Signing our own stories : Hong Kong identity and its construction through Cantopop in the post-Umbrella Movement period

Abstract

In the limited space of Hong Kong’s self-writing from below, this dissertation aims at making an argument that in face of an increasingly “Mainlandized” Hong Kong, Cantopop in the Post-Umbrella Movement Period articulates a sense of Hong Kong identity which rejects the top-down nationalistic “Chineseness” and endorses Hongkongers as a distinctive community through the expression of nostalgia and a new Hong Kong consciousness characterised by a sense of “resistance”. In recent years, the character of Cantopop has changed (Ismangil 127). Hong Kong musicians are more eager than before to write their own story and demarcate a Hong Kong identity through music. GTB’s critique over the Lion Rock Spirit, for example, illustrates that the time for the authoritative and the older to define “Hong Kong Spirit” has gone; it is now for Hong Kong to be redefined from below. Hong Kong people have been facing enormous changes, and in particular, the officially driven integration with the Mainland has exerted an unprecedented impact on their daily lives (Chu, “Found in” 36). To the locals, Hong Kong has therefore become a “diminishing home ground” that they can no longer associate with (Chu, “Found in” 36), to which they cannot stop questioning: is Hong Kong still my home? Hong Kong’s self-writing through Cantopop thus embraces a sense of nostalgia, which, I argue, signifies an outright rejection of the top-down nationalistic “Chineseness”. Although many people consider that Hong Kong is no longer their home in face of the hegemonic expansion from the Mainland, Hong Kong indeed has nowhere to escape, but would have to properly face this reality. To this end, a new Hong Kong consciousness, which articulates the idea of “resistance”, has emerged in Cantopop, demonstrating that it is time for Hong Kong people to rise and resist.