Ten years on from becoming an SAR, is Hong Kong a better place to live? Evans Chan looks back and muses…

words yvonne teh

“My mother died in ’96, the year before the Handover and my father outlived her by 10 years. I’ve always found it very... ironic or poignant or whatever. I mean, they left China for greener pastures, so to speak, but to some extent, I felt they were not happy about the political culture here. They were not really middle class, so could not articulate their feelings well but based on what they told me, I could sense that they didn’t like it.”

When cultural critic, filmmaker and writer Evans Chan talks about July 1, be it 1997, 2003 or 2007, his discussion can’t help but be both personal and political. At least, that is what bc discovered talking with this intellectual who was born in Guangdong, and spent his childhood in Macau, but whose later years were spent in Hong Kong. And who has regularly returned around twice a year to the Fragrant Harbour from New York, largely because his parents lived here.

Chan was in Hong Kong on July 1, 1997, an eyewitness of the historic Handover. “I was making Journey to Beijing and that was the period that I was shooting that Handover documentary,” he says. But the day itself hasn’t stuck in his memory. “It was more the evening of June 30. Ten years ago, it was just full-on parties and I think there were rallies near the Legislative Chamber. The police were playing music to drown out the protestors. I’ve always found that very funny and ironic. But anyway, it actually was not as serious as people thought or presumed it would be.”

With some amusement, the filmmaker recalls that Chinese Box, a 1997 drama by director Wayne Wang, who was born and raised in Hong Kong but moved to the USA at the age of 17, “was projecting the worst nightmares about what would happen to Hong Kong”, but those Handover fears turned out to be largely unfounded. At the same time though, there’s no denying “it was an interesting evening and I remember it was raining. And of course the next day, we – the Chinese – were saying ‘Oh, the rain... it’s the heavens crying over the departure of the British.’
And I think that projection also
meant something.”

Speaking of the British, Chan notes that recently the UK prime minister who signed the agreement which cemented Hong Kong’s return to China, Margaret, now Baroness, Thatcher said she wished she had renewed the lease, and Hong Kong’s last colonial governor, Chris Patten, maintained he did as much as he could to give Hong Kong democracy but it all started too late. So it seems like the British are full of regret about the Handover of their former colony.

Amidst all this, however, Chan believes, “No matter how watered down those democratic institutions are next to what exists in Britain, they still filtered down to Hong Kong. So Hong Kong has been exposed to a political climate through the last 20-30 years or even [its] whole [colonial] history [that’s] different from that of Mainland China.” And something else the British may have helped to bequeath to the SAR is the emergence of a distinct Hong Kong identity. “Not that it’s a separatist movement,” Chan rushes to add. However, he equally strongly asserts, “You can see there is a sense of separate identity, distinct from being just a Mainlander, in Hong Kong.”

That is not to say Hong Kongers are necessarily denying their Chinese ethnicity. As Chan says, “Hong Kong is part of China... it’s a foregone conclusion.” Yet he can’t resist adding layers by observing, “After ’97, people felt there would be a de-emphasis on learning English but as it turns out, the yearning is almost the same.” And even though Mandarin (aka Putonghua) has been introduced into the school curriculum, it’s not as if English has been eliminated from it – nor from street signs and MTR announcements, though the latter are made in Mandarin as well as English and Cantonese nowadays.

“I always felt that if Hong Kongers were allowed a referendum, they might not have chosen to revert to China but, since there never was a possibility, that settled it. But still there’s a very strong sense of being different.” And to illustrate, he goes on to tell a story about one of his relatives, a salesperson. “She works at one of these brand-name stores. So one day, a Mainland customer came in and tried to talk to her in Putonghua. My niece’s Putonghua is very poor, so the customer complained, ‘Oh, you are not Chinese, you don’t speak Putonghua.’ To which my niece replied, ‘I’m a Hong Konger.’” And with a laugh, Chan says, “That’s an answer that shows something...”

“It’s interesting how the collective identity of Hong Kong has intensified after ’97. You’d assume it was not going to be the case but somehow what the British left behind made people aware of something that they have here.” Was that why people took to the streets in unprecedented numbers on the 2003 anniversary of the Handover? “I think that became such a large-scale rally because of the SARS crisis,” he says. And then, more to the point, “That was one instance when lack of transparency in government could be so detrimental to society and Hong Kong, of course, was one of the huge victims of that lack of transparency. I think that was a gut-level reaction, as people feel that transparency in government is important for their livelihood, even on a day-to-day level.”

Does he, then, think Hong Kong’s sense of identity is stronger now than 10 years ago? “I don’t know whether it’s stronger now than before but I think that you do see it becoming more vocal.” Which is a sign of growing up politically “because it does take some political maturity for you to feel that you can vocalize your discontent. If you had a big sense of impotence, you won’t even bother... and that [was the case] in the
colonial days.”

And he thinks Hong Kong, on the eve of the 10th anniversary of establishment of the SAR, is impressive in many ways. “I was sitting next to an American the last time I came back, about six months ago, and he told me he was from Rhode Island. He said he was so impressed by the subway system here,” and “The roadways and also, despite the pollution, the quality of life in Hong Kong has improved a lot.”

Also in Hong Kong’s favour, Chan says the city is far more cosmopolitan, possessing a “level of pleasure and diversity” that makes it more interesting than many other cities in Asia and, indeed, the world. “When you really look at the political system, there’s a lot of room for improvement. But in many other ways, you have interesting indicators of sophisticated urban life in Hong Kong.” So, all in all, it seems Hong Kong should be in a celebratory mood on July 1, 2007, and quite a few other
days besides!

Two films by Evans Chan will be screened at the HK Arts Centre’s Agnès b. CINEMA this summer. The June 30 screening of The Life and Times of Wu Zhong Xian is scheduled to begin at 10:45am. Admission is free; call 2582 0200 for further details. The other film, Sorceress of the New Piano: The Artistry of Margaret Leng Tan, will be screened on July 5 and 20 at 8pm, and on July 8, 14 and 22 at 4pm. Tickets are $50 from URBTIX, 2734 9009.