Leung’s article investigates the relationship between the city and cinema of Hong Kong during different periods, which illustrates how Hong Kong developed its distinct cultural identity.
Before Hong Kong was turned over to China in 1949, it was a British colony. However, a unique urban culture was developed. I found it fascinating how cinema influences how people perceive cities and cultures.
A Hymn to Mother, which is presented in the text, depicts Hong Kong’s development from a rural to a city. Although Hong Kong was not mentioned as a city at first, the film emphasized that the mother aims to move to a city — and their family moved to Hong Kong later. With shots of well-known attractions, I felt that the movie metaphorically illustrated Hong Kong’s tendency toward becoming an international city in the future. Moreover, the several movements of them characterized that Hong Kong offered excellent job opportunities, a strong education system, and great upward mobility. In my opinion, the film associated Hong Kong with characteristics that demonstrated its transition from a country to a city, as it displayed those properties that make its residents proud.
Hong Kong’s culture has diverged from traditional Chinese culture since the government attempted to westernize the city in the 1960s. The Teddy Girl scenarios in bars and cafés, from my view, highlighted the cultural differences within leisure time between Chinese — herbal tea and Western lifestyle — alcohol and coffee. I thought Purple Stormy Night’s Christmas setting scene also exhibited extrapolated Hong Kong’s Westernization.
By Ye Tsz Yu (UID: 3036075702)
I appreciate that you have focused on the transition of Hong Kong’s cultural identity in your response. Though you mentioned Hong Kong’s “unique urban culture,” I found your response discussed how Hong Kong is represented either as Chinese or Western culture and lifestyle through the cinema. Would you like to discuss what is Hong Kong’s uniqueness, whether it is different from Chinese or Western culture, and how Hong Kong cinema represents it?
Thank you for your feedback. I think the uniqueness of Hong Kong is that, it contains different cultures, not only do both Chinese and Western cultures exist, but it also has cultures from other countries like Asian cultures, etc., which means that it is a country that shows the immersion of different cultures.
Apart from Chinese and Western cultures, Hong Kong also has some self-culture, for example, “This This Rice,” milk tea, etc., are products that were created by locals with reasons related to the unique situation of Hong Kong. To illustrate the meaning of unique situation, I will take the above examples for further elaboration. “This This Rice” existed during the COVID period and is still popular now because of the high market demand — Hong Kong people have a rapid speed of living and do not have time for cooking, thus “This This Rice,” with properties like having a variety of dishes to choose from, being relatively cheaper and more convenient compared to restaurants, has become famous. Milk tea is a local food product that fits the eating habit of Hong Kong people, which often exists in movie when characters have meals at Cha Chaan Teng. I think milk tea also shows the fusion of Chinese and Western cultures since tea is a Chinese culture drink and milk should be a Western one.
Therefore, I think it is different from Chinese or Western culture because Hong Kong represents more cultures than an individual one. Although Chinese and Western cultures exist in Hong Kong, the uniqueness of Hong Kong is that it contains their mixture of products — which I personally named them as “local products” because they show unique properties ,and represent each culture in a local way rather than totally following the original one.
For Hong Kong cinema to represent it, I think films produced in Hong Kong usually mention these uniqueness in a metaphorical way. For example, Christmas and Chinese New Year scenes, etc. The film Little Cheung also mentioned the Cha Chaan Teng culture of Hong Kong, which includes having milk tea and pineapple bun during tea time. These are products that are named in Western way but created with Chinese culture food. Moreover, McDull series films also represent that, as the theme of that is more related to local’s lifestyle.