Hong Kong, China : learning to be a nation /
Gordon Mathews, Eric Kit-wai Ma, and Tai-lok Lui.
- London ; New York : Routledge, 2008.
- 197 p. ; 24 cm.
- Routledge contemporary China series ; 23 .
- Routledge contemporary China series 23 .
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. The significance of Hong Kong -- 2. Fleeing the nation, creating a local home, 1949-1983 -- 3. Rejoining the nation: Hong Kong, 1983-2006 -- 4. Representing the nation in the Hong Kong mass media -- 5. Hong Kong schools and the teaching of national identity -- 6. Hong Kong people's changing comprehensions of national identity -- 7. How American, Chinese, and Hong Kong university students understand "belonging to a nation" -- 8. Hong Kong people encountering the nation in South China -- 9. Hong Kong's market-based national identity: harbinger of a global future?
The idea of "national identity" is an ambiguous one for Hong Kong. Returned to the national embrace of China on 1 July 1997 after 150 years as a British colony, the concept of national identity and what it means to "belong to a nation" is a matter of great tension and contestation in Hong Kong. It explores the processes through which the people of Hong Kong are "learning to belong to a nation" by examining their relationship with the Chinese nation and state in the recent past, present, and future. It considers the complex meanings of and debates over national identity in Hong Kong over the past fifty years and especially during the last decade following Hong Kong’s return to China.