Tag: Hong

Free Download The Hong Kong Diaries by Chris Patten
English | January 10, 2023 | ISBN: 0241560497 | 610 pages | PDF | 13 Mb
In June 1992 Chris Patten went to Hong Kong as the last British governor, to try to prepare it not – as other British colonies over the decades – for independence, but for handing back in 1997 to the Chinese, from whom most of its territory had been leased 99 years previously. Over the next five years he kept this diary, which describes in detail how Hong Kong was run as a British colony and what happened as the handover approached. The book gives unprecedented insights into negotiating with the Chinese, about how the institutions of democracy in Hong Kong were (belatedly) strengthened and how Patten sought to ensure that a strong degree of self-government would continue after 1997. Unexpectedly, his opponents included not only the Chinese themselves, but some British businessmen and civil service mandarins upset by Patten’s efforts, for whom political freedom and the rule of law in Hong Kong seemed less important than keeping on the right side of Beijing. The book concludes with an account of what has happened in Hong Kong since the handover, a powerful assessment of recent events and Patten’s reflections on how to deal with China – then and now.

Free Download Clara Wong, "Cities Without Ground: A Hong Kong Guidebook"
English | 2012 | ISBN: 1935935321 | PDF | pages: 128 | 150.6 mb
Hong Kong is a city without ground. This is true both physically (built on steep slopes, the city has no ground plane) and culturally (there is no concept of ground). Density obliterates figure-ground in the city, and in turn re-defines public-private spatial relationships. Perception of distance and time is distorted through compact networks of pedestrian infrastructure, public transport and natural topography in the urban landscape.Without a ground, there can be no figure either. In fact, Hong Kong lacks any of the traditional figure-ground relationships that shape urban space: axis, edge, center, even fabric. Cities Without Ground explores this condition by mapping three-dimensional circulation networks that join shopping malls, train stations and public transport interchanges, public parks and private lobbies as a series of spatial models and drawings. These networks, though built piecemeal, owned by different public and private stakeholders, and adjacent to different programs and uses, form a continuous space of variegated environments that serves as a fundamental public resource for the city. The emergence of the shopping malls as spaces of civil society rather than of global capital- as grounds of resistance- comes as a surprise. This continuous network and the microclimates of temperature, humidity, noise and smell which differentiate it constitute an entirely new form of urban spatial hierarchy. The relation between shopping malls and air temperature, for instance, suggests architectural implications in circulation-differentiating spaces where pedestrians eagerly flow or make efforts to avoid, where people stop and linger or where smokers gather. Air particle concentration is both logical and counterintuitive: outdoor air is more polluted, while the air in the higher-end malls is cleaner than air adjacent to lower value retail programs. Train stations, while significantly cooler than bus terminals, have only moderately cleaner air. Boundaries determined by sound or smell (a street of flower vendors or bird keepers, or an artificially perfumed mall) can ultimately provide more substantive spatial boundaries than a ground. While space in the city may be continuous, plumes of temperature differential or air particle intensity demonstrate that environments are far from equal.

Free Download Victor Fan, "Extraterritoriality: Locating Hong Kong Cinema and Media"
English | ISBN: 1474440428 | 2019 | 360 pages | PDF | 3 MB
Examining how Hong Kong filmmakers, spectators and critics wrestled with this perturbation between the Leftist Riots (1967) and the aftermath of the Umbrella Movement (2014), this book traces how Hong Kong’s extraterritoriality has been framed: in its position of being doubly occupied and doubly abandoned by contesting juridical, political, linguistic and cultural forces.

Free Download The Appearing Demos: Hong Kong During and After the Umbrella Movement By Laikwan Pang
2020 | 528 Pages | ISBN: 0472131788 | EPUB | 3 MB
As the waves of Occupy movements gradually recede, we soon forget the political hope and passions these events have offered. Instead, we are increasingly entrenched in the simplified dichotomies of Left and Right, us and them, hating others and victimizing oneself. Studying Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement, which might be the largest Occupy movement in recent years, The Appearing Demos urges us to re-commit to democracy at a time when democracy is failing on many fronts and in different parts of the world. The 79-day-long Hong Kong Umbrella Movement occupied major streets in the busiest parts of the city, creating tremendous inconvenience to this city famous for capitalist order and efficiency. It was also a peaceful collective effort of appearance, and it was as much a political event as a cultural one. The urge for expressing an independent cultural identity underlined both the Occupy movement and the remarkably rich cultural expressions it generated. While understanding the specificity of Hong Kong’s situations, The Appearing Demos also comments on some global predicaments we are facing in the midst of neoliberalism and populism. It directs our attention from state-based sovereignty to city-based democracy, and emphasizes the importance of participation and cohabitation. The book also examines how the ideas of Hannah Arendt are useful to those happenings much beyond the political circumstances that gave rise to her theorization. The book pays particular attention to the actual intersubjective experiences during the protest. These experiences are local, fragile, and sometimes inarticulable, therefore resisting rationality and debates, but they define the fullness of any individual, and they also make politics possible. Using the Umbrella Movement as an example, this book examines the "freed" political agents who constantly take others into consideration in order to guarantee the political realm as a place without coercion and discrimination. In doing so, Pang Laikwan demonstrates how politics means neither to rule nor to be ruled, and these movements should be defined by hope, not by goals.

Free Download Hong Kong Tatler – July 2023
English | 188 pages | True PDF | 198.6 MB

Free Download A Pattern of Life: Essays on Rural Hong Kong by James Hayes by Hugh D.R. Baker
2021 | ISBN: 9629375532 | English | 456 pages | PDF | 9 MB
"For myself, however, it is the human element, the recollected words, the remembered faces, which give life to the printed record." James Hayes’s many writings have made a major contribution to knowledge about life in rural Hong Kong. This book presents sixteen of his illuminating and original articles, each of which is rooted in his experiences as a district officer, administering and visiting villages under his care. His interest in the life and lives of the people went far beyond the formal demands of his official work, and Dr Hayes grew to admire and respect the villagers. As a result, his writings are suffused with his affection and esteem. Intended for scholars in the field of New Territories history as well as general readers interested in rural life in the region, A Pattern of Life provides a fascinating, academically important, yet highly readable picture of traditional life in rural South China and reinforces Dr Hayes’s reputation as one of the most important writers on the New Territories.

Free Download Iam-chong Ip, "Hong Kong’s New Identity Politics: Longing for the Local in the Shadow of China "
English | ISBN: 0367410540 | 2019 | 166 pages | EPUB | 765 KB
Ip uses Hong Kong as a case study in how the production of the desire for "the local" lies at the heart of global cultural economy.

Free Download Isabella Ng, "Hong Kong Rural Women under Chinese Rule: Gender Politics, Reunification and Globalisation in Post-colonial Hong Kong "
English | ISBN: 113849707X | 2019 | 192 pages | EPUB | 2 MB
This book explores gender dynamics in the indigenous villages (also known as walled villages) in post-handover Hong Kong. It looks at how Hong Kong’s reunification with China has impacted the walled villagers, in particular the women, and how the walled villages’ current gender dynamics in return reflects the changes that have happened in Hong Kong after the reunification with China. It traces the historical development of the walled villages, outlines the nature of walled-village society, and explores the changes currently at work including the erosion of the rural/urban divide, the increasing participation of indigenous women in Hong Kong society more widely and the breakdown of traditional social norms, especially patriarchy.

Free Download Hong Kong Tatler – April 2023
English | 190 pages | True PDF | 196.7 MB

Free Download Michael Adorjan, "Responding to Youth Crime in Hong Kong: Penal elitism, legitimacy and citizenship "
English | ISBN: 1138069248 | 2017 | 164 pages | EPUB | 569 KB
A society’s response to youth crime reveals much about its broader cultural values, social circumstances, and political affairs. This book examines reactions and policy responses to youth delinquency and crime in Hong Kong during its colonial and post-colonial periods, and in doing so, underscores the history of Hong Kong itself and its present-day circumstances.