collections within the University Library’s Special Collections, which will focus on encouraging donations of privately-held archives. We encourage people and organisations with historic ties to Hong Kong to consider donating privately-held records for long term preservation in the collection. The aim is to provide different perspectives to those found in government records. This is a pioneering initiative in the UK: no other British institution prioritises the collection of records like this relating to Hong Kong’s history.
The initial focus is on visual material, to support the development of a new online ‘Historical Photographs of Hong Kong’ open access platform which will launch in late 2025. Ahead of that, in collaboration with WMA, the Royal Photographic Society and the Bristol Photo Festival, we are already showcasing how such collections can support new creative responses with the exhibition ‘Realms of Memory’, showcasing new work by contemporary artists Billy H.C Kwok, Jay Lau, and Lau Wai, which is being held at the RPS as part of the 2024 Bristol Photo Festival.
But why build an archive? What are the challenges? Recent years have seen a number of focused initiatives to encourage public participation in building up collections about a specific community, or place, or period, and in engaging with them once established. This panel provides an opportunity for those interested in learning more about such projects, and their methods, challenges, responsibilities and ethics, to discuss this topic with a team experienced in these issues from the heritage, museum, university and creative sectors.
----
Panel
Alejandro Acín, Director, Bristol Photo Festival, Chair
Robert Bickers, Co-Director, Hong Kong History Centre
Lisa Graves, Curator World Cultures, Bristol City Council
Pete Insole, Head of Urban Design and Principal Historic Environment Officer, Bristol City Council
----
Alejandro Acín is founder-director of IC Visual Lab (ICVL), an independent photography platform. In 2023, he was appointed Bristol Photo Festival Director, and its second edition is produced and managed by IC Visual Lab. Beyond ICVL, Alex has a track record of activating historic archives, including Historical Photographs of China 1850-1950 (University of Bristol), the Nepal Picture Library and the British Empire & Commonwealth Collection, and of managing the Martin Parr Foundation library. Acín has produced personal projects exploring ideas around collective memory and politics and his work has been exhibited in Colombia, France, the UK and Spain.
Robert Bickers is a Professor of History at the University of Bristol, and a Co-Director of the Hong Kong History Project. Since 2006 he has worked on collections initiatives, including ‘Historical Photographs of China’, and a series of collaborations with ‘Know Your Place’.
Lisa Graves is Curator of World Cultures at Bristol Culture, with over 25 years of experience working in museums across the UK. She has worked in areas of decolonial practice for many years and has undertaken several repatriation projects. After project managing the ‘Colston Statute: What Next?’ display in 2021, being part of the project team for the installation of the statue in a display around protest against racial injustice in 2024, she is now working with communities in Bristol to develop new ways of responding to TTEA (Transatlantic Trafficking of Enslaved Africans) and legacies of colonialism in our service.
Pete Insole is the Urban Design Team Manager in the Planning Department at Bristol City Council and has nearly 30 years’ experience of working in heritage and place practices in Bristol. During 2010-11 Pete managed the English Heritage funded project to create Know Your Place, an online resource that won the ESRI UK Local Government Vision Award, 2011, the Urban Design Group Francis Tibbalds Award in 2014 and Heritage Angel Award in 2018. For the last 12 years, Pete has been using Know Your Place to develop a story of place concept that provides a platform for multiple voices to collectively share and define Bristol’s heritage through historic photos, oral histories, postcards and other formal and informal archives.
【歷史沙龍】衝出香港的粵語流行曲 
日期：2024年9月28日 （星期六）
時間：下午2:30至4:30
地點：布里斯托大學 | Arts Complex, 7 Woodland Road, University of Bristol, BS8 1TB
語言：廣東話
----
備註：
– 實體活動。
– 請於Ticketpass報名，屆時會有少量港式茶點提供。
https://tktp.as/EYBKIY
----
香港樂壇近年再次「焫著」聽眾。有人認為「樂壇已死」，亦有人要帶廣東歌「衝出香港」。港式流行曲響遍全球，卻不是近年獨有現象。五六十年代的粵語電影歌曲、七八十年代的「煇黃盛世」、九十年代的「四大天王」等浪潮亦曾帶着香港流行文化跨越國界，為各地華人所熟悉。是次沙龍將率領聽眾進入歷史舞台，重溫廣東歌的「溫度、速度、溫柔和憤怒」，並探討流行音樂如何將香港的不同面貌呈現給世界各地華人社區。
----
彭得豐博士，香港史研究中心博士後研究員，研究範圍包括香港史、海外華人史及東南亞史。其劍橋大學博士論文研究香港、馬來西亞及新加坡二十世紀下半葉的華人歷史教育。著作見於《Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History》、《Historical Journal》及《粵語流行曲七十年》（合著）。
----
【History Salon】 Cantopop in Hong Kong and beyond
Date: 28 September 2024
Time: 2:30 – 4:30pm (UKT)
Venue: Research Space (1.H020), Arts Complex, University of Bristol
Language: Cantonese
----
Additional Information:
- In-person only.
- Please register on Ticketpass. A small amount of Hong Kong-style refreshments will be provided.
https://tktp.as/EYBKIY
----
Hong Kong’s pop music scene has recently ‘ignited’ the interest of its audience. Some believe that Hong Kong’s music scene has ‘died’, while others hope to bring Cantopop beyond the city. Hong Kong’s popular music has resounded all over the world, but this is not unique to the present day. Cantonese film songs of the 1950s-60s, the ‘golden age’ of composer Joseph Koo and lyricist James Wong of the 1970s-80s, the ‘Four Heavenly Kings’ of the 1990s and so on have all enabled Hong Kong’s popular music to go beyond borders and touch Chinese communities overseas. This History Salon will invite 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.
----
Dr Allan Pang is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Hong Kong History Centre, University of Bristol. His research interests include the history of Hong Kong, Chinese overseas, and Southeast Asia. His PhD dissertation at the University of Cambridge examines Chinese history education in Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore in the second half of the twentieth century. His works have appeared in the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, the Historical Journal, and Seventy Years of Cantopop (edited volume in Chinese).
【HKHC & HKIHSS Conference: Journeys】
20-21st June 2024, University of Hong Kong
“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
‘Little Gidding’, T.S. Eliot
What can we learn about Hong Kong’s history from thinking about journeys? Hong Kong was a point of arrival, and a point of departure; it was a waypoint, and a port of call; it was a place of entrapment, and a place of release. Journeys were made around and through Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories and islands, on land, on water, and in the air. We can think of journeys as a metaphor, as well as thinking about them literally; we can consider individual journeys, and the movement of families and groups; we can think about people, and we can think about non-human journeys, as well as modes of travel. There is scope to consider the restriction, and the facilitation and encouragement of mobility, and of the journey as a means to an end and as an end in itself, and of risk, and of opportunity.
This conference, co-organised by the Hong Kong History Centre at the University of Bristol, and the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Hong Kong, takes the theme of journeys and journeying as its topic, and we take this as point of departure for new discussions of the history of Hong Kong in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
This is an in-person conference. Please be reminded that registration is required for attendance - we do no accept walk-ins. There is limited availability, and you can register on TicketPass.
Programme - HKHC & HKIHSS Conference: Journeys
【歷史沙龍】在1924至25年的英京賽會展示香港
日期：2024年6月8日 （星期六）
時間：下午2:30至4:30
地點：布里斯托大學 | Arts Complex, 7 Woodland Road, University of Bristol, BS8 1TB
語言：廣東話
----
備註：
– 實體活動。
– 請於Ticketpass報名，屆時會有少量港式茶點提供。
https://tktp.as/EVKPJF
----
1924及1925年，英國政府於倫敦舉辦大英帝國博覽會（時稱「英京賽會」），藉以推動大英帝國內的合作。香港於專屬的「香港展區」參展，向英國公眾展示這個細小的殖民地。在舉辦博覽會前後，香港發生兩場牽涉中國主要政黨的大罷工，但香港展區並未激起反殖情緒，反而成功展示香港新貌。講者將於講座勾勒香港展區的籌辦過程、探討展區如何展示香港，以及反思英國近期就去殖民化的討論。
----
黃培烽現任列斯大學社會及社會政策學院講師。他博士畢業於伯明翰大學，著作《兩次大罷工之間的兩次博覽會》獲選及入圍Creative Communication Awards、英國書本及設計獎及國際書獎。他現正進行香港廣播劇及華富邨的研究。
----
【History Salon】 Exhibiting Hong Kong at the British Empire Exhibition in 1924-25
Date: 8 June 2024
Time: 2:30 – 4:30pm (UKT)
Venue: Research Space (1.H020), Arts Complex, University of Bristol
Language: Cantonese
----
Additional Information:
- In-person only.
- Please register on Ticketpass. A small amount of Hong Kong-style refreshments will be provided.
https://tktp.as/EVKPJF
----
In 1924 and 1925, the British government organised the British Empire Exhibition in London to promote cooperation within the British Empire. Hong Kong took part, with its own exhibition area - the Hong Kong Section – to show this small colony to the British public. Two major general strikes, both of which involved major political parties from China, took place in Hong Kong before and during the exhibition. Yet, the Hong Kong Section did not provoke anticolonial sentiments but presented new images of Hong Kong rather successfully. During the talk, the speaker outlines the organising process of the Hong Kong Section, examines how the Section exhibited Hong Kong, as well as reflects on the recent discussion about decolonisation in Britain.
----
Gary Wong is a lecturer in the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds. He received his PhD from the University of Birmingham. His book Two Exhibitions between Two Strikes was awarded and shortlisted for the Creative Communication Awards, the British Book and Design Awards, and the International Book Awards. He is currently researching on Hong Kong’s radio drama and Wah Fu Estate.
【歷史沙龍】誰的古蹟？九廣鐵路總站與尖沙咀鐘樓
日期：2024年5月18日 （星期六）
時間：下午2:30至4:30
地點：布里斯托大學 | Arts Complex, 7 Woodland Road, University of Bristol, BS8 1TB
語言：廣東話
----
備註：
– 實體活動。
– 請於Ticketpass報名，屆時會有少量港式茶點提供。
https://tktp.as/ETHGCW
----
位於尖沙咀的九廣鐵路總站在1978年被拆除。如今，城市中僅存兩處舊車站的痕跡：六根矗立於市政局百週年紀念花園的柱子 ，和仍然矗立於九龍半島尖端的「前九廣鐵路鐘樓」。李明揚博士將探討那些保留火車站的嘗試，在其中一個新興的公民社會尋求來自地方政府、倫敦官員，甚至英女王的幫助。同時，他也會探討香港人，以及倫敦和香港的官員如何思考地方與人民之間的關係。
----
李明揚博士，香港大學歷史系博士。現任林肯大學東亞史講師。研究範圍包括香港史、城市史、中英關係史，著作見於 The International History Review 及 Urban History。其博士論文研究九廣鐵路在香港的歷史。
----
【History Salon】 Whose monument? The Kowloon railway terminus and Tsim Sha Tsui clock tower
Date: 18 May 2024
Time: 2:30 – 4:30pm (UKT)
Venue: Research Space (1.H020), Arts Complex, University of Bristol
Language: Cantonese
----
Additional Information:
- In-person only.
- Please register on Ticketpass. A small amount of Hong Kong-style refreshments will be provided.
https://tktp.as/ETHGCW
----
The Kowloon railway terminus in Tsim Sha Tsui was demolished in 1978. Today, only two traces of the old station remain in the city: six columns standing at the Urban Council Centenary Garden, and the now ‘Former Kowloon-Canton Railway Clock Tower’, still on the tip of the Kowloon peninsula. Adonis M. Y. Li explores attempts to preserve the station, in which a nascent civil society searched for help from local government, London officials, and even the Queen. He explores how Hong Kong people and officials in both London and Hong Kong thought about the relationship between place and people.
----
Adonis M. Y. Li, Lecturer in East Asian History, University of Lincoln.
His research interests include Hong Kong history, urban history, and the history of Sino-British relations. His research has appeared in The International History Review and Urban History. His doctoral research, conducted at the University of Hong Kong, explored the history of the Kowloon-Canton Railway.
HKHC Speaker's Series, Dr. Adonis M. Y. Li, University of Lincoln, United Kingdom
Place, People, and Preservation: the old Kowloon railway terminus in Hong Kong
Speaker: Dr. Adonis M. Y. Li, University of Lincoln, United Kingdom
Date and Time: 17 May 2024, 2:30 – 4pm (UKT)
Venue: Research Space (1.H020), Arts Complex, University of Bristol
Language: English
To attend, please register on Ticketpass.
The Kowloon railway terminus in Tsim Sha Tsui was demolished in 1978. Today, only two traces of the old station remain in the city: six columns standing at the Urban Council Centenary Garden, and the now ‘Former Kowloon-Canton Railway Clock Tower’, still on the tip of the Kowloon peninsula. Adonis M. Y. Li explores attempts to preserve the station, in which a nascent civil society searched for help from local government, London officials, and even the Queen. He explores how Hong Kong people and officials in both London and Hong Kong thought about the relationship between place and people.
Adonis M. Y. Li is Lecturer in East Asian History at the University of Lincoln. His research interests include Hong Kong history, urban history, and the history of Sino-British relations. His research has appeared in The International History Review and Urban History. His doctoral research, conducted at the University of Hong Kong, explored the history of the Kowloon-Canton Railway.
HKHC Speaker's Series, Dr. Thomas M. Larkin, University of Prince Edward Island, Canada 
The China Firm: American Elites and the Making of British Colonial Society
Speaker: Dr. Thomas M. Larkin, University of Prince Edward Island, Canada
Date and Time: 3 May 2024, 3:30 – 5pm (UKT)
Venue: Research Space (1.H020), Arts Complex, University of Bristol
Language: English
To attend, please register on Ticketpass.
What roles did Americans play in the expanding global empires of the nineteenth century? Thomas M. Larkin examines the Hong Kong–based Augustine Heard & Company, the most prominent American trading firm in treaty-port China, to explore the ways American elites at once made and were made by British colonial society. Following the Heard brothers throughout their firm’s rise and decline, The China Firm reveals how nineteenth-century China’s American elite adapted to colonial culture, helped entrench social and racial hierarchies, and exploited the British imperial project for their own profit as they became increasingly invested in its political affairs and commercial networks.
Through the central narrative of Augustine Heard & Co., Larkin disentangles the ties that bound the United States to China and the British Empire in the nineteenth century. Drawing on a vast range of archival material from Hong Kong, China, Boston, and London, he weaves the local and the global together to trace how Americans gained acceptance into and contributed to the making of colonial societies and world-spanning empires. Uncovering the transimperial lives of these American traders and the complex ways extraimperial communities interacted with British colonialism, The China Firm makes a vital contribution to global histories of nineteenth-century Asia and provides an alternative narrative of British empire.
Thomas M. Larkin is Assistant Professor of Department of History at University of Prince Edward Island.
【歷史沙龍】太古集團與香港
日期：2024年4月20日 （星期六）
時間：下午2:30至4:30
地點：布里斯托大學 | Arts Complex, 7 Woodland Road, University of Bristol, BS8 1TB
語言：英文
----
備註：
– 請於Ticketpass報名，屆時會有少量港式茶點提供。
https://tktp.as/EUNIFW
----
太古集團於2020年慶祝在香港營運第一百五十年，但當年這個始創於利物浦、專營歐美貿易的小公司，何以會千里迢迢跑到香港，並且在此大展拳腳落地生根？畢可思教授會透過介紹他的新作，為我們解答以上問題。
----
畢可思教授，香港史研究中心聯合總監。
----
【History Salon】 Swire and Hong Kong
Date: 20 April 2024 (Saturday)
Time: 2:30 – 4:30pm
Venue: Arts Complex, 7 Woodland Road, University of Bristol, BS8 1TB
Language: English
----
Additional Information:
Please register on Ticketpass. A small amount of Hong Kong-style refreshments will be provided.
https://tktp.as/EUNIFW
----
In 2020 the Swire Group marked its 150th anniversary of operating in Hong Kong. But why did this small company, originally established in Liverpool, and involved in the trade between Britain and North America, come to Hong Kong, and how did it grow and stay there. Robert Bickers will introduce his book about the company's history and discuss these questions.
----
Prof. Robert Bickers, Co-Director, Hong Kong History Centre
【歷史沙龍】香港與英聯邦，1949-1997
日期：2024年3月23日 （星期六）
時間：下午2:30至4點
地點：布里斯托大學 | Arts Complex, 7 Woodland Road, University of Bristol, BS8 1TB
語言：廣東話
—-
備註：
– 請於Ticketpass報名，屆時會有少量港式茶點提供。
https://tktp.as/EDFXPP
—-
香港在1997年前是英國殖民地，也因此曾是英聯邦的一部份。現代的英聯邦組織始自1949年，成員國除英國外，還有加拿大、澳洲、新加坡、印度等。但如果英聯邦不僅是一個組織，而是一個世界，這個看似陌生的名字，其實離香港不遠。
羅銳潛博士在三月份的香港歷史沙龍，將與我們剖析香港與英聯邦世界被忽略的關係。英聯邦如何塑造香港教育？誰在兩處之間旅居、遷移？香港經濟發展和英聯邦有何關係？香港歷史與世界之間千絲萬縷，英聯邦是不顯眼但重要的一環。
—-
羅銳潛博士，牛津大學現代中國及東亞史講師。
—-
【History Salon】Hong Kong and the Commonwealth, 1949-1997
Date: 23 March 2024 (Saturday)
Time: 2:30 – 4pm
Venue: Arts Complex, 7 Woodland Road, University of Bristol, BS8 1TB
Language: Cantonese
—-
Additional Information:
Please register on Ticketpass. A small amount of Hong Kong-style refreshments will be provided.
https://tktp.as/EDFXPP
—-
Hong Kong, as a British colony until 1997, was part of the Commonwealth. The modern Commonwealth organisation began in 1949. Besides Britain, its member countries include Canada, Australia, Singapore and India, among others. But if the Commonwealth was not just an organisation but a world, this seemingly unfamiliar name might have been closer to Hong Kong than once thought.
In the third Hong Kong History Salon, Dr Tommy Lo will discuss with us the overlooked links between Hong Kong and the Commonwealth world. How did it shape Hong Kong education? Who were sojourning and migrating between Hong Kong and the Commonwealth? And what did the Commonwealth have to do with the city’s remarkable economic growth? Numerous ties connected Hong Kong history with the world; those with the Commonwealth were unobvious but important.
—-
Dr Tommy Lo, Departmental Lecturer in Modern Chinese and East Asian History, University of Oxford
HKHC Speaker’s Series, Dr. Catherine S. Chan, Lingnan University
Remembering the Canine Bloodbath: The Dark Side of Hong Kong’s Progressive Seventies
Speaker: Dr. Catherine S. Chan, Lingnan University, Hong Kong
Date and Time: 7 March 2024, 9 - 10:30am (UKT) / 5 - 6:30 (HKT)
Venue: Online (Zoom)
Language: English
To attend, please register on Ticketpass.
1970s Hong Kong is usually remembered as a period of optimism, progress, and constructive reinvention. The MacLehose administration, the longest in the history of British Hong Kong, introduced a series of social reforms—free education, more housing projects, better social welfare, etc.—to regain local confidence following the social disturbances of 1966 and 1967. There was, however, a dark side to this narrative of ‘progress.’ The well-publicised ‘Hongkong Clean Campaign,’ which ran for years in hopes of improving the city’s sanitation, was more than a call to sweep the city’s streets and housing estates clean. It resulted in the irrational mass slaughter of thousands of dogs and the restructuring of human-canine relations, particularly with the lumping of domesticated, stray, and feral dogs under the shared categories of ‘nuisance’ and ‘undesirable.’ Delving into the anti-dog movement that emerged in the early twentieth century yet climaxed during the ‘Hongkong Clean Campaign,’ my study will uncover, from a more-than-human perspective, narratives of cruelty that helped underpin Hong Kong’s progressive seventies.
Catherine Chan is Research Assistant Professor of History at Lingnan University. She is a social and urban historian of diaspora, heritage preservation issues, and human-animal relations in colonial and postcolonial Hong Kong, Macau, and Philippines. Chan has published extensively on the Macanese diaspora and is currently working on a book project concerning the more-than-human history of dogs in twentieth-century British Hong Kong.
【歷史沙龍】麥理浩與廉政公署 
日期：2024年2月24日 （星期六）
時間：下午2:30至4點
地點：布里斯托大學 | Arts Complex, 7 Woodland Road, University of Bristol, BS8 1TB
語言：廣東話
----
備註：
– 請於Ticketpass報名，屆時會有少量港式茶點提供。
https://tktp.as/EIYDXV
----
亷署在政府内部爭論數十年後終於在1974年成立，為什麼要討論那麽久才下定決心？亷署又如何渡過1977年的警廉衝突和種種風波？麥理浩又是否真的是廉政先鋒英雄人物？葉健民教授在二月份的《香港歷史沙龍》，將與我們一一探討這些問題。
----
葉健民教授，香港史研究中心研究總監。
****
【History Salon】 MacLehose and ICAC
Date: 24 February 2024 (Saturday)
Time: 2:30 - 4pm
Venue: Arts Complex, 7 Woodland Road, University of Bristol, BS8 1TB
Language: Cantonese
----
Additional Information:
Please register on Ticketpass. A small amount of Hong Kong-style refreshments will be provided.
https://tktp.as/EIYDXV
----
ICAC was created in 1974 after decades of debates and deliberation inside the government. Why did it take so long? How could it survive the police mutiny in 1977? Is MacLehose a hero? Prof. Ray Yep will share with us his research on these matters in the second Hong Kong History Salon.
----
Prof Ray Yep, Research Director, Hong Kong History Centre
【歷史沙龍】多種族的英國身份及香港身份認同，1910-45 
日期：2024年1月27日 （星期六）
時間：下午2:30至4點
地點：布里斯托大學 | Arts Complex, 7 Woodland Road, University of Bristol, BS8 1TB
語言：廣東話
----
備註：
– 請於Ticketpass報名，屆時會有少量港式茶點提供。
https://tktp.as/ELKERY
----
香港曾為英國殖民地多年，在英殖統治下出生的居民大多擁有英籍身份。但在法律條文以外，英國身份到底對香港的居民有何意義？港英政府及英國官員又如何看待擁有英籍身份的香港居民？
在1月份的歷史沙龍，江偉欣博士將帶領我們探索兩次世界大戰期間的香港居民如何在種族主義及民族主義高漲之時，把英國身份定義為一種超越種族界限的國民身份及文化認同。我們亦會探討這些意識，如何影響現今香港居民對英國身份的理解，及香港多元文化社會的發展。
----
江偉欣博士，布里斯托大學歷史系講師，香港史研究中心聯合總監。
****
【History Salon】Multiracial Britishness in 1910-45
Date: 27 January 2024
Time: 2:30 - 4pm
Venue: Arts Complex, 7 Woodland Road, University of Bristol, BS8 1TB
Language: Cantonese
---
Additional Information:
Please register on Ticketpass. A small amount of Hong Kong-style refreshments will be provided.
----
Multiracial Britishness in 1910-45: Hong Kong and its contemporary implications
What does it mean to be British? In the Hong Kong History Centre’s first History Salon, Dr. Vivian Kong offers some answers to this question by sharing with us the findings of her recently published book, Multiracial Britishness: Global Networks in Hong Kong, 1910-45. She will take us to an under explored site of Britishness - the former British colony of Hong Kong, where all those born and naturalised there had access to a British nationality status. Amidst rising nationalism and stark racism in the interwar years, residents of Hong Kong in fact understood Britishness not only as a racial category, but also as a means of social advancement, and a form of cultural and national belonging. We will also explore how these diverse notions of Britishness shaped Hong Kongers’ continued engagements with Britishness, and the development of Hong Kong’s multicultural society.
----
Dr Vivian Kong, Lecturer in Modern Chinese History, University of Bristol; Co-Director, Hong Kong History Centre
2023
HKHC Speaker’s Series, Dr Helena F. S. Lopes, Cardiff University
Book Talk: Neutrality and Collaboration in South China: Macau during the Second World War
Speaker: Dr Helena F. S. Lopes, Cardiff University
Date and Time: 6 December 2023, 3:30 – 5pm (GMT)
Venue: Research Space (1.H020), Arts Complex, University of Bristol
To attend, please register on Ticketpass.
This talk introduces the recently published book Neutrality and Collaboration in South China: Macau during the Second World War (Cambridge University Press, 2023). The South China enclave of Macau was the first and last European colonial settlement in East Asia and a territory at the crossroads of different empires. Exploring the intersections of local, regional and global dynamics, the book analyses the layers of collaboration that developed from neutrality in Macau during the Second World War.
Drawing on extensive research from multilingual archival material from Asia, Europe, Australasia and America, Lopes explores connections between a variety of multinational actors with competing and collaborative interests, including Chinese Nationalists, Communists and collaborators with Japan, Portuguese colonial authorities and British and Japanese representatives. Lopes argues that neutrality eased the movement of refugees of different nationalities who sought shelter in Macau during the war and that it helped to guarantee the maintenance of colonial rule in Macau and Hong Kong in the post-war period. Following refugees, diplomats, colonial officials, intermediaries, philanthropists, and spies, this book rethinks Asia-Europe connections in the 1930s and 1940s, the uses and abuses of neutrality in East Asia, and the interplay of imperialism and anti-imperialism in a global Second World War. The presentation will give particular emphasis to Hong Kong-Macau connections during the war.
Dr Helena F. S. Lopes is Lecturer in Modern Asian History at Cardiff University.
香港史研究中心 /《尚未完場》/ 私人放映 Hong Kong History Centre / “TO BE CONTINUED” / Private Screening
We are excited to invite you to a private screening of ‘To Be Continued’ in Bristol, organised and brought to you by Hong Kong History Centre.
We will also be providing a sneak preview of episode one of: ‘Hong Kong Documented’ (12 mins), co-produced by Hong Kong History Centre and Society for Hong Kong Studies.
Please register on Ticketpass:
https://tinyurl.com/HKHCscreening
我們誠邀你參與由香港史研究中心於布里斯托舉辦的《尚未完場》私人放映。
同場加映：香港史研究中心 暨 香港學會 共同製作——《香港史. 記》第一輯（12分鐘）
請於Ticketpass登記：
https://tinyurl.com/HKHCscreening
----
Screening Details
‘To Be Continued’
* Includes Post Screening Online Sharing with Directors
* Additional Screening: ‘Hong Kong Documented’ Episode 1 (12 mins)
Date and Time: 3 December 2023 (Sun), 10:30am-1pm (Entry opens at 10:15am)
Venue: Watershed Cinema 3 (1 Canons Road, Bristol BS1 5TX)
Language: Cantonese & English (with Chinese and English subtitles)
Entry fee: Free of charge (registration required, open seating)
Additional Information:
– This is a private screening. Tickets are only available from the Hong Kong History Centre.
– One ticket per registration; no entry to the venue without a ticket.
– Please arrive 15 minutes prior to the screening for registration. The film will start promptly.
----
放映詳情
《尚未完場》
* 設有映後導演線上分享環節
* 同場加映：《香港史. 記》第一輯（12分鐘）
日期及時間：2023年12月03日（星期日）上午10:30-1pm （10:15am開放入場）
地點： Watershed Cinema 3 (1 Canons Road, Bristol BS1 5TX)
語言： 廣東話、英語（輔以中文及英文字幕）
票價： 免費（須事先登記，不設劃位）
備註：
– 私人放映，門票經香港史研究中心免費派發
– 每個名字只能登記一張門票，只允許事先登記者入場
– 請提早15分鐘到場，登記後方可入座，逾時不候
----
相關連結:
“To Be Continued” Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/docu.tobecontinued
收看預告 Click here for trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6GICy7Nmpc
聯絡 Contact: hkhistory-centre@bristol.ac.uk
----
Synopsis of
Convenient, tired and vapid, ‘East-meets-West’ is a cliché that has for decades been used to sell the ‘Hong Kong story’ to the world. Yet in the forgotten legend of Harry Odell, Hong Kong’s first impresario, a rediscovery of the city’s soul awaits.
Flamboyant and cigar-chomping, Odell was a Cairo-born, Shanghai-bred Russian Jew who stamped his mark on the cultural life of post-war Hong Kong. His hopeful, if chronically loss-making adventures pushed the cultural frontiers of his adopted home, capturing the open, dynamic and inclusive spirit of a bygone era to leave a legacy that resonates to this day. What began as a conservation campaign to save the iconic State Theatre in Hong Kong morphed into five years of research and interviews with those who witnessed Odell in action. The result: a film that is as much a study of one indomitable pioneer as it is a soul-searching journey of what defines Hong Kong.
----
紀錄⽚簡介
歐德禮是⼀個時代，代表⼀個被遺忘的美麗舊香港。
他是叱吒⼀時的娛樂⼤亨，是皇都戲院前⾝ - 璇宮戲院的創辦⼈，五⼗年代戰後蕭條，他已⼀⼿引入多位國際知名⾳樂家，永遠叼着⼀⼝雪茄⾒報寫專欄，演藝事業虧損慘重，卻為香港⽂化開闢了新天地，被稱為「香港⽂化史前⼈物」。
但他的傳奇今天卻無⼈知曉。
有⼈不⽢⼼，五年來鍥⽽不捨去翻查資料，上⼭下海⽤盡古怪⽅法尋覓歐德禮的後⼈，赫然發現跨時空的連繫。
在那個⽩天上映⿈⾶鴻和林黛電影的⼤戲院，晚上有名家如 Isaac Stern、Fournier坐鎮，華洋雜處，雅俗共賞，只此⼀家。標誌香港新時代的⼤會堂開幕，第⼀場演奏正是由歐德禮承辦。
五、六⼗年代那個消失的香港⼜再被看⾒：曾經如此兼容並包、不問⾝世、各種⽂化互相碰撞，那是香港和世界的初戀。
讓我們記得這個故事。歐德禮和香港的傳奇，尚未完場。
HKHC Speaker's Series, Prof Philip Thai, Northeastern University
Topic: A Hole in the Bamboo Curtain: Hong Kong in the Cold War
Speaker: Prof. Philip Thai, Northeastern University
Date and Time: 28 November 2023, 3:30 - 5pm (GMT)
Venue: Online (Zoom)
To attend, please register on this form.
During the Cold War, Hong Kong played a crucial role supporting the economic and foreign policies of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The British colonial enclave helped the PRC circumvent an array of embargos and trade restrictions imposed by a hostile international community. This paper examines the histories of “red capitalists” and Chinese Communist front companies who operated within the interstices of Cold War rivalries and fractured jurisdictions. The former were shadowy middlemen who brokered connections between the PRC and the global economy, while the latter were businesses that served the geopolitical aims of the PRC by promoting Chinese exports, earning foreign exchange, cultivating overseas ties, and collecting outside information. Though they remain relatively understudied, red capitalists have amassed vast fortunes while front companies rank among the largest firms in China and the world today. This talk will consider how the history of both red capitalists and front companies could address critical questions in the history of Hong Kong and the Cold War more generally.
Philip Thai is Associate Professor of History and Asian Studies and Director of the Global Asian Studies Program at Northeastern University.
HKHC Speaker’s Series: Prof. Angelina Y. Chin, Pomona College
Book Talk: Unsettling Exiles: Chinese Migrants in Hong Kong and the Southern Periphery During the Cold War
Speaker: Prof. Angelina Y. Chin, Pomona College
Date and Time: 17 November 2023, 9 - 10:30am (GMT)
Venue: Online (Zoom)
To attend, please register in Eventbrite.
The conventional story of Hong Kong celebrates the people who fled the mainland in the wake of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. In this telling, migrants thrived under British colonial rule, transforming Hong Kong into a cosmopolitan city and an industrial and financial hub. Unsettling Exiles recasts identity formation in Hong Kong, demonstrating that the complexities of crossing borders shaped the city’s uneasy place in the Sinophone world.
Angelina Y. Chin foregrounds the experiences of the many people who passed through Hong Kong without settling down or finding a sense of belonging, including refugees, deportees, “undesirable” residents, and members of sea communities. She emphasizes that flows of people did not stop at Hong Kong’s borders but also bled into neighboring territories such as Taiwan and Macau. Chin develops the concept of the “Southern Periphery”—the region along the southern frontier of the PRC, outside its administrative control yet closely tied to its political space. Both the PRC and governments in the Southern Periphery implemented strict migration and deportation policies in pursuit of border control, with profound consequences for people in transit. Chin argues that Hong Kong identity emerged from the collective trauma of exile and dislocation, as well as a sense of being on the margins of both the Communist and Nationalist Chinese regimes during the Cold War. Drawing on wide-ranging research, Unsettling Exiles sheds new light on Hong Kong’s ambivalent relationship to the mainland, its role in the global Cold War, and the origins of today’s political currents.
Angelina Y. Chin is associate professor of history at Pomona College.
HKHC Speaker's Series: Prof. Cecilia L. Chu, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Book Talk: 'Building Colonial Hong Kong: Speculative Development and Segregation in the City'
Date and Time: 24 October 2023, 3:30 - 5pm (BST)
Venue: Lecture Room 8 (LT8), Arts Complex, University of Bristol
To attend, please register in Eventbrite.
In Building Colonial Hong Kong, Chu traces what she calls “speculative urbanism” where different constituencies–British developers, colonial officials, as well as property-owning and working-class Chinese–struggled over the politics of colonial difference and property rights in shaping the built environment. These struggles helped to determine racial and class segregation, the provision of urban services, and practices of cultural representation and identity formation. While the examples of opportunism and speculation chronicled in Building Colonial Hong Kong will resonate with those familiar with Hong Kong’s property market today, her exploration of the interplay between British colonial governance and the political practices of native propertied classes offer new insights into Hong Kong’s development. Engaging a broad, interdisciplinary, and geographically comparative body of literature, Chu moves beyond her case study to make bigger claims about the relationships and tensions among liberal property markets, racist exclusion, cultural representations, and various "improvement" schemes within urban colonial contexts.
This book has just received the 2023 Best Book in Non-North American Urban History Award by the Urban History Association.
HKHC X SHKS《尚未完場》社區放映 “TO BE CONTINUED” COMMUNITY SCREENING
Screening Details
Date & Time: September 24, 2023 (Sun) 3:15pm @Screening Room
Venue: Hong Kong Institute of Contemporary Culture Lee Shau Kee School of Creativity
Address: 135 Junction Road, Kowloon (10-minute walk from Lok Fu MTR station)
Film duration: 80 minutes, followed by a Q&A session with the directors
Language: Cantonese & English (with Chinese and English subtitles)
Entry fee: Free of charge (open seating)
Additional Information:
– Confirmation of ticket registration will be sent via email by the Society for Hong Kong Studies (info@hkstudies.org)
– Please arrive 15 minutes prior to the screening for registration. The film will start promptly.
放映詳情
日期及時間：2023年9月24日（星期日）下午3:15 @放映室
地點： 香港兆基創意書院文化藝術中心（香港九龍聯合道135號 – 樂富地鐵站步行約10分鐘）
語言： 廣東話、英語（輔以中文及英文字幕）
片長： 80分鐘（放映後設導演分享會）
票價： 免費（不設劃位）
備註：
– 以由香港學會發出的電郵確認為成功登記門票。
– 請提早15分鐘到場，登記後方可入座，逾時不候。
Relevant Links:
“To Be Continued” Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/docu.tobecontinued
Click here for trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6GICy7Nmpc
Contact: info@hkstudies.org
HKHC Speaker's Series: Dr. Florence Mok, Nanyang Technological University
Book Talk: 'Covert Colonialism: Governance, Surveillance and Political Culture in British Hong Kong, c. 1966-97'
Date and Time: 5 October 2023, 3:30 - 5pm (BST)
Venue: Research Space (1.H020), Arts Complex, University of Bristol
To attend, please register in advance via this link.
Covert Colonialism fills the long-standing void in the existing scholarship by constructing an empirical study of colonial governance and political culture in Hong Kong from 1966 to 1997.Using under-exploited archival and unofficial data in London and Hong Kong, it overcomes the limitations in the existing literature which has been written mainly by political scientists and sociologists, and has been primarily theoretically driven. It addresses a highly contested and timely agenda, one in which colonial historians have made major interventions: the nature of colonial governance and autonomy of the colonial polity. This book focusing on colonialism and the Chinese society in Hong Kong in a pivotal period will generate meaningful discussions and heated debates on comparisons between 'colonialism' in different space and time: between Hong Kong and other former British colonies; and between colonial and post-colonial Hong Kong.
Hong Kong History Day
Date and Time: 16 Sep 2023 (Saturday), 10:15am -5:40pm (HKT)
Venue: The University of Hong Kong Campus (Exact location TBC)
Organizer: Society for Hong Kong Studies & Hong Kong History Centre, University of Bristol
Language: English and Cantonese
Format: In-person only
To attend, please register in advance via this link.
You may find the rundown here: Programme_HK History Day 2023
The upcoming “Hong Kong History Day” on September 16, co-organized by the Society for Hong Kong Studies (SHKS) and the Hong Kong History Centre (HKHC), will feature four academic panels. These panels will cover topics such as the challenges and achievements of archiving Hong Kong’s history, the study of music, cinema, and entertainment in Hong Kong’s past, the sharing of teaching experiences in Hong Kong history education, and a revisiting of the “Golden Era” of the 1970s through scholarly writing. The event aims to provide a platform for academic discussions and insights into various aspects of Hong Kong’s history.
1st Workshop of Early Career Scholars on Hong Kong History
Date and Time: 8 June 2023 (Thursday), 12-6pm (BST)
Venue: Research Space (1.H020), Arts Complex, University of Bristol
Global Histories of (Anti-)Colonialism with colleagues from the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill)
Date and Time: 17-18 May 2023 (Wednesday)
Venue: Room G50, Arts Complex, University of Bristol
HKHC Speaker's Series: Prof. Jeffrey Wasserstrom, University of California, Irvine (in-person only)
Conversations on Hong Kong History with Prof. Jeffrey Wasserstrom, hosted by Dr. Vivian Kong
Date and Time: 17 May 2023 (Wednesday), 10-11:30am (BST)
Venue: B.H05 LT, Arts Complex, University of Bristol
To attend, please register in advance via this link.
HKHC Speaker's Series: Dr. John D Wong, University of Hong Kong (in-person only) 
Book Talk: Hong Kong Takes Flight: Commercial Aviation and the Making of a Global Hub
Date and Time: 3 May 2023 (Wednesday), 4-5:30pm (BST)
Venue: Room 4F2, Priory Road Complex, University of Bristol
Please register for the event in advance via this link.
HKHC Speaker's Series
: Dr. Gina Anne Tam, Trinity University (online only)
'Gender and Agency in Hong Kong's History of Activism: The Case of the 1978 Golden Jubilee Secondary School Protest'
Date and Time: 27 April 2023 (Thursday), 4-5:30pm (BST)
Please register for the event in advance via this link.
