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Through the history of a charitable institution, the Tung Wah Hospital, Elizabeth Sinn reshapes and greatly deepens our understanding of the evolving interactions between the Chinese community in Hong Kong and the colonial rulers. She traces the rise to power of the Chinese merchants who organized and operated the Hospital and the complex relationships that the Hospital developed with the colonial regime, Mainland Chinese officials and the Chinese people of Hong Kong. As the first organized merchant elite recognized by the colonial government, the Tung Wah Hospital Committee played a crucial political role in nineteenth-century Hong Kong, mediating between ordinary Chinese and the colonial a...
During the nineteenth century tens of thousands of Chinese men and women crossed the Pacific to work, trade, and settle in California. Drawn initially by the gold rush, they took with them skills and goods and a view of the world which, though still Chinese, was transformed by their long journeys back and forth. They in turn transformed Hong Kong, their main point of embarkation, from a struggling infant colony into a prosperous international port and the cultural center of a far-ranging Chinese diaspora. Making use of extensive research in archives around the world, Pacific Crossing charts the rise of Chinese Gold Mountain firms engaged in all kinds of transpacific trade, especially the lucrative export of prepared opium and other luxury goods. Challenging the traditional view that the migration was primarily a "coolie trade," Elizabeth Sinn uncovers leadership and agency among the many Chinese who made the crossing. In presenting Hong Kong as an "in-between place" of repeated journeys and continuous movement, Sinn also offers a fresh view of the British colony and a new paradigm for migration studies.
Meeting Place: Encounters across Cultures in Hong Kong, 1841–1984 presents detailed empirical studies of day-to-day interactions between people of different cultures in a variety of settings. The broad conclusion—that there was sustained and multilevel contact between men and women of different cultures—will challenge and complicate traditional historical understandings of Hong Kong as a city either of rigid segregation or of pervasive integration. Given its geographical location, its status as a free port, and its role as a center of migration, Hong Kong was an extraordinarily porous place. People of diverse cultures met and mingled here, often with unexpected results. The case studie...
This collection reveals many forms of servitude that Chinese women have endured, and the avenues of escape open to some of them. The authors are anthropologists, historians and sociologists, but the book is enriched also by contributions from the participants - a social worker, a mui tsai, and a colonial civil servant. The chapters are based on original documentary or oral research and personal experience, and, throughout the book, the voices of the women, their owners and their missionary rescuers can be clearly heard.
When the British occupied the tiny island of Hong Kong during the First Opium War, the Chinese empire was well into its decline, while Great Britain was already in the second decade of its legendary "Imperial Century." From this collision of empires arose a city that continues to intrigue observers. Melding Chinese and Western influences, Hong Kong has long defied easy categorization. John M. Carroll's engrossing and accessible narrative explores the remarkable history of Hong Kong from the early 1800s through the post-1997 handover, when this former colony became a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China. The book explores Hong Kong as a place with a unique identity, yet also a crossroads where Chinese history, British colonial history, and world history intersect. Carroll concludes by exploring the legacies of colonial rule, the consequences of Hong Kong's reintegration with China, and significant developments and challenges since 1997.
With a series of rich case studies focused on mobile laborers, this book demonstrates how the regional migrations of the early modern era came to be connected, contributing to the creation of an increasingly integrated nineteenth-century world.
The issues surrounding Hong Kong's global position and international links grow increasingly complex by the day as the process of Hong Kong's transformation from a British colony to a Chinese Special Administration Region unfolds. This volume addresses a number of questions relating to this process. How international is Hong Kong? What are its global and international dimensions? How important are these dimensions to its continued success? How will these dimensions change, especially beyond the sphere of economics? Is Hong Kong's internationalization, defined in terms of its willingness to embrace international values and its capacity to maintain its international presence, at risk? These questions are presented as they pertain to the changing situation; relations between mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong; the positions of Australia, Canada and the United States on Hong Kong; internalization of international legal values; Americanization vs. Asianization; linkages to the world through Guangdong; strategies to emigrate overseas, cultural internationalization; media internationalization and universities within the global economy.
As Hong Kong transforms from a colonial dependent territory to a Chinese special administrative region, its international status will be increasingly connected to China's position in the world. the nature of Hong Kong global linkages are shifting as thepo
Long-distance migration of peoples have been a central if little understood factor in global integration. The essays in this collection contribute to a new history of world migrations, written by specialists of particular areas of the world. Collectively these essays point towards a shift from the regional migrations of individual seas and oceans of the early modern era toward nineteenth-century labor migrations that connected the Pacific and Indian to the Atlantic Oceans. Detailed case studies demonstrate the importance of human migration in the development, consolidation and critique of empire-building, theories of race, modern capitalism, and large-scale commercial agriculture and industry on every continent.