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 | HONG KONG: RETURNING TO THE FOLD January 10, 1997 |
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Return to the Hong Kong forum's top page.
Questions asked
in this forum:
Are the restrictions on China enforceable? What will life be like in Hong Kong in the year 2000? What's the prognosis for the future of the independent media in Hong Kong? How will the recording of economic data change? Will China phase out the HK dollar and replace it with the Yuan? What will be China's attitude towards the Eurocurrency market ? Has China made any specific commitment to hold free elections to parliament after the transition? What will the U.N. do if it refuses? Viewer comments
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December 17, 1996: As the Chinese defense minister tours the U.S., the NewsHour looks at human rights abuses in China.
November 21, 1996: A NewsHour report on the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation and Asia's economy, the fastest growing, most dynamic region in the world. .
The NewsHour Asia Index.
Jan Lewis Tucker of Miami, Florida, asks: What changes are underway to change the education of the Hong Kong school-age children about the history of Hong Kong and China itself?
Dr. DeGolyer reponds:
This is a very important issue, and one which isn't yet clearly settled, and may not be for quite some time. First, the educational system here is quite different from the U.S. system. While there are some state established schools in Hong Kong, by far the most are non-profit and/or religious schools which receive public funds under a "code of aid" which stipulates the quality of education and inspection in broad terms (this aid amounts usually to about 95% of the capital costs of primary and secondary schools and about all recurrent costs up to the legal end of mandatory schooling in Form 3 (equivalent to age 15 or 9th grade in the U.S.) and about 90% of the recurrent costs of Forms 4-7). There are 13 years of secondary school and only 3 years of university here, following the UK system. While the Education Dept. does set exams and curriculum topics, it does not control all text selection or even the full curriculums of most of the schools. So, with this very brief and partial explanation I can start to address your question.
While the aided private schools may and do add classes in religion and a fairly wide array of other subjects, civic education in most Hong Kong schools explicitly excluded study of China's history after 1949 for the longest time, and also excluded any "political" education by law until December 1990. However, there are a small number of China-patriot schools which do not receive any direct funds from the government and which teach a "patriotic" version of China and Hong Kong history.
There are also a handful of Taiwan patriotic schools which offer ideologically contrasting versions of that education offered in the China-patriot schools. A change in 1991 allowed even these schools to receive aid if they met certain staffing qualities and ratios. Revisions to the curriculum to include new subjects in secondary school called liberal studies, which include more recent Chinese history and local politics and government are only offered in a handful of local aided schools. "Civic education" usually means learning about politeness, picking up trash, not spitting on the sidewalks, lining up for public transport, and other social conventions, not about the details of government.
Most students study very little about government and contemporary Chinese history until university, which is fully open in its curriculum. However, most students, following the UK system, specialize as science or arts students, and if in sciences, don't take history at all after year 7 or year 9, and that history is usually western history 1870 to WWII or perhaps 1815 to 1960 (it varies). Chinese history is taught, but stops at 1949 in all but a small group of schools.
This is slowly starting to change. A committee on civic education has developed rather comprehensive materials on democracy and Hong Kong government, but they are not as yet widely used, nor do they contribute much to historical or political awareness. Some of the textbook publishers are bringing events in China up to 1989, but very cautiously, and with but the briefest of mentions. Gerard Postiglione, an American expert on education based in Hong Kong at Hong Kong University, considers the changes to date to the colonial system minimal, but there is a widespread conviction among the community that education at all levels, content and structure as well as funding, will receive priority attention after 1 July 1997. Some want to emphasize patriotic education and change the curriculum drastically, others want to end the widespread practice of two-shift primary schools (many children go to school the first half of the day and the other the second half), and nearly all want to end the heavy emphasis on exams. You can expect this to become a very much discussed issue ahead.
Currently, from China's point of view, the history of Hong Kong reads entirely differently from that written from the British colonial point of view. They hardly sound like the same place being described. The Chinese emphasize the violence and suppression of British rule, and the continuing subversive role Hong Kong played in China as an outpost of imperialism, while the British emphasize the "barren rock" of Hong Kong as they "found" it, and how much they have contributed to change that, as well as their introduction of rule of law and stability. A Hong Kong history, comprehensive and fair and balanced, reporting all the views and trying to make a fair assessment, has yet to be written and certainly yet to be taught in the schools.
I have little hope that such a balanced and fair history will ever be taught in Hong Kong schools. More likely we will have the same kind of schooling offered as that in most countries, including the U.S. and Japan, for example, in which patriotic sentiments and political correctness and political and parental pressures endow children with a very partial understanding of their past and their society. This is why the world so often suffers the excesses of nationalism and parochialism--and why the World Wide Web and sites such as this one are such hopeful developments, since for the first time in human history, people from different nations and cultures may have instant, extremely low cost and frequent access to each other's views and "histories." And since Hong Kong is very heavily "Webbed" and most students are computer literate, this is the best hope for the sort of genuine education which challenges rather than reinforces prejudice and parochialism. As long as the Web continues uncensored in Hong Kong, education will continue. When it is controlled, limited, or closed off to students, education will be becoming more akin to propaganda, so watch this space!
Will the new films and other media products being developed in China about Hong Kong's history and politics be available in the United States as first run features? If not, where can they be located?
Another very good question. There are a number of new films and programs being developed in China about the handover. Currently, plans are to release a major film on China's official view of the opium wars which led to Hong Kong's cession (the one in the 1840s and the second in the 1860s, though only the first one is in this film.) There are also a series of television programs, short spots about Hong Kong, and a tv quiz program based on official publications on Hong Kong history, place names, and other "trivia" type questions. Unfortunately, these are in mandarin, so if you don't read Chinese or speak this dialect, you won't be able to get much from it. One would expect that China would be interested in putting the film into English, even if only with subtitles, but I cannot find any information that this will happen anytime soon (or even later). There are, however, a number of films from the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office on Hong Kong, in English, and while they do not give the Chinese view, they do provide an entertaining and informative reprise of Hong Kong's history and current affairs.
If you wish to get the Chinese films on Hong Kong, you'll have to wait until Hong Kong entrepreneurs copy the films and send them over to the Chinese audiences in Canada, the U.S., Australia, Taiwan, and the UK. More than likely, if the PRC government doesn't arrange for their release and/or sale to the many overseas Chinese, these enterprising folks will make a way to see them. You might ask a video outlet in one of the "Chinatowns" in your country (in the U.S. NY, San Francisco, L.A., and many other cities have such localities, or, if you are really seriously after these films, you might ask the local Chinese busines group or association about purchasing or accessing films made in China about the Hong Kong return). I am sure if you ask around, and especially if you want to purchase them, that sooner or later you'll be able to get a copy--even if it is in mandarin only (but I very much expect it to be dubbed into Cantonese, at least, and maybe someone will add English subtitles after awhile). You might also see if there is a China studies or Chinese language studies department at one of your local universities which might have or be seeking such materials.
If you really want an interesting experience in bureaucracy and have a lot of patience and curiousity, you might request information about such materials from one of the PRC consular offices in the U.S. Your experience and their reply would be quite interesting, I'm sure, and you should perhaps send an account of your experiences to this site, if they will consider posting it. You'll discover that while the U.S. is often insular and parochial, and its various governments often maddeningly bureaucratic, there are entirely new levels of these behaviours to experience when it comes to China.
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