The piano as cultural capital in Hong Kong

Abstract

 This dissertation is a study of the consumption of the piano and piano playing in Hong Kong from the late 20th century, when the new middle-class emerged, well into the 21st century, when the general Hong Kong population, including the working class, is better educated and economically more affluent. It attempts to answer the questions: “How do people look at the piano in Hong Kong?” “Why piano playing is so popular?” and “What does piano playing mean?” The investigation of how people consume the piano aims at finding out the cultural codes given to the object and its related activities, of which give answers to the above questions; while the consumption itself demonstrates “an act of deciphering, decoding, which presupposes practical or explicit mastery of a cipher or code” in Pierre Bourdieu’s words. The ways people consume the piano and piano playing are shaped by the city’s colonial history, the middle-class’s biedermeier mentality, as well as the utilitarian atmosphere prevailing in the society (regardless of social classes). Using the piano as a ‘viewing apparatus’ to peer through society, I attempt to develop a critique in reaction to scholarship that fails to come to terms with certain aspects of the Hong Kong culture and tends to see Hong Kong as unique or, worse, victimized.