English Writing as Neo-colonial Resistance: An Exchange of English Poetry in Hong Kong

Authors

  • Michael Tsang, University of Warwick, UK

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31436/asiatic.v8i2.488

Abstract

After its handover in 1997, Hong Kong has arguably moved to a neo-colonial situation, where many of its native inhabitants are facing threats from China in their daily lives and material conditions. This has given rise to a movement of resistance against the hegemony of China. Most English writing in Hong Kong have yet to pick up this recent socio-political tension, but in 2012, an English poem written by a mainland Chinese student studying in Hong Kong came under fire for its superficial criticism of Hong Kong from a mainland Chinese persona. The poem drew angry responses from Hong Kong netizens, who then created parodies of the poem to mock China. In this article, I consider this poetic exchange one of the few instances where mainstream social sentiments in Hong Kong intersect with the much neglected English writing of the city. This poetic exchange – the original poem and the various imitations – delineates the social, cultural and political fault lines between China and Hong Kong. The literary value, I argue, lies not in the individual poems, but in how this action-reaction communication alerts us, via poetry and English writing, to be sensitive to the neo-colonial situation of Hong Kong.

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Author Biography

Michael Tsang, University of Warwick, UK

Michael Tsang is a doctoral candidate at the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies, University of Warwick, finishing a dissertation on Hong Kong English writing. His research interests are world and postcolonial literatures, with a particular focus on Asia. He is staff reviewer for Cha: An Asian Literary Journal.

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Published

2014-12-15

How to Cite

Tsang, University of Warwick, UK, M. (2014). English Writing as Neo-colonial Resistance: An Exchange of English Poetry in Hong Kong. Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature, 8(2), 36–56. https://doi.org/10.31436/asiatic.v8i2.488

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Articles