Hong Kong’s Elusive Identity: Searching in the Past, Present, and Future

Hong Kong is adrift between its British colonial past and its upcoming political reunification with the ancestral Chinese motherland. Hong Kong has endured a prolonged identity crisis in recent years, as it struggles to reconcile conflicts between its transnational worldview and the cultural identity, or Chineseness, of its majority population. A growing wave of nostalgia for the colonial era has frustrated Beijing’s efforts to win the hearts and minds of Hongkongers. This essay analyzes how Hong Kong’s distinctive local character is reflected in several socio-cultural arenas: the heritage industry, filmmaking, efforts to preserve historic structures and intangible heritage, public education, and tourism. With reunification on the horizon, Hongkongers want to assert an independent cultural identity but still seem to exist at the “intersection of different spaces”.

present" (Harrison, 2010, p. 10). The history museum's narrative replaces historical accuracy with fantasy, producing a longing "for an idealized space, which substitutes as the 'true past'" (Ng, 2010, pp. 50-51). "The Story of Hong Kong" portrays and promotes a few examples of the city's idiosyncratic past as tourism products (Note 10), without disturbing visitors with troubling social, political and economic problems. Figure 2. Grocery Store in Hong Kong, 1960s, "The Story of Hong Kong" Wikimedia Commons Heritage tourists can also learn about Hong Kong's former physical identity outside the museum. Even though the city has gone through a "decolonisation process" for many years (Sharp, 2013), British-era buildings, building fragments (or ruins), symbols, and relics remain scattered throughout Hong Kong. Like other Asian cities and countries that have accepted the colonial legacy as part of their local heritage, Hong Kong has taken steps to protect Western elements (Logan, 2002). It is still possible, by consulting historical resources, photographs, and nostalgic books, to take a postcolonial Grand Tour of colonial Hong Kong (Ellis, 2017, 209-32). However, many demolished colonial structures now exist only as "invisible monuments", alive today in the form of "spectral monumentality", as old images and films shared on internet sites (Grace, 2007, 468). Digitized photographs and films play an important role in embodying the "historical memory" of Hong Kong, which is itself "characterized in many ways as image" (Grace, 2007, 468). Urban explorers and tour guides have begun surreptitiously visiting and photographing the interiors of Hong Kong's bygone, dilapidated sites in danger of demolition, such as old factories, cinemas, and apartment blocks. They hope to document a part of Hong Kong's identity that is quickly disappearing (Note 11).

Selective Memories
Hong Kong's nostalgia industry flourishes in tourism promotions. The Hong Kong Tourism Board, for instance, has arranged for a restored junk to sail across Victoria Harbour before Hong Kong's famous skyline. This illustrates for tourists a focused narrative: that the city transformed from a barren fishing village to one of the world's most prosperous financial centres (Dapiran, 2017) (Figure 3). How people remember the past affects what they preserve and emphasize. People with selective memories tend to focus on the past's happier moments and exclude realities that are more unpleasant. This can lead to selective preservation and the "disappearance of history" (Abbas, 1997, p. 66). When historical realities disappear-whether due to limited memories or deliberate forgetting-heritage scholars and preservationists have opportunities to create new, more-focused narratives (Abbas, 1997, p. 14). The junk before the skyline archetype, for example, references 1) precolonial Chinese Hong Kong (the junk) and 2) Postcolonial Hong Kong's contemporary position as one of China's most successful global cities (the skyline). The colonial interlude has disappeared. Asian Culture and History Vol. 10, No. 2;2018 Contemporary Hongkongers and the nostalgia industry may wish the colonial era's unpleasant realities could disappear. British colonialism depended on the "devaluation of local culture and identity" and systematic exploitation of the local population (Abbas, 1997, p. 66). Westerners attempted to justify discrimination and exploitation by stressing improvements that came with colonization. Russian playwright, Anton Chekhov visited Hong Kong in 1890 and was impressed. When he returned to St. Petersburg, Chekhov told a friend, [In Hong Kong there are] nine roads, horse-trams, a railway up the mountain, museums, botanical gardens; wherever you look you see the Englishman's most tender concern for their employees … [I] was annoyed to hear my Russian companions cursing the English for exploiting the natives. I thought: yes, the English exploit the Chinese … but they do give them roads, piped water, museums, Christianity, you [Russians] exploit them and what do you give them? (Rayfield, 1997, p. 234

Hongkongers and the Hong Kong Identity
Staying as I am, one foot in one country and the other in another, I find my condition to be very happy, in that it is free.
-Rene Descartes, Letter to Elisabeth of Bohemia, July 1648. Before the Second World War, Hong Kong's Chinese community consisted mainly of migrants, who intended to return to the mainland after earning sufficient money. They did not have a distinct Hong Kong identity, but had much more in common with Chinese mainlanders than with Hong Kong's non-Chinese, expatriate community (Tsang, 2007, p. 180). After the war, many younger, locally born and raised ethnic Chinese began to see Hong Kong as their home (Note 13). They considered themselves hèung góng yàhn (香港人), an ambiguous term that roughly translates as Hong Kong Chinese, yet refers more to residents than to "a people" (Turner, 1995, p. 22). For much of the colonial era, the Chinese and Western expatriate communities held a general antipathy and aloofness toward each other. Then, with Hong Kong's rising success and affluence during the nineteen-eighties, the aloofness was replaced with a "tacit mutual acceptance of parallel existence" (Tsang, 2007, p. 194). The local Chinese community did not include or exclude the British from "we, the people of Hong Kong"; rather they accepted them as fellow Hong Kong belongers, with whom they shared a few core values (Tsang, 2007, p. 194). Over time, a local lifestyle displaced many traditional cultural connections as the basis for personal identity among hèung góng yàhn (Turner, 1995, p. 24).
Like the Chinese community before the Second World War, Hong Kong's Westerners were mainly expatriates, stopping temporarily at a distant port and cultural crossroad. In 1914, British travel journalist, Mary A. Poynter wrote, "go you east or west, go always you must to Hong Kong, for it is a part that lies ever in your path, not obtrusively, but as a calling-place on your way to somewhere else" (Poynter, 1921). Hong Kong was important logistically, initially as an entrepôt for opium from British India and for the trade of exotic, oriental goods, such as silk and porcelain (Note 14). Ackbar Abbas referred to Hong Kong as Britain's last emporium (Abbas, 1997, p. 3), a place where people are always passing through and everything has a limited shelf life.
Westerners have always thought of Hong Kong as a "good place to do business" and an interesting place to visit (Turner, 1995, p. xvi), like an immense Chinatown. There are many Chinatowns around the world with various defining characteristics. Some are segregated communities (or Chinese enclaves) composed of residences and businesses, "governed by interlocking associational social networks" and an "overall community organization". Other Chinatowns are simply "places [with] Chinese populations and Chinese shops" (Wong, 2013, p. 2). Some Westerner visitors see these characteristics in Hong Kong. As they pass through the city, Westerners admire its exotic features, which they understand to be generically Chinese, without paying much attention to the Western physical and cultural modifications" (Wei & Li, 1998, p. 15).
Is there a Hong Kong identity? A city must project an attractive and distinctive personality to lure visitors for business and pleasure. Determining what makes Hong Kong unique has been a difficult task, however, because it ach.ccsenet.org Asian Culture and History Vol. 10, No. 2;2018 sits on the edge of the motherland of a great, ancient Eastern civilization, yet its modern history was a British creation, in the British tradition (Wei & Li, 1998, p. 14). Two of the world's "stronger, more clearly defined cultures" buried Hong Kong's identity under their distinct interests (Cody, 2002, p. 205), and the city has struggled to stand on its own. To draw visitors, Hong Kong's tourism industry fell back on a somewhat superficial, appealing East meets West trope. Even after Mao Zedong, in the mid-twentieth century, closed the East of the People's Republic of China ("PRC") to most outsiders, Westerners were still drawn to the East of Hong Kong (Ng, 2010, p. 54).
For much of its history, Hong Kong was a haven for mainland refugees and workers fleeing from troubles in China or seeking economic opportunities. Coming and going from the Guangdong province, which borders Hong Kong, was relatively easy until the PRC emerged victorious from the Chinese Civil War. Chairman Mao's triumph in 1949 caused a flood of new refugees to pour out of China into Hong Kong with no hope of ever returning. The city's population surged from around 500 000 in 1945 to more than 2 million in 1950. Businesses and individuals also transferred massive amounts of capital from banks in Shanghai and Beijing to banks in Hong Kong. These demographic and economic changes set the stage for late-twentieth century re-evaluations of the British colony's identity.
An "import mentality" encouraged Hongkongers to see culture as coming from somewhere else (Abbas, 1997, pp. 6-7). Authentic Chinese culture belonged to the mainland or perhaps to Taiwan (Note 15); colonial culture belonged to the British. Even the Cantonese dialect, which sets Hongkongers apart from mainlanders, who use Putonghua-Mandarin, originated in the Guangdong province. Indeed, the terms Hongkonger and Hong Kongese, which distinguishes local residents from mainlanders, only came into use during the decade of the handover (Note 16). Awareness of a special local identity and culture is a recent phenomenon.
Cities with large populations, of course, are never static. They progress and transform as local and transnational forces converge (Amrith, 2014). Hybrid Hong Kong, however, has existed in a permanent state of "in-betweenness" (Erni, 1998, 57), constantly moving on to a major new phase. It first morphed from a distant Chinese imperial outpost into a distant British imperial outpost. Now it is in a state of limbo under the fleeting "one-country, two-systems" policy, which allows Hong Kong to operate under a capitalist system until 2047, while mainland China maintains a socialist system. Because Hong Kong is a site of continuous transition, its unique identity remains elusive.
Beginning in the colonial era, a progression of short-lived tourism slogans tried to encapsulate the city's essence. Early slogans included "Riviera of the Far East", "Pearl of the Orient", and "Europe in China" (Note 17). Today Hong Kong brands itself as "Asia's World City". It is a welcoming description, in the positive spirit of contemporary globalization. Around the world, cities have begun creating identities "to promote an ethos of urban hospitality", presenting themselves as "sanctuary, cosmopolitan or global cities" (Amrith, 2014). "Asia's World City" stresses Hong Kong's importance as a global crossroad without referencing its colonial heritage or its friction with mainland China.

Filmmaking
Filmmaking, like a tourism slogan or city brand, is a powerful means to create and enforce identities (Note 18). Colonial-era films depicted and typified Hong Kong's inhabitants in differing ways. The British colonial government produced films that projected positive messages of a harmonious, hierarchical society to local and overseas audiences. Conversely, Hong Kong's local Chinese filmmakers, in particular Bruce Lee, spoke to the same audiences about Chinese ethnic nationalism and inequalities in the colonial system.
The Hong Kong Film Unit (HKFU, 1959-73) oversaw official British colonial filmmaking. During its first few years, the HKFU primarily produced short, black and white instructional films and a newsreel entitled Hong Kong Today, both in English and Cantonese. The newsreels presented new construction projects, and provided information on public safety, health, education, and welfare. Hong Kong Today was shown in the city's sixty-eight cinemas before the main feature presentations and independently in public resettlement housing estates (Aitken & Ingham, 2014, p. 89). The newsreel was an effective means of "communicating information to the local public and helping develop a sense of a more integrated Hong Kong identity" (Aitken & Ingham, 2014, p. 89 modern city and international business center. Although the paternalistic narrator rarely mentions China, he does insist that colonial guidance and economic modernisation can solve problems posed by Chinese immigrants, or "the population", such as unemployment and inadequate housing (Aitken & Ingham, 2014, p. 92). When it is portrayed, Chinese culture is an exotic precolonial remnant for viewers to enjoy. Chinese residents are shown working contentedly in factories or on farms along the "problematic" Chinese border, which the narrator describes as "the frontier between two different ideologies which divide the world" (Aitken & Ingham, 2014, p. 94). This is Hong Kong suggests British social and economic advances will insulate Chinese residents from external dangers. The film's messages embodied the city's identity for many Westerners during its late colonial period.
Hong Kong's popular cinema has had a long, successful history, beginning in the silent era and booming in the nineteen-eighties when only Hollywood and India's Bollywood produced more feature films. The early-seventies saw the emergence of Hong Kong's most famous international cultural icon, martial arts movie star Bruce Lee. Unlike This is Hong Kong, Lee's films were meditations on Chinese culture in the colonial age and they appealed to Chinese viewers around the world.
Bruce Lee produced his martial arts films in the wake of a widespread decolonization of East Asia (Note 19), and at a time when Hong Kong was beginning to assert its distinctive personality. Lee's film narratives dealt with the issue of Western colonial exploitation and emphasized Chinese ethnic (rather than political) nationalism (Kato, 2005). His clever Chinese heroes used cultural advantages and raw physical power to triumph over non-Chinese adversaries and "foreign imperialist" villains (Foster, 2007). Chinese brains and brawn, rather than mainland Chinese politics, stood as the "positive counterpoint to the villainy of [Lee's] colonial oppressors" (Wallis, 2011 In the Game of Death fight scenes, Bruce Lee wore his iconic yellow jumpsuit, which was not associated with any known martial arts garb. The yellow jumpsuit was significant, however, in a semiotic sense as a "coding of a transnational identification of 'Chineseness'" (Bowman, 2009, p. 155). Lee's ethnic messages appealed to audiences around the world, including young Chinese-Americans facing discrimination in the United States (Yip, 2015). According to journalist Yonden Lhatoo, "Bruce Lee changed the derogatory perception in the West that Asians were mostly a faceless mob of timid little people to be pitied or pushed around. He gave us respect.
[…] He gave us 'face' -dignity and pride in the social context that Asian people understand so well" (Lhatoo, 2015). If the HKFU's This is Hong Kong represents a Western view of colonial Hong Kong and its Chinese residents, the characters in Bruce Lee's films represent an emerging Hong Kong identity founded on Chinese ethnic nationalism.

Architecture
Filmmaking constructs and reinforces identity, and architecture can serve a similar purpose. Surviving architectural structures that were culturally significant in the past link the experiences of successive generations. They connect people to past societies and identities, informing them about where they come from (Sedikides, 2015;Ashworth, 2011), and who they are. When cities fail to preserve their built environments and local culture, they can change into indistinguishable modern metropolises. Residents then feel separated from the past, a sense of "placelessness" (Chu & Uebegang, 2002, 6).
Much of Hong Kong's older built environment is lost. Allied bombing destroyed over 25,000 buildings during the Second World War. In the late nineteen-forties, as mainland refugees flooded into Hong Kong, city planners razed older neighbourhoods to build public housing, schools, markets, and hospitals. More recently, many significant mid-twentieth century structures were demolished to make way for new redevelopment and reclamation projects (a process that creates lands from offshore areas) (Note 20 nineteen-nineties, the AMO conducted an evaluation of its surviving built environment. Nearly 200 buildings received a Grade 1 Status, meaning they would be preserved "if possible". An additional 117 buildings and sites were designated as Declared Monuments, meaning the government could prevent or limit their alteration. Unfortunately, the AMO took a narrow view of cultural identity, failing to recognize that village houses, tenement buildings, and other vernacular architecture contained heritage value (Chu & Uebegang, 2002, 8 Hong Kong is the most crowded city in East Asia (Smith, 2017). The constant need for new infrastructure and residential development has resulted in the loss of historic landmarks and buildings. In the process, Hong Kong has lost part of its cultural heritage and part of its "collective memory" (Pang, 2017). Conservationists have become more vocal in their opposition in recent years. A turning point came in 2006, when the Hong Kong government announced it would demolish the famed Star Ferry Pier to make way for a new roadway. Although demonstrators held loud public protests and staged sit-ins, demolition crews finally destroyed the pier during the middle of the night. Public outcry caused the government to change direction and find new ways to preserve, revitalize, and reuse heritage buildings (Note 23). In an age of global urban homogeneity, reusing local historic structures helps differentiate Hong Kong from other cities.
The revitalization of Haw Par Mansion is an exemplar of how Hong Kong finds ways to fuse its past and present identities, and emphasize its Eastern and Western heritages. Aw Boon Haw was a Burmese-born Chinese entrepreneur who became wealthy marketing Tiger Balm, a popular pain relieving menthol ointment. Aw built the Haw Par Mansion in the nineteen-thirties in Hong Kong's Tai Hang neighborhood. The mansion is a prime example of the Chinese Renaissance architectural style (Note 24). Adjacent to his mansion, Aw opened one of Hong Kong's first theme parks, Tiger Balm Gardens, which featured an eclectic mixture of French and Chinese landscaping, monumental concrete sculptures, and a seven-story Tiger Pagoda (Note 25). The theme park was immensely popular, and the pagoda became a symbol of Hong Kong Island (Note 26). Eventually, the park and pagoda fell out of favor and were demolished to make way for a massive housing complex. The mansion survived, however, and passed to the government for preservation through a revitalizing partnership scheme. The mansion will soon reopen as a music conservatory for Western and Chinese music and the main entrance hall will be an exhibition area highlighting the cultural and social significance of Haw Par Mansion and Tiger Balm Gardens (Tomlinson, 2016).
The Tiger Pagoda is gone, but it lives on in vintage photographs and tourism posters. The pagoda joined a small set of visual motifs that defined Hong Kong for outsiders, such as junk boats sailing in front of the skyline, men pulling rickshaws, and women wearing cheongsam dresses. The American illustrator, David Klein created an iconic, jet age tourism poster for Howard Hughes' Trans World Airlines, which includes a familiar checklist of cultural clichés (a dragon, a junk, and the pagoda) (Klein, 2018). Klein's image also features an interesting juxtaposition: a male British colonial judge, wearing a curly-locked formal wig, leers at a well-known female Chinese opera character named hua dan (花旦). The hua dan character is a teenaged girl with a lively, innocent personality (Note 27). The artist's juxtaposition references a common trope: a Westerner contemplating the East as something to consume. The British colonial judge also brings to mind Anton Chekhov's notion that the colonizers exploited Hong Kong's Chinese population, yet offered improvements, such as the British legal system and the rule of law. The hua dan figure, on the other hand, embodies Westerners' fascination with a generic, oriental Hong Kong. The East-West duality-contrasting a modern, orderly Britain and an exotic, traditional China-attracted jet age tourists.  (Carroll, 2017, pp. 123-5, 129). During the nineteen-fifties and -sixties, the government subsidized industry, invested in infrastructure, implemented a compulsory education program, and made tax and regulatory policies more attractive to outside investors and corporations. Hong Kong became a global leader in manufacturing and exporting, and later diversified into financial services (Note 29). Because of its economic productivity, by the nineteen-seventies, Hong Kong-along with Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea-was known as an Asian Tiger (Note 30).
Public school textbooks during the nineteen-sixties fostered a sanitized image of Hong Kong. Textbooks, along with tourism publicity and public information campaigns, described the city as an "industrious, international metropolis" led by a "progressive, modern community" (Turner, 1995, pp. xvi, 22). Colonial textbooks of the period presented Hong Kong as a safe and accommodating place to visit and conduct business, unlike mainland China, and emphasized social harmony, respect for the law, and the city's "conflict-free development" (Bray & Lee, 1993, 543, 549). It was an attractive image for students and outsiders, but did not reflect the city's social tensions or economic inequalities. During the nineteen-eighties, Hong Kong's public school textbooks began encouraging local students to take pride in their city's status as an economic tiger.
Hong Kong's Curriculum Development Committee/Council ("CDC") introduced a world History syllabus for secondary schools in 1983 that contextualized the city as a progressive ideal in the "development of civilizations worldwide" (Kan & Vickers, 2002, 12). The emphasis was on economic prosperity and the city's global significance. In 1990, the CDC introduced a new Chinese History syllabus that had a different emphasis: "moralising nationalism". Chinese History students learned to differentiate "good and bad" behaviour by studying Chinese "moral exemplars", who lived sincerely, in accordance with a "conservative, traditionalist vision of Chinese culture and values" (Kan & Vickers, 2002, 12, 24). Legends and historic anecdotes encouraged students to serve China whole-heartedly and protect "the interests of the national people" (Kan & Vickers, 2002, 22). When the new Chinese History syllabus mentioned events in Hong Kong, it referred teachers to "contemporaneous developments in China. Thus, Hong Kong [was] seen exclusively as part of China" (Kan & Vickers, 2002, 27). Hong Kong's first Chief Executive after the handover, Tung Chee Hwa announced in his first policy address "We will incorporate the teaching of Chinese values in the school curriculum and provide more opportunities for students to learn about Chinese history and culture. This will foster a stronger sense of Chinese identity in our students" (Policy Address, 1997).
During the decades following Tung Chee Hwa's address, many feared the Hong Kong government, bowing to pressure from Beijing, wanted to politicize how history was taught in public schools. Between 2007 and 2012, Hong Kong's Education Bureau tried to incorporate National Education into history teaching (Liu, 2012). National Education stressed national identity awareness and Chinese patriotism. Many Hongkongers opposed the curriculum, believing it was tantamount to patriotic indoctrination that would "brainwash" children's minds with pro-mainland propaganda (Lai, 2012). Following prolonged street protests, hunger strikes, and social unrest, the government shelved the plan indefinitely. While Hongkongers have a reputation for apathy, they are still vocal when they feel their identity is being manipulated by outside forces. The Parents' Concern Group on National Education now monitors Hong Kong's public school textbooks and teaching plans for signs of mainland Chinese political and social biases. It seems Hongkongers want their children to learn traditional Chinese values, but are leery of mainland political messages.

Intangible Heritage and Mainlandization
Hongkongers and mainlanders share the inheritance of China's intangible cultural heritage. Cultural heritage is not limited to buildings or objects in museums; it includes traditions handed down from predecessors, such as ach.ccsenet.org Asian Culture and History Vol. 10, No. 2;2018 folklore, performance arts, social practices, rituals, festivals, crafts, and nature and religious beliefs (UNESCO, 2018). Intangible cultural heritage transmits treasured knowledge and skills and has tremendous social value. Chinese communities worldwide, regardless of political differences and borders, recognize this common tradition and inheritance (Note 31).
In 2014, Hong Kong's Intangible Cultural Heritage Office (ICHO) compiled a list of 480 items that have special local significance. The items were placed into five categories: 1) performing arts, 2) social practices, rituals and festive events, 3) knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe, 4) traditional craftsmanship, and 5) oral traditions and expressions. In 2017, the ICHO released a shorter "Representative List" of Hong Kong's intangible cultural heritage, comprising items of particularly "high cultural value, with an urgent need for preservation" (Intangible Cultural Heritage Office, 2018). The intangible heritage lists differed from the AMO's selection of [tangible] Declared Monuments and historic buildings. The intangible lists did not include any British or Western items. The inference was that Westerners had left a mark on Hong Kong's physical landscape, yet had not left a mark on the city's intangible heritage, which comes entirely from the mainland or local Chinese traditions. However, this is a problematic inference. The local population did not live in a cultural vacuum. Furthermore, there were vast differences between the Chinese society that endured the internal upheavals of the Great Leap Forward (1958-62) andCultural Revolution (1966-76) and Hong Kong's cosmopolitan, capitalist society.
It is true that a very old heritage intertwines mainland Chinese and Hongkongers. Waves of mainland immigrants came to Hong Kong during the colonial era and millions are residents now. However, since the transfer of sovereignty in 1997, many Hongkongers have grown anxious about losing their city's idiosyncratic qualities, anxious about political and social mainlandization. Nevertheless, according to Chung Kim-wah, a social scientist at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, "being a Hongkonger does not mean one has to forfeit the cultural identity of being Chinese" (Hong Kong residents, 2016). Families with strong mainland roots have grown and prospered in Hong Kong. A second-generation Hongkonger, whose grandfather came from the mainland in the nineteen-seventies, said, Unless you are among the indigenous inhabitants of the New Territories [along the Chinese border] whose roots in Hong Kong go back for centuries, most of our ancestors came from somewhere on the mainland. … If you ask a Hongkonger where their ancestral hometown is, chances are that they will give the name of a mainland province. In other words, our family members and we are more or less mainlanders in some sense (Chan, 2018).
"Clashes of opposing political ideologies" are a primary cause of tension between Chinese Hongkongers and mainlanders (Yu & Zhang, 2016, 8). For example, many students come from the mainland to attend universities in Hong Kong and are surprised by Hongkongers' political opinions. One student from the mainland explained that her secondary school teachers told her that Hong Kong was part of China. When she arrived in Hong Kong, though, she heard local students discussing the differences between Hong Kong and China. The implication was that China and Hong Kong are different countries, not temporarily separated parts of the same country. The mainland student called this attitude "unacceptable",  (Yu & Zhang, 2016, 8).
Another mainland student said that differing political attitudes made Hong Kong seem "more foreign than a foreign country" (Yu & Zhang, 2016, 8). In spite of sharing a common, ancient heritage, many Hongkongers would agree with the mainland student's opinion.

Mainland Tourism
Hong Kong is again part of China under the one-country, two systems framework, but there is still a border. Mainlanders must purchase an Exit-entry Permit (¥80) to visit Hong Kong. In spite of this, the city is one of the top destinations for outbound mainland tourists, in part, because of its proximity and a lower tax rate on consumer goods (Li, 2018). Mainlanders constituted three-fourths of Hong Kong's sixty million visitors in 2017 (Note 32), and they contributed thirty-five percent of the city's total retail sales (Hong Kong Remains, 2017 , try to be helpful and understanding, and make the visitors feel they are welcome in Hong Kong. … Finally, there is no need for local media to play up any conflicts between visitors and local residents (He, 2017).
Recent research indicates Hongkongers appreciate the economic benefits of visiting mainland tourists, yet hold negative views about the "social-cultural and environmental" impact they have on the city's shopping, dining, and transportation (Piuchan, Chan & Kaale, 2017).
The conflict between mainland visitors and Hong Kong residents reached a fevered pitch in 2015, as unusually large numbers of visitors crossed the border to purchase bulk quantities of baby formula and diapers, causing widespread shortages in Hong Kong's retail outlets along the territorial boundary. Parallel traders took the baby formula and diapers back to the mainland for resale at exorbitant prices. Angry Hongkongers protested along the border, yelling at Chinese shoppers "Go back home!" (Ng & Chan, 2015) (Note 33).
Ethnic Chinese writers living outside China have posted a plethora of editorials and opinion-pieces on the internet complaining about mainland tourists and offering social and historical explanations for their behaviour when visiting other countries, or Hong Kong (Phneah, 2018;Wang, 2017) (Note 34). During recent years, China's National Tourism Administration received complaints that Chinese tourists had broken foreign laws and offended local customs, having a negative impact on the country's image. The complaints included misuse of public toilets, misuse of facilities intended for persons with disabilities, and littering (Zhou, 2015). This led the Beijing government to issue a proclamation to mainland citizens about proper and improper behaviour when traveling abroad, entitled "Guide to Civilised Tourism and Travel" (2014).
Many Hongkongers feeling their local culture slipping away find it easy to latch onto social differences with mainlanders, as a way of exerting their own identity. In his book Imagined Communities, historian Benedict Anderson analysed how national communities are social constructs (Anderson, 1991, pp. 6-7). Nations benefit from othering a portion of society, reinforcing to their own people how they should act by giving them a socially and morally superior model. When Hongkongers assume their own superiority in comparison to mainlanders, they repeat the practices of colonial entities. This was one of the key techniques of the HKFU's This is Hong Kong, for instance, which differentiated British citizens of Hong Kong from both the local Chinese community and mainlanders.
The Hong Kong Tourism Board ("HKTB") is the marketing arm of the city's tourism industry. Its principal task is promoting Hong Kong internationally as an attractive tourist and business destination. Some HKTB promotional campaigns are quite superficial. For example, the HKTB created the annual "Shopping Festival" from June-August to attract overnight mainlander visitors and underscore the city's image as a "consumer's paradise" (Ng, 2010, p. 91) (Figure 4). Other HKTB campaigns are more instructive, describing Hong Kong's identity, its special relationship with China, and the mutual benefits of economic cooperation. The HKTB's Meetings and Exhibitions promotion (2014) described Hong Kong as "China's most important international business city"; its "fortuitous location at China's southern tip" makes Hong Kong ideal base to connect with the nation's "high-growth markets". The advertisement continued, As a Special Administrative Region of China, Hong Kong enjoys a highly active and cooperative business relationship with Mainland China, and is its leading conduit for foreign investment …and its second-largest trading partner after the U.S. … Hong Kong is not only the perfect base for businesses to enter the Chinese market, but its "East meets West" business culture provides an ideal platform for Chinese enterprises to expand into the international community (Meetings and Exhibitions Hong Kong, 2014).
Decades after the British colonial period ended, authorities still market Hong Kong as a gateway to the East (a gateway to China). Although political and social tensions are obstacles on the pathway to reunification, Hong Kong appears destined to represent a good place for the world to do business. This is an important part of the city's colonial legacy, and part of its current and future identities.

Conclusion
Scholars have observed that globalization has caused certain East Asian cities to lose their Asian-ness. They have become somewhat bland, with a cultural "sameness" that ignores distinctive, local qualities (Logan, 2002, pp. vii-xiv). To avoid this fate, Hongkongers must embrace their city's special heritage and character, and find ways to distinguish Hong Kong from numerous, "anonymous urban metropolises" in East Asia and China (Chu & Uebegang, 2002, 6). Hong Kong is certainly not just another Chinese city. Hongkongers struggle to define Hong Kong's identity because of its unique past and special entanglement with "modernity, coloniality and nationalism" (Chun, 2017).
The 1997 handover metaphorically returned an absent child (Hong Kong) from its foster parents (the British) to its birth parents (the Chinese) (Henry, 2007, 80). It has been a difficult homecoming because the foster parents and birth parents had different aspirations and philosophies. In addition, the one country, two systems policy allowed the child to continue living by the old foster parent's rules while residing in the birth parent's home. This is one reason why many Hongkongers are nostalgic for the past. Another reason is the increasingly inflexible posture taken by China's government authorities. When Hongkongers futility demanded that Beijing expand their voting rights during the well-publicized pro-democracy Umbrella Movement (2014), an impassive China responded, "What does the Motherland really owe you?" (Allen-Ebrahimian, 2014).
Ethnic Chinese constitute more than ninety percent of Hong Kong's population. Before the Second World War, the Chineseness of Chinese Hongkongers was relatively straightforward: Hong Kong was a cultural satellite of the neighbouring Guangdong province (Chun, 2017). Many residents therefore understood the British handover to China as a huí liú (回流, return back) to the zŭguó (祖国, motherland) (Cody, 2002, 185). In spite of one-hundred-fifty years of British rule, the key to resolving Hong Kong's current identity crisis will be resolving questions about the future. How will Hongkongers reconnect with Chinese society? How will Hongkongers adapt to China's rising national consciousness? What will Hong Kong's role be as China rises to prominence on the world stage? (Note 35).
This essay analyzed reflections of Hong Kong and the Hongkonger identity in various cultural arenas: the heritage industry, filmmaking, efforts to preserve built environment and intangible heritage, and tourism. Throughout Hong Kong's history, change seems to be the only constant (Note 36). The city has had many personalities: an idealized colony, a mainlander's refuge, a cultural mélange of the East and West, a Chinatown, a "consumer's paradise", a global business hub, and China's lost child. Hongkongers are still living in limbo, at the "intersection of different spaces" and cultures (Abbas, 1997, p. 4). In less than thirty years, the one country, two systems framework will end, and the Hong Kong-mainland political reunification will be complete. Perhaps by then Hong Kong will reconcile its complex past identities and its Chinese future.