1st Edition
Popular Culture in Hong Kong After the National Security Law, 2020–2022
Ng examines the aftermath of the massive protests in 2019 and the implementation of the National Security Law in Hong Kong.
Despite two years of fluctuating COVID measures and social constraints, the city witnessed an unparalleled cultural resurgence after the enactment of the National Security Law in 2020. The book explores Hong Kong beyond the end of the Anti-Extradition Bill Movement in 2019, to examine what happened afterwards, how society repaired itself, how the people of the city resumed their everyday life, and what this everyday life entails. Ng examines the social debates and conversations during these two years, analysing a wide range of creative projects in the city, from television shows, popular music, social media to literary writings. She describes the difficulties, emotional experiences, and also the daily strategies to repair local life, recreate a self-identity and reclaim the city’s narrative against the pressures from China.
A valuable resource for researchers, scholars, students and professionals interested in Hong Kong, popular culture and society, and issues of global uprisings of the 21st Century. The detailed research supported by the study also makes this an interesting book for those with specialized interest in global studies, and China and Hong Kong studies.
Introduction 1. New Reality, New communities, New identities 2. Caring for the Self, Expanding the Intellectual Space 3. Generational Contests: Re-forming, re-educating and de-radicalizing “useless youths” 4. The New Cantopop and the New Hong Kong Cinema 5. The value of optimistic pessimism in Hong Kong’s new reality: The Television Drama, In Geek we Trust 6. The Contest of Language: “Human Language” and the virtue of swearing 7. The Itinerary of Pleasure: Reclaiming individual freedom in the city 8. The campaign to tell the Hong Kong story well: Dung Kai Cheung’s novel Hong Kong Letters and the Reinvention of Hong Kong’s Story Coda
Biography
Janet Ng is a Professor at the Department of English at City University of New York, USA.
