Postcoloniality beyond China-centrism: Queer Sinophone Transnationalism in Hong Kong Cinema

Abstract

Within postcolonial theory of Hong Kong, China looms large as either the monstrous figure of King Kong that will take over Hong Kong’s democracy after 1997, or as the new colonizer that will compete with British colonialism in the “between colonizers” model by Rey Chow. This essay expands on Shu-mei Shih’s insight that the Sinophone can provide a non-relational approach toward Chineseness. As a form of postcolonialism beyond China-centrism, queer Hong Kong cinema evinces what Francoise Lionnet and Shu-mei Shih term minor transnationalism, which points to “minor-to-minor networks that circumvent the major altogether.” While queer minor transnationalism reckons with the very real force of Chinese capitalism and authoritarian control of China over Hong Kong, queerness in Hong Kong cinema precisely points to modes of disorientation and transnational and trans-border mobility that deviate from the normative geopolitics of British-Chinese influences. In particular, the 1997 queer Hong Kong classic film Happy Together by Wong Kar-wai is analyzed anew as a visuality of minor-to-minor connection that links Hong Kong with Argentina and Taiwan. In so doing, Wong’s film pivots on the unsettling of Chineseness through a visuality of non-arrival. Tracing other minor transnational queer films, I examine similar queer non-relationality to Chineseness in Scud’s two films Permanent Residence (2009) and Amphetamine (2010), which links Hong Kong with Guangzhou in China, Thailand, and Israeli occupation and maps queer desire and cosmopolitanism between Australia and Hong Kong respectively. In visualizing a model of postcoloniality beyond dominant Chineseness, queer Sinophone transnationalism foregrounds other models of Hong Kong transnationalism across worldly geographies and intimacies, which ultimately envision queer Sinophone studies as a transformative site for rethinking Hong Kongness in the age of global modernity.