Hong Kong residents' identity changing
Kenichi Yoshida
The Yomiuri Shimbun
Publication Date : 04-07-2008



Eleven years after Hong Kong's handover to China, an increasing number of Hong Kong residents have come to identify themselves as Chinese.

Changes in their self-image were well reflected in a recent opinion survey, in which nearly 40 per cent answered that they thought of themselves as Chinese.

With patriotic school education considered as a key role in such changes, in particular among young people, democratic activists expressed concerns over the potential adverse effect on Hong Kong's democratisation.

At Wong Wha San Middle School in a residential area in Hong Kong's northern Kowloon Peninsula, 1,100 students looked on as the five-starred red flag of China was run up a flagpole while the Chinese national anthem played in a morning gathering on the school grounds.

When members of the Association of Hong Kong Flag-guards finished raising the Chinese national flag, school principal Ou Yuejing spoke up: "Let's get more interested in our country as Chinese citizens and may our country become much stronger."

"If someone asks me (whether I'm a Chinese or Hong Kongner), I would answer that I'm a Chinese," said 18-year-old Li Zhuoxian, a sixth-year student at the school.

"I'm very proud that I'm allowed to raise the national flag as a representative of this school," said Li, who is a member of the flag-raising group at the school

According to the University of Hong Kong's latest opinion poll on the self-image and identity of Hong Kong residents, about 39 per cent of the respondents considered themselves Chinese. The figure, the highest ever recorded, is more than double the number in 1997, the year when control of Hong Kong was handed back to China.

On the other hand, those who identified themselves as a 'Hong Kongner' accounted for about 18 per cent of those surveyed, plunging below the 20 per cent mark for the first time since Hong Kong's handover.

Li Zhuming, a former head of the Democratic Party and a heavyweight of Hong Kong's democracy movement, pointed to the role played by school education, aside from the Beijing Olympics and a recent earthquake in Sichuan Province, in encouraging Hong Kong residents to see themselves as Chinese.

"It's impossible to talk (about the change) without referring to the patriotic education at school, such as flag-raising ceremonies at school," Li said.

According to the Association of Hong Kong Flag-guards, the number of its member schools was about 80 when the group was formed in 2002, but has risen to about 310 at present.

Hong Kong schools are also active in sending children to mainland China with the aim of familiarising them with the mainland through meetings with Olympic medalists and astronauts among other events.

"I was astonished by China's development," said Liang Shiqi, 15, a third-year middle school student who visited Beijing last summer as part of such a school program. "There're certainly some problems, such as pollution, but I'm certain they'll definitely improve in the future."

The Hong Kong government is said to be set to further intensify its patriotic education within the next year or two, making some courses on China's reforms and open-door policies mandatory in the second half of its middle school education program, which is equivalent to Japanese high school education.

However, Liu Huiqing, a member of Hong Kong's Legislative Council, is critical of such a move.

"Focusing on China's positive aspects in educating such a young generation, who know about the Tiananmen Square incident (in 1989) only through books, is aimed at brainwashing the children," he said.

On Tuesday, a pro-democracy demonstration was staged in the central Hong Kong Island, but the organiser said that there were about 47,000 participants, down 21,000 from last year.

"It's necessary for us to reconsider what form the democracy movement should take in the future," a senior member of a civic group promoting democracy in Hong Kong said.

I think the young are identifying as more Chinese because it's pretty much forced onto them to be that way. Those who are above the age of 20 usually react in disgust when they are identified as Chinese. There's a lot of discrimination and stereotyping against Mainlanders..at least from my observations and what Hong Kongers have told me.