Zewei (Whiskey) Liao
(Post-)Colonial Identities in Hong Kong and Taiwan through Literature and Films
Much of the geopolitical tension in the Sinophone world today is underlain by a divergence in social and political identities as a result of differing experiences of colonialism and post-colonial legacies. This learning module introduces this larger issue through the case studies of colonial and post-colonial identities in Taiwan and Hong Kong—two territories that have their respective entanglement with “Chinese-ness”—or the lack thereof.
Through these materials, we explore how colonial and post-colonial identities in Hong Kong and Taiwan are meaningfully expressed in everyday objects from sports to food, and how individual identities are powerfully shaped by colonial and post-colonial political systems whose presence continues to cast a long shadow on our everyday lives.
Designed as a general introduction, this module will particularly interest those who are curious about the colonial past and post-colonial present in Hong Kong and Taiwan; who hope to better understand the political economy in the Sinophone world through an in-depth study of everyday experiences; or who simply want to enjoy some beautifully crafted novels and films that are also available in their original Chinese language versions.
Structure
Guided by a theoretical piece that challenges us to unpack the often-loaded notion of “identity,” this module offers a selection of short novels and films that offer a glimpse into the aspirations and anxieties of everyday lives in colonial and post-colonial Taiwan and Hong Kong. Overall, this module is organized into three sections. We start with the theory piece and follow up with two sections devoted to Taiwan and Hong Kong, respectively, each containing one or two pieces of literature followed by a film.
Zewei (Whiskey) Liao is majoring in Sociology with a minor in Statistics at the University of Chicago.
Acknowledgment: I thank Professor Yu-ting Huang for first introducing me to the fascinating materials selected for this module when I attended Wesleyan for the first two years of my undergraduate life. Her thoughtfully-prepared class on Sinophone literature beyond the “Middle Kingdom” opened up a new world for me, to which I’m forever intellectually indebted. The introduction, interpretations, and any errors are my own.
Learning Resources
1/ Theory
Brubaker, Rogers, and Frederick Cooper. “Beyond ‘Identity.’” Theory and Society 29, no. 1 (2000): 1–47.
A theoretical reference point for our latter materials, Brubaker and Cooper offer a useful typology that challenges us to rethink what we actually mean by “identity” when we frequently invoke this loaded term. More specifically, we can unpack its nuances by considering the autonomy and exclusivity of our identities: are they created by ourselves or imposed by others? Are they conditional on an exclusion of the other group, i.e. those who do not belong to us?
2/ Taiwan
ZHENG Qingwen, “Three-Legged Horse” (1979) 鄭清文〈三腳馬〉
Situated in colonial and post-colonial Taiwan, this short novel recounts the tragic metamorphosis of a colonial collaborator whose trauma as a bullied youth drove him down a revengeful path of no return, where his opportunistic rise as a repressive police chief against his own people ended only in his downfall together with the colonial system. He eventually found himself neither “Taiwanese” nor “Japanese,” a powerful case study of how the identities can shift between different nuanced forms as identified by Brubaker and Cooper—and for some, eventually lost.
“Kano” (2014 film, Umin Boya)
A coming-of-age sports film that is typical in its uplifting sportsmanship but atypical in its peculiar colonial setting, Kano tells the story of a multiethnic baseball team in Japanese-era Taiwan that overcame insurmountable odds to represent the island at the highest stage of high school baseball in Japan. Their breakout story of underdog success was not only a slap in the face of the colonizers who assumed their physical inferiority but also offers a glimpse into the pervasive effect of an oppressive colonial system that defines the very aspiration of those who lived under its omnipresent shadow.
3/ Hong Kong
LIU Yichang, “Intersections” (1975) 劉以鬯〈對倒〉
A stream-of-consciousness masterpiece that inspired the acclaimed 2000 Wong Kar-wai film In the Mood for Love, this short novel narrates the parallel lives of two individuals in Hong Kong in the short span of a day—a woman and a man with different generational and life backgrounds whose paths had every chance to cross but who ended up brushing past each other at every corner. Their very connectedness—and disconnect—serves as a subtle metaphor for the sense of post-colonial estrangement that Hong Kongers continued to navigate through in the 1970s.
P.K. LEUNG, “Postcolonial Affairs of the Food and the Heart” (2009) 梁秉鈞〈後殖民食物與愛情〉
We are what we eat—not least in the way we project our desires and aspirations onto our choices of food. In this deliciously written short novel that is at times too appetizing to read, Leung showcases how the cultural and socioeconomic anxieties of post-colonial Hong Kong are expressed in the divergent food choices of a split couple.
“Ten Years” (2015 film, Jevons Au et. al.)
Available on Netflix, Ten Years is a 2015 speculative fiction anthology film that offers an imagined glimpse into the everyday lives in Hong Kong ten years later (in 2025). For those who are familiar with Hong Kong’s recent social and political transformation amid Beijing’s increasingly tightened grip, the film carries with it an unsettling prophetic tinge—and the rest is history.