Multiracial Britishness: Global Networks in Hong Kong, 1910–45 (Modern British Histories) [New ed.] 1009202944, 9781009202947

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Multiracial Britishness

What does it mean to be British? To answer this, Multiracial Britishness takes us to an underexplored site of Britishness – the former British colony of Hong Kong. Vivian Kong asks how colonial hierarchies, the racial and cultural diversity of the British Empire, and global ideologies complicate the meaning of being British. Using multilingual sources and oral history, Kong traces the experiences of multiracial residents in 1910–45 Hong Kong. Guiding us through Hong Kong’s global networks, and the colony’s co-existing exclusive and cosmopolitan social spaces, this book uncovers the long history of multiracial Britishness. Kong argues that Britishness existed in the colony in multiple, hyphenated forms – as a racial category, but also as privileges, a means of survival, and a form of cultural and national belonging. This book offers us an important reminder that multiracial inhabitants of the British Empire were just as active in the making of Britishness as the British state and white Britons. Born and raised in Hong Kong, Vivian Kong is Lecturer in Modern Chinese History and Founding Co-Director of the Hong Kong History Centre at the University of Bristol. She has published on diasporas, civil society, and press debates in interwar Hong Kong.

Modern British Histories Series Editors: Deborah Cohen, Northwestern University Margot Finn, University College London Peter Mandler, University of Cambridge ‘Modern British Histories’ publishes original research monographs drawn from the full spectrum of a large and lively community of modern historians of Britain. Its goal is to keep metropolitan and national histories of Britain fresh and vital in an intellectual atmosphere increasingly attuned to, and enriched by, the transnational, the international and the comparative. It will include books that focus on British histories within the UK and that tackle the subject of Britain and the world inside and outside the boundaries of formal empire from 1750 to the present. An indicative – not exclusive – list of approaches and topics that the series welcomes includes material culture studies, modern intellectual history, gender, race and class histories, histories of modern science and histories of British capitalism within a global framework. Open and wide-ranging, the series will publish books by authoritative scholars, at all stages of their career, with something genuinely new to say. A complete list of titles in the series can be found at: www.cambridge.org/modernbritishhistories

Multiracial Britishness Global Networks in Hong Kong, 1910–45 Vivian Kong University of Bristol

Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8EA, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia 314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India 103 Penang Road, #05–06/07, Visioncrest Commercial, Singapore 238467 Cambridge University Press is part of Cambridge University Press & Assessment, a department of the University of Cambridge. We share the University’s mission to contribute to society through the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781009202947 DOI: 10.1017/9781009202930 © Vivian Kong 2024 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press & Assessment. First published 2024 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Kong, Vivian, 1990– author. Title: Multiracial Britishness : global networks in Hong Kong, 1910–45 / Vivian Kong, University of Bristol. Other titles: Global networks in Hong Kong, 1910–45 Description: Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2023. | Series: Modren British histories | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2023017058 | ISBN 9781009202947 (hardback) | ISBN 9781009202930 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: British – China – Hong Kong – History – 20th century. | National characteristics, British. | Hong Kong (China) – History – 20th century. | Hong Kong (China) – Ethnic relations. | Great Britain – Colonies – Asia – Administration – History – 20th century. | Great Britain – Colonies – Race relations. Classification: LCC DS796.H757 K66 2023 | DDC 305.895104109/04–dc23/ eng/20230624 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023017058 ISBN 978-1-009-20294-7 Hardback Cambridge University Press & Assessment has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

獻給我親愛的父母 － 江國有和蕭月嫦 以及我永遠懷念的爺爺 － 江永浩 For my parents, who made everything possible, and in the loving memory of my late grandfather

Contents

List of Figurespage viii List of Tablesix Acknowledgementsx Note on Terminologyxiii

Introduction: Hong Kong as a Site of Britishness

1

1 British by Law

24

2 The Britishers

53

3 Britishness and Chineseness in an Age of Nationalism

90

4 The British Portuguese

132

5 Multiracial Civic Britishness

163

6 The Test of War

199



235

Epilogue: After Empire, After Brexit

Bibliography247 Index270

vii

Figures

0.1 Map of the colony of Hong Kong Digitised by the National Library of Australia from http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-​ 234418794. London: Waterlow & Sons Limited, [1900?]. page xv 1 Plan of Central District, Hong Kong, 1897. 2 2 An image of Table 1 of the 1901 census report. 37 3 The Peak, 1909. Source: University of Bristol – Historical Photographs of China, He02-001. Photo from an album kept in the School of Oriental and African Studies Archives, London (SOAS Reference PP MS 82/15) 61 4 A photo of students and staff of the Faculty of Arts, HKU, taken in 1926. University Archives, University of Hong Kong. 108 5 Student file of Zhu Guangqian (whose name was then romanised as Chu Kwang Tsien) at HKU. University Archives, University of Hong Kong. 110 6 Image of HKU Main Building, taken in 2012. Courtesy of Jessica Kwok. 130 7 A portrait of J. P. Braga, taken in 1937. Reproduced with kind permission given by Stuart Braga. 147 8 First Hong Kong (St. Joseph’s College) Scout Troop, photo taken c. 1925. Also captured in the photo are several children of J. P. Braga: Hugh Braga (the Scoutmaster), Tony Braga (the Patrol Leader behind Hugh), and Paul Braga (left to Tony). Stuart Braga collection: Hugh Braga’s Album. With kind permission given by Stuart Braga. 150 9 Map of Kowloon, and five Portuguese residential enclaves in the colony. 190 10 A photograph of Gordon King. University Archives, University of Hong Kong. 213 11 A photograph of Lindsay Ride. University Archives, University of Hong Kong. 217 12 An image of South China Morning Post, 8 July 1989, p. 2, showing the ‘There’s no point in being almost British’ advertisement. Photo provided by Weldon Kong. 236 viii

Tables

1 Chinese matriculants of Faculty of Medicine, 1912–29 page 105 2 Students enrolled at the University of Hong Kong, 1934–39 105 3 Executive Committee Members of Hong Kong Eugenics League, 1941 186

ix

Acknowledgements

Much of this book was written up during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially during the lockdown days in 2020. For eight months I lived and worked by myself in my apartment in Bristol, but the solitude was made much more bearable thanks to a group of caring friends and colleagues. I am very thankful to Chiara Amoretti, Gemma O’Neill, and Pam Lock for organising regular virtual writers retreats to keep me productive and company. A million thanks to Owain Nash for his great sense of humour and daily virtual check-ins that made even the days of lockdown never dull. Jess Connett, Liu Xiao, and Emma Crowley all offered me much-needed support in Bristol. Ng Cherry, Leung Mingyi, Nocus Yung, Chan Nga-yee, Zardas Lee, Catherine Chan, Theresa McKeon, and Chris Wemyss all sent me from afar much love, support, and even food parcels. I am, as ever, grateful to my mate James Fellows for standing by my side through my ups and downs, hurdles after hurdles. I doubt I could’ve finished this book without his support and generous comments and editing – thank you, James. I also need to thank many colleagues and mentors who helped me become the historian I am today. My deepest gratitude goes to Robert Bickers and Su Lin Lewis, formerly my PhD supervisors and now my superb colleagues at Bristol. I cannot thank Robert enough for the support that he has given me along the way, and with his mentorship I became a better historian than when I first arrived in Bristol in 2015. With his passion for historical research and academic rigor, he shows me by example how to be a good historian. Likewise, Su Lin has given me numerous encouragements, advice, and insights, all of which helped make this a much better book than it’d have been otherwise. I’m thankful for the nudges she has given me to see the bigger picture and to see Hong Kong history in new light through the lens of global history. I am most grateful to John Carroll, whose classes at HKU sparked my interest in studying Hong Kong history. John has always been generous with his time and wisdom – even when I was just an undergraduate and even when I’m no longer his student. Without the time and effort, he patiently x

Acknowledgements

xi

spent on improving my writing, I could never have written so proficiently in English. For these, I am forever in debt to him. I must also thank Xiaowei Zheng, whose class at UCSB helped me develop good primary research skills and practices from very early on. Thanks are also due to Peter Cunich for encouraging me to use oral history back in 2013 and for his kind sharing of research material that greatly benefited my understanding of HKU. I also thank Carol Tsang for being an inspirational mentor and friend. Thanks are also due to Catherine Chan, Staci Ford, Mark Hampton, Sophie Loy-Wilson, Sumita Mukherjee, Chris Munn, David Pomfret, and Elizabeth Sinn, and Jiayi Tao, for their insights and support along the way. I am also grateful to Erika Hanna, Grace Huxford, James Thompson, Will Pooley, members of the Bristol-Exeter Modern British History Network (especially Amy Edwards, Rob Skinner, and Jon Lawrence), and Bristol’s Asian History Seminar group (especially Helena Lopes, Michael Sugarman, and Tom Larkin) for their comments on earlier drafts of various chapters of this book. My PhD examiners, Stuart Ward and Saima Nasar, and the two anonymous reviewers of this book manuscript all provided very insightful and constructive comments that greatly benefited this book, for which I am very thankful. Thanks are also due to Rachel Blaifeder, Lucy Rhymer, Liz Friend-Smith, and Natasha Whelan at Cambridge University Press. Many friends kindly lent me their insights in Hong Kong history and gave me much help in collecting primary sources too. These include Amelia Allsop, Catherine Chan, Vaudine England, Nathan Kwan, Adonis Li, and Yuki Tam. I also wish to thank Stuart Braga, the University Archives of HKU, and the Hong Kong Heritage Project (especially Amelia and Sing Ping Lee) for the assistance that they have kindly offered me. I am grateful to Jessica Kwok and Stuart Braga for giving me permission to include in the book images from their collection, as well as Antonio M. Pacheco Jorge da Silva, who has also kindly allowed me to use a map of Kowloon that he created. Special thanks are also due to Chris Munn, Garfield Lam, and Weldon Kong for their kind assistance in helping me obtain an image that captures an advertisement placed in the South China Morning Post in 1989. I am very grateful to Garfield and the HKU University Archives, for allowing me to use the brilliant photo of students and staff of the HKU Arts Faculty in 1926 for the book cover. Part of Chapter 6 was published previously in my article ‘“Hong Kong Is My Home”: The 1940 Evacuation and Hong Kong-Britons’ (issue 3 of volume 47 of The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History), and sections of Chapter 2 in ‘Whiteness, Imperial Anxiety, and the “Global 1930s”: The White British League Debate in Hong Kong’ (issue 2 of volume 59 of Journal of British Studies). An earlier version of Chapter 5

xii

Acknowledgements

appears in ‘Exclusivity and Cosmopolitanism: Multi-ethnic Civil Society in Interwar Hong Kong’ (issue 5 of volume 63 of The ­Historical ­Journal). I am grateful that the publishers, Taylor & Francis and Cambridge University Press, allowed me to reuse the material from these earlier works in this book. I also want to thank all my oral history interviewees who have generously shared with me their personal stories to help me understand Hong Kong’s past better. I’m constantly reminded of the kindness each of my interviewees has shown me and their generosity of sharing with me their life stories. I know I don’t only owe it to myself but to them all to get this book written. This research couldn’t have been possible without the generous support of the Hong Kong History Project (and now the Hong Kong History Centre), the Australian Historical Association, the Worldwide University Networks, and the Chiang Ching Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange. I am particularly thankful to Dr Ron Zimmern, the Doris Zimmern Charitable Trust, and the Hatton Trust for their generous support on my PhD studentship and on my career. I’d also like to thank all donors for the University of Bristol and the University of Hong Kong, as well as the staff in the development offices of the two universities who have worked so hard to make higher education more accessible for students like myself. Last but not least, I must thank my family. I thank Adam for being my best friend, for his honest food reviews, and for making me smile and laugh every day. I thank my siblings, Kitty and Thomas ‘Bobo’, for their love and for giving me much assistance with getting sources in Hong Kong. I thank my grandma 嫲嫲 and my late grandpa 爺爺, my aunt 姑姐 Sally, and my late 叔叔 江國能, for their support and love. I thank my parents, 爸爸媽咪, for giving me the privilege to have called Hong Kong my home. In the course of my researching and writing this book, Hong Kong underwent many changes, but for better or worse, to steal the words of a Hong Kong resident who wrote to Winston Churchill in 1941 under very different circumstances: ‘Hong Kong is my home’. It always has been and always will be.

Note on Terminology

It is necessary to clarify some of the terms used in this book before proceeding further – including those referring to different communities in colonial Hong Kong. I should make it clear that I am aware that ‘race’ and the perceived difference between races are constructions. Terms used at the time describing race, such as ‘Chinese’, ‘British’, and ‘Eurasian’, are problematic, and some of them are contested. Nonetheless, these social constructs had important implications for issues such as belonging, identification, and nationality. I therefore employ these terms only to understand the particular experiences of different communities in colonial Hong Kong. Hong Kong was inhabited not only by the Chinese but also by many other races. These included those of the ‘British race’, a term that colonial officials used to describe those with unquestioned family origins in the British Isles, sometimes including Australians and Canadians. They were generally known as ‘British’ and held a distinctive social status in Hong Kong. Throughout this book, I will call them ‘white Britons’ to distinguish them from the people of colour in the colony who also identified themselves as Britons. My use of the term should not be taken as an indicator that I believe this whiteness was anything more than a discursive category. Some clarifications should also be made about my use of the terms ‘Eurasian’ and ‘Portuguese’ in reference to two communities of ‘mixed’ ancestry in Hong Kong. The term ‘Eurasian’, originating in British India, referred to children born there to European fathers and Asian mothers. Its usage soon spread to the rest of the British Empire and later across the globe to refer to individuals of ‘mixed’ European and Asian ancestry.1 On the China coast and in Hong Kong, the term was used to describe individuals of mixed ancestry – mostly of European and 1

More on the history and meaning of the term in other parts of the British Empire, China, and the North America, see Emma Jinhua Teng, Eurasian: Mixed Identities in the United States, China, and Hong Kong, 1842–1943 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013), pp. 5–7.

xiii

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Note on Terminology

Chinese (and sometimes Parsee, Middle-eastern, or Japanese) ancestry.2 Historically speaking, many first generation Eurasians were illegitimate children and grew up with little connection with their European fathers. Nevertheless, there is a distinct, prominent community that originates from such circumstances, which, in the minds of those within and outside the community, occupies an intermediary place in Hong Kong’s colonial society. While also of ‘mixed’ ancestry, the ‘Portuguese’ were known as a population distinct from the Eurasian community. Also known as ‘local Portuguese’ and ‘Macanese’, most were descendants of Portuguese who, since the sixteenth century, had come from Portugal to Asia and had relations – mostly within matrimony – with the native populations. These Portuguese migrated from other Portuguese enclaves in Asia – such as Goa – to Macau as it became a Portuguese holding in China. Hong Kong’s economic opportunities lured many to migrate from Macau to the colony from the 1840s onwards. Because of their cultural and religious practices and link with Portugal (albeit tenuous)3, the ‘Portuguese’ experienced sociopolitical circumstances distinct from the Eurasian community.

2

See Vicky Lee, Being Eurasian: Memories across Racial Divides (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004), pp. 2–3. 3 See Felicia Yap, ‘Portuguese Communities in East and Southeast Asia during the Japanese Occupation’, in Portuguese and Luso-Asian Legacies in Southeast Asia, 1511–2011, Vol. 1: The Making of the Luso-Asian World: Intricacies of Engagement, edited by Laura Jarnagin (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2011), pp. 205–28.

Figure 0.1 Map of the colony of Hong Kong

Introduction

Hong Kong as a Site of Britishness

What does being British mean? To answer this question of political, legal, and media debate, historians have drawn on Britain’s imperial past to explain that Britishness has always been a flexible, ever-changing concept. Its meaning was made and remade through cross-cultural interactions. It was never only white Britons who defined and reshaped the meaning of being British: inhabitants of different races in the wider empire were just as active in claiming, using, and remaking conceptions of Britishness. This book tells a nuanced history of this remaking process. Here I explain how multiracial inhabitants of the British Empire understood the multivalent concept of being British, how they negotiated with one another the meaning of being British, and how their crosscultural interactions with each other enriched and complicated notions of Britishness. To do so, I will focus on the social world of 1910–45 urban Hong Kong, which encapsulated a multitude of societies within its expansive, overlapping confines. Captured in the street map here (Figure 1) is the city’s Central District, the heart of urban Hong Kong. This is a rather small area: it takes no more than 20 minutes to walk from one end to the other, but in its boundaries were hosted all core government buildings, head offices of banks, and major businesses of the colony. It was also a place for leisure, socialisation, and spiritual refinement: one could find some of the colony’s best schools, major places of worship, notable clubs and associations, major department stores, cinemas, and theatres crammed into its exclusive confines. Living, studying, working, and socialising in this small area was a diverse community of multiracial residents. Many such inhabitants were British by law: all those born and naturalised in British Hong Kong were British subjects. But at times it was as if this Britishness did not matter. At the Passport Office at 17 Queen’s Road, white Britons could easily obtain a full passport, while officials only gave colonial subjects a travel certificate, which did not permit their settling in Britain. At the Central Magistracy at 1 Arbuthnot Road and the neighbouring Central 1

Figure 1  Plan of Central District, Hong Kong, 1897.

Hong Kong and Multiracial Britishness

3

Police Station on Hollywood Road, Chinese and Indians faced assumptions that police officers and magistrates rarely applied to Europeans there.1 But Central was also where cross-cultural interactions took place, opening possibilities for wider, multiracial engagements with Britishness. Only fifteen minutes away from the Passport Office was the St. Joseph’s College on Robinson Road, where Hong Kong’s first racially inclusive Boy Scouts troop was formed. Here Portuguese, Chinese, and Eurasian Boy Scouts took the oath to do their duty to the British monarch. At Zetland Hall at 1 Kenney Road, Chinese, Eurasian, and Indian Masons socialised with white British brethren, sometimes paying tributes to the royal family. At 30–32 Des Voeux Road Central, Rotarians of different races met weekly and talked about how the empire was ‘the safeguard of freedom’.2 Urban Hong Kong gave its multiracial residents not only a taste of exclusivity, but also a site to engage with cosmopolitanism and Britishness. This book draws on this urban world to explain how transnational networks, urban culture, and cross-cultural interactions encouraged Britishness to evolve into a diverse set of notions. I focus on the colony’s multiracial urban community between 1910 and 1945, to explore three major issues. First, how Britain’s multiracial empire stretched, enriched, and complicated the meaning of being British. Second, how global ideologies affected the ways in which Britishness was understood. Third, the ways in which colonialism, diasporic interactions, and transnational networks shape social dynamics in modern Asia. Exploring these issues allow us to challenge a widely held assumption about the primacy of race in determining the entitlements and benefits of being British. In doing so, I argue that Britishness existed in Hong Kong not only as a race, but also a national belonging, a legal status, a cosmopolitan sensibility, a cultural attribute, an imperial tool, a means of survival, a convenience, privileges, and a rhetorical strategy to steer Hong Kong away from anti-colonialism. Hong Kong and Multiracial Britishness Despite its 156 years of colonial history, Hong Kong has been rarely featured in the ongoing discussion about British identities and Britishness.3 1

Christopher Munn, Anglo-China: Chinese People and British Rule in Hong Kong, 1841–1880 (Richmond: Curzon Press, 2001), esp. Ch. 3. Also see May Holdsworth and Christopher Munn, Crime, Justice, and Punishment in Colonial Hong Kong: Central Police Station, Central Magistracy and Victoria Gaol (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2020). 2 ‘Empire Day Address to Rotarians’, Hong Kong Daily Press, 25 May 1938. 3 A notable exception is Mark Hampton’s work, which explores how both the British public and the Hong Kong Chinese understood British colonialism in Hong Kong in

4

Introduction: Hong Kong as a Site of Britishness

In January 1841, amidst the first Anglo-Chinese Opium War, the British occupied the Hong Kong Island and declared it a colony. With the signing of the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, Hong Kong was officially ceded to Britain, and later formally established as a Crown Colony in 1843.4 In the following decades, the Crown Colony of ‘Hong Kong’ expanded from the island itself to the opposite shore of Victoria Harbour. With the Convention of Peking, the Qing court ceded Kowloon to Britain in 1860, and in 1898, it leased the New Territories to Britain for 99 years rent-free.5 Until the midnight of 1 July 1997 when it became a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong remained under British control, except for the brief period of Japanese occupation between 25 December 1941 and 30 August 1945. As a Crown Colony on the South China coast, Hong Kong served as an important centre for the British to extend their political and economic influence in East Asia. The Governor of Hong Kong was the British Minister of China before 1860, and the colony was where most Britons on China coast lived.6 Things changed after 1860. The British opened a legation in Peking and now the headquarters of British diplomatic affairs in China was no longer in Hong Kong.7 As more new treaty ports opened on the Yangzi River and in North China, the focus of British trade and British mercantile world shifted northward, diminishing the colony’s importance within it.8 Shanghai’s rise as ‘the Paris of the East’ also stole some of Hong Kong’s shine away. But certain things remained the same. The colony was still the centre of the British political and military presence in East Asia. It was a crucial node of the administrative system in Asia, and Britain’s critical link to the Asia-Pacific.9 Almost all the age of decolonisation. See Mark Hampton, Hong Kong and British Culture, 1945–97 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015). More on the first Opium War, see Julia Lovell, The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams, and the Making of China (London: Picador, 2012), with particular focus on the Treaty of Nanking in Ch. 14. 5 On the British acquisition of Hong Kong, see Steve Tsang, A Modern History of Hong Kong (London: I. B. Tauris, 1997), pp. 3–38. 6 Robert Bickers, ‘Shanghailanders and Others: British Communities in China, ­1843–1957’, in Settlers and Expatriates, p. 291. 7 See J. E. Hoare, Embassies in the East: The Story of the British Embassies in Japan, China and Korea from 1859 to the Present (London: Routledge, 2014), pp. 17–94. 8 Robert A. Bickers, ‘The Colony’s Shifting Position in the British Informal Empire in China’, in Hong Kong’s Transitions, 1842–1997, edited by Judith M. Brown and Rosemary Foot (London: St. Anthony’s Series, Macmillan, 1997), pp. 33–61, at p. 40. 9 An example is, as Chris Munn noted, the crucial role that Hong Kong played in the transportation of convicts from China to British territories in Southeast Asia. See Christopher Munn, Anglo-China: Chinese People and British Rule in Hong Kong, ­1841–1880 (Richmond: Curzon, 2001), pp. 221–6. 4

Hong Kong and Multiracial Britishness

5

British trade from and to China, India, Australia, and the opposite shore of the Pacific Ocean passed through Hong Kong. Railway, shipping, and newly emerging air-travelling routes, administrative, commercial, and information channels connected the colony to the world. All roads – from the Chinese treaty ports of Canton, Hankow, and Shanghai, the Southeast Asian ports of Saigon, Penang, and Manila, to Yokohama, San Francisco, and London – led to Hong Kong. Using and facilitating these channels were various diasporic networks that cut across the city. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese who wanted a life outside China for political and economic reasons came to Hong Kong. With its colonial status, it was a popular destination for both Chinese migrants, as well as refugees fleeing turbulent times: whether the Taiping Rebellion in 1851–64, the Warlord Era between 1916 and 1928, and the outbreak of the Second World War in China in 1937. The strands of Hong Kong’s web of Chinese migration networks ‘spread out in one direction to South China villages, and in the other to locations around the world, further branching out from secondary nodes in places like San Francisco and Singapore’.10 The colony facilitated the circuit of ­Chinese labour, capital, and goods that travelled between China and North America, the Nanyang networks in Southeast Asia, and the ‘China trade’ between the South China Sea and Australia.11 Handling more than half of the money remitted to China by overseas Chinese, Hong Kong was also home to many ‘returned’ overseas Chinese, particularly those from British Malaya, Australia, and the United States.12 By 1911, the Hong Kong census recorded a number of 438,873 ethnic Chinese.13 And even though the 10 Adam McKeown, ‘Conceptualizing Chinese Diasporas, 1842 to 1949’, Journal of Asian Studies, 58.2 (1999): 306–37, at p. 321. 11 Elizabeth Sinn, Pacific Crossing: California Gold, Chinese Migration, and the Making of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2013); Frost, ‘Emporium in Imperio’; Kuo Kuei-ying, Networks beyond Empires: Chinese Business and Nationalism in the Hong Kong-Singapore Corridor, 1914–1941 (Leiden: Brill, 2014). On ‘China trade’ and Australia, see Sophie Loy-Wilson, Australians in Shanghai: Race, Rights, and Nation in Treaty Port China (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017). On Chinese migration to Australia, see John Fitzgerald, Big White Lie: Chinese Australians in White Australia (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2007). Kate Bagnall has also illuminated how many Anglo-Chinese Australians travelled to Hong Kong for reasons such as vacation, education, business, and visiting families. See Kate Bagnall, ‘Anglo-Chinese and the Politics of Overseas Travel from New South Wales, 1898 to 1925’, in Chinese Australians: Politics, Engagement and Resistance, edited by Sophie Couchman and Kate Bagnall (Leiden: Brill, 2015), pp. 203–39. 12 John M. Carroll, A Concise History of Hong Kong (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), p. 77. On Hong Kong’s place within the emigration networks of China and North America, see Sinn, Pacific Crossing. 13 See P. P. J. Wodehouse, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1911’, p. 10, in Hong Kong Sessional Papers.

6

Introduction: Hong Kong as a Site of Britishness

colonial government and foreigners tended to lump this population into one big Chinese community, in reality cultural differences were prevalent amongst ‘the Chinese’. For one, different languages (Cantonese, Hakka, Hoklo, and Tanka) were spoken by those from Hong Kong and its neighbouring Guangdong province in southern China. And this is not counting the many languages spoken by those from other provinces in China and the overseas Chinese: the former would speak the dialects of their provinces, whereas the latter generally spoke English, though some might still speak the dialect of the region from which their family originated in China. And the colony was not home only to the Chinese. To build, rule, and make money in Hong Kong, all kinds of white Britons arrived – from government officials and military officers to missionaries, traders, sailors, intermediaries, and engineers for the dockyards. It also attracted many others who came to work in different ways in developing the colony, and many would come to stake claims to Britishness as a consequence. Amongst the earliest ‘British settlers’ were Portuguese interpreters and clerks from Macau.14 The British also brought over several military regiments from India and recruited Sikh, Punjabi, and Muslim police. Alongside the Parsee and Bohra Muslim merchants drawn by the British trading network in South China, a sizeable Indian population established roots in nineteenth-century Hong Kong.15 From the social interactions that arose in such a multiracial port like Hong Kong naturally emerged a Eurasian community – a community of individuals of European and Asian ancestry. In 1901 Hong Kong already had a civil population of 274,543 Chinese, 4,498 Europeans and Americans, 1,956 Portuguese, 1,548 Indians, and 268 Eurasians, not counting the 1,162 individuals labelled as belonging to other races.16 This population was undergoing some significant changes. By the 1880s, a number of new Chinese and Eurasian bourgeoisie rose in Hong Kong.17 Compared to earlier Chinese elites in the colony, these new 14

More on the Portuguese community in Hong Kong, see Catherine S. Chan, The Macanese Diaspora in British Hong Kong: A Century of Transimperial Drifting (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021). Also see J. P. Braga, The Portuguese in Hong Kong and China (Macau: Fundacao Macau, 1998); Stuart Braga, ‘Making Impressions: A Portuguese Family in Macau and Hong Kong, 1700–1945’ (PhD Thesis, Australian National University, 2013); Antonio M. Jorge de Silva, Macaneses: The Portuguese in China (Macau: International Institute of Macau, 2015). 15 On the history of Hong Kong’s South Asian population, see Barbara-Sue White, Turbans and Traders: Hong Kong’s Indian Communities (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1994). 16 A. W. Brewin, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1901’, Sessional Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council, 15 August 1901, p. 8. 17 John M. Carroll, Edge of Empires: Chinese Elites and British Colonials in Hong Kong (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), pp. 13–15; Jung-fang Tsai, Hong

Hong Kong and Multiracial Britishness

7

bourgeoisie had a Western outlook – although often they also remained rooted in Chinese culture and politics.18 They were English-educated, and were keen to participate in the wider social world.19 Their rise also coincided with the emergence of Portuguese and Indian public men within the local mercantile world, many of whom gained appointments in the colonial polity.20 These rising Asian urbanites represent a larger number of white-collar professionals and businessmen, who had wealth and ambitions, and were eager to carve their place in Hong Kong’s public world and break through the racial glass ceiling to their career and social paths. Within the white population, a professional class was also growing. The 1911 census recorded approximately 400 businessmen and professionals out of the 1,899 employed Europeans there.21 Although this number included some taipans (managers of major firms and banks) who, with their long-standing wealth and political power in the colony, were seen as the more traditional elites, many were in fact ‘younger’ professionals who were more interested in socialising with rising colonial subjects.22 Together these white and colonial professionals formed a new middle class in the colony, who were keen in participating in the public world beyond their own diasporas. Middle-class or not, many of Hong Kong’s multiracial inhabitants were British by law. And due to Hong Kong’s formal colonial status, Britishness was profoundly important for these residents. Being British entailed political, legal, and economic privileges. One needed British nationality to serve in the colonial administration and the city’s public world. A company needed a British subject to be its managing director if it wanted

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Kong in Chinese History: Community and Social Unrest in the British Colony, 1842–1913 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 97; Kaori Abe, Chinese Middlemen in Hong Kong’s Colonial Economy, 1830–1890 (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2018), especially Ch. 5. Representative cases include Sir Robert Hotung and Sir Robert Kotewall. More on their lives, see May Holdsworth, Sir Robert Hotung: Public Figure, Private Man (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2022); Christopher Cook, Robert Kotewall: A Man of Hong Kong (Cambridge: Ronald Zimmern, 2006). More on Chinese elites, also see Elizabeth Sinn’s seminal work: Elizabeth Sinn, Power and Charity: A Chinese Merchant Elite in Colonial Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2003). Catherine S. Chan, ‘Cosmopolitan Visions and Intellectual Passions: Macanese publics in British Hong Kong’, Modern Asian Studies, 56.1 (2022): 350–77. The 1911 census recorded 124 merchants, 38 doctors, dentists, and medical students, 18 bankers, 36 brokers, 22 architects, 4 surveyors, and 189 professionals in ‘legal, literary, educational, and religious’ industries of the ‘British, American, European, and Portuguese population’. Wodehouse, ‘Report on the census of the colony for 1911’, p. 47. Vivian Kong, ‘Exclusivity and Cosmopolitanism: Multi-ethnic Civil Society in interwar Hong Kong’, Historical Journal, 63.5 (2020): 1281–302.

8

Introduction: Hong Kong as a Site of Britishness

to operate within British jurisdiction in China.23 And tellingly, in Hong Kong’s most sought-after gentlemen’s club (the Hong Kong Club), one needed not only to be white, but also British to have voting rights.24 The colony provided incentives, a legal framework, and social practices to enable multiracial Britishness. Through the law, educational institutions, cultural initiatives, and civic associational culture, colonial subjects engaged with Britishness in Hong Kong. Some did so passively – as they were born in Hong Kong and hence a British subject by birth; as their schools made them sing God Save The King and celebrate the Empire Day; as they joined the local auxiliary forces with only the intention to carry a rifle home but ended up defending the British Empire from Japanese invasion; as being outwardly anti-British was hardly ever an option in a British colony.25 But many also made active claims to Britishness, not only for practicalities such as legal requirements, travel convenience, upward social mobility, and better career prospects, but also because they identified strongly with being ‘British’. White Britons found Britishness helpful too, as being ‘British’ entailed political, legal, and economic privileges – privileges that they worked hard to ensure other Europeans could not enjoy. Like their counterparts in British Asia, they often referred to themselves as ‘European’, using the term as a euphemism for an all-inclusive whiteness. While appearing friendly with other Europeans on paper, white Britons in Hong Kong were conscious about the line between themselves and their European counterparts. For many, other Europeans were job-stealers and Britain’s imperial rivals, and hence ought to be deprived of certain economic and social privileges – whether it was having the right to vote in their social club, or to serve in the Legislature, where more emerging colonial subjects were getting appointed. In the 1930s, anxieties about the economy and deteriorating international relations in Europe even drove some to go so far as to use terms such as ‘intruders’ and ‘penetration’ while discussing non-British Europeans in town, revealing a prejudice that saw other Europeans in town as a possible threat to the economy and security of the British Empire.26 23 ‘Notices No. 60: China (Companies) Amendment Order in Council, 1919’, in The Hong Kong Government Gazette, 30 January 1920, p. 59. 24 Vaudine England, Kindred Spirits: A History of the Hong Kong Club (Hong Kong: The Hong Kong Club, 2016), pp. 13 and 59. 25 A Portuguese resident Arthur Gomes joined ‘because it was a popular thing to do. You had a rifle which you could take home and you became a member of the Rifle Club’. See Interview with Arthur Ernesto Gomes by Imperial War Museum, 23 March 2001, interview 21131, reel 2, transcript, Imperial War Museum, as cited in Yap, ‘Portuguese Communities in East and Southeast Asia During the Japanese Occupation’, p. 207. 26 See, for instance, Major Cassel, ‘The League of British Whites’, Hongkong Telegraph, 12 August 1933, p. 11. This will also be further discussed in Chapter 2.

Hong Kong and Multiracial Britishness

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What can we gain by learning about these varied engagements that Hong Kong’s colonial society made with Britishness? These lived experiences are simply compelling, but further to this it also gives us a fascinating opportunity to tell a more nuanced, complex story of the making of Britishness. Admittedly not all of this is an untold story: historians have turned to the past to unlock what it means to be British today.27 We know the role that Britain’s imperial past played in the forging of Britishness.28 The presence of certain significant others – such as Europeans (especially the French), Catholics, and the racialised others in the expanding British Empire – prompted the formation of British identities in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.29 Encounters of British migrants with other cultures further enabled the development of Britishness beyond the British Isles.30 As historians pay more attention to the transmission of Britishness in the wider empire, one thing became clear: Britishness was never simply being imposed by those in Britain on overseas British communities, but negotiated between people in Britain and those in the empire.31 27

Examples include: Keith Robbins, Nineteenth-Century Britain: England, Scotland, and Wales – the Making of a Nation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989); Richard Weight, Patriots: National Identity in Britain, 1940–2000 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2002); Krishan Kumar, ‘Negotiating English Identity: Englishness, Britishness, and the future of the United Kingdom’, Nations and Nationalism, 16.3 (2010): 469–87. 28 Paul Ward, Britishness Since 1870 (London: Routledge, 2004); Catherine Hall, Civilizing Subjects: Metropole and Colony in the English Imagination 1830–1867 (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002). See also Catherine Hall and Keith McClelland, ‘Introduction’, in Race, Nation and Empire: Making Histories, 1750 to Present, edited by Catherine Hall and Keith McClelland (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010), pp. 1–12. 29 See Linda Colley, ‘Britishness and Otherness: An Argument’, Journal of British Studies, 31.4 (1992): 309–29; Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992). 30 Rachel Bright, ‘Asian Migration and the British World, c.1850–1914’, in Empire, Migration and Identity in the British World, edited by Kent Fedorowich and Andrew S. Thompson (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013), pp. 128–49; John Lambert, ‘“Tell England, Ye Who Pass This Monument”: English-Speaking South Africans, Memory and War Remembrance until the Eve of the Second World War’, South African Historian Journal, 66.4 (2014): 677–98; Stephan Constantine, ‘British Emigration to the Empire-Commonwealth since 1880: From Overseas Settlement to Diaspora?’, in The British World: Diaspora, Culture and Identity, pp. 16–35. More on the development of the British World framework and its impact on the historiography on Britishness, see Carl Bridge and Kent Fedorowich, ‘Mapping the British World’, in The British World: Diaspora, Culture and Identity, edited by Carl Bridge and Kent Fedorowich (London: Frank Cass, 2003), pp. 1–15; Kate Darian-Smith, Patricia Grimshaw, and Stuart Macintyre, ‘Introduction: Britishness Abroad’, in Britishness Abroad: Transnational Movements and Imperial Cultures (Carlton, Victoria: Melbourne University Press, 2007), pp. 1–16; Kent Fedorowich and Andrew S. Thompson, ‘Mapping the Contours of the British World: Empire, Migration, and Identity’, in Empire, Migration and Identity in the British World, edited by Kent Fedorowich and Andrew S. Thompson (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013), pp. 1–41. 31 Saul Dubow, ‘How British was the British World? The Case of South Africa’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 31.1 (2009): 1–27; Alan Lester, ‘Imperial Circuits

10

Introduction: Hong Kong as a Site of Britishness

We also know that colonial subjects in Asia and Africa had taken part in the making of British identities through education and other social practices.32 Through exploring their roles in the transmission of Britishness, we came to see that Britishness manifested in the colonial frontier in multiple, hyphenated forms. Sometimes the ways in which colonial subjects engaged with Britishness were visible and explicit33 – as noted in the case of the Straits Chinese in British Malaya.34 But often Britishness was subtly embedded in the lifestyle, culture, and even ideologies of the colonised.35 As historians shift the focus of the discussion on British identity and culture to the wider empire, we become clearer about how the hybridity of cultures in the colonial frontier enriched the meanings of being ‘British’. Britishness was not just a racial category, but a contested concept that ‘allows for multiple, compatible identities’.36 While historians have considered the possibilities for colonial subjects to claim a British subjectivity, we do tend to focus more on the primacy of race in determining the entitlements and usage of Britishness. The

32



33

34



35



36

and Networks: Geographies of the British Empire’, History Compass, 4.1 (2006): 1 ­ 21–41; Alan Lester, Imperial Networks: Creating Identities in Nineteenth-Century South Africa and Britain (London: Routledge, 2001); Bill Schwarz, The White Man’s World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); Charles V. Reed, Royal Tourists, Colonial Subjects and the Making of a British World, 1860–1911 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016). Vivian Bickford-Smith, ‘African Nationalist or British Loyalist? The Complicated Case of Tiyo Soga’, History Workshop Journal, 71.1 (2011): 74–97; Joseph Sramek, ‘Rethinking Britishness: Religion and Debates about the “Nation” among Britons in Company India, 1813–1857’, Journal of British Studies, 54.4 (2015): 882–43; Elizabeth Buettner, Empire Families: Britons and Late Imperial India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); Robert A. Bickers, Britain in China: Community Culture and Colonialism, 1900–1949 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999). Also see Bickers’s edited volume for the Oxford History of the British Empire series, Robert Bickers (ed.), Settlers and Expatriates: Britons Over The Seas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); Keith Watson, ‘Rulers and Ruled: Racial Perceptions, Curriculum and Schooling in Colonial and Singapore’, in The Imperial Curriculum: Racial Images and Education in the British Colonial Experience, edited by J. A. Mangan (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 147–74. David Killingray, ‘“A Good West Indian, a Good African, and, in Short, a Good Britisher”: Black and British in a Colour-Conscious Empire, 1760–1950’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 36.3 (2008): 363–81; Sukanya Banrjee, Becoming Imperial Citizens: Indians in the late-Victorian Empire (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010). Chua Ai Lin, ‘Imperial Subjects, Straits Citizens: Anglophone Asians and the Struggle for Political Rights in Inter-war Singapore’, in Paths Not Taken: Political Pluralism in PostWar Singapore, edited by Michael D. Barr and Carl A. Trocki (Singapore: NUS Press, 2008), pp. 16–36; Clive J. Christie, A Modern History of Southeast Asia: Decolonization, Nationalism and Separatism (London: I. B. Tauris, 1996), Ch. 2. Christian Høgsbjerg, ‘“We Lived According to the Tenets of Matthew Arnold”: Reflections on the ‘Colonial Victorianism’ of the Young C. L. R. James’, Twentieth Century British History, 24.2 (2013): 201–23; Hampton, Hong Kong and British Culture, esp. Ch. 6. Lynn Hollen Lees, ‘Being British in Malaya, 1890–1940’, Journal of British Studies, 48.1 (2009): 76–101.

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role that racism played in structuring colonial hierarchies often obscures us from seeing the subtle entanglements between colonial subjects and Britishness. The blurred distinctions between Britons and Europeans in the colonial context also distract us from considering the ways in which Britishness as a non-European identity translated to a colonial context. To a large extent, what was said in 2013 about research on Britishness being ‘uneven and/or perceived as overtly and overly “white” in its focus’ still holds.37 Understanding how the process of ‘othering’ shaped Britishness requires us to address the plurality of ‘others’ in the British Empire. We need to move beyond the binary discussion of relations between white Britons and one indigenous community. Living in the British Empire were subjects who spoke multiple languages, held multiple identities, and affiliated with multiple networks. If we agree that Britishness was an identity available to people of colour in the empire, and that crosscultural encounters between the ‘British’ and ‘others’ played an important role in shaping the fluidity and plurality of Britishness, then we also need to consider more fully the plurality of diasporas and cultures in the British Empire in order to understand multiracial Britishness. Studying the social world of urban Hong Kong in 1910–45 brings the development of multiracial Britishness into clearer view by putting the diverse inhabitants of the British Empire at the centre. Drawing from colonial records, newspapers, private papers, autobiographical writings, and oral history, this book recounts how those of different races in the colony understood the concept of being British and engaged with these conceptions based on their own needs and experiences. These included not only the Chinese and the British, but also the Portuguese, Eurasians, other Europeans, Indians, and so on. While we had often assumed that only a small number of Anglicised elites were concerned with Britishness, this book demonstrates the extent of engagements that colonial subjects in Hong Kong made with Britishness was much wider than we had previously understood. We will see how acquiring Britishness allowed people of colour to climb up the social ladder and even enter the colonial polity. We will also see how white Britons used Britishness to deprive some Europeans of access to certain social and political privileges. It is often assumed that whiteness mattered most in a colony like Hong Kong, but this book will demonstrate that Britishness played a crucial role in negotiating the racial lines of social demarcation. This is not to deny that racism played a substantial part in determining the availability of Britishness in the colony, but in 1910–45 Hong Kong, 37

Fedorowich and Thompson, ‘Mapping the Contours of the British World’, p. 4.

12

Introduction: Hong Kong as a Site of Britishness

one could still see the emergence of wider, multiracial engagements with notions of being British. This book will bring to light numerous occasions where the racist understanding of Britishness deprived British subjects of colour of the rights and protection that they were entitled to. Just to give some examples, we will see in Chapter 4 how, despite their legal status as British subjects, Portuguese doctors earned a salary that would only be a quarter of what their white colleagues also with British subjecthood would receive. We will also see in Chapter 1 how in 1937, Hong Kong officials denied British passports to two Hong Kong-born Chinese to prevent them travelling to work in their cousin’s laundry shop in England. In many such occasions, Britishness provided a framework for colonial hierarchy and social injustice. But this book will also uncover how Britishness existed as an inclusive national identity – one that motivated the Chinese, Eurasians, and the Portuguese to serve the British cause during the Second World War, as we will see in Chapter 6. We will also see how it was often a strategic tool that inhabitants of the British Empire used for their own convenience and survival, while at times it existed as a cultural attribute and a civic sensibility. Because being British meant different things for these urban residents, as they interacted with each other more frequently, their varied understanding of being British informed one another. Socialising with Asian professionals convinced some white Britons to see Britishness as something beyond a racial category that only their ‘kith and kin’ could possess. Working with colonial subjects who made irreplaceable contributions to Britain’s war efforts, some white Britons came to appreciate the loyalty of their colonial counterparts at an unprecedented level. Sometimes even interacting with those of the same race could affect how one viewed Britishness. On university campus, ethnic Chinese from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Malaya learnt not only Western knowledge and British values, but also how Britishness affected the identities of their diasporic counterparts. Debating in the press with those who defined British as a race, some white British journalists and readers educated fellow white Britons about the Britishness of colonial subjects. Existing alongside the narrowly defined, racialised understanding of Britishness was a significant discourse of inclusive, non-racial Britishness. The size of Hong Kong’s urban world attenuated the effects cross-​ cultural interactions left on Britishness. Urban Hong Kong was very much confined to Central, the small tip of land on the north shore of Hong Kong Island, captured in the street map we had looked at in the beginning of this book. This might seem odd, considering how the land just across the Victoria Harbour, the Kowloon Peninsula, had been incorporated into the colony since 1860. And indeed, land shortages

Hong Kong and Multiracial Britishness

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had driven some initiatives to urbanise southern Kowloon since the late 1890s. Rising property prices in the affluent neighbourhoods on Hong Kong Island also led many middle-class families to move into the newly developed residential area in Kowloon in the 1910s. Nevertheless, Hong Kong urban residents’ ties to Central remained strong. During the day, they came to Central for work and stayed on the island after work for its clubs, cinemas, shops, and restaurants. Getting home was easy. The ferry ride across the Victoria Harbour took only ten minutes, and even outside of the Star Ferry’s service time, motorboats called walla-wallas still waited by the harbour to take them across. And as mentioned above, Central was a very small place. As individuals who understood the concept of Britishness differently interacted with each other in this concentrated urban world, they were confronted acutely with the tensions between different notions of Britishness. In the following chapters, we will meet colonial subjects who were given little choice other than to accept the imperial belonging that the government imposed on them. But we will also meet many who made active choices to deploy their legal British status, and/or those who readily embraced cultural Britishness and considered it an important part of their form of selfhood. These included the urbanites who vocally promoted the discourse of imperial cosmopolitanism, and asserted with white Britons – in public speeches, in their civic engagements, and even in their private writing – that being British benefitted them and allowed them to pursue cosmopolitan agendas. As mentioned above, some engaged with Britishness for its functional utility, while others embraced and employed Britishness because they identified themselves as part of a wider community of Britishness and empire. There were also some who consciously rejected Britishness – either quietly or explicitly. These highly varied engagements with Britishness bring it to the forefront that there was no single way to express notions of being British – not even amongst those who had come from the same race, diaspora, class, and/or even the same family. But more importantly we will also study how those understanding and identifying with Britishness in such varying degrees interacted with each other. In telling this complex, nuanced story of the making of Britishness, this book avoids the pitfall of juxtaposing colonial subjects’ forms of selfhood into either being British or being Chinese/Portuguese (or any diasporic and/or racial identity they were labelled). I should note that in no way does this book attempt to determine whether one was ‘wholeheartedly’ British or not. Rather, my point is to highlight that Britishness exists in multiple, hyphenated forms and is often concurrently held with other forms of belonging and identification. Many of the individuals

14

Introduction: Hong Kong as a Site of Britishness

featured in this book were in fact ready and capable to operate in multiple national, social, and cultural frameworks. The lived experiences of these multiracial (and multicultural) subjects discussed here tell us not only when, how, and why one approached notions of Britishness, but also more importantly the compatibility of Britishness with other existing identities, and the problems and issues one faced in the acculturation process. Showing how Hong Kong’s diverse community embraced, used, and remade conceptions of Britishness based on their needs and experiences, this book serves as an important reminder that Britishness meant so much more than whiteness. It reminds us that multivalent interpretations of Britishness by colonial subjects are just as important to the forging of Britishness and imperial culture as those made by the British state and white Britons. Globalising Hong Kong History Thinking about multiracial Britishness in 1910–45 Hong Kong helps us know the city today better too. For one thing, it allows us to understand the impact that colonialism brought to its residents. As historical research moves beyond a post-colonial, nationalist agenda, we have noted how simplistic accounts of diasporas obstruct us from appreciating fully the complexity of diasporic identities. For instance, those in Sinophone Studies have suggested that instead of viewing overseas Chinese as one coherent group of geographically dispersed people bound by sentiment, culture, and history, we need to consider the different historical contexts that precipitated the particular identities developed amongst different Chinese communities.38 This book takes this suggestion further and considers how colonial laws and racial hierarchies shaped the social practices and identity formation of various diasporas in Hong Kong. These included not only the ethnic Chinese – Hong Kong Chinese, mainland Chinese, Australian Chinese, and Malayan C ­ hinese – but also the Portuguese and white Britons who began to question the ways in which others in their own diasporas defined national, racial, and diasporic identities. Exploring their engagements with Britishness, and the tensions and bitterness 38

On critique of this framework, see Adam McKeon, ‘Conceptualizing Chinese Diasporas, 1842 to 1949’, Journal of Asian Studies, 58.2 (1999): 306–37; Shu-mei Shih, ‘Against Diaspora: The Sinophone as Places of Cultural Production’, in Sinophone Studies: A Critical Reader, edited by Shu-mei Shih, Chien-hsin Tsai, and Brian Bernards (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), pp. 94–147; Ien Ang, ‘Can One Say No to Chineseness? Pushing the Limits of the Diasporic Paradigm’, in Sinophone Studies, pp. 190–239; Mark Ravinder Frost, ‘Emporium in Imperio: Nanyan Networks and the Straits Chinese in Singapore, 1819–1914’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 36.1 (2005): 29–66.

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that came with such engagements, this book explains the enduring marks that British colonialism left on social dynamics and identity formation in Hong Kong, and modern Asia more widely. This also helps us to restore agency to these historical actors. We used to assume that Hong Kong’s pre-war society cared little about the city, about being British, and about political participation. But this was far from the historical reality. We know that a particular sense of belonging to the city had emerged amongst certain diasporic societies well before the Second World War, but Multiracial Britishness shows that this belonging to Hong Kong was shared by more than we once believed.39 We will also see solid evidence where disparate segments across the colonial ­society – from war refugees and students, to doctors, businessmen, Freemasons, and Rotarians – engaged with Britishness to carve their own place within Hong Kong and the British Empire. They fought against racial and class hierarchies – albeit sometimes without success – for their rights and shaped local and international politics through civic organisations. Doing so makes us see how Hong Kong’s different communities engaged with each other. While historians used to see only divides and divisions in the social worlds of colonial Asia, today we are as likely to find cross-cultural interactions.40 Colonialism created and hardened ethnic divides, but it also provided spaces of interactions, where clear-cut distinctions of race broke down and inter-cultural contacts took place.41 In colonial Hong Kong, laws and policies constructed and maintained the stark divisions between the multiple and diverse diasporas. We know how communities all had ‘a place of their own’ even in associational culture.42 39

John Carroll’s work has illuminated the emergence of a local identity amongst the Chinese and Eurasian bourgeoisie class in the colony, and my earlier work has also explored how some white Britons in Hong Kong have developed a strong sense of belonging to Hong Kong. See John M. Carroll, Edge of Empires: Chinese Elites and British Colonials in Hong Kong (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005); John M. Carroll, ‘Colonialism, Nationalism, and Difference: Reassessing the Role of Hong Kong in Modern Chinese History’, The Chinese Historical Review, 13. 1 (2006): 92–104; Vivian Kong, ‘“Hong Kong is my Home”: The 1940 Evacuation and Hong KongBritons’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 47.3 (2019): 542–67. 40 On earlier narratives that tend to emphasize the racial divides in colonial Asia, see J. S. Furnivall, Netherlands India: A Study of Plural Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1944); J. S. Furnivall, Colonial Policy and Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948), pp. 304–5. 41 A growing body of empirical studies has shown that colonial port cities in Southeast Asia provided important arenas for cross-cultural interactions to take place. For some examples, see Tim Harper, ‘Empire, Diaspora, and the Languages of Globalism, 1850–1914’, in Globalization in World History, edited by A. G. Hopkins (London: W. W. Norton, 2002), pp. 141–66; Su Lin Lewis, ‘Rotary International’s “acid test”: multi-ethnic associational life in 1930s Southeast Asia’, Journal of Global History, 7.2 (2012): 302–24. 42 See, for instance, Carroll, Edge of Empires, especially Chapter 4.

16

Introduction: Hong Kong as a Site of Britishness

White Britons had the Hong Kong Club, the Hong Kong Cricket Club, and the Yacht Club to distance themselves from the colonial population, while well-off Asians also created an equally exclusive social space for themselves. The Portuguese had Club Lusitano and Club de Recreio, and the wealthy Chinese and Eurasians had the Chinese Club and the Chinese Recreation Club. But this book will argue that underneath the pervasive racial divisions and distinctions were many subtle interactions between disparate segments of the colonial society. The colony functioned as a ‘meeting place’ for those of different diasporas to engage with one another.43 The ‘sites of interactions’ that I draw from include schools, press debates, civic associations, political groups, and war refugee journeys.44 Through these sites, we see a variety of underexamined encounters and interactions – including those between the British state and colonial subjects in Hong Kong; between Britons and other Europeans; amongst internationalist white Britons and emerging colonial subjects; and within communities of colonial subjects who identified with being ‘British’ to significantly varying degrees. Highlighting the diversity of historical actors in this story helps us uncover Hong Kong’s global connections. Many of these individuals operated within the imperial career and mercantile networks in the British Empire.45 A significant number operated in the trade, professional, and press networks of the Chinese treaty port world.46 But many actually 43

I owe this term to Elizabeth Sinn and Chris Munn, whose recent edited volume brought to light a diverse set of cross-cultural interactions and challenged the earlier assumption that saw Hong Kong as simply a place of ‘East meets West’. Elizabeth Sinn and Christopher Munn (eds.), Meeting Place: Encounters Across Cultures in Hong Kong, 1841–1984 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2017). 44 In an edited volume, Tim Harper and Sunil Amrith have called for historians to consider the sites of Asian interactions. They hoped that a focus on the space of interactions – whether real or virtual – could encourage us to underscore the complex forms of diasporic interactions in Asia, and their impacts on identity formation. See Tim Harper and Sunil Amrith, ‘Introduction’, in Sites of Asian Interactions: Ideas, Network and Mobility, edited by Tim Harper and Sunil Amrith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 1–9. 45 Many Hong Kong Britons had operated within the British imperial career networks mapped out in these works: David Lambert and Alan Lester, ‘Introduction: Imperial Spaces, Imperial Subjects’, in Colonial Lives across the British Empire: Imperial Careering in the Long Nineteenth Century, edited by David Lambert and Alan Lester (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 1–31; Catherine Ladds, Empire Careers: Working for the Chinese Customs Service, 1854–1949 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013). 46 See Hoi-to Wong, ‘Interport Printing Enterprise: Macanese Printing Networks in Chinese Treaty Ports’, in Treaty Ports in Modern China: Law, Land and Power, edited by Robert Bickers and Isabella Jackson (London: Routledge, 2016), 139–57; Douglas Fix, ‘The Global Entanglements of a Marginal Man in Treaty Port Xiamen’, in Treaty Ports in Modern China, 158–78. On Asian port cities, see Ho, The Graves of Tarim;

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came from beyond the borders of the British Empire and China. Featured most prominently in this book are the Portuguese from Macau, alongside the non-British Europeans, including the Germans and Russians. Locating them in the discourse of Britishness in the colony shows us how Hong Kong was a place where various mobilities converged. This gives us a timely opportunity to rethink Hong Kong’s place within history. As many have proven before, Hong Kong can certainly help us understand British imperialism in Asia. The value of using Hong Kong as a point of inquiry to understand modern China is also evident. Though rarely studied alongside Chinese treaty ports, the colony offers us a valuable lens through which to understand how the treaty port networks operated, and how foreign imperial presence shaped Chinese identities after 1842. But it is just as important for us to view Hong Kong as its own cultural–historical place.47 In the past decade or so, more historians have explored the city’s historic connections beyond China and the British Empire – especially that between Hong Kong and North America.48 In highlighting how Hong Kong’s connections transcended the borders of the British Empire and the South China coast, Multiracial Britishness joins the league of these historians. More importantly, it highlights the value that approaches of global history bring to Hong Kong history. The period I am focusing on, 1910–45, is more generally associated with the proliferation of national chauvinism and the hardening of racial categories, though recent research has suggested that amidst intensifying exclusivity was the growing prominence of cosmopolitanism.49 Hong Kong’s global networks made it receptive to international socio-political trends. For one thing, Chinese nationalism triggered a series of civil unrests in Hong Kong between 1910 and  1941.50 The colony’s press network also charged residents there with nationalist ideals prevalent in Europe – especially Britain. Like newspapers in the British World, English-language newspapers in Hong Kong often reprinted reports, editorials, and correspondence from

47



48



49



50



Sunil S. Amrith, Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013). John M. Carroll, ‘Colonial Hong Kong as a Cultural-Historical Place’, Modern Asian Studies, 40.2 (2006): 517–43. Sinn, Pacific Crossing; Peter E. Hamilton, Made in Hong Kong: Transpacific Networks and a New History of Globalisation (New York: Columbia University Press, 2021). Su Lin Lewis, Cities in Motion: Urban Life and Cosmopolitanism in Southeast Asia, 1920–40 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). See Chan Wai Kwan, The Making of Hong Kong Society: Three Studies of Class Formation in early Hong Kong (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), especially pp. 145–92; Ming K. Chan, ‘Labor and Empire: The Chinese Labor Movement in the Canton Delta, 1895–1927’. PhD Thesis, Stanford University, 1975.

18

Introduction: Hong Kong as a Site of Britishness

British newspapers, giving its Anglophone reading public exposure to views prevalent amongst the reading publics in Britain and the British World.51 As the Great Depression made many in Britain turn to economic protectionism, talks of ‘Buy British’ and ‘Hire British’ filled the public discourse in 1930s-Hong Kong.52 Racial exclusivity also took much prevalence there. The timeframe of this book witnessed white Britons there making some of their strongest lobbying for the government to enforce racial segregation.53 And like in mainland China, Chinese racial nationalism had its effects in Hong Kong.54 Many came to understand Chinese national identity being a race-based, Han-dominated notion, leaving a tremendous effect on the social dynamics on the local Chinese and Eurasian communities.55 Meanwhile, like other Asian port cities, cosmopolitanism was not only a vision, but a practice experienced by many in twentieth-century Hong Kong.56 The civic movements of Protestant pacifism, Rotary, and Freemasonry instilled urban residents there with the rhetoric of civic internationalism and liberalism, allowing modes of wider and more inclusive belongings to develop. Solidarity grew between urbanites of different races as they participated in the local civil society. The global rise of 51

See Simon J. Potter, News and the British world: The Emergence of an Imperial Press System (1876–1922) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). 52 Forrest Capie, Depression & Protectionism: Britain Between the Wars (London: Routledge, 2003). On how economic protectionism in the English-speaking public discourse in interwar Hong Kong, see Vivian Kong, ‘Whiteness, Imperial Anxiety and the “Global 1930s”: The White British League Debate in Hong Kong’, Journal of British Studies, 59.2 (2020): 343–71. 53 See, for instance, the laws passed to ensure even the richest Chinese and Eurasians could not move into European neighbourhoods. G. Alex Bremner, and David P. Y. Lung, ‘Spaces of Exclusion: the Significance of Cultural Identity in the Formation of European Residential Districts in British Hong Kong, 1877–1904’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 21.2 (2003): 238–9; John M. Carroll, ‘The Peak: Residential Segregation in Colonial Hong Kong’, in Twentieth-Century Colonialism and China: Localities, the Everyday and the World, edited by Bryna Goodman and David S. G. Goodman (London: Routledge, 2012), pp. 81–91. 54 More on the construction and articulation of racial nationalism in twentieth-century China, see Frank Dikötter’s seminal texts on the topic. Frank Dikötter, ‘Culture, “Race” and Nation: The Formation of National Identity in Twentieth Century China’, Journal of International Affairs, 49.2 (1996): 590–605; Frank Dikötter, The Discourse of Race in Modern China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992). 55 See Teng, Eurasians, Ch. 8. 56 On works that examine cosmopolitanism in Asian port cities, see, for instance, Lewis, Cities in Motion; Mark Ravinder Frost, ‘In Search of Cosmopolitan Discourse: A Historical Journey Across the Indian Ocean from Singapore to South Africa, 1870– 1920’, in Eyes Across the Water: Navigating the Indian Ocean, edited by Pamila Gupta, Isabel Hofmeyr and Michael Pearson (Pretoria, Unisa Press, 2010), pp. 75–96; Chua Ai Lin, ‘Nation, Race, and Language: Discussing Transnational Identities in 1930s Colonial Singapore’, Modern Asian Studies, 46.2 (2012): 283–302.

Globalising Hong Kong History

19

political consciousness and reforms prompted many to participate in local politics, leading to the founding of the Constitutional Reform Associations and the Kowloon Residents’ Association in the 1910s, Hong Kong’s first political organisations. Understanding engagements with Britishness in Hong Kong then requires us to pay great attention to global developments and ideologies. We will therefore examine how and when the trends of ethno-nationalism and cosmopolitanism interplayed with each other, and how such interplays informed expressions of Britishness there. Both trends militated against each other, and tensions between exclusivity and cosmopolitanism characterised much of Hong Kong’s public world throughout the 1910s to 1940s. Even though cosmopolitanism encouraged the development of inclusive modes of being British, rising nationalism and embedded racism in the colonial hierarchy often acted as an insurmountable obstacle. Although some white Britons began to see colonial subjects as ‘British’, such inclusivity was often only to a limited, if not superficial, extent, giving colonial subjects little confidence about the interracial friendships they so very hoped to build. These multiracial subjects will serve as our guides through a global history of exclusivity and cosmopolitanism. Tracing how ethno-nationalism shaped the transmission of Britishness, we can decentre existing discussion of interwar national and racial exclusivity – events more often associated with ‘the West’ – from Europe and America. But examining the inclusive discourse of non-racial Britishness also helps us see how the global civic culture and cosmopolitan sensibilities operated in the colony. Hundreds, if not thousands, made exhaustive efforts to make their local and international communities a better place. And even when their hope to build interracial friendship in social clubs fell through in the early 1920s, multiracial social spaces persisted throughout interwar Hong Kong. Similarly, as some made exclusionary proposals to deprive other Europeans and colonial subjects of certain economic and social rights, readers and journalists took to the correspondence columns to militate against such exclusivity. In exploring how urbanites constantly battled (sometimes unsuccessfully) against notions of exclusivity prevalent in Hong Kong’s public sphere, this book shows vividly how global ideological trends converged in colonial Asia and affected local societies. In doing so, we will also come to view the history of Asian cosmopolitanism with new lights, by reflecting on the limits of cosmopolitanism and civic culture in urban Asia. Viewing Hong Kong through the lens of global history helps us challenge the arbitrary boundaries of area studies. Exploring the city’s diasporic networks, civil society, press debates, and educational institutions

20

Introduction: Hong Kong as a Site of Britishness

makes it clear that Hong Kong does not fit within the discrete borders of regions that we often use to study Asia. Usually considered a part of East Asia, the city has rarely been discussed as part of Southeast Asia. But the 1931 census recorded that at least 892 of the Chinese living in the colony were from Malaya, with 475 from Indo-China, 194 from the Dutch East Indies, 130 from Siam, 71 from the Philippines, and 49 from Borneo.57 It is important to note that this number is unlikely to have captured the steady, extensive flow of Chinese labourers, as well as businessmen and professionals who travelled from mainland China through Hong Kong to Southeast Asia (and vice versa). This book focuses on some of these historical actors and illuminated how they operated within the Southeast Asia traffic of people, ideologies, information, and money, and how Hong Kong served as an important node of this traffic. These included the hundreds of students at the University of Hong Kong from the Straits Settlements. Living in Hong Kong also enabled these overseas Chinese to connect further with their so-called ‘motherland’ – mainland China. We will see how Malayan Chinese students at HKU became more interested in China’s development in Chapter 3 and how some went to live in China during the Second World War in Chapter 6. Recent research has started to reflect on how we might make sense of the interconnectedness of various Asian regions – such as South and Southeast Asia – and the productivity of thinking beyond the boundaries of area studies.58 This book expands on this enquiry, and it highlights the role that Hong Kong served as an important link that connected Southeast Asia with East Asia and the wider Asia-Pacific. It opens up new discussion on how we might situate Hong Kong within various sub-disciplines of area studies of Asia. Plan of the Book This book consists of six major chapters. Each asks different questions about the meaning, understanding, usage, and problems of Britishness, the tensions between identities, and the practice of cosmopolitanism in colonial Asia. In Chapter 1, we will look at the legal framework that enabled Hong Kong’s multiracial residents to engage with Britishness. British nationality laws before 1948 codified the universal status of British subject for all those born and naturalised in Hong Kong. Yet, immigration cases and census reports show that the racial presumption that 57

1931 Census, p. 128. 58 Sunil S. Amrith, ‘Tamil Diasporas across the Bay of Bengal’, American Historical Review, 114.3 (2009): 547–72; Sunil S. Amrith, ‘Indian Overseas? Governing Tamil Migration to Malaya 1870–1941’, Past & Present, 208.1 (2010): 231–61.

Plan of the Book

21

people of colour could not be fully British prevented British officials from honouring their legal status. They often denied colonial subject access to their legal entitlements as British subjects. Nevertheless, colonial subjects in Hong Kong became increasingly aware of their British status, and some even made active claims to their rights. In examining this paradox, we will investigate when, why, by whom, and to what extent legal Britishness was recognised and deployed. These questions will lead us to consider how nationality and citizenship were understood in an era when such concepts remained relatively new. In Britain, being ‘British’ has often been considered as the opposite of being European, but the specific function of whiteness in colonial societies have distracted us from considering how Britishness as a non-European identity translated to the wider empire. In Chapter 2, I address this issue, and consider how white Britons in Hong Kong articulated Britishness, and the ways in which they viewed British subjects of colour and other non-British Europeans in the empire. Drawing from colonial policies, social practices, and public discussions, it shows how white Britons there were conscious in distancing themselves from the wider European population, though at times their attitude towards colonial subjects became more inclusive. Global political and economic crises in the 1930s made Britishness not only a racial category, but also a national identity that also included people of colour in the empire. We then move on to consider the possibilities and challenges for colonial subjects to acquire Britishness. In Chapter 3, we focus on the experience of ethnic Chinese students at the University of Hong Kong, and we examine how British colonial presence shaped Chinese diasporas in the twentieth century. Founded with the agenda to advance British imperial interests in China, the University promised to educate Chinese students with Western knowledge and British values and steer them away from Chinese nationalism. Through student magazines and memoirs, we will explore how the indoctrination of cultural Britishness left visible social effects on students of various Chinese diasporas, and shaped the way they responded to anticolonial movements. Through a top-down and bottom-up approach, we will see how colonial education gave birth to a non-radicalism in Hong Kong amidst rising nationalism in the Global South. From West Indies and British Malaya we learnt that colonial subjects often took both active and passive roles in acquiring Britishness, but our knowledge about the ramifications for people of colour to become British remains limited.59 In Chapter 4, I turn to the Portuguese community 59

Keith Watson, ‘Rulers and Ruled: Racial Perceptions, Curriculum, and Schooling in Colonial Malaya and Singapore’, in The Imperial Curriculum: Racial Images and Education

22

Introduction: Hong Kong as a Site of Britishness

in Hong Kong and investigate how newly acquired Britishness interacted with the existing identifications and identities of colonial subjects. Schooling in multiracial English-medium Catholic schools, civic engagements, and public service amounted to a long acculturation process that gave Hong Kong Portuguese an attachment to imperial belongings and cultural Britishness. But this attachment came at a price. With oral history, private manuscripts, and newspapers, I uncover the tensions that acquiring Britishness brought to the community. On the one hand, the British polity rejected the idea of Hong Kong Portuguese being British. On the other, some Portuguese deemed the Hong Kong Portuguese as becoming too British, and the latter faced a backlash within the wider Portuguese diaspora in South China. Associational culture played an integral role in the transmission of Britishness beyond the British Isles. In British India, for instance, social clubs provided an arena for white Britons to assert their respectability while also allowing the transmission of Britishness to a selected group of colonial subjects.60 We know relatively less about the agency of colonial subjects in this reproduction process, and how cosmopolitan sensibilities came into play. In Chapter 5, I focus on Hong Kong’s multiracial civil society and explore how middle-class urbanites there actively used civic associational culture to define and perform Britishness. I will focus on five voluntary societies with very different purpose and agenda: the international networks of Freemasonry and the Rotary Club, as well as the League of Fellowship, the Hongkong Eugenics League, and the Kowloon Residents’ Association. In so doing I demonstrate how urbanites used public culture to define Britishness as a cosmopolitan belonging. Japanese occupation of British Asia challenged British prestige at an unprecedented scale, but what the War challenged about Britishness was far beyond the myth of white supremacy. Chapter 6 draws on the interactions between the state and Hong Kong’s colonial British subjects to explain how the practicalities of the Second World War took many away from the insularity of cosmopolitanism in pre-war Hong Kong. The War magnified the systematic discriminations that colonial subjects faced, shattering the inclusive notions of Britishness developed earlier. in the British Colonial Experience, edited by J. A. Mangan (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 147–74; Siew-Min Sai, ‘Educating Multicultural Citizens: Colonial Nationalism, Imperial Citizenship, and Education In Late Colonial Singapore’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 44.1 (2013): 49–73; Rush, Bonds of Empire. 60 See Tanja Bueltmann, Clubbing Together: Ethnicity, Civility and Formal Sociability in the Scottish Diaspora to 1930 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2014); Benjamin B. Cohen, In the Club: Associational Life in Colonial South Asia (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015).

Plan of the Book

23

Cosmopolitan notions of Britishness indeed manifested in British assistance to HKU students in unoccupied China, and it encouraged some colonial subjects to identify more strongly with Britishness. On the other hand, many saw more vividly than ever the unfairness of British imperialism and questioned their engagement with Britishness altogether. As the cruel practicalities of war brought to light the fragility of the rhetoric of imperial cosmopolitanism, it also put the diverse forms of Britishness articulated in pre-war Hong Kong to a severe test. **** What constitutes Britishness is as much a debate today as it was in colonial Hong Kong. In focusing on a site that has largely eluded the discussion on Britishness, we will gain fresh perspective on the fluidity of British identities. In the following, we will explore why and how Hong Kong residents approached various notions of being British, and we examine their negotiation with Britishness and its implications on their diasporic, urban, and national identities. But more broadly we will also think about how the global dispersion of cosmopolitanism and notions of exclusivity affected social dynamics in colonial Asia. Even in an era generally associated with the hardening of identities, Britishness was understood not only as a racial category, but also as a multivalent concept with which its inhabitants actively engaged. Pondering the varied notions of Britishness in 1910–45 Hong Kong helps us to understand identities and social dynamics in contemporary Hong Kong, but it also helps us to unravel what it means to be British today. But to do so, we will first examine how the law made multiracial Britishness possible in colonial Hong Kong.

1

British by Law

What does it mean to be British? This question yields different answers to different people, though legal and administrative procedures can offer us a useful lens through which to reconstruct how government officials and intellectual elites understood and shaped the concept of n ­ ationality.1 In British Hong Kong, the law provides a seemingly straightforward answer. When Captains Edward Belcher and Charles Elliot landed on Hong Kong Island in 1841, they issued a proclamation declaring that, as Hong Kong Island would now ‘become part of the dominions of the Queen of England’, ‘all native persons residing therein must understand, that they are now subjects of the Queen of England’.2 As Hong Kong formally became a Crown Colony of the British Empire in 1843, all those born and naturalised in its territories – regardless of their p ­ arentage  – were British by law. But not all knew they were British. For instance, Ahlow Lowing, a Hong Kong-born Chinese who had lived in England since 1910, applied in 1937 to the Home Office for naturalisation because he was unaware of his British status. The Home Office and the Colonial Office in London were as confused about his status as Lowing was. They had to conduct an ‘exhaustive’ search in the Map Room in Whitehall and correspond with authorities in Hong Kong before they could confirm that Lowing was a British subject by birth, hence no need for naturalisation.3 Lowing’s confusion about his legal status was in no way an exception: we can 1

A body of literature has successfully used laws and administrative procedures around nationality law to understand the development and understanding of the concept of nationality, see John C. Torpey, The Invention of the Passport: Surveillance, Citizenship, and the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Ferruccio Pastore, ‘A Community Out of Balance: Nationality Law and Migration Politics in the History of Post-unification Italy’, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 9.1 (2004): 27–48; Shao Dan, ‘Chinese by Definition: Nationality Law, Jus Sanguinis, and State Succession, 1909–1980’, Twentieth-Century China, 35.1 (2009): 4–28. 2 No. 3 of Art. X, ‘Journal of Occurrences; Commercial Business; Negotiations; Cession of Hongkong; Treaty; Chusan; Public Affairs’, The Chinese Repository, Vol. X (1841), p. 64. 3 CO 129/560/10, Internal Correspondence by P. Rogers, 14 June 1937.

24

British Subjects and British Citizens

25

find more individuals who were unaware of their British subjecthood in historical records. Neither did many know that as British subjects, people of colour in Hong Kong – just like white Britons – were entitled to the rights of entry to and abode in Britain. Such ignorance had much to do with how little colonial authorities there recognised this Britishness by law. Just as elsewhere in the British Empire, Hong Kong’s colonial government racialised the colony’s population and used their conception of race to categorise the colony’s population. Racial prejudice motivated state officials to work to ensure colonial subjects had only limited knowledge and access to their legal rights as British subjects. Race was effectively the paramount category in pre-war Hong Kong’s colonial society, overriding the legal Britishness of colonial subjects there. But even so, the archives recorded a notable few who still made exhaustive effort to make claims to this legal status. And in 1931, 83,194 individuals were reported in the census as British subjects.4 This was 9 per cent of the civic population in the colony: why did these 83,194 people make claim to their British status, when most of the eligible population did not? To what extent did this Britishness by law matter? And more widely, what did being a British subject mean? To answer these questions, we will explore the understanding and deployment of British nationality in interwar Hong Kong in this chapter. We will draw from immigration files, census reports and other official publications to examine how even though official conceptions of race undermined the legal Britishness of Hong Kong’s colonial subjects, some went through considerable trouble to make active claims to British subjecthood. British Subjects and British Citizens Nationality defines one’s formal relationship with the state. Citizenship denotes such a relationship, in addition to a set of rights and obligations.5 National identity affects these two concepts, for it determines the attributes deemed to be commonly shared by those belonging to the state. Historians have been keen to understand how the rise of nationstates since the late eighteenth century prompted notions of citizenship to overlay existing identities.6 With its extensive and multiethnic empire, 4

William James Carrie, ‘Report on the census of the Colony of Hong Kong taken on the night of March 7, 1931’, Sessional Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong 1931, p. 133. 5 See Engin F. Isin and Patricia K. Wood, Citizenship and Identity (London: Sage, 1999). 6 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso: 2016).

26

British by Law

Britain and its nationality laws have received much interest, though Britain stands as an odd case in the legal history of nationality and citizenship.7 By the turn of the twentieth century, the concept of citizenship was already well established in countries such as Germany and France.8 On the contrary, it was only ‘confusedly developed’ in Britain. With its roots dating back to medieval England, the principle of jus soli (‘the right of soil’) stood at the heart of British nationality laws, making one’s birthplace the most important criterion determining their legal relationship with the British state. Under the feudal system, anyone born in a certain land owed the landlord allegiance; by this principle, with the land being the most important component of the state, anyone born in the land of a state owed the monarch – the chief landlord – allegiance.9 Those born within the dominion of the crown were thus natural-born subjects. When the English kingdom became Britain in 1707, jus soli continued to be the backbone of British nationality law. Individuals born within the territory of the British Empire, regardless of their ancestry, were entitled to the status of British subjects. The British Nationality Act of 1772 stated that those born abroad to a British father were to become naturalborn British subjects.10 After successive naturalisation acts were passed in 1844, 1847, and 1870, those born abroad to a non-British father could also acquire the status of British subject. For the first time in the history of English common law, the Naturalization Act of 1870 introduced administrative procedures for naturalisation. Meanwhile, it also codified situations where one could lose their British nationality: when a female British subject married a foreign man, they would cease to be a British subject.11 The 1914 British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act further institutionalised five ways in which one could acquire British subjecthood: birth within the Crown’s dominions, naturalisation in either the United Kingdom or a part of the Crown’s dominions, descent through a legitimate male line, marriage to male British subjects, and reapplying after formerly losing British subjecthood because of marriage or parents’ loss of British status.12 The Act also outlined the circumstances under 7 For a seminal text on the development of British nationality and immigration law, see Ann Dummet and Andrew Nicol, Subjects, Citizens, Aliens and Others: Nationality and Immigration Law (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1990). Also J. Mervyn Jones, British Nationality Law and Practice (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1947). 8 Rogers Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994). 9 Dummett and Nicol, Subjects, Citizens, Aliens, and Others, p. 22. 10 British Nationality Act of 1772, 13 GEO III c21. 11 Laurie Fransman, Fransman’s British Nationality Law (London: Fourmat, 1989). 12 British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act, 1914, 4 & 5 Geo. V, c. 17.

British Subjects and British Citizens

27

which one would lose British subjecthood: when one became naturalised in a foreign state; when one renounced British status; when a child’s father lost their British status; and when a British woman married a foreign man. If we put this legislation into the context of the British Empire, the principle of jus soli became even more significant, as it allowed all those born and naturalised within the Crown’s dominions to be British subjects, regardless of their ancestry.13 Although British legislation defined who could be British, it did not fully establish the rights and obligations that accompanied this status, leaving complicated implications for the multiethnic subjects who lived across Britain’s extensive empire.14 While the principle of jus soli determined the common nationality status of British subjects, racial thinking determined the legal rights that one could enjoy as a British subject. Driven by anxieties about a religious, racial, and cultural ‘other’ – especially those who were not Christians – a series of aliens legislations were enacted in twentieth-century Britain. These laws abrogated the principle of jus soli, making British citizenship deviate from British nationality. The mass migration of Jews between 1882 and 1905 into Britain coincided with the increasingly intensive imperial rivalry between Britain and other European powers since the 1870s. That Britain suffered from such economic and political competition drove the British public to become more exclusivist. Highly cognizant of racial notions and protectionist ideals, Britons stressed the ‘otherness’ of immigrant Jews and many started in the 1880s to lobby for restrictions on Jewish immigration into Britain.15 This resulted in the legislation passed in 1905 and 1914 to restrict both the number of aliens migrating into Britain and the rights of aliens already in Britain.16 The 1919 Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act further restricted immigration and denied naturalised subjects of former ‘enemy’ states the political rights to serve in the British government 13 Karatini, Defining British Citizenship, pp. 39–62. 14 David Cesarani, ‘The Changing Character of Citizenship and Nationality in Britain’, in Citizenship, Nationality and Migration in Europe, edited by David Cesarani and Mary Fulbrook (London: Routledge, 1996), pp. 57–73, at p. 58; also stated in A. Martin Wainwright, ‘The Better Class’ of Indians: Social Rank, Imperial Identity and South Asians in Britain, 1858–1914 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008), p. 100. 15 On the popular discussion of Jewish immigration and its impact on the laws that defined British nationality and citizenship, see Cesarani, ‘The Changing Character of Citizenship and Nationality in Britain’, and David Cesarani, ‘An Alien Concept? Antialienism in Britain before 1940’, in The Internment of Aliens in Twentieth-Century Britain, edited by David Cesarani and Tony Kushner (London: Frank Cass, 1993), pp. 25–52; Sharman Kadish, Bolsheviks and British Jews (London: Frank Cass, 1992). 16 Panikos Panayi, The Enemy in Our Midst: Germans in Britain during the First World War (Oxford: Berg, 1991).

28

British by Law

and sit on juries, however long they had been British subjects.17 This Act codified a difference in the political rights to which British subjects of different backgrounds were entitled. In other words, while the law granted all those within the Crown’s dominions a universal legal status, in practice the rights this legal status endorsed differed. Based on racial assumptions that British subjects of ‘non-British’ parents could never be fully British, aliens legislation in Britain declared that such British subjects were to enjoy significantly less rights than British subjects of a perceived unquestionable British background. Equally important in the shaping of these ideas was Britain’s empire.18 Concerned with the future of the empire, metropolitan politicians and intellectuals in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century sought to create an imperial citizenship, so that the law would help forge a sense of belonging shared by Britain’s imperial subjects.19 Before 1948, by law all British subjects were entitled to British documentation, British protection in foreign territories, and rights of entry and abode in the United Kingdom. Colonial subjects made active claims to these rights: in the late-Victorian era, Indians made active claims to not only British subjecthood, but also imperial citizenship before the rise of Indian nationalist movements.20 In reality, racial presumptions often eroded the rights that people of colour born in Britain’s overseas empire could enjoy. For one, British officials set their mind against the permanent settlement of people of colour – British subjects or not – in Britain. Precisely because the authorities had no legal ground to exclude those who held British subjecthood from entering Britain, they employed an ‘undeclared immigration policy’ to restrict the settlement of colonial subjects. In 1823, for instance, the discharge of Asian seafarers in Britain was forbidden, even when such seafarers were British subjects.21 Likewise, fearing the 17 Cesarani, ‘An Alien Concept?’, p. 39. More on the 1919 Aliens Act, see Colin Holmes, John Bull’s Island: Immigration and British Society, 1871–1971 (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1992), p. 112. 18 Randall Hansen, Citizenship and Immigration in Postwar Britain: The Institutional Foundations of a Multicultural Nation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); Kathleen Paul, Whitewashing Britain: Race and Citizenship in the Postwar Era (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1997); M. Page Baldwin, ‘Subject to Empire: Married Women and the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act’, Journal of British Studies, 40.4 (2001): 522–56; Evan Smith and Marinella Marmo, Race, Gender and the Body in British Immigration Control: Subject to Examination (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2014). 19 Daniel Gorman, Imperial Citizenship: Empire and the Question of Belonging (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006); Reiko Karatani, Defining British Citizenship: Empire, Commonwealth and Modern Britain (London: Frank Class Publishers, 2003). 20 Sukanya Banerjee, Becoming Imperial Citizens: Indians in the Late-Victorian Empire (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010). 21 Gregor Benton and Edmund Terence Gomez, The Chinese in Britain, 1800–Present: Economy, Transnationalism, Identity (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), p. 68.

British Subjects and British Citizens

29

reoccurrence of the disturbances of 1919, during which collective racial violence occurred across Britain and caused five deaths and many injuries, the British government was keen to prevent ‘undesirable’ British subjects – especially Africans and Asians – from entering the country in the interwar years. As such, the Home Office applied various measures to stop these subjects from settling in the United Kingdom. African seamen, for instance, were put under a separate registration system to prevent them from moving into other employment. Whitehall officials also made clear instructions to their colonial counterparts to avoid issuing travel documents to British subjects who were people of colour – particularly to those with less financial means – so to deny them the means to travel to and settle in Britain.22 For instance, before being granted a passport to travel, illiterate or unskilled Indian British subjects had to obtain a sponsor in Britain whose accountability would be checked by the police.23 Outside of Britain, institutional discrimination against colonial subjects was too formidable to miss. In India, British subjects of Indian ancestry were denied entry into the Indian civil service, commission in the Indian army, and equality before the law, whereas white Britons had access to such rights.24 In the White Dominions, legislation passed around the turn of the early twentieth century denied Asian and African British subjects the rights of entry and abode in white settlers’ colonies such as South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.25 Even though some imperial activists and ideologues had constructed a vision of a shared imperial citizenship for all British subjects, the fact that the British state and the British public had neither the practical ability nor the willingness – especially with the rise of colonial nationalism – to veto colonial legislation made such an ideal impractical.26 Eventually, the British government enacted the 1914 British Nationality Act, which, on the one hand, codified a universal status of British subjecthood for all inhabitants of the dominions and colonies that owed allegiance to the British Crown, and on the other, stated that not all British subjects had the right of entry into a particular dominion or colony. In other words, British subjecthood was only a common nationality status, but not a 22

Ian R. G. Spencer, British Immigration Policy since 1939: The Making of Multi-Racial Britain (New York: Routledge, 1997), p. 9. 23 Spencer, British Immigration Policy since 1939, pp. 9–13. 24 Wainwright, ‘The Better Class’ of Indians, p. 102. 25 See R. A. Huttenback, ‘The British Empire as a “White Man’s Country” – Racial Attitudes and Immigration Legislation in the Colonies of White Settlement’, Journal of British Studies, 13.1 (1973): 108–37; Dummet and Nicol, Subjects, Citizens, Aliens and Others, p. 118. 26 Gorman, Imperial Citizenship, p. 27.

30

British by Law

common citizenship. British citizenship was effectively confined to those who were white and Christian.27 Racial thinking left an even more obvious impact on British citizenship after the Second World War.28 Administrative measures were again applied to limit British subjects of colour from settling in Britain: the bureaucratic response to the 492 Jamaicans on the Empire Windrush arriving in Britain in 1948 was just one such example.29 More legislation was passed to deprive British subjects of colour of British citizenship formally. The Commonwealth Immigrants Act of 1962 was the first law to place British subjects – now termed ‘Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies’ (CUKCs) – under immigration control. Subsequent acts in the following two decades further eroded the rights that CUKCs could enjoy. The Commonwealth Immigrants Act of 1968 confined the right to enter Britain to only those born there or who had at least one parent or grandparent born there. The Commonwealth Immigrants Act of 1971 codified that only those who had a parent or a grandparent who had CUKC status in the United Kingdom could claim right of abode in Britain. Taken together, these laws and policies show us that even though the legal status of British subject was a nationality available to all imperial subjects born and naturalised in the British Empire regardless of their parenthood, British citizenship was not. Racial prejudice prevented British officials and their overseas agencies from appreciating colonial subjects’ Britishness. As the authorities employed various policies and legislation to limit the rights British subjects of colour could enjoy, British citizenship deviated from British nationality. As we now turn to explore the implication of British nationality laws to Hong Kong’s population, these wider contexts are crucial to bear in mind. British Nationality Law in Hong Kong All those born and naturalised in colonial Hong Kong and/or those who lived there at the cession of Hong Kong in 1841, of Kowloon in 1860, 27

Baldwin, ‘Subject to Empire’. 28 Historians have examined how racialised notions of Britishness have shaped the immigration policies in post-war Britain. Examples include Hansen, Citizenship and Immigration in Postwar Britain and Spencer, British Immigration Policy since 1939. 29 Paul, Whitewashing Britain, p. 116. For a wider discussion on official and popular responses to Commonwealth migration to Britain after the Second World War, see Wendy Webster, ‘The Empire Comes Homes: Commonwealth Migration to Britain’, in Britain’s Experience of Empire in the Twentieth Century, edited by Andrew S. Thompson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 122–60; Saima Nasar, ‘Commonwealth Communities: Migration and Racial Thinking in Twentieth Century Britain’, in Commonwealth History in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Saul Dubow and Richard Drayton (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), pp. 101–22.

British Nationality Law in Hong Kong

31

and after the 99-year lease of New Territories in 1898 fell within the designation of ‘British subject.30 Even though the New Territories were not formally ceded to Britain, the British state regarded it a formal part of the Crown Colony. In 1899, Whitehall officials stated: ‘this territory has been ceded; it is British territory, and the fact that the cession of territory is for a term of years only does not affect the conclusion that by the cession the inhabitants become for that term British subjects’. Therefore, ‘persons born in the territory during the continuance of the lease must be regarded as British subjects’.31 Foreign nationals in Hong Kong could also acquire British subjecthood through naturalisation. The Aliens-Naturalization Ordinance in 1845 allowed aliens residing there who ‘may hereafter settle therein for the purposes of trade and to the advantage of the Colony’ to become naturalised subjects. In particular, such subjects needed to own property in the colony that yielded a rent more than £10 each year, and to have been in the public service for at least two years.32 In 1866, the Secretary of State for the Colonies also authorised the Hong Kong government to issue British passports for foreign persons naturalised as British subjects in the colony.33 It was, however, more than three decades before German-born Ernest John Eitel, then Inspector of Schools and later Private Secretary to Governor Sir John Pope Hennessy, became the first foreigner naturalised in the colony.34 Another sixty-six – fifty-nine with Chinese names, three Portuguese, one Dane, one Austrian, and two unspecified nationals – also became naturalised in the following two decades.35 In 1902, the government enacted a new ordinance, which allowed aliens who had resided in Hong Kong continuously for at least five years with the intention to reside there permanently to become naturalised subjects.

30

For more on the British requisition of Hong Kong, see Steve Tsang, A Modern History of Hong Kong (London: I. B. Tauris, 1997), pp. 3–38. 31 CO 882/5, Law Officers to Colonial Office, 27 September 1899, as cited in Government and Politics, edited by Steve Tsang (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1995), p. 37. 32 ‘Ordinance No. 10 of 1845, Aliens – Naturalization Ordinance’, in The Ordinances of the Legislative Council of the Colony of Hong Kong, commencing with the year of 1844, Vol. 1, edited by A. J. Leach, (Hong Kong: Noronha, 1890–1891) 33 ‘No. 118 Government Notification’, Hong Kong Government Gazette, 4 August 1866, p. 307. 34 ‘An Ordinance enacted by the Governor of Hong Kong, with the advice of the Legislative Council thereof, for the naturalization of Ernest John Eitel, Master of Arts, Doctor of Philosophy, Inspector of Schools, &c.’, Hong Kong Government Gazette, 21 August 1880, p. 629. 35 The Hong Kong government issued a special ordinance each time it arranged naturalization for an alien in the nineteenth century, leaving us information of each of these naturalization cases.

32

British by Law

When naturalised, they were to enjoy identical rights in Hong Kong with that of a natural born British subject.36 Because there was no universal naturalisation law across the British Empire at the time, those who became naturalised subjects under the 1845 and 1902 ordinances were British subjects in Hong Kong only. Sir Francis Piggott, Hong Kong’s chief justice between 1905 and 1912, explained in his book that one: naturalized in Hong Kong is an alien when he comes to Mauritius: he may become a British subject again by naturalization in Mauritius, but he is again an alien in Seychelles; and even if the same process be repeated in the United Kingdom he can never be a British subject in any other part of the Empire, unless he once more becomes naturalized there.37

It was only when the British Nationality Act 1914 universalised the procedures for naturalisation across the Empire that a British subject anywhere became a British subject everywhere.38 Theoretically speaking, all British subjects in Hong Kong, regardless of their parenthood, were as legally British as one born in Britain to white British parents. As Hong Kong’s Attorney General Sir Joseph Kemp wrote in 1926, ‘English law does not recognise any class of colonial subjects’.39 A person of colour born in the colony was ‘as fully a British subject as if [they] had been born in England of English parents’. By law a British subject of colour could apply for a British passport, British protection in foreign territories, and – in the case of men – the transmission of their Britishness to children born abroad. They were also entitled to the rights of entry into and abode in the United Kingdom. In reality, the rights that came with this Britishness they received varied. Just as elsewhere in the British Empire, the rights that British subjects in Hong Kong could enjoy were limited in practice by policies that were shaped by conceptions of race. Colonial officials racialised Hong Kong’s population: they placed people of colour into various categories with their racial thinking. In creating and highlighting the perceived distinct attributes of these communities, racial categorisation eroded the Britishness of these colonial subjects. 36

Chaloner Grenville Alabaster, The Laws of Hong Kong, Prepared under Ordinance No. 19 of 1911, Vol. 2 (Hong Kong: Noronha, 1913), ‘No. 44 of 1902, The Naturalization Ordinance, 1902’, p. 1464. 37 Sir Francis Piggott, Nationality Including Naturalization and English Law on the High Seas and Beyond the Realms. Part 1. Nationality and Naturalization (London: William Clowe and Sons, 1907), p. 245. 38 Parliamentary Debates, 1914, Commons, Vol. 62, col. 1201. 39 CO 129/503/8, Enclosure No. 2, Draft Reply by Attorney General to the Consul for France in Hong Kong on the subject of the legal status of Chinese British subjects.

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Racialising Hong Kong’s British Subjects The task of racialising their subjects preoccupied the mind of European colonisers. Because the premise of colonialism lay in an imagined European superiority, colonial authorities were anxious to create and consolidate ethnic categories in order to distinguish themselves from a colonised other, thus asserting their commanding power.40 Amongst other policies and social institutions, the census was a powerful tool for colonial states to formulate racial hierarchy. While it enumerated populations and provided rulers with useful demographic data, it also categorised people. Racial categorisations of census work allowed the state to create racial identities by engendering, altering and strengthening traits of communities to distinguish one race from another.41 In colonial Asia and Africa, the census was used to impose and reinforce official racial perceptions on colonised subjects.42 Likewise, census reports compiled in pre-war Hong Kong showed clearly how authorities racialised the colonial population by classifying them into different categories. In Hong Kong, five censuses were conducted in the first half of the twentieth century: in 1901, 1906, 1911, 1921, and 1931.43 All but one of these explicitly used ‘race’ as the major classification criteria. The first tables presented in the 1901, 1906, and 1911 surveys all used ethnic 40

See, for instance, Ann Laura Stoler, ‘Making Empire Respectable: The Politics of Race and Sexual Morality in Twentieth-Century Colonial Cultures’, in Dangerous Liaisons: Gender, Nation, and Postcolonial Perspectives, edited by Anne McClintock, Aamir Mufti and Ella Shohat (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), pp. 344–73; Aaron P. Althouse, ‘Contested Mestizos, Alleged Mulattos: Racial Identity and Caste Hierarchy in Eighteenth Century Pátzcuaro, Mexico’, The Americas, 62.2 (2005): 151–75; Charles Hirschman, ‘The Making of Race in Colonial Malaya: Political Economy and Racial Ideology’, Sociological Forum, 1.2 (1986): 330–61. 41 Peter Skerry, Counting on the Census?: Race, Group Identity, and the Evasion of Politics (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2000), especially Ch. 3; Clara E. Rodriguez, Changing Race: Latinos, the Census, and the History of Ethnicity in the United States (New York: New York University Press, 2000); Melissa Nobles, Shades of Citizenship: Race and the Census in Modern Politics (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000); Anderson, Imagined Communities, pp. 164–70. 42 Ram B. Bhagat, ‘Census and Caste Enumeration: British Legacy and Contemporary Practice in India’, Genus, 62.2 (2006): 119–34; Keren Weitzberg, ‘The Unaccountable Census: Colonial Enumeration and its Implications for the Somali People of Kenya’, Journal of African History, 56.3 (2015): 409–28; A. J. Christopher, ‘“To Define the Indefinable”: Population Classification and the Census in South Africa’, Area, 34.4 (2002): 401–8; Sumit Guha, ‘The Politics of Identity and Enumeration in India c. 1600–1900’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 45.1 (2003): 148–67; Charles Hirschman, ‘The Meaning and Measurement of Ethnicity in Malaysia: An Analysis of Census Classifications’, Journal of Asian Studies, 40.3 (1987): 555–82. 43 I took these specific censuses as case studies not only because of their relevance to the timeframe of this book, but also because it was only after 1901 that the Hong Kong government began to conduct the population census at a more regular interval.

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classifications to present demographic data of the total civil p ­ opulation.44 In 1921, the Census Officer J. D. Lloyd divided the non-Chinese population by their nationality. It was uncertain why Lloyd made such a change, for the previous censuses had not done so. He only stated that ‘in 1911 the non-Chinese were classified by race, while the corresponding classification in the present Census is by nationality’.45 Ironically, Lloyd still classified the two overarching categories ‘Chinese’ and ‘nonChinese’ by his conception of race – 15,645 people represented as Chinese on the tables in fact held British nationality.46 Officers conducting the 1931 census criticised that the 1921 omission of the category of race led to ‘no means of finding out how many there were of each race’, and resumed the practice of classifying the population by ‘race’. The report even wrote: ‘race is of much more importance in some respects than nationality’.47 Racial categories listed in the census reports reflect how officials evaluated and stressed cultural differences amongst colonial subjects, and most importantly, the perceived racial differences between people of colour and the white population in Hong Kong. Presenting Hong Kong’s population in the two overarching categories, ‘Chinese’ and ‘non-Chinese’, had much to do with the fact that the Chinese were the ethnic majority in the colony, though census officers made no further attempt in classifying the Chinese population into the subgroups of Puntis, Tankas, Hakkas, and Hoklos. On the other hand, census commissioners were conscious in pointing out the perceived racial difference amongst the non-Chinese in Hong Kong. Under the category of ‘non-Chinese’ were several subgroups that government officials perceived to be numerically significant and culturally distinct from each other. Before 1921, these sub-groups were: ‘Europeans and Americans other than Portuguese’, ‘Portuguese’, ‘Indians’, and ‘Eurasians’.48 That the Portuguese Eurasians were presented as one distinct community further displays officials’ eagerness to consolidate the whiteness of the European ruling class. Census reports frequently stressed that ‘the race known throughout the Far East as Portuguese must not be confused 44

A. W. Brewin, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1901’, Sessional Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council, 15 August 1901, p. 8; P. P. J. Wodehouse, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1906’, Sessional Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council, p. 266; P. P. J. Wodehouse, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1911’, Sessional Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council, 23 November 1911, p. 103 (10). 45 J. D. Lloyd, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1921’, in Sessional Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hongkong, 15 December 1921, p. 156. 46 Lloyd, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1921’, p. 163. 47 Carrie, ‘Report on the census of 1931’, p. 91. 48 Brewin, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1901’, p. 8.

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with the Portuguese of Europe’. The census reports of 1901 and 1911 repeated a quote from the 1897 report to stress the perceived difference between the Portuguese and white population in the colony: There is sufficient distinction between the Portuguese population and other Europeans to make this division advisable and interesting. The Portuguese of Hongkong form a European community settled in the Tropics, thoroughly acclimatised and apparently not recruited to any extent from Europe.49

Officials saw such distinction in many aspects. Most Portuguese in Hong Kong were Roman Catholics. They spoke Patois (a creole language based on Portuguese with elements of Malay, Cantonese, and Sinhalese), English, and Cantonese.50 Most of them were born in Hong Kong: in 1901, 1,095 out of 1,948 were born in Hong Kong, 746 were born in Macao, 60 in other Chinese ports, with only ten born in Portugal.51 They were also numerically significant. They formed the largest proportion of the colony’s non-Chinese population before 1897, and it was only after the beginning of the twentieth century that white Britons outnumbered them.52 But in the eyes of the official, most significant of all was their ‘mixed’ ancestry. The 1921 report stated explicitly that: They are the descendants of the Portuguese pioneers of Western civilization who reached China at the beginning of the 16th century, and, after many vicissitudes, finally in the middle of that century established a permanent settlement on the barren rocky peninsula subsequently known as Macau. It is recorded that the first settlers married natives of Malacca and Japan, and during the early years of the settlement they do not appear to have intermarried with Chinese, as has been the case of more recent years.53

Because of their Asian heritage, British bureaucrats therefore saw the Portuguese as a community distinct from the white population in Hong Kong. Philip Wodehouse, who was in charge of the 1911 census, explained that the Portuguese were placed in a separate category 49

This quote came from the 1897 Census Report, but was cited in both the 1901 and 1911 census reports. See A. W. Brewin, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1897’, in Sessional Papers Laid before the Legislative Council, 20 June 1897, p. 467; Brewin, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1901’, p. 4; Wodehouse, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1911’, p. 103 (3). 50 L. d’Almada e Castro, ‘Some notes on the Portuguese in Hong Kong’, Boletim, No. 2 (September 1949): 256–76. 51 Brewin, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1901’, p. 4. 52 The numbers of Portuguese and the British civil land population were coincidentally both 1,948 in 1901. In 1906, the number of the Portuguese recorded grew to 2,307 and that of the British rose to 3,709. Brewin, ‘Report on the Census for the Colony for 1901’, p. 8; Wodehouse, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1906’, pp. 266 & 269. 53 Lloyd, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1921’, p. 158.

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because they ‘occupy a somewhat peculiar position as compared with other nationalities’.54 Also occupying a peculiar position was the colony’s Eurasian community. It was not numerical significance, but a perceived cultural difference between Eurasians, the Chinese, and Europeans that made officials put Eurasians as a separate group in all the censuses done before the Second World War. Census officers frequently remarked on the ‘distinctly unsatisfactory’ figures collected in the censuses. In 1901, enumerators recorded 267 Eurasians. The figure further dropped to 227 in 1906, and then 42 in 1911.55 ‘It is a very difficult matter to obtain the true figures’, Philip Wodehouse wrote in 1911.56 Census officers believed that this was because most Eurasians ‘dress in Chinese clothes, have been brought up and live in Chinese fashion, and would certainly return themselves as Chinese’.57 Despite the belief that the Eurasians were inclined to identify themselves as Chinese, it is notable how census officials continued to conceptualise them as a distinct group. While the census reports of 1911 and 1921 had ceased to list ‘Eurasian’ as a distinct category in tables of demographic data, commentaries on the data included special remarks on the community. We see in British India that colonial authorities often found ‘mixed-race’ individuals problematic, for they challenged the neat racial categorisation between the colonisers and the colonised.58 Likewise, the census reports showed how much Hong Kong officials struggled to classify the Eurasian community. In both the 1897 and 1901 reports, census officers put Eurasians under ‘non-Chinese’, but only placed the column of Eurasians after a column for the total number of the non-Chinese population (see Figure 2).59 Even so, they presented Eurasians as a group distinct from other non-Chinese communities and the Chinese population. Such treatment manifested more widely in other institutional discrimination that Eurasians experienced there. Discrimination against Eurasians became even more obvious in the 1920s amidst rising racial nationalism in China. Whilst racial theories had until this time been confined mainly to political ideologues, the

54

Wodehouse, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1911’, p. 103 (3). 55 Wodehouse, ‘Report on the census of the Colony in 1901’, p. 4; Wodehouse, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1906’, p. 260; Wodehouse, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1911’, p. 103 (4). 56 Wodehouse, ‘Report on the census of the Colony in 1901’, p. 4. 57 Wodehouse, ‘Report on the census of the Colony in 1901’, p. 4. 58 See, for instance, Lionel Caplan, Children of Colonialism: Anglo-Indians in a Postcolonial World (Oxford: Berg, 2001). 59 Wodehouse, ‘Report on the Census for the Colony for 1901’, p. 8.

Figure 2  An image of Table 1 of the 1901 census report.

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New Culture Movement allowed such discourse to spread beyond the circle of intellectuals and political elites.60 Written in vernacular languages on affordable outlets, texts advocating racial nationalism and racial purity were easily accessible in Republican China. More people came to understand the Chinese national identity as a notion that was race-based and Han-dominated. Hostility towards Eurasians became much more tangible, not least because such discourse conceptualised Eurasians as individuals who were ‘polluted’ by foreign blood, threatening the racial purity of the ‘Chinese race’. Notably, rising Chinese racial nationalism had its effects not only in China, but also Hong Kong. The Attorney General C. G. Alabaster noted that many Hong Kong Chinese believed that ‘the Eurasian Chinese should no longer be classed as Chinese, or at any rate as the leaders of the Chinese community’.61 This explains why a distinct Eurasian communal identity began to form in interwar Hong Kong, as well as why the 1931 census recorded a dramatic boost in the number of Eurasians – 837, compared to only 42 in 1911.62 While race remained the primary criterion in official classification in the census reports, various censuses collected information on the nationality status of Hong Kong’s population. In collecting and presenting such data by race, census reports helped British officials evaluate and imagine the Britishness of these groups. The 1931 census even systematically presented nationality data for each of the racial categories listed in the reports’ tables.63 In making general remarks in their commentaries, officers constructed a discourse about the Britishness of certain communities. For instance, as census officers presented the Portuguese as an insular community, they often remarked how ‘the great majority of the Portuguese have returned themselves as Portuguese subjects. British nationality is claimed by a very few’, without mentioning the actual figures in the commentary.64 While the census commentary in the 1931 report did not remark on the nationality of the Indian and Japanese 60

On racial thinking and racial nationalism in China, see Frank Dikötter, ‘Racial Identities in China; Context and Meaning’, The China Quarterly, 138 (1994): 404–12; Frank Dikötter, The Discourse of Race in Modern China (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), pp. 169–72. 61 C. G. Alabaster, ‘Some Observations on Race Mixture in Hong Kong’, Eugenics Review, Vol. 11 (1920): 247–8, at p. 248. 62 See Emma Jinhua Teng, Eurasians: Mixed Identities in the United States, China, and Hong Kong, 1842–1943 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013), especially Ch. 8. A sudden rise in the birth rate seemed unlikely an explanation for such growth: 314 of those 837 recorded in 1931 Census were above the age of 20. Carrie, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony of Hong Kong, 1931’, p. 111. 63 Carrie, ‘Report on the census of 1931’, pp. 130–2. 64 Wodehouse, ‘Report on the Census for the Colony for 1901’, p. 4.

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communities, comments were made about the number of those in the Chinese and Portuguese communities who identified themselves as British subjects.65 If we compare the reports of these censuses, we can see that colonial officials were immensely interested in evaluating the Britishness of the Chinese and the Portuguese. All but the 1921 report included data or commentaries about the nationality status of the two communities. In 1921, J. D. Lloyd noted that ‘out of the 45,924 Chinese born in the British Empire, only 15,645 claimed British nationality’.66 In 1931, the officers noted again that out of 270,478 Hong Kong-born Chinese, ‘being 32.93% of the total Chinese living in the Colony, only 61,604 persons of Chinese race or 7.5% claimed to be British subjects’, emphasising the small number of those who claimed British subjecthood.67 While officials conducting the 1931 census made remarks about the small number of claims made by Chinese and Portuguese to British subjecthood, they seemed to have taken it for granted that most Eurasians and Indians were recorded as British subjects. In fact, 707 out of 837 Eurasians and 4,734 out of 4,745 Indians were reported to have British nationality. In other words, while writing their commentaries on the demographic data, census commissioners selectively portrayed the non-Britishness of Hong Kong’s colonial population. On the other hand, while the Portuguese and Chinese who claimed a British subjecthood remained in the minority, the figures recorded in 1931 are in fact rather striking. This is particularly so if we think about how this was only five years after the May Thirtieth Movement in China stirred up much anti-British sentiments in the colony and prompted the Strike-Boycott of 1925–26, which lasted for more than a year and paralysed Hong Kong’s economy.68 This was also only shortly after a Portuguese resident in Hong Kong started the Liga Portuguesa de Hongkong (Portuguese League of Hongkong) in July 1929 to promote Portuguese nationalism in the colony.69 Of course, we should not assume these figures from the 1931 Census were accurately reflective of how the population understood their nationality status. How the census data was gathered determines the reliability 65

66 67 68

Carrie, ‘Report on the census of 1931’, p. 131. Lloyd, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1921’, p. 163. Carrie, ‘Report on the census of 1931’, pp. 130–2. On the Strike-Boycott of 1925–26, see John M. Carroll, Edge of Empires: Chinese Elites and British Colonials in Hong Kong (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), Ch. 6. 69 Catherine S. Chan, The Macanese Diaspora in British Hong Kong: A Century of Transimperial Drifting (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021), p. 180.

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of such records. In 1931, a ‘preliminary census’ was conducted before the actual census night (7 March): on 19 February, enumerators made initial household visits to distribute census forms – written in either Chinese or English – to each household. In the following 17 days, the head of the household could either fill in the form themselves to the best of their knowledge, or seek help from the enumerators to do so.70 On the morning of 8 March, enumerators started making household visits again to collect the forms, and if needed, they would then make enquiries and assist the head of the household to fill in or revise the forms.71 The government hired 762 enumerators for household visits on Hong Kong Island, 430 for Kowloon, 300 for the ‘floating population’, and ‘many more’ enumerators for the New Territories.72 Enumerators worked in pairs, and while interviewing respondents who needed help filling in the census form, one enumerator would ask the questions, and the other wrote down the answers on the census forms.73 In theory, then, answers recorded ought to reflect what the interviewees answered. In reality, though, even the authorities themselves admitted that certain figures recorded could be questionable. In 1921, the census officer commented that ‘in some cases the enumerators failed to carry out their instructions properly’.74 There are also questions about how the enumerators presented the nationality question to their respondents in Chinese: did the respondents actually understand what ‘nationality’ entails? Did the enumerators ask the question at all? Without further evidence, we cannot rule out the possibility that some enumerators might have just filled in the entries based on their own racial thinking and assumptions made about the respondents. But even if that was the case, the information collected in the census can still tell us much about the understanding of legal Britishness beyond the colonial polity. In 1931, although the chief enumerators were all permanent government administrators (mostly sanitary inspectors and public works departments overseers), only 350 of the nearly 1,200 enumerators in charge of the land population on Hong Kong Island and 70

‘清查戶口冊監督嘉啟事’ [Announcement from the Census Officer] and ‘今日起清查全 港戶口’ [Census of Hong Kong begins today], 香港華字日報, 7 March 1931, p. 7. 71 Carrie, ‘Report on the census of 1931’, pp. 93–4. 72 ‘Census Day: Hongkong’s Roll Call at Midnight’, SCMP, 7 May 1931, p. 9. 73 This was based on a student enumerator’s experience, which was originally published in The Yellow Dragon, a school magazine of Queen’s College, and reprinted in the South China Morning Post. It is notable that the student enumerator was assigned to take the census of the ‘floating population’, and their working methods might differ from that of the land population. ‘A Cushy Job: Taking a Census at Shaukiwan Bay, Personal Account’, SCMP, 31 March 1931, p. 3. 74 Lloyd, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1921’, p. 167.

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Kowloon were government employees. And even amongst these 350 government employees, the majority were Chinese. Those recruited from outside the administration came from a wide range of backgrounds  – from ‘office boys and liftmen’ to school and university students.75 Even if we assume the figures reflect less about the respondents’ understanding of nationality than that of the enumerators, numbers recorded in the census about colonial subjects’ nationality still tell us something about how the concept of British subjecthood was understood outside of the colonial polity, considering most enumerators were Chinese and were drawn from outside the colonial administration. Additionally, reports about the census in Chinese newspapers ahead of the census night suggest that the wider Chinese community (or at the very least, the Chinese reading public) would have had some knowledge about some of the questions in the census forms.76 The question on nationality was in fact highlighted in one of the reports, where the journalist even suggested how a Chinese born in the colony should answer it. ‘If a Chinese resident was born in Hong Kong, then of course they would be both of the Chinese race and a Chinese national’. ‘On this’, the report wrote, ‘residents ought to be very clear in their census return’.77 Encouraging Hong Kong-born Chinese to report themselves as Chinese nationals, such calls make it even more striking that the 1931 census still recorded 61,604 Hong Kong Chinese as British nationals. What would the legal status of British subjects mean to census enumerators – if not the actual respondents themselves? When, why, and how would this status matter to a colonial subject? To answer these questions, we need to approach the subject from the perspectives of the colonial subjects themselves. In plainer terms, we need to find out why and when people of colour in Hong Kong made claims to their British status. Claiming Britishness Crossing a border was one major reason why those in Hong Kong claimed their British nationality. After all, it was movement across borders that made nation-states feel the need to regulate international 75

Carrie, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony of Hong Kong, 1931’, p. 94. 76 ‘清查戶口之種種：清查之方法’ [Things about the Census: Census Methodology], 3 March 1931, p. 5; ‘清查戶口冊監督嘉啟事’ [Announcement from the Census Officer] and ‘今日起清查全港戶口’ [Census of Hong Kong begins today], 香港華字日報, 7 March 1931, p. 7. 77 ‘清查戶口之種種：戶口冊之格式’ [Things about the Census: Format of the Census Forms], 香港華字日報, 5 March 1931, p. 7.

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mobility, leading to the emergence of identity documentations in the late eighteenth century.78 After the First World War, ‘passport control’ became a globally adopted practice and identity documentations became a crucial tool for international travel.79 Similarly, most archival sources recording how those in Hong Kong actively claimed their British subjecthood were produced when people applied for travel documentation. But why British papers, when most colonial subjects in Hong Kong also had access to other nationalities? Chinese born there held both Chinese and British nationality by birth. Chinese nationality laws enforced between the 1910s and 1941 – China’s first nationality law adopted by the Qing government in 1909, the 1914 Amended Nationality Law of the Republic of China, and the Guomindang government’s 1929 Nationality Law – all used the principle of jus sanguinis (‘right of blood’).80 In other words, no matter where one was born, those with paternal Chinese parentage could claim Chinese nationality. ‘Persons of Chinese race’ also did not need to produce travel documentation as they entered Hong Kong, giving Chinese (and perhaps Eurasians) who only needed to cross the Hong Kong–China border no incentive to have British travel documentation.81 Portuguese born in Hong Kong were also entitled to Portuguese citizenship. The Pombal decree of 2 April 1761 had already guaranteed all Asian Catholic subjects of the Portuguese Crown the same legal status as those born in Portugal.82 In practice, Portuguese born in Hong Kong needed only to register with the Portuguese Consulate in the colony, who would then issue them a certificate that needed to be renewed annually to allow them to receive consular service.83 78

See Nathan Perl-Rosenthal, Citizen Sailors: Becoming American in the Age of Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015); Torpey, The Invention of the Passport: Surveillance, Citizenship and the State. 79 Craig Robertson, The Passport in America: The History of a Document (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), especially Ch. 10. 80 Shao Dan, ‘Chinese by Definition: Nationality Law, Jus Sanguinis, and State Succession, 1909–1980’, Twentieth-Century China, 35.1 (2009): 4–28; Chi-sum Ng, Jane C. Y. Lee, and Ayang Alison Qu, Nationality and Ride of Abode of Hong Kong Residents: Community and Change Before and After 1997 (Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies, the University of Hong Kong, 1997), p. 53. 81 See, for instance, ‘the Immigration and Passports Ordinance, 1934’, in Hong Kong Government Gazette, 18 May 1934, p. 382. 82 Luiz Felipe de Alencastro, ‘The Economic Network of Portugal’s Atlantic World’, in Portuguese Oceanic Expansion, edited by Francisco Bethencourt and Diogo Ramada Curto (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 128–9. 83 The Portugal Consul in Hong Kong regularly posted notices written in Portuguese on the South China Morning Post to remind Portuguese residents in Hong Kong to renew their certificates of inscription (‘certificados de inscricao’) on time, or no consular services could be provided for them without a fine to renew their expired certificates. (‘Consulado de Portugal’, SCMP, 16 September 1935, p. 4.)

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For those who wished to travel to a British territory, however, having British documentation was much more convenient. As a Chinese guidebook published in Hong Kong in 1941 stated: If you were born in this Great Hong Kong, going to Singapore will be easy. Those who were of local birth and in possession of a birth certificate can apply to the Passport Office on 17 Queen’s Road Central for a passport. After confirming you are truly local-born, you pay 10 Hong Kong dollars and receive a British colonial passport (英屬殖民地護照). With this passport, one can go to Singapore at anytime without any immigration restriction. […] However, if you were born in Mainland China, you will have to obtain an application form for permission to go to Singapore from the Passport Office. Most importantly, you will need to have a sponsor in Singapore, who has to be a manager of a company […].84

With such convenience, it is not hard to imagine why local-born Chinese would want to travel on British documentation. Chinese born in Hong Kong who were migrating to Britain therefore often made claims to their British status to make their entry into and lives in Britain easier. In 1933, Dr. Peter Pau, a Hong Kong-born Chinese studying at Oxford University, applied for an extension of his British travel certificate for two more years so that he could complete his studies at Oxford.85 In 1937, two cousins, Li Wah and Chu Wai Tai, both Chinese born in Hong Kong, applied for British passports before their journey to the United Kingdom, where they would join their cousin’s laundry business.86 In the same year, with the assistance of C. W. Slaughter, a Mr. Lai Chai of Yee and Sing Laundry in Plymouth also asked the government if ‘persons of Chinese race born in Hong Kong are at liberty to enter the United Kingdom to take work in Chinese laundries’.87 Such permission was not always granted. The Home Office in fact instructed the colonial authorities in Hong Kong to avoid issuing a ‘regular passport’ but instead to provide travel certificates to colonial subjects there, to ensure that only those ‘desirable’ would have the right of entry and abode in the United Kingdom. In 1931, the Home Office asked the Colonial Office to continue the practice because of the ‘undesirability of facilitating the entry of British subjects of Chinese race into this country 84

Deng Chao, 大香港 [Great Hong Kong] (Hong Kong: Xianggang lu xing she, 1941), p. 208. 85 CO 129/543/8, ‘Peter Pau to the Secretary of State for the Colonies’, 18 September 1933, p. 12. 86 CO 129/560/14, John Hodge & Co. to the Secretary of State for Home Affairs, 18 October 1937. 87 CO 129/566/16, C. W. Slaughter to the Home Office, 16 January 1937; C. W. Slaughter to the Home Office, 26 June 1938.

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to engage in employment’. The Foreign Office agreed, for restricting the number of Chinese who held British passports could avoid the problem that extraterritoriality and dual nationality might yield when those subjects were in China.88 It was only after Peter Pau applied for an extension of his travel certificate that the Hong Kong government proposed to the Colonial Office an amendment to this policy. Despite still showing great hesitation, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, P. Cunliffe-Lister, finally wrote to the Hong Kong Governor, stating that ‘I approve the proposal to grant full passports for the United Kingdom to Chinese of the business and professional classes who can prove Hong Kong birth and produce satisfactory evidence as to character and ability to support themselves in their existing walks of life’.89 But for those who were not fortunate enough to provide ‘satisfactory evidence’ of their financial capability, it was doubtful whether they could successfully exercise their legal rights to travel freely to Britain. Let us return to the case of Li Wah and Chu Wai Tai, the two Hong Kong-born Chinese hoping to join their cousin’s laundry business in Britain. British officials in Hong Kong in fact attempted to deny them British passports, even though they both possessed birth certificates that proved their birth in Hong Kong. The solicitors their cousin hired wrote: ‘they were told that passports could not be issued without a Home Office permit to show that they have homes to come to in England and someone here who will be responsible for them’.90 Even after the solicitors applied on their behalf to the Home Office, a Colonial Office official insisted that ‘the question whether British subjects can be allowed to come to this country from the Colonies is a constant source of difficulty’.91 It was only after they had the Home Office’s approval that the Colonial Office reluctantly notified the Hong Kong governor that ‘British subjects do not require permission to enter the United Kingdom’.92 Official correspondence regarding Lai Chai’s query to bring Hong Kong-born Chinese to work in Plymouth reveals more nakedly institutional discrimination against working class colonial subjects. In January 1937, C. W. Slaughter wrote to the Home Office on behalf of Chai, a ‘very law abiding, very superior and very hardworking Chinese who 88

CO 129/543/8, Correspondence on Hong Kong Governor’s dispatch to the Colonial Office on 2 March 1933, undated. 89 CO 129/543/8, Draft telegram from P. Cunliffe-Lister to the Hong Kong Governor, 6 June 1933. 90 CO 129/560/14, John Hodge & Co. to the Secretary of State for Home Affairs, 18 October 1937. 91 CO 129/560/14, Internal Correspondence, 9 November 1937. 92 CO 129/560/14, Draft letter from Colonial Office to John Hodge & Co., 22 January 1938.

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enjoys a good reputation in Plymouth’. Chai wanted to see if he could bring in ‘a very few Chinese who having been born in Hong Kong are British subjects’ to work in his laundrette.93 Although officials knew that ‘there is no power to refuse entry to the United Kingdom to British subjects who are in possession of conclusive evidence of their British nationality’, they were clearly reluctant in giving Chai a favourable reply.94 It took them more than a year and a half to consider the case – so long that Slaughter remarked that ‘I cannot understand why you need [to] take such a long time in giving Mr. Chai the information required’.95 In contemplating ways in which the governments could refuse Chai’s request, the Hong Kong governor revealed to the Colonial Office that ‘there is no record that any subject of Chinese race belonging to the labouring classes has applied or been granted a travel document other than a passport to enable him to proceed to the United Kingdom’.96 Between 1933 and 1938, the governor wrote, only 57 Hong Kong-born Chinese (excluding students) were issued a passport to travel to Britain, while another 112 Hong Kong-born Chinese (also excluding students) were given passports to travel more widely to other parts of the British Empire. He further explained that currently the government only issued passports to students and ‘persons of good standing’, whereas ‘laundrymen and such persons’ needed to acquire permission from the Home Office before the government would issue them a passport. ‘No passports’, the governor added, ‘have been issued this year to such persons’.97 Eventually the Home Office replied to Slaughter that Chai should make an application to Hong Kong, ‘guaranteeing maintenance and employment [of his prospective employees] in Britain’.98 Even free entrance into Hong Kong was not always guaranteed to colonial subjects, especially if we consider limitations placed on Indian British subjects. Before India’s independence in 1947, Indians born there were, like all Hong Kong-born individuals, British subjects. The 1931 census report recorded that 4,734 out of 4,745 Indians in the colony held British nationality. Being British subjects, however, did not necessarily grant them free entry into Hong Kong. Indians – even those with a British passport – had to apply for permission to enter the colony in advance. Hong Kong newspapers often reported cases in which Indians without such permission were arrested, fined, or/and deported on their arrival in the colony. 93

94 95 96 97 98

CO 129/566/16, C. W. Slaughter to Home Office, 16 January 1937 (original emphasis). CO 129/566/16, Governor Northcote to Malcolm Macdonald, 31 October 1938. CO 129/566/16, C. W. Slaughter to the Home Office, 26 June 1938. CO 129/566/16, Governor Northcote to Malcolm Macdonald, 31 October 1938. CO 129/566/16, Governor Northcote to Malcolm Macdonald, 31 October 1938. CO 129/566/16, J. L. Wall of Home Office to C. W. Slaughter, 5 July 1938.

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In 1936, the Hong Kong government expelled two Indians who possessed British passports as their passports were not endorsed for entry into Hong Kong.99 Another even received a sentence of two months’ imprisonment in 1929: having received an emergency certificate issued by officials in Bangkok that allowed him to go to Singapore, he reportedly ‘crudely altered’ the word Singapore to Hong Kong.100 Those following the bureaucratic procedures did not fare much better, for authorities in Hong Kong often refused Indians’ applications to enter the colony. In 1927, a debate in the British Indian Legislative Assembly suggested that the government had refused passports to ‘bona fide’ employees of Indian firms in Hong Kong and the families of Indian residents there, which caused great hardships for the Indian trading community in the colony.101 In 1935, the British consul in Canton, Herbert Phillips, wrote to Sir Alexander M. G. Cadogan, the British ambassador in Peking, about a case in which the Hong Kong police refused to grant a British Indian subject entry.102 ‘I am constantly communicating with the Hong Kong police on behalf of Indians who want to go there’, he wrote, ‘and to judge from the difficulties they put in the way of British Indians going to the Colony one might well imagine that the latter were the most undesirable foreigners’.103 However limited their rights as British subjects of colour were, the fact that British subjects enjoyed more legal rights in Hong Kong than nonBritish subjects provided those in the colony with another incentive to be legally British. The formal colonisation of Hong Kong required those who served in the colonial administration and who participated in the colony’s public life to be British subjects. As such, while colonial subjects could attain a certain level of success through education, their participation in Hong Kong’s politics, commercial world, and public life would be restricted without British status. The unsuccessful attempt to appoint Leonardo d’Almada e Castro as the Clerk of Councils in 1847 best demonstrated the limitations imposed on people of colour who were not British subjects in colonial Hong Kong. A Portuguese born in Macau, 99 ‘Passport Cases: Two Young Indians from Canton’, SCMP, 30 January 1936, p. 9. 100 ‘Passport Altered: Indian Says Singapore Too Hot for Him, Sent to Prison’, SCMP, 23 August 1929, p. 7. 101 IOR-L-E-7-1350, FILE 2787, Extract from Official Report of the Legislative Assembly Debates, 20 September 1927, p. 4637, British Library. 102 In the case, an Indian man called Benares Khan claimed to have secured a job as a watchman in Hong Kong when he applied to Phillips for a permission to enter Hong Kong; an Indian in Hong Kong named Firdoz Khan was his guarantor. The Hong Kong police, however, refused the guarantee, as they suspected Firdoz Khan was an ‘agitator’. (CO 129/555/11, D. Burlingham, Police Headquarters, Hong Kong to Herbert Phillips, H.B.M. Consulate-General, Canton, 30 July 1935.) 103 CO 129/555/11, British Consulate-General, Canton to HM’s Ambassador, Peking, 13 August 1935.

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his appointment received much opposition simply because he was not a British subject, the same reason that stopped him from becoming Colonial Secretary.104 For those in the business sector, being a British subject was also advantageous. If a British subject was the managing director of a company, that company would operate within British jurisdiction even in China.105 As such, those who desired upward social mobility – for either themselves or their children – made active claims to British subjecthood. The timely naturalisation of Wong Shing, born in China in 1827 and one of the first Chinese to study in the United States, gives us a good example. Wong became a naturalised British subject only one day before he was appointed as Justice of the Peace in Hong Kong.106 In another case, Ho Kai and Wei Yuk, both born in British Hong Kong and unofficial members of the Legislative Council, claimed that they had formally renounced their Chinese nationality – granted by Chinese nationality law as their fathers were Chinese – so that they would hold only British nationality.107 Raquel Remedios, a Portuguese born in 1930s-Hong Kong, believed that most Portuguese born in Hong Kong would opt for British nationality: ‘it was to their advantage to be British, because we were living in Hong Kong, a British colony’. While her fellow interviewee disagreed and added that ‘or we just didn’t bother’, she immediately responded: But I remember one of my brothers was born in Macau during the war. He had a Portuguese birth certificate. And my father, right after the war, applied for him for his British birth certificate, because he wanted, you know, all of us to be British. And my brother’s birth certificate came from London. Because he was born outside of Hong Kong, so it wasn’t a Hong Kong birth certificate. So we got his British certificate from London.108

In revealing the extent to which her father would go to obtain British nationality for her brother, Remedios’s response illuminates an evident desire amongst some Hong Kong Portuguese to claim a British nationality. In the case of the Eurasian community, claims to British nationality perhaps also had much to do with a lack of options. Unlike their Chinese 104



105 106 107 108

Ruy Baretto, ‘Leonardo D’almada e Castro’, in The Dictionary of Hong Kong Biography, edited by May Holdsworth and Christopher Munn (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2011), p. 117. ‘Notices No. 60: China (Companies) Amendment Order in Council, 1919’, in The Hong Kong Government Gazette, 30 January 1920, p. 59. W. H. Marsh, ‘Government Notification No. 428’, The Hong Kong Government Gazette, 29 December 1883, p. 991. CO 129/367, Folio 6776, the Officer Administering the Government, Hong Kong, to the Earl of Crewe, 9 June 1910. Interview with Jim Silva, Raquel Remedios, and anonymous interviewee #1, 24 April 2017.

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counterparts, most Eurasians born in Hong Kong did not hold Chinese nationality by birth. Chinese nationality laws regarded jus sanguinis as the basis of Chinese nationality, but privileged paternal descent. Subjects born to Chinese fathers regardless of birthplace, were Chinese citizens; children born to Chinese mothers on Chinese soil and foreign fathers could be Chinese nationals, provided that their foreign fathers did not legally recognise them.109 Born in Hong Kong to Chinese mothers and foreign fathers, the majority of Eurasians in Hong Kong would need to apply to the Chinese government to become naturalised Chinese subjects. This explains why over 85 per cent of Eurasians were recorded as British nationals in the 1931 census. Just as was the case for other communities, being British subjects was advantageous especially for businessmen and those active in the public sphere. Although Jean Gittins recalled in her memoir that her father, the Eurasian tycoon Sir Robert Hotung, held Chinese nationality, he appeared to have used his British status much more when he was in Hong Kong. In the Annual Return of the company owned by the Hotung family, for instance, Hotung put his nationality as ‘British subject’.110 That being said, some Eurasians still went to the trouble of obtaining Chinese nationality. Most known amongst these to historians of Hong Kong was perhaps Robert Hotung’s son Ho Shai-lai, who not only acquired Chinese nationality but also went to the extreme of renouncing his British status. Like Hotung, Ho was born in Hong Kong, and so was a natural-born British subject. After graduating from Queen’s College in the colony, Ho decided to pursue a military career and in 1925, Ho Sai-lai enrolled in the Royal Military College at Woolwich. In 1926, as an honorary cadet at the Royal Military College, he applied to take a course with the Royal Tank Corps. The War Office was inclined to refuse his application, for it disfavoured letting ‘foreign’ officers examine the interior mechanism of tanks, despite being well aware that Hotung and his son were both British subjects by birth.111 One official, while acknowledging that Hotung was a ‘legal British subject’, expressed concern about how Ho Shai-lai might use his military training to act against the British: As so often happens with Eurasians trained in Europe or America, the son on his return will resent the refusal of the European Community of Hong Kong to receive him as equal terms, and he may very possibly become more or less 109



110



111

Dong Lin, 中國國籍法 [Chinese Nationality Law] (Chongqing: Guomin tushu chubanshe, 1943), p. 62. Jean Gittins, Eastern Windows – Western Skies (Hong Kong: South China Morning Post, 1969), pp. 10–11; Zheng Hongtai and Huang Shaolun, 香港大老:何東 [Hong Kong’s Grand Old Man: Robert Hotung] (Hong Kong: Joint Publishing, 2007), p. 166. CO 129/498/24, H. J. Creedy of War Office to the Under Secretary of State, Foreign Office, 30 October 1926.

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evidently anti-foreign. It is quite on the cards that he will espouse some Chinese cause and will employ his military training to that end.112

The British government eventually accepted Ho’s application, for they had no legal grounds to reject him: Ho was a British subject by birth, and they therefore could not reject him for being a ‘foreign officer’.113 In August 1927, only seven months later, however, Ho Shai-lai abruptly renounced his British status. After declaring his renunciation of his British status at the Chinese Legation in London, he applied to the British authorities renouncing his British nationality. When the police notified the War Office, the latter immediately terminated his attachment with the Royal Tank Corps.114 Ho’s decision – besides the additional discovery that he held a commission from Zhang Zuolin, a warlord in northeastern China – shocked not only the British government and authorities in Hong Kong, but apparently also Robert Hotung himself.115 The Colonial Office notified the Hong Kong Governor Sir Cecil Clementi, who then wrote to Hotung: I have learned this news with much surprise, and I should be glad to know whether your son’s action was taken with your consent, and how he came to hold a commission from Marshal Chang [Chang Tso-lin, now more commonly known as Zhang Zuolin]. Did you inform the Colonial Office, when your son was admitted into the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, that he was an officer in the Chinese army? And, if he was an officer in the Chinese army, how came he travel to England in May 1925 with a British passport?116

While acknowledging his son’s affiliation with Zhang’s army, Hotung claimed that ‘the step he took in surrendering his British nationality was taken entirely without my consent or approval, and that it was a matter of great pain to me’. He stated that Ho Shai-lai’s commission with Zhang was only an honorary one, as a commission was needed for taking 112 CO 129/498/24, M. Fletcher to H. Beckett, 10 December 1926. 113 CO 129/498/24, G. Grindle of Downing Street to Under Secretary of State, War Office, 8 December 1926; Hongtai Zheng and Shaolun Huang, 香港將軍: 何世禮 [Hong Kong General: Ho Shai-lai] (Hong Kong: Joint Publishing, 2008), p. 73. 114 CO 129/503/4, Report by A. Nott, Inspector, and M. C. Mears, Act. Supt, “E” Divn, 5 August 1927; War Office to Under Secretary of State, Colonial Office, 13 September 1927. 115 According to May Holdsworth, who was granted access to Hotung family papers to write the first English-language biography of Sir Robert Hotung, Ho Sai-lai renounced his British nationality after the War Office discovered his affiliation with Zhang Zuolin and asked Ho leave the School of Artillery, where he was receiving a short young officers’ course, under a day’s notice. Provoked by this humiliation, Ho then went to the Chinese Legation to renounce his British nationality. May Holdsworth, Sir Robert Hotung: Public Figure, Private Man (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2022), p. 124. Records in CO 129/503/4 report that Ho’s affiliation with the 2nd Batallion of Royal Tank Corps only ceased on 14 September 1927, after the Army Council found out about his renunciation of British nationality. 116 CO 129/509/16, Governor C. Clementi to Sir Robert Ho Tung, 31 January 1928.

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a course on Strategy and Tactics with the French Military College: ‘my son is not drawing any salary, or doing any work for Marshal Chang, the whole idea being to enable my son to enter the French Military Staff College’. Near the end of his three-page-long letter, he reassured the governor of his loyalty to the British government: I hope that no words are necessary from me to assure your Excellency of my intense loyalty to the British government, and to the Colony of my birth; my whole life constitutes sufficient proof of my patriotism and sincere sentiments as a loyal subject of His Majesty the King.117

While Hotung’s statement of his loyalty may have been a strategic performance of his Britishness for the benefits of his commercial and public careers in the colony, he seemed genuinely frustrated by his son’s renunciation of British nationality. Robert Hotung’s attempts to then stop his son from giving up British nationality also suggested how he understood British nationality as not only a legal status that brought convenience, but a proof of his allegiance to the British state. Hotung reportedly cabled his daughter Eva, who was also in London, asking her to ‘strongly advise Robbie [Ho Shailai] not to renounce British Nationality’. He then wrote directly to Ho Shai-lai, outlining the consequences of his decision. He suggested that it might jeopardise any future opportunities that the British would provide to allow ‘foreigners’ to study in their military institutions, hinting at how maintaining British nationality helped present rising colonial subjects like Hotung and his family as loyal British subjects.118 Despite Hotung’s objections, Ho insisted on renouncing his British nationality and pursuing a military career in China. He later became a General under the Guomindang regime and played a crucial role in maintaining the cultural and trade networks between Hong Kong and Taiwan after the establishment of the People Republic of China in 1949.119 Nevertheless, it is necessary to note that amongst the more than 270,000 Hong Kong-born colonial subjects recorded in the 1931 census, I can only find in the archives a limited number of cases where people made active claims to a legal British status. This certainly has much to do with the fact that most pre-war documents of the Hong Kong government did not survive the Second World War. But it is also clear that 117 CO 129/509/16, Sir Robert Ho Tung to Sir Cecil Clementi, 2 February 1928. 118 Zheng and Huang, 香港將軍 [Hong Kong General], p. 73. It is however worth noting that May Holdsworth uncovered papers that suggested that in December 1927, Hotung had already been supportive of Ho Sai-lai’s getting ‘fixed up in Manchuria’. See Holdsworth, Sir Robert Hotung, p. 124. 119 See Shiona M. Airlie, ‘Ho Shai-lai, Robert’, in Dictionary of Hong Kong Biography, pp. 191–2.

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many people appeared to have been unaware of their British subjecthood. The case of Ahlow Lowing mentioned in the beginning of this chapter is a good example. In May 1937, Lowing’s employer Sir Eugene Ramsden, a Member of Parliament, wrote to the Home Office on behalf of Lowing to apply for the latter’s naturalisation. Husband of an English woman and father of two British-born children, Lowing went to England in 1910 and had lived there since. Despite being born in Kowloon Tong village in 1885 – hence being a natural-born British subject – Lowing was unaware of his British status and therefore provided detailed background information along with his application for naturalisation. The Home Office, on the other hand, suspected that ‘the man may be a natural-born British subject’, and therefore requested the Colonial Office to confirm this.120 After ‘a fairly exhaustive search of the royal scale map in the library’, and instructing the Hong Kong Government to investigate Lowing’s background, they finally confirmed that he was born a British subject, and would not need naturalisation.121 If a man like Lowing, who had lived in Britain for more than two decades, was still unaware of his nationality status, could this suggest a wider ignorance amongst Hong Kong’s colonial population about their legal status as British subjects? The awareness and deployment of a British status was not only a matter of ‘race’, but also a matter of class. While Chinese guidebooks educated readers that people born in Hong Kong were British subjects and enjoyed certain travel conveniences, only those who could read had access to such information. Amongst the Chinese who lived in Hong Kong and Kowloon in 1921, only 215,266 out of 445,622 were l­ iterate.122 Even for those who were aware of their status, the extent to which they could successfully claim and deploy their status is questionable. For a start, in the cases examined where applicants successfully deployed the status and rights that they had as British subjects, some had the need and means to travel outside Hong Kong and China, or needed the status to climb up the social ladder. Some also had professional legal help or sponsor from a Member of Parliament. Class, wealth, and social capital, then, were crucial factors that determined whether and how a colonial subject understood and deployed their British nationality. But these should not distract us from seeing that a widening group of individuals in interwar Hong Kong understood that they had British nationality. While previously neglected by the state and society, colonial subjects’ legal status gained growing recognition in Hong Kong. 120



121 122

CO 129/560/10, J. I. Wall of Home Office to the Under Secretary of State, Colonial Office, 11 June 1937. CO 129/560/10, Internal Correspondence by P. Rogers, 14 June 1937. Lloyd, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1921’, p. 205.

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Although their number remained a minority, some began to make active claims to their status. Whether it was only for travel convenience, business strategy, or even to participate in Hong Kong’s public life, they made use of their legal status and began to engage with notions of Britishness in interwar Hong Kong. ****** Racial assumptions that those with no ancestral connections with the British Isles could not be fully British led to the divergence of British nationality and British citizenship. While nationality defines one’s formal relationship with the state, citizenship denotes not only such a relationship but also the rights and obligations one is entitled to as a national of the state. British nationality laws before 1948 defined clearly that anyone born and naturalised within British territories – regardless of their parents’ ancestry – was a British subject. But such legislation did not fully establish the rights and obligations that accompanied this status, leaving complicated implications for the multiracial subjects who lived across Britain’s extensive empire. In reality, official conceptions of race eroded the legal Britishness of colonial subjects in Hong Kong. Race remained as a paramount category within the colony, and at times it seemed that legal Britishness was outweighed by colonial officers’ prejudice against non-white subjects born outside the British Isles. That being said, the 1931 census recorded 83,194 colonial subjects as British nationals. Of course we shouldn’t assume this equals to the actual number of Hong Kong residents who understood their legal status as British subjects and identified themselves as such, and it is likely that such figures were under the influences of the enumerators. But as established earlier, the majority of the enumerators were Chinese and were recruited from outside the government. This figure then offers an insight into the extent of which the concept of British subjecthood/nationality was understood amongst the colonial population. If we consider this alongside other examples presented later in the chapter of colonial subjects making claims to British nationality, it is undoubtable that this legal Britishness was gaining wider recognition within the colonial population during the interwar period. But it was not only people of colour who became more aware of the fact that those with a non-British ancestry were legally British. More white Britons also began to recognise the Britishness of their non-white counterparts and understood Britishness as something beyond race. It is therefore to white Britons’ understanding of Britishness that we now turn.

2

The Britishers

To some residents in Hong Kong, Hong Kong felt more British than Britain. An anonymous writer, ‘X’, remarked in 1934 that: The English hardly need to proclaim their birth through a St George’s Society but they do so. In other ways however the Englishman is more English here than he is at home, where the question hardly arises. He talks always in terms of cricket, the Public School, the Times, Punch, Dinner at Eight, Hunting and hounds, Polo and such things …. It is because we are separated from our home standards by so much distance that we see only the main outlines of them and these are what we hold on to. They are our landmarks without which we should lose our bearings. That is why we hear God Save the King so frequently: it is to assure ourselves on every occasion that we are still British and no accident of geography can affect the matter.1

‘X’ observed a determination among fellow Britons to ensure their ­Britishness even as they lived 6,000 miles away from ‘Home’. But geographical distance can barely explain why Britons overseas were so obsessed with reinforcing their Britishness. They had to ‘assure ourselves on every occasion that we are still British’, mostly because of their exposure to ‘others’ in the colonies. The presence of others – particularly people of colour – in imperial frontiers often prompted Europeans to try harder to unify themselves against other cultures. European colonisers worked towards building a distance between the white and colonial subjects in colonial societies to reinforce the constructed ‘whiteness’ of the European ruling class.2 In South Africa and India, for instance, overseas Britons had used 1

‘X’, ‘The Mingling of Nations’, St. John’s Review, 6.4 (1934), pp. 104–105. 2 The most prominent examples include Ann Stoler’s work on the Dutch East Indies. See Ann Laura Stoler, Race and the Education of Desire: Foucault’s History of Sexuality and the Colonial Order of Things (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991); Ann Laura Stoler, ‘Sexual Affronts and Racial Frontiers: European Identities and the Cultural Politics of Exclusion in Colonial Southeast Asia’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 34 (1992): 134–61; Ann Laura Stoler, ‘Rethinking Colonial Categories: European Communities and the Boundaries of Rule’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 31 (1989): 131–61.

53

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The Britishers

memories of wars, social segregation and festivals to reinforce a British identity amongst themselves.3 But discussions about Britishness in the wider empire mostly focus on interactions between whites and people of colour.4 This is not surprising, considering how whiteness functioned as a specific characteristic of a colonial society. And after all we know that overseas Britons often referred themselves as ‘Europeans’, using the term as if it was a euphemism for ‘white’. On the other hand, the identity of being ‘British’ emerged largely from Britons’ perception of a European ‘other’.5 Placing an overwhelming emphasis on Britishness as an identity in opposition to a colonial other distracts us from seeing how Britishness as a ‘non-European’ identity translated to a colonial setting. How, if ever, did white Britons define themselves against their European counterparts? Who were Britons overseas more likely to see as a part of their group – a non-British European, or a British subject of colour? Without answering these questions, we cannot understand fully the complex construction of Britishness as a national identity at home and abroad. In this chapter, I therefore turn to explore how white Britons in ­interwar Hong Kong articulated Britishness. I am interested in not only what they thought being British meant, but also the tensions between their varied – and often contradictory – understandings of Britishness. Using memoirs, archival documents, and newspapers, this chapter explores a range of areas where the notion of British status was contested  – residence, 3 John Lambert, ‘“Tell England, Ye Who Pass This Monument”: English-speaking South Africans, Memory and War Remembrance until the Eve of the Second World War’, South African Historical Journal, 66.4 (2014): 677–98; Elizabeth Buettner, ‘Haggis in the Raj: Private and Public Celebrations of Scottishness in Late Imperial India’, The Scottish Historical Review, 81.212 (2002): 212–39. 4 On exceptions that examined the racial relations amongst the ‘whites’ in a colonial context, see Stacilee Ford, Troubling American Women: Narratives of Gender and Nation in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2011); Marcia R. Ristaino, Port of Last Resort: The Diaspora Communities of Shanghai (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001); Francoise Kreissler, ‘In Search of Identity: the German Community in Shanghai, 1933–1945’, in New Frontiers: Imperialism’s New Communities in East Asia, 1842–1953, edited by Robert Bickers and Christian Henriot (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), pp. 211–30; Mark F. Wilkinson, ‘The Shanghai American Community, 1937–1949’, in New Frontiers, pp. 231–49. 5 On how Britons’ perception of the European ‘other’ allowed a British identity to emerge, see Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992); Linda Colley, ‘Britishness and Otherness: An Argument’, Journal of British Studies, 31.4 (1992): 309–29. Others have also suggested that the presence of other ‘White’ immigrants from Europe affected the domestic imagination of a ‘British’ nationhood. See Tony Kushner, The Battle of Britishness: Migrant Journeys, 1685 to the Present (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012); Tony Kushner, We Europeans? Mass-Observation, ‘Race’ and British Identity in the Twentieth Century (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004).

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education, social sites, and moments of crisis – to examine how white Britons viewed colonial British subjects and other non-British Europeans in the colony. Doing so helps us connect the development on Britishness in Britain and its empire. It also broadens our understanding of the ‘others’ in colonial societies – that it included both people of colour and other white subjects. Thinking about how their presence shaped the discourse of Britishness also throws much light on how whiteness as an unstable racial category interplayed with Britishness. It is clear that many white Britons in colonial Hong Kong saw ‘British’ as a racial category, and they worked hard to maintain the arbitrary boundary of the ‘British race’. But by the 1920s at the latest, ‘British’ status became important within the European social world in Hong Kong, subtly distinguishing Britons from the wider white population there. The global political and economic crises of the 1930s made white Britons articulate more frequently than ever the presence of ‘others’ in the colony. Some were not shy from expressing their anxiety about other Europeans in Hong Kong, whom they had long seen as competitors and intruders. And amidst talks of ‘Buy British’ and ‘Britons First’, others made vocal appeals to make sure that colonial subjects were also included in the category of being British. This demonstrates not only an increasingly inclusive attitude towards British subjects of colour, but also a determination to define Britishness as not only a race, but a national identity. The British ‘Races’ in Interwar Hong Kong The 1931 Hong Kong census report recorded 6,684 civilians and 7,682 defence personnel as members of the ‘British races’. Officials who compiled the census reports in Hong Kong defined ‘British’ as a racial category: the ‘British races’ were presented as a sub-group of ‘Europeans’.6 Earlier census reports also presented demographic data of the British in Hong Kong in similar ways. A table of the 1897 census report outlining the European and American population according to ‘Race’ placed the ‘English’, ‘Scotch’, ‘Irish’, ‘Welsh’, and ‘Other Natives of the British Isles not defined’ in the first four rows under ‘Races’.7 Who exactly were the ‘British races’? While the census reports did not provide any clear definition of the British race, we can deduce the 6

William James Carrie, ‘Report on the census of the Colony of Hong Kong taken on the night of March 7, 1931’, Sessional Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong 1931, p. 51. 7 A. W. Brewin, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1897’, in Sessional Papers Laid before the Legislative Council, 20 June 1897, p. 475.

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answer by reading between the lines of census reports. To be of ‘British race’, one needed not to be born in the British Isles: the 1931 Census recorded that 2,082 civilians belonging to the ‘British Races’ were not born in England, Scotland, Ireland or Wales.8 To be of ‘British race’, one could not be of ‘mixed’ or Asian heritage: Eurasians were either put in a distinct category (or even, as we know from the previous chapter, separated from the entire population), and the Indians and Chinese holding British nationality were still placed under separate categories. While census reports sometimes referred to the British in Hong Kong as the ‘British population of European race’, holding British nationality did not necessarily make a European British. The 1897 census report stated that ‘241 persons of European and American race claim British nationality, including 118 Jews, 51 Portuguese, eighteen Spaniards, and thirteen Armenians’, and the ‘British Resident Civil Population’ only included those ‘of British origin’.9 It is notable that, in the pre-war census reports, the ‘British races’ included Australians, New Zealanders, Tasmanians, and Canadians.10 That the census officers, who explained in length the differences between the Portuguese in Asia and in Portugal in the 1897, 1901, 1911 and 1921 census reports, never defined the ‘British races’ in the reports suggests that for them, the definition of being British was an established fact that needed no further explanation. The British community grew steadily in the first half of the twentieth century. The 1897 census recorded 2,213 Britons out of 3,269 European civilians.11 In only fourteen years, the 1911 census reported that there were 3,761 British civilians in the colony.12 In 1931, the number rose to 6,684.13 As census officers continuously remarked, the British community remained the largest sub-group amongst ‘European and American other than Portuguese and Eurasians’ residents. While the Portuguese formed, by a small number, the largest non-Chinese population in the colony in 1897, the British had outnumbered them by the beginning of the twentieth century.14 8 9 10 11 12

Carrie, ‘Report on the Census of 1931’, p. 131. Brewin, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1897’, p. 468. See, for example, Carrie, ‘Report on the census of 1931’, p. 111. Brewin, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1897’, p. 468. P. P. J. Wodehouse, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1911’, Sessional Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council, 23 November 1911, p. 103 (2). 13 Carrie, ‘Report on the Census of 1931’, p. 51. 14 The numbers of Portuguese and the British civil land population were coincidentally both 1,948 in 1901. The number of the Portuguese grew to 2,307, while that of the British rose to 3,709 in 1906. (‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1901’, p. 8; P. P. J. Wodehouse, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1906’, Sessional Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council, pp. 266 and 269.)

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With the growth of the community, family life developed and the largely bachelor community now transformed into a more family-centred population. Like in many other colonies, the British community in early colonial Hong Kong experienced gender imbalance. Colonial administrators there were therefore excited by whatever growth of family life within the British community each census recorded, and made frequent remarks on the increasing numbers of British women and children in the census reports.15 Indeed, the gender ratio (female to male) within  the  British resident civil population rose steadily: in 1897 it was 48, and the figure increased to 54 in 1901, and 56.5 in 1906.16 By 1931, about 20 per cent of white Britons were born in Hong Kong.17 Administrators and scholars had considered white Britons to have little intention of settling there. J. D. Lloyd wrote in the 1921 census report that, ‘most [British] males reach the Colony between the ages of 21 and 25, and few remain after 55’. Although the census recorded a growing number of British children in Hong Kong, it specifically pointed out that ‘after age 7 the number of children declines’. Lloyd stated: ‘all who can afford it send their children home for education at that age: these rarely return, since before their education is complete the parents have generally left the Colony’. He also noted how it was common for mothers to be in Britain as their children were educated in England, leading to the rapid decline in the number of married women above forty.18 Historians had also tended to think that white Britons in Hong Kong were sojourners without the ‘thought of bringing up their children to regard Hong Kong as a permanent home’.19 Public response towards the evacuation of British families from Hong Kong to Australia in 1940, however, suggests otherwise. While rhetorically ‘Home’ was usually Britain – ‘Home with a capital H’, as one interviewee stated – a number of British residents in fact saw Hong Kong as their home.20 15 In 1897 report, for instance, the census officer remarked that ‘family life among Europeans is increasing’. Brewin, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1897’, p. 468. 16 Wodehouse, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1906’, p. 260. 17 According to the 1901 census report, 574 out of the 3,007 British residents in Hong Kong (19 per cent) were born there. Ten years later, 763 out of the 3,761 (20 per cent) were native-born, and thirty years later, in 1931, 1,127 of the 6,684 (17 per cent) were born in Hong Kong. 18 J. D. Lloyd, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1921’, in Sessional Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hongkong, 15 December 1921, p. 157. 19 Henry Lethbridge, ‘Conditions of the European Working Class in Nineteenth Century Hong Kong’, in Hong Kong: Stability and Change, edited by Henry Lethbridge (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1978), pp. 189–90. 20 Interview with Barbara Anslow, 28 February 2017. See Vivian Kong, ‘“Hong Kong is my Home”: The 1940 Evacuation and Hong Kong-Britons’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 47.3 (2019): 542–67, at p. 559.

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Despite predominantly being English, the community was ‘indeed British, not merely English’.21 The English dominated the ‘British races’ in Hong Kong: in 1906, those who claimed to be English made up 65 per cent of the British population, followed by Scottish at 16 per cent, Irish at 8 per cent, and Welsh at 1 per cent.22 As Scots only comprised 10 per cent of the total population in the United Kingdom in 1901, census records in Hong Kong show a greater proportion of Scots in the colony. Divisions amongst the four nations existed, but a collective British identity appeared to have grouped the ‘British races’ together into one national community. Census findings support such an argument: a significant portion of the ‘British races’ did not state whether they were English, Scottish, Irish, or Welsh. The 1897 census report explained that 5 per cent of them had ‘difficulty as to what entry should be made under the heading of race’.23 294 ‘natives of the British Isles’ did not define themselves amongst the four ‘British races’ in 1906.24 In 1911, this figure rose to 1,790, more than half of the British population there.25 An interviewee born in Scotland remarked that in pre-war Hong Kong, such divisions of the four nations barely existed. White Britons in Hong Kong were, in her words, ‘a whole British community’.26 Although the British community was often considered a homogeneous and middle-class society, class fissures existed. White Britons of lesser means in Hong Kong were relatively obscured in narratives, unlike their counterparts in India, where the existence of a class of poor whites – the ‘Domiciled Europeans’ – was commonly known.27 Commentators often noted that only a few white Britons, if any, were of the lower classes.28 Indeed, the European population in Hong Kong consisted mostly of ‘middle class sojourners’ who were colonial officials, merchants and 21

Robert Bickers, ‘Shanghailanders and Others: British Communities in China, 1843–1957’, in Settlers and Expatriates: Britons over the Seas, edited by Robert Bickers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 296. 22 Brewin, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1901’, p. 4. 23 ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1897’, p. 468. 24 ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1906’, p. 269. 25 Wodehouse, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1911’, p. 13. 26 Interview with Barbara Anslow, 28 February 2017. 27 David Arnold, ‘European Orphans and Vagrants in India in the Nineteenth Century’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 7.2 (1979): 104–27; Satoshi Mizutani, The Meaning of White: Race, Class and the ‘Domiciled Community’ in British India 1858–1930 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). 28 James Cantlie, ‘Hong Kong’, in The British Empire Series, Vol. India, Ceylon, Straits Settlements, British North Borneo, Hong-Kong, The British Empire Series, Vol. 1, edited by William Sheowring (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1899), pp. 498–531, at p. 514.

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professionals. The 1911 population census recorded that, out of 1,899 employed Europeans in the colony, approximately 400 were businessmen and professionals.29 A bigger number was recorded in the 1931 census: at least 599 were professionals, alongside 855 individuals in ‘Commerce & Finance’. But the racist desire to have Europeans carry out supervisory duties contributed to the existence of working-class white Britons in Hong Kong, such as those working as police, overseers, seafarers, and engineers at the docks. Since the nineteenth century, white Britons who occupied supervisory or low status occupations lived in Hong Kong as an ‘anomaly’ between their upper-middle class European counterparts and the Chinese community.30 While census reports presented the white British as a distinctive community, we should note that they often referred to themselves simply as ‘Europeans’ in pre-war Hong Kong. Although the census reports always provided a separate table that outlined demographic statistics of white Britons and made brief comments on the community’s population size, sub-sections on other attributes of the population in the reports almost always only discussed the wider European population as a whole.31 It is equally common to see white Britons referring to themselves as Europeans (as opposed to specifically Britons) on a daily basis, especially in letters to the editors in local newspapers.32 The practice of using ‘European’ as a euphemism for white was not uncommon: in India, colonialera sources often referred to white or British people there as ‘Europeans’ or ‘English’. Such categorisation sheds light on how physical and social attributes such as class, education and occupation together constituted the notion of whiteness.33 This figure of speech also illuminates 29 The 1911 census recorded 124 merchants, 38 doctors, dentists, and medical students, 18 bankers, 36 brokers, 22 architects, 4 surveyors, and 189 professionals in ‘legal, literary, educational, and religious’ industries of the ‘British, American, European and Portuguese population’. P. P. J. Wodehouse, ‘Report on the census of the colony for 1911’, 103 (47). 30 See Lethbridge, ‘Conditions of the European Working Class in Nineteenth Century Hong Kong’, p. 191. 31 Carrie, ‘Report on the census of 1931’, pp. 101 and 146. 32 Some examples include: ‘There are many European children who look upon life in the East as something in the nature of a holiday not to be marred by too rigid an application to study; then they have a holiday in England, where schoolwork is entirely ­forgotten … ’ in ‘Education in Hongkong: Backwardness of Foreign Children, Who is to Blame?’ South China Morning Post (hereafter SCMP), 17 February 1916, p. 8. Another writer wrote: ‘What would have been the dangers and sufferings of innocent and helpless European and Chinese ladies and children in this Colony? Are they aware that when a race war is started, men lose self-control and become mad? Britishers and Chinese cannot afford to be enemies.’ Pax, ‘Let Us United’, SCMP, 11 March 1922, p. 7. 33 Elizabeth Buettner, ‘Problematic Spaces, Problematic Races: Defining “Europeans” in Late Colonial India’, Women’s History Review, 9:2 (2006): 277–98, at p. 278.

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the significance of whiteness in pre-war Hong Kong. Despite forming a distinctive British community, white Britons there frequently identified themselves in discussion as Europeans. Could this mean being white or being European was all that mattered for an overseas Briton? Did Britishness matter? Was the line between the British community and European population clear at all? Maintaining Britishness One way to answer these questions is to examine how white Britons placed themselves within the wider population in Hong Kong. The anxiety of keeping a clear line between the coloniser and colonised motivated colonial authorities to reinforce the respectability of a ruling class of Europeans.34 Neither skin colour nor ancestry alone were sufficient to maintain the respectability of the colonisers. Having the right social status, education, cultural refinement, and ongoing contact with the home country were all important criteria for a commanding agent of colonial rule.35 Colonial states and their European subjects used segregation, schools, and social occasions to maintain boundaries that separated them from the wider colonial population. Similarly, white Britons in Hong Kong used social segregation to maintain their ‘respectability’, and the most notable example was the making of Victoria Peak (more commonly known as ‘the Peak’) as a residential neighbourhood for Europeans only. Race-based spatial segregation was rooted in European imperialism, especially in the British Empire.36 Unfamiliar with the tropical climate, European settlers built hill stations to escape from the summer weather. Hill stations such as Simla in India, Baguio in the Philippines, and Dalat in French Indochina allowed Westerners to not only – as they believed – escape from tropical diseases, but also consolidate a sense of community and distance from the indigenous population.37 Though not a summer retreat but a year-round home for Europeans, the 34

Ann Laura Stoler, ‘Making Empire Respectable: The Politics of Race and Sexual Morality in Twentieth-Century Colonial Cultures’, in Dangerous Liaisons: Gender, Nation, and Postcolonial Perspectives, edited by Anne McClintock, Aamir Mufti and Ella Shohat, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), pp. 344–73. 35 Buettner, ‘Problematic Spaces, Problematic Races’. 36 See Carl Nightingale, Segregation: A Global History of Divided Cities (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012). 37 See Dane Keith Kennedy, The Magic Mountains: Hill Stations and the British Raj (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996); Robert R. Reed, City of Pines: The Origins of Baguio as a Colonial Hill Station and Regional Capital (Berkeley, CA: Center for South and Southeast Asia Studies, University of California, 1976); Eric T. Jennings, Imperial Heights: Dalat and the Making and Undoing of French Indochina (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011).

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Figure 3 The Peak, 1909. Source: University of Bristol – Historical Photographs of China, He02-001. Photo from an album kept in the School of Oriental and African Studies Archives, London (SOAS Reference PP MS 82/15)

Peak in Hong Kong functioned similarly.38 1,800 feet above sea level, the Peak was the perfect location for those who wanted to enjoy cooler weather and less crowded surroundings (Figure 3). By the 1860s it became the preferred place of residence for elite Europeans. Having its own hotel, hospital, Anglican church, club, and even military barracks to offer its inhabitants protection, the Peak was a ‘contrived world of Britishness’.39 For fear of losing this English suburb to rising Chinese elites, white Britons used legislation to guard the Peak as a place of their own. The Surveyor General remarked in 1886 of a concern amongst Europeans there at ‘the erection of Chinese tenements contiguous to valuable 38

John M. Carroll, ‘The Peak: Residential Segregation in Colonial Hong Kong’, in Twentieth-Century Colonialism and China: Localities, the Everyday and the World, edited by Bryna Goodman and David S. G. Goodman (London: Routledge, 2012), p. 82. 39 Paul Gillingham, At the Peak: Hong Kong Between the Wars (Hong Kong: Macmillan, 1983), p. 20; May Holdsworth, Foreign Devils: Expatriates in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 184.

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European ones’.40 Two years later, the government enacted the European District Reservation Ordinance to prohibit any ‘Chinese tenement’ from being built in the Peak District.41 Governor William Des Voeux argued that the ‘rapid influx of Chinese’ intensified the lack of housing in the colony. He believed that, as it was also more profitable for landlords to replace European houses with Chinese houses, Europeans in Hong Kong would soon be driven out of the Peak, an area that was believed to be healthier for them to live. He especially remarked that, while the ordinance reserved the Peak ‘for Europeans to continue to live there in health’, ‘there is nothing in the law to prevent Chinese from living there also so long as their habitation is of a character consistent with that condition’.42 The ordinance was passed at a time when a class of Chinese business elites was growing in the colony, and its enactment reflects a broader racist fear of otherness in the empire.43 However inclusive the Governor wanted to make the 1888 European District Reservation Ordinance sound, ordinances enacted in the following two decades about the Peak revealed further a determination to keep the Chinese away. In 1904, ‘owners and occupiers of houses in the Hill District of Hong Kong’ petitioned to preserve the Hill District ‘for exclusive residence of non-Chinese inhabitants’. Despite the 1888 Ordinance, more affluent Chinese continued moving into areas previously reserved for Europeans. The petitioners feared that the Chinese would soon drive Europeans out of the Peak, causing ‘very serious results to the health of Europeans and their families’, while alleging that the Chinese ‘do not suffer from the oppressive heat of the lower levels during the summer months as Europeans do’.44 The Legislative Council therefore passed a bill on 26 April 1904 to enact the Hill District Reservation Ordinance and made it illegal for ‘any owner, lessee, tenant or occupier’ to let their premises to anyone but non-Chinese.45 Yet, this ordinance would not stop the Chinese from owning properties in the district. The Eurasian 40

CO 129/228, ‘Report by the Honourable Acting Attorney General and the Honourable the Surveyor General’, 27 August 1886, the National Archives of the United Kingdom (hereafter TNA). 41 The Hong Kong Government Gazette, 31 March 1888, p. 319. 42 Ibid., 7 April 1888, pp. 343–44. 43 Carroll, ‘The Peak’, p. 84; G. Alex Bremner, and David P Y Lung, ‘Spaces of Exclusion: the Significance of Cultural Identity in the Formation of European Residential Districts in British Hong Kong, 1877–1904’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 21.2 (2003): 238–39. 44 CO 129/327, ‘Humble Petition of the Undersigned’, 22 February 1904; ‘The Peak District: Reserved Residential Area’, SCMP, 29 March 1904, p. 2. 45 ‘Legislative Council: Tuesday’s Meeting’, SCMP, 27 April 1904, p. 2; ‘No. 4 of 1904, An Ordinance for the Reservation of a Residential Area in the Hill District’, Hongkong Government Gazette, 29 April 1904, p. 752.

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tycoon, Sir Robert Hotung, then the wealthiest man in the colony, was able to purchase three houses on the Peak and lived there with his family. Noting how other Chinese and Eurasian elites shared this interest in acquiring properties on the Peak, Governor Francis Henry May worked to close the loophole in the 1904 Ordinance. This resulted in the enactment of the Peak District (Residence) Ordinance in 1918. By making it illegal for anyone to reside within the Peak without the Governor’s consent, the 1918 ordinance helped white Britons keep the Chinese out of their suburb until after World War Two.46 Residential segregation was not the only means for white Britons to separate themselves from the Chinese. Many Europeans in colonial Asia worried greatly about raising children in a place that was never meant to be a white settlement. Climate and tropical disease constituted a major concern for European parents, but what worried them even more was their children mingling with children of other races. Other than seeing the latter as disease vectors, European parents worried that their children would become too assimilated with the less privileged races and fall outside the boundary of being white.47 Sending their children ‘Home’ for education therefore became important for Europeans in the colonies who could afford it, and white Britons in pre-war Hong Kong were no exceptions. The 1921 census remarked that the number of British children dropped significantly after the age of 7 as parents tended to send their children to Britain for schooling.48 Not everyone, however, could afford to do so. In British India, some home-schooled their children to avoid their mingling with Eurasians in schools, whereas Europeans in French Indochina and the Straits Settlements established schools exclusively for European children.49 Likewise, white Britons in Hong Kong demanded a white-only school around the turn of the twentieth century. In 1901, more than 100 ‘principal British inhabitants of the Colony’ submitted a petition to Governor Henry Blake. The petitioners claimed that neither private education nor sending their children to Europe for schooling

46

‘No. 8 of 1918, An Ordinance to provide that with certain exceptions no person shall reside within the Peak District without the consent of the Governor in Council’, Hongkong Government Gazette, 31 May 1918, 238. For the debate on the Peak District Ordinance of 1918, see Carroll, ‘The Peak’, pp. 87–90. 47 Elizabeth Buettner, Empire Families: Britons and Late Imperial India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 81; David M. Pomfret, Youth and Empire: Trans-Colonial Childhoods in British and French Asia (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015), pp. 165–67. 48 Lloyd, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1921’, p. 157. 49 Buettner, Empire Families, p. 87; Pomfret, Youth and Empire, pp. 165–77.

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were affordable for a ‘very large proportion’ of the parents of the 377 European children in the colony. Additionally, they argued that the colony offered no ‘suitable’ education for their children. Most schools, they claimed, either taught in Chinese or hired Chinese teachers who were ‘incompetent’ and ‘habitually’ taught in Chinese. Although four schools employed English teachers, they saw it a problem that ‘the European child has to be educated side by side in the same class with large numbers of Asiatics’. They argued that lessons in those schools were adjusted for the Chinese, to whom English was a second language. More importantly, they wrote, ‘constant contact with Chinese, both in classroom and playground, must affect the formation of the character of the European boy’. The petitioners were careful to avoid offending – or so they thought – their ‘Chinese fellow-residents in the Colony’: they blamed the Chinese ‘from the mainland’ who were ‘in no way connected with the Colony’ with widely different standards of ‘truth, honour and morality’.50 Recognising the petitioners’ desire, the colonial government established Kowloon British School, Hong Kong’s first racially exclusive school in 1902. Inspector of Schools Edward Irving, whose daughter would be the first female student to enrol at the University of Hong Kong, agreed with the petitioners. He argued that if children of different races were to attend schools together: The children are brought up, or allowed to grow up, ignorant. Their sons will be more ignorant still. When we might have had a strong full-blooded British community born to the soil, to carry on our commerce against American, German, and French competition in the Far East, we are laying up for ourselves an unlearned, unskillful, unpatriotic generation of ‘mean whites’ to be the standing disgrace of the Colony.51

Irving stressed that an interracial education would affect not only the children themselves but also the empire: it would generate a class of localborn Britons who would compete weakly with other white people in Asia. Finding the idea ‘highly expedient’, Governor Henry Blake approved the request. Ironically, he persuaded Robert Hotung, who had offered to build an English school for all races, to allow the school to admit ‘children of European British parentage alone’. Despite finding the proposal 50

Enclosure No. 1 of Government Notification No. 113, Hongkong Government Gazette, 1 March 1902, pp. 228–30. 51 Edward Irving, ‘Notes on the attached Petition of the Residents of Hongkong, praying for the establishment of a School for the Use of the Children of European Residents exclusively’, as Enclosure No. 2 of Government Notification No. 113, Hongkong Government Gazette, 1 March 1902, pp. 233–35.

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‘so opposed to the spirit which prompted my offer of the school to the Colony’, Hotung reluctantly agreed.52 The Kowloon British School was then opened in 1902. In the next two decades, the government opened up several more white-only exclusive schools.53 These schools were not only European: they were British. The 100 ‘principal British inhabitants’ who petitioned for the establishment of a school for European children in fact included at least one German, Heinrich Schoenfelder, and one Portuguese, J. Assumpcao.54 While admission to these schools was theoretically opened to ‘children of European parentage’, they catered for British children, not least indicated by their naming as British schools.55 These schools prepared their students for a ‘commercial or professional life’ in Hong Kong – hence Cantonese was offered as an elective subject.56 But the educators aimed higher than that. They wanted their students to ‘grow up to be English ladies and gentlemen’. As such, they hired teachers from ‘Home’ to provide ‘the best traditions of the home Public School’.57 They also wanted their students to be able to return Home without being alienated. British syllabi were used to let students matriculate in the University of London after passing local matriculation.58 Those attending the schools were exclusively British children, except for a few Germans, Danes and Russians in the 1910s.59 52

CO 129/306, Blake to Chamberlain, September 3, 1901; CO 129/306, Joseph Chamberlin to Hong Kong Governor, 10 September 1901, as cited in Carroll, Edge of Empires, pp. 89–90 and Anthony Sweeting, Education in Hong Kong Pre-1841 to 1941: Fact and Opinion, Materials for a History of Education in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1990), p. 201. 53 These included Victoria British School (opened in 1905 but closed in 1931), Peak School (opened in 1911), Quarry Bay School (opened in 1926 mainly for children of dockyard engineers and staff), Central British School (renamed from Kowloon British School in 1923 to offer secondary curriculum), and Kowloon Junior School (opened in 1923 for junior age pupils of Kowloon British School). 54 Edward Irving, ‘Report on Education, 1902’, Hongkong Government Gazette, pp. 524–25. 55 ‘Rules for the Kowloon and Victoria British Schools’, Hongkong Government Gazette, 6 March 1908, p. 261. 56 ‘British Education in Hongkong: Far Reaching Proposals, Board of Education Report, SCMP, 16 February 1923, p. 12; ‘Victoria British School: Distribution of Prizes’, SCMP, 3 May 1918, p. 3. 57 ‘Education Board: New Schools, Staff of British Schools’, SCMP, 4 October 1923, p. 9; ‘School’s Prizes: Central British School, The Year’s Work Reviewed’, SCMP, 24 January 1925, p. 9. 58 ‘Victoria British School: Headmaster’s Criticisms’, SCMP, 20 December 1913, p. 6; ‘British Education in Hongkong: Far Reaching Proposals, Board of Education Report, SCMP, 16 February 1923, p. 12; ‘School’s Prizes: Central British School, The Year’s Work Reviewed’, SCMP, 24 January 1925, p. 9. 59 ‘Kowloon British School: His Excellency Distributes Prizes, the Unwanted “Lollipopper”’, SCMP, 1 August 1914, p. 3.

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British schools in Hong Kong helped ensure the Britishness of pupils there. Parents and educators were conscious in cultivating their children with British values and lifestyle. British textbooks were used so that students would learn to calculate currency in Pound Sterling instead of Hong Kong dollars.60 Students performed Twelfth Night and Lady of the Lake on prize days.61 In doing so, these schools helped raise children that could be as British as one could ever be, despite being in a colony on the edge of China. As for the grown-ups, they could have a similar Home-like social setting too. Like their counterparts in other colonial contexts, white Britons found clubs more integral to their lives than ever.62 There were clubs for all classes; and as Chapter 5 will discuss, multiracial voluntary clubs existed and thrived in interwar Hong Kong. But most established business elites and colonial officials would also be members of the raciallyand socially exclusive ‘gentlemen’s clubs’. What these gentlemen’s clubs offered was far beyond a recreation of the comfort and familiarity of ‘Home’ in a foreign land.63 Their highly selective membership ‘made the Right people feel more important, and made the Wrong people feel small’.64 One such place in Hong Kong was the Hong Kong Club, founded in 1846 and often simply referred to as ‘The Club’. An excerpt from a special article in the South China Morning Post tells us how the Club gave its members a hint of home. ‘The Club is a fine place, and the library is almost too good to be true. At certain times of the day, just before tiffin and dinner, the bar is filled to overflowing, and the news of the day is discussed over all sorts and conditions of drinks’, the author with the pseudonym ‘Ted’ wrote. ‘One feels that the whole place is 60

‘Victoria British School: H.E. and National Service’, SCMP, 26 January 1916, p. 3. 61 ‘Kowloon British School: His Excellency Distributes Prizes, the Unwanted “Lollipopper”’, SCMP, 1 August 1914, p. 3; ‘Victoria British School: Interesting Prize-giving Ceremony’ SCMP, 20 December 1912, p. 12; ‘Victoria British School: Distribution of Prizes’, SCMP, 3 May 1918, p.3. 62 On the centrality of clubs in European social life in other colonial contexts, see Tanja Bueltmann, Clubbing Together: Ethnicity, Civility and Formal Sociability in the Scottish Diaspora to 1930 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2014); Benjamin B. Cohen, In The Club: Associational Life in Colonial South Asia (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015); Robert A. Bickers, Britain in China: Community, Culture and Colonialism 1900–1949 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999), pp. 82–6; Jan Morris, The Spectacle of Empire: Style, Effect and the Pax Britannica (London: Faber, 1982), pp. 198–204. 63 H. R. Panckridge, A Short History of the Bengal Club, 1827–1927 (Calcutta: Bengal Club, 1927), as cited in Mrinalini Sinha, ‘Britishness, Clubbability, and the Colonial Public Sphere: The Genealogy of an Imperial Institution in Colonial India’, Journal of British Studies, 40, 4(2001): 489–521. 64 Morris, The Spectacle of Empire, p. 200.

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essentially English, and it was very comforting on arriving here to find all the same papers in the reading-room as one is used to in the clubs at home’.65 Historians have explored how European social clubs acted as central sites for the enactment of Britishness as a racial identity. Through a highly selective gendered, racial, and class-specific membership, the clubs helped Europeans, mostly men, to confine a certain lifestyle – one that was parallel to the desirable self-image of a ‘respectable’ white population in the empire – to only the elite European bureaucratic military officials, leading businessmen, and upper-middle class professionals.66 Likewise, the Hong Kong Club helped its members affirm their status and prestige. As in other major European clubs there, such as the Cricket Club and the Jockey Club, membership of the Club was strictly exclusive. The Club originally excluded ‘shopkeepers, Chinese, Indians, women and other undesirables’.67 Although there were some prominent Jews, Armenians, Parsees, and Japanese members, the Club remained mostly closed to non-Europeans until long after the Second World War.68 Members needed not only to be white to join. They needed to be men: European women were only allowed to set foot inside the Club premises on special occasions.69 They also had to be wealthy, as the membership fees were much more formidable than other clubs. In 1931, when the Jockey Club joining fee was only $10, the equivalent for the Hong Kong Club was $250 – more than half of a lawyer’s monthly salary.70 A closer examination of the Hong Kong Club’s membership policy shows how Britishness as a national identity mattered in the social world there. Despite the common assumption that the Club was a social place where Europeans enjoyed themselves harmoniously, non-British club members were often alienated. Since the First World War, for instance, they lost their voice in the handling of club affairs: starting from 1915, only British subjects could vote in deciding on how the Club was managed.71 Political events in Europe also affected the dynamics amongst members of the Club – the First World War even led to the eviction of German members.72 65

66 67 68 69

70 71 72

Ted, ‘Hongkong People and Places: My Letter Home’, SCMP, 17 August 1909, p. 10. Sinha, ‘Britishness, Clubbability, and the Colonial Public Sphere’. Carroll, A Concise History of Hong Kong, p. 42. Vaudine England, Kindred Spirit: A History of The Hong Kong Club (Hong Kong: The Hong Kong Club, 2016), p. 13 and 59. Ibid., p. 61. Ibid., p. 74. ‘Local News’, SCMP, 23 February 1915, 2. England, Kindred Spirit, p. 66.

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Residential segregation, British schools, and European-only social clubs helped white Britons in Hong Kong to maintain their Britishness. Stella Benson, a prominent writer married to an officer in the Chinese Maritime Customs, remarked in a talk she gave in London in 1932 that although Hong Kong was the ‘most strangely Chinese’ of all the Chinese cities she had been to, it was also incredibly British as the British there made it to be. It was ‘through the thin shimmering ghosts of refined British Ladies and Gentlemen’ that she saw Hong Kong as ‘a transplanted English suburb’.73 Living in this ‘transplanted English suburb’, they were eager to distance themselves from the wider population, especially the Chinese. This, and their calling themselves Europeans, often obscured the peculiar relationship between Europeans and Britons there. But as the membership policy of the Hong Kong Club and the admission of the British schools reveal, a British status became increasingly important by the 1920s. Being European helped, but being British was just as important. Debating Britishness at Moments of Crisis The 1930s witnessed white Britons in Hong Kong distancing themselves further from their European counterparts. The Great Depression brought the world much more than a global economic recession. Many came to doubt political and economic liberalism, and blamed immigrants for the economic crisis. Nationalism, along with extreme nationalist movements and economic protectionism, swept across the world.74 Although nationalism was undoubtedly a ubiquitous phenomenon during the 1930s, recent work began to suggest that internationalist impulses and transnational connections in fact better characterised the decade.75 Two public debates that took place in the correspondence columns of English-language newspapers in the colony underscore how such trends affected the ways in which white Britons defined and articulated Britishness. Newspapers provided a modern platform for communities to

73

‘A Little Satire: Stella Benson on Life in Hongkong, Ghostly English’, SCMP, 10 June 1932, 15. 74 For the relationship between the Great Depression and the rise of nationalist movements, economic protectionism, and fascism, see Dietmar Rothermund, The Global Impact of the Great Depression, 1929–1939 (London: Routledge, 1996); John E. Moser, ‘The Great Depression’, in A Companion to World War II, edited by Thomas W. Zeiler and Daniel M. DuBois, (Oxford: Blackwell, 2012), Vol. 1, pp. 47–62. 75 For an exploration on the 1930s as a decade of internationalist impulses and transnational connections, see Marc Matera and Susan Kingsley Kent, The Global 1930s: The International Decade (London: Routledge, 2017).

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articulate national identities.76 The reading public in Hong Kong actively utilised the press to discuss its understandings of Britishness. Confronted with the effects of the Great Depression, rising nationalism and anti-imperialism in China, and the spread of extreme nationalism across the globe, white Britons felt that their community was at stake. This was why, when in 1933 a British man claimed to have formed a ‘White British League’, and when the Second World War broke out in 1939, those who identified with being ‘British’ in Hong Kong felt the need to express in newspapers what they thought ought to be done to protect their community. In doing so, they articulated what they understood as being ‘British’ in the empire, as well as what they thought about colonial subjects and other Europeans in the colony. Admittedly ­anonymity – a convention in the Hong Kong press – makes it difficult for us to determine the writers’ identities, issues discussed, terms used, viewpoints expressed, and even the pseudonyms chosen for themselves often give us hints of their racial background. But more importantly such anonymity allowed writers to be blunt about their views on issues that were sensitive and otherwise obscured in public discourse.77 Their discussion offers us important glimpses of how global crises in the 1930s prompted the rise of exclusive notions in the colony and strained the already-peculiar relationship between white Britons and other Europeans in Hong Kong. It is worth noting how such rhetoric prompted ripostes and rejections, demonstrating how some white Britons began to see Britishness as not only a racial identity, but as an inclusive national identity that people of colour could possess. The White British League Debate The topic of British employment – or rather, unemployment – has long been a topic of interest amongst the English reading public in Hong Kong. A ‘Britisher’s Grievance’ in 1928, for instance, groaned about a British resident ‘with excellent references, and a wife and family to support’ unable to find employment for two months.78 But as unemployment hit the global economy, more discussion about a 76

Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991). 77 Stephanie Newell, ‘Something to Hide? Anonymity and Pseudonyms in the Colonial West African Press’, Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 45.1 (2010): 9–22. 78 Britisher, ‘Britisher’s Grievance’, SCMP, 1 August 1928, 8; Whiteness, Imperial Anxiety, and the “Global 1930s”: The White British League Debate in Hong Kong’ (issue 2 of volume 59 of Journal of British Studies). © The North American Conference on British Studies, 2020. Reprinted with permission.

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declining standard of living among Britons and British unemployment appeared in local English newspapers. A reader in 1931 observed that ‘there are at present a number of Britishers out of employment’.79 Particular concern was aroused in the early 1930s when newspapers reported that destitute Britons were charged under the Vagrancy Act, which empowered the Governor to send any non-Chinese without a ‘visible means of subsistence’ to the House of Detention, located in the Victoria Gaol.80 Anxieties about British unemployment amounted to a public debate in the colony in August 1933. On 5 August 1933, two English language newspapers, the South China Morning Post and the Hongkong Telegraph, published a joint interview with a Major Louis Cassel, O.B.E. The articles opened by talking about the rumours across town of a secret society formed for the ‘protection and advancement’ of British ‘whites’. The reports stated that this led to the reporters’ visit to Cassel’s office, where he confirmed the existence of such a league. Cassel denied that it was a secret organisation: ‘the Society has its headquarters in the heart of the empire, London, and, far from being secret, it invites publicity’. He claimed that he was only the Hong Kong representative of the organisation, and that ‘the movement now under way not only concerns Hongkong, but the whole Empire. Its primary object is to look after the interest of the British white race, and its headquarters are in London’. No other archival records or journalistic reports, however, can confirm the existence of the organisation in either London or Hong Kong. The fact that the two articles were identically worded suggests the possibility of them being placed in the papers. The articles of the so-called interview and several letters to editors written by Cassel were the only indications that point to the existence of the league. The League, then, might not even have existed. But the mere reports of this interview provoked an immediate and heated response from the colony’s English-reading public, particularly from Cassel’s fellow white Britons. For some weeks, they debated frantically what a British colony ought to be, and who could be British in such a place. 79

Interested, ‘Russians in Hongkong’, SCMP, 17 December 1931, 11. 80 On House of Detention and Vagrancy Acts, see No. 9 of 1897, ‘Vagrancy Ordinance, 1897’, in The Ordinances of Hong Kong, prepared under authority of Ordinance No. 51 of 1936, edited by John Alexander Fraser (Hong Kong: Noronha, 1938–40), p. 537; ‘Reform Introduced: Conditions in the House of Detention’, SCMP, 1 January 1934, p. 10. A few examples of journalistic concern on British ‘vagrants’: ‘The House of Detention’, SCMP, 17 July 1930, p. 8; ‘Article 24 – No Title’, SCMP, 1 April 1933, 21; ‘Out-of-Work Briton: Committed to the House of Detention’, SCMP, 25 April 1933, 14; ‘Unemployed Briton: Young Man Sent to the House of Detention to be Repatriated’, SCMP, 8 July 1933, 8.

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What caught most of their attention was the League’s agenda of economic protectionism. In the ‘interview’, Cassel outlined the economic threats he felt were facing Britons in the colony, and emphasised the need to prioritise British economic interests so as to keep ‘the British Empire for the British White People, who made it and intend to keep it “white”’.81 Cassel argued that the Hong Kong government was ‘effete’ and autocratic, and that its officials were ‘inclined to look on affairs of State more from the Chinese point of view than from ours’. He believed that the ‘only remedy’ for Hong Kong Britons was to have an autonomous government, which would allow them to protect their own ‘kith and kin’. He stated that the major aims of the League included: ‘to enact laws to provide jobs for “white” British subjects’; ‘to do away with unemployed “white” British subjects’; ‘to create employment for timeexpired Service men who wish to remain in the Colony’; ‘to enact laws forbidding public utility companies from employing foreigners in key positions’; and ‘to enact laws compelling British registered companies to employ a percentage of “white” British employees in proportion to their capital, turnover, or profits’. Cassel articulated the threat that he believed other Europeans posed to the livelihood of white Britons in the colony. In the ‘methods of persuasion’ that he advocated in the ‘interview’, he gave two hypothetical examples where he singled out Russians: Supposing a member of the League takes a party of friends to dine at a hotel…. If that member of the League is waited upon by a Russian waiter or maître d’hôtel, he will just walk out and take his custom elsewhere. […] Take another instance – the anti-piracy guards, where Russians are given preference. British steamship companies employing foreigners should be made to substitute ex-Service men, plenty of whom are unemployed and capable of doing this work. If the companies refuse to employ British ‘whites’, people should travel on other lines.82

In another letter he wrote a week later, he stressed the pressing need for white Britons to act against foreign ‘penetration’: Let us for a moment recall what happened between 1899 and 1902 – the South African War, more generally known as the Boer War. Before 1899 there were three British Colonies in Africa south of the Zambesi, … the Cape Colony, Natal and Rhodesia. All three were administered by British Whites, with a small percentage of Dutch Colonials. Today only Rhodesia remains in that category. 81

‘White British League: New Society Establishing a Branch in Hong Kong, Empirewide Ramifications’, SCMP, 5 August 1933, p. 9; ‘Major L. Cassel’s Secret Society: Remarkable List of Aims and Objectives’, Hongkong Telegraph, 5 August 1933, 13. 82 ‘White British League: New Society Establishing a Branch in Hong Kong, Empire-wide Ramifications’, SCMP, 5 August 1933, 9.

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Natal and Cape Colony have come under Dutch domination and one can practically say ‘no Englishman need apply’. […] The League of British Whites will see to it that this sort of thing, peaceful penetration some people call it, shall not happen in Hongkong.83

Such proposals generated many responses from readers of the two newspapers. Some welcomed the idea of prioritising British employment, because they agreed that British unemployment was a problem in the colony. A ‘Briton’ wrote, ‘Yes! It is high time a White Britons Society was formed’. They believed that a ‘large number’ of Britons ‘have absolutely no niche in the Colony’. A government employee, this ‘Briton’ criticised the government’s practice of only advertising job vacancies within the government, instead of inviting unemployed Britons to apply. They called this practice ‘decidedly exasperating’: ‘they allow a man to reach a state of penury, then calmly “pinch” him for vagrancy and lodge him in the “House”’.84 Another reader, ‘Cast Off’, also grumbled about the existence of a class of British ‘poor whites’: If we go just a step into ‘class gymnastics’ we will find many married Britishers with deplorable remuneration, not to mention married British ‘Tommies’ with much less, struggling along in this Colony and faring worse than second class Chinese clerks and their concubines.85

Like Cassel, they blamed other Europeans for taking away jobs that were supposedly scarce. ‘Cast Off’ argued that ‘this Colony is fast being choked up with other nations’ job seekers’ – ‘particularly noticeable of late is the influx of Russians (both sexes) and Germans’. He believed that ‘Britishers in Hong Kong strongly deprecate the all too frequent practice of giving preferential treatment to foreigners because they are cheaper to employ and easier to get rid of’.86 Another reader regarded Cast Off’s opinion to be ‘very close to all Britons in the Colony’.87 Supportive of Cassel’s call, ‘Briton’ elaborated on the threat that a growing Russian community put on the colony’s job market: Within the last three years Russians have been arriving in such numbers, that the district round and about Hankow Road is known to Kowloon residents as ‘Little Moscow’, and I am surprised that a Russian newspaper has not yet made its appearance. These Russians are not living on pre-Revolution wealth: they’ve all got jobs here.88 83

84 85 86 87 88

Major Cassel, ‘The League of British Whites’, Hongkong Telegraph, 12 August 1933, 11. Briton, ‘British Unemployed in Hong Kong’, SCMP, 10 August 1933, 11. Cast Off, ‘The British Colony’, SCMP, 11 August 1933, 11. Cast Off, ‘British, But-’, SCMP, 8 August 1933, 11. T. S. S., ‘Local Grievances’, SCMP, 14 August 1933, 11. Briton, ‘British Unemployed in Hong Kong’, SCMP, 10 August 1933, 11

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Stating that ‘no one can deny the fact that the above-mentioned are occupying positions which should have been filled by Britishers’, ‘Another Briton’ also agreed that ‘now is not the time to have any foreigners intruding our premises, Russians in particular’.89 Such aversion to other Europeans, especially Russians, was not new: it had emerged in Hong Kong since the 1920s, and it was related to a deep-rooted negative perception of Russians in China. The Russian October Revolution and subsequent civil war drove many Russians to China. Often known as the ‘White Russians’ for their opposition to ‘the Reds’, Russians in China outside Manchuria numbered more than 30,000 by the mid-1930s.90 Other foreigners in China resented these Russians, whom they considered an embarrassment to their ‘white ­prestige’ – ‘these impoverished refugees were white and yet willing to do menial labour alongside Chinese’.91 Many Britons in China shared such an aversion to the growing Russian presence there, and they started to define themselves against White Russians.92 Similarly, while white Britons in Hong Kong had occasionally complained about losing out in the job market to other Europeans, they were most bitter about Russians ‘flocking’ into the Colony. This had already led to a heated discussion about Russians in September 1925 in the South China Morning Post, and such rhetoric resurfaced during the White British League debate.93 Were Britons in Hong Kong suffering from a declining standard of living or unemployment as badly as correspondents suggested? While unemployment hit the global economy in the 1930s, official figures tell us that most white Britons in Hong Kong were less affected by the recession. The 1931 census recorded that the majority of the ‘European’ population – who were predominantly British – were in ‘Professional Occupations’.94 A report compiled by the economic commission formed by Governor William Peel noted in 1935 that the Depression affected Hong Kong in a much less obvious way. ‘One does not see processions of unemployed or an undue number of empty premises and shops’, and 89

Another Briton, ‘The White British League’, SCMP, 11 August 1933, 11. Ristaino, Port of Last Resort, p. 3. Ibid., pp. 14–15; Bickers, Britain in China, pp. 72–3. Ibid., p. 72. J. C., ‘Timely Urgings: Policy and the Need for Action’, SCMP, 11 September 1925, 9; Ex-Serviceman, ‘The Employment of Russians’, SCMP, 14 September 1925, 10; J. C., ‘Russians in Hongkong’, 16 September 1925, p. 8; An Inquisitive Canadian, ‘Russians in Hongkong’, SCMP, 17 September 1925, 9; A. Aiken, ‘Russians in Hongkong’, SCMP, 18 September 1925, 8; Ralph A. Cooper, ‘Russians in Hongkong’, SCMP, 19 September 1925, 3; British, ‘Russians in Hongkong’, SCMP, 19 September 1925, 3; White Russian, ‘Russians in Hongkong’, SCMP, 22 September 1925, 11. 94 Carrie, ‘Report on the Census of 1931’, p. 146. 90 91 92 93

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‘in comparison with neighbouring Eastern cities at any rate, the standard of well-being of the populace is well maintained’.95 The 1932 and 1933 reports on social and economic conditions noted that while a European was more inclined to have suffered from the fluctuating exchange values– for they bought more imported goods – ‘no noticeable effect was apparent in the local prices of articles imported from England’.96 In short, the lives of white Britons were generally no worse than before. It is indeed possible that working-class Britons suffered from the changing economic circumstances in 1930s Hong Kong, leading to their anxiety about other Europeans taking jobs. It appeared that Britons’ fear about losing jobs to other Europeans seemed unfounded, as the number of the latter was much smaller than that of white Britons in Hong Kong. Since 1900, Britons had always formed a majority of the colony’s non-Chinese population: amongst the 5,629 residents of ‘pure European descent’ in 1921, 3,183 were British. The Russian community, which appeared to spark most concern, in fact comprised only a small portion of the non-Chinese population there: they numbered only thirty-six and 127 in the 1921 and 1931 censuses respectively.97 If we compare the figures with the fact that there were 6,684 British civilians in Hong Kong in 1931, these 127 people (only 6 per cent of the non-British European population) could hardly pose a great threat to the livelihood of all Britons there.98 On the other hand, many Russians relocated from north-eastern China to southern cities after the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Hong Kong was one of the popular destinations, and it was likely that the 1931 census failed to capture these new arrivals. It is also possible that working-class Britons in the colony suffered more than their middle-class peers during the Great Depression, and in turn blamed these newly arrived Russians for stealing their jobs. Nevertheless, the actual impact of the Great Depression and the arrival of other Europeans on British employment in the colony is unclear. However rational or irrational these concerns about British unemployment and ‘alien penetration’ could be, the fact remains that such 95 ‘Report of the Commission appointed by His Excellency the Governor of Hong Kong to enquire into The Causes and Effects of the Present Trade Depression in Hong Kong and Make Recommendations for the Amelioration of the Existing Position and for the Improvement of the Trade of the Colony’ (Hong Kong: Noronha & Co., 1935), p. 71. 96 ‘Annual Report on the Social and Economic Progress of the People of the Colony of Hong Kong During the Year 1932’, p. 19; ‘Annual Report on the Social and Economic Progress of the People of the Colony of Hong Kong During the Year 1933’, pp. 19–21. 97 Lloyd, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1921’, pp. 176–7; Carrie, ‘Report on the census of 1931’, pp. 111–12. 98 ‘Report on the Census of the Colony of Hong Kong Taken on the Night of March 7, 1931’, pp. 111–12.

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concerns overwhelmed these overseas Britons, during the White British League debate and more widely throughout the interwar years. Hostility shown against other Europeans, as demonstrated in the White British League debate, was direct and obvious. Terms such as ‘intruding’ and ‘penetration’ were used in discussion of non-British Europeans in Hong Kong. Feeling that their assumed rights were not prioritised, they drew the line between themselves and other Europeans there. Their discussion enhances our understanding about British encounters with other whites in the wider empire. While white Britons there usually referred to themselves as ‘Europeans’, they did not always regard other Europeans as part of their community. Such hostility had not always been present between Britons and other Europeans in China. In Shanghai, foreign communities in fact had rather amicable friendships with one another before the outbreak of the Great War.99 Likewise, white Britons in Hong Kong had remained generally on amicable terms with other Europeans, particularly Germans, in earlier years. The Germans were the third largest no­e community in nineteenth-century Hong Kong (after the British and the Portuguese), and they had been on close terms with Britons there. Not only did they live in the same residential areas, but they also worked together – many Germans held prominent positions in hongs and banks – and they clubbed together.100 As in Shanghai, the outbreak of the First World War became a turning point for AngloGerman relations in the colony. White Britons began to look on Germans there with distrust, suspicion, and hostility. Their clubs no longer accepted them. The government confiscated German properties and businesses, and later interned and expelled German residents from the colony.101 While the German community eventually reestablished itself there after the Great War, their numbers halved.102 Anglo-German relations, as we will see in the next section, remained peculiar in the interwar years. Distrust persisted, and even an occasional moment of crisis would expose such perceptions. 99 See Robert Bickers, Getting Stuck in for Shanghai: Putting the Kibosh on the Kaiser from the Bund (London: Penguin Books, 2014). 100 See Ricardo K. S. Mak, ‘Nineteenth-Century German Community’, in Foreign Communities in Hong Kong, 1840s–1950s, edited by Cindy Yik-yi Chu (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), pp. 61–84. 101 Carl T. Smith, ‘The German Speaking Community in Hong Kong, 1846–1918’, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 34 (1994): 1–55; England, Kindred Spirits, pp. 65–66. 102 The number of Germans recorded in censuses dropped significantly from 342 in 1911 to 179 in 1931. See Wodehouse, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1911’, p. 12; Carrie, ‘Report on the Census of 1931’, p. 111.

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Another theme prevalent in the discussion around the White British League was the question of whose interests a British colony should serve. Most contributors to the debate believed that Hong Kong, as a British colony, should prioritise British interests, and criticised the colonial government for not doing so, allowing aliens to ‘intrude’ into the territory.103 ‘Cast Off’ argued that, ‘so long as passport is in order, and the foreigner has a few dollars in his pocket, anybody can land free and unmolested in HK and almost do as he likes, for this Colony in the foreigners’ eyes, is simply a “walk on velvet”’. This letter ended with a telling comment implying that Hong Kong failed in its mission as a British colony: ‘this British Colony: how British is it? Almost’.104 The debate over the White British League helps us understand then not only the relationship between white Britons and other Europeans in interwar Hong Kong, but more importantly, what these overseas Britons thought a British colony was for. A British colony like Hong Kong, they argued, should do its best to serve British interests, be it British employment or British trade. But what exactly were British interests, when they were in an empire where people of colour were also British? Some white British contributors to the debate believed that British interests ought to include the rights of British subjects of colour. Some did not necessarily believe that non-white British subjects deserved equal treatment in their own right. Under the pseudonym of ‘Goodwill’, one presumably white Briton warned the supporters of the League about the possibility of provoking the Chinese, who would start boycotting British goods and start a ‘race-war’ against the Britons.105 Such fears, however, should not distract us from seeing the existence of an important colonial perspective – a perspective some gained from living in the empire – that recognised Britishness as not only a racial identity, but also a political allegiance and a national belonging already held by colonial subjects. In fact, some contributors to the debate seemed determined to maintain Anglo-Chinese relations in Hong Kong and protect the rights of colonial subjects. While showing distrust of Russians, ‘Another Briton’ argued that the League would not work, because it neglected the rights of local-born British subjects. ‘Proud of their Hongkong-born British subjects’, ‘Another Briton’ reminded his fellow Britons that such subjects could be as British as the British whites could be. Though appreciating his scheme for fostering employment for the British Whites in Hongkong, the majority of British Whites in Hongkong would never tolerate 103 Another Briton, ‘The White British League’, SCMP, 11 August 1933, 11; Briton, ‘British Unemployed in Hong Kong’, SCMP, 10 August 1933, 11. 104 Cast Off, ‘This British Colony’, SCMP, 11 August 1933, p. 11. 105 Goodwill, ‘The White British League’, SCMP, 9 August 1933, 11.

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the idea of cutting out the Hongkong-born British subjects, which of course is unthinkable, and as far as one can gather the Hongkong born Eurasians and Chinese are as proud of the Colony as we Britishers are, and such a scheme could only be workable for British subjects only, and might be given the name ‘British League’ instead of ‘White British League’.106

Another reader, ‘Peace Lover’, asked journalists not to publish letters with similar views as Cassel’s in the future, because it would ‘kill the Chinese love for the British and the British love for the Chinese’.107 Some contributors, like ‘Another Briton’ and ‘Goodwill’, articulated strong opposition to ethno-centric discourses. Some may have done so thinking that interracial harmony was crucial for imperial interests, but it was clear that there were individuals who were determined to protect the rights of people of colour as British subjects – at the very least they were determined enough to write extensively to oppose initiatives that might jeopardise such interracial harmony. Such rhetoric that upheld international goodwill echoes with cosmopolitan sensibilities that became increasingly prevalent in other colonial port cities in Asia.108 The White British League debate is illuminating, as it shows us how white Britons in Hong Kong understood Britishness not only as a racial category, but also as a more inclusive form of national belonging that was available to non-white subjects. Meanwhile, as they articulated a desire to protect British economic interest, they defined what ‘British’ meant precisely, and more importantly, who was British. By calling other Europeans (especially Germans and Russians) ‘intruders’, they drew a line between ‘Britishers’ and Europeans. The debate then allows us to see that an understanding of Britishness as a national identity emerged amongst Britons living in the wider empire. The Outbreak of the Second World War War helps construct nationhood as a political collectivity by providing a nation with a common purpose. Through a series of major wars between 106 Another Briton, ‘The White British League’, SCMP, 11 August 1933, 11. 107 Peace Lover, ‘Local Employment’, SCMP, 11 August 1933, 11. 108 Sunil S. Amrith, ‘Mobile City and the Coromandel Coast: Tamil Journeys to Singapore, 1920–1960’, Mobilities, 5.2 (2010): 237–55; Tim Harper, ‘Globalism and the Pursuit of Authenticity: the Makin of a Diasporic Public Sphere in Singapore’, Sojourn, 12.2 (1997): 261–92; Jean Elizabeth DeBernardi, Rites of Belonging: Memory, Modernity, and Identity in a Malaysian Chinese Community (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004); Chua Ai Lin, ‘Nation, Race, and Language: Discussing Transnational Identities in Colonial Singapore, circa 1930’, Modern Asian Studies, 46.2 (2012): 283–302; Su Lin Lewis, ‘Echoes of Cosmopolitanism: Colonial Penang’s “Indigenous” English Press’, in Media and the British Empire, edited by Chandrika Kaul (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), pp. 233–49; Lewis, Cities in Motion.

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1689 and 1815, Britishness emerged as a collective identity in opposition to a European ‘other’, which the English, Scots, Welsh, and Protestant Irish possessed alongside other alignments and loyalties.109 Without paying attention to the outside world – both as Britons experienced it and imagined it – we cannot successfully understand the historical development of Britishness. The Second World War played a crucial role in shaping Britishness. Even ordinary Britons acted consciously to be ‘a part of history’ and an integral part of a national community, and imperial subjects now saw Britain as a common purpose.110 Stories of German atrocities intensified aversion to Britain’s European neighbours as a whole.111 While comparing themselves with their European enemies, the British public defined their nation as one that possessed a sense of humour, the ability to tolerate other cultures, and stoicism.112 While Europeans on the continent saw Europe as a symbol of democracy, human rights, and social justice – values that were supposed to be in opposition to Nazism – Britons now imagined Europe as suspicious and dangerous.113 Such sentiments and notions of Britishness were prevalent in radio broadcasting across the British World.114 Yet, we know less about how such sentiments translated to a colonial setting, when white Britons called themselves ‘European’ on a daily basis. How did the outbreak of war in Europe shape the ways white Britons in Hong Kong saw other Europeans, and the ways they defined Britishness? In this section, I continue drawing from the correspondence column of local English newspapers to answer these questions. It should, however, be noted that most sources I used here come from the South China Morning Post. This was not only because the Post enjoyed a wide readership amongst white Britons in Hong Kong, but also because, compared 109 Colley, ‘Britishness and Otherness’. 110 Lucy Noakes, War and the British: Gender, Memory and National Identity (London: I. B. Tauris, 1998), p. 3; also see Sonya O. Rose, Which People’s War?: National Identity and Citizenship in Britain 1939–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). On how the empire as a whole fought the Second World War, see Ashley Jackson, The British Empire and the Second World War (London: Hambledon Continuum, 2006); Paul Ward, Britishness Since 1870 (London: Routledge, 2004), p. 8. 111 On the impacts of the Second World War on Britain’s perception of refugees and immigrants from Europe, see Tony Kushner, The Holocaust and the Liberal Imagination: A Social and Cultural History (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994); Kushner, The Battle of Britishness. 112 See Jeffrey Richards, ‘National Identity in British Wartime Films’, in Britain and the Cinema in the Second World War, edited by Philip M. Taylor (London: Macmillan, 1988), pp. 42–61. 113 Kushner, We Europeans?, p. 35. 114 Simon J. Potter, ‘Broadcasting Britishness during the Second World War: Radio and the British World’, History of Global Arms Transfer, 5 (2018): 49–58.

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to other English-language newspapers there, the Post published a significantly larger number of letters from readers between 1939 and 1942.115 When British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, white Britons in Hong Kong welcomed the news. They saw it as Britain’s duty to fight against authoritarianism and totalitarianism.116 But as the war went on, their anxieties about Britain’s war effort and other Europeans in the colony exacerbated, changing the dynamics of Anglo-European relations in the colony and intensifying their patriotism towards Britain. White Britons’ excitement about the war reflected how they saw Britain as a nation of democracy and liberty. Prior to the outbreak of the war, white Britons in Hong Kong had often complained that the British government – ‘one of the last strongholds of democracy’ – was too lenient with Nazi Germany.117 They therefore celebrated Britain’s declaration of war as ‘a defence of the liberty of mankind’, for ‘we represent democracy’, as a British serviceman believed.118 Another reader suggested that, as an ‘integral part of a glorious Empire’, ‘Hongkong must become another arsenal for the democracies’, and ‘entire resources of this colony must be put at the disposal of the Home Government’.119 Determined to shoulder ‘Democracy’s burden’ with their fellow Britons at Home, they called for ‘British Courage and Endurance’ and keener contributions to the war effort at Home.120 As such, when business elites and prominent Chinese strongly opposed the Hong Kong government’s introduction of war taxation in 1939, many white Britons thought otherwise.121 A British civil servant

115



116

117 118 119 120 121



Take 25 September 1939 as an example. On that date, SCMP devoted approximately one third of its page 15 to publish seven letters from readers, when the China Mail, the Hong Kong Telegraph, and the Hong Kong Daily Press published none. ‘German Firms: Many Removed Stocks Before Leaving, Colony Remains Calm’, SCMP, 5 September 1939 p. 8; ‘The News Received in H.K.: Excited Crowds at the Hotels’, Hong Kong Telegraph, 4 September 1939, p. 3; ‘英對德宣戰後之香港 防空 襲隨時燈火管制：德僑百餘已送集中營 英法人民痛飲表興奮[Hong Kong after Britain declared war against Germany: Blackout imposed to prevent air-raid, over 100 German expatriates interned, British and French drank excitedly]’, Kung Sheung Yat Po (工商日 報), 5 September 1939, p. 9. John Leaning, ‘Threat to Democracy’, SCMP, 18 June 1938, 9; Sicalbag, ‘The Armed Threat to World Democracy’, SCMP, 3 February 1938, 8. ‘Hongkong and War: Governor Says Where Duty Lies, British and Chinese Express Loyalty in Council, Communities Thanked’, SCMP, 15 September 1939, 8; “Democrat”, ‘Proud of It’, Hong Kong Daily Press, 9 November 1939, 6. Wake Up, ‘Hongkong’s War Effort’, SCMP, 27 May 1941, 11. No Half Measures, ‘With the Blinkers Off’, SCMP, 25 September 1939, p. 15; Briton, ‘A Call to British Courage and Endurance’, SCMP, 7 September 1939, 12. On background and details of the War Revenue Ordinance 1940, see Michael Littlewood, Taxation Without Representation: The History of Hong Kong’s Troublingly Successful Tax System (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010), pp. 39–40.

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stated that, compared to their unmarried brothers in England who paid more than one third of their income in income tax, those in Hong Kong would still pay significantly less. Believing that they could contribute more, the author called for the assistance of fellow white Britons with an evocative statement: ‘we stand or fall with England’.122 Another reader ‘Britainicus’ agreed: ‘The Empire is at war boys and girls! That means that you are at war too, although you are all 10,000 miles away from the conflict’. Britainicus considered it utterly important for Britons to contribute wholeheartedly so that Britain could fight the war with self-reliance. ‘The Germans are putting their heart and soul into this and the Russians, goaded by Stalin, are going to take whilst the opportunity is at hand all that they can get’.123 ‘Another British Woman’ urged that ‘we people in this far-flung corner of the British Empire’ should do ‘our bit’ by ‘foregoing that cocktail party, fewer dresses, walking instead of riding everywhere, giving one’s earning at bridge and mahjong, a few teas and drinks less’.124 Supported by these British residents and more importantly the official domination of the Legislature, the War Revenue Ordinance in 1940 was introduced, aiming to raise six million Hong Kong dollars annually as the colony’s war contribution to London.125 Also evident in these writings was suspicion towards German residents in the colony. As mentioned above, Anglo-German relations in the colony turned soured after the First World War, and never fully mended. When conflicts between the British and German governments worsened in the late 1930s, anti-German sentiment became more apparent amongst white Britons in Hong Kong. ‘Anti-German propaganda’ was apparently evident in the colony in 1938, as the German Consul-General H. Gipperich stated before his guests (which included Governor Sir Geoffry Northcote) at the celebration of German National Day in the colony.126 Local immigration policies also became increasingly hostile to Germans. In May 1938, the 1928 Anglo-German and Anglo-Austrian Agreements for the mutual abolition of visas was abrogated, making it necessary for Germans to obtain a British visa before

122 123 124 125

126

Quis Seperabit, ‘Hongkong’s War Effort’, SCMP, 28 May 1940, 8. Britainicus, ‘The Empire at War’, SCMP, 12 December 1939, 15. Another British Woman, ‘Hongkong’s War Effort’, SCMP, 28 May 1940, 8. ‘Notice to the Public: War Revenue Ordinance, 1940’, Hongkong Government Gazette, 3 May 1940, 680; ‘Colony’s War Gifts: Council’s Approval, War Taxation Bill Read Second Time, Minesweepers for Navy and Tenders for Army, Six Millions Expected’, SCMP, 15 March 1940, p. 8. ‘National Day: Germans and British Toast to Mutual Goodwill, Consul’s Gratitude’, SCMP, 4 May 1938, p. 11.

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entering Hong Kong.127 Not aware of such changes, several long-term German residents re-entered the colony without a visa. While it was only to comply with London’s policy that charges were pressed against them, it is notable that the prosecutor requested that the magistrate fine and expel such subjects, a penalty much more severe than the judges’ final decision to caution them only.128 After Britain’s declaration of war on Germany, such suspicions – and even hostility – against Germans became much more evident in Hong Kong. While the colonial government interned all German men of military age at La Salle College the evening Britain declared war, a number of letters to editors demonstrated anxiety about the remaining Germans in town.129 ‘N. Quire’, for instance, asked the ‘pertinent questions’: ‘are there any Germans or Italians in the Colony who are not yet interned? Why allow any enemy aliens to be at large when the proved risk of Fifth Columnists is so great?’130 The discussion around Germans ‘at large’ also intertwined with economic protectionism, a rhetoric highly prevalent in the British Whites League debate. Advocating ‘Buy British’, one even went as far as to complain about German and Italian songs being played on the radio. ‘Many British residents in this colony feel very strongly about the amount of enemy singers and performers who are drawing royalty-money when they are pumped at us over the air by Z.B.W. [the official radio broadcasting station]’, ‘Buy British’ claimed.131 When the government formed a committee in mid-September 1939 to consider the release of German internees whose British employers had written to the Commissioner of Police ‘vouching for them’ and indicating a willingness to re-employ them, many Britons opposed such consideration.132 Their opposition came from worries about fifth-columnists, as well as, just as in 1933, the anxiety that these Germans would steal jobs away from Britons. ‘So we are considering the release of certain of the La Salle College internees, where they are vouched for by their British employers! Sounds Good!’, a reader wrote sarcastically.133 Another reader wrote bitterly that ‘for many

127 No. 488, Hongkong Government Gazette, June 24, 1938, p. 475. 128 ‘Germans Cautioned: Visa Absent from their Passports, Expulsion Refused’, SCMP, 1 December 1938, 2. 129 ‘Germans Interned: Police Move Follows the War Declaration, for La Salle College’, SCMP, 4 September 1939, 8. 130 N. Quire, ‘Pertinent Questions’, SCMP, 2 December 1940, 17. 131 Buy British, ‘German and Italian Broadcasts’, SCMP, 27 August 1940, 7. 132 ‘La Salle Internees: Appeals for Release Under Consideration, Recommends Soon’, SCMP, 12 September 1939, 4. 133 Fortunate, ‘British Patriotism’, SCMP, 21 September 1939, 13.

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years this British colony has been the happy hunting ground for cheap foreign job-seekers’. They wrote: Far too long the slogan in this Colony has been, ‘No Britons Need Apply’. This loose pandering to foreigners, to whom preference is nearly always given because they will work for a pittance, is as sickening as the sloppy consideration extended to the enemy subjects in our midst.

They worried that, ‘as soon as the war is over, more and more Germans will barge into the Colony, and more and more German firms set up for bigger and better German trade’.134 Notably, such suspicions extended to naturalised British subjects of German background, Italian missionaries, and even Jewish refugees escaping from Nazism. Many worried that British subjects who had formerly been German nationals might be fifth columnists. In Britain, even the fact that some of these subjects had fled Nazi antisemitism did not stop the British public imagining Jewish refugees as possible threats to Britain’s national security.135 The horrors of war magnified their imagination that German people as a whole were barbaric to the extent that the British society even viewed refugees from Nazism with suspicion, which eventually led to the mass internment of German nationals in Britain in 1940, regardless of refugee status.136 Likewise, such a deep-rooted image about Jews prevented some white Britons in Hong Kong from seeing the irony in 1940 when the government planned to expel Jewish refugees from the colony because of their German nationality.137 On 5 June, the Hong Kong Police Department ordered all enemy aliens to leave the Colony within the following week, and indicated that no affected persons would be permitted to go to either Canton or Macau. The order applied to all German and Austrian subjects residing in the colony, and as the editor of the South China Morning Post noted, ‘including refugees from the Nazi regime’.138 On 12 June, the Commissioner of Police also announced the internment of fourteen Italian subjects at the La Salle College camp, and the restriction of Italian priests’ movement outside their churches.139 These policies received 134 No Half Measures, ‘With the Blinkers Off’, SCMP, 25 September 1939, 15. 135 Tony Kushner, The Persistence of Prejudice: Antisemitism in British Society during the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989), p. 117. 136 Kushner, The Holocaust and the Liberal Imagination. 137 Ryan Sun’s article reveals how during the Second World War, Hong Kong provided shelter for Jewish refugees, though its colonial administration did also subject these refugees to internment and expulsion. Cheuk Him Ryan Sun, ‘The Holocaust and Hong Kong: an overlooked history’, Holocaust Studies, 29.3 (2023): 393–413. 138 ‘Enemy Aliens’, SCMP, 7 June 1940, 4. 139 ‘Italians Interned: Priests Concentrated in Three Institutions, Official Statement’, SCMP, 13 June 1940, p. 8.

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much support from British residents there. ‘Once Bitten’, for instance, welcomed the policy because they alleged that Jewish refugee children in Britain ‘had neither manners nor gratitude’.140 Others believed that, ‘there are no such people as pro- or anti-Hitlerites these days – once a German, always a German’.141 These Britons believed that, ‘whatever an individual had suffered at the hands of a political party in one’s country, if that person, whose forbears had been Germans, Jewish or Aryan, for centuries, stated that he had no love for Germany, I would say he was a liar’. They believed that, Jewish refugees might be ‘anti-Hitlerite’, but ‘time and distance can quickly eradicate past suffering and soften hatred’ and so such refugees could still possibly aid ‘not Hitler, but Germany’.142 Some even suggested they should expel naturalised British subjects who had previously been enemy nationals. ‘Fairplay’ argued that enemy nationals ‘should go, and they should go at once’ because they ‘must already have within them the seeds of disloyalty, and (though they themselves may be blind to this) are potential friends of the Fifth Column’. I would also suggest that naturalized enemy subjects should go too, whether they are musicians, doctors, newspapermen, or merely business folk. The Colony is woefully over-crowded. Now is the chance to clear out these undesirables who have been taking the bread out of the mouths of the struggling Britishers for many a long year.143

By calling them ‘undesirables’ while expressing their economic protectionist views, ‘Fairplay’s’ writing displayed a distrust of those who had previously held connections with enemy aliens, despite their naturalisation. Some Britons were concerned that the government had not interned nor expelled Italian priests and nuns in the colony. Catholics and ‘an Italian Missionary’ wrote to the newspapers to state that their loyalty lied with the Roman Catholic Church, not the Fascist state in Italy.144 Nevertheless, some remained skeptical. An ‘Anti-Fifth Columnist’, for instance, was one of them: Our nation, our country, and our homes are being attacked by Italy, and yet we in Hong Kong are satisfied to harbour her subjects! Must British and French troops fight in Europe for our land and our freedom, while we carry ‘snakes’ in our bosom? 140



141 142 143 144

Once Bitten, ‘Expulsion of Refugees’, SCMP, 11 Jun 1940, 8; On Jewish refugee children in Britain, see Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz, Never Look Back, the Jewish Refugee Children in Great Britain, 1938–1945 (West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 2012). Democracy 1940, ‘Progress 1940’, SCMP, 14 June 1940, 8. Safety First, ‘Expulsion of Exiles’, SCMP, 12 June 1940, 8. Fairplay, ‘Expulsion of refugees’, SCMP, 11 June 1940, 8. Indignant, ‘Aliens’ Property’, SCMP, 15 June 1940, 8; An Italian Missionary, ‘Italian Missionaries’, SCMP, 22 June 1940, 8.

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They insisted that, ‘the point at issue is not that these priests and nuns belong to the Roman Catholic Church, but that they are nationals of a ruthless, crafty and despicable enemy with whom we are now at war’.145 A. Mackie agreed that ‘the cloak of religion can easily cover up a multitude of spies’, and considered that ‘Italian priests and nuns are worth no more consideration than anybody else’.146 On the other hand, a considerable number of Britons wrote to the press to battle against the hostility that their British peers held against these ‘enemy aliens’. On 12 September 1939, a reader ‘F.A.D’ wrote to the South China Morning Post demanding that the government provide for wives of German internees interned at La Salle College. F. A. D. asked: ‘it is not their fault that there is a war, and why should they suffer when they had lived in Hongkong for the greater part of their lives?’147 It is also worth noting that, when letters began to appear in the Post’s correspondence column urging the government to expel and intern all enemy aliens regardless of their refugee status or religious background, the Post in fact published a much larger number of letters supportive of the Jewish refugees and Italian nuns. Authors of these letters included ‘British Chinese’ and other colonial British subjects, but also white Britons.148 A presumably white Briton, ‘British Justice’ wrote: We are all aware of the danger from fifth columnists, but really eliminating that danger? These people banished under the cruelest circumstances from their homes in Austria, number approximately seventy, including children, old people and invalids. Two are in the mental ward as a result of their treatment under Hitler. … Are we not adopting Hitler’s methods if we force hopeless people from their jobs and homes and throw them out upon the world, destitute, as he did?149

They argued against the expulsion order, because they believed such an act contradicted what Britishness meant. ‘It has always been the boast of the British people everywhere that such persons can find shelter, freedom and safety under British flag’, wrote a letter co-signed by Ronald Hall, the Bishop of Hong Kong, and other missionaries of the Anglican church in Hong Kong.150 A reader also wrote two identical 145 146 147 148

149 150

Anti-Fifth Columnist, ‘Italian Nationals in Hongkong’, SCMP, 13 June 1940, 8. A. Mackie, ‘Aliens’, SCMP, 14 June 1940, 8. F. A. D., ‘Internees’ Wives’, SCMP, 12 September 1939, 7. A British Chinese, ‘Expulsion of Refugees’, SCMP, 11 June 1940, 8; K. K. Lam, ‘Aliens’ Property’, SCMP, 15 June 1940, 8; Ang Chor Hiang, Editor of Kung Kao Po, ‘Italian Missionaries’, SCMP, 22 June 1940, 8; A. Therese Wu, ‘Italian Missionaries’, SCMP, 22 June 1940, 8. British Justice, ‘Expulsion of Exiles’, SCMP, 12 June 1940, 8. Ronald Hong Kong, Frank Short, J. L. Wilson, J. R. Higgs, David Rosenthall, J. A. Sandbach, K Mackenzie Dow, E. Moreton, A. P. Rose, ‘Expulsion of Refugees’, SCMP, 11 June 1940, 8.

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letters to both the China Mail and the Hong Kong Daily Press to remark on the ‘deep regret’ amongst ‘many of us British residents of Hong Kong’ about the expulsion order, as it was against ‘the traditional British policy of considering as our duty and privilege the succor of “political,” “racial” and religious refugees’.151 J. Scott Harston believed that Britain and its empire had historically benefited much from receiving ‘exiles from persecution’ – the Huguenots, the Flemings, and the Jews.152 Another reader asked, ‘cannot Hongkong be as humane as Great Britain and think out a better solution than that of plunging people into destitution? We are fighting for Christianity, against aggression and cruelty. Let us be very certain that we are upholding British, nay, Christian, standards of justice’.153 In Britain, the British public imagined tolerance, stoicism, and democracy to be the core values of Britishness, particularly in the 1930s when international relations deteriorated amongst European countries.154 That white Britons in Hong Kong invoked Christian and British values to oppose the expulsion order then reflects to what extent such notions of Britishness travelled to the wider British Empire. Some white Britons also demonstrated an inclusive attitude towards British subjects of colour when they urged employers to employ ‘­British’. ‘Fortunate’, whose letter was quoted above, asked: ‘while one sympathises a little with them [the interned aliens], how about the unemployed Britishers in the Colony? And how about the many unemployed British subjects also?’ Chas L. Clarke also pointed out that about 200 British subjects in Hong Kong were unemployed: ‘they are Eurasians, local born Indians and Portuguese – but British subjects all’. He asked the military authorities and the colonial government to consider hiring these British subjects: ‘we use slogans such as these in advertisements nowadays “Be British”, “Buy British”; so why not “Employ British”?’155 Though holding evident hostility against European ‘others’, writers of these letters acknowledged the Britishness of colonial subjects in Hong Kong. Indeed, editors’ own views on the issue would have affected which readers’ letters were to be published in their correspondence column. Several editors of English-language newspapers in the colony had been vocal in calling for a humane and inclusive attitude towards refugees 151



152

153 154 155

History, ‘Expulsion of Aliens’, China Mail, 11 June 1940, p. 13; History, ‘Expulsion of Aliens’, Hong Kong Daily Press, 11 June 1940, p. 6. J. Scott Harston, ‘Expulsion of Exiles’, SCMP, 12 June 1940, 8. British Justice, ‘Expulsion of Exiles’, SCMP, 12 June 1940, 8. Kushner, The Battle of Britishness; Holmes, A Tolerant Country. Chas L. Clarke, ‘Hongkong Unemployed’, SCMP, 19 September 1940, 13.

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from Nazism.156 During the debates about interning Germans in 1939–1940, editors often emphasised in their reports that many such ‘enemy aliens’ included Jewish refugees. They might have selected to publish more letters sharing their own views, presenting the more tolerant attitude towards refugees as the mainstream opinion amongst white Britons in Hong Kong. On the other hand, the government’s modification to the expulsion order in July 1940 suggests that their views might bear some significance in the colony. On 9 July, the Hong Kong Police announced that all German and Austrian refugees in the colony would be interned until they made arrangements to depart Hong Kong, while a number of refugees were permitted to remain. The police also clarified that they had no intention to intern all Italian nationals in Hong Kong.157 This was a significant departure from the stricter orders made in June, and likely to be responding to public opinion that favoured a more tolerant approach to Jewish refugees in the colony. By debating how they could contribute to the empire’s war efforts, and expressing their distrust of enemy aliens, white Britons’ responses towards the outbreak of the Second World War allow us to see how their understanding of being ‘British’ developed throughout the interwar years. War as a moment of crisis prompted them to imagine themselves as a coherent community against their enemies. Physical distance barely stopped them from feeling as involved in the war between Britain and Germany as those in Britain were. Contributing to Britain’s war efforts became their prime obligation as ‘Britishers’. While some white Britons attempted to alienate themselves from the perceived suspicious enemy aliens, some insisted that such sentiments contradicted the very meaning of being ‘British’, which they believed to be welcoming, inclusive, and tolerant. ****** Ironically, white Britons’ overwhelming concern about their European enemies distracted them from seeing the threat of a possible Japanese invasion. When the colonial government carried out the compulsory evacuation of British women and children from Hong Kong to Australia in July 1940, many white Britons protested. They opposed the evacuation for various reasons, but mostly because they could not see 156



157

See, for instance, ‘Not General Round-Up’, Hong Kong Daily Press, 10 July 1940, 5; Also Henry Ching’s editorial on June 13, ‘Tradition of Sanctuary’, SCMP, 13 June 1940, 10. As will be seen in Chapter 5, these editors were also actively involved in multiracial internationalist voluntary societies in the colony. ‘Refugees Interned: Must Obey Orders to Leave the Colony, Italians Not Affected’, SCMP, 10 July 1940, 4; ‘Not General Round-Up’, Hong Kong Daily Press, 10 July 1940, 5.

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that the Japanese army, stationed just across the Hong Kong–China border, imposed any threat to the colony.158 While they were worried about European ‘intruders’, German and Italian nationals, and even Jewish refugees in town, nothing was said about Mr. Yamashita, the Japanese barber in the Hong Kong Hotel. Yamashita, who asked his British customers about warship movements as he cut their hair before the outbreak of war, would later surprise his customers when he became an administrator overseeing the Stanley Internment Camp, where the Japanese interned non-Chinese enemy nationals.159 Such insularity among the white Britons came from the racial prejudice that an Asian enemy could not constitute a sufficient threat to the British Empire, but it also had much to do with how white Britons there identified themselves. In insisting that ‘no accident of geography’ could make them less British than when they were in Britain, these overseas Britons tried their very best to position themselves as part of the British society at Home. On one hand, they called themselves ‘European’ to say they were white, to differentiate themselves from the supposedly less-privileged Asians that coexisted with them in the imperial space. On the other hand, they also defined themselves as opposed to the European Other(s), whose otherness had been embedded in the metropolitan imagination of their European neighbours. The term ‘European’ was, then, not merely a euphemism for an all-inclusive whiteness. Rather, at times it underscored finer distinctions between themselves and other whites in the colony. While Britons and their European peers remained friendly on paper, prejudice and suspicions against the latter persisted, and only a moment of crisis would reveal these sentiments. Public discussions about the British White League and Britain’s war with Germany are revealing. While cosmopolitan sensibilities began to play a crucial role in colonial urban spaces during the interwar years, findings of this chapter show that such cosmopolitanism had its limits.160 Indeed, many British readers – and journalists – used newspapers’ correspondence columns as a platform to battle against notions of exclusivity, and their voices appeared to be in parallel with – if not stronger than – those who understood Britishness much more narrowly. Clearly editorial selection would have produced such a picture, making it hard to tell which view was in the ascendance. But what is worth noting is 158 Kong, ‘Hong Kong is my Home’. 159 Philip Snow, The Fall of Hong Kong: Britain, China and the Japanese Occupation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), p. 133. 160 See C. A. Bayly, ‘Rammohan Roy and the advent of constitutional liberalism in India, c. 1800–1830’, Modern Intellectual History, 4, 1 (2007): 25–41.

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how mutually constitutive articulations of such notions were. Each argument in the debates prompted ripostes and rejections, creating its own momentum. In examining how white Britons maintained their Britishness and responded to moments of crisis, we can see the varied, and often contradictory, forms of Britishness that began to emerge in interwar Hong Kong. As white Britons articulated their anxiety about declining British privilege and the European other, their discussions provide us with a lens to look at the multiple and muddled ways the conceptions of whiteness and Britishness interplayed with each other. Being white helped in a colony like Hong Kong, but being a Briton also mattered. This does not mean that the notion that Britishness was a form of national belonging – one that colonial subjects could hold – completely took over one that defined Britishness as a racial identity. Phrases like ‘we the British race’ or ‘British races’ were still too common in the official documents, newspapers, and memoirs that I’ve looked at, let alone the oral history testimony that interwar residents of Hong Kong gave decades later. Even those who wrote extensively to fight for the rights of the colonial subjects employed such rhetoric at times. This was evident in their usage of the term ‘Britisher’. Having originated in North America to refer to the new arrivals from the British Isles, ‘Britisher’ was a commonly used term across the empire for overseas white Britons, and usually not used in the imperial context as a synonym for ‘Briton’ or even ‘British subject’.161 Similarly, in the writings quoted in the sections above, white Britons identified themselves as ‘Britishers’, while calling their colonial counterparts as ‘British subjects’ or ‘British nationals’. When ‘Fortunate’ addressed the sympathies that many showed towards the interned aliens in 1939, they asked: ‘how about the unemployed Britons in the colony? And how about the many unemployed British subjects also’, reflecting a perspective that, while acknowledging colonial subjects’ Britishness, still regarded their colonial counterparts as different from themselves. But this should not distract us from seeing how the meaning of being ‘British’ was enriched during the interwar years. Even as war was 161



There were indeed notable examples where colonial subjects identified themselves as ‘Britishers’. These include the ‘loyalist’ black slaves who served the British cause during the American War of Revolution and stated ‘We are Britishers’. More, see David Killingray, ‘“A Good West Indian, a Good African, and, in Short, a Good Britisher”: Black and British in a Colour-Conscious Empire, 1760–1950’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 36.3 (2008): 363–81; Judith Fingard, ‘Race and Respectability in Victorian Halifax’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 20.2 (1992): 169–95.

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looming, some were determined to define Britain as a nation that was inclusive, welcoming, and tolerant. They began to recognise the Britishness of colonial subjects, and they wrote positively of the cross-cultural interactions that they enjoyed in the empire. The emergence of such notions encouraged some white Britons in Hong Kong to see colonial subjects as British. In the next chapter, we will explore how these colonial Britons came to engage with Britishness, and what implications such engagements brought to their other existing identities.

3

Britishness and Chineseness in an Age of Nationalism

On 16 March 1910, Sir Frederick Lugard, the Governor of Hong Kong, attended an event that marked the success of an initiative often deemed as his most important legacy in the colony. Appointed to the post a year after he resigned as the High Commissioner of the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria, Lugard arrived in Hong Kong in July 1907. He soon expressed explicit interest in building a university there: he wanted to make the colony ‘the Oxford and Cambridge of the Far East’. Only eight months into his governorship he had successfully secured the promise of a donation of $150,000 from the Parsi tycoon Sir Hormusjee Naorojee Mody for the purposes of establishing a university in Hong Kong.1 This ambitious project was not an easy task. White British residents largely opposed the plan. Members of the China Association in London showed little interest in Lugard’s appeals, as did authorities in London and other British territories in the region.2 For months it seemed like the University would never get built, but Lugard and his administration gradually raised sufficient funds for their project. On 16 March 1910 he laid the foundation stone of the University of Hong Kong (hereafter HKU), which would officially open in March 1912. Lugard was certainly using the University as a tool to advance his career,3 but to the historian of Britishness, more notable was Lugard’s vision for HKU outlined in a speech he gave at the University’s foundation stone laying ceremony: ‘It is my belief that the graduates of this 1

‘Hongkong University Scheme: Mr. Mody the Generous Patron’, South China Morning Post (hereafter SCMP), 17 March 1908, p. 6; ‘Hongkong University’, Hongkong Telegraph, 19 March 1908, p. 4. 2 CO 129/531/10, Lugard, ‘Notes on Hong Kong University’, The National Archives of the United Kingdom (hereafter TNA); Peter Cunich, A History of The University of Hong Kong: Volume 1 1911–1945 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012), p. 120. 3 Margery Perham, Lugard: The Years of Authority, 1898–1945 (London: Collins, 1960), p. 337; Elaine Y. L. Ho, ‘Imperial Globalization and Colonial Transactions: “African Lugard” and the University of Hong Kong’, in Critical Zone 2: A forum of Chinese and Western Knowledge, edited by Q. S. Tong, Wang Shouren, and Douglas Kerr (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2006), pp. 107–45; Alastair Pennycook, English and the Discourses of Colonialism (London: Routledge, 1998), p. 122.

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University […] will be ‘Missionaries of Empire’ in the highest sense – sent out to spread the benefits and blessings which practical education confers’.4 Lugard’s ambition was clear: he wanted to use the University – and more widely, the colony of Hong Kong – to extend British cultural influence in China. His wish to train a cadre of Chinese graduates to ensure British domination in China dictated HKU’s development in the subsequent decades. He left Hong Kong mere days after the University was opened, but his plan continued to shape HKU. University authorities carefully crafted a curriculum and campus life, to create a suitable milieu to nurture young Chinese to become missionaries of Britishness. Using education as a ‘tool of empire’ was certainly nothing novel: it had enabled imperial authorities in other colonial contexts to train indigenous ‘collaborators’ to assist with the day-to-day running of colonial governance, whilst also imposing cultural conceptions and patterns of consumption on the colonised to suit the colonisers’ imperial needs.5 In the West Indies, an English education equipped colonial subjects with not only the use of English, but also imperial ideologies and a sense of loyalty to the British Empire and Britishness.6 But colonial education can also create knock-on effects that undermined and destabilised imperial rule, as demonstrated in India at the turn of the twentieth century. As colonial education fostered a class of highly educated Indian elites with some power and influence in their societies, many became increasingly aware that despite their intellectual outlook, their employment opportunities remained limited because of the inequalities of colonial rule.7 Rising resentment against colonialism 4 ‘Hongkong University: Stone-laying Ceremonial, Picturesque Proceedings, a Knighthood for Mr. Mody’, Hongkong Daily Press, 17 March 1910, p. 3. Also ‘Speeches at the Ceremony of Laying the Foundation Stone’, in Frederick Lugard, Hongkong University: Present Position, Constitution, Objects and Prospects (Hong Kong: Noronha, 1912), p. 24. 5 See J. A. Mangan, ‘Gentlemen Galore: Imperial Education for Tropical Africa: Lugard the Ideologist’, Immigrants and Minorities, 1.2 (1982): 149–68; Fanny Colonna, ‘Educating Conformity in French Colonial Algeria’, in Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World, edited by Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997), pp. 346–70. On education and cultural imperialism, see Bill Williamson, Education, Social Structure and Development (London: Macmillan, 1979), especially pp. 126–77; Martin Carnoy, Education as Cultural Imperialism (New York: David McKay, 1974). 6 David Killingray, ‘“A Good West Indian, a Good African, and In Short, a Good Britisher”: Black and British in a Colour-Conscious Empire, 1760–1950’, the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 36, 3 (2008): 363–81; Anne Spry Rush, Bonds of Empire: West Indians and Britishness from Victoria to Decolonization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). 7 See Anilchandra Banerjee, ‘Years of Consolidation: 1883–1904’, in Hundred Years of the University of Calcutta, a History of the University Issued in Commemoration of the Centenary

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then motivated a rise of anti-colonial movements, and students stood at the forefront and protested vocally against British colonialism. And let’s not forget that HKU was a project conceived in the age of nationalism: it opened only months after the Republic of China was founded, and in the subsequent decades witnessed the rise of Chinese nationalism. In the interwar years, students in China joined the call of nationalist activists and called out the foreigners who dominated their country. In Burma and Indonesia, university students also took to the streets to rally against foreign colonisers and demanded for self-rule and independence. How did the Chinese students at HKU, an institution that was never shy from admitting its imperialist desire to aid the British imperial enterprise in China, react to the University’s indoctrination of Britishness and rising Chinese nationalism and anti-imperialist movements during the interwar years? In this chapter, I use the experience of ethnic Chinese students at HKU as a case study to explain the transmission of Britishness to colonial subjects, and its implications for anti-colonial movements. Using writings produced by colonial officials, University staff, and students and graduates from the University, I uncover how Britishness shaped the co-existence of various diasporic Chinese identities on campus, and its student body’s curious response to Chinese nationalism. Altogether, I demonstrate how colonial education – and more widely a colonial milieu – gave birth to a non-radicalism in Hong Kong in the age of rising nationalism. Imperial Competition and Education in China At the heart of the plan to build HKU was an imperial agenda. Officials, educators, philanthropists, and even journalists had wanted the University to educate not only young Chinese in the colony, but those in China itself. Seeing how education helped other foreigners in China – Americans and the Japanese in particular – to assert cultural dominance over the Chinese youth, Britons decided to make use of their colony in southern China to build an exemplary British institution in order to train a cadre of ‘missionaries’. What they wanted these ‘missionaries of empire’ to become was not just a cohort of little Britons; founders and University administrators had wanted their graduates to acquire Britishness, but only to a limited extent so that they remained sufficiently Chinese and would live in China with their British influence. To understand the Celebrations, edited by Pramathanath Bandyopadhyay (Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1957), pp. 149–52; Dietmar Rothermund, The Phases of Indian Nationalism and Other Essays (Bombay: Nachiketa Publications, 1970), pp. 144–56; Tithi Bhattacharya, The Sentinels of Culture: Class, Education, and the Colonial Intellectual in Bengal (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

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University’s ambitions, then, requires us to consider the broader history of the foreign presence in post-1842 China. After China’s defeats in the series of military conflicts since the Opium Wars, many Chinese and foreigners alike believed the solution to China’s problems was to ‘modernise’ China using models of Western civilization. Starting from the 1860s, the Chinese actively sought Western education to strengthen their country against ‘the West’ and improve their job prospects.8 During the Self-Strengthening Movement between 1861 and 1895, the Qing government founded modern technical institutions across the country, and sent 120 boys to schools and universities in the United States.9 The educational reforms of 1902–1903, the founding of modern universities in the late nineteenth century, and the abolition of imperial civil examinations in 1905 furthered a demand for Western higher education in China.10 By 1909, China had built three state-sponsored universities, with twenty-four provincial colleges and 101 specialist colleges based on foreign educational models.11 Foreigners were keen to assist with the modernisation of Chinese education. Besides the foreign experts teaching in technical institutes, foreign missionary orders founded colleges and universities in China.12 Foreign governments also welcomed Chinese students to study in their countries. The United States hosted another 492 Chinese students between 1890 and 1910, whereas Japan hosted 7,283 Chinese in 1906 alone.13 A genuine desire to help with China’s ‘awakening’ may have fuelled this foreign interest in China’s education, but what was likely to have concerned them more was a pressing desire to win the imperial competition taking place in China.14 Although China retained its sovereignty 8 Chan-Fai Cheung and Guangxin Fan, ‘The Chinese Idea of University, 1866–1895’, in Transmitting the Ideal of Enlightenment: Chinese Universities Since the Late Nineteenth Century, edited by Ricardo K. S. Mak (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2009), pp. 13–34. 9 See Liel Leibovitz, Fortunate Sons: the 120 Chinese boys who went to America, went to school, and revolutionized an ancient civilization (New York: W. W. Norton, 2011). 10 On educational reforms that the Qing government carried out in the early 1900s, see Paul J. Bailey, Reform the People: Changing Attitudes Towards Popular Education in Early Twentieth-Century China (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990), Chapter 1. 11 Ruth Hayhoe, China’s Universities, 1895–1995: A Century of Cultural Conflict (Hong Kong: HKU CERC, 1999), p. 40. 12 Wen-hsin Yeh categorized these missionary-founded colleges as one of the four major types of higher education institutions in Republican China. See Wen-hsin Yeh, The Alienated Academy: Culture and Politics in Republican China, 1919–1937 (Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1990). 13 Hayhoe, China’s Universities, p. 40. 14 Examples include Prosper Giquel. See Steven A. Leibo, Transferring Technology to China: Prosper Giquel and the Self-Strengthening Movement (Berkeley, CA: University of California, Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Chinese Studies, 1985).

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and independence following military defeats at the hands of foreign powers, the ‘unequal treaties’ the Qing and Republican governments signed enabled foreign powers to acquire land – be it colonies, ‘leased territories’, settlements, or concessions – and assume legal and economic privileges on Chinese soil. States involved were constantly eager to obtain more – at least as much as what other states had secured, and more if possible. Because they believed that having cultural influence over the Chinese youth could ensure their future trading interests, education became a battlefield between Britons, Americans, Germans, the French, and the Japanese. They elbowed their way through their peers to educate the Chinese, simply not to miss out in the ‘Scramble for China’.15 How to use education to secure cultural domination in China preoccupied many minds, and it was such a thought that motivated those in Hong Kong to build a university. The idea first emerged in Hong Kong’s public sphere in 1905 when W.  H. Donald, the Australian editor of English-language newspaper China Mail, proposed in an editorial an idea of ‘an Imperial University for Hong Kong’. Triggered by Japan’s recent victory in the Russo-Japanese war, Donald saw Japan as Britain’s biggest rival in the Far East. To him, education was the key to obtaining commercial dominance. In light of the numerous Japanese teachers in China and the even larger number of Chinese studying in Japan, he considered Britain to be already falling behind in this race. Nevertheless, he argued, it was not too late if Britons built a university in Hong Kong, ‘the center and fountain-head of English influence in the Far East’: What is needed is a regularly established system of higher education in Hongkong – or, in other words, a University. If such an institution be set up so near to him the Chinaman [sic] of the Southern provinces, and probably of some of the Northern ones, will prefer to take advantages of it rather than of his own universities, for there is no doubt as to the eagerness of the rising generation of Chinese to absorb Eastern ideas and Western civilization.16

Although officials ignored his comments then, Donald’s desire for a university to extend British influence and exert cultural dominance in China became the basis of Governor Sir Frederick Lugard’s plan to build a university in 1907.17 In a meeting of the committee for planning HKU’s establishment, Lugard revealed the extent to which this thought 15

See Robert Bickers, The Scramble for China: Foreign Devils in the Qing Empire, 1832–1914 (London: Allen Lane, 2011). 16 ‘An Imperial University for Hong Kong’, The China Mail, 15 December 1905, p. 4. 17 At St. Stephen’s College’s graduation ceremony in January 1906, the headmaster Rev. E. J. Barnett expressed the need for a local university. Yet, Nathan immediately

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motivated his ambitious project: ‘Germany and France have both seen the advantage of establishing a University, and I am anxious that we should not awake from our traditional apathy too late and find ourselves already forestalled’.18 British officials outside Hong Kong shared Lugard’s view. These included the British Minister in Peking, Sir John Jordan, with whom Lugard frequently corresponded in the years of planning for HKU’s formation. In 1917, Jordan instructed British consuls in several Chinese provincial cities to persuade local governments to encourage their students to study at HKU, and wrote that: We have always been anxious to get Chinese students sent to England for their education in the same way as the Americans and Japanese endeavor to attract them to their countries, but we feel that at the present time it is more than ever important to put Chinese in the way of education on British lines, and that we should not lag behind our American and Japanese competitors in this respect. Fortunately, you might say that we have the excellent University of Hong Kong at our door to assist us.19

As such, even in the planning stage, founders and benefactors had designed the University to be a British institution that would offer higher education in English and encourage an appreciation of British values. Lugard aspired for the University to produce engineers, teachers, commercial clerks, accountants, businessmen, and even officials for the Chinese government. He insisted on the sole use of English as the medium of instruction, even though a benefactor, Sir Kai Ho Kai, a British-educated Chinese barrister and physician, expressed concerns about prospective students’ proficiency in English.20 ‘It is necessary that Western knowledge should be conveyed in a Western tongue’21, Lugard argued, ‘so that those who graduate may be able to read for themselves the works in English dealing with the subjects they take up, and British influence in the Far East may be extended’.22 While at the start University staff would be all Europeans or Americans, Lugard said that he welcomed Chinese professors ‘capable of teaching for a degree standard’ to

18



19 20 21



22



dismissed such request in his speech by suggesting that schools alike could affiliate themselves with universities in England instead. (‘St. Stephen’s College’, The China Mail, 12 January 1906, p. 5.) ‘Second Meeting of General Committee’, in Frederick Lugard, Papers Relative to the Proposed Hongkong University (Hong Kong: Noronha, 1909). FO 228/3201, Sir John Jordan to Mr. F. E. Wilkinson, Foochow, 11 January 1918, TNA. ‘Memo by His Excellency the Governor’, 3 August 1908, in Frederick Lugard, Papers Relative to the Proposed Hongkong University (Hong Kong: Noronha, 1909), p. 14. Bernard Mellor, Lugard in Hong Kong: Empires, Education and a Governor at Work, 1907–1912 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1992), p. 174. Bernard Mellor, University of Hong Kong: An Informal History, Vol. 1, (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1981), p. 37.

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join, provided that ‘the predominant tone of the University is ­British’.23 Additionally, the University would require compulsory residence for students.24 He hoped these elements would inspire HKU graduates ‘to appreciate British ideals of justice and fair play’. The civic university movement in Britain certainly shaped Lugard’s vision for HKU. The last three decades of the nineteenth century observed the formation of ‘civic universities’ in the British provincial cities of Newcastle, Leeds, Sheffield, Birmingham, Liverpool, Nottingham, and Bristol.25 Known as the ‘Redbricks’, these institutions placed emphasis on providing their students with practical ‘real-world’ skills – specifically on engineering and medical disciplines – instead of divinity and the liberal arts subjects offered in older universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, and Durham. Having spent time in East Africa and India, where he was born, Lugard deprecated how universities there placed more focus on humanities, which, in his words, ‘produced a class of young men of high intellectual attainments but without corresponding development of character, men for whom there are no adequate openings and careers in life’.26 He therefore expressed that ‘the model upon which our University is based should, in my opinion, approximate rather to that of Birmingham or Leeds than to that of Oxford or Cambridge or Calcutta’. He wanted the University to be established with three faculties – Science, Medicine, and Engineering – to teach subjects of practical utility, instead of theories and divinity.27 More importantly, he wanted HKU, like the Red Bricks, to obtain a Royal Charter so that its degrees would be up to the standard of degrees granted in British universities – the ‘Home University’, as he called them.28 Examination papers would therefore be set by ‘the London or other Home University’.29 Lugard expected much of the Chinese students at HKU. Despite his original plan to form only the Faculties of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, he also suggested the possibility of forming an Arts Faculty ‘for the sons of gentry who aim at official posts [in China]’. Lugard hoped 23 Mellor, Lugard in Hong Kong, p. 107. 24 Lugard, Hongkong University, p. 21. 25 See R. D. Anderson, Universities and Elites in Britain since 1800 (London: The Economic History Society, 1992), pp. 12 and 18. 26 Mellor, Lugard in Hong Kong, p. 72. 27 Ibid., pp. 72–73; also ‘Second Meeting of General Committee’, in Lugard, Papers Relative to the Proposed Hongkong University, p. 9. 28 F. H. May, ‘Notes to accompany Resolutions submitted by Mr. May’, in Frederick Lugard, Minutes of a Meeting with reference to a proposed Hongkong University, Hong Kong, 13th March, 1908 (Hong Kong: Noronha, 1908), p. 2 29 Mellor, Lugard in Hong Kong, p. 67.

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that the Arts faculty, in particular, would make ‘due provision […] for the study of the Chinese language and literature’.30 He was confident that ‘many [graduates] will no doubt occupy high and responsible positions in China’, revealing an ambition to place these British-educated Chinese into China after their graduation.31 Meanwhile, Lugard stated that he wanted HKU students to remain ‘in every aspect Chinese’. He asserted that the major problem for a young Chinese pursuing education abroad was that they became ‘greatly denationalised’. ‘The common experience [was] to find these young men on return to China despising their country and their parentage’. Returned Chinese students became, he thought, ‘a hybrid European with a veneer of foreign manners badly laid on a Chinese framework’.32 A university in Hong Kong – ‘a Chinese environment’, he stressed – would allow Chinese students to ‘keep touch and retain their family affections and their patriotism’ and maintain a ‘Chinese mode of life’ while pursuing a Western education. By no means Lugard meant he wanted the University to be a cradle of Chinese nationalism. On the contrary, he wanted students there to be shielded from revolutionary ideas. As early as in 1908, Lugard had already articulated a desire to ensure that Chinese students at the University would not respond to any revolutionary movement. The proposed university resolutions he outlined were intended specifically ‘to discourage in every way the growth of political associations, or of sentiments of disloyalty to their nation among the students’.33 ‘I have heard’, he claimed, ‘that Chinese parents find by experience that their sons after return from a course of study in a foreign country with revolutionary ideas and become a danger to the state’.34 He therefore stressed that ‘it should be the special care of the Hong Kong University to see that no such pernicious doctrines are encouraged or tolerated here’. Lugard wanted his ‘missionaries of Empire’ to stay as far away from ‘political associations’ or revolutionary ideas as possible, because otherwise his plan of using the university to advance British influence in China would fall through. The University needed to not only recruit the children of Chinese gentry, but also place its graduates in the employment of the Chinese civil service. The best marketing strategy 30 31 32 33

Lugard, Hongkong University, p. 14. ‘Opening of the Hongkong University’, Hongkong Daily Press, 12 March 1912, p. 3. Mellor, Lugard in Hong Kong, p. 70. Lugard, Papers Relative to the Proposed Hongkong University, ‘Second Meeting of General Committee’, 9, as cited in Cunich, A History of the University of Hong Kong, p. 102. 34 Lugard’s speech to the General Committee, as reproduced in Mellor, Lugard in Hong Kong, Ch. 7, at p. 70.

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for the University, then, was to convince the Chinese gentry class and the Qing government that there would be no potential for HKU students to become political radicals and a ‘danger to the state’. To steer its students away from nationalist sentiments and revolutionary ideas would also ensure the status quo for Britain in China: Lugard had hoped to fill China’s civil service with HKU graduates in, and he most certainly did not want them to rise up and challenge foreign domination in China. After more than three years of work, Lugard witnessed the University’s opening – only just in time to do so. Five days before leaving for his new posting in Nigeria, the University opened on 11 March 1912. Despite his departure, the resolutions he outlined would guide the development of the University in the following decades. His successors and University authorities carefully designed a curriculum and campus life that made HKU an ideal cradle for the hundreds of British-educated Chinese that Lugard so wanted to foster. A British University for the Chinese Youth For Lugard and his successors, building a British university for the Chinese youth required hiring British lecturers and professors.35 It was difficult to hire academic staff all the way from ‘Home’: the challenges of arranging the selection process surfaced from the start, and occasionally inadequate appointments happened.36 Yet the University administration insisted that hiring from ‘Home’ was essential to ensuring the reputation, quality, and most important of all, the Britishness of teaching offered at HKU. University staff therefore turned to solicit assistance from its London Consulting Committee in the late 1910s. Since 1923, the Colonial Office assumed full control of the appointment of academic staff at HKU, with the Hong Kong Governor being an intermediary in the selection process.37 HKU’s staff body was therefore overwhelmingly British. In the 1920s the University hired many Great War veterans. Mostly white Britons with some Australians, these appointees were deemed ‘the right sort of British patriots’ to educate the young Chinese for they ‘had fought so valiantly for King and Country’.38 The University’s discriminatory 35

Cunich, A History of the University of Hong Kong, p. 169. On difficulties involved, especially in the first ten years of the University, see pp. 167–75. 36 The university struggled from serious staff shortages in its first decade. See Cunich, A History of the University of Hong Kong, pp. 173–5. 37 Cunich, A History of the University of Hong Kong, pp. 261–2. 38 Ibid., p. 263.

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hiring policy was not lost on the general public – let alone its own staff members. In 1929, the Chair of Pathology, Chung Yik Wang, made a formal complaint about a job advertisement for Professor of Medicine that specifically required the applicants to be British subjects. But even so, his complaint proved futile: except for his own appointment, no other Chinese was appointed to professorship at the University until after the Second World War.39 Equally British were the governing bodies of the University. Despite some Chinese benefactors’ hope to include more Chinese in the University’s governing bodies, Lugard insisted that the University’s governing bodies shall be ‘chiefly British’, with the Governor holding tight control over its governance, if the university were to function ‘on Western lines’ and command the confidence of British universities’.40 And indeed, since HKU opened in 1911, the role of Chancellor had invariably been assumed by the colonial governor of Hong Kong, whom the University Ordinance of 1911 also gave the power of veto if they disapproved of any decision of the HKU Court.41 Supported by its British leaders and staff, the University had a curriculum that was evidently British in content and form. Of the three founding faculties – Medicine, Engineering, and Arts – the Faculty of Medicine was most visibly British. Since even its embryo days, the faculty board had been eager to ensure that the General Medical Council of Great Britain (GMC) would recognise its medical degrees, so that medical graduates could practice anywhere in the British Empire. With Governor Sir Francis Henry May (Chancellor of HKU, 1912–18) requesting London to amend the Imperial Medical Act (1886) and amending Hong Kong’s own Medical Registration Ordinance, the GMC granted approval for registration of the MBBS degrees at HKU. Regulations for MBBS degrees therefore mirrored the general requirements of medical degrees in Britain and its empire. Throughout the following decades, medical curriculum in British universities would have immense influence over the Faculty of Medicine at HKU. In the 1920s, for instance, several significant changes to British medical education prompted HKU to extend its five-year curriculum to six years and place a stronger emphasis on clinical work.42 39

Ibid., p. 262. More on Wang’s career, see Peter Cunich, ‘Wang Chung Yick’, in Dictionary of Hong Kong Biography, edited by May Holdworth and Christopher Munn (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012), pp. 448–9. 40 See Cunich, A History of the University of Hong Kong, p. 143. 41 Ibid., p. 149. 42 Senate Minutes, 25 January 1923, p. 9 & 29 May 1926, p. 4, University Archives, the University of Hong Kong (hereafter HKUA); also see Cunich, A History of the University of Hong Kong, p. 277.

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Like the rest of the University, the Faculty also endeavoured to ensure its connections with ‘Home’ by recruiting its teaching staff mostly from British universities as well as forging relationships with other British institutions, such as University College London.43 Similarly, the Faculty of Engineering adhered closely to the University of London model. When C. A. Middleton Smith assumed his post of Taikoo Chair of Engineering in October 1912 and became the first member of staff appointed to the Faculty, his prime task was to design the engineering curriculum. Eager to offer degrees equivalent to those offered at the University of London, he decided that the Faculty would offer a four-year programme, a year longer than that in London, so that HKU could give students additional language and science training. ‘Elementary work of civil, mechanical, and electrical engineering’ was taught in the first three years of the programme, followed by a year in which students would specialise either as a civil, mechanical, or electrical engineer. The best papers of final-year students in the Engineering Faculty were sent to London to ensure that the honours standard at HKU was the same as that at the University of London.44 By 1941, 86 of the 339 engineering graduates received their degrees with honours.45 The Faculty of Arts was added to the University a year after its opening. Initially, Lugard had opposed the formation of the Arts program: he thought the arts not practical enough.46 But Chinese members of the University Council insistently lobbied for an arts faculty. They hoped that the Arts Faculty could help the University train not only doctors and engineers, but also a cohort of young Chinese who could teach or take commercial jobs in the colony – or even better, serve in the civil service in mainland China.47 Therefore, the Faculty of Arts was established in 1913. In its first decade, the faculty’s curriculum placed a heavy emphasis on Economics, so that students could ‘take wide and intelligent views in questions of politics and business’.48 After a teacher-training course was added in 1921, the Arts Faculty offered courses in the categories of Letters and Philosophy, Law, Science, Teaching Training, and Commerce.49

43

Ibid., p. 277. 44 C. A. Middleton-Smith, ‘The University of Hong Kong: The Work and Equipment of the Engineering Faculty’, Far Easter Review (April 1922): 209–16, at p. 210. 45 Cunich, A History of the University of Hong Kong, p. 180. 46 Mellor, Lugard in Hong Kong, p. 72. 47 Mellor, University of Hong Kong, p. 60; Cunich, A History of the University of Hong Kong, pp. 180–84. 48 University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Noronha, 1917), p. 3. 49 Mellor, University of Hong Kong, p. 86; Cunich, A History of the University of Hong Kong, pp. 279–81.

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In the following two decades, the Arts curriculum underwent various changes and reforms, motivated by an eagerness to maximise British cultural domination in modern China. Such an imperial agenda was best manifested in the expansion of Chinese teaching in the faculty. Chinese Classics had been taught as part of the arts curriculum since its establishment, but both University authorities and government officials thought such teaching insufficient to forge Anglo-Chinese understanding.50 In the mid-1920s, the task of mending Anglo-Chinese relations became increasingly pressing, as rising Chinese nationalism put British colonialism under severe public attack. Governor Cecil Clementi, a Sinophile fluent in Cantonese, carried out a series of measures to alleviate local discontent towards the colonial regime. A major component of such policies included the expansion of Chinese education in Hong Kong, which prompted the University to establish the School of Chinese Studies in 1927. Chinese benefactors had wished the School (incorporated into the Arts Faculty in 1933 as the Department of Chinese) to promote Chinese culture and values amongst students. Yet, colonial officials’ wish to ensure British domination in the faculty overrode the planning and practice of Chinese teaching in the faculty. They had, for instance, planned to hire a permanent ‘Anglo-Chinese’ professor. Insufficient funds to appoint a permanent professor shattered such a plan, and the School was established with an all-Chinese staff. Still, the University felt the need to have a British adviser, Rev. H. R. Wells who was also the warden of one of the University residence halls, to supervise the running of the school. The wider arts curriculum also remained predominantly Western. English literature, for instance, was taught to ‘instruct the student in literary taste and appreciation, as they are understood in Europe’.51 Even outside the classroom, the indoctrination of Western culture and Britishness did not cease. Lugard thought it essential to make Chinese students live on campus so that University staff could closely monitor students’ moral and ethical development. The University followed this policy after it opened in 1912. By 1915, HKU had three hostels: Lugard, Eliot, and May Halls. With two other missionary-operated halls of residence (the Church Mission Society’s St. John’s College and the London Missionary Society’s Morrison Hall), 300 accommodation places were available for HKU’s male students. After HKU admitted its first woman student in 1921, the St. Stephen’s Hall was built in 1923 for women students.52 50

‘Hongkong University: New Vice-Chancellor, Inaugural Ceremony’, China Mail, 8 April 1921. 51 University of Hong Kong, pp. 3–5. 52 Cunich, A History of the University of Hong Kong, p. 290.

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In 1929, Ricci Hall was opened to provide another option for men students at HKU. With abundant places in these halls, the University strictly enforced the policy of compulsory residence. While it had on rare occasions exempted students from residence, such exemptions were given to either Europeans or those whose health conditions prevented their continued residence on campus.53 Most Chinese had to live in halls – even the married ones too. Compulsory residence had the aim of cultivating students with a disciplined lifestyle and a sense of belonging. Like the colleges and residential halls at Cambridge and Oxford, student committees oversaw most dayto-day governance.54 Yet, hostel wardens lived onsite and supervised the hostels. Students were required to reside in the hostels throughout the term, with only one day off every week. Roll calls were carried out daily at 7:45 a.m. and 9:45 p.m., and anyone absent faced penalties.55 Outside the hostels, students were encouraged to participate in extracurricular activities, many of which were modelled after universities at ‘Home’. These included Oxbridge’s high table dinners held in all HKU student hostels.56 Western-style dancing parties were also popular on campus, especially after the late 1920s.57 Even the sports culture was rather British. We can see that from the types of sports available in the Student Union’s Athletic Association and its various affiliated clubs – Cricket, Tennis, Hockey, Football, Swimming, and Billiards.58 This was most notable as American influence dominated university sports culture in mainland China.59 Lugard’s plan to make HKU students and graduates good ‘missionaries of Empire’ required them to work in China and to bring their appreciation for Britishness there. As such, university authorities dedicated significant effort to cultivating students’ interest in modern China. 53

Ibid., p. 289. 54 Ibid., p. 288. 55 Article 4, ‘Rules and Residence’, Students’ Handbook, 1941–42, pp. 104 & 108; Senate Minutes, 8 November 1924, 5; 27 May 1914, 3, as cited in Hans W. Y. Yeung, ‘Bookworms, Dandies and Activists: Student Life at HKU in the 1920s and 1930s’, in An Impossible Dream: Hong Kong University from Foundation to Re-establishment, 1910–1950, edited by Chan Lau Kit-ching and Peter Cunich (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 144. 56 ‘Bookworms, Dandies and Activists’, p. 143. 57 Cunich, A History of the University of Hong Kong, p. 296. 58 N. K. Law, ‘Report of the Union for the year 1931–32’, in Union Magazine (November 1932):12–3. 59 See Yeh, The Alienated Academy, pp. 213–5; more on HKU’s sporting activities, see Cunich, A History of the University of Hong Kong, pp. 205–7. More on sports culture in Republican China, also see Andrew D. Morris, Marrow of the Nation: A History of Sport and Physical Culture in Republican China (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004).

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Hands-on experience was deemed important. The Education Society took trips to Canton and Wuchow to investigate educational facilities there, whereas the Engineering Society visited the Government Mint, Government Wireless Station, Lingnan University, and the Arsenal in Canton.60 But getting updates about social development in China was also essential. Student publications, the content of which university authorities closely monitored and often censored, included articles discussing contemporary social, economic, and political developments in mainland China. This was most obvious in the Student Union’s publication the Union Magazine, which included a Chinese section. In the 1919 issue of the Chinese Union Magazine, three out of fourteen articles discussed the development of schools, industries, and mining in China.61 Such an emphasis on modern China was also visible in other publications by academic societies, such as the Law and Commerce Society as well as the Engineering Society. They published articles about contemporary China on a wide range of issues: from traffic infrastructure in Guangxi province, foreign influence on politics and trade in China, and China’s legal system, to China’s development of engineering education, financial markets, and electrical power plants.62 Notably, these articles were often contributions by faculty members and colonial officials, and even the editorial teams included several faculty members, reflecting a consciousness within the university administration to cultivate students with knowledge about modern China. 60

Ada Leung, ‘Arts Association’, Union Magazine (November 1931): 21–3; A. A. Aziz, ‘Report of the Engineering Society, 1930’, Hongkong University Engineering Journal, 3, 1 (1931): 54–5. 61 Fengzhongfu, ‘我國工業頹弊原因概論 [Discussing reasons of the decadent industry development of our country]’, 香港大學博文雜志[Hongkong University Chinese Magazine], 1 (July 1919): 19; Pan Weigen, ‘大冶鐵山鐵礦及漢治萍公司開採之過去 與將來 [The Past and Future of the Dayie iron mountain and mine and Hanzhiping company]’, 香港大學博文雜志, 1 (July 1919):13–4; Huang Yongliang, ‘中國國民學校 教育淺說 [A survey of the education at China’s national schools]’, 香港大學博文雜志, 1 (July 1919): 15–16. 62 Wong Wing Wah, ‘Road Construction in Kwangsi’, Hong Kong University Engineering Journal, 6, 1 (1934): 6–8; P. S. Cassidy, ‘The Function of the Foreign Importer in the Trade of South China’, Journal of the Law & Commerce Society, (1936): 82–95; Journal of the Law & Commerce Society, (1936): 59–64; Y. C. Leung, ‘Some Features of the Chinese Law of Contract’, Journal of the Law & Commerce Society, (1936): 73–81; Chen Qinghua, ‘最近上海金融市場之進展 [Recent Development of Shanghai’s financial market]’, Journal of the Law & Commerce Society, (1936): 59–64; J. Usang Ly, ‘Some Problems of Scientific Technical and Engineering Education in China’, Hong Kong University Engineering Journal, 6, 1 (1934): 9–14; A. J. Percival, ‘Some Aspects of Electrical Power Development in China’, Hong Kong University Engineering Journal, 6, 1 (1934): 100–3; Lo Tung Fan, ‘Extraterritoriality in China’, Hongkong University Law Journal, 1, 3, (1927): 251–62.

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Teaching staff and officials – and even the governor himself – also called for students to consider employment in China63. Governor Sir Cecil Clementi wrote in the inaugural Hong Kong University Engineering Journal that ‘we in Hong Kong can do much to supply this need by training Chinese students in British engineering standards and ideals at the HKU’.64 He envisioned the colony becoming ‘intimately associated with future engineering developments all over China through the medium of young Chinese engineers, who will have been trained in Hong Kong and then go into all the eighteen provinces of China, taking with them an affection for their alma mater and a true comprehension of the thoroughness and the high ideals of British engineering’. This carefully-planned university experience – one that emphasized the use of the English language, an appreciation for British values and culture, and a commitment to cultivate the Chinese youth with Britishness – left a tremendous mark on the identities, mannerisms, and habits of Chinese students attending the University. This education did not only shape their cultural inclination: as many remarked on how ‘Westernised’ HKU students became, their remarks tell us how these students sat uncomfortably in the framework of rising Chinese nationalism. Even those attending HKU themselves were self-conscious about this, and made frequent commentaries on the Chineseness of their fellow students. Diasporic Chineseness But who exactly were the Chinese students at HKU campus? Throughout the University’s history, the Chinese have always been the ethnic majority on campus. Founders hoped that the University would teach students from China – though in reality most students came from outside mainland China. Even though we do not have comprehensive records on student enrolment across the University before 1934, matriculation records of the Faculty of Medicine between 1912–29 shed some light on student demographics at that time. Of the 249 students who matriculated at the Faculty of Medicine between 1912 and 1929 (Table 1), 209 had a Chinese name.65 Amongst them, only 18 per cent came from China. Those from Malaya in fact formed the majority (about 38 per cent), outnumbering those from Hong Kong (33 per cent). Student enrolment 63 See, for instance, C. A. Middleton-Smith, ‘Hong Kong Engineering Graduates in Central China: Some Notes on Visits to Shanghai, Nanking, and Hankow’, Hongkong University Engineering Journal, 5, 1 (1933): 7–11. 64 Cecil Clementi, ‘Engineering in Hong Kong and China’, Hong Kong University Engineering Journal, 1, 1 (April 1929): 1. 65 Note that this figure may have included Eurasian students who went by a Chinese name.

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Table 1 Chinese matriculants of Faculty of Medicine, 1912–2966 Origins

Hong Kong

China

Malaya

Australia

Others

Number

69

37

80

2

20

Table 2 Students enrolled at the University of Hong Kong, 1934–3967 Ethnic Chinese

Year

Hong Kong

1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939

126 110 113 121 144 172

China

Strait Settlements

Canada, Australia, Other Hawaii, etc. Other Nationalities

Total

110 109 113 119 120 120

93 74 74 86 115 115

40 40 39 39 16 16

441 404 414 441 488 516

15 15 21 22 30 30

57 56 54 54 63 63

records across the University between 1934–1940 (see Table  2) show that those from Hong Kong formed the majority, closely followed by mainland Chinese and Straits Chinese. Since its early days, the University had received considerable interest from the Chinese in the Straits Settlements. Wealthy Malayan Chinese such as Loke Yew contributed enthusiastically to the University Endowment Fund that enabled the university’s establishment.68 After it opened in 1912, HKU remained popular amongst Chinese students and parents in British Malaya. Much of this interest had to do with the lack of tertiary education offered in the Straits Settlements before Raffles College opened in Singapore in 1928 (and even the Raffles College operated less as a university college than a teachers’ training institution).69 Compared to 66

I am grateful to Peter Cunich, who kindly shared with me his notes on the Faculty of Medicine Matriculants. See Centenary History Collection, ‘Faculty of Medicine Matriculant’, HKUA. 67 ‘University of Hong Kong: Quinquennial Report on the Work of the University from 1934–1938’, ‘Annual Report on the Work of the University for 1938–1939’, and ‘Annual Report on the Work of the University for 1939–1940’, HKUA. 68 C. Mary Turnbull, ‘The Malayan Connection’, in An Impossible Dream, pp. 99–118, at pp. 100–1. 69 On a detailed history of the college, see Raffles College 1928–1949 (Singapore: Alumni Affairs and Development Office, NUS, 1993).

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universities in China, HKU provided a British education in a British colony, especially as the training in Engineering and Medicine provided at the University was meant to be equivalent to British universities.70 Furthermore, Straits Chinese parents found HKU an ideal institution for their children as they thought it less likely to tolerate radical political and social ideals, whereas Chinese and Japanese universities were seen as a hotbed for such sentiments.71 Ethnic Chinese from the Straits Settlements therefore formed a significant portion of the University’s student body – so much so that by the mid-1920s, Vice Chancellor William Hornell considered the University to be dominated by those from Malaya and Singapore.72 On the other hand, its original target audience, mainland Chinese, showed less enthusiasm towards HKU. University staff, officials, and even observers in mainland China noted that parents in China rarely considered sending their children to the University, especially as the cost of HKU came close to that of sending their children to Europe and America.73 Following the University’s decision in 1925 to refuse to take more Chinese government scholars (because of the Chinese government’s unpaid debts incurred through the scholarship scheme), the University faced greater difficulties recruiting mainland students. Officials and staff were eager to recruit more students from China, however, and it eventually led to more ‘cooperative’ relations with the Nationalist government in the 1930s.74 For many students, studying at HKU was their first experience interacting with Chinese coming from other diasporic backgrounds. Amongst these Chinese coming from different diasporas were stark cultural differences. For one, they spoke different languages. Those from Hong Kong spoke Cantonese (the lingua franca of Guangdong province) as a first language, generally had a good command of both written and spoken English, and had little (if any) knowledge of Mandarin (or Guoyu as it was then referred to, meaning the ‘national language’ in China). The Straits Chinese spoke English fluently and many also used the dialect of the region from where their family originated in China (mostly Hokkien).75 Some even managed 70

University of Hong Kong: Details concerning the Faculty of Engineering (Hong Kong: Noronha, 1913), p. 1. 71 More on Chinese students from Malaya, see Turnbull, ‘The Malayan Connection’, pp. 99–118. 72 Cunich, A History of The University of Hong Kong, p. 286. 73 FO 228/3201, Letter to Warren Swire, 4 April 1920, TNA; Zhao Jinssheng, ‘回 憶香港大學 [Remembering HKU], in 一枝一葉總關情 Recollections of Hong Kong University Alumni, edited by Liu Shuyong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1999), p. 184. 74 Cunich, A History of The University of Hong Kong, p. 286. 75 CO 1045/470, D. J. Sloss, ‘Number of Students in the University of Hong Kong’, 23 September 1946, TNA.

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to pick up Cantonese after coming to Hong Kong.76 Students from China, on the other hand, generally held a less confident command of English and – except those from Guangdong – did not speak Cantonese.77 Growing up in these different locales meant that these students had different legal statuses and education too. Those born in Hong Kong and the Straits Settlements were British subjects, whereas those from mainland China were Chinese nationals. The former would have had more exposure to British culture and institutions through their earlier education. As the majority of Chinese students on campus had in fact been from British territories, it meant that most had arrived at HKU with a certain familiarity with British education and culture, making those from China feel further alienated both inside and outside the classroom. Dressing styles also differed: most wore suits, bearing great contrast to the mainland students who wore a cheongsam.78 Rayson Huang, who grew up in Hong Kong and later became HKU’s first Chinese Vice-Chancellor, admitted that having attended a local school with a greater emphasis on Chinese languages and culture than ordinary Hong Kong schools made him ‘a little out of place among my fellow students’ at the University.79 Indeed, student writings and oral history testimonies confirmed that HKU’s student body readily adapted foreign cultural practices. By the 1930s, most had adopted Christian names, held social events that were arguably Western and ‘un-Chinese’, and wore Western costumes.80 ­Students also lacked interest in using the Chinese language. Because students preferred writing in English to writing in Chinese, the Student Union encountered great difficulty in soliciting enough articles to publish a Chinese section of its regularly published periodical.81 Even though the School of Chinese offered a traditional Mandarin-style diploma course and a four-year degree programme, only 18 students – out of a total 76

Peter Ewe Aik Tan and Eleanor Eu Gaik Choo, Prescriptions of Faith (Penang: Kee Koon Lay Sdn. Bhd., 2011), p. 26; Pamela Ong Siew Im, Blood and the Soil: A Portrait of Dr Ong Chong Keng (Singapore: Times Books International, 1953), p. 22. 77 Feng Zipei, ‘關於香港大學的回憶 [Memories about HKU], in 一枝一葉總關情 Recollections of Hong Kong University Alumni, pp. 191–92. 78 南蠻, ‘夢痕瑣憶錄[A collection of anecdotes]’, in The Owl: Eliot Hall, University of Hong Kong Golden Jubilee Issue, 1914–1964 (Hong Kong: Eliot Hall, University of Hong Kong, 1964), Chinese section pp. 4–7, at p. 4. 79 Prior to HKU, Huang had attended Munsang College, a local school where his father was the founding principal. Rayson Huang, A Life in Academia: An Autobiography by Rayson Huang (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2000), p. 14. 80 Cunich, A History of the University of Hong Kong, p. 294. 81 Union rules stated that ‘each year the Union shall publish at least one issue of a Magazine’ and the ‘Magazine shall consist of two sections – an English section and a Chinese section’. In reality, due to the lack of contributions, the Magazine often only published in English and appeared intermittently in the 1910s. Note that articles published in the Magazine were the outcome of the self-selection of editors and the close

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Figure 4  A photo of students and staff of the Faculty of Arts, HKU, taken in 1926. University Archives, University of Hong Kong.

of 101 – had taken courses in Chinese by 1932, five years after the programs were established.82 This inclination towards so-called ‘Westernisation’ was not uncommon amongst university students elsewhere – especially those attending missionary institutions in China. Most representative was perhaps St. John’s University, founded as St. John’s College in 1879 in Shanghai by American missionaries. European-style activities such as dances and debates occurred there as often as on HKU campus. For many at St. John’s, just like those at HKU, being cosmopolitan meant having the manners and styles of ‘the West’.83 censorship of the university administration, especially as vice-chancellors personally appointed the associate-editors. Yet, it included much material on student activities and the internal life of the University, which was largely obscure in other published primary sources. (See ‘Rules of the University Union’, Union Magazine, 6.3 (1930): 188; ‘編者 的話 [Editorial]’, Chinese section of the Union Magazine, 1940, p. 1. Also see Cunich, A History of the University of Hong Kong, p. 293.) 82 Ibid., p. 322. 83 See Yeh, The Alienated Academy, pp. 75–84.

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Similarly, many HKU students took great pride in their cultural identity. Throughout the interwar years, how ‘Westernised’ their fellow students were was a topic that yielded frequent discussion in Union Magazine, a periodical published – mostly annually but sometimes also intermittently – by the student union. In 1930, the editor noted with much pride about the many articles in that issue on Chinese affairs that students wrote ‘from the European point of view’. ‘We believe that this is a sign of progress, for it means that we have absorbed sufficient Western culture to be able to view our country from an outsider’s point of view’.84 In 1940, the editor of the Chinese section of Union Magazine also wrote about some ‘very Westernised’ students on campus who admired Western culture so much that they refused to learn anything that was not Western.85 This of course had much to do with the fact that most had come from British territories and had already received much foreign cultural influence. On the other hand, students themselves attributed their cultural identity to the British-derived education offered at HKU, which placed a strong emphasis on British culture and the English language. The editor of the 1940 Chinese Union Magazine explained the great difficulty they encountered in soliciting sufficient contributions to compile a Chinese version of Union Magazine, despite having abundant funds for the publication. ‘Why are there so few to write [Chinese] articles? My personal opinion is that most students in our university are not interested in the Chinese language. […] This is a university established by British people, and Chinese is placed as a minor subject, therefore it is only normal that we are not interested in the Chinese language’.86 Having manners and habits that were different from their Hong Kong and overseas Chinese classmates, mainland Chinese students encountered discrimination and prejudice. A presumably non-mainland student writer with the pseudonym ‘南蠻 (Southern Barbarian)’, for instance, wrote of the ‘Old Fellows [老兄]’ in May Hall and Eliot Hall with much prejudice: These Old Fellows are from mainland China. They are bookish and bad at English, shy for sports. They wear suits badly, and they are not fluent in Cantonese. They are bookworms most days, and are obsessed with grades. They use blankets during winter and do not swim during summer. They never make public speeches. Neither do they dress formally at dinners. So except for getting good grades in exams they are nothing.87

Zhu Guangqian (Figure 5), a mainland Chinese HKU alumnus and renowned aesthetics scholar, hinted at the challenging dynamics that 84

85 86 87

‘Forward’, Union Magazine, 6, 3 (1930): 1. ‘編者的話 [Editorial]’, Union Magazine (1940): 1 ‘編者的話 Ibid. ‘夢痕瑣憶錄 [A collection of anecdotes]’, p. 4.

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Figure 5  Student file of Zhu Guangqian (whose name was then romanised as Chu Kwang Tsien) at HKU. University Archives, University of Hong Kong.

mainland students faced as they were outnumbered by students who, despite under the umbrella category of ‘ethnic Chinese’, had distinctly different cultural practices. He recalled more than twenty years after his graduation that, while there were no ‘major conflicts’: ‘other students saw us [mainland students] as “Others”, and we saw them as “Others”

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as well’.88 He explained evocatively how he and other mainland students continued to be the ‘others’ on campus: I cannot speak Cantonese. I do not watch Cantonese opera. I could not afford to eat Cantonese food. I cannot play Western chess, and I cannot even play snooker …. Can I even call myself an HKU student? I also sucked at studying. Coming from the Chinese Department of the Wuchang School of Supreme Teacher Training, my command of English of course could never compare to my classmates who have spoken only English since their birth.89

The references he made to his inability to speak Cantonese, to enjoy Western entertainment, and to use English as fluently as his British Chinese classmates convey the alienation that mainland students felt on campus. Mainland students were not the only ones that suffered from stereotypes and prejudices. Students themselves took great notice of the various diasporic identities on campus, and some held stereotypes against fellow Chinese students from a different diaspora. Those from Hong Kong, for instance, saw the Straits Chinese as ‘high-spirited, frivolous, and fun loving, with too much money to spend, too keen on sports, and too much given to practical jokes’, whereas the Straits Chinese saw Hong Kong students as ‘too bookish’.90 Such stereotypes remained prevalent on campus, possibly because, even though they had plentiful chances to interact with those beyond their diasporic community on campus, students tended to socialise with those of a similar background. This could be because students preferred to hang out with those with similar cultural attributes, habits, and manners, but it could also be because their social circles were limited by their choice of residential halls. While in principle the residential halls were open to those of all origins and nationalities, some became enclaves of certain communities. Many mainland students opted to live in May Hall and Eliot Hall.91 May Hall was also popular amongst Malayan students in the 1930s.92 Operated by the Catholic missionary order Society of Jesus, Ricci Hall was popular amongst Portuguese as well as local Chinese students who had previously attended Catholic schools such as La Salle and St. Joseph’s.93 88 Zhu Guangqian, ‘回憶二十五年前的香港大學 [Remembering HKU from twenty- five years ago], in Y一枝一葉總關情 Recollections of Hong Kong University Alumni, p. 173. 89 Zhu, ‘回憶二十五年前的香港大學 Remembering HKU from twenty-five years ago], p. 174. 90 Turnbull, ‘The Malayan Connection’, p. 109; Cunich, A History of The University of Hong Kong, p. 286. 91 南蠻, ‘夢痕瑣憶錄[A collection of anecdotes]’, p. 4. 92 Oral history interview with Boris Kaploon, undated, collections at Hong Kong Museum of History. 93 See Ricci: Souvenir Record of the Silver Jubilee of Ricci Hall, Hong Kong University, ­1929–1954 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University, 1954).

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While many students took great pride in their Anglicised cultural identity, some failed to appreciate the existence of various diasporic Chinese identities, and criticised fellow students for being ‘un-Chinese’. The Union Magazine editor of the 1940 Chinese section mentioned above, for instance, was critical of the fact that many at HKU ‘disdained the Chinese language’, which the student editor deemed a strange phenomenon. ‘90% of those studying here are Chinese nationals [中國人]. I think the Chinese language should occupy a same position at the University as the English language’. They added that: Many said Hong Kong’s overseas Chinese had no ethno-national consciousness. I dare not to apply this to fellow HKU students. But the reality has told us that some fellow students had no national consciousness whatsoever, as we can tell from their despising the Chinese language.94

Notably, the student editor referred to the Hong Kong Chinese as 僑胞, a term that refers to overseas Chinese – and is currently still in use in Taiwan for such usage. Nevertheless, they neglected the fact that Malayan Chinese and Hong Kong Chinese were not necessarily Chinese nationals but British subjects. Nor did they recognise that Chineseness, like Britishness, existed in multiple forms – a result of the prevalence of racial nationalism in twentieth-century China.95 As racialised understandings of national belonging thrived amongst intellectuals since the late nineteenth century, it encouraged many, such as the student editor, to understand Chineseness as a matter of blood and descent. For them, if one was Chinese by descent, then they should by default possess a national belonging to Republican China. Even studying with the ‘overseas Chinese’ and observing their Western cultural practices and mannerisms could hardly make them appreciate that Chineseness also manifests as a diasporic identity, holders of which might be inclined to adapt Western cultural practices and an outlook that operated beyond a clear national framework. This neglect of diasporic Chineseness prompted some to condemn the Western cultural identity of their fellow students. The Union Magazine published many similar writings, in which student contributors criticised fellow students’ ‘un-Chinese’ cultural practice. In 1928, Chan P. M. lamented in English how HKU Chinese students preferred to put their surname after their initials, a deviation from the Chinese tradition of placing the surname before the given name. ‘I should like to see some of the Chinese undergrads stop that absurd practice of writing their names 94

‘編者的話 [Editorial]’, Union Magazine (1940): 2. 95 See Frank Dikötter, ‘Culture, “Race” and Nation: The Formulation of National Identity in twentieth-century China’, Journal of International Affairs, 49.2 (1996): 590–605.

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backwards’, they wrote. ‘Most of us start the habit of writing our names back to front after we enter this university. […] The practice is thoroughly un-Chinese and suggestive of a slavish indiscriminate following of Western ways’. Chan P. M. also criticised the ‘deplorable’ practice of adopting Christian names: ‘it seems to imply that our own Chinese names are not good enough for us’. They stated, ‘we want to be Westernised of course, but not to the extent of changing half our names’.96 Another ‘un-Chinese’ habit that came under great attack was the University celebration of the Chinese National Day. Besides social activities such as picnics and tea parties, the student union also organised the Double Ten celebrations and the University dances annually.97 10 October (Double Ten) was the date of the Wuchang Uprising in 1911, which triggered the end of the Qing dynasty. After the formation of the Republic of China, the date became China’s national day. After student unrest in 1920, during which students went on a strike to demand the University mark the day with a holiday, celebration of the Double Ten became an annual event organised by the student union.98 Students however frequently criticised the ‘un-Chinese’ celebrations.99 Like the Chinese student organisations in the United States, the HKU student union often organised a formal dance to celebrate the Double Ten.100 In 1928, one student grumbled about HKU celebrating ‘a double Chinese holiday with a European dance [rather] than by a Chinese ­dinner’.101 In 1930, the union held a concert that was, in undergraduate Lo Tai Chang’s strong words, ‘chiefly foreign in character, followed by a foreign dance orgy’.102 The Union Magazine’s 1940 Chinese issue also contained an article on the University’s 1939 Double Ten celebration. Under the pseudonym ‘Loner’, the author attended the Double Ten celebration – ‘the only one in this University that involves any national sentiments’ – with excitement. But they then wrote about how they were immediately shocked by the lack of emotions demonstrated by their fellow participants. To add to their shock, they found that the programme 96

Chan P. M., ‘Reforms I should like to See’, Union Magazine 5, 2 (1928): 36. 97 In the academic year of 1931–1932, for instance, the University Union organised two launch picnics and a farewell tea party for Prof. C. A. Middleton-Smith, the Taikoo Professor of Civil Engineering. See N. K. Law, ‘Report of the Union for the year 1931–32’, in Union Magazine (Nov 1932): 10–4. 98 Gao, ‘港大生活回憶 [Recollection of my life at HKU], pp. 179–80. Also Robert K. M. Simpson, ‘May Hall in the Formative Years’, in May Hall Golden Jubilee, 1915–1965 (Hong Kong: May Hall, University of Hong Kong, 1965), pp. 10–1. 99 ‘Inconsequential Hopping on Consequential Topics’, Union Magazine, 5, 1 (1927): 4–11. 100 Paul T. K. Lin, In the Eye of the China Storm: A Life Between East and West (Montreal, QC: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2011), p. 18. 101 ‘Female Depravity’, Union Magazine, 5, 2 (1928): 13. 102 Lo Tai Chang, ‘Reforms I Should Like to See’, Union Magazine, 6, 3 (1930): 156.

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was printed only in English and no Chinese – even the Guomindang Party Anthem was printed not in Chinese, but in romanisation. They asked: What on earth is this event? Is this Chinese people celebrating the British national day, or British people celebrating Chinese national day? I looked around, and these people were all Chinese – at least they looked Chinese to me. (Maybe there were some foreign friends? Sorry but I did not see them.) Well this is strange. Do these university-educated Chinese not read Chinese?103

The author used the pseudonym ‘Loner’ to indicate how isolated they felt as a patriotic Chinese at the University. ‘When I saw the flag [of the Republic of China] slowly rise to the top of the pole’, they wrote, ‘my heart was full of passion and happiness’. In contrast, they believed that even when their fellow students demonstrated a patriotic feeling for China, ‘the so-called patriotism amongst us was often only a thing we do to join in the fun, to be in the limelight’, accusing the sense of Chinese identity held by HKU students to be more a performative statement than a subjective identification. The provocative question they asked – ‘is this Chinese people celebrating the British national day, or British people celebrating Chinese national day?’ – echoed with student commentaries made on HKU students’ Anglicised outlook, neglecting the diasporic identities held amongst the Chinese students at HKU. Describing HKU students as ‘un-Chinese’, however, simplified the complex engagements that these ethnic Chinese made with Chineseness. At the very least, students showed clear interest in modern China. Union Magazine and other student publications often included commentaries on Chinese culture and contemporary developments in modern China, and student editors often deliberately included articles and essays to promote knowledge about Chinese culture. The 1930 issue of Union Magazine, for instance, included essays on ‘women in ancient China’ and the doctrines of prominent philosophers such as Confucius and Mozi, whereas the 1931 issue included English translations of Chinese classics, fictions, and poetry.104 Furthermore, a notable (albeit relatively small) number of HKU graduates sought employment in China. This number included but was not exclusively students from the mainland. Whilst most engineers worked in the private sector, a notable few – such as Fu Bing Chang, later the Republic of China’s Ambassador to the USSR between 1943 and 1949 – joined the Republican government. Even though employers in China preferred American-trained engineers, by 1937, 82 out of the 192 Chinese graduates from the Engineering Faculty 103 Ling-ding, ‘Shiwang’, Union Magazine (1940): 33. 104 Wong Lai Chong, ‘Women in Ancient China’, Union Magazine, 6, 3 (1930): 25–32; Kwan Yim Chor, ‘Mih Tze’, Union Magazine, 6, 3 (1930): 7–8; ‘Translation of Chinese Poetry: The Peach-Flower Valley by Wong Wai’, Union Magazine (November 1931): 76–7.

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secured posts in China.105 Some of these graduates became involved in China’s industrial development through working in public utilities and railway companies. Wu Han-ching and James King Tai-sung, for instance, were respectively the Assistant Engineer on the Tientsin Pukow Railway and Section Engineer on the Nanking Shanghai Railway. After his graduation, Shi Chi-jen pursued a master’s degree at MIT and later became China’s Deputy Minister for Railways.106 About 10 per cent of medical graduates practised in the Mainland.107 Amongst them were Sze Tsung-sing, who worked with the Chinese Ministry of Health, and Lim Chong-eang, later Chairman of the Chinese Medical Association.108 On certain occasions, students even explicitly expressed patriotism for the Republic of China. In 1926–28, for instance, Guomindang carried out a Nationalist revolution, during which they launched a program to trigger nationalist sentiments, ‘reunite’ the nation from the control of warlords, and drive foreign imperialism out of China.109 Student editor and contributors for Union Magazine that year showed much excitement about the revolution: the 1928 issue of Magazine included fourteen essays and poems about China. One poem, entitled ‘Sun Yat Sen Sin Sang’ (‘Sin Sang 先生’ was a title used in Cantonese showing respect), praised Sun, who is seen as the founding father of the Republic and had called HKU his alma mater when he visited the University in 1923.110 The same issue included a poem written in 1927 about, in the words of the Cantonese-speaking author Hung Lo Pak, ‘China my country, China my own’: Shame on Thee! Shame on Thee! Thou’rt fallen from grace – No – I would not thus blame thee, but the foreigners’ taunt Makes impatient thy sons for the return of the days When once more our greatness we proudly may flaunt. Then China my country, China my own. Return from thy waywardness; sound freedom’s horn! Thy Lead we will follow to destinies unknown, To restore thee the splendour of which now thou art shorn.111 105 Cunich, A History of the University of Hong Kong, p. 278. 106 Growing with Hong Kong: The University and Its Graduates, the first 90 Years (Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong, 2002), p. 53. 107 Ibid., p. 50. 108 Growing with Hong Kong, p. 50; Zhang Junyi, ‘林宗揚教授傳略[Biography of Professor Chong-eang Lim] in 一枝一葉總關情 Recollections of Hong Kong University Alumni, pp. 30–4. 109 On Guomindang’s Nationalist revolution of 1926–28 and Chinese nationalism, see Robert Bickers, Out of China: How the Chinese Ended the era of Western Domination (London: Allen Lane, 2017) 110 Pau Yu Tong, ‘Sun Yat Sen Sin Sang’, Union Magazine, 5.2 (1928): 49. 111 Hung Lo Pak, ‘Chung Wa Ngo Kwok [Cantonese romanization of 中華我國, China My Country]’, Union Magazine, 5.2 (1928): 105.

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Hung’s referring to China to ‘my country’, and the inclusion of the poem in the 1928 issue of Union Magazine, suggests that although Chinese students at HKU were described as Westernised and ‘un-Chinese’ at times, some did possess a sense of belonging to China. The general response students made to revolutionary nationalism in interwar China, however, distracted many critics from seeing HKU students’ engagements with Chineseness. The success of the May Fourth Movement in 1919 inspired many students in mainland China to rally against political and social tyranny – especially at moments when they could feel more clearly the ‘humiliation’ to which nationalists believed foreigners had subjected China.112 They participated enthusiastically in nationalist movements, much of which were filled with anti-colonial sentiments.113 At HKU, however, Chinese students generally seemed at ease with British rule of Hong Kong. As we shall see soon, Hung’s poem ‘China my country, China my own’ was as outspoken as HKU students would get when it came to demonstrating sympathy for Chinese anti-colonial movements. Non-Radicalism Almost all historians working on student protests in the Chinese-speaking world see the May Fourth movement of 1919 as a crucial point of the modern youth movement in the region.114 During the Great War, China sent more than 200,000 labourers to the warfront in Europe to assist the Allied powers.115 The Allied powers, however, had arranged a deal with Japan for the rights to the German concessions in China’s Shandong province. Although China had hoped that their contribution to the war effort would serve as useful leverage in the Paris Peace Conference, the Treaty of Versailles shattered their hope. When the news of the settlement reached China, university students quickly organised a protest in Tiananmen Square on 4 May 1919, triggering a wave of mass demonstrations across many Chinese cities and leading to a nation-wide boycott of 112



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114 115

Chow Tze-sung, The May Fourth Movement: Intellectual Revolution in Modern China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960); Jerome Grieder, Intellectuals and the State in Modern China: A Narrative History (New York: Free Press, 1981). See Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, Student Protests in Twentieth-Century China: The View from Shanghai (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991); John Israel, The Chinese Student Movement, 1927–1937: A Bibliographic Essay Based on the Resources of the Hoover Institution (Stanford: Hoover Institution, 1959); Wen-han Kiang, The Chinese Student Movement (New York: King’s Crown Press, 1948). See Wasserstrom, Student Protests in Twentieth-Century China, p. 51. On China and the First World War, see Xu Guoqi, China and the Great War: China’s Pursuit of a New National Identity and Internationalization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

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Japanese goods. In Shanghai, students diligently formed protest organizations, coordinated local patriotic activities, and organized a strike, which the press estimated more than 12,000 students participated.116 Such enthusiasm appeared to be missing on the HKU campus – at least in 1919. Shen Yizhen, who attended HKU between 1918 and 1922, recollected that HKU students were quiescent even during the high noon of the May Fourth Movement. Shen wrote: ‘Everyone in the world cared about the Paris Conference. We HKU students were indifferent towards it. The May Fourth movement occurred in May that year and swept across China. HKU remained unaffected, and our students said nothing about it’.117 This was similar to what a contemporary observer noted in 1920: There can be no question that a wave of national feeling is sweeping over the younger men. They are intensely interested in themselves as citizens of China. It is a new, and is some ways rather a crude, movement. But I think it has come to stay. They say that Hongkong, and the University especially, is out of touch with this movement.118

Writing in 1920, this critic thought HKU students were ‘out of touch’ with the May Fourth movement. Indeed, students at the University mostly remained calm about the May Fourth. The University’s several Japanese students faced little of the anti-Japanese sentiment and violence common in mainland universities during the May Fourth Movement: the Dean of Arts even noted that one of the Japanese students, Ichiji Kuribayashi, was a ‘popular’ student when he graduated in 1923.119 But this does not mean that the May Fourth movement did not influence HKU students at all. The May Fourth and the New Culture Movement prompted HKU students to question in 1920 why the University celebrated the birthday of Confucius, who had become a target of criticism during the two movements. Students noted that, while the university had a holiday on Confucius’s birthday, the national day of the Republic of China remained uncelebrated. Although 10 October (or more commonly called ‘Double Ten’) was a holiday on the university calendar, it was marked as the ‘Recognition of Chinese Republic’, instead of Chinese National Day.120 In 1920, the Registrar announced the cancellation 116 Wasserstrom, Student Protests in Twentieth-Century China, pp. 51–71. 117 Cited in Gao, ‘港大生活回憶 [Recollection of my life at HKU], in 一枝一葉總關情 Recollections of Hong Kong University Alumni, p. 178. 118 FO 228/3201, Unsigned draft letter to Warren Smith, 4 April 1920. 119 As noted in Cunich, A History of the University of Hong Kong p. 194. On Ichiji Kuribayashi, see Faculty of Arts, early student records, HKUA. 120 南蠻, ‘夢痕瑣憶錄[A collection of anecdotes]’, pp. 4–5.

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of the holiday, an announcement that shocked all students on campus. Gao Juefu, a mainland student between 1918 and 1923, thought that ‘the University administration did not value the importance of the date’, a fact he thought manifested ‘their disrespect to our country’.121 On 10 October 1920, another mainland student and recipient of the Peking Board of Education Scholarship, Kuo Ping Ho, posted on the notice board in his hostel. ‘Today is the National Day of our country, and we should have a day off’, he declared. Although the university administration instructed the removal of the ‘unauthorised and undisciplined notice’, students were surprisingly determined in supporting Kuo’s demands. They started a strike of ‘unprecedented’ scale across campus, which gradually pressured the university authorities to make the day a university holiday and allow students to celebrate it on campus. Students’ subsequent participation in the celebration further suggested their dedication. In 1922, Hong Kong had its ‘first real demonstration’, when the Chinese Seamen’s Union organised a strike which lasted for more than 50 days.122 The University’s Vice-Chancellor worried that the Double Ten celebration might provoke student radicalism as had occurred in the colony only seven months previously, and therefore planned to cancel the event. Such a plan however prompted much dissatisfaction amongst students: the latter organised protests against the plan, after which university authorities learned their lesson and avoided interfering in students’ celebration of the Double Ten.123 The holiday, as mentioned above, remained one celebrated on campus annually, and provided much excitement for students, as evidenced by the frequent discussion in student magazines. Notably, the Seamen’s Strike of 1922 itself did not trigger any student radicalism on campus. The Chinese Seamen’s Union in Hong Kong organised the strike because the union’s demand for a 30–40 per cent pay rise went unanswered.124 What might seem like an industrial dispute soon developed into a political confrontation between British colonialism and Chinese nationalism. Many Chinese workers – clerks, waiters, tram conductors, and servants – joined in, reflecting the extent to which such anti-colonial sentiments appealed to the Chinese, 121



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123 124

Gao, ‘港大生活回憶 [Recollection of my life at HKU]’, in 一枝一葉總關情 Recollections of Hong Kong University Alumni, pp. 179–80. On the Seamen’s Strike of 1922, see John M. Carroll, A Concise History of Hong Kong (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), pp. 97–9; Chan Wai-kwan, The Making of Hong Kong Society: Three Studies of Class Formation in early Hong Kong (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 145–92. Cunich, A History of the University of Hong Kong, p. 298. Carroll, A Concise History, p. 97.

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especially the working class, in the colony. HKU students, however, appeared to have sympathised little. Rather, they demonstrated substantial support for their British teachers. They ‘enjoyed mucking in with the staff during the strike’. When servants in their hostels and at the University went on strike, they actively assisted in the running of the University by helping with the food supply, cooking, and other domestic services on campus.125 Such ambivalence was again demonstrated during the May Thirtieth movement in 1925. On 30 May 1925, a group of Sikh police under British command in Shanghai opened fire on Chinese demonstrators who were protesting against foreign domination in China. The incident triggered an anti-imperialist movement in China known as the May Thirtieth Movement. Student activism formed the ‘engine and backbone’ of the movement, driving anti-imperialist protests and strikes throughout major cities in China.126 Filled with nationalist sentiments, much of which was encouraged (if not engineered by) the Guomindang Government, students in mainland China criticised not only the foreign presence in China, but also universities and institutions that were founded by and operated under foreign influence. These students were enthusiastic about resisting foreign imperialism. In Shanghai, for instance, university students quickly mobilised the public for a boycott of foreign goods and foreigners. They joined protests and demanded for the end of extraterritoriality in China and the surrender of Shanghai’s foreign-run concessions.127 In particular, St. John’s University in Shanghai became the target of public attack because of its American origin and influence. The University had previously survived much public scrutiny: outsiders often made class-based criticisms about its students’ elitist lifestyle. Yet, it could hardly survive the attacks that Chinese nationalists made from the angle of nationalism. Many students and even its staff members found accusations that St. John’s exercised cultural imperialism compelling. Tensions intensified between its administration and students, and when anti-imperialist sentiments peaked during the May Thirtieth movement, students openly confronted the university’s President Francis Lister Hawks Pott. In June 1925, more than half of its students, as well as its entire Chinese Department, walked out: they left the University, and founded Kwanghua University.128

125 Cunich, A History of the University of Hong Kong, p. 298. 126 Guangxu Ao, ‘Nationalism and the May Thirtieth Movement: an analysis of the Northern Intelligentsia’, Journal of Modern Chinese History, 1.2 (2007): 219–37. 127 Wasserstrom, Student Protests in Twentieth-Century China, pp. 95–134. 128 Yeh, The Alienated Academy, pp. 84–8.

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Notably, the May Thirtieth was a movement that largely targeted against the British presence in China, and anti-British protests and strikes were most intense where British interests were most concentrated – such as Canton and Hankow. And such sentiment spread beyond Chinese territories to the British colony of Hong Kong. On 21 June, Communist activists mobilised the labour unions in Hong Kong to go on strikes in protest. Two days later, they organised another rally in Canton, which became known as the ‘Shakee Massacre’ for its violent turn. On 23 June, more than 100,000 people, including many labour workers, Lingnan University students, and armed cadets from the Huangpu Military Academy, paraded alongside the Shamian Island foreign concessions in Canton in protest, calling for the cancellation of all ‘unequal treaties’. It was uncertain who opened fire first: but blood was shed. At least fifty-two Chinese protesters were killed by British and French troops and volunteers.129 This further stirred up sentiment in Hong Kong, where a strike-boycott began shortly afterwards. More than 50,000 Chinese left the colony in protest in the following two weeks, and by the end of July, approximately 250,000 left for Canton. Even school students marched out of their classrooms to strike.130 Officials and University staff were therefore worried that HKU students might join these strikers. Lindsay Ride, vice-chancellor of HKU (1949–64), remembered the strike as a ‘much severer test of loyalty and service than the [Second World War] had been’.131 While this may have been an exaggeration, such concerns were not unreasonable. Those in Canton branded Chinese supporting the colonial government during the strike as British ‘running dogs’.132 While many left Hong Kong to show their patriotism to China and to protest British imperialism, it is just as likely that a considerable number were pressured to leave.133 Nevertheless, HKU students remained cooperative and demonstrated considerable allegiance to both the University and the British colonial regime in Hong Kong. When the Hong Kong boycott began in late June, the University was on vacation. A few HKU graduates 129 On the Shakee Incident and its aftermath, see Bickers, Out of China, pp. 188–92. 130 See John M. Carroll, Edge of Empires: Chinese Elites and British Colonials in Hong Kong (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), p. 133. 131 Lindsay Ride, ‘The Test of War’, in Dispersal and Renewal: Hong Kong University during the war years, edited by Clifford Matthews and Oswald Cheung (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1998), p. 10. 132 See Ming K. Chan, ‘Labor and Empire: The Chinese Labor Movement in the Canton Delta, 1895–1927’, PhD Dissertation, Stanford University, 1975, especially Ch. 11. 133 Carroll, Concise History of Hong Kong, p. 100.

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and students attended the protests in Shakee and appeared to have responded to anti-imperialist ideals with enthusiasm. The HKU Alumni Association in Canton, for instance, wrote to the Vice-Chancellor Sir William Hornell. Emphasising that they felt ‘the highest admiration for British ideals and things British’, the Alumni Association asked Hornell to petition the British authorities to abolish all ‘unequal treaties’ with China.134 Those feeling strongly about the incident however seemed only a minority. Approximately seventy students remained on campus during the summer vacation and all behaved ‘excellently’.135 They did not attend political protests, and actively helped the local government in maintaining its medical services. Eighteen HKU students, for instance, took charge of forty patients at the psychiatric hospital when ward staff were on strike. When the university reopened in September, about three quarters of its students returned to HKU despite the unstable conditions. In July 1925, Hornell remarked that students were ‘perfectly docile and more amenable to discipline than I have ever known them’. He wrote: ‘most of them are, I think, thankful to be back and the University up until the present has been able to keep clear of all trouble and controversy’.136 Robert Simpson, warden of May Hall, recalled that students even arranged a play for ‘a large and distinguished audience, including H. E. the Governor of Hong Kong’.137 These examples provide an insight into how HKU students responded to the anti-imperialist sentiments in China and in the colony. In the remaining course of the strike-boycott, students remained so ‘quiescent’ that many, including Governor Sir Cecil Clementi and several journalists, praised them for their loyalty to the British Empire.138 Khay Hua Theng, student editor for Union Magazine in 1927, wrote: In an age and in a country prolific of turbulence, excitement and enthusiasm, indifference is a strange phenomenon: at a time when Chinese students are 134



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136 137 138

Registered Closed Files: Alumni Associations (Canton), King H. Tsang to Hornell, 6 July 1925, HKUA, as mentioned in Cunich, A History of the University of Hong Kong, p. 302. Cunich, A History of the University of Hong Kong, p. 301. Also, Robert Kotewall remarked that ‘it must be said to their credit that those students who were in residence in the hostels behaved well’. CO 968/120/1, Robert Kotewall to Sir Claud Severn, 24 October 1925, pp. 40–41. Registry Closed Files, Ricci Hall, Hornell to Fr. R. A. Lane, 20 July 1925, HKUA; Ms. 94/6, fol. 22, Hornell to Lugard, 30 September 1925, Weston Library, University of Oxford, as cited in Cunich, A History of the University of Hong Kong, p. 301. Simpson, ‘May Hall in the Formative Years’, pp. 12–13. Ms. 946 fol. 23, Sir Cecil Clementi to Lugard, 17 February 1926, Weston Library; ‘Our University: Reflections of China’s Chaos’, China Mail, 26 April 1927, p. 7, as mentioned in Cunich, A History of The University of Hong Kong, p. 516 n. 315.

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collectively accused of being enthusiastic to the point of madness, it is doubly strange to find a student-body in any part of China so sane that they forget what enthusiasm is. Such a doubly strange phenomenon is our student-body: they have the indifference, even if the sanity is doubtful.139

Theng’s editorial demonstrated that even student themselves found their schoolmates’ seemingly apathetic response to the May Thirtieth movement surprising. During the Japanese invasion of China, students expressed more overtly patriotic sentiments for the Chinese Republic. After the Mukden Incident in 1931, which many saw as a ruse for the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria, university students in China organised strikes and demonstrations to pressure the Nationalists to resist Japan with force. After the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937, which commenced continuous military conflicts between China and Japan, they continued to organise boycotts and fund-raising campaigns.140 Likewise, HKU students vocally expressed their patriotic feelings towards China at moments of significance during the war. To begin with, after the Japanese army’s attack on Shanghai on 28 January 1932, hostels at HKU cancelled for the first time in history the annual university dances.141 The Marco Polo Bridge Incident prompted arguably ‘the first student movement’ in Hong Kong’s history.142 Like their counterparts in China, they hung banners such as ‘Buy no Japanese goods’ and ‘Buy National Salvation Bonds’ across campus. HKUSU cancelled all social activities, spending its budget on ‘other beneficial and useful work in the war zones’.143 The student union also founded the Chinese Medical Relief Association, which organised concerts, plays, and other events to raise funds from the public for medical relief for the Chinese army.144 In 1938, the association raised sufficient money (HK$ 8,500) to donate an ambulance and two sets of surgical instruments to the interior of China. Additionally, it funded two doctors to work at a Red Cross hospital 139 K. H. Theng, ‘Editorial’, Union Magazine, 5, 1 (1927): 1. 140 Kiang, The Chinese Student Movement, Ch. 4. 141 Harlequin, ‘University Dances’, Hongkong University Union Magazine (November 1932): 73–4. 142 廣東青運史研究委員會研究室 [Research Centre for the History of Youth Movements in Guangdong], 香港學運的光輝 [The splendor of student movements in Hong Kong] (Guangzhou: Guangdong renmin chubanshe, 1992), as cited in Yeung, ‘Bookworms, Dandies and Activists’, p. 157. 143 Ibid. 144 ‘University Concert: Students Relief Association Activities’, SCMP, 29 October 1937, p. 12; ‘A Variety Concert: University Function for War Relief Funds’, SCMP, 26 October 1938, p. 5; ‘China War Relief: University Union to Hold Flower Day’, SCMP, 20 April 1940, p. 4.

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at Changsha.145 HKUSU President Lee Ching Iu formed the Hong Kong Students’ Relief Association, with representatives from more than 40 secondary schools in the colony.146 With the University’s Vice Chancellor Sir William Hornell as Honorary President, the association received much support from Chinese undergraduates at the University. Most notable was students’ enthusiastic response to the Association’s monthly subscription scheme. During the first month, one hostel even collected more than $1,000 – an amount that in 1938 could buy 8,218 kilogram of rice in Hong Kong.147 The Chinese section of the Union Magazine’s 1940 issue placed an overwhelming focus on the political situation in China: seven out of the twelve articles published were about the war. With essays on ‘The Past and Present of the anti-Japanese War’, ‘The Wartime Wuhan University’, and ‘How to Fight the Wang Jingwei regime’, the editor and contributors demonstrated their strong feelings about the war in China.148 In his essay on his student experience at Central University, Yao Baichun called out directly to his fellow students at HKU: ‘society needs you, the nation needs you’.149 It was notable that such enthusiasm was rather short-lived. The Hong Kong Students’ Relief Association in fact involved only three HKU students in its daily operations. And despite showing initial interest, other undergraduates’ support for the Association soon faded. Many tried their best to delay payment to the monthly subscription scheme: some avoided subscription collectors, whereas some simply just kicked the latter out of their rooms.150 Money issues could, of course, explain fading support. But in the eyes of those who identified strongly with China, the problem seemed to be that most HKU students only regarded the war as somebody else’s war. ‘They never felt that fighting against the Japanese had anything to do with themselves’, a student wrote in 1940 criticising their fellow students for not identifying strongly enough with China.151 Some contrasted their peers’ ambivalence with the active and continuous 145 Cunich, A History of The University of Hong Kong, p. 389. 146 Chen Daming, 香港抗日游撃隊 [Hong Kong Anti-Japanese Guerilla] (Hong Kong: Huanqiu guoji chuban youxian gongsi, 2000), pp. 16–20. 147 Cunich, A History of The University of Hong Kong, p. 389. Average retail price obtained from Hong Kong Administration Reports for the Year 1938, p. 35. 148 Wu Renyi, ‘如何打撃汪精衛政權的建立 [How to Fight the Wang Jingwei regime]’, Union Magazine (1940): 12–3; Muhua, ‘抗戰建國的回顧與前瞻 [The Past and Present of anti-Japanese war]’, Union Magazine (1940): 2–11; Liu Caien, ‘戰時的武漢大學 [Wartime Wuhan University]’ Union Magazine (1940): 41–44; 149 Yao Baichun, ‘在中央大學的一年 [A year at Central University]’, Union Magazine 1940: 44–47. 150 Yeung, ‘Bookworms, Dandies, and Activists’, p. 157. 151 Ling-ding, ‘Shiwang’, pp. 33–34.

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enthusiasm demonstrated by university students in China, highlighting how unusual HKU students were in not showing much support for their ‘mother country’ in their war with Japan.152 HKU students’ apparent indifference to Chinese politics and nationalist movements remained a source of criticism throughout the interwar years. Like the critics who thought HKU students too ‘Westernised’, many thought that such apparent apathy to political movements in China was a natural outcome of HKU’s British-dominated campus culture. When Warren Swire, a director of John Swire & Sons Ltd which had been a benefactor of the University since its formation, asked his acquaintance for their candid, ‘solid Chinese view’ of the University, the latter said that many in mainland China thought the University was not a ‘Chinese atmosphere’. This led to the University’s lack of ‘idealism and enthusiasm demanded by the younger generation’ and deficit of ‘touch and sympathy with China and Chinese thought’.153 Yet, from the discussion above, we can see that some actively identified China as their country. From students’ reactions towards the University’s handling of Double Ten celebrations and their commentaries on fellow students’ lack of enthusiasm towards Chinese nationalism, we can also see that not all students were apathetic about nationalist movements in China. Rather, some in fact possessed strong patriotic sentiments about China – even though they felt that they were a minority and/ or might not have demonstrated such sentiments frequently. Why, then, did they feel this way? This perhaps had much to do with the fact that most Chinese students at HKU had come from British territories – Hong Kong, the Straits Settlements, and even Australia. Many contemporaries also noted this. Warren Swire’s acquaintance in fact attributed the small number of mainland Chinese on campus as to why HKU was not a ‘Chinese atmosphere’. They wrote: ‘I notice in the Hongkong matriculation lists for 1917 only 14 boys from China Treaty-port schools. There were no entries at all from the missionary schools in the interior or from Chinese Government schools. The students were almost all drawn from Hongkong and the Straits Settlements’.154 These Hong Kong and Straits Settlements students were British subjects, and such a legal status carried weight to these students. ‘King’s/ Queen’s Chinese’ from colonial Malaya and Singapore identified strongly 152 Yao ‘在中央大學的一年 [A year at Central University]’, pp. 44–47; Liu Caien, ‘戰時的 武漢大學 [Wartime Wuhan University]’, pp. 41–43. 153 FO 228/3201, Unsigned draft letter to Warren Smith, 4 April 1920. 154 Ibid.

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with their British subjecthood.155 Likewise, by the 1930s, a growing number of Hong Kong Chinese became aware of their status as British subjects and actively identified themselves as such, as discussed in Chapter 1. Mainland Chinese alumnus Gao Juefu also recalled that when his overseas Chinese classmates – or, in Gao’s words, the ‘overseas descendants of Yan and Huang’, the mythological common ancestor of Chinese people – talked to him and other mainland students, they would often say ‘You Chinese nationals’ [你們中國人], indicating how little overseas Chinese at HKU identified with China.156 Some also seemed receptive to the rhetoric of imperial cosmopolitanism embedded in their curriculum, making them sympathise little with anti-British sentiments prevalent in Chinese anti-colonialism. Despite gaining much support in mainland China and even among the working class in the colony, Chinese nationalism was understood in a different light for many in the British colony. As Gao Juefu admitted, he and other mainland students found China’s ‘chaotic politics’ ­embarrassing – especially when they had to face Chinese students from Hong Kong and the Straits Settlements, where the political order was relatively less turbulent.157 This became even more complicated when in the mid-1920s, anti-British sentiments were interwoven with expressions of Chinese nationalism. HKU students themselves took great pride in being British-educated and some even celebrated the cultural influence Britain imposed on them: Hu Pei Lung, for instance, praised the University for being a ‘British Lighthouse in the Far East’ that ‘presents British learning and culture to the students’.158 It is therefore not hard to see why these students would not support political movements that encouraged a departure from British presence in Hong Kong. Students’ lack of enthusiasm towards Chinese nationalism may have been a product of their social backgrounds too. A degree at HKU did not come cheaply: in 1920, the annual cost to attend HKU was about HK$800, when a position for experienced male stenographers 155



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Lynn Hollen Lees, ‘Being British in Malaya, 1890–1940’, Journal of British Studies, 48.1 (2009): 76–101; Poh-seng Png, ‘The Straits Chinese in Singapore: A Case of Local Identity and Socio-cultural accommodation’, Journal of Southeast Asian History, 10.1 (1969): 95–114. Gao, ‘港大生活回憶 [Recollection of my life at HKU], p. 180. Gao wrote his recollection in Chinese and used the phrasing ‘你們中國人’, but he also included in the passage the English phrasing ‘You Chinese’, which was presumably the original phrasing that his fellow classmates used. That Gao translated ‘You Chinese’ into 你們中國人, meaning ‘You Chinese nationals’, is worth noting, for it connotes an understanding of Chineseness as a national identity, rather than a diasporic and/or ethnic identity. Gao, ‘港大生活回憶 [Recollection of my life at HKU], p. 179. Hu Pei Lung, ‘The British Lighthouse in the Far East’, Union Magazine, 1, 2 (1922): 18.

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was advertised with a monthly salary of HK$250 that year.159 Its high tuition fees meant that many students were from affluent families. Like the University of Rangoon, HKU’s residential requirements made the University even more unaffordable to students from a humbler background.160 Most Chinese bourgeoisie in Hong Kong did not sympathise with the anti-British strikes and boycotts in the 1920s, because they saw the strikes as a threat to their economic interest.161 That many HKU students came from a middle-class, colonial background helps explain students’ lack of enthusiasm towards rising Chinese nationalism. Of course, HKU students were not exclusively middle-class and above, as scholarships had enabled some with lesser means to attend the university. The British government provided King Edward VII Scholarships to British subjects with the best performance in matriculation examinations.162 Those from the Straits Settlements could also compete for scholarships offered by the various state governments and philanthropists such as Loke Yew. Various provincial governments in China also established funding for its students to attend HKU.163 The number of scholarship students was significant: in 1921, thirty-six out of the seventy-six medical students who attended their degree examinations were on scholarships.164 Yet, because these scholarship recipients constituted the majority of mainland students attending the university, many might have felt that they could not afford to exhibit their nationalist sentiments and irritate the university authorities, which could affect their scholarships. Warren Swire’s acquaintance also pointed out that many mainland parents were reluctant to send their children to HKU, due to its reputation as a foreign university. Rising anti-British sentiment after the mid-1920s fueled such distaste, leaving two important implications for the political inclination of mainland students at HKU. First, amongst those who 159 FO 228/3201, Unsigned draft personal letter to Warren Swire, dated 4 April 1920. On the monthly salary of an experienced male stenographer, see prepaid advertisements in South China Morning Post, 8 November 1920, p. 5. 160 See Donald M. Seekins, State and Society in Modern Rangoon (London: Routledge, 2011), p. 56. 161 See Carroll, Edge of Empires, pp. 131–58. 162 ‘The University: Scholarships Provided’, SCMP, 15 October 1909, p. 7. 163 Notably, these scholarships were offered intermittently during the 1920s, as the University refused to take more Chinese government scholars in 1925 because of unpaid debts by the latter. It was after university administration experienced many difficulties in the recruitment of students from China that staff and officials attempted to re-establish scholarships for students in China. See Cunich, A History of the University of Hong Kong, p. 286. 164 The University of Hong Kong Senate Minutes, ‘Results of the Matriculation and Local Examination held in December 1920’, p. 4, HKUA.

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could afford to attend university without a scholarship, those with stronger nationalist sentiments would choose other mainland universities over HKU. Many self-funded mainland students at HKU, then, tended to feel less strongly about nationalist movements in China. For those who needed funding to attend university, they were at HKU because they were able to receive a scholarship from the university. The proportion of scholarship recipients amongst mainland students was considerable, as evidenced in the significant decline of the number of mainland students after HKU refused to enrol more Chinese government scholars in 1925 due to unpaid debts.165 Given that their studies depended on whether they would continue receiving scholarships from the University, we should consider the possibility of scholarship recipients avoiding actively participating in political activism, even if they felt strongly about such issues. Some students even suggested that the Britishness of HKU and more widely Hong Kong discouraged them from expressing Chinese patriotism. Gao Juefu, for instance, expressed strong patriotic feelings for China as he recollected his years at HKU decades later. Even so, he admitted that he was hesitant about showing his patriotism. He wrote: ‘You need to understand that Hong Kong was a British colony. We could not easily and candidly express our patriotism towards China’.166 He also suggested that being physically away from strife-torn China led to students feeling detached from what was happening there: ‘We were so comfortable with our lives that we almost forgot that our country was facing internal and external crises, and our people were struggling to live!’ HKU then helped foster a non-radicalism towards anti-colonialism in China. Students there clearly held some identification towards China – as we could see from our earlier discussion on diasporic Chineseness. They called China ‘my country’, celebrated the Chinese National Day, and supported the Chinese war effort. Yet, they demonstrated so little enthusiasm towards nationalist populism, an attitude that contrasted so much with their counterparts in mainland China that it surprised critics and even HKU students themselves. A largely affluent and diasporic background, as well as HKU’s curriculum, encouraged some to uphold the rhetoric of imperial cosmopolitanism and sympathise little with Chinese anti-colonial movements. This identification with British colonialism, as we will see in Chapter 5, was widely held amongst the middle-class in interwar Hong Kong. But equally illuminating was how

165 Cunich, A History of The University of Hong Kong, p. 286. 166 Gao, ‘港大生活回憶 [Recollection of my life at HKU], p. 179.

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some pointed out that the colonial milieu at HKU (and more widely in the British colony itself) discouraged them from expressing explicitly their support for such movements. The experience of ethnic Chinese at HKU also shows how the dissemination of Britishness, and more broadly, the very presence of British colonialism in East Asia, shaped the ways in which Chinese diasporas engaged with rising nationalism in China. The experience of HKU students suggests that on one hand, colonial education made Chinese in British territories more acceptive to the rhetoric of imperial cosmopolitanism and less responsive to Chinese nationalism. On the other, Britain’s domination in Asia made many feel that they did not have the option to engage freely and actively with Chinese nationalism. The colonial milieu of Hong Kong and its officials’ conscious attempts to transmit Britishness, then, gave birth to a non-radicalism amidst rising anti-British sentiments in China. ****** Walking around HKU today – or at least in July 2019, when I last stepped foot in my alma mater – one would see a very different campus life from the one a century ago. Current students can only vaguely sense the British origin of the university, apart from the sight of the few surviving Edwardian Baroque-style and red-brick buildings on campus. American influence is much more tangible: from seeing the two Starbucks on campus to hearing students talk about their hopes for a good GPA (referring to the American Grade Point Average system) with the phrase ‘過三爆四 [exceeds 3.0 and approaches 4.0]’.167 It is beyond imagination that HKU students were once criticised for being irresponsive to revolutionary ideas. Students today take great pride in their active participation in social movements – from the local protests and demonstration about the Tiananmen Massacre, to the Umbrella Movement and the 2019 Protests. Even after the National Security Law became effective on 30 June 2020, some were still diligently putting up posters, banners, and artwork criticising the government, despite them getting removed quickly afterwards. As a matter of fact, student activism on the HKU campus is so vibrant that the university administration tries its very best to suppress it: in July 2021, the University had ceased recognising the role of its Student Union, which had been at the forefront of student activism in the city, and it evicted the Union from its office on campus.168 167 One of these two Starbucks has since closed. 168 In July 2021, a man stabbed a police officer with a knife in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong, and took his own life immediately afterwards. Soon after the incident, the HKUSU

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Such radicalism was certainly not what Lugard had envisioned for the university, but even today one could still see the lingering legacy of his ambitions. Developing an appreciation for British culture and values is surely no longer on the University’s agenda. Nevertheless, even today, HKU has retained much of its British formality and traditions. Even its coat of arms, which the University’s official website calls a ‘splendid reminder of the University’s antiquity’, has a gold lion on a red background on the top – ‘a clear allusion to the coat of arms of England’.169 Students also clearly enjoy these traditions and the University’s connections with Britishness. At open days and orientation events, they told prospective students and freshers about these unique traditions of HKU with much pride. Much like their predecessors in the interwar years, they often received criticism for their Western manners and habits. Are these trends only confined to HKU itself? Perhaps not. If we look beyond the University campus, we can see that many Hong Kong Chinese shared such cultural traits and appreciation for British culture and values. While it was not explicitly articulated, Britishness became embedded in the lifestyle, culture, and even ideologies of Hong Kong Chinese in subtle ways.170 Through the case of HKU, we can see how British imperialism affected the development of Chinese identities and anti-colonial movements. The foreign presence in post-1841 China has left a tremendous impact on the development of Chinese identities. We already know much about the Chinese migrant communities overseas and how the specific historical and geographical context of their settlement shaped their diasporic identity, though such discussion about overseas Chinese and their identities rarely looks at the Chinese in Hong Kong. Yet here we see vividly how Hong Kong’s colonial status, official attempts to preach and construct Britishness, and its transnational diasporic networks led to the emergence of diasporic Chineseness there. At HKU we also see a group of colonial subjects who were not

169 170

Council passed a motion to mourn the assaulter, which received immediate backlash. The Union Council publicly retracted the motion, but the University announced that it would cease recognising the role of the Union on campus and their representation for the member students. Those who attended the Union Council meeting that passed the abovementioned motion were also barred from entering the University campus. More, see ‘Student Leaders Barred from University of Hong Kong’, Hong Kong Free Press, 4 August 2021, https://hongkongfp.com/2021/08/04/student-leaders-barred-fromuniversity-of-hong-kong-pending-probe-into-sympathising-with-police-attacker/, accessed 8 October 2021. See Dr. David Wilmshurst, ‘The Meaning and Significance of the University’s Coat of Arms’ on HKU’s official website, dated 24 January 2007, accessed 16 October 2020. www.hku.hk/about/uid/c_background.html. Mark Hampton, Hong Kong and British Culture, 1945–97 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015), Ch. 6.

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Figure 6  Image of HKU Main Building, taken in 2012. Courtesy of Jessica Kwok.

only engaging with Britishness for its functions: the way these students dressed, decided on the names that they went by, and the pride they took in being British educated in an age of nationalism also suggests a conscious choice of identifying with cultural Britishness. Ethnic Chinese students’ experience at HKU also throws light on the ways in which the acquisition of Britishness created problems for colonial subjects. Britishness was a hyphenated form of belonging, and here we see colonial subjects engaging with it not merely for its function, but also because they identified with its cultural identity.171 At HKU (Figure 6), Chinese students interacted with cultural and imperial Britishness with their other existing nodes of belonging, especially Chineseness. As they called China ‘our country’, they also actively engaged with British culture and ideologies – such as their keen interest in hockey and citation of Shakespeare to articulate their hope to talk about politics.172 171 Saul Dubow, ‘How British was the British World? The Case of South Africa’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 37, 1 (2009): 1–27. 172 See Cunich, A History of The University of Hong Kong, p. 293.

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They were cooperative with the university administration and the British colonial regime. For the ethnic Chinese students who came from mainland China, Hong Kong, the Straits Settlements, and Siam and Australia, it was likely to be their first time interacting with other ethnic Chinese who identified with Chineseness in a way that was distinctly different from theirs. Day-to-day interactions encouraged them to reflect on what it meant to be Chinese, to adopt Western cultural practices, and to be British educated. Their engagements with Britishness encouraged many to see Chineseness and Britishness as nodes of belonging beyond mere national identities. On the other hand, some failed to appreciate the existence of identities and belonging that operated beyond a clear national framework, and criticised the fact that their classmates lacked a sense of national belonging to China. Such a viewpoint was not unusual in interwar Hong Kong. As we now move on to focus on the Portuguese community, we will see more clearly how engagements with notions of Britishness created conflicts and contradictions for colonial subjects.

4

The British Portuguese

Perhaps no other group in Hong Kong captures the complexity and ambiguity of being British better than the Hong Kong Portuguese – or as they are known today, the ‘Macanese’ community. Originally from the Portuguese enclave of Macau only forty miles away, they have resided in Hong Kong from before it even formally became a colony. In 1842, Sir Henry Pottinger moved the office of the British Superintendency of Trade from Macau to Hong Kong. The Office formed the first administrative body of British Hong Kong, and amongst these early ‘British settlers’ were Portuguese interpreters and clerks, who had been working for the British since at least 1836.1 In the decades that followed its formal establishment as a British colony, Hong Kong grew – not without difficulties – into a regional hub of trade and commerce. Meanwhile, Macau experienced a series of natural disasters and economic recessions, driving many to leave Macau for Hong Kong. Fluent in English, Patois (a Creole language based on Portuguese with elements of Malay, Cantonese, and Sinhalese), and, in some cases, even Cantonese, the Portuguese community soon occupied most middle-rank positions in the colonial government, British banks, and almost all other British private businesses in pre-war Hong Kong. The Portuguese played an important role in making Hong Kong British, and yet because of their ‘mixed’ ancestry, they were never seen as fully British. As discussed in Chapter 1, white Britons were obsessed with the fact that the Portuguese were a ‘thoroughly acclimatised’ community of ‘descendants of the Portuguese pioneers of Western civilisation who […] married natives of Malacca and Japan’.2 Notably, even though the Hong Kong Portuguese were people of ‘mixed’ ancestry, both 1

J. P. Braga, ‘Portuguese Pioneering: A Hundred Years of Hong Kong’, in Hong Kong Commemorative Talks, 1841–1941 (Hong Kong: World News Service, 1941), p. 54. 2 A. W. Brewin, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1897’, in Sessional Papers Laid before the Legislative Council, 20 June 1897, p. 467; J. D. Lloyd, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1921’, in Sessional Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hongkong, 15 December 1921, p. 158.

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the colonial government and the wider population considered them as being distinctly different from the colony’s Eurasian community.3 This was not only because of the links they had with Macau and Portugal, or the fact that the Portuguese were Catholics, whereas most Eurasians were Protestants. It also had much to do with class and racial assumptions: many first-generation Eurasians were illegitimate children born to European men and Asian women, whereas the Portuguese were more often descendants of interracial marriages. Racial assumptions also made the British place the Portuguese community separately from and below Hong Kong’s wider European population. The Hong Kong Portuguese remained an ‘Asiatic’ community distinct from the British polity. Yet in the eyes of some Portuguese – such as those in Macau and even those in Hong Kong who had strong connections with Macau – the Hong Kong Portuguese had become too British. Through education and other social practices, the Portuguese underwent an acculturation process to root themselves in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, this acculturation prompted a backlash within the community.4 Some articulated a clear anxiety about the Anglophile inclination of their younger generations. Many noted that the Hong Kong-born Portuguese had not only preferred to speak English rather than Portuguese, but also appeared to place their allegiance more to the British Empire than to Macau, let alone Portugal. How people of ‘mixed’ ancestry negotiated their identities5, especially when they moved across imperial borders, has been a growing subject of historical research.6 As the ‘products’ of an empire who then 3 An example of how the ‘Eurasians’ and the ‘Portuguese’ were conceptualised as two distinct communities can be found in C. G. Alabaster, ‘Some Observations on Race Mixture in Hong Kong’, Eugenics Review, 11 (1920): 247–48. 4 These include: Felicia Yap, ‘Portuguese Communities in East and Southeast Asia During the Japanese Occupation’, in Portuguese and Luso-Asian Legacies in Southeast Asia, 1511–2011, Vol. 1: The Making of the Luso-Asian World: Intricacies of Engagement, edited by Laura Jarnagin (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2011), pp. 205–28; Stuart Braga, ‘Making Impressions: A Portuguese Family in Macau in Hong Kong, 1700–1945’ (PhD Thesis, Australian National University, 2013). 5 Various studies have investigated how official policies and institutional discriminations affected how subjects of mixed ancestry identified themselves. See Alison Blunt, ‘“Land of our Mothers”: Home, Identity, and Nationality, for Anglo-Indians in British India, 1919–1947’, History Workshop Journal, 54.1(2002): 49–72; Owen White, Children of the French Empire: Miscegenation and Colonial Society in French West Africa 1895–1960 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); Lionel Caplan, Children of Colonialism: AngloIndians in a Postcolonial World (Oxford: Berg, 2001); Emma Jinhua Teng, Eurasian: Mixed Identities in the United States, China, and Hong Kong, 1842–1943 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013); Jean Gelman Taylor, The Social World of Batavia: Europeans and Eurasians in Colonial Indonesia (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009). 6 Others have also studied how cross-cultural families established themselves across imperial boundaries. See, for instance, Caroline Drieënhuizen, ‘Social Careers Across

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encountered multiple colonial powers in the region, Portuguese Eurasians in Asia have received much attention.7 Historians have asked how the wider Portuguese diaspora in Asia learned from earlier generations in order to secure social advancement, and how they adapted to local circumstances, or engaged in new affiliations.8 In highlighting the diasporic networks that spanned across imperial boundaries, historians now see more clearly the fluid boundaries across Asian port cities, and the importance to consider how mixed-ancestry peoples, as mobile, hybrid subjects, navigated between various colonial identities.9 As colonial subjects acquired Britishness, how did such newly acquired identities interact with their existing identities and identifications? While we know that colonial subjects often took an active role in colonial acculturation and the acquisition of Britishness, we know less about the ramifications of them becoming British.10 In this chapter, I draw from the experience of the Hong Kong Portuguese, who were often portrayed in colonial discourse as subjects of another empire, to answer these questions. While some thought the community had become too British, the British polity in Hong Kong never fully recognised their Britishness. Their engagements with Britishness then provide us with a useful lens through which we can see the conflicts and contradictions that colonial subjects experienced as they approached Britishness. This chapter will examine how Hong Kong Portuguese engaged with Britishness through education and participating in public services.

7

8

9 10



Imperial Spaces: An Empire Family in the Dutch-British World, 1811–1933’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 44.3 (2016): 397–422. See Laura Jarnagin, ‘Introduction: The Qualitative Properties of Cultures and Identities’, in Portuguese and Luso-Asian Legacies in Southeast Asia, 1511–2011, Vol. 2: Culture and Identity in the Luso-Asian World: Tenacities & Plasticities (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2012), p. 2; Ronald Daus, Portuguese Eurasian Communities in Southeast Asia (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989); Rita Bernardes de Carvalho, ‘A “Snapshot” of a Portuguese Community in Southeast Asia: The Bandel of Siam, 1684–86’, in Culture and Identity in the Luso-Asian World, Vol. 2, pp. 44–66. Daus, Portuguese Eurasian Communities in Southeast. Catherine S. Chan, The Macanese Diaspora in British Hong Kong: A Century of Transimperial Drifitng (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021). Also see Catherine S. Chan, ‘Macau martyr or Portuguese traitor? The Macanese communities of Macau, Hong Kong and Shanghai and the Portuguese nation’, Historical Research, 93.262 (2020): 754–68; Catherine S. Chan, ‘From Macanese Opium Traders to British Aristocrats: The Trans-Imperial Migration of the Pereiras’, Journal of Migration History, 6.2 (2020): 236–61. See Tim Harper and Sunil S. Amrith, ‘Sites of Asian Interaction: An Introduction’, Modern Asian Studies, 46.2 (2012): 249–57; Chan, ‘From Macanese Opium Traders to British Aristocrats’, pp. 241–2. See Anne Spry Rush, Bonds of Empire: West Indians and Britishness from Victoria to Decolonization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); Christian Høgsbjerg, ‘“We Lived According to the Tenets of Matthew Arnold”: Reflections on the “Colonial Victorianism” of the Young C. L. R. James’, Twentieth Century British History, 24, 2 (2013): 201–23.

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Through these arenas, I uncover how Portuguese Eurasians in Hong Kong took both an active and passive role in acquiring Britishness, as well as the pushback they experienced in doing so. Focusing on the schools they attended and their public service, the first two sections of this chapter uncover the longer acculturation process for Hong Kong Portuguese to become British. Using newspapers, family papers, and oral history testimony, I then turn to examine the tensions that such acculturation engendered for the community. The third section investigates how British officials denied the community’s Britishness and illuminates the institutional discrimination the latter faced in Hong Kong. The fourth section examines the tensions, bitterness, and anxiety that some Portuguese had about the community’s Anglophile inclination. Altogether this Chapter illustrates problems that colonial subjects faced as they acquired Britishness. Education Education has played an important role in giving colonial subjects access to Britishness.11 It often served as a tool to facilitate the acculturation of the colonised within the imperial state.12 In the West Indies, a Britishstyle education gave middle-class West Indians exposure to Britishness, making them more likely to adopt a British identity and British culture than those of the working class.13 But colonial subjects were not merely passive recipients of colonial education; they often actively sought it to better their career prospects. This manifested itself in the education that Hong Kong Portuguese chose for their children. Even though there were Portuguese-language Catholic schools in the colony, almost all Hong Kong Portuguese opted to send their children to English-language schools operated by Catholic missionary orders so that their children would speak better English. In particular, the St. Joseph’s College and the La Salle College, two boys-only Catholic schools, gradually became the default schools 11

Keith Watson, ‘Rulers and Ruled: Racial Perceptions, Curriculum and Schooling in Colonial Malaya and Singapore’, in The Imperial Curriculum: Racial Images and Education in the British Colonial Experience, edited by J. A. Mangan (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 147–74; Siew-Min Sai, ‘Educating Multicultural Citizens: Colonial Nationalism, Imperial Citizenship and Education in Late Colonial Singapore’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 44.1 (2013): 49–73. 12 Ana Isabela Madeira, ‘Portuguese, French and British Discourses on Colonial Education: Church-State Relations, School Expansion and Missionary Competition in Africa, 1890–1930’, International Journal of the History of Education, 41.1–2 (2005): 31–60; E. Patricia Tsurumi, Japanese Colonial Education in Taiwan, 1895–1945 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977). 13 Rush, Bonds of Empire, p. 9.

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for almost all Portuguese boys in Hong Kong. Both schools served as an important instrument that trained the Portuguese to become useful subjects for colonial Hong Kong and instilled them with Britishness. As in many other colonies and Asian port cities, missionary schools had played a significant role in the history of education in Hong Kong. Both Protestant and Catholic missionaries had built schools in the colony to evangelise through education.14 But because the Portuguese were mostly devoted Catholics, they rarely sent their children to Protestant schools there. The task of educating the Hong Kong Portuguese fell almost exclusively on Catholic missionaries, who, since the 1850s, had established schools particularly for Portuguese children there. These schools were chiefly aimed at training a class of collaborators for Britain’s growing commercial and administrative world in China’s treaty ports. The St. Saviour’s College, one of the largest local Portuguese schools in the 1860s and 1870s, exemplifies this role. Opened in 1864, St. Saviour’s was one of the most successful schools for Portuguese in the colony. A closer look at its curriculum shows how the school endeavoured to make their students employable for the Anglo-Chinese mercantile world. Instead of teaching them Portuguese, St. Saviour’s placed a ‘due emphasis on English’, offered ‘commercial classes’ and taught the pupils languages such as French, Italian, and Spanish.15 Schools like St. Saviour’s succeeded in such a goal, as shown by the high proportion of Portuguese clerks in the government offices, banks, and private businesses in Hong Kong.16 Such a career-oriented education, one that would prepare the student to advance in the British-dominated mercantile world of Chinese treaty ports, had been popular amongst the Portuguese since the mid-nineteenth century. Even those in Macau would send their children to the Italian Convent schools in Hong Kong, for they believed a proficiency in English and knowledge of the mercantile world on the China coast would benefit the career prospects of their children.17 Some Portuguese also sent their children to private tutors who taught penmanship, reading, and multiplication tables in English before they could attend schools.18 In doing so, the Portuguese took the initiative in acculturating to Britishness. 14

See Anthony Sweeting, Education in Hong Kong: Pre-1841 to 1941 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1990), pp. 139–94. 15 ‘Diamond Jubilee: St. Joseph’s College Celebration, Bishop’s Sermon, South China Morning Post (hereafter SCMP), 11 November 1935, p. 10. 16 Sweeting, Education in Hong Kong, p. 176. 17 Interview with Gloria D’Almada Barretto, 6 November 1987, disc 3, collections at Hong Kong Museum of History. 18 Interview with Jim Silva, Raquel Remedios, and anonymous interviewee #1, 24 April 2017.

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Given their Catholic background and emphasis on English education, it is not hard to understand why Portuguese parents in Hong Kong preferred sending their boys to St. Joseph’s and La Salle. In 1875, six newly-arrived De La Salle brothers reorganised St. Saviour’s into a new school, St. Joseph’s College.19 Opened in 1876 with 150 Portuguese pupils, St. Joseph’s inherited St. Saviour’s high reputation and expanded rapidly. By 1925 it was one of the largest schools in the colony. During the early twentieth century, rising property prices and over-crowding on the Hong Kong Island drove many Portuguese to move to across the Victoria Harbour. The 1911 census recorded that about 80 per cent of Portuguese now lived in Kowloon.20 This ‘exodus’ of Portuguese motivated St. Joseph’s to open a branch school there in 1917, which in 1932 became the La Salle College. Unlike other Catholic Portugueseinstructed schools, which spent half of their time teaching Portuguese pupils in their ‘native language’, St. Joseph’s and La Salle saw English as the ‘key to the whole educational system’.21 They devoted all their school time to English studies and provided their students with an English-speaking atmosphere.22 Their emphasis on English teaching made them more popular amongst Hong Kong Portuguese than Catholic Portuguese-medium schools. The St. Francis Portuguese School and Bridge Street Ragged School, for instance, had only 41 and 60 students respectively in 1881, whereas St. Joseph’s had 240 students.23 Born in Macau and later a member of the Urban, Executive, and Legislative Councils in Hong Kong, Sir Roger Lobo recalled that his father sent him to Hong Kong to study at La Salle so that he could receive an English ­education.24 The high quality of teaching at St. Joseph’s and La Salle was another reason why parents liked sending their children there: in 1935, La Salle occupied the top three places of the University Matriculation exam.25 For Portuguese parents in the colony, sending their boys to one of the two schools was the norm: rarely could one find 19

Mark Huang, Sons of La Salle Everyone: A History of La Salle College and Primary School, 1932–2007 (Hong Kong: La Salle College Old Boys’ Association, 2007), p. 24. I am thankful to the La Salle College Old Boys’ Association for giving me a copy of this book. 20 See P. P. J. Wodehouse, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1911’. 21 St. Francis Portuguese School and Bridge Street Ragged School, for instance, only had only forty-one and sixty students respectively in 1881, whereas St. Joseph’s had 240 students. (‘Government Notification No. 276, Annual Report on the State of Government Schools in Hong Kong’, 1881, Table II.) 22 ‘Speech Day: St. Joseph’s College, Education Abroad’, SCMP, 22 February 1923, p. 11. 23 ‘Government Notification No. 276, Annual Report on the State of Government Schools in Hong Kong’, 1881, Table II. 24 Oral History Interview with Sir Roger Lobo, 12 March 2009, p. 2, Hong Kong Heritage Project. 25 Huang, Sons of La Salle Everyone, p. 57.

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a Portuguese man who grew up in twentieth-century Hong Kong who was not an ‘old boy’ of St. Joseph’s or La Salle. Even though St. Joseph’s and La Salle paid more attention to preparing their students for university education, the emphasis on training them for a commercial career in the mercantile world of port cities still lingered. Apart from ‘religious instruction’, both colleges taught students aged between ten and fifteen subjects including Arithmetic, Algebra, Geography, History, Drawing, and Literature. Other than English, students needed to study one of the following languages: Chinese, French, or Portuguese.26 Students between ages sixteen and seventeen could enter Class 1 and 2, which followed the syllabi of the School Leaving Certificate and University of Hong Kong Matriculation examination.27 Those wishing for a commercial career as a clerk, interpreter, or accountant, etc., could enter a two-year commercial course. Apart from English and Arithmetic, the course taught bookkeeping, shorthand, typewriting, and commercial law. At the end of their course, students would sit for the London Chamber of Commerce Diploma.28 St. Joseph’s and La Salle did not only equip students with better career prospects, but also Britishness. The schools were keen to nurture students to ‘become good citizens of the community in which they lived’. A wide range of civic activities was available for students at St. Joseph’s and La Salle. For one, they were amongst the first in the colony to form scouting corps. The international scouting movement of scouting started in 1907 to foster patriotic subjects for the British Empire in its rivalry with other European powers.29 St. Joseph’s was the first in the colony to form a formal Boy Scouts Corps, and La Salle also established a Boy Scouts Corps. Because of concerns about providing non-British boys with a military education (which was, essentially, the aim of the scouting movement), before the 1920s only British boys of European descent could be boy scouts in the colony. The corps at St. Joseph’s, however, made the only exception, for accepting British subjects of other descent, 26 ‘Prospectus of St. Joseph’s College Hong Kong, 1932’, in ‘Christian Brothers’ Archives’, Vol. 3, collection of the St. Joseph’s College. I am very grateful to Mr. Perrick Ching, Principal of St. Joseph’s College, for allowing me to visit the school and granting me access to the school’s copy of Christian Brothers’ Archives files, from which this chapter benefited greatly. 27 ‘Prospectus of St. Joseph’s College Hong Kong, 1932’. 28 ‘St. Joseph’s College Report for 1935’, in ‘Christian Brothers’ Archives’, Vol. 3; Brother Matthias to Hon. Mr. Braga, ‘St. Joseph’s College Report 1935’, dated 27 November 1935, in ‘Christian Brothers’ Archives’, Vol. 3; Huang, Sons of La Salle Everyone, p. 58. 29 On the history of scouting in Hong Kong, see Paul Kua, Scouting in Hong Kong, 1910–2010 (Hong Kong: Scout Association of Hong Kong, 2011).

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including Portuguese British subjects, as boy scouts.30 During the First World War, St. Joseph’s Boy Scouts aided the military authorities in Hong Kong. They assisted the Volunteer Corps, and some received auxiliary medical training at a military hospital.31 Scouting, however, was not the only way the two schools encouraged their students to provide community service. When the Strike-Boycott of 1925–26 disrupted the government’s post service, St. Joseph’s led its students to help in the dispatch and distribution of mail.32 Other volunteer service organisations such as the St. John’s Ambulance Brigade also started at the two schools, and student members carried out duties to serve the community at public events.33 While engaging students with the civic life in the colony, the schools played a key role in making its students not only Hong Kong Portuguese, but also British Portuguese. Given that British national identity emerged largely in an opposition to a Catholic European ‘other’ and a common perception of the predominantly Catholic Irish as ‘others’, it may seem surprising that St. Joseph’s and La Salle, being Catholic schools, played an important role in forging Britishness amongst Hong Kong Portuguese.34 But we must also consider how Britain underwent a transformation during the nineteenth century from being a Protestant nation to a Christian empire. Furthermore, the Irish played a prominent (albeit complex) role in the British imperial project.35 Many of the De La Salle brothers in Hong Kong, who founded and operated St. Joseph’s and La Salle, were in fact Irish. Like schools in other parts of the empire, St. Joseph’s and La Salle provided their students with exposure to British culture.36 Inspection reports, oral history interviews, and press articles show that, while the schools placed a great emphasis on teaching Catholic values, British culture composed a significant part of school life both inside and outside the classrooms. Students played cricket and football in the playground, performed Shakespeare’s works at school events, and 30

Kua, Scouting in Hong Kong, pp. 75–86, 89. Ibid., p. 86. ‘St. Joseph’s College. (Cont’d)’, in Christian Brothers’ Archives, Vol. 3. ‘Annual Report of Rev. Brother Aimar, Director of St. Joseph’s College, Hongkong’, p. 4, in Christian Brothers’ Archives, Vol. 3. 34 On Catholicism and Britishness, see Linda Colley, ‘Britishness and Otherness: An Argument’, Journal of British Studies, 31, 4 (1992): 309–29. 35 On the complex role that the Irish took in both reinforcing and destabilising the British Empire, see Kevin Kenny, Ireland and the British Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), esp. pp. 90–122. Also see Hilary M. Carey, God’s Empire: Religion and Colonialism in the British World, c. 1801–1908 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), especially pp. 40–72. 36 On how British culture featured in schools in other parts of the empire, see, for example, Rush, Bonds of Empire, pp. 22–47. 31 32 33

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learnt about English literature in the classroom.37 ‘God Save the King’ featured not only in school concerts and ceremonies, but even in English lessons.38 While the school inspector commended English teaching at St. Joseph’s in 1940, he showed disappointment at the insufficient recitation done in classes. ‘In many classes, the only recitation done was a group of songs – National anthem, School song, etc.’.39 The two schools also provided a platform for Portuguese students to socialise beyond their own community. While colonial officials often encouraged racially segregated schooling, mission and English-medium schools provided their students with one of the very few arenas in which to have cross-cultural interactions in a colonial context.40 Although the government wanted St. Joseph’s and La Salle to enrol only Portuguese students, the De La Salle Brothers insisted on admitting students of different nationalities and cultures.41 As such, while Portuguese remained numerically significant in both schools – approximately one third of St. Joseph’s students were Portuguese – its students in 1904 also included 150 Chinese, ‘a few’ English, French, Filipinos, Eurasians, and Danes.42 To educate ‘an international mix’ of students coming from different backgrounds, St. Joseph’s and La Salle divided each class into two to three subdivisions. Class B and C were for students whose second language was English, whereas Class A was for English-speakers. Portuguese pupils were all in Class A, alongside Europeans, Eurasians, and overseas Chinese.43 The multiracial Class A boys learnt all subjects in 37 ‘Annual Inspector’s Report, 1940, St. Joseph’s College’, in Christian Brothers’ Archives, Vol. 3; Interview transcript of 047 Arthur Gomes, Hong Kong Oral History Archives, University of Hong Kong Libraries; ‘Report of St. Joseph’s College for the Year 1907’, Hongkong Daily Press, 3 January 1908, p. 3. 38 ‘St. Joseph’s College: Empire Day Essay Competition’, SCMP, 25 May 1918, p. 11. 39 ‘Annual Inspector Report, 1940, St. Joseph’s College’, in Christian Brothers’ Archives, Vol. 3. 40 Clive Whitehead, ‘Education in British Colonial Dependencies, 1919–39: A Re-appraisal’, Comparative Education, 17.1 (1981): 71–80; Chan Chai Hon, The Development of British Malaya 1896–1909 (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1964); Barbara Watson Andaya and Leonard Y. Andaya, A History of Malaysia (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), p. 267; Philip Fook Seng Loh, Seeds of Separatism: Educational Policy in Malaya, 1874–1940 (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1975). 41 G. B. S., ‘St. Joseph’s College: An Interesting School’, SCMP, 7 January 1904, p. 2; Huang, Sons of La Salle Everyone, p. 43; ‘Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1924’, in ‘Administrative Reports for the Year 1924’, Hong Kong Government Reports. 42 Huang, Sons of La Salle Everyone, pp. 24–5; ‘Diamond Jubilee: St. Joseph’s College Celebration, Bishop’s Sermon, SCMP, 11 November 1935, p. 10. Associacao Portugueza de Soccorros Mutuos to the Right Revd., Domenico Poazoni, Bishop of Tavia and Vicar Apostolie of Hongkong, 20 June 1918, in ‘Christian Brothers’ Archives’, Vol. 3. 43 Interview with Jim Silva, Raquel Remedios, and anonymous interviewee #1, 24 April 2017; Huang, Sons of La Salle Everyone, pp. 55–6; ‘St. Joseph’s College Report for the School Year 1937–1938’, ‘Christian Brothers’ Archives’, Vol. 3, p. 4.

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English; and as English was often the only common language amongst them, students in Class A spoke to each other in English even outside the classroom.44 ‘Lads of several nationalities’ ‘scampered about’ together in the schools’ playground, and ‘boys of different nationalities and creeds mixed well together and helped one another’.45 More importantly, both St. Joseph’s and La Salle inculcated their students with a ‘patriotic spirit’, making them loyal to the British Empire. A most obvious example was the two schools’ enthusiastic celebrations of Empire Day. Apart from organising student parades and participating in colony-wide celebrations, the Colleges held an essay writing competition for students in High Classes to write on the Empire.46 Starting in 1917, this became an annual tradition and often featured in news coverage of Empire Day celebrations in Hong Kong.47 Portuguese students’ frequent appearance on the list of awardees reflects both their participation in these events and enthusiasm in articulating their feelings about the empire. While we should not take it at face value that such events successfully indoctrinated students with loyalty to the British Empire, these activities undoubtedly increased students’ awareness of being an imperial subject. As one student wrote in his essay: We think of the British Empire, and all that it implies; not only of its greatness and the benefits and privileges enjoyed by all who dwell within it, but of the obligation which those privileges and benefits carry with them, the obligation of Duty to the Empire.48

By encouraging students to articulate what it meant to live in the British Empire, the competition, along with other Empire Day celebrations that the schools participated in, equipped colonial subjects like the Portuguese a consciousness of their being part of the British Empire. Besides their Catholic background, the functional utility of Britishoriented education offered at St. Joseph’s and La Salle attracted many Hong Kong Portuguese to send their sons there. But in providing a 44

Huang, Sons of La Salle Everyone, p. 56. 45 G. B. S., ‘St. Joseph’s College: An Interesting School’, SCMP, 7 January 1904, p. 2; ‘A Diamond Jubilee: St. Joseph’s College Celebrates Long Association with Local Education, Dinner and Concert Held’, SCMP, 18 May 1936, p. 14. 46 ‘Empire Day: Hongkong Observance, Wreath on the Cenotaph’, SCMP, 26 May 1924, p. 10; ‘St. Joseph’s College: Empire Day Essay Competition’, SCMP, 25 May 1918, p. 11. 47 ‘Empire Day: Essay Competition at St. Joseph’s College’, Hongkong Daily Press, 25 May 1917, p. 3; ‘St. Joseph’s College: Empire Day Essay Competition’, SCMP, 25 May 1918, p. 11; ‘Empire Day: Local Observances’, Hongkong Telegraph, 25 May 1925, p. 1; ‘St. Joseph’s College: Winners of Empire Day Essay Competition’, The China Mail, 25 May 1926, p. 6; ‘St. Joseph’s College: Empire Day Essay Competition’, The China Mail, 24 May 1927, p. 7. 48 ‘St. Joseph’s College: Empire Day Essay Competition’, SCMP, 25 May 1918, p. 11.

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good-quality English education, a social atmosphere for students to mingle with classmates of other races as equal subjects, and instilling them with civic ideas, the two schools prepared the younger generations of the community for seeing themselves as belonging to the wider British Empire. They became subjects of British Hong Kong and a community distinct from the Portuguese in Macau. As the Portuguese boys graduated from school, their acculturation to Britishness continued as they participated in providing public service for the colony. Public service Public service has been an important means of making Britishness a more inclusive form of belonging. Those participating in military service, for instance, not only had their sense of belonging to the colonial state reinforced, but also proved to the colonisers their loyalty and commitment to the regime. It has been argued, for example, that through joining the Highland regiments, Scots proved to the English their commitment to Britain, alleviating anti-Scottish sentiments in England.49 Additionally, scholars have noted how civic engagements allowed the transmission of Britishness to a non-European other.50 Colonial subjects eager for social upward mobility were interested in joining civic organisations, but this was not solely for strengthening their social capital. As ­Chapter 5 will show, Hong Kong’s political and legal structure often meant that civic participation was the only way for aspirational people of colour to influence local politics and international affairs. Social ­recognition – or even better, official honours – that one gained from providing public service helped them further advance in the colonial hierarchy, while also strengthening their identification with the colonial regime. The Hong Kong Portuguese were keen in joining the colony’s volunteer military service and serving on public boards, with many attempts made to participate in local politics. In participating in such public services, the Hong Kong Portuguese of different classes successfully established themselves as Hong Kong residents and proved to the local polity their loyalty to the British colony. Starting from the mid-1920s, the community became heavily involved in the colony’s local auxiliary military force. Hong Kong’s first auxiliary 49 See Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), pp. 117–32; Robert Clyde, From Rebel to Hero: The Image of the Highlander, 1745–1830 (East Linton: Tuckwell, 1995); Robert Harris, Politics and the Nation: Britain in the Mid-Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 102–47. 50 Jesse S. Palsetia, ‘“Honourable Machinations”: The Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy Baronetcy and the Indian Response to the Honours System in India’, South Asia Research, 23.1 (2003): 55–75.

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force was formed in 1854 as the ‘Hong Kong Volunteers’ to compensate for the transfer of military forces from the colony for the Crimean War. The ninety-nine founding members included a few Portuguese.51 A number of Portuguese also served in the Hong Kong Volunteer Corps during the First World War, but it was only in the mid-1920s that a general interest in volunteering emerged within the community.52 By 1927, there were more than seventy Portuguese members in the Corps.53 In light of the community’s rising interest, the Corps formed a company of two platoons exclusively for the Portuguese community.54 By 1930, the Company had more than 200 members, and when the Japanese invaded the colony in December 1941, approximately 243 Hong Kong Portuguese served in the Corps.55 There are various reasons that prompted their increased interest in the mid-1920s. To start with, it has much to do with the influence of education at St. Joseph’s on the Portuguese community. As the majority of Portuguese boys growing up between the 1880s and 1920s had attended the College, they would have had exposure to volunteer military training through boy scouts and other volunteering service organisations, giving them a taste of military service. Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, several civil unrests took place in 1920s-Hong Kong as a result of rising Chinese nationalism.56 While none of these incidents caused any real threat to the British rule of Hong Kong, the colonial government nevertheless strengthened the colony’s defence through expanding the Volunteer Corps. To do so, it adopted multiple initiatives, including the formation of the Portuguese Company. Consisting of two platoons, the Company grew rather quickly.57 In the late-1920s and the 1930s, the Portuguese demonstrated continued interest in volunteering, much of which was prompted by a growing sense of belonging to Hong Kong. While personal reasons such as the 51 ‘Volunteers to the fore in times of need: Byways of History’, SCMP, 11 June 1989, p. 40. 52 On the history of volunteering in Hong Kong, see James Hayes, ‘A Short History of Military Volunteers in Hong Kong’, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 11 (1971): 151–71. 53 ‘Brass Band for the Volunteers’, Hongkong Telegraph, 22 April 1927, p. 1. 54 J. H. Kemp, Attorney General, ‘Hongkong Volunteer Corps: The Proposed New Establishment Scottish and Portuguese Companies’, SCMP, 29 January 1920, p. 12. 55 Figure acquired from www.macanesefamilies.com/PrivateE-o/uihkvdc.htm (accessed 5 January 2017), a website established to record the history of Macanese community with more than five hundred contributors who provided information on their family history. 56 Hayes, ‘A Short History of Military Volunteers in Hong Kong’, p. 159. 57 ‘H.K. Volunteer Corps: Two Portuguese Platoons Formed’, Hongkong Telegraph, 18 March 1927, p. 1; ‘The Volunteers: Two Portuguese Platoons Formed “Guards” and “Bantams”’, SCMP, 19 March 1927, p. 2.

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‘camaraderie of their friends’ and the advantage of having a rifle encouraged some to join the Corps, many more joined because of their loyalty to Hong Kong.58 In April 1926 (ten months into the Strike-Boycott of 1925–26), J. P. Vieira wrote that he and his father – both, as Vieira emphasised, British subjects – served in the Volunteers Defence Corps because ‘this Colony need loyal citizens to fight for her and to die for her’.59 In February 1927, only four months after the Strike ended, a ‘Portuguese Citizen’ asked his fellow Portuguese in the correspondence column of the South China Morning Post to serve in the local defence corps: ‘more men are required for the local volunteer force’. He argued that Hong Kong Portuguese could join the Corps and ‘serve a Colony where they are earning their daily bread’. ‘I am an old man and over the military age, but am quite prepared to fight in defence of a place where I am enjoying the protection of the law’.60 Another ‘Citizen’ agreed in the same month that joining the corps allowed them to render ‘practical support to this Colony which has given them everything’.61 After his interviewer commented how ‘really amazing’ it was that the Portuguese answered the colonial government’s call to join the Volunteers, Antonio E. Noronha, stated: Yes. [hesitated]…Well then to us […], Hong Kong was our home. And most of us were British subjects of some sorts […]. We were happy to […], because Hong Kong then was home for us, and Macau of course is our second home. We do go to Macau every now and then to visit relatives. But Hong Kong for all intents and purposes, was our home.62

Without knowing more about Noronha’s later life, it is hard to tell to what extent events following the Second World War affected his retrospective answer. Reading his testimony along with the letters quoted above, however, suggests how a sense of belonging to the colony indeed motivated many Hong Kong Portuguese to volunteer in the local military force. For those emerging as prominent members of the community, participating in local politics provided another means of establishing themselves 58

Arthur Gomes joined ‘because it was a popular thing to do. You had a rifle which you could take home and you became a member of the Rifle Club’. See Interview with Arthur Ernesto Gomes by Imperial War Museum, 23 March 2001, interview 21131, reel 2, transcript, Imperial War Museum, as cited in Yap, ‘Portuguese Communities in East and Southeast Asia During the Japanese Occupation’, p. 207. On ‘camaraderie’, see Roy Eric Xavier, ‘The Macanese at War: Survival and Identity among Portuguese Eurasians during World War II’, in Wartime Macau: Under the Japanese Shadow (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2016), edited by Geoffrey C. Gunn, p. 99, footnote 13. 59 J. P. Vieira Remedios, ‘Hongkong Portuguese’, SCMP, 17 April 1926, p. 6. 60 Portuguese Citizen, ‘Volunteers’, SCMP, 26 February 1927, p. 10. 61 Citizen, ‘Volunteers’, SCMP, 25 February 1927, p. 8. 62 Oral history interview with Antonio E. Noronha, undated, collections at Hong Kong Museum of History.

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as part of colonial Hong Kong. Despite their long presence there, few Portuguese entered the public sphere beyond their diasporic community in the early decades of the colony. Indeed, it was only 32 years after the government appointed the first Chinese Justice of the Peace that a Portuguese was appointed to the same position.63 But by the turn of the twentieth century, a few ‘elites’ in the community were becoming more publicly oriented. They held successful careers and had achieved much higher social ranks than their predecessors. They joined civic organisations, served on public boards, and fought for their inclusion in the colony’s formal polity. While Chapter 5 will further discuss these emerging urbanites’ participation in civic organisations, here we will focus on several notable Portuguese to explore how they enhanced their Britishness through serving on public boards and in the Legislative Council. For those who wanted to further their participation in local politics, the first steppingstone would be the Sanitary Board. Formed in 1883, the Board was the ‘only government body which both included elected members and exercised executive powers in directing the work of a government department’.64 In 1916, F. M. G. Ozorio became the first Portuguese to enter the Sanitary Board election. A doctor who was born and raised in Hong Kong, Ozorio won with a majority of over 240 votes.65 Later, the Board (which was then restructured into the Urban Council in 1936) had several more Portuguese members, including Castro Basto, Alberto Rodrigues, and J. P. Braga.66 Some of them aimed even higher. As in other British crown colonies, Hong Kong had a Legislative Council established as its legislature in 1843. Unofficial members, whom the Governor appointed based on the nomination of Justices of the Peace, were introduced to the Council in 1850.67 Nevertheless, official members (consisting of senior government officials) always constituted the majority on both Councils so that the Governor retained control over the legislature. Hong Kong’s hongs (companies) also dominated unofficial membership in the Council before the Second World War: many – if not most – of the unofficial members were 63 The first Chinese Justice of the Peace was Ng Choy (also known as Wu Tingfang), appointed in 1878. (No. 245 Government Notification, Hongkong Government Gazette, 14 December 1878, p. 599.) 64 On the Sanitary Board, which later became the Urban Council, see Norman Miners, The Government and Politics of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1975), pp. 175–89. 65 ‘Sanitary Boards Election’, China Mail, 19 February 1916, p. 4. 66 ‘Urban Council: Appreciation of Services of Dr. Basto, Dr. Rodrigues Welcomed’, SCMP, 13 March 1940, 8. 67 Steve Tsang, A Modern History of Hong Kong: 1841–1997 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004), p. 26.

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in fact white British taipans (managers) of the major hongs and banks. It was only in 1880, when Governor John Pope Hennessy appointed Ng Choy that a person of colour first joined the formal organ of the colonial administration.68 While another seat for Chinese was added to the Council in 1896, the demand for widening political representation persisted throughout the 1910s and 1920s. Many white Britons were discontented with the overrepresentation of the hongs in the Council. Some Portuguese joined these residents and formed a Constitutional Reform Association in 1917 to demand for an unofficial majority in the Legislative Council. But the Association received little (if any) success: all its petitions to the Hong Kong and London governments were ignored.69 While unsuccessful, the Portuguese continued to fight for their inclusion in the colonial polity, and in 1929 there was finally a Portuguese appointed as unofficial member on the Legislative Council. In January 1929, the Governor added two seats for Kowloon Representatives in the Legislative Council. He appointed J. P. Braga, a Hong Kong Portuguese and member of the Sanitary Board, and Tso Seen-Wan, a Chinese lawyer and member of the Education Board, to take up these newly added seats. From that point onwards, one of the seats for unofficial members in the Legislative Council was always reserved for a Portuguese until well into the 1950s. The seat was later taken by Leonardo d’Almada e Castro Jr., and then Alberto Rodrigues.70 Some of them even received official honours. J. P. Braga (Figure 7) became the first Hong Kong Portuguese to receive an honour from the British state in June 1935, when he was appointed as OBE in the King’s Birthday honours list that year.71 After the war, Leo d’Almada e Castro Jr. received a CBE in 1953.72 Alberto Rodrigues became Sir Albert Rodrigues in 1966, making him the first Hong Kong Portuguese to receive a knighthood.73 68 John M. Carroll, A Concise History of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2007), p. 52. 69 On the demand for more political representation in Hong Kong in the 1910s and 1920s, see Carroll, A Concise History of Hong Kong, pp. 95–6. Also see N. J. Miners, ‘Plans for Constitutional Reform in Hong Kong, 1946–52’, China Quarterly, 107 (September 1986): 463–82, at pp. 464–65. 70 ‘New Councillors: Dr. Li Shu-fan and Mr. Leo d’Almada, Service to Colony’, SCMP, 22 January 1937, p. 4. 71 ‘Hon. Mr. J. P. Braga, O.B.E: Kowloon’s Popular Member Rewarded’, SCMP, 4 June 1935, p. 10. 72 See Jason Wordie, ‘d’Almada e Castro Jr., Leonardo Horatio’, in Dictionary of Hong Kong Biography, edited by May Holdsworth and Christopher Munn (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012), p. 116. 73 Peter Cunich, ‘Rodrigues, Sir Albert Maria’, in Dictionary of Hong Kong Biography, pp. 374–75.

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Figure 7  A portrait of J. P. Braga, taken in 1937. Reproduced with kind permission given by Stuart Braga.

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Amongst them, the rise of J. P. Braga – from being evicted by the influential Noronha family to becoming the first Hong Kong Portuguese to receive official honours from the British state – is worth closer examination. Born in Hong Kong in 1871, Braga grew up in the affluent household of his maternal grandfather, Delfino Noronha, one of the earliest Portuguese settlers in the colony and government printer since 1844.74 A family dispute prevented him from inheriting Noronha’s business. Having to build his own career, he accepted a job offer from the Eurasian tycoon Robert Hotung to become the manager of the Hongkong Telegraph, one of the major English-language newspapers in Hong Kong.75 During his nine-year employment at the Telegraph, he built a prolific public profile through writing extensively on the public affairs in its pages. After Braga left the Telegraph, he started his own printing business, and, through serving as a board member of various public companies (such as China Light & Power and the Hongkong Engineering and Construction Company), he became heavily involved in the development of Kowloon.76 Braga was also an active member of the multiracial Kowloon Residents’ Association, which we will examine more closely in Chapter 5. The Association was formed in 1919 to demand more public work on the peninsular and demand for wider political representation in the colony. These activities earned him public recognition: besides his OBE, he was appointed in 1919 as Justice of the Peace, in 1926 a member of the Sanitary Board, and in 1928 an unofficial member of the Legislative Council.77 Public service rendered by Braga helped construct a public discourse in Hong Kong that portrayed members of the Portuguese community as an integral part of Hong Kong and loyal subjects of the British Empire. Braga was clearly not only a leader of the Portuguese community, but also a Hong Kong public figure. Only days before a Legislative Council member requested that Governor Cecil Clementi appoint an unofficial member to the Council as a Kowloon representative in 1928, the editorial of a local newspaper Hong Kong Observer conveniently requested: ‘Mr. Braga for the Council’. It highlighted Braga’s ‘undoubted talents for focusing attention on vital problems and for acting as spokesman of the 74

T00105, A. M. Braga on the Braga family, p. 2, Hong Kong Heritage Project. 75 MS Acc 08/113, Hotung to Braga, 15 May 1902, National Library of Australia (hereafter NLA); On Braga’s eviction from the Noronha printing business, see Stuart Braga, ‘Making Impressions: The Adaptation of a Portuguese Family to Hong Kong, 1700– 1950’ (PhD Thesis, Australia National University, 2012), pp. 227–36. I also wish to thank Stuart Braga, for providing me with immense help in navigating the Braga collections at the National Library of Australia. 76 T00105, A. M. Braga on the Braga family, pp. 5–7. 77 ‘New Justices of the Peace’, SCMP, 28 April 1919, p. 6.

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whole community, irrespective of race or sect’.78 Indeed, he served the whole of Hong Kong: he also facilitated the formation of the New Territories Agricultural Association to help Chinese farmers by improving their agricultural methods and giving them loans with affordable interest rates.79 More importantly, he played an active role in the Reception Committee for the visit of the Prince of Wales in 1922, the organisation of the First Grand Military Tattoo in Hong Kong, and the o ­ rganisation of the 1932 and 1933 Empire Products Fairs, for which he was the chair of the organisation committee in 1932 and its vice-chairman in 1933.80 These engagements allowed him to prove his commitment to the British Empire and establish himself as a loyal British subject. Indeed, a closer examination of Braga’s financial conditions and social life makes it clear that his experience was hardly representative of the wider Portuguese community. Sources about Hong Kong Portuguese women at workplaces, schools, and in the social world remain rather limited, but we know that the majority of Portuguese men held only middle-rank positions – particularly as clerks, interpreters, and accountants – in government, banks, and companies.81 On the other hand, their active engagement with Hong Kong’s civil society and demonstration of empire loyalty illustrate their ability and readiness to become loyal subjects of the British Empire. In a speech congratulating Braga’s appointment to the Legislative Council, the President of the Club Lusitano C. A. da Roza used Braga as an example to demonstrate the contributions of the Hong Kong Portuguese to the colony.82 Braga’s grandson Stuart Braga produced scholarly work on the Braga family’s adaptation to a British colony. He argued that an important legacy of Braga’s public service was that it opened up more opportunities for Hong Kong Portuguese to participate in Hong Kong’s public life.83 That men like Braga could influence the public discourse about Hong Kong Portuguese helped build a narrative that regarded the community as not only Portuguese nationals but also subjects of the British Empire. In his speech for a program broadcast in 1941 celebrating the centenary of

78

MS 4300/14.1/41, Fol. 34, ‘Mr. Braga for the Council’, Hong Kong Observer, 1, 7, 3 March 1928. 79 ‘Society’s Growth: Chairman Gives History of Association, Every Co-Operation’, SCMP, 11 January 1932, p. 16. 80 Braga, ‘Making Impressions’ pp. 284–5. 81 Yap, ‘Portuguese Communities in East and Southeast Asia During the Japanese Occupation’, p. 207. 82 ‘Hon. Mr. Braga’s Appointment: New Councillor Receives the Congratulations of His Community, Reception at Club Lusitano’, SCMP, 25 January 1929, p. 7. 83 Braga, ‘Making Impressions’, p. 303.

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Figure 8  First Hong Kong (St. Joseph’s College) Scout Troop, photo taken c. 1925. Also captured in the photo are several children of J. P. Braga: Hugh Braga (the Scoutmaster), Tony Braga (the Patrol Leader behind Hugh), and Paul Braga (left to Tony). Stuart Braga collection: Hugh Braga’s Album. With kind permission given by Stuart Braga.

Hong Kong becoming a British colony, Braga described the Portuguese community as one that ‘steadfastly adhered to their religious faith, loyalty to the sovereignty of their Government and obedience to the laws and discipline of the local administration’.84 Speaking of the loyalty of Portuguese, his speech highlighted the service that Portuguese men provided to the colony’s Police Reserve in the Great War and the St. John’s Ambulance Brigade. Combined with the service of the Portuguese Volunteers, these commitments to Hong Kong’s public service helped the Portuguese to assert their status as not only Hong Kong Portuguese, but also British-Portuguese. But their road to becoming British was not without challenges. Despite their evident commitment to the colony and the British Empire, Hong Kong Portuguese could still feel the lingering hindrance that racism put 84

‘The Portuguese: Their Contribution to the Colony’s Growth, Four Generations’, SCMP, 21 January 1941, p. 8.

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on their becoming British. Even within their diasporic community a backlash was arousing. Like many Portuguese on the South China coast, those in Hong Kong who identified more strongly with the Portuguese Empire found it unforgiving that their peers were willing to become British even at the cost of losing Macanese heritage. Rejections from the British Even though the Hong Kong Portuguese had vividly demonstrated their loyalty to the colonial government and – in some cases, as shown in J. P. Braga’s public life – to the British Empire, British authorities did not always fully accept their Britishness. Racist assumptions obscured them from recognising the cultural, legal, and civic Britishness that Hong Kong Portuguese possessed. Institutional discrimination against the latter was obvious in all aspects of life: in schools, at the workplace, and even in the social world. These practices exposed how the British in Hong Kong denied the Britishness of the Portuguese there. As discussed in Chapter 1, even though all subjects born in Hong Kong were British subjects by birth, colonial officials consistently racialised the Portuguese as a group distinct from the white population there. Such racial presumptions often replaced legal definitions in determining the Britishness of Hong Kong Portuguese. Although by the 1900s, most Portuguese were born in Hong Kong, colonial officials often refused to recognise their status as British subjects.85 The 1921 census report, for instance, still placed the Portuguese under the category of ‘aliens’, although the census officer had already noted in his commentary that many Portuguese were local-born and that 552 of them claimed British nationality.86 In 1936, a reader with the pseudonym ‘Interested’ wrote to the South China Morning Post, asking what a Hong Kong-born child’s nationality would be if their parents were both Portuguese citizens but also naturalised British subjects.87 The editor wrote below the letter that ‘any child born in Hong Kong is a British subject in British eyes’. But another letter signed with the same pseudonym replied, asking if that child would become a ‘Britisher’ or simply ‘a British subject entitled to the rights of a British colony’.88 85 In 1897, 1,214 of the 2,263 Portuguese recorded were born in Hong Kong. See A. W. Brewin, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1897’, in Sessional Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council, p. 468. 86 J. D. Lloyd, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1921’, in Sessional Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council, 15 December 1921, p. 158. 87 Interested, ‘National Status’, SCMP, 17 February 1936, p. 10. 88 Interested, ‘British Subjects’, SCMP, 19 February 1936, p. 8.

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The editor replied below the letter again: ‘there is no distinction’. To this, a ‘Citizen’ chimed in: ‘as far as I know, he is neither a British nor a Portuguese but just a British subject, if he knows what I mean’.89 ‘To be considered a Britisher, in the true acceptation of the word, one must have true British blood in one’s veins’, ‘Citizen’ wrote. Such remarks reveal the bitterness within the community about how the British denied the Britishness they had by birth and had consolidated through education and public service. British schools in the colony also closed their doors to Portuguese children until after the Second World War.90 Likewise, such discrimination was obvious at the workplace. Although many Portuguese possessed the skills required for higher rank jobs in the government, banks, and private businesses, they often found that the highest they could achieve was Head Clerk or Chief Accountant – higher positions were only for white Britons.91 The colour bar on careers was tangible, even for the fortunate few who entered the colony’s middle-class society as professionals or successful businessmen. Eddie Gosano recalled bitterly in his memoir how his Britishness was unrecognised because of racism. In 1939, he became a surgical medical officer in the government’s Medical Department. Although he was born in Hong Kong and thus a British subject by birth, the government classified him as ‘Chinese’ because of his Asian heritage. He received significantly lower benefits than his white counterparts, who received free ‘comfortable’ housing on the hospital premises and nine months’ vacation every three years with return passage paid for their whole family. As a ‘Chinese’, he had only two weeks of annual leave and had to pay for his own housing. Worse still, his wage was only a quarter of his Irish counterpart. In a light-hearted yet clearly resentful tone, decades later he wrote: ‘it was, as a doctor would be inclined to say, a bitter pill to swallow’.92 Even the family of J. P. Braga, the first Hong Kong Portuguese to receive honours from the British state, felt that their commitment to the British Empire was under-recognised. When Braga was awarded his OBE, his family was less pleased than expected, despite the news meaning that Braga had become the first Hong Kong Portuguese to receive British official honours. His son Jack wrote in a letter to his father: ‘I don’t want to make comparisons, but if Tso [Tso Seen-wan, 89

Citizen, ‘British Subjects’, SCMP, 20 February 1936, p. 11. 90 Yap, ‘Portuguese Communities in East and Southeast Asia During the Japanese Occupation’, p. 208. 91 Roy Eric Xavier, ‘Hong Kong Stories – Life before the War’, UMA News Bulletin, 34, 3 (2011): 2. 92 Eddie Gosano, Hongkong Farewell (N.p.: Greg England, 2000), pp. 14–5.

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Braga’s fellow member at the Legislative Council] could have been awarded the C.B.E., the least that should have been given to you was the K.B.E. That would at least be a fair basis’. Many within the Braga family thought it insulting that Braga was ‘only’ awarded an OBE, a level lower than Tso’s CBE. Jack’s brother Tony also wrote bitterly in a letter to Jack that: ‘It is disgraceful. After all these years of service the General [the family’s nickname for Braga] is given just a paltry O.B.E. It looks like a “cumshaw” from the departing Peel the snob’.93 Tony’s analogy of ‘cumshaw’ – meaning tips in Chinese ports – and calling the governor, Sir William Peel, ‘Peel the snob’, along with Jack’s reference to ‘the people in Hongkong’ all underscored the Braga family’s disappointment that British authorities gave only ‘a paltry O.B.E’ to recognise Braga’s public service.94 Ironically, while the British doubted the Britishness of the Hong Kong Portuguese, for some the Portuguese had become too British. The longer they had lived in the British colony, the clearer that the community had transformed into one that was distinct from the wider Portuguese Eurasian population on the China coast. Some articulated an anxiety about the community losing their Macanese heritage over their decades-long acculturation to Britishness. Those who identified strongly with Macau and Portugal saw the Hong Kong Portuguese community’s British inclinations as a sign of weakening connections with their ‘homeland’. To them, the ambivalence that many Hong Kong Portuguese demonstrated towards their Macanese heritage meant a betrayal of the Macanese diaspora. Their becoming British, then, caused bitterness, anxiety, and tensions within the community. Backlash within the Portuguese Community Being in the multiracial classroom, workplace, and civic associations, where English was the common language, had a considerable impact on the community. Early Portuguese settlers in Hong Kong mainly spoke Portuguese and Patois, a creole language based on Portuguese with elements of Malay, Cantonese, and Sinhalese; English was only their second language.95 But as they settled in Hong Kong, English gradually became the main language of many Portuguese.96 By the mid-1910s, 93

MS 4300/2.3/4, Tony Braga to Jack Braga, 6 June 1935, NLA. 94 MS 4300/2.3/4, Tony Braga to Jack Braga, 6 June 1935. 95 Antonio M. Jorge da Silva, Macaenses: The Portuguese in China (Macau: International Institute of Macau, 2015), p. 138. 96 Inspector of English Schools, ‘St. Joseph’s College Report for 1935’, Christian Brother’s Archives, Vol. 3.

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many in the younger generations could no longer speak the Portuguese language. The practice of giving their children English Christian names instead of Portuguese ones also became increasingly common.97 For some, such cultural changes were worrying. J. M. Alves, for instance, lamented in 1924 that, ‘there is a feeling that here in Hongkong, the study of the English language is of more importance for Portuguese children than that of their own language; it is essentially a question of “bread and butter”’.98 Some began to advocate for the revival of the Portuguese language in the 1910s. Similar attempts to revive cultural traditions was not uncommon amongst transnational diasporas elsewhere in the twentieth century.99 But what bothered the community most was not simply the decline in use of their ‘own language’, but the acculturation to the British Empire. Their concerns reflect how the rise of nationalist sentiments prompted the hardening of identities amongst hybrid subjects like the Hong Kong Portuguese. These ‘patriotic’ Portuguese worried that those in Hong Kong would become a community detached from Macau and Portuguese Eurasian communities in Asia. As a result, some Portuguese started various initiatives to reinforce Portuguese education within the community. Amongst these was a mutual aid society, the Associacao Portuguesa de Socorros Mutuos (hereafter Socorros Mutuos), founded in 1913. The objectives of the association included helping Portuguese in need, promoting the interests of the Portuguese in the colony and in the Far East, and most importantly, providing ‘a patriotic education’ for Portuguese children in the colony.100 In the following decades, Socorros Mutuos launched various initiatives to establish a Portuguese school and support the teaching of Portuguese in schools. To start with, it assisted in the establishment of the Portuguese School of Hongkong.101 After much lobbying, they facilitated the start 97 Francisco A. da Roza, ‘Ethnic Chameleon’, unpublished paper presented at the Fifth Conference on Macaology – Macaology and the Development of Macao, 24–26 November 2017, access granted by Francisco A. da Roza. 98 ‘St. Mary’s School: Yesterday’s Presentation of Prizes’, Hongkong Telegraph, 24 February 1926, p. 5. 99 These include, for instance, the Chinese reform movement amongst the StraitsChinese. See Christine Doran, ‘The Chinese Cultural Reform Movement in Singapore: Singaporean Chinese Identities and Reconstructions of Gender’, Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, 12.1 (1997): 92–107; Christine Doran, ‘Global Integration and Local Identities: Engendering the Singaporean Chinese’, Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 37.2 (1996): 153–64; T. N. Harper, ‘Globalism and the Pursuit of Authenticity: The Making of a Diasporic Public Sphere in Singapore’, Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, 12.2 (1997): 261–92. 100 Gosano, Hongkong Farewell, p. 11; ‘Formation of a Portuguese Mutual Help Society’, Hongkong Daily Press, 7 November 1913, p. 2. 101 J. A. de Almeida, ‘Portuguese School for Hongkong’, Hong Kong Daily Press, 1 December 1916, p. 3.

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of Portuguese language classes in schools with a significant enrolment of Portuguese pupils, such as St. Joseph’s, La Salle, Belilios School, and the Italian Convent.102 These initiatives were strongly connected to the Portuguese colonial regime in Macau.103 The Portuguese Consul in Hong Kong almost always attended and spoke at major meetings of the Socorros Mutuos.104 Officials from both Macau and the Republican government of Portugal not only attended such events, but also provided material assistance for the teaching of the Portuguese language in Hong Kong. They funded the Portuguese School of Hongkong and subsidised Portuguese language classes in other schools within the colony.105 Even interests shown in advocating teaching of the language were possibly incited by authorities in Macau. In a Board of Education meeting, members of the board stated that the demand for Portuguese language classes did not come from the Portuguese parents themselves, but the representative of the Portuguese community. One even argued that ‘the Portuguese Consul moved that Portuguese should be taught their own language’.106 These attempts aimed not only to revive the usage of the Portuguese language but ultimately to reinforce Portuguese patriotism within the community. In public meetings, officials frequently articulated a rhetoric that portrayed education in Hong Kong as a threat to Portuguese patriotism. In a meeting of Socorros Mutuos in 1915, ‘guests from Macau’ placed the Portuguese language at the centre of not only the cultural

102



103 104

105

106

‘Mutual Aid: Portuguese Association’s Annual Report, Increase in Funds’, SCMP, 19 August 1927, p. 11; J. P. Braga, The Portuguese in Hong Kong and China (Macau: Fundacao Macau, 1998), p. 205. Also see Chan, The Macanese Diaspora in British Hong Kong, Chapter 5. Some examples included the inaugural meeting of the association (‘Mutual Aid: Formation of a New Portuguese Association’, Hongkong Telegraph, 7 November 1913, p. 4.); its first extraordinary general meeting in 1915 (‘Portuguese School for Hongkong: Enthusiastic Meeting’, SCMP, 25 September 1915, p. 3); and another meeting in 1919 (‘Socorros Mutuos’, The China Mail, 22 October 1919, p. 1). J. A. de Almeida, ‘Portuguese School for Hongkong’, Hong Kong Daily Press, 1 December 1916, p. 3. On Macau government’s subsidies to language classes in other schools in Hong Kong, see MO/AH/AC/SA 01113562, Arquivo historico de Macau. In 1936, the Socorros Mutuos considered to cease its support for the Portuguese school because of the lack of funds. The association eventually continued its support. One believes the decision was made because their ‘mother tongue … is the principal factor in the union and therefore in the strength of the community’, and ‘national prestige does not disappear before the eyes of the foreign school entities’. Quote translated from (‘A escola de Portugues em Hong Kong’, A Comunidade, No. 15, September 1936, p. 1). Special thanks to Catherine Chan for leading me to the latter two sources. ‘Education Board: The Teaching of Portuguese, Committee to Make Enquiries’, SCMP, 8 January 1925, p. 9.

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identity of Hong Kong Portuguese, but also their connection with Portugal and Macau. President of the Municipal Council of Macau F. X. A. da Silva, for instance, stated that: Having to leave your birthplace in order to earn your daily bread, your love for Macao, your love for Portugal has never been in the least weakened. … However, it is necessary that these feelings do not remain in your hearts only. It must also materialise and the best means of doing so is to teach our children our beautiful language. It is by the tongue that men become distinguished, it is the tongue that keeps man united to his Motherland.107

In conceptualising the ‘tongue’ as the means to keep the Hong Kong Portuguese ‘united to his Motherland’, rhetoric likewise reflects an anxiety to strengthen the Portuguese national identity in Hong Kong. Most Hong Kong-Portuguese, however, showed little sympathy with these sentiments. To start with, the Socorros Mutuos received only limited support from those in Hong Kong. At its twelfth annual general meeting, the Chairman lamented the small membership of the association. Out of 296 members, only 203 were Portuguese in Hong Kong, when the population of Hong Kong Portuguese had reached 2,558 in 1911.108 The revival of the Portuguese language also achieved only limited success. The Portuguese School of Hongkong had low enrolment: in 1919, the school had only ninety-one girls and sixtyfour boys, and it did not even have its own premises.109 Portuguese classes in other English-instructed schools also prompted limited interest. Although at St. Joseph’s, ‘Portuguese boys are afforded every facility to study their language’, only 95 out of the 625 students enrolled took Portuguese in 1925.110 Likewise, Portuguese students in the Belilios school were unenthusiastic about learning the language. While the school had at least 26 Portuguese students, only nine took the language course. Members of the Board of Education therefore concluded in 1924 that ‘Portuguese pupils did not now desire to be taught their own language’. Indeed, ‘very few Hong Kong Portuguese spoke their 107

‘Portuguese School for Hongkong: Enthusiastic Meeting’, SCMP, 25 September 1915, p. 3. 108 ‘Mutual Aid: Annual Meeting of Local Portuguese Society, Election of Officers’, SCMP, 26 August 1927, p. 11; Wodehouse, ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1911’, p. 3. 109 The school was in fact further divided into at least three sections – the Hong Kong girls’ sections, the Kowloon girls’ sections, and the Brothers’ school. The girl sections were held initially at the Club Lusitano and Club de Recreio, clubs of the Hong Kong Portuguese; the sections later moved into the Italian Convent and St. Mary’s School, Kowloon. (‘Education in Hongkong: Development of Portuguese School’, SCMP, 25 November 1919, p. 3.) 110 ‘Annual Report of St. Joseph’s College, 1925’, p. 3, in Christian Brothers’ Archives, Vol. 3.

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so-called “mother-tongue”’ in the 1920s.111 Additionally, interviewees who grew up in the interwar years confirmed that the lingua franca in their homes was English, even though their parents spoke Patois as a first language.112 For those who wanted to revive the usage of Portuguese language in the community, it was not simply because Portuguese was their ‘mother’ tongue. Their desire to do so also stemmed from their sense of belonging towards Portugal and Macau. Likewise, the ambivalence towards these measures reveals much more than just a lack of interest in speaking the language. For some, speaking English was simply a force of habit, especially as they only spoke English in schools. Freddie Remedios, born in 1931 in Hong Kong, remembered that while his parents spoke to him in Portuguese, he responded in English. ‘The question is that all Portuguese boys that go to school […] don’t speak Portuguese. We speak all in English’.113 More often than not, however, parents deliberately prioritised speaking English over Portuguese at home so that their children could have better career prospects. Despite speaking mostly to the Portuguese in Macau, an editorial in Hongkong Daily Press in 1934 revealed a common belief that speaking Portuguese would hinder the ability of Portuguese to learn English, the lingua franca in the foreign commercial world on the China coast. The editor believed that if ‘they [the Portuguese] think in their own language, […] they do not acquire the thorough knowledge of English they should, and are not therefore capable of comprehending it sufficiently to appreciate our very lightest style of literature’. They therefore asked the Portuguese to ‘forget your mother tongue as quickly as possible, and to those engaged in this education scheme we would suggest that English and Chinese should form nearly the whole course of study’.114 Oral history testimony confirms the extent to which such perceptions led to an apathy towards speaking their ‘mother tongue’. Raquel Remedios believed that had largely to do with their desire for their children to have ‘perfect’ English. She recalled: ‘My parents… they spoke this 111



112

113 114

Jason Wordie, ‘The Hong Kong Portuguese Community and Its Connection with Hong Kong University, 1914–1941’, in An Impossible Dream: Hong Kong University from Foundation to Re-Establishment, 1910–1950, edited by Chan Lau Kit-ching and Peter Cunich (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 166. Interview with Jim Silva, Raquel Remedios, and anonymous interviewee #1, 24 April 2017; Interview with Tony M. Jorge da Silva and Gerald McDougall, 10 May 2017; Interview with Gloria D’Almada Baretto, 6 November 1987, collections at Hong Kong Museum of History. Interview transcript of 071 Freddie Remedios, p. 4, Hong Kong Oral History Archives, University of Hong Kong Libraries. ‘Echoes of 1861: A Suggestion for Macao’, Hongkong Daily Press, 3 July 1934, p. 6.

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Macanese language, Patois, amongst themselves, but I feel that they didn’t speak to us because they wanted us to speak proper English – good English’.115 As such, Jim Silva and Raquel Remedios recollected that their parents would speak to their children in English even when their parents’ first language was Patois.116 More importantly, some argued that receiving a ‘patriotic’ Portuguese education would harm their Britishness. On 2 December 1916, the Hongkong Telegraph’s editorial commented on the Portuguese government’s founding of a school in the colony, and rightly predicted that most Portuguese would not be interested in attending such schools. The fact that ‘quite an appreciable number of them intermarry with persons of other races, and so adopt some foreign language’, the editor argued, was partly why learning the language was unappealing to Hong Kong Portuguese.117 The already available high-quality Catholic education and concern about Portuguese state control over religious education further discouraged attendance of an ‘official’ school. More importantly, the editorial argued that ‘patriotic’ Portuguese education would contradict the Britishness of Hong Kong Portuguese. It continued that, ‘of the Hongkong Portuguese community, a large proportion of the people (perhaps the larger) are British subjects who are entirely out of sympathy with many of the ideals of the Portugal of today’. One could almost see from the editorial an urge to emphasise the loyalty of Hong Kong Portuguese to the British Empire: If the sole idea of the promoters is to found a school where Portuguese – and not English – will be the official language, their aim demands our sympathy, even though we may not happen to feel sanguine as to the lasting process of such a venture. But if the scheme goes farther than this, if it proposes to introduce into Hongkong a spirit that might in time become unfriendly to British nationality, then Hongkong has no time or use for such an institution. The Portuguese British subjects are as loyal to King George as any born Britisher could be; they are perfectly content to speak the English language and to see matters from the British point of view, and it is quite undesirable that any movement should be set on foot that might be calculated to estrange them from their adopted mother, the Empire.118

It is worth noting that J. P. Braga had been the editor of the Hongkong Telegraph for eight years since 1902 and remained in close terms with the paper after his editorship. The editorial’s reference to those who 115 Interview with Jim Silva, Raquel Remedios, and anonymous interviewee #1, 24 April 2017. 116 Ibid. 117 ‘Portuguese Education in Hongkong’, Hongkong Telegraph, 2 December 1916, p. 4. 118 Ibid.

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intermarried was also telling: Braga was married to an Australian, and English was a major language in his family.119 While it would be too far to speculate that Braga wrote this editorial, it is possible that his ­experience – if not opinions – affected the editor’s view on the issue. Public discourse about the declining usage of their ‘mother tongue’ then tells us much about the conflicts that the Hong Kong Portuguese encountered during their acculturation process. What Macau officials and those having strong connections with Macau wanted the Hong Kong Portuguese to preserve was clearly not only their ‘mother tongue’, but a loyalty to the Portuguese Republic and their diasporic connection with the Portuguese community in Macau. Most of the Hong Kong Portuguese, however, refused to hold a stronger connection to the two due to concerns about harming their career prospects and their Britishness.120 They sent their children to schools such as St. Joseph’s and La Salle to receive a British education – not a Portuguese-only school – because otherwise they would risk being estranged from their ‘adopted mother’. This, then, illuminates the tensions amongst colonial subjects who identified with the coloniser’s identity to varying degrees. These tensions were much more tangible to the prominent Portuguese who worked with the British polity in more active and public ways. As J. P. Braga became the first Portuguese to receive appointment to the Legislative Council and official honours from the British state, he also experienced bitterness, jealousy, and even disdain from other Portuguese. When he was appointed to the Legislative Council in 1929, the Club Lusitano organised a reception for him. Its President C. A. da Roza claimed that the satisfaction which you [Braga] must feel is reflected in ourselves because of the appointment having been made to a person of Portuguese race’. Another guest of honour, A. Cerveira de Albuquerque e Castro, the Consul-General for Portugal, ‘eulogised Mr. Braga’s work for the Portuguese community’.121 These speeches however seemed only a formality to some. Braga’s son Jack remarked in his diary after attending the reception that, ‘today must have been one of the proudest in his life when the Portuguese community gave him such a wonderful reception’. But the very next line he wrote suggested 119



120

121

T00105, James Braga, ‘The Braga Family in the Far East’, Hong Kong Heritage Project. It is however notable that, as Catherine Chan has illuminated, part of the community in fact remained strongly pro-Portuguese, and in the late 1920s formed a Liga poruguesa de Hongkong (Portuguese League of Hong Kong) to revive Portuguese patriotism there. See Chan, The Macanese Diaspora in British Hong Kong, chapter 5. ‘Hon. Mr. J. P. Braga: Portuguese Memento of His Appointment, Tributes at a Reception’, China Mail, 25 January 1929, p. 2.

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the tensions – if not jealousy – that his father was experiencing within his community. ‘The speeches delivered were hollow and insincere, Roza’s and the Consul’s in particular. Their words seemed to be big enough, but we are all convinced that they were not at all what they meant’.122 While Jack’s diary obscurely hinted at such tensions, an article published in O Petardo, a Portuguese newspaper in Hong Kong, openly denied that Braga should be seen as a leader of the Portuguese community. While the English press frequently portrayed Braga as the representative in the Legislative Council of the Portuguese community, the article – entitled ‘Os nossos leader’ (‘Our leaders’) – stated that: ‘No. The Portuguese community of Hong Kong has no leaders’. The author clearly believed that only Portuguese nationals could represent their community, and dismissed Braga, who was a British subject by birth, of any consideration as their leader: We cannot in any way admit, without breaking our patriotic pride, good individuals, who by the way are denationalised, as our leaders. No. No Portuguese can acknowledge this. Do you want this? First legalize yourself in the Portuguese  Consulate. The British subjects, …, [only] represent themselves as Portuguese citizens for certain personal conveniences [and] when it pleases them. It’s not right.

The author criticised openly that ‘the most prominent amongst these was the British subject Mr. J. Braga’.123 My own research encounters suggest that this tension persists – throughout the Second World War as we will learn in Chapter 6, but also even to this day. At the Macau Culture Center (hereafter MCC) in Fremont, California, I met a Shanghai-born Portuguese by chance.124 Due to Portugal’s neutrality during the Second World War, he was displeased that a book in the MCC Library had the words ‘Portuguese Prisonersof-War’ in its title. When it was pointed out that many Hong Kong Portuguese fought for the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps and were interned in camps, he replied: ‘Well, they were British. They had British passports’. When I asked if he thought a particular Hong Kong-born Portuguese individual was British, he simply said: ‘You have to ask him. But to me, he was British. He chose to be British’. The particular Hong 122 MS 4300/1/1, J. M. Braga Diaries, entry of 24 January 1929. 123 Luis Andrade de Sa, The Boys from Macau = Portugueses em Hong Kong (Macao: Instituto Cultural de Macau, 1999), pp. 48–9. Original quote in Portuguese, translated here into English. Many thanks to Catherine Chan for her assistance in translation. 124 Special thanks to Maria Roliz and the Lusitano Club of California for granting me access and arranging my visit to the Macau Culture Center in Fremont, California, on 29 April 2017.

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Kong-born Portuguese mentioned in the conversation himself in fact stated firmly in another interview with me that he never regarded himself as British – ‘I am Portuguese’. In engaging themselves with Britishness through attending English schools, joining the Volunteers, and actively participating in Hong Kong’s public sphere, the Hong Kong Portuguese successfully secured themselves a place in British Hong Kong. Such actions, however, came with a price. As some read the assimilation of Hong Kong Portuguese as a betrayal to their community, Macau, and Portugal, their acquisition of Britishness engendered conflicts within their own community. ****** The conflicts and contradictions that Hong Kong Portuguese encountered in their assimilation into the British colony encapsulate the issues for colonial subjects to acquire Britishness. Hong Kong Portuguese actively engaged with Britishness for different reasons, but mostly such engagements were primarily for their survival in the British colony. And as the decades went by, these engagements undoubtedly made them subjects of the British Empire. Most were entitled to a legal British status. They spoke more English than Patois and Portuguese. They called themselves loyal British subjects and demonstrated their loyalty in practical ways: many men volunteered for military service in the British colony, with an influential few served in the colony’s public sphere for the British administration. It was the multifarious, transient, and ambiguous nature of Britishness that created problems for the Hong Kong Portuguese. Even as more white Britons began to include people of colour as being ‘British’, the idea of Britishness as a racial identity still lingered. As hinted from the writings cited in this chapter, the gulf between a ‘Britisher’ (a term generally referring to white Britons) and a colonial British subject was formidable. Colonial officials in Hong Kong rarely fully accepted the Britishness of Hong Kong Portuguese. Institutional discrimination against them was simply too obvious for one to ignore. But for those who defined Britishness as a cultural attribute, legal identification, civic commitment, and even political allegiance, it was undeniable that the Hong Kong Portuguese were British. When most showed little sympathy to attempts to revive Portuguese patriotism and retained their inclination to being ‘British’, tensions, bitterness, and jealousy were aroused. The voices of women are largely missing in this episode: this of course had to do with the fact that one of the four sections was drawn on two boys-only schools. That a large number of sources of this chapter come

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from the collections and personal papers of Jack Braga, J. P. Braga’s son, also prevented us from listening into the voices of Portuguese women. But this also tells us the extent to which gender inequality embedded in the colonial society acted as a barrier to female colonial subjects accessing Britishness, a subject worth further discussion. In the next chapter, we will see how some women, along with their male counterparts, of difference races came together in Hong Kong’s civil society to engage with Britishness.

5

Multiracial Civic Britishness

For those who could afford it, interwar Hong Kong had a vibrant social world. One would never have an issue finding a club or society – the only problem would be choosing which to join.1 As was true across the British Empire, there were the highly exclusive gentlemen’s clubs that only those of the right ‘race’, gender, and social status could join.2 For the physically active, ‘Hong Kong had a club for every sport and a sport for every club’.3 Those interested in gardening had the Horticultural Society, while those keen in performing on stage could join the Hong Kong Amateur Dramatic Club. And let us not forget the numerous civic associations in the colony: Freemasonry, Rotary, and the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) were there for those who sought spiritual refinement alongside the chance to socialise with other ‘respectable’ figures. Those keen to provide a service for the local and global community had the Playground Association, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and the St. John’s Ambulance Brigade. There were also associations with significant interest in local politics, such as the Constitutional Reform Association which, along with several residents’ associations, aimed to protect local interests. Britishness sat at the heart of this vibrant public culture. Associational culture occupied a central role in the development of Britishness beyond the British Isles. Since the sixteenth century, clubs and societies had become an integral part of British urban life.4 As Britons expanded their 1

An earlier version of this chapter appears in ‘Exclusivity and Cosmopolitanism: Multiethnic Civil Society in interwar Hong Kong’ (issue 5 of volume 63 of The Historical Journal). © Cambridge University Press 2020, reprinted with permission. 2 For more on gentlemen’s clubs in pre-war Hong Kong, see John M. Carroll, Edge of Empires: Chinese Elites and British Colonials in Hong Kong (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), especially Ch. 4. 3 Ibid., p. 98. 4 See Peter Clark, British Clubs and Societies 1580–1800: The Origins of an Associational World (Oxford: Clarendon, 2000).

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empire, their clubs and societies followed them.5 Many such institutions in Britain’s overseas empire were modelled closely after those in Britain and held strong connections with them. They were also active sites for the reproduction and transmission of Britishness – as we saw in British India, where in social clubs white Britons asserted their respectability whilst also allowing the transmission of Britishness to a selected group of colonial subjects.6 Historians have explored how overseas Britons adjusted their public culture according to the local context, but much of the focus has been placed on those in the Dominions.7 Less has been said about the adaptation of this public culture in colonial Asia, where cross-cultural interactions took place in public life more frequently than we had previously imagined.8 Among the most visible sites of these interactions were Western-styled cultural clubs, learned societies, reformist leagues, and fraternal organisations where the influence of American civic internationalism was visible. In accepting a multiracial membership and advocating civic sensibility, they provided a social space for the ‘emerging, publicly oriented professional class’ to shape the colonial public sphere.9 In Hong Kong, clubs were quintessentially British.10 Both the white and Asian bourgeoisie established institutions that recreated the culture of the genteel upper class in Britain. In doing so, they also placed an overwhelming focus on British cultural traits that were deemed as indicators of class, status, and hierarchy.11 While we know that Hong Kong’s associational culture was very British, we know less about how it interacted with Hong Kong’s multi-ethnic, Asian urban setting. 5 Clark, British Clubs and Societies, Ch. 4; David A. Sutherland, ‘Voluntary Societies and the Process of Middle-Class Formation in Early-Victorian Halifax, Nova Scotia’, Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, 5.1 (1994) 237–63; K. Tawny Paul, ‘Credit and Ethnicity in the Urban Atlantic World: Scottish Associational Culture in colonial Philadelphia’, Early American Studies, 13.3 (2015): 661–91. 6 Mrinalini Sinha, ‘Britishness, Clubbability, and the Colonial Public Sphere: The Genealogy of an Imperial Institution in Colonial India’, Journal of British Studies, 40.4 (2001): 489–521; Benjamin B. Cohen, ‘Networks of Sociability: Women’s Clubs in Colonial and Postcolonial India’, Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, 30.3 (2009): 169–95. 7 A notable exception is Lynn Hollen Lees, Planting Empire, Cultivating Subjects: British Malaya, 1786–1941 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), esp. Ch. 4. 8 T. N. Harper, ‘Globalism and the Pursuit of Authenticity: the Making of a Diasporic Public Sphere in Singapore’, Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, 12.2 (1997): 251–92; Mark Frost, ‘Asia’s Maritime Networks and the Colonial Public Sphere, 1840–1920’, New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies, 6.2 (2004): 63–94. 9 Su Lin Lewis, ‘Rotary International’s “Acid Test”: Multi-ethnic Associational Life in 1930s Southeast Asia’, Journal of Global History, 7.2 (2012): 302–24. 10 Some in fact still are: a most prominent example is the Hong Kong Club. For more examples, see Vaudine England, Kindred Spirits: A History of the Hong Kong Club (Hong Kong: The Hong Kong Club, 2016). 11 Carroll, Edge of Empires, p. 102.

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Here I examine several voluntary societies attended by middle-class multiracial residents in interwar Hong Kong, and I reflect on the manner in which these residents adjusted civic Britishness in accordance with local conditions and several ideological trends that were taking dominance in neighbouring regions. In this chapter, the term ‘middle class’ does not connote any rigorous, sociological meaning. As we shall see in the following sections, this was a discursive term, used by urbanites used to express their self-identified class identity – and often a self-perceived inferiority relative to senior government officials and business tycoons who were at the apex of colonial society. Organisations examined in this chapter all accepted a multi-ethnic membership, albeit with different agendas and scopes. We draw not only on the transnational fraternal networks of Freemasonry and Rotary, but also on local organisations, including the League of Fellowship, the Eugenics League, and the Kowloon Residents’ Association. Each of these served a very different purpose: encouraging interracial friendships, helping the poor, and democratising the colony, respectively. But in exploring these very different associations, I identify similar traits and therefore argue that Hong Kong’s colonial setting and its transnational connections pushed urbanites there to use public culture to define and perform Britishness. They appropriated civic internationalism to assert a version of Britishness that signaled being cosmopolitan, benevolent, and civically engaged. We begin by exploring how a multiracial social world emerged in twentieth-century Hong Kong. We then move on to examine how political developments in China and Europe pushed these urbanites to articulate the supposed benefits of British colonialism and promote imperial cosmopolitanism. Regarding themselves as responsible citizens of a British colony, they saw it as their obligation to carry out their cosmopolitan responsibilities. We then examine their endeavours to facilitate interracial friendship, improve the welfare of Chinese children and women, and democratise Hong Kong. In doing so, this chapter tells us how multiracial Britons in Hong Kong engendered a rhetoric of imperial cosmopolitanism in the public sphere. A Multiracial Social World for the Middle Class Like that of colonial southeast Asia, the colonial society of Hong Kong has often been understood as one characterised by ethnic divides.12 Some truth lies in this understanding, especially as many ‘national’ clubs existed 12

J. S. Furnivall, Netherlands India: A Study of Plural Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1944).

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in pre-war Hong Kong for middle-class residents of different races. As white Britons used the Hong Kong Club, the Hong Kong Cricket Club, and the Yacht Club to distinguish themselves from working-class Europeans and colonial subjects, their well-off Asian counterparts created an equally exclusive social space of their own. The Portuguese had Club Lusitano and Club de Recreio, whereas the wealthy Chinese and Eurasians had the Chinese Club and the Chinese Recreation Club. Such racial segregation was a topic often highlighted in oral history and autobiographical accounts of pre-war Hong Kong.13 What these narratives failed to note, however, was the tremendous changes this social world underwent in the late nineteenth century. As a class of ‘Chinese bourgeoisie’ emerged in the 1880s, these Chinese and Eurasian urbanites aspired to participate in European associational culture, both for sociability and asserting respectability.14 But the doors of most European clubs were closed to colonial subjects, and even religious institutions could be inaccessible to them. Formed in 1901, the YMCA established a separate branch in 1905 – the ‘Chinese YMCA of Hong Kong’ – to exclude its Chinese members from the European branch, despite the Protestant church’s rhetorical doctrine of Universal Brotherhood.15 In response, some Chinese and Eurasian elites established equally exclusive social institutions, while others actively challenged the colour bar in the social world. The Chinese Chamber of Commerce, for instance, initiated various legal challenges against the Hong Kong Jockey Club, leading to its gradual acceptance of non-white members starting from 1927.16 The turn of the twentieth century also witnessed the ascent of an ever-growing number of colonial subjects in Hong Kong’s local politics. Chinese and Eurasian elites were amongst the first colonial subjects joining the official polity: by 1930, eleven had served in the colony’s Legislative Council, with two on the Executive Council. Some Portuguese were equally keen to participate in local politics and several served on the 13

Examples include: Eddie Gosano, Hong Kong Farewell (Hong Kong: Greg England, 1997), p. 9; Interview with Gloria d’Almada Baretto, 6 November 1987, collections at Hong Kong Museum of History. 14 Carroll, Edge of Empires, pp. 13–15; Jung-fang Tsai, Hong Kong in Chinese History: Community and Social Unrest in the British Colony, 1842–1913 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 97; Elizabeth Sinn, Power and Charity: A Chinese Merchant Elite in Colonial Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2003). 15 Law Yau Sang, ‘A Chinaman and the Policy of the YMCA’, South China Morning Post (hereafter SCMP), 14 October 1905. On the history of YMCA in Hong Kong, see YMCA Hong Kong Centenary Celebration, 1901–2002 (Hong Kong: Young Men’s Christian Association of Hong Kong, 2001). 16 ‘Chinese and the Jockey Club’, SCMP, 15 March 1919.

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Sanitary Board, which was the only official body in pre-war Hong Kong that had elected members and held executive powers to oversee the work of a government department.17 From 1929, the Legislative Council had a Portuguese unofficial member. Merchants with connections with India, such as Indian-born Armenian Catchick Paul Chater, and the Indian-born Baghdadi Jewish merchants Frederick David Sassoon and Emanuel Raphael Belilios, also served in the Legislative Council. As suggested in Chapter 2, within the white population, a professional class was also growing. Because of their jobs, white lawyers, doctors, university professors, journalists, and missionaries interacted frequently with colonial subjects of rising status, whose professional, middle-class outlook was more similar to theirs than some of their white counterparts. This means that by 1900, Hong Kong housed a sizeable group of individuals who were eager to socialise beyond their own diasporas and influence the wider society. A significant few entered the colonial polity through official appointments, but for many more, this option was not viable. They had to seek other means to fulfil such ambitions, and the blooming of civic institutions provided them with such means. Rapid globalisation in the nineteenth century comprised not only stronger migration and press networks, but also the global rise of European civic associational culture.18 Hong Kong’s multiracial urbanites responded to this global urban phenomenon enthusiastically. A foreign visitor would be most impressed by the great number of civic associations across town, including several fraternal organisations already popular internationally. For a start, freemasonry had existed there almost as long as British colonialism: the first Masonic Lodge was formed in 1845, only three years after Hong Kong became formally British. Masons in Hong Kong included men (and only men) of different races. European, Chinese, Portuguese, Jewish, and Parsi names were initiated in the local lodges, while Catchick Paul Chater was the District Grand Master for more than two decades.19 A Rotary Club was also formed in 1930 and brought together businessmen and professionals from diverse ethnic, national, and professional backgrounds every Tuesday over lunch.20 As they ate together, Rotarians listened to speeches given on topics about international politics, scientific knowledge, and local affairs, 17

Norman Miners, The Government and Politics of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1975), pp. 175–89. 18 Andrew Arsan, Su Lin Lewis, and Anne-Isabelle Richard, ‘The Roots of Global Civil Society’, Journal of Global History, 7.2 (2012):157–65, at p. 158. 19 ‘A List of Contributing Members of the Victoria Lodge, No. 1026, 1925’; ‘Return of Grand Lodge Certificates Issued to Member of the University Lodge No. 3666’; ‘A List of Contributing Members of the University Lodge, No. 3666, 1924’, Library and Museum of Freemasonry, United Grand Lodge of England (hereafter LMF). 20 ‘Rotary Club’, SCMP, 22 December 1930.

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hearing ‘each other’s problems and viewpoints, with a view to improving their mutual understanding and promoting fellowship’.21 One must not forget associations that were simultaneously local and global. Like the Middle Eastern political entrepreneurs in Paris, New York, and Cairo, Hong Kong urbanites’ aspirations and claims were explicitly global, even when participating in local organisations.22 Formed in 1921, the League of Fellowship aimed to ‘cultivate a closer relationship between Europeans and Chinese in Hongkong, and to remove misunderstandings that occasionally arose between the two communities’.23 It was not part of an international institutional network; yet it had a profoundly global origin and agenda. As we will see later, the establishment of this group was a response to the global trends of religious pacifism and internationalism after the Great War. Established in 1919, the Kowloon Residents’ Association was clearly very local: members were all residents in Kowloon, an area on the southern tip of the peninsula across the Victoria Harbour that was only fully incorporated into the British colony of Hong Kong after 1898. The association had very local purposes: it was formed as a pressure group to demand from the government more public works in the neighbourhood. Yet, its formation existed within with the broader global demand for political reforms and representation. Similarly, the Eugenics League was formed in 1936 to promote knowledge of contraception amongst local Chinese women, but its connection to the international birth-control and eugenics movements was visibly strong. These associations shared striking similarities with the international networks of Freemasonry and Rotary. They all accepted a multiracial membership. They all advocated civic awareness and encouraged active contribution to the community. Most importantly, even though they each had a different agenda and scope, a notable portion of their memberships overlapped. Together, they showed a nexus of people using different civic organisations to shape local and international society, while performing a supposedly cosmopolitan and civilising British identity. Imperial Cosmopolitanism The First World War gave internationalism its momentum.24 The war showed many the danger of rising nationalism and proved the necessity 21

‘Editorial’, SCMP, 8 November 1930. 22 Andrew Arsan, ‘“This Age is the Age of Associations”: Committees, Petitions, and the Roots of Interwar Middle Eastern Internationalism’, Journal of Global History, 7.2 (2012): 166–88. 23 ‘League of Fellowship’, Hongkong Telegraph, 29 November 1921. 24 Daniel Laqua (ed.), Internationalism Reconfigured: Transnational Ideas and Movements between the World Wars (London: I.B. Tauris, 2011). On more specifically how popular

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of maintaining friendly international relations. Many now saw the need to advocate internationalism so as to reduce misunderstandings between nations and cultures. Masons in Britain, for instance, suggested the formation of a ‘Masonic League of Nations’ to draw English-speaking masons together after the War.25 The Rotary International also promoted civic nationalism and encouraged Rotarians to apply Wilsonianism in their civic engagements. In particular, Rotary’s underlying task was to rise above politics and provide service to both the local and international communities.26 Rising nationalism and the deteriorating international order in the 1930s made Masons and Rotarians worldwide believe in their mission of promoting such values more than ever. Urbanites in Hong Kong showed a similar interest in upholding such values. Take Masons, for example. After all, one of Freemasonry’s most distinctive features, compared to other associational networks in the British Empire, was its tolerance of those of different races and religions – however rhetorical that tolerance might be. Through their craft Masons aspired to provide moral and spiritual refinement, material assistance, and sociability to all men regardless of their backgrounds, at least notionally. Indeed, lodge members sometimes acted otherwise. In the early nineteenth century, lodges in the Caribbean and India often excluded men of different racial and religious backgrounds, let alone women who began to challenge gender hierarchies. Nevertheless, the United Grand Lodge of England insisted on practicing ‘the true principles of international toleration’ throughout the nineteenth century. In defining the masonic conception of universal brotherhood to be one that included men of different religious, political, national, and racial backgrounds, local lodges slowly began to accept freed enslaved people, Parsees, Hindus, and Muslims. The masonic membership eventually became one that ‘reflected the empire’s diversity’.27 Class remained an important criterion in the membership policy of certain Masonic lodges: in Shanghai, for instance, although there were lodges internationalism took prominence in interwar Britain, see Helen McCarthy, The British People and the League of Nations: Democracy, Citizenship and Internationalism, c. 1918–45 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011); Emily Baughan, ‘“Every Citizen of Empire Implored to Save the Children!”: Empire, Internationalism and the Save the Children Fund in Interwar Britain’, Historical Research, No. 231 (February, 2013): 116–37. 25 Jessica Harland-Jacobs, Builders of Empire: Freemasons and British Imperialism, 1717–1927 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), p. 261. 26 Brendan Goff, ‘Philanthropy and the “perfect democracy” of Rotary International’, in Globalization, Philanthropy, and Civil Society: Projecting Institutional Logics Abroad, edited by David C. Hammack and Steven Heydemann (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2009), pp. 47–70. 27 See Harland-Jacobs, Builders of Empire, p. 283.

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for masons of humbler backgrounds, most lodges had a ‘refined’ membership policy regarding the social class of its members.28 Similarly, masonic lodges in Hong Kong were one of the few, if not only, social associations in the nineteenth century that accepted members of different ‘races’ and gave them equal benefit, though most nonwhite masons were those of the upper-middle class. Chinese had been initiated into masonic lodges in Hong Kong by 1882 the latest, and membership lists in the 1920s reflect the continued participation of non-white individuals in the lodges.29 Primarily consisting of staff and benefactors of the University of Hong Kong, the University Lodge was the most diverse amongst the English constitution lodges in the city. Its 111 members in 1924 included at least five Chinese, one Eurasian, and one American.30 While still overwhelmingly dominated by white Britons, elected officers included a few people of colour, suggesting their prolific participation in the Masonic Lodges. As Masonic Lodges were some of the earliest social institutions in the colony to accept people of colour, Masons in Hong Kong took great pride in their inclusive associational culture. But a closer look at masonic activities shows us how Masons actively made their lodges an exclusively British site. Historians have explored the reciprocal role that freemasonry played in consolidating British colonialism. While Britain’s rapidly expanding empire helped freemasonry become a global institution, freemasonry in turn facilitated the building of empire. It helped overseas Britons adjust to being away from ‘Home’ by providing spiritual refinement, assistance, and social advancement.31 Since 1813, the Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England had always been a member of the British royal family. This close association between freemasonry and the royal family further consolidated the role that freemasonry played in the cohesion of empire. As masonic activities in India show, British freemasonry progressed into an ‘institutionalised, quasi-official, and de facto “civil religion”’ throughout the 28

See Robert A. Bickers, Britain in China: Community, Culture and Colonialism 1900–1949 (Manchester University Press, 1999), p. 83. 29 Carl Smith pointed out that Chan Tai-kwong was a member of a Masonic Lodge in Hong Kong before his death in 1882. See Carl T. Smith, Chinese Christians: Elites, Middlemen, and the Church in Hong Kong (Hong Kong University Press, 2005), p. 137. 30 ‘Return of Grand Lodge Certificates issued by the District in accordance with Rules 111, 112, 113, of the book of Constitutions to Member of the University Lodge No. 3666, meeting at Hong Kong’; ‘A List of Contributing Members of the University Lodge, No. 3666E, meeting at Zetland Hall, Hongkong, District Grand Lodge of South China with payments to the Funds of the Grand Lodge, up to the 31st day of December, 1924’, Library of Freemasonry. 31 Harland-Jacobs, Builders of Empire, pp. 3–4.

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eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In doing so, freemasonry functioned as an ideological ‘glue’ that reconciled colonial subjects to British rule.32 Likewise, masonic lodges in Hong Kong helped strengthen members’ connection with Britain and its empire. Minutes of meetings and annual reports show that Masons there frequently circulated reports received from other masonic districts, especially those from ‘Home’ and British territories.33 These reports contained updates on the British royal family, complemented by formalities for performing allegiance to the British monarch. For instance, as King George V’s health deteriorated in the late 1920s, meetings of the District Grand Lodge of Hongkong and South China often featured reports on his declining health. In January 1929, the District Grand Master John Owen Hughes stated in his speech that before ‘proceeding with the business on the agenda’: I refer to the continued and serious illness of His Majesty the King. Brethren it is very fitting that we should on this occasion, express our Loyalty and Devotion to His Majesty and the Royal Family, and our deep sympathy with them, and particularly with the Most Worshipful the Grand Master [Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn] in their anxiety.34

He therefore proposed sending Prince Arthur a cable with ‘loyal and sympathetic greetings to M. W. The Grand Master and Royal Family’. These meetings also often mentioned other royal family members.35 Though ritualistic, by employing these formalities and frequent references to other British territories, freemasonry helped indoctrinate a sense of belonging to the empire amongst Masons in Hong Kong. Similarly, while Rotary – an American movement – advocated civic internationalism, Rotarians in Hong Kong actively used the organisation to reinforce the British national identity. Established in 1905 in Chicago, Rotary had reached seventy different ‘nations’ and territories in Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia by 1930.36 With the motto ‘Service Above Self’, the movement advocated ‘universal good citizenship’ and encouraged members to take an interest in local and international matters. Like freemasonry, its members were all men, and included those 32 Vahid Fozdar, ‘“That Grand Primeval and Fundamental Religion”: The Transformation of Freemasonry into a British Imperial Cult’, Journal of World History, 22.3 (2011): 493–525. 33 LMF, ‘Minutes of the Fifty-Seventh Annual Meeting of the District Grand Lodge of Hongkong and South China’, 12 January 1933, p. 15. 34 LMF, ‘Minutes of the 53rd annual meeting on the District Grand Lodge of Hongkong and South China’, 3 January 1929, 11. 35 ‘Minutes of the 53rd annual meeting’, p. 11. 36 Nations being ‘nations’, as apparently the statistics also included colonies like Hong Kong. See ‘Rotary Club Meeting: Rev. E. G. Powell Speaks on Aims and Objects of Movement, “Service Above Self” Motto’, SCMP, 31 December 1930, p. 15.

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of different professions and ‘nationalities’ – a term often used as a euphemism for race. Their success in bringing men of different professions and ‘nationalities’ together caught the attention of many in Hong Kong. Journalists, for instance, made frequent references to the ethnic diversity in Rotary clubs in other Asian cities.37 Several editorials about Rotary International in various newspapers in Hong Kong during the 1920s reflected how editors found Rotary’s claim of ‘universal good citizenship’ particularly appealing.38 Those who had previously been a Rotarian elsewhere shared a desire to form a local Rotary club.39 Attempts were made in 1920, 1924, and 1927 to arouse sufficient interest to establish a Rotary Club in Hong Kong, but for some reasons these efforts were futile until 1930.40 In December 1930, Rotary International’s representative, the Honorary General Commissioner James Davidson, visited the colony to set up a Rotary Club there.41 The Club achieved immediate success: ninety-five people attended its first meeting, and it continued to grow in the following decades.42 The Club’s founding officers were business and professional elites already active in local public life; and, they came from diverse ethnic, national, and professional backgrounds. Weekly meetings of the Rotary Club were supposed to follow the common ‘no politics’ rule of the Rotary International movement, but exceptions often happened. Rotarians actively invited speakers to articulate the believed benefits of British imperialism to the international order. This trend was most evident in the late 1930s, when meetings often featured speeches celebrating British imperialism. In January 1937 the Rotary Club invited S. P. Williams to speak about his work as the Secretary of the Royal Empire Society, an organisation formed in Britain to ‘promote the preservation of a permanent union between the Mother Country and all other parts of the Empire and to maintain the power and best tradition of the Empire’. In his speech Williams argued that ‘a 37

These include: ‘Pacific Rotary: An International Conference in Tokyo’, China Mail, 2 October 1928, p. 1; ‘Keeping Well in Shanghai: Dr. T. B. Dunn’s Nine Rules for Guidance, The Longevity of the Chinese’, SCMP, 22 April 1925, p. 1; ‘To the Rotarians’ Convention: International Gathering at Ostend 8,000 Delegates’, SCMP, 7 June 1927, p. 1. 38 ‘Editorial: The Rotary Idea’, SCMP, 8 November 1930, p. 10; ‘Editorial: The Sphere of Rotary’, China Mail, 29 February 1928, p. 6; ‘Editorial: Local Rotary Club?’, China Mail, 8 May 1926, p. 6. 39 Resident, ‘A Rotary Club’, SCMP, 8 February 1928, p. 8. 40 ‘Editorial: The Rotary Idea’, SCMP, 8 November 1930, p. 10; 41 ‘Rotary Comes to Hongkong: Enthusiastic Inaugural Meeting, New Epoch in Local Social Institutions’, Hong Kong Daily Press (hereafter HKDP), 9 December 1930, p. 7. 42 ‘Rotary Starts in Hongkong: Movement Enthusiastically Welcomed, Inaugural Dinner’, Hong Kong Telegraph, 9 December 1930, p. 2; ‘Rotary Coming to Hongkong: Impending Visit of Honorary General Commissioner, Club formed in East Asia’, SCMP, 26 June 1930, p. 13.

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strong and united British Empire’ was ‘one of the most potent factors contributing to the preservation of peace in the world’. L. C. F. Bellamy, an active member of both the Hong Kong Rotary Club and the Royal Empire Society, asked his fellow members to join the Royal Empire Society after Williams’ speech.43 Speeches delivered at Rotary meetings in the late 1930s further portrayed Britons as exemplars of internationalism and British imperialism as a promoter of cosmopolitanism. As mentioned in Chapter 2, in Britain, the British public imagined tolerance, stoicism, and democracy to be the core values of Britishness, particularly in the 1930s when relations deteriorated between European countries.44 This view also featured in the activities of the Hong Kong Rotary Club. Like the German elites who customised the Rotary movement – an American ‘invention’ – with their own practice and ideology, Hong Kong Rotarians appropriated the practice and ideology of the Rotary movement to celebrate Britishness.45 In 1937, the Club invited Salvation Army Commissioner William McKenzie to speak on the subject of ‘Empire’. McKenzie called Britons ‘the perfect coloniser’ and praised their ‘extraordinary stamina and powers of adaptability’. McKenzie regarded the British Empire as a contributor to international goodwill. ‘One of the Empire’s outstanding qualities was freedom. Another asset was the solidity of British law and justice’, remarking, ‘a great event too was the liberating of slaves’.46 In 1938, the club asked a Rotarian, Professor C. A. Middleton Smith of the University of Hong Kong, to give a talk entitled ‘What is the Empire’. Like Williams and McKenzie, Middleton Smith spoke highly of the empire, and considered the ‘true empire spirit’ to be a ‘safeguard of freedom’.47 One could argue that only the speakers had full control of the content of speeches given, so such speeches cannot tell us what Rotarians present actually thought about the British Empire. But the very fact that Rotarians actively invited speakers like Williams and McKenzie and asked them to speak specifically on those subjects is telling. Also notable is that colonial subjects comprised a significant number of the club’s officers since its founding.48 But these speeches were also made against 43

‘Royal Empire Society’, HKDP, 13 January 1937. 44 Tony Kushner, The Battle of Britishness: Migrant Journeys, 1685 to the Present (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012). 45 Victoria de Grazia, Irresistible Empire: America’s Advance Through Twentieth-Century Europe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), Ch. 1. 46 ‘British Empire’, SCMP, 19 May 1937. 47 ‘Empire Day Address to Rotarians’, HKDP, 25 May 1938. 48 Even in its founding year, five of the eleven officers of the Rotary Club were people of colour. See ‘Rotary coming to Hongkong: Impending Visit of Honorary General Commissioner, Club formed in East Asia’, SCMP, 26 June 1930, p. 13.

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a backdrop of rising Chinese nationalism and anti-imperial sentiments. As discussed in Chapter 3, Hong Kong was not immune from the spread of nationalist and anti-imperialist sentiments from China, which had caused multiple strikes and boycotts to take place in 1920s-Hong Kong. Given the discernible effects of anti-British sentiments on Hong Kong not very long ago, it may seem odd that the discourse of imperial cosmopolitanism characterised the civic engagements of multiracial urbanites in Hong Kong. But it was precisely the adverse effect these events had on the colony’s economy that encouraged these urbanites to embrace Hong Kong’s colonial status and dismiss Chinese nationalism there. Existing work has explored how local Chinese bourgeoisie – many of them active participants in multiracial civil society – regarded the strikes a threat to their own class interests, and therefore worked closely with the government to preserve Hong Kong’s colonial status.49 If the strikes showed them how rising Chinese nationalism affected their economic interest, the political turmoil that China experienced in the 1930s – the Central Plains War, the Encirclement Campaigns, and the advancing Japanese invasion – helped them visualise what a departure from British colonialism might bring to Hong Kong. It is not hard to understand why some middleclass residents believed that neither Chinese nationalism nor a ‘Hong Kong nationalism’ would benefit the colony. Consequently, they saw British imperialism as the protector of their cosmopolitan lifestyle and class interest. In inviting speakers to give enthusiastic speeches about the ‘Empire’ and praising Britons for being the ‘perfect coloniser’, Rotarians and Masons alike used associational culture to engage with Britishness. Through their activities in the Rotary Club and masonic lodges, they asserted in the public sphere that being British allowed them to pursue cosmopolitan agendas: to liberate enslaved people, to preserve world peace, and to allow the colonial others to enjoy the supposedly just protection of the British law. This argument does not only explain why urbanites – both white and colonial subjects – outwardly celebrated British nationalism in their civic engagements, but it also helps us to understand why they established the various voluntary societies examined in the following sections. Influenced by the rhetoric of imperial cosmopolitanism, they considered it their responsibility to facilitate a better understanding between races and nations, improve the welfare of Chinese women, and to democratise Hong Kong.

49

Carroll, Edge of Empires, p. 147.

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Building Cross-Cultural Friendships For those in this multiethnic civil society, to be cosmopolitan was to socialise beyond one’s own race. To them, building interracial friendships would not only improve local racial relations, but also the understanding between cultures and nations – ultimately, they would contribute to world peace. This was not merely a Hong Kong view: the 1910s witnessed a global proliferation of internationalist and religious pacifist movements. The Fellowship of Reconciliation (hereafter FOR), an interdenominational Protestant organisation that British Quaker missionary Henry Hodgkin formed in 1914 was a prime example. Hodgkin recognised the need to advocate for world peace and oppose war and violence between nations. He formed FOR in December 1914 in Britain.50 It soon received support from pacifists in America, where a branch was established in 1915, after which FOR became the centre of Protestant pacifism.51 Even after the war, Hodgkin and his international movement did not cease to spread their ideals across the globe. In 1921, Hodgkin embarked on a trip to China, where he had lived previously, to promote the work of FOR. In October that year he stopped at Hong Kong, and delivered several lectures on his views on post-war reconstruction – a topic very much relevant to the Washington Naval Conference due to take place a month later.52 In his speech, he encouraged the ‘formation of small groups of men and women all over the world who would work privately to find solutions of the various grave questions of the day and then act boldly and unhesitatingly’.53 ‘Owing to the number of races to be found here’, he believed that Hong Kong would be a suitable place for such groups. His audience embraced his suggestion: only a week later, Henry Pollock formed a ‘League of Fellowship and Service’ (usually abbreviated as ‘League of Fellowship’). A white British barrister born in London, Pollock was a long-term resident of Hong Kong. He had served as the colony’s acting attorney general on multiple occasions, and was then an unofficial member in the Legislative Council. Pollock said that 50 More on FOR, see Jill Wallis, Valiant for Peace: a History of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, 1914–1989 (London: Fellowship of Reconciliation, 1991). 51 On American Protestant pacifism, see Patricia Appelbaum, Kingdom to commune: Protestant Pacifist Culture Between World War I and the Vietnam era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009). 52 ‘World Reconstruction’, SCMP, 6 October 1921; ‘World Reconstruction’, SCMP, 8 October 1921; ‘World Reconstruction’, SCMP, 10 October 1921; ‘The Real World’, 12 October 1921. More on the Conference, see Erik Goldstein and John Maurer (eds.), The Washington Conference, 1921–22: Naval Rivalry, East Asian Stability and the Road to Pearl Harbor (Portland, OR: F. Cass, 1994). 53 ‘League of Fellowship’, Hongkong Telegraph, 29 November 1921.

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Hodgkin’s suggestion inspired him to form the League.54 He stated that the major objective of the League would be to ‘cultivat[e] a closer relationship between Europeans and Chinese in Hongkong’. Owen Hughes, another founder and also a long-term white British resident, stated explicitly in its inaugural meeting that ‘it was in the power of men and women in the Colony to do a great deal in the way of creating a better understanding’.55 Almost immediately after its creation, the League achieved significant success. Only a month after its formation, journalists reported that the League had about 300 members, 200 of whom were Europeans and 100 Chinese.56 By the time the League was ‘wound up’ in 1925, it had 408 members, including 270 Chinese.57 The size and the ethnic diversity of the League’s membership are telling. Other religious social institutions, such as the YMCA, had already existed in the colony. But as mentioned above, even the Y had a separate branch for its Chinese members. The League, then, offered something such earlier institutions did not: multiracial interactions. Not only had Pollock stated explicitly that the League would accept members of all ‘races’, but the sixteen committee members elected two months after its formation included not only white Britons, but also four Chinese, two Eurasians, two Portuguese, and one Indian.58 The international pacifist movement had a considerable impact on the League, especially its global perspectives. In its inaugural meeting, Pollock admitted that Hong Kong had its local problems, but ‘they were nothing’ compared to the pursuit for world peace. He believed that residents of Hong Kong, an ‘important outpost of the Far East’, should do their part in contributing to international peace. He therefore proposed that the League should represent Hong Kong and send a message of support to the impending Washington Conference. Within only a month after its foundation, members of the League had quickly acted on this: they cabled a message to the Washington Conference, proving their ambition to contribute to world peace.59 These urbanites also adjusted the movement according to local needs. In setting the ‘definite’ objectives of the League, Henry Pollock suggested to ‘start on the lines of social service, for which there was plenty of room in Hongkong’. In particular, the main objectives he set out for 54 55 56 57 58 59

‘League of Fellowship and Service’, SCMP, 19 October 1921. Ibid. ‘League of Fellowship’, SCMP, 29 November 1921. ‘Wound Up’, China Mail, 22 January 1925. ‘Racial Disabilities in Hongkong’, SCMP, 13 December 1921. ‘The League of Fellowship: Message to Washington Conference’, SCMP, 10 November 1921, p. 6.

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the League were: to establish schools for boys and girls in the colony, found a local branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, and to establish ‘an International Club [for] bringing the different races in the Colony closer together’.60 He believed that the League was ‘in a splendid position in Hongkong, owing to the number of different nationalities.61 However, members could not agree on the core purpose of the League and ultimately the League did not last long enough to enact these goals. Though Pollock sought harmonious interracial relationships, other members believed the League should pursue a more radical vision. While the local press had reported its activities intensively over its first three months, the organisation suddenly faded out from the colony’s public sphere after a meeting in December 1921, during which a ‘sharp discussion on racial distinction’ took place. As the meeting was called to amend the rules and objectives of the League, an attendee J. P. Braga, whom we met in Chapter 4, proposed that the objective of the League should be ‘to promote good fellowship by seeking the elimination of racial disabilities within the Colony’. Using the term ‘racial disabilities’, an unusual phrase even for the interwar period, Braga underscored the institutional racism colonial subjects faced in Hong Kong. He included an example of ‘racial disabilities’: the European Reservation legislations, some of which were passed when Pollock was a Legislative Council member.62 As the South China Morning Post reported: No one was better acquainted than their worthy Chairman [Henry Pollock] that there was a great deal of racial disability in Hongkong. Whether the Chairman liked to admit it or not, Mr. Braga affirmed that it existed in Hongkong [in] a very pronounced fashion. (Applause). So long as the League of Fellowship permitted the Peak Reservations Ordinance to stand upon the Statute Books of the Colony they were asking for trouble. (Applause). So long as they created racial distinctions by the reservations on the island of Cheung Chau, they had no business to call themselves a League of Fellowship.63

In response, Pollock dismissed the notion of any ‘racial disabilities’ in the colony. ‘Mr. Pollock remarked that, when Mr. Braga said he knew of racial disabilities’, the Post reported, ‘he felt inclined to get up and say he knew of none’. In repeating the government’s claim that the European reservations were merely an economic question, Pollock’s speech 60 H. E. Pollock, ‘The League of Fellowship and Service’, SCMP, 16 December 1921, p. 7. 61 ‘Peace of the Pacific: Local Sequel to Dr. Hodgkin’s Lectures, League of Fellowship Formed’, Hongkong Daily Press, 19 October 1921, p. 3; ‘League of Fellowship and Service: Inaugural Meeting’, SCMP, 19 October 1921, p. 7. 62 Examples include the Peak District (Residence) Ordinance, 1918, and Cheung Chau (Residence) Ordinance, 1919. 63 ‘Racial Disabilities in Hongkong’.

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illuminates the extent to which racism was embedded in colonial society. Even he, a man inspired by Hodgkin’s call to facilitate interracial friendships, would make statements like ‘there are hundreds, thousands of rich Chinese in Hongkong [who] would buy us out of the place’. He refused to support Braga’s proposed amendment to make eliminating racial disabilities the League’s major objective. To this, Braga replied: ‘Racial disability does not exist only in the matter of our habitations; it exists also in the commercial and other spheres of our local activities’. Braga’s experience resonated with that of many attendees, whose support for Braga manifested in the rounds of applause journalists recorded during his speech. Braga insisted on a vote for his proposal to add ‘eliminating racial disabilities’ to the League’s objectives. Even though ‘many present abstained from voting’, Braga’s amendment was eventually carried by twenty-five votes to twenty-one.64 After this heated debate, the group also elected officers and committee members. Notably, another attendee J. H. McGuigan suggested that ‘they wanted someone more in touch with the common people’ and proposed the election of Braga. To this, Pollock remarked that ‘he should like to see Mr. McGuigan practicing what he preached’, hinting bitterness about McGuigan’s suggestion. Nevertheless, those present elected Braga to the Committee. Little about the League can be found in local newspapers after this episode – except when readers occasionally commented on how ‘sharp discussion on racial distinction’ led to it being ‘now prematurely extinct’.65 At last, China Mail, a local English-language newspaper, reported in 1925 that ‘it is desirable that the League be wound up’.66 Without further evidence, it is hard to confirm whether members’ different views on ‘racial disabilities’ led to its abrupt end – though it was very likely the case. Though its vision of fostering positive relationships between races was popular among urbanites, in-fighting over the direction the League should take meant it was unable to set, let alone achieve, its goals. In earlier chapters I have explored the interplays between different – often contradictory – understanding of identities in the colony. We have seen how the colonial polity and some Britons defined colonial subjects as ‘British’ – though usually in a limited, if not superficial, way so long as it did not muddle the existing colonial hierarchy. The cessation of the League of Fellowship shows us once again the limits of cosmopolitan sensibilities on the social dynamics between multiracial Britons in Hong 64

‘Racial Disabilities and the Peak Reservation’. 65 Old Hand, ‘Correspondence: Racecourse Facilities’, SCMP, 25 October 1922; Civis, ‘European Reservation’, SCMP, 24 April 1923. 66 ‘Wound Up’, China Mail, 22 January 1925.

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Kong. It is undeniable that a multi-ethnic associational culture thrived in the colony as much as in other colonial port cities in Asia: urbanites there used these associations to socialise with each other should they so wish.67 Internationalism and universalism inspired British elites such as Henry Pollock to advocate for interracial friendships. Nevertheless, such benevolent visions had their constraints. Henry Pollock’s interest in improving racial relations was limited to making friendships instead of eliminating ethnic divides and appreciating the stark systemic racial discrimination faced by people of colour in the colony. Pollock was perhaps not the only one in the League who felt that way: many members restrained from casting their votes in supporting Braga’s proposed amendment to the League’s objectives. Their refusal to challenge racism, an attitude that contrasted greatly with their otherwise progressive principles, was widely observed amongst many advocates of internationalism and cosmopolitanism in the period. A notable example was Woodrow Wilson, the President of the United States whose own racist views cast a shadow over the principle of self-determination for which he advocated.68 British subjects of colour, like Braga, could hardly miss the fact that some of their white British counterparts were only willing to exercise cosmopolitanism so long as their status-quo was unaffected. As cosmopolitanism took prominence in the colonial public sphere in the interwar years, it also had a convoluted impact on the social dynamics between multiracial Britons in Hong Kong. In the case of the League of Fellowship, colonial subjects were made well aware of the contradictory nature of colonial cosmopolitanism and questioned its goodwill. This, however, did not necessarily discourage them from using the rhetoric to challenge the racial dynamics. Even though the League of Fellowship dissolved in 1925 without achieving its goal, when the Rotary Club was formed in 1930, multiracial urbanites still joined in excitedly, hoping that the universalist rhetoric advocated in the Rotary movement could challenge the colour bar in the colony. Some also found other aspects of the rhetoric of imperial cosmopolitanism appealing and joined in with much enthusiasm. Civilising Mission Hong Kong’s multiracial urbanites believed in their civilising mission. This was evident in our discussion earlier about speeches at Rotary Club 67 Lewis, ‘Rotary International’s “acid test”’. 68 See Erez Manela, The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism (Oxford University Press, 2007), especially pp. 19–34.

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meetings that praised the supposedly benevolent nature of the British Empire. In this section, we move on to the case study of the Hongkong Eugenics League to understand how medicine helped reinforce the civilising mission of Britishness, and transformed colonial subjects into active, willing agents of civic Britishness. Formed in 1936, the Eugenics League was a local response to the international birth-control movement. The formation of the Malthusian League in 1877 showed the clear interest of some Britons to raise public awareness of contraception and family planning.69 Such interest continued to grow over the following decades. In the 1920s, five separate birth control societies were formed across England, opening clinics throughout the nation. In 1930, these societies were reorganised into the National Birth Control Council (NBCC), further advocating birth-control and family planning in Britain. In the United States, the trial of birth control activist Margaret Sanger for distributing contraceptives sparked public interest and support in birth control activism across the country, leading to the formation of the American Birth Control League (ABCL) in 1921.70 The ABCL quickly grew to an organisation with branches across North America and gained increasing international recognition.71 The Eugenics League was formed after notable figures in the international birth control movement visited Hong Kong. Sanger, who coined the term ‘birth control’, visited the colony for 24 hours in February 1936 with Edith How-Martyn, a suffragette and birth control activist in Britain. It was not Sanger’s first visit to the colony: she had visited briefly in May 1922 after a fruitful trip to Shanghai and Beijing, which prompted the opening of birth control clinics and the dissemination of birth control literature there.72 But her first visit received little attention in Hong Kong, perhaps reflective of the society’s lack of interest in birth control movement at that time. By contrast, her visit in 1936 demonstrated Hong Kong urbanites’ eagerness to start a local birth control movement. She

69

On the history of the birth control movement in Britain, see Richard A. Soloway, Birth Control and the Population Question in England, 1877–1930 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982). 70 On Margaret Sanger’s role in the American birth control movement, see Ellen Chelser, Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992). 71 More on the American birth control movement, see Carole R. McCann, Birth Control Politics in the United States, 1916–1945 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994). 72 More on Sanger’s lecture tour in China in 1922, see Michelle T. King, ‘Margaret Sanger in Translation: Gender, Class, and Birth Control in 1920s China’, Journal of Women’s History, 29.3 (2017): 61–83. See also Frank Dikötter, Imperfect Conceptions: Medical Knowledge, Birth Defects, and Eugenics in China (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998).

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and How-Martyn came at the invitation of the Chinese Medical Association, then led by its first Chinese President Arthur Woo.73 But interest about the birth control movement clearly existed beyond the circle of medical professionals. The reception committee in charge of arranging Sanger’s visit also consisted of twenty-six ‘Chinese and Western’ university professors, government doctors, and educators.74 Sanger and How-Martin gave a public lecture attended by more than 500 people – some remaining standing throughout.75 Three months later, in May 1936, local Chinese newspapers reported that a ‘birth control society’ was to be formed as a result of Sanger’s trip, and the Eugenics League was established later that month.76 The League held visible connections with the birth control movement in Britain. It was an affiliated body to the International Birth Control League of London and the British National Birth Control Association (NBCA). Founder of the Eugenics League, William Nixon, was a member of the Medical Committee of the NBCA. Margaret Pyke, National Secretary of the NBCA, had given advice and support to the work of the Eugenics League.77 Pyke also acted as a representative of the Eugenics League to discuss with Whitehall officials the League’s advertising work.78 Modelled closely after the birth control societies in Britain, a key aspect of its work lay in birth control clinics. Since its foundation, the League had obtained official approval to run the clinic once every week at the government-run Violet Peel Health Centre. At the clinic they gave women free advice on ‘how to have healthy babies by spacing and limiting the number of the family’, by providing medical examination and contraceptive services.79 In the year 1936–37, 199 women attended the clinic, with 135 receiving advice on birth control.80 73

Wu Xinglian, 香港華人名人史略 [Brief biographies of notable Chinese in Hong Kong] (Hong Kong: Wu zhou shu ji, 1937), p. 37. 74 ‘爭民族生存中 節育大家山額夫人將到港 本地名流準備開會歡迎 [Fighting for the Survival of the Race: Birth Control Activist Mrs Sanger will visit Hong Kong soon, Urbanites preparing a reception]’, Kung Sheung Yat Po, 14 February 1936, p. 11. 75 ‘Birth Control: World Advocate Now in Hongkong, Margaret Sanger’, SCMP, 20 February 1936, p. 11; ‘Birth Control: Famous Authority to visit Colony, Margaret Sanger’, SCMP, 12 February 1936, p. 9. 76 ‘山額夫人來港宣傳後 香港節育會定下月成立 [After Mrs Sanger’s visit Hong Kong Birth Control Society will form next month]’ Kung Sheung Yat Po, 5 August 1936, p. 9; ‘醫 學界優生學會選出委員八人起草會章 [Eight members elected for the Medical Eugenics League, Agenda Drafted], Chinese Daily, p. 8. 77 ‘Eugenics League: Third Annual Report of Activities Issued, Much Progress Made’, SCMP, 21 April 1939, p. 8. 78 CO 129/571/17, Margaret Pyke to Malcolm MacDonald, 3 June 1938, The National Archives (hereafter TNA). 79 CO 129/571/17, Advertisement of the Eugenics League. 80 CO 129/565/5, ‘Hong Kong Eugenics League: First Annual Report, Year 1936–37’, p. 4.

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It expanded rapidly over the following five years: by 1941 it ran two clinics on Hong Kong Island and another two in Kowloon.81 During that year, the clinics had 1,823 attendees in total and treated 790 new patients.82 Notably, these clinics received advice from the NBCA in Britain: the case cards in the clinics, for instance, had been remodeled based on the NBCA’s suggestion.83 Unlike birth control activists in Britain, the United States, and Australia who had explicitly suggested using birth control as a eugenics tool with great attention to theories of heredity, those in Hong Kong appeared to focus on the promotion of contraceptive knowledge and voluntary birth control.84 Yet, eugenics ideologies at the time had cast a certain influence on the League – as suggested by its name at the very least. The League was first named as the Birth Control League before its official inauguration.85 ‘Birth control’ was dropped from its name because of the potential controversies the term might have caused: it left an impression that the League would seek more forceful means to control population growth. Yet, the very fact that members settled on the term ‘eugenics’ suggests that while members of the League had understood eugenics primarily as birth control, they were receptive to eugenics as an ideology to a certain extent.86 Their specific targeting of poor Chinese residents further confirmed that. From its formation in 1937 until the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong, the League aimed to promote voluntary birth control to only ‘poor’ married Chinese women. Hilda Selwyn-Clarke, the Honorary Secretary of the League, claimed that the League had no intention of 81

‘Birth Control: Eugenics League Finds Continued Support, More Money Needed’, SCMP, 30 April 1941, p. 8; ‘優生學會下月初召開年會[Eugenics League holds its annual meeting early next month], Ta Kung Pao, 30 April 1941, p. 6. 82 ‘Birth Control Action: Eugenics League reviews position after five years’, SCMP, 9 May 1941, p. 8. 83 ‘Eugenics League: Third Annual Report of Activities Issued’, Hongkong Telegraph, 21 April 1939, p. 5. 84 More on the history of eugenics, see Philippa Levine and Alison Bashford, ‘Introduction: Eugenics and the Modern World’, in The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics, pp. 1–20; Jane Carey, ‘The Racial Imperatives of Sex: Birth Control and Eugenics in Britain, the United States, and Australia in the Interwar Years’, Women’s History Review, 21.5 (2012): 733–52. 85 I am very grateful to Carol Tsang, who has generously shared with me her expertise insights and excerpts of her forthcoming work on the Hongkong Eugenics League. Her work offers me many new insights in understanding the Eugenics League, including this knowledge here. 86 Yuehtsen Juliette Chung, ‘Eugenics in China and Hong Kong: Nationalism and Colonialism, 1890s–1940s’, The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics, edited by Alison Bashford and Philippa Levine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 258–70, at p. 269.

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discouraging those with lesser financial means from having offspring. They only targeted non-wealthy Chinese women because ‘the upperor middle class could obtain the information they required from a medical practitioner or specialist’. ‘We believe’, she said, ‘knowledge of birth control to be the right of every section of the community’.87 Therefore, much effort was spent on translating birth control publications into Chinese, and publishing Chinese-language pamphlets and news articles explaining contraception methods.88 The League’s birth control clinics were all located in neighbourhoods where working-class Chinese lived. Additionally, as the government established refugee camps to accommodate the Chinese who flocked to the colony after the outbreak of the second Sino-Japanese War, clinics operated by the Eugenics League were added to each of the camps.89 Attendance at the clinics was voluntary for the camp inmates, but it was clear how both government officials in support of the Eugenics League, as well as members of the League, deemed poor Chinese women, out of any other demographic groups in Hong Kong, most in need for contraceptive methods. Historians have pointed out that members of the League had viewed eugenics as a means to eliminate the mui tsai system.90 These members argued that the promotion of contraceptive knowledge to ‘poor Chinese women’ could help prevent abortion and the continuation of the mui tsai system. They claimed that, when they became pregnant again, Chinese women with no means to support more children had to either seek abortion or give birth to ‘unwanted children’, ‘who in Hong Kong and China are frequently given away, maintaining the system of Mui tsai’.91 Literally meaning ‘small sisters’, mui tsais were female bondservants often sold at a young age.92 The practice of keeping mui tsai was common amongst well-to-do Chinese families, and it had captured public 87 ‘Eugenics League: Steady Growth Related at Meeting Rights of Parents’, Hongkong Telegraph, 28 April 1939, p. 5. 88 ‘優生學會昨發表 港兒童死亡率驚人 難民兒童百之四十死亡[Eugenics League Published: High Mortality Rate in Hong Kong, 40 per cent of refugee children died], Ta Kung Pao, 19 May 1941, p. 6. 89 ‘Eugenics League: Work Started Among the Women Refugees’, SCMP, 25 April 1940, p. 4. 90 Chung, ‘Eugenics in China and Hong Kong: Nationalism and Colonialism, 1890s–1940s’, p. 269. 91 CO 129/565/5, ‘First Annual Report, Year 1936–37’, p. 4; ‘Hong Kong Eugenics League Annual Report Year 1937–38’, p. 3, Wellcome Library. 92 On more detailed accounts of the Mui tsai debates, see John M. Carroll, ‘A National Custom: Debating Female Servitude in Late Nineteenth-Century Hong Kong’, Modern Asian Studies, 43.6 (2009): 1463–93; Susan Pedersen, ‘The Maternalist Moment in British Colonial Policy: The Controversy over “Child Slavery” in Hong Kong 1917–1941’, Past & Present, No. 171 (May, 2001): 161–202.

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attention since the 1880s. Some argued that it was a benign Chinese custom for all parties involved: poor families could find a better home for children they could not afford to support, whilst wealthier families could obtain the domestic help they needed.93 Many, however, argued that mui tsai was a form of slavery – child slavery in many cases – which had already been abolished in the British Empire. Reported cases of sexual abuse and violence inflicted upon mui tsais convinced many in Hong Kong and Britain that the practice should be abolished. That the British state and the local government refused to intervene with this local custom further fueled activism for the abolition of mui tsai. This movement received the support of reformist groups in Britain, especially the Anti-Slavery Society and the Aborigines’ Protection Society. Some Chinese elites argued that the problem lay not in the practice of keeping mui tsai itself, but with individuals who mistreated their mui tsais. Hoping to pacify activists in Britain and Hong Kong – and ultimately allow the continuation of the system, they formed the Society for the Protection of the Mui Tsai in 1921.94 The organisation would, they claimed, improve the welfare of mui tsai. Not all agreed with them, however. Chinese and Eurasians hoping to abolish the system formed the Anti-Mui Tsai Society in September 1921 and worked closely with abolitionists in Britain. Their work gradually pressured the British government to instruct local authorities to abolish the system in 1922, resulting in various mui tsai-related laws passed in the 1920s and 1930s. Nevertheless, loopholes and the Hong Kong government’s incompetence in enforcing the policies allowed mui tsai to remain a visible social practice in 1930s Hong Kong, and frequent discussion of the issue continued to take place in local newspapers. With the mui tsai debates in the backdrop of civil society in interwar Hong Kong, many civically conscious urbanites were involved in the discussion about the welfare of children and women in the colony – whether or not they supported outlawing the practice. It is, then, not surprising that members of the Eugenics League included those that were involved the mui tsai debate. One of the Patrons, Sir Robert Hotung, was a founding member of the Anti-Mui Tsai Society. Shin Tak-hing had been an executive committee member 93 Carroll, ‘A National Custom’, p. 1466. 94 On the formations of the Society for the Protection of the Mui Tsai and the Anti-Mui Tsai Society, see Carl T. Smith, ‘The Chinese Church, Labour and Elites and the Mui Tsai Question in the 1920s’, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 21 (1981): 91–113. Also see Rachel Leow, ‘“Do you own non-Chinese mui tsai?” Re-examining Race and Female Servitude in Malaya and Hong Kong, 1919–1939’, Modern Asian Studies, 46.6 (2012): 1736–63.

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of both the Eugenics League and the Anti-Mui Tsai Society. VicePresident of the Eugenics League, M. K. Lo (Hotung’s son-in-law), contrastingly, played a prominent role in the Society for the Protection of Mui Tsai. While members included those involved in the mui tsai debate, compared to the activist groups formed around this debate, the Eugenics League had a much more culturally diverse membership, perhaps reflective of a higher readiness for multiracial civic engagements in 1930s-Hong Kong. Even though it had collaborated with the reformist groups in Britain and other sympathetic white residents in the colony, the Anti-Mui Tsai Society contained only Chinese and Eurasian members. Its rival, the Society for the Protection of Mui Tsai, had a similarly racially exclusive membership. In comparison, the Eugenics League was much more ethnically diverse. Its three patrons, Hotung, Eu Tong Sen, and Lawrence Kadoorie, were Eurasian, Malayan Chinese, and a Mizrahi Jew respectively. The twenty-three founding executive committee members included Chinese (born in Hong Kong, China, Malaya, and Canada), Eurasians, and Indians, and white Britons (see Table 3). These white Britons emphasised to their local members the importance of the work of the Eugenics League. In its annual meeting in 1940, Hilda Selwyn-Clarke admitted that ‘it is impossible for people like myself […] to carry out the pioneer educational work which is necessary’ for ‘most of us cannot speak Cantonese’.95 She therefore made a public appeal to ask for more Chinese women to join the work of the Eugenics League. The Eugenics League had a significant number of female members, especially in comparison with other voluntary groups already examined in this chapter. In 1941, ten of the twenty-one executive members were women, including Europeans, Chinese, Eurasians, and Indians. Several of them had long careers in social activism and politics. Hilda SelwynClarke was a social activist and politician before she moved to Hong Kong: she was a candidate for the Independent Labour Party in the 1931 General Election for Clapham.96 Shin Tak-hing was the first Chinese female social worker in the colony and a prominent member of the Anti-Mui Tsai Society and the Young Women’s Christian Association.97 Canadian-born and Columbia-educated Constance Lam, Honorary 95

‘Eugenics League: Appeal for Chinese woman to join work, Annual meeting held’, SCMP, 26 April 1940, p. 8. 96 Sue J. Ebury, ‘Sir (Percy) Selwyn Clarke and Hilda Alice Selwyn-Clarke’, in Dictionary of Hong Kong Biography, edited by May Holdsworth and Christopher Munn (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012), pp. 387–9. 97 SCMP, 19 March 1923, p. 8.

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Table 3 Executive Committee Members of Hong Kong Eugenics League, 194198 Name

Position

Gender ‘Race’

Occupation

Gordon King

President

M

M. K. Lo 羅文錦 Arthur Woo 胡惠德 Constance Lam Siu-yue Cheng 鄭兆如 Kwok Chan 郭贊 Hilda Selwyn-Clarke

Vice-President Vice-President Hon. Treasurer Member Hon. Secretary Hon. Secretary

M M F F M F

Alice Marjorie Forbes J. R. Higgs Tse-jan Hua 華則仁 Louise Olivia Hunter Lum Tsai-yan 察元倫 John Howard Montgomery Edward Wilfred Kirk Edward Maurice Raymond Tsz-chuen Wong 王子傳 Parrin Ruttonjee Shin Tak-hing 冼德馨 Annie Sydenham Harry Talbot Ellen Li 李曹秀群

Member Member Member Member Member Member

F M M F M M

Member Member

M M

White British Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, HKU Eurasian Solicitor Chinese Doctor Chinese Social worker Chinese Doctor Chinese Banker White British Social activist, politician White British Doctor White British Christian Minister Chinese Doctor White British Doctor Chinese99 White British Doctor and missionary White British Civil servant White British Businessman

Member Member Member Member Member Member

M F F F M F

Chinese Indian Chinese White British White British Chinese

Iram Frommer

Member

F

Doctor Doctor Social worker Doctor; missionary Doctor Social activist; later politician White British Doctor. Also Lady Medical Officer for Schools.

Treasurer of the Eugenics League, was formerly Professor of Sociology in Yenching University.100 Another founding member Ellen Li was later the first female Legislative Council member in Hong Kong and played 98



99



100



‘Birth Control Action: Eugenics League reviews position after five years’, SCMP, 9 May 1941, p. 8. Lum was a ‘returned’ overseas Chinese from San Francisco. See: Consular Registration Certificates, Compiled 1907–1918, Vo. 155, p. 76227. National Archives at Washington, D.C. ‘Connie Lam Dead: Respected Social Worker Whom Japs Gaoled’, SCMP, 30 November 1945, p. 2.

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an instrumental role in passing the 1971 Marriage Bill, ending the concubine system in the colony.101 The League’s executive committee also included female doctors of different races who provided medical service at its birth control clinics. Within the Eugenics League we saw emerging colonial subjects acting as active agents in undertaking maternalist initiatives. Historians have explored how the framework of maternalism shaped activism and social service in Western welfare states and their colonial empires.102 Maternalist ideals motivated European women in colonies (who were usually educated and well-to-do) to draw on their faith and experience in social activism to protect and assist those they regarded as more vulnerable – colonial women and children. But it is notable that colonial women of similar standing played an equally active role in the work of the Eugenics League. Chinese, European, Eurasian, and Indian doctors and nurses ran the birth control clinics. Chinese social workers followed up on patients and conducted outreach to female patients in hospitals to promote birth control knowledge. Chinese-speaking members prepared birth-control publications.103 While European women had been the focus of historiography of women activism in colonial Hong Kong, the Eugenics League serves as a timely reminder that European women and women of colour had worked together in reforming social practices in the interwar years.104 Their cooperation with male members in the Eugenics League is also notable. Women activists receive much attention in the historiography on the birth control movement in Britain and America; most men in the movement receiving scholarly attention were medical practitioners.105 But in the Eugenics League we see the substantial involvement of men. They staffed more than half of its executive committee, and amongst these men only half were physicians. Patrons and presidents 101



102



103 104

105

May Holdsworth & Eva Kwok, ‘Li Tsao Sau-kwan, Ellen’, in Dictionary of Hong Kong Biography, pp. 266–67. See, for instance, Antoinette M. Burton, ‘The White Woman’s Burden: British Feminists and the Indian Woman, 1865–1915’, Women’s Studies International Forum, 13.4 (1990): 295–308; Bara Ramusack, ‘Cultural Missionaries, Maternal Imperialists, Feminist Allies: British Women Activists in India, 1865–1945’, Women’s Studies International Forum, 13.4 (1990): 309–21. ‘Advice to Mother: Hongkong Eugenics League Aids Chinese Poor, Leaflets Distributed’, SCMP, 15 February 1939, p. 4. Examples include: Susanna Hoe, The Private Life of Old Hong Kong: Western Women in the British Colony 1841–1941 (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1991); Stacilee Ford, Troubling American Women: Narratives of Gender and Nation in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2011). Caroline Rusterholz, ‘English Women Doctors, Contraception and Family Planning in Transnational Perspective (1930s–70s)’, Medical History, 63.2 (2019): 153–72.

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of the League were all men in its pre-war years.106 Men occupied key positions in the League – including vice-presidents (Arthur Woo and M. K. Lo) and honorary secretaries (S. S. Fu, K. C. Yeo, and Kwok Chan). Michelle King has noted that audiences of Margaret Sanger’s lecture tour in China in 1922 consisted largely of educated, urban Chinese men.107 Even in a movement with women as the target audience, men played a conspicuous role, albeit working alongside women. Professional and familial networks benefitted the Eugenics League significantly. As mentioned above, William Nixon’s connection with NBCA in Britain allowed the Eugenics League to receive its support.108 Several member’s connection with the colonial government is also notable. R. A. D. Forrest, the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, was the Treasurer of the Eugenics League, while K. C. Yeo was the Chinese Health Officer under the Medical Department. Their connection with the government helped the League gain statutory support in establishing birth control clinics by using official premises, and helped the League’s expansion of clinical sessions in 1939.109 Familial networks also came into play. Hilda Selwyn-Clarke’s husband, Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke, was the Director of Medical Services in the colony between 1937 and 1943. While Eva Hotung contributed to the League with her medical expertise, her parents Sir Robert Hotung and Lady Clara Hotung were respectively the Patron and an Executive Committee member of the League (1936–38). Her two brothers-in-law M. K. Lo and K. C. Yeo were key members of the Eugenics League. Her uncle, Ho Kom-tong, was also appreciative of the movement, and hosted Margaret Sanger for lunch at his private residence when she visited in 1936.110 A local response to the international eugenics and birth control movements, the Eugenics League offers us a valuable opportunity to understand how Hong Kong’s proximity to China and its emerging multiethnic professional class shaped the benevolent mission of its civil society. The connection between the Eugenics league and other overseas birth control organisations was obvious, but what is more revealing here is how it adapted to local circumstances. Instead of providing

106



107 108 109 110

Presidents of the League before the Second World War had always been the Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Hong Kong (William Nixon between 1936 and 1937 and Gordon King from 1938 to 1952). King, ‘Margaret Sanger in Translation’, esp. p. 65. ‘Eugenics League: Third Annual Report of Activities Issued, Much Progress Made’, SCMP, 21 April 1939, p. 8. Chung, ‘Eugenics in China and Hong Kong’. ‘Birth-Control in China: Mr Ho Kom-tong on Crying Need’, China Mail, 20 February 1936, p. 9.

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birth-control advice and service to all women, members of the Eugenics League targeted their assistance only to Chinese women from the ‘poor classes’. Influenced by the mui tsai debates, they believed in their duty as civilising, benevolent citizens to liberate supposedly vulnerable Chinese women from back-to-back pregnancies – and the potentially ‘unwanted’ children from becoming mui tsais. Ideals and knowledge promoted by the international birth control and eugenics movements provided them with a means to exercise their duties. Challenges these activists faced prompted them to collaborate with those of different races, genders, and professions. To reach their target audience – ‘poor’ Chinese women – the League needed the contribution of Cantonese speakers and women. To advise and support their target audience in practicing birth-control measures, they relied on the expertise of medical practitioners and social workers. To achieve their goal, they needed philanthropists and government employees to bring in official support and material assistance. The collective goal of giving working class Chinese women the right to plan their pregnancies unified them and motivated their work with the Eugenics League. But as we shall soon see, this benevolent desire was not the only factor that triggered multiracial civic engagement: sometimes an urge to fight for their own rights brought these multiracial urbanites together too. Democratising Hong Kong With the Fourth Reform Act of 1918 bringing universal suffrage to Britain, British associational life took a drastic turn. While political parties encountered an unprecedented boost to their membership, interwar Britain also witnessed the emergence of voluntary societies that, despite being non-partisan, successfully engaged urban residents in alternative forms of activism and organised sociability.111 These novel civic organisations provided the British public with new opportunities for democratic participation without investing in a partisan identity, insulating them from the trends of political extremism that affected much of their counterparts in continental Europe.112 In Hong Kong, urban residents did not experience the political transformation that those in Britain had. Nevertheless, they saw an emergence of voluntary societies that, despite not presenting themselves as political parties, encouraged them to become involved in local politics in the interwar years. 111 Helen McCarthy, ‘Parties, Voluntary Associations, and Democratic Politics in interwar Britain’, Historical Journal, 50.4 (2007): 891–912. 112 McCarthy, ‘Democratic Politics in Interwar Britain’, p. 893.

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Bank Flats Kowloon Tong

Kowloon Tong Kowloon City Residential Area

Shumshuipo Kowloon Hospital

Ka i

Homuntin Residential Area

Yaumatei

Ta k

Ai

rp or tR un w ay

KOWLOON Club de Recreio

Vehicular Ferry Pier

Hunghom

Tsimshatsui Residential Area

on Kowlo es rv Wha

Tsimshatsui

Star Ferry Pier

North Point

HongKong Harbour Sheungwan

Star Ferry Pier

Central District

Causeway Bay

Club Lusitano Mato Morro and Vicinity Residential Area

Wanchai

HONG KONG ISLAND Happy Valley

Figure 9  Map of Kowloon, and five Portuguese residential enclaves in the colony.

Formed in December 1919 as a pressure group to demand more public works in the local neighbourhood, the Kowloon Residents’ Association (KRA) was one such group. As mentioned before, after the British acquired the whole of Kowloon Peninsula and the New

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­ erritories in 1898, Kowloon (Figure 9) became a popular neighbourT hood for middle-class families who found it increasingly hard to afford properties in affluent neighbourhoods on Hong Kong Island (such as the Peak and the Mid-Levels). Despite this rapid population growth, urban development in Kowloon remained rather slow. In the 1910s, the lack of medical facilities and public transportation there received increasing attention. In December 1919, a group of Kowloon residents proposed calling for a public meeting to form the KRA. Their major objectives were to advocate for the ‘general betterment of conditions of residents in Kowloon and the adjacent Territories’ and ‘to periodically meet and discuss improvements in these districts with special regard to Housing, Lighting, Police, Communications, Sanitation, Water, etc.’.113 The KRA was formed at a time of increasing demand for political representation in Hong Kong. As mentioned in Chapter 4, starting from the late nineteenth century, some residents became discontent with their lack of control over the local legislature. After all, the Legislative Council comprised a majority of senior government officials, and all its unofficial members were appointed by the governor, who usually staffed the seats with taipans (senior managers) in major hongs and banks.114 In 1894, 363 residents submitted a petition asking for ‘the free election of Representatives of British Nationality in the Legislative Council’, a ‘majority in the Council of such elected Representatives’, and ‘complete control in the Council over local expenditure’.115 Signatures included names of white Britons and several prominent colonial subjects, such as H. Ruttonjee, M. E. dos Remedios, Paul Chater, Wong Shing, and Ho Fook. While the government rejected this petition, 556 white British residents, headed by Henry Pollock (founder of the League of Fellowship), submitted another petition in 1916 with similar demands.116 When their petition was rejected again, Pollock cooperated with another Legislative Council unofficial member, Percy Hobson Holyoak, to form a Constitutional Reform Association in 1917. Even though the authorities ignored all their requests, 113 ‘Kowloon Residents Association’, HKDP, 2 December 1919. 114 Robert Bickers, ‘Loose ties that bound: British Empire, colonial authority and Hong Kong’, in Negotiating Autonomy in Greater China: Hong Kong and its Sovereign before and after 1997, edited by Ray Yep (Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2013), pp. 29–54. 115 CO 129/263, ‘The Humble Petition of the Undersigned Merchants, Bankers, Professional Men, Traders, Artisans, and other Ratepayers, inhabitants of the Crown Colony of Hong Kong’, 10 May 1894. 116 ‘Petition from the British Residents of Hong Kong to the Right Hon. the Secretary of State for the Colonies for Greater Representation of the Public of the Executive and Legislative Councils’, Hongkong Sessional Papers, p. 70.

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their desire to have political representation and more control over local policies persisted.117 This hope of shaping local policies was crucial to not only the development of the Constitutional Reform Association but also other voluntary associations – one of which was the KRA. Founders of KRA did not only want to pressure the government to develop Kowloon: they also wanted to have a say on how exactly it should do so. The founding President B. L. Frost firmly stated in his inaugural speech that ‘we want more representation and better representation on the Legislature’, and ‘we want the Government to know our needs and we want to be able to state our needs to the Government with the weight of a representative body of residents backing our statement’.118 He complained that the Government was unaware of their ‘intimate needs’ because officials depended only on ‘three quite inadequate sources of information’: its own staff, unofficial members of the Legislative Council, and ‘wealthy landowners’. With 122 members joining even before its official formation, the KRA would, he hoped, act as a representative body so that the government could not easily dismiss their demands.119 And the KRA had quite a sizeable membership indeed. Between 1919 and 1941, the KRA had more than two hundred (sometimes three hundred) paying members every year. These included men and, in much smaller numbers, women of different races. Before 1926, its committee members were predominantly white, with the exception of a few Portuguese. Chinese journalists therefore called the Association 九龍西人居 民協會 – ‘Kowloon Westerner Residents’ Association’.120 This changed starting from 1926, when executive committee members of other races were added: they were three prominent Chinese, S. W. Tso, B. Wong Tape, and Wong Kwong-tin.121 In 1928, the Association had its first Chinese Vice-President, and in 1931 F. C. Mow Fung, an Australian Chinese businessman and a Mason, became its first Chinese President.122 117



118 119 120 121 122

See N. J. Miners, ‘Plans for Constitutional Reform in Hong Kong, 1946–52’, China Quarterly, 107 (September 1986): 463–82, at pp. 464–5. Miners was of the opinion that ‘the petition of 1922 was the last attempt by the European minority to obtain control of the colonial government’, and that ‘the 1930s were totally free of agitation for constitutional change’. Expressions of interest to Major Cassel’s claim of the formation of the League for British Whites discussed in Chapter 2, however, perhaps suggest otherwise. ‘Kowloon Residents Association’, SCMP, 21 January 1920. ‘Kowloon Residents’, Hongkong Telegraph, 2 December 1919. ‘九龍居民協會敘會 [Kowloon Residents’ Association Meeting]’, Chinese Mail [香港華 字日報], 24 March 1922. ‘Kowloon Residents’ Association’, Hongkong Telegraph, 23 February 1926. ‘A Communal “Oliver Twist”’, SCMP, 21 February 1928; ‘Kowloon Residents’ Association’, Hong Kong Daily Press, 10 March 1931.

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The following years also saw the election of Parsi and Eurasian committee members in the Association. In 1931, the 387 members of the Association included at least 85 Chinese, 6 Eurasians, 58 Portuguese, 1 Filipino, 3 Parsi, and 5 Jews.123 Thirteen of these 387 individuals were women. That several of its key members such as Thomas Petire, Ben Wylie, and Alfred Hicks worked for the press also helped to make the KRA’s voice heard. In addition, a notable number of members were land developers. For example, J. P. Braga and M. A. Figueiredo were part of the Hongkong Engineering and Construction Co., which developed the ‘Garden City’ in Kowloon, whereas Wong Kwong-tin was actively involved in the development of Kai Tak Bund.124 Their careers in property development perhaps motivated them to push the government for more sanitary and public facilities in Kowloon. In any case, the results of KRA activities were evident. It was only after its persistent lobbying that the government introduced a motor bus service in Kowloon in 1921, extended the area’s postal service, and opened the Kowloon Hospital in 1925.125 While we tend to associate political awareness and participation in colonial societies with elites, it is worth noting that, for KRA members, it was their status as non-elites that motivated them to join the KRA. Recent studies have illuminated how associational life appealed to emerging non-white professionals, because despite their newly acquired wealth and power, the existing colonial hierarchy limited their participation in local politics.126 Likewise, although many were white, KRA members felt that the colonial hierarchy made it impossible for them to influence local politics because they were not ‘elites’. Founder of the KRA, B. L. Frost, was a white British businessman who had lived in Hong Kong for nearly two decades. He saw himself as a ‘middle-class European’. He formed the Association because he felt that ‘elites’ in the colony – colonial officials, taipans (managers of major companies), and the ‘wealthy landlords’ – dominated local politics. Government policies concerning local development could not improve the lives of middle-class Europeans like him: ‘These roads are delightful for motorists, but the majority of residents do not possess motors!’127 On 24 January 1920, only four days after the KRA’s inaugural meeting, the South China Morning Post published an article entitled ‘The New Kowloon: A 123



124



125 126 127

Report of the General Committee of the Kowloon Residents’ Association for the year ended 31 December 1931 (Hong Kong, 1932), pp. 78–82. Lyn-wah Dennis Lu, ‘Kadoorie Hill: the garden city of Kowloon’ (Master of Science Thesis, University of Hong Kong, 2007). Report of the KRA, 1931; ‘Kowloon Residents’ Association’, HKDP, 13 February 1923. Lewis, ‘Rotary International’s “acid test”’. ‘Kowloon Residents Association’, SCMP, 21 January 1920.

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Dream’, a fictional account of Kowloon in twenty years’ time contributed by an anonymous author. The article demonstrated the author’s aspiration that the KRA would ‘make Kowloon’s voice heard above the levels of the Peak’.128 That they lived in Kowloon, an area for residents who could not afford to live on the Peak, was crucial. As KRA members compared themselves with the wealthy residents on the Peak – the ‘real’ elites – who had a say in local politics, their self-perceived non-elite status drew these multiracial urbanites together. Members repeatedly demanded political representation for Kowloon residents. When the KRA first recruited members in December 1919, its aims were, ‘to approach the Government with the view to obtaining adequate representation of these districts on the Legislature’, and ‘to make representations to the Government in regard to the annual financial estimates affecting these districts’. Whenever opportunities arose, KRA members pressed repeatedly for political representation for Kowloon in the Legislative Council. In 1923, the President D. Purves said: ‘until the day arrives when residents will have their direct voice in the Councils of the Colony we can only go on asking for this and for that, in the hope that Kowloon will thereby get its fair proportion of consideration by those whose duty it is to recommend the carrying out of public improvements’.129 In its annual meeting in 1925, then-President W. S. Bailey pressured the government once again: ‘the question of representation of Kowloon on the Legislative of this Colony … [is] an issue of extreme importance’.130 It is noteworthy that KRA members did not once challenge British colonial rule over Hong Kong. Members even acted as an advisory body for the government and assisted officials in assessing public opinion: in 1938 they helped the Governor-appointed Rents Commissions to investigate the impacts of rent increases on tenants in the colony. For several days in March 1938, the KRA posted a notice in local newspapers – both Chinese- and English-language –along with a questionnaire that they asked all residents in Kowloon to fill in and return to the Association.131 In addition to the 200 late returns, the KRA passed on 321 returns to the Rents Commission for their investigation report.132 128 129 130 131

132



‘The New Kowloon’, SCMP, 24 January 1920. ‘Kowloon Residents’ Association’, HKDP 13 February 1923. ‘Kowloon Residents’ Association’, SCMP, 10 February 1925. ‘Kowloon Residents’ Association’, SCMP, 10 March 1938; ‘調查屋租委員會 敦促 居民報告事實 該委員會可代報告人嚴守秘密 九龍居民協會開緊急會議應付 [Rents Commission Urges Residents to Report: Commission will ensure anonymity, KRA holds urgent meeting], Kung Sheung Yat Pao [工商日報], 12 March 1938, p. 9. ‘Rent Commission’, SCMP, 18 April 1938.

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Collaboration with the Government was evident in other areas. Several KRA members sat on public boards and worked keenly with the government. On the Board of Education, for instance, were KRA members W. Jackson and S. W. Tso.133 A number of KRA members also ran for unofficial seats on the Sanitary Board (which was later reorganised as the Urban Council). When the government appointed Tso and J. P. Braga (both Kowloon residents) to the Legislative Council, both sat on the Council and displayed strong loyalty to the British Empire. As discussed in Chapter 4, Braga played an active role in the Reception Committee for the visit of the Prince of Wales in 1922, and organised the First Grand Military Tattoo in the colony, as well as the 1932 and 1933 Empire Products Fairs.134 While the KRA successfully made the government include some Kowloon residents in the official polity and quicken urban development in Kowloon, some of their demands were left unanswered. Only ten months after its formation, members had pressed for municipality status in the colony. President B. L. Frost proposed that the government should form a Kowloon Municipal Council to celebrate the Jubilee of Kowloon as a British possession.135 Such a hope remained unachieved for decades. Although the colonial government replaced the Sanitary Board with the Urban Council in 1936 and enlarged it with more comprehensive powers, only two of the eight unofficial members were elected, and the governor appointed all other unofficial and official members.136 Despite discussions about giving the colony greater self-government after the British resumed its rule there in 1945, the British government refused to implement such plans.137 It was not until 1994 that Hong Kong had its first Municipal Councils election where all seats were elected based on universal suffrage.138 But even such universal suffrage did not last long: the Urban Council was disbanded after the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997. This then leads to an important question: given that Hong Kong urban residents were clearly politically engaged, why had there not been greater demands for political reforms in the colony? This issue becomes 133 Anthony Sweeting, Education in Hong Kong, Pre-1841 to 1941: Fact and Opinion (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1990), p. 347. 134 Stuart Braga, ‘Making Impressions: The adaptation of a Portuguese family in Hong Kong, 1700–1950’, (PhD Thesis, Australian National University, 2012), pp. 284–85. 135 ‘Kowloon Residents’ Association’, China Mail, 5 October 1920. 136 ‘The Urban Council’, SCMP, 30 December 1935, 2. 137 Steve Tsang, A Modern History of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004), pp. 145–60. Also see Steve Tsang, Democracy Shelved: Great Britain, China, and Attempts at Constitutional Reform in Hong Kong, 1945–1952 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988). 138 Carroll, A Concise History of Hong Kong, p. 710.

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more perplexing if we consider how, across different colonial contexts in the Global South, anticolonial sentiments emerged in the interwar years and fomented the waves of independence movements that would sweep across much of Asia and Africa after the Second World War.139 Here the KRA shows us hundreds of individuals who, while fighting vocally for their political rights, appeared to be at ease with British colonialism. The answer lies in the discerning effects discussed earlier that imperial cosmopolitanism had on Hong Kong urbanites. KRA members withheld from challenging the colonial regime publicly because, in their eyes, British colonial rule of Hong Kong would at least protect them from the political and social upheavals in China. Also noteworthy is how the non-party nature of KRA enabled new forms of political participation. Colonial constitutional constraints meant that, unlike their counterparts in Britain, urbanites in Hong Kong could not participate in political parties without becoming troublemakers in the eyes of officials. Even the Reform Club, Hong Kong’s earliest political party, had to disguise its political ambitions and registered itself as a ‘club’ in 1949 so it could form legally.140 Being ‘non-party’, the KRA allowed its middle-class members to shape local affairs in a way that suited the interests of both the government and its members. With the KRA, emerging, middle-class residents made political demands without publicly defying the local government and jeopardising their recently gained social capital. In turn, it provided the government with a mechanism to recruit the assistance of these middle-class residents and satisfy, albeit on a limited scale, the latter’s desire to participate in local politics without undergoing any political reform that would diminish the Governor’s control over the legislature.141 Conventional wisdom often describes Hong Kong as a colony that had ‘no politics but only administration’, but the KRA gives us solid proof to the contrary.142 Despite racial and class hierarchies, hundreds of men and 139 See Michaele L. Louro, Comrades against imperialism: Nehru, India, and interwar internationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018); Carolien M. Stolte, ‘Social and political movements: experiments in anti-imperialist mobilization’, in Explorations in History and Globalization, edited by Cátia Antunes and Karwan FatahBlack (London: Routledge, 2016), pp. 94–110; Michael Goebel, Anti-imperial metropolis: interwar Paris and the seeds of third-world nationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017). 140 Yik Man Tsang, 香港最早期政黨及民主鬥士：革新會及公民協會 [Hong Kong’s earliest political parties and democracy fighters: Reform Club and the Hong Kong Civic Association] (Hong Kong: Zhonghua, 2019), pp. 50–62. 141 Ambrose Yeo-chi King, ‘Administrative Absorption of Politics in Hong Kong: Emphasis on the Grass Roots Level’, Asian Survey, 15.5 (1975): 422–39. 142 Gavin Ure, Governors, Politics and the Colonial Office: Public Policy in Hong Kong, 1918–58 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012); also Miners, ‘Plans for Constitutional Reform in Hong Kong, 1946–52’.

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some women actively participated in local politics through the KRA. This study also shows us how British public life and the global trend of political reforms in the interwar years translated to a colonial context. The lack of an electoral component in the legislature encouraged politically-engaged men and women to participate in a unique form of activism that the KRA had carved out for them – one that was actively engaged with local politics yet placing them firmly and safely outside anti-colonial activism. ***** Multiracial civil society helped middle-class urbanites in interwar Hong Kong make Britishness cosmopolitan. ‘National’ gentlemen’s clubs still played an important role in the reinforcement of Britishness in the colonies: they provided a site for white Britons to unify themselves against a colonial ‘other’ and construct their respectability. But by taking pride in their racial and class exclusiveness, such clubs could barely allow the idea of being ‘British’ to be developed into the cosmopolitan notion promoted in the masonic lodges, the Hongkong Rotary Club, the League of Fellowship, the Hongkong Eugenics League, and the KRA. The activities of these associational networks might have only included its members, but they were never strictly private. To achieve their collective goal of serving a wider community, members – an integral part of the reading public themselves – actively worked with the press to communicate their civic work to the public. Their civic engagements were, then, public matters. This chapter presents us with a nexus of urban residents who knew to use multiple voluntary associations for different purposes. Of the case studies examined, the KRA leaves us with complete membership lists. Cross-checking its membership lists with newspaper records about Freemasonry, the Rotary Club, the Eugenics League, and the League of Fellowship shows that much of their memberships overlapped. Amongst the 379 KRA members in 1931, at least 35 were Masons and another 14 were Rotarians. Four had been executive officers of the short-lived League of Fellowship, while many more were active in other civic associations, particularly the YMCA and the Hong Kong Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Amongst the 23 executive officers of the League of Fellowship, at least 4 were Masons and 5 were Rotarians. Similarly, the Eugenics League had no less than 5 Rotarians and 1 Mason. Obtained primarily from obituaries and news articles in the Hong Kong press, these figures (especially that of Rotarians) are likely to be underestimated: Masons who died outside of Hong Kong tended not to appear in the local press, while Rotarians’ names were rarely reported in reports about the Rotary Club. These numbers are still noteworthy, as they underscore how a notable portion of associational memberships

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overlapped, despite their different agendas and natures. In other words, a significant number of individuals in interwar Hong Kong actively used organisations with different purposes to shape the local, national, and global society to which they belonged. In doing so, they redefined Britishness in a very public manner. Through associational culture, they asserted that being British allowed one to be cosmopolitan. As part of this identity, they formed the League of Fellowship, the Eugenics League, and the KRA to carry out their duties as cosmopolitan Britons. Surely this discourse of imperial cosmopolitanism was not a local product but one that could also be seen elsewhere. However, it could only take such great prominence in interwar Hong Kong because of the perceived threat of rising Chinese nationalism to the colony. While it never seriously threatened British rule there, anti-imperialism shrank British interests in China and yet did not prevent interwar China from political and social upheavals. To the colonial middle class, the possibility of Chinese nationalism pulling Hong Kong away from British colonial rule could be a threat to their economic interest and newly achieved social status. They therefore made full use of the global proliferation of associational culture to construct and actively promote the rhetoric of imperial cosmopolitanism in the colony’s public world. You might recognise some of the names of civil leaders and activists mentioned in this chapter. J. P. Braga, who spoke sharply of the ‘racial disabilities’ in the Leagues of Fellowship meeting, was featured in the previous chapter for his service for the British Empire and the bitterness he faced from the wider Portuguese community. The Rotarian who gave a speech about the true spirit of the British Empire to be a ‘safeguard of freedom’, C. A. Middleton Smith, was mentioned in Chapter 3 for his teaching at the University of Hong Kong where he encouraged his Chinese students to build a new China with their British education. J. R. Higgs, the executive member of Eugenics League, was one of the ministers who wrote to the newspapers in 1940 to protest when the government expelled Jewish refugees and Italian priests and nuns from the colony. Also in the Eugenics League were the Hotung family, and several doctors educated at the University of Hong Kong and later involved in the work of the Eugenics League. It is in their dynamic, multi-layered experience that Britishness became a hyphenated, increasingly inclusive concept. While the multi-ethnic civil society in interwar Hong Kong provided a space for Britishness to develop into a cosmopolitan belonging, the impending war soon cast a shadow over this notion.

6

The Test of War

The Second World War made multiracial Britons in Hong Kong question the ways they had understood Britishness like never before. Most widely recognised as the British, white Britons took some of the strongest blows to their pride and sense of superiority. Some ‘were simply unable to believe that Britain could lose Hong Kong’ when they learnt that Governor Mark Young had surrendered to the Japanese army on Christmas Day 1941.1 They thought the surrender itself was a ‘humiliation of national pride’, but little did they know that more ‘humiliation’ was soon to come. On 21 January 1942, almost all white British civilians were forced to march in a ‘humiliation parade’ before they were transported to the Stanley Internment Camp. The march started from the Statue Square, where the Statue of Queen Victoria had stood since 1896, and ended at the Hong Kong and Yaumatei Ferry Pier.2 It was only ten minutes’ walk – but it was ten full minutes of having to walk past crowds of people of colour, of whom only days ago the British had been their colonial master. Lawrence Kadoorie, a Mizrahi Jewish tycoon who would later become the first Hong Kong-born recipient of British peerage, thought that many Sikhs and lower-class Chinese were rather excited about this march.3 American journalist Emily Hahn remarked that ‘they say the English are monkeys in the zoo’.4 Just this march alone made some white Britons realise that the war had changed what being British meant in the colony: ‘today we have died and tomorrow we will wake up to a different world’.5 1 Robert K. M. Simpson, These Defenceless Doors: A Memoir of Personal Experience in the Battle of Hong Kong, and After, p. 132 (manuscript c. 1966, U 940.5425 S6, HKU Hong Kong Special Collections). 2 Barbara Anslow, Tin, Hats, and Rice: A Diary of Life as a Hong Kong Prisoner of War, 1941–1945 (Hong Kong: Blacksmith Books, 2018), p. 67. 3 MSS. Ind. Ocn. S.303, Transcript of Interview with Lord Kadoorie on life in Hong Kong, Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford. 4 Emily Hahn, Miss Jill (Garden City: Doubleday, 1947), p. 227. 5 A remark made by Mrs John Owen Hughes, whose husband was a member of both the Legislative and Executive Councils in Hong Kong and would later die in the Stanley Camp. See Transcript of Interview with Lord Kadoorie, p. 8.

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The Japanese occupation of British territories in Asia challenged British prestige on an unprecedented scale. For one, it shattered the illusion that many, especially Britons’ ‘kith-and-kin’ in the Dominions, had about Britain’s naval power.6 Equally disrupted was the racial hierarchy that the British had determinedly imposed in Asia. The Japanese effectively dismantled Britain’s empire in Asia, not only by taking over its territories but also by crushing the discourse of white supremacy.7 They defeated the British in battle, interned them, and before doing so, made the British march through the streets, conquered. But what the war challenged about Britishness went far beyond the myth of white supremacy. Just several pages earlier we saw how, with imperial cosmopolitanism taking prominence in the public discourse, being British was seen in interwar Hong Kong as being cosmopolitan, benevolent, and inclusive. And much like in Britain and in the White Dominions, after Britain declared war against Germany in 1939, Britishness became interwoven with the concepts of liberty and democracy.8 However, racism in Britain and its colonies during the Second World War destabilised those beliefs, alongside British efforts to bolster imperial loyalties.9 Likewise, in Hong Kong, the war highlighted to colonial subjects the fragility of this rhetoric. As multiracial Britons undertook their obligation as British subjects and contributed towards the defence of the Empire, they expected the British state to fulfil its imperial responsibility and give them the assistance they deserved as part of the Empire. Many, however, experienced racial discrimination and effectively a rejection of their Britishness, subsequently eroding their identification with Britishness. The war then underscored the clashing of different conceptions of Britishness and how institutional racism undermined cosmopolitan notions of Britishness. In this chapter, I focus on the interactions between the state and Hong Kong’s colonial British subjects during the Second World War, to explain how official attitudes towards colonial subjects shaped how the latter understood and identified with Britishness. It starts with a 6 See John Darwin, The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World-System, 1830–1970 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 501–5. 7 See Tim Harper, The End of Empire and the Making of Malaya (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 35–7; Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper, Forgotten Armies: Britain’s Asian Empire and the War with Japan (London: Penguin, 2005); Gerald Horne, Race War: White Supremacy and the Japanese Attack on the British Empire (New York: New York University Press, 2004). 8 See Simon J. Potter, ‘Broadcasting Britishness during the Second World War: Radio and the British World’, History of Global Arms Transfer, 5 (2018): 49–58. 9 Sonya O. Rose, ‘Race, empire and British wartime national identity, 1939–45’, Historical Research, 74.184 (2001): 220–37.

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discussion of the public response towards the state-arranged evacuation of British women and children from the colony to Australia in 1940. By excluding British subjects of colour, the scheme was a vivid example of how bureaucrats replaced legal definitions with racial understandings of Britishness. Even before war broke out in Hong Kong, it was made clear to colonial subjects that at the state level, Britishness was reserved for the ‘British race’. Then we move on to the three years and eight months during which Hong Kong became an occupied territory. The Japanese Empire launched a full-scale attack on the colony on 8 December 1941, and Governor Mark Young surrendered sixteen days later on 25 December. But even when Hong Kong was no longer British, its subjects’ engagements with Britishness never ceased. This second section examines the occasions where cosmopolitan Britishness shone. It draws primarily from the wartime experience of students and graduates of the University of Hong Kong, as well as people of colour in the British Army Aid Group (B.A.A.G.), a British resistance network in wartime South China. This section examines white Britons’ willingness to provide assistance for British subjects of colour and colonial subjects’ contributions towards British resistance. The third section focuses on how the war made many reflect on their Britishness. As many sought refuge in their so-called ancestral homeland in unoccupied China and Macau, increased interactions with those of their own race highlighted how British they had become. But increased interactions with the British state as refugees also made them acutely aware of the institutional racism they experienced under British colonialism, and such a wartime experience eroded their identification with Britishness. This chapter altogether argues that the practicalities of war brought to light the fragility of the rhetoric of imperial cosmopolitanism, and put the diverse forms of Britishness articulated in pre-war Hong Kong to a severe test. The 1940 Evacuation For those who identified as being British in Hong Kong, June 1940 was a heady month10. At ‘Home’ in Britain it was a moment of terror: France fell on 25 June, exposing Britain to the threat of invasion by Nazi Germany, which had thus far been unstoppable. This threat, as we saw from Chapter 2, encouraged white Britons in Hong Kong to articulate what being British 10

Part of this section was published previously in my article “‘Hong Kong is my Home’: The 1940 Evacuation and Hong Kong-Britons” (issue 3 of volume 47 of The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History). I am grateful to the publisher Taylor & Francis (www.tandfonline.com/) for granting me access to reuse the material in this section.

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meant for them. Through portraying Britain as ‘one of the last strongholds of democracy’, they saw this war as one that was between democracy and totalitarianism. Meanwhile in Hong Kong, the month was also a moment of crisis: on 29 June, the government issued a verdict to evacuate ‘all British women and children’. In the following week, the government shipped 3,334 evacuees out of Hong Kong.11 Mostly of ‘pure European descent’, the evacuees stayed briefly in Manila and proceeded to Australia in August. The government saw the evacuation as a well-meant initiative to take these women and children to a place of safety, away from the threat of war. In reality, though, it stirred up much resentment amongst many Hong Kong residents who identified themselves as British. Those who protested most strongly about the policy included the families involved in the evacuation scheme – the white Britons. On 26 June, the Japanese army occupied more towns on the China–Hong Kong border, prompting the War Cabinet to instruct the Hong Kong government to carry out the evacuation.12 Many women evacuees and their husbands, however, did not know about this update, and so questioned the necessity of the evacuation. They blamed the colonial government for the discomfort they experienced on the journey. Such bitterness did not lapse after the evacuees’ arrival in Australia. Family separation brought emotional and financial hardships – hardships they could barely understand why they had to endure. After all, for a year and a half after the evacuation Hong Kong remained war-free, obscuring many from seeing the threat of war they faced. Evacuees and their husbands were outspoken about their discontent. They wrote to their families, the press, and the governments in Hong Kong, London, and Australia.13 They asked repeatedly why they were evacuated and demanded their return to the colony. But the evacuation also left colonial subjects in Hong Kong enraged. Immediately after the government announced the decision to evacuate ‘all British women and children’, questions arose as to whether those in Hong Kong with British status were included. Many holding British 11

On 1 July 1940, the Empress of Japan shipped 1,681 evacuees, who were families of naval and army personnel, to Manila. It returned to the colony and on 5 July it sailed with the Empress of Asia to take 1,653 civilian evacuees to Manila. More on the government’s plan and arrangement for the evacuation, see Kent Fedorowich, ‘The Evacuation of Civilians from Hong Kong and Malaya/Singapore, 1939–42’, in A Great Betrayal? The Fall of Singapore Revisited, edited by Farrell Brian and Hunter Sandy (Singapore: Eastern University Press, 2002), pp. 122–55. 12 FO 371/24688/3481, G.O.C. Hong Kong to the War Office, 26 June 1940, the National Archives of the United Kingdom (hereafter TNA). 13 More on their reaction towards the evacuation, see my earlier work: Vivian Kong, ‘“Hong Kong is my Home”: the 1940 Evacuation and Hong Kong-Britons’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 47.3 (2019): 542–67.

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identifications wondered ‘whether they are to go this week’ or not.14 Joyce Symons, a Eurasian and later the first woman appointed to the Executive Council, was one of them. At the registration centre for the evacuation, an officer turned her away because they did not know what to do with ‘the likes of you’.15 Some officials, however, allowed Eurasians to register for the evacuation. Leilah Wood and her sister’s family arrived in Manila with other white British evacuees, only to be sent back to Hong Kong because of their Eurasian ancestry.16 Such varying arrangements underscored the issues that co-existing conflicting notions of Britishness brought to people of colour in the empire. Many other colonial subjects were also disappointed to find out that the evacuation scheme was only for British subjects of ‘pure European descent’. An ‘Anxious Eurasian Parent’ reminded the government that ‘they were British by birth’, a point echoed by a ‘Chinese citizen’ who stressed that they were ‘nevertheless citizens of the Colony and have contributed their full share to this growth and prosperity of this part of the British Empire’.17 ‘BA BA’, presumably a Chinese father, wrote in a letter to the editor of the South China Morning Post: ‘I suppose the Chinese children would also suffer similarly [at the time of an invasion] – unless they are hardened by heredity or something. But I forgot: it’s the blue blood that matters. Excuse me’.18 When the Legislative Council met in late July 1940 to discuss a bill for the use of public funds to support evacuation expenses, both white and non-white unofficial members expressed their discontent. The Eurasian unofficial member M. K. Lo spoke of the many complaints he received about the ‘disgraceful discrimination’, and therefore refused to give his blessing for the use of public funds for a policy that left ‘99 per cent of the population uncared for and unprotected when an emergency does come’.19 Other unofficial members shared Lo’s concern. They unanimously refused to pass the vote, leaving the government no choice but to use the official majority to pass it.

14 Surprised, ‘Evacuation’, South China Morning Post (hereafter SCMP), 3 July 1940, p. 7. 15 Hong Kong Museum of History, Oral History: Hong Kong War Experience, Joyce Symons, 18 November 1996, as quoted in Vicky Lee, Being Eurasian: Memories Across Racial Divides (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004), p. 62. 16 Interview with Leilah Wood, 19 July 2015. 17 Anxious Eurasian Parent, ‘Eurasians’ Evacuation’, SCMP, 9 July 1940, p. 8; A Chinese Citizen, ‘Provision for Chinese’, SCMP, 2 July 1940, p. 7. 18 BA BA, ‘Evacuation’, SCMP, 16 November 1940, p. 7. 19 ‘Evacuation Scheme Storm in Council: Policy Criticised, Committee’s Refusal to Pass Vote, Public Inquiry Demand by Unofficial Members, Confidence Shaken’, SCMP, 26 July 1940, p. 7.

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Much of their resentment was about how government officials deployed different definitions of Britishness at different times when it suited them. In light of the White Australia policy, some commentators showed sympathy towards the government’s decision to exclude colonial subjects from the scheme. When the six British self-governing colonies in Australia formed the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901, the colonies’ immigration policies transitioned into one central act. A clear set of laws and administrative policies was then enforced across Australia, targeting at preventing people of colour (most specifically, Asians and Pacific Islanders) from migrating to the continent. These policies, commonly known as the White Australia policy, were in place until after the Second World War.20 The editor of Hongkong Telegraph, therefore wrote: ‘However cruel it may seem, there are immigration laws in Australia which preclude any but British subjects of pure European descent from entering the country’.21 But many disagreed. These included Henry Ching, the Chinese Australian editor of South China Morning Post. In his editorial on 1 July, Ching argued that ‘nothing can excuse inequality of treatment’. He reminded his readers that non-white British subjects had contributed to the British Empire in the same capacity as white Britons: ‘several thousands of British subjects not of pure European descent are serving in the defence of the Colony. They pay the same taxes as any other section’. At the end of the editorial, he wrote: ‘For years we have striven to secure recognition for the Hongkong citizen, regardless of race – and we feel it will be a deplorable setback to British prestige if, even now, with the Empire in grave danger and every friend needed, Government is unable to divest itself of the old mentality.’22 This remark shows how the evacuation led British subjects of colour like Ching to find to their disappointment that, despite their effort in making Britishness transcend the boundary of race, Britishness was only reserved for those of ‘pure European descent’ in the time of war. The wider Chinese population appeared to be indifferent towards the evacuation. While the evacuation dominated the headlines and correspondence columns of English newspapers in the colony, the issue was side-lined in the Chinese press. This could have been the result

20

More on the White Australia Policy, see David C. Atkinson, ‘The White Australia Policy, the British Empire, and the World’, Britain and the World, 8.2 (2015): 204–24. More on the Australia government’s attitude towards Chinese immigrants, see: John Fitzgerald, Big White Lie: Chinese Australians in White Australia (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2007). 21 ‘Evacuation’, Hongkong Telegraph, 1 July 1940, p. 6. 22 ‘Being British’, SCMP, 1 July 1940, p. 10.

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of tightened censorship that the government had imposed on Chinese newspapers in the colony during the 1920s strikes.23 But other sources suggest that perhaps the wider Chinese population cared little about the evacuation. Fong Wai Yin’s memory of the evacuation revolved around the story of her aunt. An amah for a white British family, Fong’s aunt was laid off after the family was evacuated. As Fong recollected the story, she suggested that the Chinese did not care – ‘It was only a British matter’. When asked whether her aunt resented being left behind, the niece was unequivocal: ‘She wouldn’t have wanted to go to the British land [Australia] with the British. No. They had a family and network here in Hong Kong’.24 With the indifference shown by the wider population, Fong’s remark of the evacuation being ‘a British matter’ is noteworthy. It implies that the evacuation was a matter that concerned only those who identified themselves with being ‘British’. It explains why Fong’s aunt and editors of Chinese newspapers cared little about the evacuation, whereas M. K. Lo, Henry Ching, and other people of colour who wrote to the editors of English newspapers felt so strongly about the racial discrimination that characterised the evacuation: because it served as a proof of the government’s rejection of their Britishness. If we turn to official correspondence between different colonial administrations, this rejection of colonial subjects’ Britishness became even more visible. The Hong Kong government had actually made plans to arrange an evacuation for British subjects of colour, but racist immigration restrictions in other parts of the empire crushed such plans. The exclusion of Chinese, Portuguese, and Eurasian British subjects from the official evacuation scheme had much to do with the White Australia policy, as the editor of Hongkong Telegraph had pointed out. The Hong Kong governor therefore asked the Australian Prime Minister in early July 1940 to lift temporarily its immigration restrictions for no more than 1,500 ‘wives and children of Chinese residents with records of service to Hong Kong’ to Australia.25 In his request, Governor Northcote emphasised that half of these individuals would be British subjects, with the majority of the ‘educated class possessing ample means’. He added that his ‘original proposal to send [them] to China or Indo-China not 23

See Michael Ng, ‘When Silence Speaks: Press Censorship and Rule of Law in British Hong Kong, 1850s–1940s’, Law and Literature, 29.3 (2017): 425–56, at pp. 436–40. 24 Interview with Fong Wai Yin, 2 February 2014. 25 A433 1940/2/1837, Governor of Hong Kong to the Prime Minister of Australia, 10 July 1940, the National Archives of Australia (hereafter NAA), as cited in Tony Banham, Reduced to a Symbolical Scale: The Evacuation of British Women and Children from Hong Kong to Australia in 1940 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2018), p. 54.

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found practicable, owing to Japanese occupation of coastal parts and the doubtful attitude of Indo-Chinese authorities’. Even though Australian officials reassured the press that they would make exemptions and allow the entry of non-European evacuees from Hong Kong, such generosity was absent in their official reply to the Hong Kong government.26 ‘Difficulties are likely to be experienced in regard to accommodation and other complications arise which do not apply in the case of European British’, an Australian officer told the Hong Kong governor, as they explained that they were ‘reluctantly unable to see a way to relax restrictions’ for such Chinese families.27 Racism against British subjects of colour was also formidable in other official responses to the Hong Kong government’s proposal. In August 1940, the Hong Kong government made similar pleas to the governments of Fiji, Ceylon, Burma, and India. It asked these governments to receive about 2,393 Portuguese, Chinese, and Eurasian British subjects in the event of crisis: only Fiji agreed to take the Chinese.28 Six days before Pearl Harbour, Governor Sir Mark Young requested Singapore to receive a small number of Chinese British subjects evacuated from Hong Kong. Like his predecessor, Young felt it necessary to stress that these individuals were all ‘reputable and of some financial standing’. He wrote: ‘it is considered politically most desirable to give to the Chinese population an equal opportunity with Europeans to leave Hong Kong under prevailing conditions’.29 The Executive Council in Singapore, however, unanimously rejected such a request, as they ‘foresee difficulty and danger in waiving the immigration regulations in favour of any class of Chinese’.30 This correspondence showed the challenges that Hong Kong officials faced between taking into account a more inclusive notion of Britishness – one that was becoming more prominent in Hong Kong – and one that defined ‘British’ as a racial category. Decisions Hong Kong officials made in selecting whom to include in the evacuation show how defining Britishness remained a fundamental 26

‘Australian views: difficulty in getting details from Hong Kong’, SCMP, 30 July 1940, p. 8; CO 323/1657/47, O.A.G. Hong Kong to the Colonial Office, 13 August 1940, TNA. 27 A433 1940/2/1938, Department of the Interior to Governor of Hong Kong, 25 July 1940, NAA, as sited in Banham, Reduced to a Symbolical Scale, p. 55. 28 CO 323/1657/47, O.A.G. Hong Kong to the Colonial Office, 13 August 1940; Governor of Hong Kong to Governor of Fiji, 20 August 1940; Governor of Ceylon to Governor of Hong Kong, 21 August 1940; Fiji Governor to Colonial Office, 28 August 1940. 29 CO 129/590/1, Hong Kong Governor Sir Mark Young to the Secretary of State for the Colonies Walter Guinness, 2 December 1941, TNA. 30 CO 129/590/1, Straits Settlements Governor Sir S. Thomas to Secretary of State for the Colonies, 3 December 1941.

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problem for state authorities. For example, Helen Kennedy-Skipton, an American married to a senior civil servant with Irish nationality, was included in the evacuation scheme. Kennedy-Skipton appealed to stay in the colony, with the argument that she was not British – but an American citizen, for American nationality law allowed female citizens married to a non-Asian alien to retain their American citizenship.31 Her appeal was however denied, on the ground that she had held a British passport since 1928. Furthermore, at least twelve Chinese women married to British servicemen were also included in the evacuation scheme. Unlike fellow ‘pure European’ evacuees, most of these Chinese evacuees managed to return to the colony, despite the regulations imposed by the Hong Kong government forbidding the return of evacuees.32 The status of Hong Kong as a Crown Colony gave its government the power to govern and the responsibility to protect a wider population than its white subjects. The exigencies of war, however, tested the empire’s readiness to accept colonial subjects as fully British. Despite their growing wealth and social prominence, British subjects of colour were disappointed to find that Britishness was only reserved to those of ‘pure European descent’. Such a moment of crisis made them unusually outspoken about their Britishness. They outlined – to each other, to the government, and to the public – the multiple engagements they had made with Britishness through holding a British passport, paying taxes, contributing to the war effort, or simply by being born into the colony. These diverse responses towards the evacuation hint at how entanglements with Britishness sat at the heart of the war experience of multiracial Britons in Hong Kong. And these entanglements would not cease, even when Hong Kong became a Japanese-occupied territory on 25 December 1941 – rather, in some cases, they would grow ever stronger. When Cosmopolitan Britishness Shone On the morning of 8 December 1941, Eleanor Eu was getting ready for her lecture when she saw from the windows in her dormitory planes dropping bombs on Kai Tak Airport. A Chinese from Seremban, Malaya, the third-year medical student at HKU assured herself that it must have 31 ‘Women Want to Stay: Wife of Government Official Appeals to the Tribunal Fails to Get Exemption’, SCMP, 28 October 1940, p. 17. On American citizens’ legal entitlements to retain their American citizenship after being married to a non-Asian alien, see Cable Act of 1922, (Ch. 411, 42 Stat. 1021, ‘Married Women’s Independent Nationality Act’). 32 ‘Defence (Entry Regulations) Regulations’, Hong Kong Government Gazette, 19 November 1940, pp. 1605–7.

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been a military exercise, only to learn moments later that war had been announced over the radio. The Japanese had launched a full attack on Hong Kong, following the one on Pearl Harbour. She was, as she recollected decades later, ‘in a daze and had no idea of what to do next’.33 Eu was not the only student in Hong Kong who felt that way, and such helplessness only increased as war unfolded in the colony. In the following four days, the British had to retreat to Hong Kong Island from Kowloon, but they could not hold much longer. Japanese forces landed on the northeast shore of the Island on 18 December, rendering British resistance effort on the Island effectively futile. On 25 December, Governor Sir Mark Young surrendered in person at the Japanese headquarters in the Peninsular Hotel in Kowloon. For the next three years and eight months, Hong Kong was no longer British but a Japanese occupied territory under martial law.34 The Japanese tried their very best to wash Britishness away from the city. The Statue of Queen Victoria no longer stood in the Statue Square – it was shipped to Japan to melt down, and the Statue Square was now ‘Showa-hiroba’.35 Queen’s Road was renamed Meiji-dori, the Gloucester Hotel became the Matsubara, and the Government House now acquired a Japanese-style tower. With their imperialist plan to build the ‘Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere’, the Japanese regime tried to make the thousands of British subjects in the city forget their Britishness too, but many such attempts proved futile.36 A large number of residents fled to neighbouring regions. The most popular destinations were unoccupied China and the Portuguese enclave of Macau, which remained neutral throughout the war. In either case, they were no longer on British land, but they still engaged actively with Britishness. The subject of aid – whether it was to receive aid from the state, or to aid the state in the war – tied these colonial subjects together. Now, the war put existing notions of Britishness in pre-war Hong Kong to the test. 33 Peter Tan Ewe Aik and Eleanor Eu Gaik Choo, Prescriptions of Faith (Penang: Kee Koon Lay Sdn. Bhd, 2011), p. 25. 34 For a more comprehensive history of the Japanese occupation in Hong Kong, see Philip Snow, The Fall of Hong Kong: Britain, China and the Japanese Occupation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003); G. B. Endacott, Hong Kong Eclipse (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1978). 35 On the Statue of Queen Victoria and the Statue Square, see Tam Wing Sze, ‘Public space and British colonial power: the transformation of Hong Kong Statue Square, 1890s-1970s’, (Master’s thesis, Lingnan University, 2014), pp. 67–76. 36 It is notable that a number of colonial subjects showed sympathy, if not enthusiasm, towards the Japanese regime, although they are not the focus of this chapter. These included, for instance, some Chinese and Eurasian middle-class and certain sections of the Indian community. See Snow, The Fall of Hong Kong, especially pp. 107–23.

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Saving the Missionaries of Britishness Let us return to Eleanor Eu, the Malayan Chinese student at HKU, who now had nowhere to go. She could not go to classes: activity at the University came to a halt. In January 1942, several secret meetings and a graduation ceremony were held hastily to award war-time degrees to all final-year students. Shortly after, most expatriate staff, along with other non-Chinese civilians who were ‘enemy nationals’ in Hong Kong (mostly white British, Americans, and Dutch), had to enter the Stanley Internment Camp, where most would remain until the end of the war.37 Some staff were spared from internment – either because they held passports from a neutral power, or because they were essential to maintaining the colony’s medical and health services. But they were all scattered across Hong Kong. The Japanese had talked of plans to reopen the University, but such a plan never materialised throughout the war years.38 Most of Eu’s fellow students had to bid farewell to the University. Living conditions in Hong Kong were bad. Food was so scarce that the Japanese authorities forcibly repatriated numerous Chinese to their villages of origin in mainland China.39 Some HKU students went home, but going home was not an option for Eu and many other overseas Chinese students in 1942. ‘My paternal grandfather came from Fukien but my family had not kept in touch with our relatives in China’, she wrote, ‘so how could I go back to my village?’ Still, many went on an exodus to the so-called ancestral homeland where they had never been. A student explained why they escaped to unoccupied China: ‘A spirit of discontent was predominant among the students. Why should we remain under the enemy’s domination? Why not come to China? Why not make the attempt, even though it may mean disaster?’40 37 Peter Cunich, A History of the University of Hong Kong, Volume 1, 1911–1945 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012), p. 405. For more on the internment of non-Chinese Allied civilians in Hong Kong during the Second World War, see Geoffrey Charles Emerson, Hong Kong Internment, 1942–1945: Life in the Japanese Civilian Camp at Stanley (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2008). 38 Lindsay Ride, ‘The Test of War’, in University of Hong Kong: The First 50 Years 1911–1961, edited by Brian Harrison (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1962), pp. 58–84, at p. 67. Also see Bernard Mellor, ‘Strains of War and The Links Break’, in Matthew and Chung (eds.), Dispersal and Renewal, pp. 61–81, at pp. 73–74. In February 1942 (within two months of the Japanese occupation), a letter signed by ‘Undergraduates’ was published in the Japanese-controlled English-language newspaper HongKong News, asking the Japanese authorities to reopen the university. See ‘Readers’ Letters: Appeal for Opening of University’, Hongkong News, 18 February 1942, p. 2. 39 Chan Sui-jeung, East River Column: Hong Kong Guerrillas in the Second World War and After (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2009), pp. 45–46. 40 CO 129/588/9, ‘Appendix No. 4: Some Students’ Experiences in Hong Kong and on the way to Free China’, p. 1.

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Besides their disdain for Japan, they claimed that their British education motivated their escape: ‘the spirit of liberty, so well inculcated in most of us who have had an English education, kept calling us’.41 Spirit of liberty aside, worsening living conditions in Hong Kong and testimonies of successfully escaped students made the prospect of going to China appealing. Having waited in vain for seven months for word from home, Eu found appeals in the letters she received from her friends who arrived safely in unoccupied China. Perhaps in fear of being intercepted by the Japanese, the letters would contain obscure messages – ‘We are planting vegetables and rearing chickens’ – that mean ‘you will be able to carry on with your studies and you will be taken care of’ once they reached unoccupied China.42 Indeed, those who managed to arrive in unoccupied China were taken care of. In February 1942, Gordon King escaped from Hong Kong. A professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at HKU, King made his way to Chungking, China’s war-time capital, with hopes of joining the Royal Army Medical Corps.43 But en route to Chungking he encountered some HKU students who suffered greatly from ‘hardships of the road’ and were ‘completely at a loss as to how next to proceed’ with limited money.44 King therefore approached the British ambassador in Chungking, Sir Horace Seymour, about arranging relief for HKU students in China. Seymour agreed to offer HKU students who were British subjects emergency relief, and helped King convince the British government to fund more relief work for HKU students. The relief scheme was enhanced with assistance from the Chinese Minister of Education, Chen Lifu. Chen promised King that HKU students could enrol at any national university in China with free admission, tuition, and board fees. Seymour formed the Hong Kong University Relief Committee, an advisory group consisting of Chinese officials, British diplomats, and Gordon King.45 Relief centres were also set up in Kukong (now Shaoguan) in Guangdong, Guiyang in Guizhou, and Guangxi province’s Guilin and 41

CO 129/588/9, ‘Appendix No. 4’, p. 1. 42 Tan and Eu, Prescriptions of Faith, pp. 31–2. 43 On King’s escape from Hong Kong, see Gordon King, ‘An Episode in the History of the University of Hong Kong’, in Dispersal and Renewal: Hong Kong University during the War Years, edited by Clifford Matthews and Oswald Cheung (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1998), pp. 85–104. 44 King, ‘An Episode’, pp. 88–9. 45 Members included: Fu Ping-chang (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Wu Tsuin-shen (Ministry of Education), Liang Dapen (Board of Overseas Affairs); Chen Fang-sien (National Relief Commission), Yu Tsuin-Hsien (Commission of Overseas Affairs), T. J. Fisher (British Embassy), Koh Nye-Poh (HKU), and Gordon King (HKU). Note that Fu was also an HKU alumnus. See King, ‘An Episode’, p. 91.

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Liuzhou for HKU students.46 King and Seymour also recruited several graduates to assist in transporting students to their final destinations. So, by the time Eleanor Eu and twenty-four of her HKU peers fled Hong Kong in August 1942, a network had been established to support their exodus. They knew that several escapees sneaked back to the colony regularly to take any fellow students who wished to leave. They knew about Gordon King’s relief scheme. They knew that tycoon Aw Boon Haw, the well-known ‘Tiger Balm King’, was offering cash assistance to all Malayan students who wanted to proceed to unoccupied China.47 Most important of all, they knew they had to report to the nearest British Consul, give their particulars and wait for further instructions.48 Once they had reported to the British authorities, students were as carefree as a war refugee could be, especially for the majority who decided to continue their studies. Besides free tuition, boarding, and meals, students received a monthly stipend from the University Relief Fund, which was supported by the British government. The stipend was sufficient ‘to buy ink, paper, and toiletries’ and one could even ‘indulge in a fruit or a cake once in a while’.49 The scope of the scheme also proved thorough: their maintenance even included costing for ‘immediate personal requirements such as mosquito nets’ and ‘winter requirements, such as a padded gown or quilt’.50 When HKU students overstretched the already-scarce accommodation in their host institutions, the British government spent £5,000 to build temporary HKU student dormitories at five institutions that took in the majority of the University’s students in China. These were the Zhongshan University, Lingnan University, National Shanghai Medical College, National Central University, and Cheeloo University. With more than 300 students deciding to continue with their studies, the cost of the relief scheme was understandably high. In June 1942, the HKU Relief Committee had estimated that immediate relief and a $60 monthly allowance for 200 students would cost at least $440,000 (then approximately £9,000). But the scheme was successful in encouraging HKU students to continue with their studies. By the end of 1943, out of the 515 students enrolled for the academic year of 1940–41, at least 346 HKU students had reached unoccupied China.51 Of those 346 46

More on King’s relief work, see Cunich, A History of the University of Hong Kong, p. 414. Tan and Eu, Prescriptions of Faith, p. 34. Ibid., pp. 34–35, Ibid., p. 38. CO 129/588/9, Gordon King, ‘Report on HKU Relief work carried out during the period 24 April to 15 October 1942’. 51 Box 03786, ‘Annual Report on the work of the University for 1940’, University Archives, the University of Hong Kong (hereafter HKUA); FO 371/41638/473, Gordon King, 47 48 49 50

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students, 166 were from Hong Kong and 105 were from Malaya, meaning that most were British subjects.52 In 1944, Gordon King (Figure 10) reported that the University Relief Fund was still funding 319 students to study at universities in China. Wartime inflation made it challenging to keep up with the cost. In early 1944, the monthly allowances had to rise to $400. The budget for 1943–1944 was therefore set at $1.5 million, equivalent to £9,375 for the whole year, allowing a subsidy of approximately $5,000 per student.53 It was a cost that the British government deemed worth paying. When King and Sir Horace Seymour approached the Colonial Office for support for their relief work, officials in London were simply impressed that King and Seymour took ‘their own initiative’ with ‘no instruction [coming] from this end’. They decided to support their work. W. B. L. Monson, Assistant Under Secretary of the Colonial Office, wrote: ‘Clearly the work must go on and it would now be politically impossible to pour cold water on the scheme’.54 While cost rose in later years, authorities in London did not stop their support. Gordon King had seemed anxious that the rocketing cost might put authorities off from continuing to support the scheme and thought he needed to justify such relief when he wrote to the Foreign Office with a budget for the scheme in February 1944. He wrote: ‘If the present generation of students and graduates succeeds in contributing in its full share to the building up of the post-war world in the Far East and to the general betterment of the lot of mankind, then the work […] will have been rendered more than worthwhile.’55 King’s justification proved unnecessary, as authorities in London were keen to support HKU students in unoccupied China anyway. The Foreign Office approved boosting the monthly maintenance to $1,000 per student from November 1944. In light of the Japanese Ichigo offensive on Guiyang, it authorised another special grant of $10,000 to each student for their evacuation.56 This continued support for HKU students was exceptional, especially as by 1943 the Foreign Office had instructed the British Embassy in

52

53 54 55 56

‘Report No. 3: HKU Relief Work during the period 16 October 1942 to 31 December 1943’. Notably, this figure included only those who had made contact with the British Consul and the University Relief Committee there. King, ‘Report No. 3’, p. 2. Cunich, A History of the University of Hong Kong, p. 417. CO 129/588/9, notes by WBL Monson, 18 August 1942. CO 129/588/9, King, ‘Report No. 3’, p. 8. FO 371/41638, Sir Horace Seymour to Foreign Office, 30 November 1944; Foreign Office to Seymour, No. 881, 6 December 1944, TNA.

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Figure 10 A photograph of Gordon King. University Archives, University of Hong Kong.

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Chungking to cease providing loans to all other British-born Chinese students in unoccupied China despite ‘many pitiful appeals’.57 In 1944, the British Embassy in Chungking stated that ‘relief in China to British born Chinese is now confined to those who have had in the past little or no connection with China and have no apparent ancestral roots there’.58 This differentiated treatment showed that Whitehall’s continued support for the relief scheme was not purely based on humanitarian concerns. HKU’s role as an imperial university to advance British influence in China convinced Whitehall officials of the necessity of maintaining a ‘skeleton’ of the University. Even if HKU could not operate at full capacity to indoctrinate students with British values during the war, officials thought it necessary to maintain students’ connection with the university – and effectively, Britishness – when in China. The relief scheme strengthened many students’ engagement with Britishness. Centralised placement and continued material assistance ensured that hundreds of HKU students, who would otherwise be dispersed across China, remained in contact with the British Embassy in Chungking throughout the war. In assigning big groups of students to different institutions, the scheme prevented the dispersal of students and allowed an HKU identity to survive. The relief scheme was also crucial in allowing some students to pursue further studies in Britain during the war years. The Rhodes Trust Postgraduate Fellowships, established in 1940 for ethnic Chinese students at HKU to pursue doctorates at Oxford, could only be reinstated in 1943; the scheme helping to bring suitable candidates to unoccupied China and allowing for their travel to England.59 Stranded without their family, these refugee students had nobody but each other and the University. When they accepted assistance offered by the British relief scheme and escaped from Hong Kong, many undoubtedly did so for survival, rather than the calling of ‘spirit of liberty’ from their British education. Despite London authorities’ imperial agendas, evidence does not suggest that King and Seymour designed the relief scheme with the objective of inculcating a British identity amongst these students. Rather, they appeared to be more interested in protecting and assisting the students, many of whom were British subjects. Still, the scheme drew students closer to Britishness through illustrating its usefulness, as well as demonstrating how white Britons like King and Seymour 57

FO 371/41638, H. Prideaus-Brune to Anthony Eden, 12 January 1944. 58 FO 369/3266, British Embassy in Chungking to British Consulate in Macao, 6 September 1944, TNA. 59 The students awarded were Man Wah Leung Bentley and Rayson Huang (later HKU’s first Chinese Vice-Chancellor). More on the Fellowship, see King, ‘An Episode’, p. 92.

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cared about and fought for the rights of colonial subjects. The legacy of the scheme was evident: it provided an avenue for many to continue their engagements with Britishness after the war. HKU medical students who graduated from Chinese universities during the war, for instance, were able to register with the British General Medical Council’s colonial register through the relief scheme.60 Furthermore, the scheme also allowed a notable number of HKU students to fulfil their duties as British subjects and take part in the British war effort. Britishness Highlighted Hong Kong had been the first colony to follow Britain’s lead in introducing conscription.61 In July 1939, the newly passed Compulsory Service Ordinance empowered the government to draft all male British subjects of European origin aged between 18 and 41 who were fit to do so into the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps (HKVDC) or the Hong Kong Naval Volunteer Reserve.62 To strengthen local volunteer forces, Chinese, Eurasians, and local Portuguese were also allowed to register. Many did so: approximately 450 Chinese and 1,000 Portuguese reportedly registered themselves for service.63 At the outbreak of the Pacific War, hundreds of colonial subjects, along with white British civilians, defended the colony and many lost their lives doing so.64 The No. 3 Company of the HKVDC, in particular, suffered severe casualties during the Battle of Hong Kong – of the 114 in the Company, 37 were killed in action, and 35 were wounded.65 Their performance during the battle impressed Christopher Michael Maltby (the Commander of British Troops in China) so greatly that four years later, when Maltby wrote a report to the War Office on the Battle of Hong Kong, he paid a special tribute to the Eurasian volunteers.66 60 61 62 63 64

See Cunich, A History of the University of Hong Kong, p. 416. Endacott, Hong Kong Eclipse, pp. 43–5. No. 32 of 1939, Hong Kong Government Gazette, July 28, 1939, p. 677. Endacott, Hong Kong Eclipse, p. 45. Apart from the Eurasians mentioned below, at least 26 Hong Kong-Portuguese were killed in the Battle of Hong Kong. See Antonio M. Jorge da Silva, Macaenses: The Portuguese in China (Macau: Welfare Printing, 2015), p. 151. Similarly, many Indians also lost their lives during the battle. See Barbara-Sue White, Turbans and Traders: Hong Kong’s Indian Communities (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 39–58. 65 Evan Stewart, December 1941: Hong Kong Volunteers in Battle (Hong Kong: Blacksmith Books, 2020), p. 68. More on the No. 3 Company of the HKVDC, see Tony Banham, ‘Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps, Number 3 (Machine Gun) Company’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch, Vol. 45 (2005): 117–43. 66 ‘Operations in Hong Kong from 8th to 25th December 1941’, written in November 1945, in Supplement to the London Gazette, 27 January 1948, p. 702.

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Multiracial Britons’ service for the British war efforts did not lapse after the fall of Hong Kong in December 1941. Many actively participated in the British intelligence network in wartime China. Throughout the war years organised resistance efforts persisted across Hong Kong and South China. The Communist-led East River Column managed most guerrilla activities in the occupied areas, but the British also ran an extensive resistance network.67 A prominent part of this network was the British Army Aid Group (hereafter B.A.A.G.), established by Lindsay Ride (Figure 11), professor of physiology at HKU. Also a commander of the HKVDC, Ride had been interned in a Prisoners-of-War Camp in Hong Kong, until he escaped in January 1942.68 A month later, Ride arrived in Chungking. He proposed to the British Military Mission there the establishment of a special army unit in southern China to arrange for relief and escapes of British prisoners-of-war in the colony. With the scheme endorsed by the Military Mission, Ride returned to Guangdong in March 1942 to form the B.A.A.G.69 Officially classified as a MI9 unit, the B.A.A.G. soon evolved from a relief operation group into an extensive intelligence network. It operated across a vast area with agents in Hong Kong and advance bases in South China and Macau, gathering information on Japanese forces and the conditions in Hong Kong and its nearby regions. It had approximately 2,000 uniformed and civilian members, including many multiracial Britons in Hong Kong. ‘Basically the B.A.A.G. was a Hong Kong effort’, as stated in a letter of farewell ‘to all ranks and members of the B.A.A.G.’ written after the war.70 Although most officers in B.A.A.G. were white Britons, its operators were mainly colonial subjects.71 Because of Ride’s connection with HKU, many students and recent graduates were recruited into the B.A.A.G. These included his own students in the University’s Physiology Department. The HKU 67 More on the East River Column, see Chan, East River Column. 68 Ride wrote a detailed account of his own escape, which his daughter Elizabeth Ride has shared it on gwulo.com. See L.T. Ride, ‘Report on Escape from P.O.W. Camp, Shamshuipo, Hongkong’, posted by Elizabeth Ride, 13 January 2020, https://gwulo​ .com/node/48149, accessed 8 January 2021. D. F. Davies, who escaped with Ride, also produced his own account of the journey. See D. F. Davies, ‘Report on an escape from Sham Shui Po (Kowloon), Hong Kong Prisoners of war camp, made on 9 January 1942’, posted by Elizabeth Ride, 13 January 2020, https://gwulo.com/node/48150, accessed 8 January 2021. 69 More on the B.A.A.G., see Edwin Ride, B.A.A.G, Hong Kong Resistance, 1942–1945 (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1981). 70 LBY K.00/965, Photocopy of Letter of Farewell ‘to all ranks and members of the B.A.A.G.’, by Lindsay Ride, Commandant, and Eddie Gosano, HQS., Imperial War Museum. 71 Snow, The Fall of Hong Kong, p. 181.

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Figure 11 A photograph of Lindsay Ride. University Archives, University of Hong Kong.

relief scheme operated by his colleague Gordon King and the British Embassy in Chungking also helped B.A.A.G.’s recruitment. As not all students wanted to continue their studies, Ride assisted in placing those seeking work in suitable employment, including positions in the B.A.A.G. Several agents were sent back to Hong Kong

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to make contacts with prisoners-of-war and arrange for escape efforts there. One of them was Lau Teng Kee, a Straits Chinese from Jahore who led Eleanor Eu’s escape. A considerable number also contributed to British espionage work with their Chinese language skills. For instance, Hong Kong-born Eurasian graduate, Mary Suffiad, provided ‘exceptionally high order’ and ‘loyal service’ in the counter-espionage office at B.A.A.G.’s base in Guilin, for which she received an MBE after the war.72 Paul Tsui, a fresh graduate of the University at the time of the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong, acted as the B.A.A.G.’s Liaison Officer to work with local Chinese authorities.73 There were also students who, albeit not being part of the B.A.A.G., contributed to British war efforts. While her grandfather Ho Kom Tong was made the chairman of the Jockey Club in Japanese-occupied Hong Kong, Kitty Tse served at the British General Liaison Office, another crucial part of the British intelligence network in China.74 Also working in the General Liaison Office were Eurasian students Oswald Cheung and Sam Gittins.75 In comparison, a smaller number of students had contributed to Chinese war efforts. As discussed in Chapter 3, the founding objective of the University was to train a class of British-educated Chinese. They hoped that these students would gradually help spread British cultural influence and maintain British domination China as they worked in mainland China after their graduation. Many had already deemed that this goal had largely failed, for most graduates did not choose to work in China after their graduation. But now that many graduates and students were in China, the University’s founding objective seemed much more attainable. Even Gordon King had urged HKU students there to ‘make [the University’s] impact felt in China’. He asked students to ‘do his utmost to bring credit to the name of the University during his stay in China’, so that ‘the ultimate result of this present upheaval will be of benefit both 72

Quotes written by Lindsay Ride, as cited as an entry for Mary Suffiad in the B.A.A.G Register, which Ride’s daughter Elizabeth Ride uploaded to gwulo.com. See ‘Mary SUFFIAD (aka Mary Wong) [1921-  ], https://gwulo.com/node/20922, uploaded 24 February 2015, accessed 30 December 2020. Also see Tan and Eu, Prescriptions of Faith, pp. 34–35. For a more detailed list of HKU students and graduates who joined the B.A.A.G., see Cunich, A History of the University of Hong Kong, pp. 422–3. 73 Paul Tsui’s son Lawrence Tsui has uploaded Paul Tsui’s memoir online. See ‘Paul Tsui Ka Cheung’s Memoirs: My Life and My Encounters’ www.galaxylink.com.hk/~john/ paul/paul.html, accessed 16 January 2021. 74 Bernard Mellor, ‘In India, in China, and Twice in Hong Kong’, in Dispersal and Renewal: Hong Kong University During the War Years (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1998), pp. 345–73, at p. 354. Also in Snow, The Fall of Hong Kong, p. 401, n. 136. 75 More on Oswald Cheung’s war service, see his autobiographical account in Oswald Cheung, ‘Wartime Intelligence in China’, in Dispersal and Renewal, pp. 337–41.

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to China and to the University’.76 Many of his students and graduates in the Faculty of Medicine indeed answered this call and contributed to the relief work in unoccupied China during the war.77 Some HKU students and graduates, including mainland Chinese, Hong Kong Chinese, and Straits Chinese, even took up combatant roles in the Chinese forces and fought in the war.78 It is, however, notable that only a handful had joined the Chinese forces, and the number was much smaller than that of those who joined the B.A.A.G. and other British war efforts. Beyond the circle of university students, a large number of non-student Chinese, Eurasians, and Portuguese from Hong Kong also helped the British war effort in other ways.79 Some had previously been in the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps and Police Reserve. Formerly of the Police Reserve, David Loie, Chinese New Zealander, became the ‘mastermind’ of the B.A.A.G.’s intelligence network in Hong Kong with his ‘intense loyalty’ to the British cause.80 Several Chinese and Portuguese who moved to Macau during the war took on prominent roles within the B.A.A.G. Most notable included Y. C. Liang, a Chinese comprador who used his rice business as a disguise of the work he did for the B.A.A.G., and the Hong Kong-Portuguese doctor Eddie Gosano. Whilst working as the attending physician to the British Consul and running his own medical practice, Gosano lived a secret life as the head of B.A.A.G. in Macau under the codename ‘Phoenix’.81 In many ways, their participation in the British resistance manifested the process through which broader, more inclusive notions of Britishness developed. The B.A.A.G. would not be able to function without its colonial members. Many escapes could not succeed without its Chinese members’ language skills, contacts, and capability to enter and leave Hong Kong without attracting Japanese attention. Even Lindsay Ride’s own escape relied on the help of Francis Lee, formerly a clerk in Ride’s Physiology Department. It was because Lee was able to speak to villagers in the New Territories that they managed to escape along 76

Gordon King Papers, ‘Circular Letter No. 1’, 9 November 1942, HKUA, as cited in Cunich, A History of the University of Hong Kong, p. 416. 77 A more detailed list of HKU medical students and graduates serving in unoccupied China, see The University of Hong Kong, Growing with Hong Kong: The University and its Graduates – the First 90 Years (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2002), p. 69. 78 See Cunich, A History of the University of Hong Kong, p. 425. 79 ‘List of Chinese who reported to the B.A.A.G. in Hong Kong’, Elizabeth M. Ride Collection, Hong Kong Heritage Project. 80 Snow, The Fall of Hong Kong, p. 182. 81 On Y. C. Liang’s work for the B.A.A.G, see Eddie Gosano, Hong Kong Farewell (Hong Kong: Greg England, 1997), pp. 24–27.

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mountain tracks without attracting the attention of the Japanese. When the B.A.A.G. was formed, Lee used his contacts in Hong Kong to form a communication channel between the B.A.A.G. and those inside the colony. Similarly, without the Chinese, Portuguese, and Eurasian members who could move about freely in Hong Kong and Macau, the B.A.A.G. could not have collected intelligence about local conditions and Japanese activities in the two cities. These members were not merely passive agents supporting the British cause. Francis Lee, was one of the 450 Chinese who voluntarily registered themselves in the HKVDC. After Hong Kong fell, Lee entered the Shamshuipo POW camp, where Ride was interned, with the intention to assist his former employer should Ride wish to escape.82 The Chief of B.A.A.G. in Macau, Eddie Gosano, also volunteered to join the Argyle Street POW Camp before he moved to Macau. As Gosano noted in his memoir, he did not have to go into the camp because of his Portuguese background. But his British senior, Dr. Isaac Newton, asked him to join them to ‘serve our own casualties’ at the Camp were where wounded British POWs were kept. Because Newton ‘had accorded me equal dignity in the profession and now he needed me’, Gosano decided against moving to Macau, a step that many Hong Kong Portuguese took after the fall of Hong Kong, and went in the POW camp with Newton.83 Working alongside the British brought great risks: as the South China Morning Post wrote in 1946, many B.A.A.G. messengers and agents in Hong Kong were ‘caught and savagely put to torture and death’.84 In April 1943, twenty-six Chinese, Eurasians, and Indians were beheaded on Stanley Beach for working with the B.A.A.G. This proves the highly dangerous nature of their working for the British cause.85 Their willingness to undertake such risks suggests how their sense of belonging to Britishness motivated their contribution to British war efforts. War efforts by colonial subjects helped them earn the appreciation from their white British peers at an unprecedented level.86 Lindsay Ride now saw how capable Francis Lee was: ‘the more I see of him, the more I admire him’.87 Some were also impressed by the perseverance of colonial subjects despite the racist, unfair treatment they had received from 82

Snow, The Fall of Hong Kong, p. 182. Gosano, Hong Kong Farewell, pp. 19–20. ‘The B.A.A.G’, SCMP, 15 January 1946, p. 6. George Wright-Nooth, Prisoner of the Turnip-Heads: The Fall of Hong Kong and the Imprisonment by the Japanese (London: Cassell, 1999), p. 187. 86 Philip Snow had made this point in his book on the Second World War in Hong Kong too. See Snow, The Fall of Hong Kong p. 184. 87 Ride, British Army Aid Group, p. 49. 83 84 85

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the British colonial regime. Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke, who remained Hong Kong’s Director of Medical Service until his arrest in May 1943, was one of those who found the ‘conduct of Chinese, Eurasian, Portuguese, and other subjects of a none too generous British government [ … ] wonderfully inspiring’.88 Written for a magazine in 1946 on how Hong Kong must adapt itself in the post-war years, Selwyn-Clarke highlighted how ‘the war years in Hong Kong have done more than anything else to demonstrate the very real attachment of the local Chinese to the British’. ‘Scores of thousands of Chinese (and a lesser number of Portuguese, Indians, and Eurasians) resident in Hong Kong willingly sacrificed themselves. Thousands lost their homes and property and were reduced to penury owing to serve as “quislings” or to help Japan’.89 Given the contributions of the colonial subjects to the British cause throughout the war, Selwyn-Clarke thought it was ‘morally necessary’ for the British to ‘accord adequate recognition to these gallant people’. ‘We are in debt of those who relied upon Hong Kong as part of our Empire, and, consequently, as being entitled to such protection as that membership entailed’. Working side-by-side with colonial subjects allowed more white Britons to accept their colonial counterparts. Interracial marriage became less of a social taboo and within the B.A.A.G. multiple cross-racial marriages and relationships emerged out of a ‘sense of “being in the same boat”’.90 But white Britons were not the only ones who now saw more vividly the Britishness of colonial subjects – even colonial subjects themselves became more aware of their Britishness through frequent interactions with those of their own race. Britishness Assessed For the HKU students who now continued their studies at Chinese institutions, they were immediately confronted by their inability to speak Mandarin, the official common language in mainland China. As discussed in Chapter 3, the majority of Chinese students that attended the University before the Second World War had come from British territories. Those from Hong Kong, British Malaya, and Australia comprised about two-thirds of the student body at the University. Most Hong Kong

88

Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke, Footprints: The Memoirs of Sir Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke (Hong Kong: Sino-American Publishing Co., 1975), p. 88. 89 PS Selwyn Clarke, ‘Hong Kong Faces the Future’, in Health Horizon (July 1946), pp. 13–18, at p. 14. In MSS. Brit. Emp. s. 470, Box 7, Bodleian Libraries. 90 Snow, The Fall of Hong Kong, p. 185, and p. 402, n. 151.

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students spoke only English and Cantonese, whereas overseas Chinese mainly spoke English with some knowledge of their ancestors’ mother tongue (usually not Mandarin). Although they generally ‘made good progress’ at institutions where English was the medium of instruction, many were ‘handicapped in courses which are given entirely in Chinese as they have never previously lived in Mandarin speaking areas’. Their host institutions therefore offered special language classes for non-mainland students, who reportedly had acquired a ‘good command of the language’ by February 1944.91 More frequent, intense interactions with mainland Chinese highlighted their ‘otherness’. Despite plentiful chances to interact with mainland students back in Hong Kong, British Chinese students had always outnumbered mainland Chinese on campus. As discussed in Chapter 3, the domination of British Chinese students had made mainland students feel uneasy about their Chinese identity at HKU. Now the situation was reversed. British Chinese students were guests at their host institutions, and therefore interacted with mainland students under very different dynamics. Autobiographical accounts mostly contain amicable recollections of time spent with mainland students. Still, some hinted at the palpable differences between mainland Chinese students and ethnic Chinese students who were British subjects. Eleanor Eu wrote in her memoir about her fond memories of studying at Chung Cheng College: This way of living – sleeping on two-tier bunk beds, eating while standing, having the same four vegetarian dishes, studying by the light of oil lamps or c­ andles – was the same at all institutions of higher learning in China during the war. Everyone was treated the same, whether China-born and brought up in China, or foreigners – yang ren – from Hong Kong and Malaya. No one was treated better or worse than the other.92

In identifying British Chinese students like herself as yang ren – 洋人, a Chinese term usually used to refered to Westerners – Eu’s account illuminates how, equal treatments aside, they remained ‘others’ on these Chinese campuses. Hong Kong Portuguese who flocked into Macau as refugees found themselves experiencing identity-based tensions with locals who associated them with a British cultural sensibility. Throughout the war, Macau remained a neutral port as a Portuguese colony and the Portuguese government actively arranged for relief for Hong Kong 91

FO 371/41638, King, ‘Report No. 3’, p. 5. 92 Tan and Eu, Prescriptions of Faith, p. 21.

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Portuguese. With worsening living conditions and suspicions from the Japanese for their British connections, many Hong Kong Portuguese therefore grasped the opportunity and fled to Macau – official sources state that about 5,000 fled to Macau from Hong Kong.93 Most refugees received assistance provided by the Macau government and the British Consul there, with some also receiving help from relatives and friends.94 Many, however, did not find their fellow Portuguese in Macau particularly friendly and welcoming. Interviewee Adelaide Crestejo, who spent her childhood in wartime Macau, remembered that some Portuguese there were arrogant towards those coming from Hong Kong, such as herself.95 Some even called Hong Kong-Portuguese such derogatory terms as ‘ton ton’ – meaning ‘dog shit’ in English.96 John Reeves, the British Consul in Macau during the war, also observed that the general public of Macau viewed the refugees with ‘scorn rather than […] pity’. This attitude was common, even amongst the relatives and friends of the Hong Kong-Portuguese refugees. He wrote: ‘Some families had relations amongst the refugees with whom they had been glad to stay or associate in Hongkong in the days of peace and of their relation’s prosperity; those who were now refugees were not given any effusive welcome by the relations whom they had entertained in happier terms’.97 93

Rodrigues da Silva, Assistência em Macau (Macau: Comissão Central de Assistência Pública de Macau, 1954), as cited in João F. O. Botas, ‘Macau 1937–1945: Living on the Edge: Economic Management over Military Defences’, in Wartime Macau: Under the Japanese Shadow, edited by Geoffrey C. Gunn (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2016), pp. 55–71, at p. 68. 94 A few had noted the help given by family and friends. Gabriel Azedo, for instance, stated that his mother was Hong Kong-born but had family in Macau, so she did not ‘really experience the war in the same way as others who didn’t have families’ while they sought refuge in Macau during the war. (Oral history interview with Gabriel Azedo, p. 2, Hong Kong Heritage Project). More on other institutional humanitarian assistance rendered to refugees in wartime Macau, see Helena F. S. Lopes, ‘The Red Cross in Wartime Macau and its Global Connections’, in The Red Cross Movement: Myths, Practices and Turning Points, edited by Neville Wylie, Melanie Oppenheimer, and James Crossland (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020), pp. 264–81; Helena F. S. Lopes, ‘Inter-imperial Humanitarianism: The Macau Delegation of the Portuguese Red Cross during the Second World War’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 46.6 (2018): 1125–147. 95 Interview with Adelaide Crestejo, 4 August 2017, with special thanks to Susan Ware for putting me in touch with Crestejo and arranging the interview during my research trip in Australia. 96 This anecdote was mentioned in Alberto Guterres’s translation of The Boys from Macau, which came to my notice in Stuart Braga’s ‘Nossa Gente’ chapter. See Stuart Braga, ‘Nossa Gente (Our People): The Portuguese Refugee Community in Wartime Macau’, in Wartime Macau, pp. 116–40, at p. 123. 97 John Pownall Reeves, The Lone Flag: Memoir of the British Consul in Macao during World War II (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2014), pp. 18–9.

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Such hostility had much to do with a class-based disdain for refugees, but it also stemmed from the underlying cultural differences between Hong Kong Portuguese and the Portuguese community in Macau. Many Portuguese refugees from Hong Kong were Englishspeaking and could speak little Portuguese, the main language spoken amongst their relatives and families in Macau. Such differences were made more obvious in daily interactions, not least in church attendance. One of the churches in Macau even put up at its entrance a sign of dress code for refugees from Hong Kong. Although most Hong Kong Portuguese, like those from Macau, were devoted Catholics and frequent churchgoers, their attitude towards dress code in churches was reportedly more relaxed.98 Shorter skirts and sleeveless dresses were allowed in Hong Kong, whereas in Macau women were required to cover their heads with veils at church services. As Reeves noted, such a dress code was especially challenging for refugees for ‘it is not easy for a refugee to dress herself at all’.99 Eventually a church, the Igreja de Santo Agostinho, was lent to the Hong Kong-Portuguese refugees and became ‘their own’ church. Living in a Portuguese colony also underscored the Britishness of Hong Kong-Portuguese. In his memoir written shortly after the war ended,100 John Reeves remarked that, when the British and Portuguese national anthems were sung in a concert at Easter 1942, Hong KongPortuguese knew God Save the King better than they did ‘their own national anthem’, referring to the Portuguese national anthem.101 Strikingly, he referred to the Hong Kong-Portuguese as ‘Portuguese nationals’, reflecting a neglect of their British status, which was astonishing considering he was a British consul and should have understood British nationality law better than most. While the war ultimately led Reeves to notice that Hong Kong-Portuguese were now more British than Portuguese, his general neglect and the persistent institutional racism that many colonial subjects faced made the latter feel rejected. Such a rejection made many question the rhetoric of imperial cosmopolitanism, not least their belonging to the British Empire.

98



99 100

101

In an oral history interview, Gabriel Azedo offered insightful anecdotes about church attendance amongst Hong Kong-Portuguese. See Gabriel Azedo interview, Hong Kong Heritage Project, pp. 10–2. Reeves, The Lone Flag, p. 89. Reeves first began writing the memoir abroad HMS Ranee in 1946 when he was leaving Macau for home leave, and he finished the memoir when on his next posting in Rome in 1949. See David Calthrope, ‘About the Lone Flag and John Pownall Reeves’, in Reeves, The Lone Flag, p. 167. Reeves, The Lone Flag, p. 80.

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Discrimination towards Hong Kong-Portuguese and other colonial subjects was too formidable to ignore, most notably in the consular assistance they received – or in some cases, did not receive. Upon their arrival in Macau as refugees, many Hong Kong-Portuguese lacked resources. Some had help from friends and family living there, but the majority were less fortunate. As the Consul in Macau, John Reeves claimed that he felt ‘British subjects and those who had served the British government in Hongkong’ deserved assistance from British authorities. With money borrowed from Y. C. Liang, and later with funds transferred from the Foreign Office through the British Embassy in Lisbon, Reeves started a relief scheme for British subjects in Macau, which, apart from a handful of long-term white British residents in Macau, included mostly Hong Kong-Portuguese and a significant number of Chinese and Eurasian refugees with British papers.102 However, the scheme was heavily restricted. To receive relief, the British subject in need would apply to the British Consulate with information about their financial conditions and history of public and/or military service in Hong Kong.103 Staff of the Consulate would then interview the applicants and verify the information provided. Once their needs and eligibility were proven genuine, the Consul would determine the amount of relief based on factors such as their accessibility to other funds available, and the service they had provided to the British Empire. Relief was granted as a loan, so the Consulate also assessed an applicant’s capability to make repayment by considering their income before the war. Exceptions happened, but in general, ‘a Public Works Department junior employee with ten children and a normally ridiculously low salary’ would receive less relief than what a doctor would receive, as the former would be deemed to be less capable of repaying a larger sum of money.104 Therefore, some of those most in need were excluded from British-sponsored financial relief. Those who registered for the relief scheme could attend the British Consulate clinic, staffed by five Hong Kong-Portuguese doctors to whom the Macau government granted special permission to practice in Macau.105 A free school for refugee children was also established.106 Records at the British Consulate showed that 4,118 families had received help from their relief scheme by the end of the war.107 102 103 104 105 106

107

Reeves, The Lone Flag, p. 53. Ibid., p. 54. Ibid., pp. 54–6, quote at p. 56. Ibid., pp. 57–8 and 61–9. Excerpt of news article, ‘High Tradition of the Consular Service Maintained by Mr J. P. Reeves’, in Reeves, The Lone Flag, pp. 156–57. Ibid., p. 57.

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In some cases, this scheme allowed some Hong Kong-Portuguese – as was the case for HKU students in China – to see white Britons in a more favourable light. Eddie Gosano praised Reeves highly in his memoir. Although their personal relationship turned sour during the war, in the 1990s Gosano called Reeves ‘a rare Britisher’ who ‘redeemed much of the British reputation for being little more than colonial exploiters’.108 He believed that the Consul’s relief scheme improved the lives of many Hong Kong refugees in Macau. For Gosano, Reeves’s actions rectified some negative images that colonial subjects had about their colonial masters: ‘John Reeves redeemed much of the bad image we second-class citizens had of Colonial domination’.109 When asked in an oral history interview how people felt about the British relief scheme for refugees in Macau, Jorge Sequeira, who was born in Canton before coming to Hong Kong when he was nine months old, assured the interviewer that there was ‘no dissatisfaction’ and that ‘both parties [Macau and British Consul] did their job well’.110 But not every Hong Kong–Portuguese shared such a positive opinion of Reeves and his relief scheme. Even Reeves himself acknowledged in his memoir that his scheme caused much bitterness amongst the Hong KongPortuguese refugees. Seventy years later, an interviewee criticised the way how Reeves ‘is today praised to high heavens for being salvation during the war’.111 The interviewee claimed that Reeves’s scheme was unfair as Reeves favoured those with stronger connections to officials. This was potentially an incomplete understanding of Reeves’s policy to determine the amount of relief given according to a refugee’s standard of living before the war. But such disapproval was telling, for it also revealed a bitterness within the community about the parameters of the relief scheme. Reeves admitted that he often refused relief to British subjects of colour, ‘even when deserving’.112 This was partly due to the limited funds made available to Reeves. On the other hand, such refusals were often results of the official racist belief that regarded colonial subjects as less British than those with ‘pure’ ancestry from Britain. Even though Hong Kong-born Chinese were British subjects by law, during the war Reeves received instructions not to offer relief to any Hong Kong-born Chinese, even if they had ‘no roots in Free China’, unless they had provided service to the Hong Kong government.113 108 109 110 111 112 113

Gosano, Hong Kong Farewell, p. 33. Ibid., p. 34. Interview with Jorge Sequeria, 4 April 2007, p. 11, Hong Kong Heritage Project. Interview with Jim Silva, Raquel Remedios, and anonymous interviewee #1, 24 April 2017. FO 369/3266, HM Consul Macao to Foreign Office, 22 April 1945, TNA. FO 369/3266, From Macao (Via Lisbon) to Foreign Office, 12 June 1945.

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Officials, including Reeves, also doubted the Britishness of Hong Kong Portuguese. His comments on the Hong Kong Portuguese not knowing ‘their own national anthem’ had already suggested that Reeves did not regard Hong Kong Portuguese as British. And because British subjects possessing a second nationality were not entitled to any diplomatic or consular assistance in the territory of their second nationality, those who also held Portuguese nationality would be ineligible for receiving British relief while in Macau. Reeves wrote bitterly that many Hong Kong Portuguese ‘never quite understood my argument that as with British Nationality, the rights of the citizen or subject involved also certain duties and possibly penalties; they wanted the best and none of the worst of both nationalities’. ‘The majority of people make little or no attempt’, he wrote, ‘even when there is possible doubt, to make sure that their national status is unquestionable’.114 Reeves actively sought ways to deny these Portuguese access to British relief funds: he even requested the Macau government for permission to examine the records of the Portuguese Consulate in Hong Kong so that he could check who held Portuguese nationality.115 In contrast, Hong Kong Portuguese felt favourably about Macau authorities. An interviewee highly praised the Portuguese regime in Macau for doing ‘a lot for the community’. ‘They took in all the refugees from Hong Kong, the Portuguese people, and even other people that were not Portuguese’, one interviewee commented. In emphasising that ‘it wasn’t only the subsidy from the British government’ that helped the Hong Kong refugees, two interviewees named particularly Gabriel Mauricio Teixeira, the Governor of Macau between 1940 and 1947 for helping refugees from Hong Kong to cope in Macau. ‘He was the one that took care of all the Portuguese community’, they reminisced, ‘they housed us and fed us, you know, in different centres in Macau all through the war!’116 Indeed, the Macau government actively arranged relief work for the Hong Kong-Portuguese.117 Soon after fighting began, authorities in Macau had sought to evacuate the community in Hong Kong. The first group of Hong Kong refugees arrived in Macau on 10 December 1941, only two days after the war began in the colony. Between January and April 1942, another 1,500 Hong Kong Portuguese arrived on vessels

114 Reeves, The Lone Flag, pp. 53–4. 115 Braga, ‘Nossa Gente (Our People)’, p. 125. 116 Interview with Jim Silva, Raquel Remedios, and anonymous interviewee #1, 24 April 2017. 117 Reeves, The Long Flag, p. 15.

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arranged for by the Macau government.118 Their protections extended beyond Macau into Hong Kong itself. The acting Portuguese Consul in Hong Kong, Francisco P. de V. Soares, contravened the Portuguese nationality law to give 600 Portuguese British subjects certificates of Portuguese nationality. Soares’s decision spared many from internment and later facilitated their exodus to Macau.119 The Macau government also reportedly spent its entire revenue from gambling taxes – two million dollars – on the assistance for refugees.120 It provided Hong Kong Portuguese refugees with free lodging and a monthly maintenance or rations.121 Many were grateful to Macau authorities as they believed the latter bore no official responsibility for the Hong Kong Portuguese. In his recollection of his exodus to Macau, Jim Silva praised only the Macau government for their assistance – ‘the Macau government came to our rescue’ – without making any reference to the British relief scheme.122 One interviewee explained their gratitude for the Macau government and Governor Teixeira with much excitement: [The Macau government] even paid the doctors, you know? We had doctors, food, lodging, everything. He took care, regardless of whether you were still a Portuguese national, or you were a British subject.123

Likewise, Stuart Braga, J. P. Braga’s grandson who wrote a doctoral dissertation on the family’s adaptation to British Hong Kong, eulogised Teixeira’s ‘merciful policy’ that made refugees ‘public welcome’. He wrote: ‘Perhaps the strongest reason not to accept Portuguese refugees from Hong Kong was that they or their forebears had turned their backs on Macau. If Macau meant so little to them then, why should Macau lift a finger for them now? If any of these considerations crossed Teixeira’s mind, he quickly dismissed them’.124 With comments such as ‘Teixeira could easily have taken the view that Macau had already done enough’, he stressed repeatedly that Macau needed not to provide for these British subjects. 118 On a more detailed breakdown of the numbers of Hong Kong-Portuguese who went to Macau during the war, see Braga, ‘Nossa Gente’, p. 119–20. 119 Jorge Forjaz, Famílias macaenses (Macau: Instituto Cultural de Macau, 1996), Vol. 3, p. 829. 120 Austin Coates, A Macao Narrative (Hong Kong: Heinemann, 1978), p. 103. 121 Reeves, The Lone Flag, pp. 51–2. 122 HKP 951.25, Federick A. (Jim) Silva, Things I remember, p. 23, Special Collections, The University of Hong Kong Libraries. 123 Interview with Jim Silva, Raquel Remedios, and anonymous interviewee #1, 24 April 2017. 124 Braga, ‘Nossa Gente’, p. 121.

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British authorities’ reluctance in granting colonial subjects war relief detached some from identifying with Britishness. These included Eddie Gosano, who headed the B.A.A.G. in Macau. Even though Gosano had praised some of his British colleagues, such as Reeves, very highly in his memoir, one could easily see how the war made him acutely aware of the institutional racism that British subjects of colour faced. Gosano mentioned Jimmy Kotwall, a Eurasian merchant whom the Japanese arrested and beheaded in August 1944 for working for the B.A.A.G.125 He noted: ‘A sorry footnote to the fate of the wife of Jimmy Kotwall, war hero, must be added. To this day, after some 50 years, the British have not granted a passport nor more than a meager subsistence to Doris Kotwall’.126 Several pages later, he reflected on his return to the colony in August 1945 shortly after the Japanese surrendered. He recollected bitterly that his white British senior could take a ‘well-deserved home leave’ while he was left in charge of the Kowloon Hospital ‘as a local-stop gap for the [white British] higher-ups’ with a powerful paragraph: So there I was. There we all were, we second-class citizens, our hallways hallowed with photographs of heroes, our own family members, our relatives and friends killed or imprisoned throughout the war. Now welcome back to exactly where we were before the War, only diminished in numbers and impoverished more than ever. What Britain was bringing home from the seat of empire was the same old baggage Britain had taken away. Only this time, as I was about to learn, she had not exhausted her run of insufferable bureaucrats.127

For Gosano, the realisation that they were still Britain’s ‘second-class citizens’ washed away the allegiance he had to the British Empire: ‘I could not help reflecting on how I volunteered to serve without pay in the prisoners-of-war camps aiding the wound[ed], whether Chinese or British nationals. And it was still with me that I was volunteering without pay as head [of] the Macao B.A.A.G., risking my life daily on behalf of the British.’ What care did they show for my brother Zinho, slaving in Japanese coal mines, or for two other brothers languishing in prison camps for the duration?’128

Gosano thought the protection and credit that the British state gave to him and his family were not commensurate with the risks he took to work for the B.A.A.G. He therefore felt that ‘my role as head of the

125 126 127 128

‘Celebrating the Courage of a Hero’, SCMP, 26 April 2005. Gosano, Hong Kong Farewell, p. 32. Ibid., p. 38. Ibid., p. 34.

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B.A.A.G. was not fully justified’ and appointed Y. C. Liang to head B.A.A.G. in Macau instead.129 The British state’s refusal to fully recognise his Britishness made Gosano sever his engagement with Britishness. Because of his connection with the B.A.A.G. and his background in the government medical service, Gosano was amongst the first few in Macau that the British called upon soon after the Japanese surrendered in Hong Kong. Gosano’s recollection of his return to the colony, which he viewed as ‘an imposition’, was rather bitter: ‘it was, again, the British, who stepped in to do our planning for us’. He wrote: ‘The Gosano family was promised nothing more, should the British retake [Hong Kong], than second-class citizenship, a penurious livelihood, and no material gratitude for years of voluntary service in behalf of the British Empire.’130 Gosano was not only upset about the little compensation he received for his service, but also the racist treatment that he and other people of colour received as ‘second-class citizens’. In the pages that followed, he explained bitterly how, despite his war service, he continued to be classified as a ‘Chinese’ surgeon by the government because he was not white. This dismissal of his Britishness was underlined by his paycheck, the amount of which was significantly smaller than that of his white colleagues, and subsequently resulted in his resignation from the government medical service in 1948. Gosano’s wartime experience was certainly exceptional within the Hong Kong Portuguese community. Unlike some Portuguese, his engagement with Britishness during the war went beyond receiving refugee relief. Though in a different capacity, his job as a government doctor continued: first as an unpaid doctor for the wounded British military personnel at the POW Camp and later at the British Consulate clinic in Macau. Not to mention his prominent role within the B.A.A.G. in Macau: even when he stepped down as the head of its Macau branch in 1945, he remained a member until its dissolution after the end of the war. Gosano co-signed the farewell letter that Lindsay Ride sent to all B.A.A.G. members at the dissolution of the group.131 His social life also contrasts sharply to the many oral history testimonies by Hong Kong-Portuguese that underscored how their community kept mostly to themselves. Gosano maintained friendly relations with white Britons: his friendship with his senior,

129 Ibid., p. 34. 130 Ibid., p. 36. 131 LBY K.00/965, Photocopy of Letter of Farewell by Lindsay Ride and Eddie Gosano.

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Dr. Isaac Newton, was only one amongst many that he wrote of fondly in his memoir.132 This exceptionality however makes Gosano’s wartime experience even more telling. If Gosano, who worked actively for British intelligence networks in Macau and held many professional and social connections with white Britons, still felt that his Britishness was rejected, then we can only imagine how the wider Hong Kong Portuguese community felt about their Britishness. The interviews mentioned above suggest that Gosano was not alone in feeling that the British state had not fully recognised the Hong Kong Portuguese as ‘British’ and treated them as ‘secondclass citizens’. As stranded refugees in Macau, they interacted with the British state more than ever as their livelihood now depended on the latter. While this unprecedented level of engagement certainly allowed amicable relations to emerge between recipients of British aid and certain white Britons – such as Reeves – some became disappointed as they felt that their loyal service for the British Empire was unappreciated, let alone their Britishness. This disengagement was also manifested in the community’s post-war migration trajectories. While most of the Portuguese refugees returned to Hong Kong soon after the end of the war, social unrest in the colony in the 1950s and the 1960s created much anxiety within the community and prompted another exodus. These included Gosano and his wife, who decided to leave Hong Kong – or in his words, their ‘Heung Ha’, the Cantonese romanisation of ancestral homeland [鄉下] – due to their fear of a Communist takeover of Hong Kong. Even though they had lived in Britain for fourteen months during his postgraduate study, they decided against the idea to migrate there: ‘It was decided that the England we visited in 1946 was no place for us non-British colonials in 1957. We were still not fully accepted as fully integrated citizens of the British Empire’.133 Eventually settling in California, Gosano wrote about how ‘always we shall be grateful to this United States of America’ for it ‘welcomed us without any debarment pertaining to race or creed’. Like Gosano, even though most Hong Kong Portuguese were British subjects, most of them in fact did not move to Britain, but to the United States, Canada, and Australia.134

132



133 134

These include Gosano’s former teacher and colleague at the B.A.A.G., Lindsay Ride, and Bevin Field in the Hong Kong Regiment. See Gosano, Hong Kong Farewell, pp. 51 & 54–55. Gosano, Hong Kong Farewell, p. 59. ‘Early Results of the Macanese Survey’, https://macstudies.net/early-results-of-the-­ macanese-survey/, 30 August 2019, accessed 27 October 2020. Note that 62.86 per cent

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In view of post-war British economy, moving to countries other than Britain could well be a pragmatic choice, one that some white British residents in China also made in the late 1940s.135 To many colonial subjects, this was also a result of the immigration restrictions Britain imposed on people of colour – which, in itself, manifested the state’s dismissal of the latter’s Britishness.136 But as Gosano’s writing suggests, Hong Kong Portuguese’s wartime experience demonstrated to them too vividly how many British bureaucrats still refused to accept them fully as Britons. In highlighting how some bureaucrats still saw being ‘British’ as little more than a racial category, the war severed the sense of belonging to Britishness that Gosano once had – a belonging that had taken decades to develop amongst the Hong Kong Portuguese community. **** On 30 August 1945, the Royal Navy formally accepted the surrender of the Imperial Japanese army and the British resumed colonial rule over Hong Kong. As Admiral Cecil Harcourt, commander of the fleet, entered the Stanley Internment Camp, the British internees raised a Union Jack flag that they had hidden throughout the Japanese occupation. Those present were clearly moved by the sight of the flag, even worrying that future ‘history books will offer a dry-as-dust record of one of the most stirring ceremonies in the Colony’.137 Such excitement about the return of British rule was not confined to only white Britons, but also colonial subjects. Henry Ching, the Chinese Australian editor of South China Morning Post, for instance, quickly summoned his staff and on the very next day, resumed the newspaper’s publication for the first time since December 1941.138 Yet, deep down, many knew that even as Hong Kong remained British, things were about to change. Less than a year later, on 19 July 1946, the Hong Kong Legislative Council discussed the government’s proposal

135 136 137 138

of the respondents had Hong Kong on their migration trajectory, 66 per cent of the respondents lived in the United States, 8.24 per cent in Canada, 7 per cent in Australia, and only 8.82 per cent lived in Europe (including Portugal). See, for instance, Robert A. Bickers, Britain in China: Community, Culture, and Colonialism, 1900–1949 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999), p. 240. See Kathleen Paul, ‘“British Subjects” and “British Stock”: Labour’s Postwar Imperialism’, Journal of British Studies, 34.2 (1995): 233–76. ‘Scene at Stanley: Stirring Ceremony at raising of flag, the Navy came in haste’, SCMP, 31 August 1945, p. 1. ‘30 August 1945, Harry Ching’s Wartime Diary’, https://gwulo.com/node/24691, accessed 26 October 2020. (Note that while Ching’s formal name was Henry, he was known to his family and friends as Harry, hence the title of the page).

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to repeal the Peak District (Residence) Ordinance, 1918 and the Cheung Chau (Residence) Ordinance, 1919.139 Alongside other earlier ordinances, these two ordinances empowered the government to enforce the racial segregation of Chinese and Europeans in the colony since 1888.140 The repeal provoked some bitter sentiments amongst the white British community: one reader even wrote a letter to the SCMP expressing his resentment under the pseudonym ‘Ex-3611’, making a reference to the Book of Exodus.141 But the government thought that it would be ‘out of harmony with the spirit of the times’ to keep such discriminatory laws, and a week later the laws were successfully repealed.142 Three months later, Young’s government appointed the first ever ethnic Chinese cadet officer – Paul Tsui, the HKU graduate and former B.A.A.G. member mentioned earlier in this chapter.143 More local Chinese police were also recruited, and for the first time in history, the Hong Kong police force had more than 50 per cent of Chinese members.144 In the decades following the war, more steps were gradually taken to disassemble the racial barriers set against people of colour. These measures prompted many in the younger generation to view the colonial administration in a more favourable light, but ironically the government had acted too late. Those who had experienced earlier unfair treatment could not easily forget, and therefore severed their connections with Britishness and started to move en masse. In earlier chapters we saw how Britishness was developing into an increasingly inclusive concept. Colonial subjects made active engagements with Britishness, not least encouraged by their legal status as British subjects and their interactions with other multiracial inhabitants in Hong Kong. Yet the Second World War exposed and magnified the disconnect between such perspectives and the racial conception of Britishness that British authorities often held. The war made it necessary for many Hong Kong British subjects to interact with the British state to an unprecedented scale, revealing to the former the shallowness of the rhetoric of imperial cosmopolitanism. That the war triggered relocation also meant that many were now taken away from the insularity of Hong Kong’s urban society, where multiple, subtle cross-cultural interactions 139 140 141 142 143

144

‘Minutes of Hong Kong Legislative Council’, 19 July 1946, pp. 63–64. More on the ordinances, see my discussion in Chapter 2. Ex-3611 ‘Housing Shortage’, SCMP, 19 July 1946, p. 7. ‘Minutes of Hong Kong Legislative Council’, 19 July 1946, p. 63. See John E. Strickland, ‘Paul Tsui Ka Cheung, 1916–1994’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch, Vol. 49 (2009): 267–73. Norman Miners, ‘The localization of the Hong Kong police force, 1842–1947’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 18.3 (1990): 296–315.

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encouraged the articulation of cosmopolitan sensibilities. Even when Hong Kong officials were at times appreciative of their subjects’ Britishness, those in other parts of the Empire did not – as we saw from the futile requests the Hong Kong governor made to his counterparts in other colonies about the evacuation of prominent colonial subjects in Hong Kong. The cruel practicalities of war, then, put the diverse forms of Britishness articulated in pre-war Hong Kong to a severe test.

Epilogue

After Empire, After Brexit

In July 1989, a schoolboy made several appearances in the South China Morning Post. The boy looked just like any other schoolchild one might pass by on the streets of Hong Kong – or Britain, really. He was dressed in full school uniform: a white shirt, a patterned school tie, a V-neck jumper, a blazer with school logo, and a pair of dark trousers. He was carrying a backpack, but also had a crossbody messenger’s bag on him. He stared right into the camera, but his earnest, innocent gaze could hardly distract the readers from seeing the poem printed at the bottom right corner of his portrait (Figure 12). Entitled ‘There’s no point in being almost British’, it reads: The coins in his pocket bear the impression of the Queen. On Saturday he plays football. His school flies the British flag. He doesn’t think about freedom because he takes it for granted. He is being raised in the British tradition in a British colony. He is one of the millions of people for whom Hong Kong is home. And who want to continue living here. All they want is some form of insurance for the future. And the only form of insurance that will mean anything to them is the right of abode in Britain. Otherwise, being almost British is like being homeless.1

An advertisement placed in the Post, this was part of a campaign lobbying for the British government to give its colonial subjects in Hong Kong the right of abode in Britain. While all those born and naturalised in Hong Kong still held a British status by that point, their legal entitlements shrank significantly compared to their predecessors. Anxious about the arrival of non-white immigrants from the West Indies and South Asia after the Second World War, successive British governments adopted restrictive immigration policies to prevent non-white former imperial subjects to settle in Britain.2 British subjects in Hong Kong were 1 ‘There’s no point in being almost British’, SCMP, 8 July 1989, p. 2. 2 Kathleen Paul, Whitewashing Britain: Race and Citizenship in the Postwar Era (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997). On more specifically how such changes applied to

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Figure 12  An image of South China Morning Post, 8 July 1989, p. 2, showing the ‘There’s no point in being almost British’ advertisement. Photo provided by Weldon Kong.

inhabitants of Hong Kong, see Chi-kwan Mark, ‘Decolonising Britishness? The 1981 British Nationality Act and the Identity Crisis of Hong Kong Elites’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 48.3 (2020): 565–90, at pp. 566–8.

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now British Dependent Territories citizens (BDTCs), holding no rights of entry and abode in Britain. This status was bound to change on 1 July 1997: according to the Sino-British Joint Declaration, the British government would transfer its sovereignty over Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China on the midnight of July 1, and the city would then become the PRC’s Special Administrative Region. Afterwards, Hong Kong-BDTCs would become British Nationals (Overseas), a nationality status created in the 1986 Hong Kong (British Nationality) Order that came with no right of abode in Britain. BN(O) holders were subject to immigration control and, like any aliens, would need a visa to work and study in the United Kingdom. As anxieties about the city’s future mounted, the Hong Kong public asked Britain to give them more protection. Early on during the SinoBritish negotiations that started in May 1982, many were already losing confidence. They only grew more pessimistic: in September 1983, the Hong Kong dollar exchange rate even recorded an all-time low that the Hong Kong government had to peg it with the US dollar at a fixed rate to stabilise the currency.3 Concerns about Hong Kong’s autonomy after 1997 intensified in 1989, when student protests in Tiananmen Square faced a crackdown by the Chinese government. Hong Kong’s multiethnic communities, politicians, and even colonial officials started lobbying for residents there to have the right of abode in Britain as a form of insurance. Civic groups, such as the Right of Abode Delegation, Hong Kong People Saving Hong Kong, and Honour Hong Kong, were formed to mobilise support in Hong Kong and Britain for widening the rights of BN(O) holders. In April 1989, Dame Lydia Dunn (a year later Baroness Dunn, becoming the first Hong Kong Chinese to receive British peerage) even broke into tears when giving testimony in a public hearing organised by the British House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee.4 A senior member of both the Legislative and Executive Councils in Hong Kong, Dunn made an emotional appeal to the British policymakers to guarantee Hong Kongers ‘a hope of last resort in Britain’. Even the last governors of Hong Kong, David Wilson and Chris Patten, also lobbied to London to confer full British citizenship to the BDTCs in Hong Kong.5 Their efforts were fruitless. The ‘motherland’ 3

Catherine R. Schenk, ‘Hong Kong SAR’s Monetary and Exchange Rate Challenges’, in Hong Kong SAR’s Monetary and Exchange Rate Challenges: Historical Perspectives, edited by Catherine R. Schenk (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), pp. 3–14, at p. 9. 4 ‘Hong Kong Leader Upset at “Betrayal”’, The Guardian, 21 April 1989, p. 11. 5 ‘Hong Kong’, Hansard, 21 June 1989, Vol. 509, cc 223–61; ‘Tory fury at Patten call for 3m passports: Governor says Hong Kong Chinese should be given the right to live in Britain as Conservative MP claims country is “full up”’, The Observer, 24 September 1995.

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refused to give BN(O)s right of abode, and only rolled out a ‘British Nationality (Hong Kong) Selection Scheme’ in 1989 to allow no more than 50,000 heads of families who were Hong Kong BDTCs and met certain eligibility criteria to apply for registration as British citizens.6 ‘There’s no point in being almost British’: yet for many in Hong Kong, even being almost British counts. Earlier we have seen many colonial subjects in interwar Hong Kong who went through the trouble to make active claims to their British subjecthood, even though state officials blinded by racism often withheld the former’s legal entitlements. Half a century later, history repeats itself. The BN(O) status had to be acquired by registration, and because of its lack of right of abode in Britain, some regarded it merely a ‘flawed “second class” travel document designed to deny its holder any claim to residency in the United Kingdom’.7 Nevertheless, hundreds of thousands registered themselves for this status. Applications could be made through the post, something disseminated through the news and television advertisement since the early 1990s. Despite this, many in their eagerness still flocked to the Immigration Tower in Wan Chai.8 As the deadline for those born outside Hong Kong to register for naturalisation as BDTCs approached in March 1996, officers of the Immigration Department worked on 12-hour shifts on weekends to handle the influx of applicants.9 The queue was so long that it extended to the nearby Wan Chai Sports Ground, where a fist fight even broke out following a row over queue jumping.10 In the final week alone, the Department received 130,145 applications, with 54,178 applicants showing up in person before midnight on the last day.11 In the end, approximately three million people were granted a BN(O) status. Why did Britishness still matter to these three million people, when 1997 was going to be the end of the British Empire? Why did they still go through the trouble to register themselves for a British status, when, unlike their predecessors examined earlier in this book, being legally British in post-colonial Hong Kong would not bring them any significant political and social privileges? As the pro-Beijing politician Rita Fan Hsu Lai-tai argued, this craze for Britishness might just be a natural desire 6 ‘港人居英權方案終告揭盅 將採計分方法甄選必須持有英籍護照 [Rights of Abode Scheme for Hong Kongers finally announced, points-based selection and only those with British passports eligible]’, Huaqiao ribao [華僑日報], 21 December 1989, p. 1. 7 ‘Editorial: BNO is Hongkong’s passport to nowhere’, SCMP, 10 August 1987. 8 See, for instance, ‘[政府宣傳片] 人民入境事務處 (1992年) [Hong Kong Public Information Film: the Immigration Department]’, www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgPL9KWN0ww&ab_ channel=hkad1990s, uploaded 21 May 2012, accessed 29 December 2020. 9 ‘12-hour shifts cover rush for citizenship’, SCMP, 1 April 1996. 10 ‘Scuffle Bail’, SCMP, 1 April 1996. 11 ‘54,000 beat passport deadline’, SCMP, 1 April 1996, p. 1.

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for travel convenience, especially as the SAR passport, which would be available to Hong Kong Chinese after the handover, had rights of visafree access in fewer countries.12 On the other hand, as one applicant revealed to a journalist in 1996, concerns about the future motivated them to sustain their Britishness: ‘I am getting one because the PRC government is frightening’, revealing a view that saw legal Britishness some form of insurance.13 Indeed, even though the number of BN(O) renewals had dropped significantly since the 2000s as the SAR passport gradually received more visa-free access, doubts about Hong Kong’s autonomy since the Umbrella Movement in 2014 have rekindled interest in Britishness. The SAR government’s proposal to introduce the Fugitive Offenders amendment bill in 2019 and its responses to the two million protestors who opposed the bill resulted in a drastic boost of the renewal number. In 2019 alone, 120,826 Hong Kongers applied and successfully received a renewal of their BN(O) passports.14 During the first eleven months of 2020, approximately 272,000 BN(O) passports were renewed.15 This significant number of course had much to do with the British government’s announcement of offering BN(O) holders a new pathway to citizenship in summer 2020, a policy that we will discuss below, but it still manifests vividly how uncertainties about the future of Hong Kong fuel Hong Kongers’ engagements with Britishness. So, Britishness clearly still matters to those in post-1997 Hong Kong. And as in the case in colonial Hong Kong, Britishness means more than just a legal status. In November 2019, six students from the city’s Queen Elizabeth School wrote a letter to the namesake of their school, asking her government to ‘stand with Hong Kong in defence of freedom and democracy’. These students were likely to be born at least seven years after the handover, meaning they do not hold the BN(O) status. Yet, the letter conveyed not only an understanding of British culture – ‘this is our darkest hour’  – but also an allegiance to the Queen  – ‘we have the honour to be, Madam, Your Majesty’s humble and obedient servants’. To the historian of Britishness, even more notable was their mention of the legacy of British colonialism in Hong Kong: ‘we love 12

Ibid. 13 Ibid. 14 ‘BNO 持有人應獲居英權？港區國安法掀港人討論移民 2019年12萬人申請續領BNO [Should BNO holders be given rights of abode in Britain? The Hong Kong National Security Law triggered talks of migration. 120,000 applied for renewing their BNO in 2019]’, Ming Pao, 25 May 2020. 15 ‘27.2萬本BNO去年簽發飈八成 國安法生效後申請大增 [272,000 BNO renewed last year. Drastic increase in applications after the National Security Law becomes effective]’, Ming Pao, 1 January 2021.

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our home for its cultural diversity and the cherished legacy of British governance, notably a well-established legal system safeguarding our rights and freedom’.16 These read alarmingly close to the articulation of imperial cosmopolitanism we saw in Chapter 5, when Masons paid their formality and expressed their ‘loyalty and devotion to His Majesty and the Royal Family’, and when Rotarians called the British Empire a ‘safeguard of freedom’. By no means is the student authors’ knowledge of British politics and allegiance to the Queen universally shared by the youth and other former British subjects in Hong Kong. Nevertheless, if we consider this alongside the increasing visibility of nostalgia for British colonialism in Hong Kong today, and the long queue outside the British consulate to leave flowers and messages thanking the Queen after her death in September 2022,17 it reveals how widely is the rhetoric of imperial cosmopolitanism circulated in the city’s public discourse. Some find it astonishing that Hong Kongers, whose parents and grandparents (if not themselves) would have experienced the unfairness of colonial hierarchies only decades ago, actively deployed the rhetoric of imperial cosmopolitanism. But if we look back to the longer history of multiracial Britishness in Hong Kong, it is not hard to see why and how imperial cosmopolitanism features in many individuals’ memories and narratives of British colonialism in Hong Kong. There is little doubt, as shown earlier in this book and in other empirical studies on the wider British Empire, that colonial officials actively constructed and reinforced the racial notion of Britishness through legislations, ethnic categories, segregation in schools, residential areas, and clubs and associations, and other social practices. Such institutional discrimination against colonial subjects was too obvious to ignore. In Hong Kong, the frequent use of phrases such as ‘we the British race’, ‘we Britishers’, and the ‘British races’ in official documents, newspapers, diaries, and even oral history testimony indicates how ‘British’ meant at many times a racial category or an ethno-national identity.

16

Original article: ‘一群伊利沙伯中學學生致伊利沙伯女王二世公開信: 冀望能與女王在 香港危機上 “connect” [An Open Letter to Queen Elizabeth II from students of Queen Elizabeth School: Hoping to connect with the Queen on Hong Kong Crisis’, Stand News, 22 November 2019. Note that Stand News, an online news outlet, has now ceased operation after its senior staff were arrested due to the National Security Law. But one can still find the open letter in other sources online, such as this blog: http://tigerz-note​ .blogspot.com/2019/11/blog-post_22.html?m=0, accessed 12 May 2022. 17 ‘Hong Kong residents queue for hours to pay tribute to Queen Elizabeth: British consulate in Hong Kong extends opening hours as thousands gather to remember “boss lady”’, Guardian, 13 September 2022.

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The racist nature of colonialism, and even the hardening of identities and rising ethno-nationalism in the twentieth century, however, could hardly prevent Britishness from developing into a belonging that people of colour also possessed. Take the examples of the Hong Kong Portuguese in the Volunteer Corps and the British Army Aid Group, as well as the Chinese students at the University of Hong Kong cooperating actively with the colonial regime at the high tide of anti-British movements in China. Colonial education, public services, and even their sheer presence in a British colony cultivated amongst them a sense of belonging to the British Empire. And let us not forget that members of Hong Kong’s civil society have long used imperial cosmopolitanism as a strategic tool to counteract Chinese nationalism. Earlier we have seen how the global rise of associational culture provided multiracial urbanites in interwar Hong Kong with the means to redefine Britishness as a cosmopolitan sensibility in the public world. Much of their keen interest was a response to anxieties about international politics – not only the deteriorating international conditions in the late 1930s, but also the rise of nationalism and anticolonial movements in interwar China. The thought that a departure from British colonialism might not necessarily benefit Hong Kong, but could possibly harm their economic interest, social status, and cosmopolitan lifestyle motivated middle-class professionals to participate in the construction and promotion of the rhetoric of imperial cosmopolitanism. This longer history of the rhetoric gives us some insight in understanding why those discontented with the SAR regime’s increasing attempt to cultivate Chinese nationalism, and more widely, China’s increasing presence in the city’s local politics and affairs often incited positive, fragmented memories of the colonial days. In protests and demonstrations, the colonial flag was waved, and ‘God Save the Queen’ was sung.18 Off the streets, comparisons were made of the policies, public relations management,19 and even their family members20 between the last few British 18

Mark Hampton, Hong Kong and British Culture, 1945–97 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016), pp. 213–14; ‘Hong Kong: Protesters sing God Save the Queen as violence erupts at anti-China demonstrations again’, Independent, 16 September 2019. 19 For instance, in 2015, a podcast channel, D100+, posted the picture of Chris Patten drinking Chinese herbal tea and another of CY Leung’s van being circulated by the police when the latter went to visit a public housing estate. See ‘誰真正親民？你懂的! [Who’s actually friendly to the people? You know it!]’ www.facebook.com/D100HK.M/ photos/a.287105994734995/811855795593343/?__tn__=%2CO*F, uploaded 3 August 2015, accessed 20 December 2020. 20 ‘前任現任「第一家庭」 女兒同受注目[Daughters of both former and current “First Family” receive much attention]’ Hong Kong 01, 11 April 2016, www.hk01.com/社會新 聞/15954/前任現任-第一家庭-女兒同受注目, accessed 28 December 2020.

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governors and the chief executives of the SAR to allege that Hong Kong was better off under colonial rule. Rita Fan Hsu Lai-tai, the pro-Beijing politician mentioned above who later became the chairperson of the Legislative Council, might be right that those who expressed an admiration for British colonialism simply wanted Hong Kong to ‘return to colonial rule’.21 But it is equally plausible that they aimed at expressing a disappointment for the present regime and even counteracting the regime’s attempt to impose a Chinese national identity upon them. As journalists and observers have noted, the expressions of grief in Hong Kong about the Queen’s death was not only about mourning the passing of their former head of state: rather Hong Kongers were using these expressions to subtly defy China.22 The British government’s move to give BN(O) holders a pathway for full British citizenship signified more vividly the legacies of multiracial Britishness. Hong Kongers’ existing connections with Britishness has long been used in the campaigns for more rights and protections of BN(O) holders. As early as in the late 1980s, some had highlighted their engagements with Britishness as they made pleas to the British government for giving Hong Kongers the right of abode in Britain.23 In July 2020, the British Home Secretary Priti Patel announced details of the Hong Kong BN(O) visa, which gives BN(O) holders the right of live and work or study in the United Kingdom, with a pathway to full British citizenship.24 The public first learnt about the plan through an article that Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote for The Times in early June 2020, in which he used the plan as a leverage to persuade China not to impose the controversial National Security Law in Hong Kong. ‘If China imposes its national security law’, Johnson wrote, ‘the British government will change our immigration rules and allow any holder

21

‘香港示威遊行中的港英旗:戀殖還是發洩不滿 [Colonial flags in Hong Kong Protests: Nostalgia for colonialism or expressing discontent?], BBC News (Chinese), 5 July 2019, www.bbc.com/zhongwen/trad/chinese-news-48865476, accessed 28 December 2020. 22 Kathleen Magramo, ‘In Hong Kong, mourning the Queen has another purpose: defying China’, CNN, 15 September 2022; Zixu Wang and John Yoon, ‘In Mourning the Queen, Some in Hong Kong Mourn the Past: A Memorial for Elizabeth Has Given Residents of the Former British Colony a Rare Platform for Public, if Quiet, Political Dissent’, New York Times, 16 September 2022. 23 Margaret Ng, ‘Every Tuesday Viewpoint: Admirable Words Disguise a Clutch of Empty Promises’, SCMP, 4 July 1989. 24 ‘Hong Kong British National (Overseas) Visa Policy Statement (Plain Text Version)’, UK Visas and Immigration, 22 July 2020.

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of [BN(O)] passports from Hong Kong to come to the UK […] and be given further immigration rights, including the right to work, which could place them on a route to citizenship’.25 Johnson further explained this plan: ‘Many people in Hong Kong fear that their way of life – which China pledged to uphold – is under threat. If China proceeds to justify their fears, then Britain could not in good conscience shrug our shoulders and walk away; instead we will honour our obligations and provide an alternative’.26 Since the introduction of the BN(O) visa on 31 January 2021, a total of 81,775 applications for the visa has been made outside the UK by the end of that year.27 This sudden honouring of obligations, which Johnson’s predecessors had neglected to do for decades, was of course a response to the controversial Law, and might have much to do with the British government’s assumptions about the wealth and social background of the BN(O) holders who would take up this offer.28 Yet it would not manifest without the active lobbying by BN(O) holders currently residing in Britain, Hong Kong activists and protestors, as well as Britons who lived in Hong Kong and/or have connections with Hong Kong Chinese. Throughout this book we have encountered white Britons who came to understand Britishness as something not only their ‘kith and kin’ could process. Frequent cross-cultural interactions in schools, the workplace, civil society, and even while on exodus enabled solidarity to be forged between white and non-white subjects with a similar professional, middle-class outlook. As journalists like Alfred Hicks criticised Major Louis Cassel for advocating to protect the interests of the British whites in Hong Kong, we see a determination to reject a narrowly defined Britishness. And Hicks’s opinion was far from an exception – readers of the South China Morning Post, a competitor of Hicks’s newspaper, shared a similar desire to include subjects of colour as being British. The HKU professors Gordon King and Lindsay Ride also went above and beyond to ensure their students’ entitlements to British protection during the war. Together these white Britons and

25

Boris Johnson, ‘Boris Johnson on the Hong Kong crisis: We Will Meet Our Obligations, Not Walk Away’, The Times, 3 June 2020. 26 Johnson, ‘Boris Johnson on the Hong Kong crisis’. 27 Home Office Statistical Data Set, ‘Entry Clearance Visa Applications and Outcomes (MS Excel Spreadsheet)’, www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/managed-migrationdatasets#entry-clearance-visas-granted-outside-the-uk, accessed 24 February 2022. 28 Home Office, ‘Impact Assessment 2020 No. 70, Hong Kong British National (Overseas) Visa’, 22 October 2020, UK Statutory Instruments.

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colonial subjects in Hong Kong enriched the meaning of Britishness, and decades later, Britons who lived in Hong Kong or have connections with Hong Kong Chinese joined in enthusiastically as activists pleaded to the British government to widen the rights of BN(O) holders. The best-known example is perhaps the last governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, who, along with many Britons with personal connections with Hong Kong, continuously lobbies for the right of abode in Britain for BN(O) holders.29 But as the transfer of Hong Kong sovereignty on 1 July 1997 is deemed as the end of the British Empire, do these different historic notions of Britishness matter beyond Hong Kong? I believe so. Like the idea of ‘identity’ or any identity category, Britishness is an ambiguous concept connoting varied and sometimes contradictory meanings. This book shows how, when, and why individuals (especially people of colour) experienced tensions, bitterness, and prejudice as they engaged with the different notions of Britishness. Chapter 1 demonstrates vividly how racial – and class – assumptions replaced legal definitions in determining the Britishness of Hong Kong’s colonial population. The stories of Hong Kong Portuguese exhibit the tensions caused when Britishness interplayed with other existing identities. As they approached Britishness, people of colour risked on one hand being accused of betraying their diasporic heritage, and on the other being denied Britishness by the British state. Many of these issues came down to a neglect of the multi-faceted nature of identity and belonging. Exploring the multiracial engagements with Britishness in 1910–45 Hong Kong helps us to appreciate not only the compatibility of Britishness with other existing identities, but also the issues that people of colour face as they engage with Britishness. Thinking about the past and present of Hong Kong’s multiracial Britons also allows us to reflect on how and why postcolonial nationalism could, at times, be incompatible with transnational ethnic and regional identities.30 29

‘Chris Patten: China’s security laws a betrayal of Hong Kong people’, The Guardian, 23 May 2020. Other notable examples include staff and members of the Hong Kong Watch, such as Benedict Rogers and Sophie Lyddon. 30 A prominent example was the hundred of thousands of East African Asians who relocated to Britain in the 1960s and 70s to flee from social and ethno-political persecution. More, see Saima Nasar, ‘We Refugees? Redefining Britain’s East African Asians’, in Migrant Britain: Histories and Historiographies: Essays in Honour of Colin Holmes, edited by Jennifer Craig-Norton, Christhard Hoffmann, and Tony Kushner (London: Routledge, 2018), pp. 138–48. Another notable example was the development of modern citizenship in South and Southeast Asia. More, see Sunil Amrith, ‘Struggles for Citizenship around the Bay of Bengal’, in The Postcolonial Moment in South and Southeast Asia, edited by Gyan Prakash, Nikhil Menon, and Michael Laffan (London: Bloomsbury, 2019), pp. 107–20.

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As this book brings to light how Britishness meant much more than whiteness in the crown colony of Hong Kong, it also helps us to better understand the longer history of British ambivalence towards other Europeans. It is no new knowledge that being British has often been perceived – both in the past and present – as the opposite of being European. In exploring how white Britons in Hong Kong used Britishness to exclude other Europeans from enjoying their colonial privileges, this book has taken the discussion to Britain’s empire in Asia. By the end of the First World War, it became clear that even in Hong Kong, where white Britons called themselves as ‘Europeans’ as if the term was a euphemism of ‘white’, Britishness meant much more than whiteness. In addition to Britain’s imperial rivalry with other European empires in China (and more widely in Africa and Asia), the global economic and political crises in the 1930s triggered white Britons there to draw a clear line between themselves and other Europeans in town. On paper they seemed friendly with the latter, but only a moment of crisis exposed these prejudices and suspicions. For Britons anxious about the global economy and Britain’s dismantling enterprise in Asia – such as the keen supporters of the British Whites League – Britishness was a strong, useful tool in ensuring that other Europeans could not enjoy the economic and political privileges that some deemed already in jeopardy. What is even more intriguing was perhaps the emergence of a notion of Britishness that were inclusive to colonial subjects whilst excluding other Europeans. In interwar Hong Kong, expressions of British exceptionalism were also tied to a cosmopolitan view of Britishness, making Euroscepticism understood as something that was not incompatible with cosmopolitanism – or at the very least, imperial cosmopolitanism. This then perhaps explains why some of those in favour of Brexit consider their view cosmopolitan, a notion which, at the first glance, might seem contradictory to cosmopolitanism.31 This book, then, adds an important historical and international perspective in unpacking the contemporary Brexit debates, especially the seemingly paradoxical alliance of exclusive and cosmopolitan forms of Britishness. **** Born in late colonial Hong Kong, I moved to the UK for my PhD in September 2015. Soon after my arrival, I was confronted with the complexity of Britishness: at the passport control at Heathrow with my BN(O) 31

Eleni Andreouli, ‘Cosmopolitan Brexiteers, or when “European” means inwardlooking’, blogpost, 5 June 2019, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2019/06/05/cosmopolitanbrexiteers-or-when-european-means-inward-looking/, accessed 20 January 2021.

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passport, not knowing whether I should go to the UK/EU queue or the ‘Others’ queue; at the bank explaining why I am classified as an ‘international’ student while holding a British passport; and as when I was about to sign a rental lease, my British housemates and I challenged our landlord why I was charged a year’s rent upfront despite my British passport. I thought my confrontation with Britishness would mellow as I settled in, but it did not. Britain’s increasing turn inwards in the past few years pushes me to ponder at what points one form of Britishness is more relevant than the other. The longer I live in Britain, the more I see what constitutes Britishness is still as much a debate today as it was in 1910–45 Hong Kong. Even though we would like to think being ‘British’ is not racially defined unlike in the timeframe of this book, questions such as ‘what are British values’ and ‘who can be British’ are still being asked often enough. I need not to say how this is interwoven in contemporary debates on Brexit, the ‘ISIS bride’, and the Black Lives Matter campaign. After Empire, after Brexit, as Britain is searching for a new world role, Britons are also searching for what it means to be British. Seeing how Britishness existed in multiple, varied forms in 1910–45 Hong Kong, a colony where whiteness was supposed to matter most, helps us unravel what it means to be British today.

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Index

Alabaster, C. G., 38 Alves, J. M., 154 Armenia and Armenians, 56, 67 Assumpcao, J., 65 Australia and Australians, 29, 56–58, 231 Commonwealth of, 204 evacuation to. See warfare, Second World War, evacuation scheme (1940) White Australia policy, 204 Aw Boon Haw, 211 Bailey, W. S., 194 Basto, Castro, 145 Belcher, Captain Edward, 24 Belilios, Emanuel Raphael, 167 Bellamy, L. C. F., 173 Benson, Stella, 68 birth control, 180–81, 187–88 eugenics, relation to. See Hong Kong, organisations and societies, Eugenics League Margaret Sanger. See Sanger, Margaret Blake, Henry, 63–65 Braga, Hugh, 150 Braga, J. P., 145–50, 147, 150, 152, 158–60, 177–78, 195 Braga, Jack, 152, 159 Braga, Paul, 150 Braga, Stuart, 149, 228 Braga, Tony, 150, 153 Britishness British citizenship, 25–30, 237 ‘British races’, 55–60, 88, 201, 240 British subjects, xiii, 12, 25–41, 107, 151, 201, 226 British Dependent Territories citizens (BDTCs), 237 British Nationals (Overseas) (BN(O)), 237, 242

270

Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies (CUKCs), 30 legal status of, 24–52 ‘Britishers’, 88, 151, 161, 240 documentation birth certificates, 43, 44, 47 passports, 12, 31, 41–46, 207, 239, 246 visas, 242–43 jus soli, 26–27 legislation Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act (1919), 27 Aliens-Naturalization Ordinance (1845), 31 British Nationality Act (1772), 26 British Nationality Act (1914), 29, 32 British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act (1914), 26 Commonwealth Immigrants Act (1962, 1968, 1971), 30 Naturalization Act (1870), 26 meaning of, 1, 7, 23, 38–39, 77, 84, 201–7, 214, 221–32 multiracial, 3–14 naturalisation, 24, 26, 31, 51, 235 public service, 142–51 rejection and renunciation of, 13, 48–50 scouting, 138, 143 white Britons, xiii, 1, 6–9, 16, 21, 29, 199–200 education of, 63–66 as Europeans, 59–60, 87, 245 unemployment of, 69–73, 88 White British League. See Cassel, Major Louis, White British League (British Whites League) Cadogan, Sir Alexander M. G., 46 Canada and Canadians, 29, 56, 231 Cassel, Major Louis, 70–73, 243 White British League (British Whites League), 69–72, 81, 245

271

Index Catholicism and Catholics, 9, 22, 42, 83, 111, 133, 139–40, 224 missionaries. See Italy and Italians, missionaries schools, 135 Cerveira de Albuquerque e Castro, A., 159 Chamberlain, Neville, 79 Chan, P. M., 112 Chater, Sir Catchick Paul, 167 Chen Lifu, 210 Cheung, Sir Oswald, 218 China and the Chinese, 56 Canton, 82, 120 Chungking, 210, 214, 216 diaspora, 129 Hakka people, 34 Han people, 18, 38 Hankow, 120 Hoklo people, 34 Hong Kong, transfer of sovereignty, 235–39, 244 hostility towards, 67 jus sanguinis, 48 legislation Amended Nationality Law of the Republic of China (1914), 42 National Security Law (2020), 128 mainland, as distinct from other Chinese groups, 64, 109, 125, 131, 222 Manchuria, Japanese invasion of, 74, 122, 174 Marco Polo Bridge Incident, 122 mui tsai system, 183–87 nationalism, 92, 115, 125, 143, 174, 241 Chinese National Day (Double Ten), 113, 117 May Fourth Movement, 116–18 May Thirtieth Movement, 39, 119–20, 122 New Culture Movement, 36, 117 Self-Strengthening Movement, 93 Shakee Massacre, 120 Nationality Law (1929), 42 newspapers, 181 People’s Republic of China, 237 Punti people, 34 Republic of China, 92, 115 Scramble for China, 94 Shandong, 116 Shanghai, 4, 75, 119–20, 169 Kwanghua University, 119 St. John’s University, 108, 119 Straits Chinese, 10, 20, 105, 111, 126 Tanka people, 34

Tiananmen Square protests, 237 Wuchang Uprising, 113 Ching, Henry, 204, 232 Chu Wai Tai, 43 Clarke, Chas L., 85 Clementi, Sir Cecil, 49, 101, 104, 121, 148 cosmopolitanism belonging, 13, 142–51 civilising mission of, 168–75, 180–89 class, relation to, 165–66, 174, 183–87 fragility of, 201 imperial, 19, 20, 108, 165, 168–75 internationalism, 165, 198. See also Hong Kong, organisations and societies Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), 175 Freemasonry, 3, 18, 22, 167–75, 197 Rotary Club, 3, 18, 22, 167–75, 179–80, 197 post-colonial, 240–42 Crestejo, Adelaide, 223 Cunliffe-Lister, P., 44 d’Almada e Castro Jr., Leonardo, 146 d’Almada e Castro, Leonardo, 46 da Roza, C. A., 149, 159 da Silva, F. X. A., 156 Davidson, James, 172 de V. Soares, Francisco P., 228 Denmark and Danes, 65 Des Voeux, William, 62 Donald, W. H., 94 Dunn, Dame (now Baronness) Lydia, 237 Eitel, Ernest John, 31 Elliot, Captain Charles, 24 Eu, Eleanor, 207–11, 222 Eu Tong Sen, 185 Eurasians as a distinct community, xiii–xiv, 6, 16, 36–39, 56 hostility towards, 47–50, 202–4 wartime service of, 215, 218, 219, 221 Fan Hsu Rita Lai-tai, 238, 242 Fong Wai Yin, 205 Forrest, R. A. D., 188 France and the French, 201 Frost, B. L., 192–93, 195 Fu, S. S., 188 Fu Bing Chang, 114

272

Index

Gao Juefu, 118, 125, 127 gender relations birth control. See birth control concubine system, ending of, 187 families. See Australia and Australians, evacuation to gender ratios, 57 mui tsai system, 183–87 women, exclusion of, 67, 161, 169, 171 women, involvement in civil society, 185 Germany and Germans, 65–67, 75 German National Day, 80 hostility towards, 80–83, 86 Gipperich, H., 80 Gittins, Sam, 218 Goa, xiv Gosano, Eddie (B.A.A.G. code name Phoenix), 152, 219, 226, 229–32 Great Depression, the, 18, 68, 73–74 Hahn, Emily, 199 Hall, Bishop Ronald, 84 Harcourt, Admiral Cecil, 232 Harston, J. Scott, 85 Hennessy, Sir John Pope, 31, 146 Hicks, Alfred, 243 Higgs, J. R., 198 Ho Kom-tong, 188 Ho Shai-lai, 48–50 Hodgkin, Henry, 175 Hong Kong Battle of, 215 British Resident Civil Population, 56 census data, 33–41, 55–60 1911, 5, 7, 137 1921, 151 1931, 20, 45, 52, 73–74 accuracy of, 39–40 Central District, 2, 12 Cheung Chau, 177 Convention of Peking, 4 as a Crown Colony, xiv, 24, 207 Hong Kong and Yaumatei Ferry Pier, 199 Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps (HKVDC), 142–44, 160, 215 Japanese occupation of, 4, 22, 87, 143, 199–201, 207–15 Kai Tak Airport, 207 Kowloon, 12, 190 Kowloon Hospital, 193 Peninsular Hotel, 208 legislation Cheung Chau (Residence) Ordinance, 1919, 233

Compulsory Service Ordinance (1939), 215 European District Reservation Ordinance (1888), 62 European Reservation laws, 177 Fugitive Offenders amendment bill (2019), 239 Hill District Reservation Ordinance (1904), 62 Hong Kong (British Nationality) Order (1986), 237 Marriage Bill (1971), 187 Medical Registration Ordinance (DATE), 99 mui tsai, laws on, 184 Ordinance (1940), 86 Peak District (Residence) Ordinance (1918), 63, 233 Vagrancy Act (1897), 70 Legislative Council, 145–48, 159, 166, 191, 203, 232, 242 Naval Volunteer Reserve, 215 newspapers, 17, 68–69, 194 China Mail, 85, 94, 178 Hong Kong Daily Press, 85, 157 Hong Kong Observer, 148 Hongkong Telegraph, 70, 148, 158, 205 O Petardo, 160 South China Morning Post, 66, 70, 73, 78, 82–84, 144, 151, 177, 193, 203–4, 232, 235, 236 organisations and societies, 163–65 Anti-Mui Tsai Society, 184–85 Associacao Portuguesa de Socorros Mutuos (Socorros Mutuos), 154 British Army Aid Group (B.A.A.G.), 201, 216–21, 229–32 Chinese Chamber of Commerce, 166 Chinese Club, 166 Chinese Recreation Club, 166 Chinese YMCA of Hong Kong, 166 Club de Recreio, 166 Club Lusitano, 149, 159, 166 Constitutional Reform Association, 146, 191 Eugenics League, 22, 168, 180–89, 186, 198 Hong Kong Club (The Club), 8, 66–68, 166 Hong Kong Cricket Club, 67, 166 Hong Kong Jockey Club, 67, 166 Hong Kong People Saving Hong Kong, 237 Honour Hong Kong, 237

Index Kowloon Residents’ Association (KRA), 19, 22, 148, 168, 190–97 League of Fellowship, 22, 168, 175–79 Liga Portuguesa de Hongkong, 39 New Territories Agricultural Association, 149 Right of Abode Delegation, 237 Society for the Protection of the Mui Tsai, 184–85 St George’s Society, 53 St. John’s Ambulance Brigade, 139, 150 Yacht Club, 166 Sanitary Board, 145, 148, 166, 195 schools Belilios School, 155, 156 Bridge Street Ragged School, 137 Italian Convent, 155 Kowloon British School, 64 La Salle College, 135–42, 155 Portuguese School of HongKong, 154–56 Queen Elizabeth School, 239 St. Francis Portuguese School, 137 St. Joseph’s College (previously St. Saviour’s College), 135–143, 154–56 Seamen’s Strike (1922), 118 Sino-British Joint Declaration, 237 sovereignty, transfer of, 195 Stanley Beach, 220 Stanley Internment Camp, 87, 199, 209 Statue Square, 199, 208 Strike-Boycott (1925–26), 39, 139, 174 transfer of sovereignty, 235–39, 244 Treaty of Nanking, 4 University of (HKU), 64, 90–116, 131, 201 Chinese Medical Relief Association, 122 compulsory residence at, 101 Hong Kong Students’ Relief Association, 123 Hong Kong University Engineering Journal, 104 Relief Committee, 210–15 Rhodes Trust Postgraduate Fellowships, 214 staff at, 170, 173, 209 students at, 20–21, 105, 108, 110, 114, 121, 124–28, 216–19 Union Magazine, 103, 109, 112, 114–15, 121 University Endowment Fund, 105 University Ordinance (1911), 99

273 Victoria Harbour, 12, 137 Victoria Peak (the Peak), 60–63, 61, 152, 194 Violet Peel Health Centre, 181 Hornell, Sir William, 106, 121, 123 Hotung, Eva, 188 Hotung, Lady Clara, 188 Hotung, Sir Robert, 48–50, 63, 64, 184, 188 How-Martyn, Edith, 180–81 Hu Pei Lung, 125 Huang, Rayson, 107 Hung Lo Pak, 115 India and Indians, 6, 39, 56 Domiciled Europeans, 58 hostility towards, 29, 36, 45, 67 nationalism, 28 organisations and societies, 22, 164 Parsees, 67, 169 Simla, 60 wartime service of, 221 Ireland and the Irish, 139–40, 207 Irving, Edward, 64 Italy and Italians hostility towards, 82–83 missionaries, 82–83 Jamaica and Jamaicans, 30 Japan and the Japanese, 67 Hong Kong, occupation of. See Hong Kong, Japanese occupation of hostility towards, 117 Jewishness and Jews, 56, 67, 85 hostility towards, 83 refugees and migrants, 27, 82, 86, 198 Johnson, Boris, 242 Jordan, Sir John, 95 jus sanguinis. See China and the Chinese, jus sanguinis jus soli. See Britishness, jus soli Kadoorie, Lord Lawrence, 185, 199 Kemp, Sir Joseph, 32 Kennedy-Skipton, Helen, 207 Khay Hua Theng, 121 King, Prof. Gordon, 210, 212, 213, 218, 243 King, Tai-sung James, 115 Kotwall, Jimmy, 229 Kuo Ping Ho, 118 Kuribayashi, Ichiji, 117 Kwok Chan, 188 Lai Chai, 43–45 Lam, Constance, 185

274

Index

languages Cantonese, 6, 35, 65, 101, 106, 185, 221 Chinese, 64, 109, 112, 114, 138 English, 35, 64, 70, 95, 133, 135–37, 140, 153–59, 221, 224 French, 136, 138 Hakka, 6 Hokkien, 106 Hoklo, 6 Italian, 136 Malay, 35 Mandarin, 106, 221 Patois, 35, 132, 153, 157 Portuguese, 132, 135–37, 153–59, 224 Sinhalese, 35 Spanish, 136 Tanka, 6 vernacular, 38 Lau Teng Kee, 218 Lee, Francis, 219 Lee Ching Iu, 123 Li, Ellen, 186 Li Wah, 43 Liang, Y. C., 219, 230 Lim Chong-eang, 115 Lloyd, J. D., 34, 39, 57 Lo, Sir M. K., 185, 188, 203 Lo Tai Chang, 113 Lobo, Sir Roger, 137 Loie, David, 219 Loke Yew, 105, 126 Lowing, Ahlow, 24, 51 Lugard, Sir Frederick, 90–91, 94–98 Macau (Macao), xiv, 6, 17, 35, 82, 132, 144, 153, 155–56, 208 exodus to, 222 Igreja de Santo Agostinho, 224 Macanese. See Portugal and the Portuguese Macau Culture Center (Fremont, CA), 160 Malaya. See Straits Settlements, Malaya Maltby, Christopher Michael, 215 Mauricio Teixeira, Gabriel, 227 May, Sir Francis Henry, 63, 99 McGuigan, J. H., 178 McKenzie, William, 173 Mody, Sir Hormusjee Naorojee, 90 Monson, W. B. L., 212 Mow Fung, F. C., 192 Newton, Dr. Isaac, 220, 231 Ng Choy, 146 Nixon, William, 181, 188

Noronha, Antonio E., 144 Noronha, Delfino, 148 Northcote, Sir Geoffry, 80, 205 Owen Hughes, John, 171, 176 Ozorio, F. M. G., 145 Patten, Chris (later Lord), 237, 244 Pau, Peter, 43–44 Peel, Sir William, 73, 153 Phillips, Herbert, 46 Piggott, Sir Francis, 32 Pollock, Henry, 175–79, 191 Portugal and the Portuguese, xiii–xiv, 16, 21, 56, 65 Catholic. See Catholicism and Catholics as distinct from Eurasians, 153 as distinct from other white groups, 34–36, 47, 56, 133, 151, 153, 161 doctors, 12 education of, 135–42 hostility towards, 151–53 Liga Portuguesa de Hongkong, 39 Macau, belonging to, 155–56, 159, 161 nationality, 227–28 Pombal decree (2 April 1761), 42 Portuguese subjects, 38 wartime service of, 215, 219, 221, 225, 230, 241 Pott, Francis Lister Hawks, 119 Pottinger, Sir Henry, 132 Protestantism and Protestants, 18, 133, 139–40 missionaries, 136 pacifism, 175 Purves, D., 194 Pyke, Margaret, 181 racism and racialisation, 11, 25, 27, 30–41, 87, 112, 200 Asian sailors, hostility towards, 28 differential pay, 230 ‘racial disabilities’, 177 segregation, 28, 60–63, 166, 169–71, 176, 233 ‘undesirables’, 43, 67, 83 White Australia policy. See Australia and Australians, White Australia policy white supremacy, 22, 33, 71 Ramsden, Sir Eugene, 51 Reeves, John, 223–27 Remedios, Freddie, 157 Remedios, Raquel, 47, 157

Index Ride, Prof. Lindsay, 120, 216–20, 217, 243 Rodrigues, Alberto, 145–46 Russia and Russians, 65, 71–73, 80 Sanger, Margaret, 180–81, 188 Sassoon, Frederick David, 167 Schoenfelder, Heinrich, 65 Selwyn-Clarke, Hilda, 182, 185 Selwyn-Clarke, Selwyn, 188, 221 Sequeira, Jorge, 226 Seymour, Sir Horace, 210 Shen Yizhen, 117 Shi Chi-jen, 115 Shin Tak-hing, 185 Silva, Jim, 228 Simpson, Robert, 121 Singapore. See Straits Settlements, Singapore Sir Ho Kai, 47, 95 Slaughter, C. W., 43–45 Smith, Prof. C. A. Middleton, 100, 173, 198 Spain and Spaniards, 56 Straits Settlements. See also China and the Chinese, Straits Chinese Malaya, 10, 21, 105, 111, 124 Singapore, 124, 206 Raffles College, 105 Suffiad, Mary, 218 Swire, Warren, 124, 126 Symons, Joyce, 203 Sze Tsung-sing, 115 Taiwan and the Taiwanese, 112 Tse, Kitty, 218 Tso Seen-wan, 146, 152 Tsui, Paul, 218, 233 United Kingdom British Empire Empire Day, 141 naval power of, 200 rivalry with other imperial powers, 27, 55, 64, 95, 245 Britishness. See Britishness Euroscepticism, 245 legislation Fourth Reform Act (1918), 189 Imperial Medical Act (1886), 99 London, University of, 100 organisations and societies Aborigines’ Protection Society, 184 Anti-Slavery Society, 184 China Association, 90 General Medical Council (GMC), 99–100

275 National Birth Control Council (NBCC), 180 Royal Empire Society, 172 royal family of, 171, 239, 242 United States and Americans, 207, 231 Vieira, J. P., 144 Wang Chung Yik, 99 warfare, 200 B.A.A.G. See Hong Kong, organisations and societies, British Army Aid Group (B.A.A.G.) Boer War, 71 Central Plains War, 174 Great War, 116, 139, 150 aftermath of, 168 outbreak of, 75 veterans of, 98 HKVDC. See Hong Kong, Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps (HKVDC) Opium Wars, 4, 93 Russo-Japanese war, 94 Second World War, 12, 20, 22, 69 Battle of Hong Kong, 215 evacuation scheme (1940), 86, 201–7 executions, 220, 229 Hong Kong, Japanese occupation of. See Hong Kong, Japanese occupation of Nazism, 78, 82 outbreak of, 77–86, 200 Pearl Harbour, attack on, 206, 208 Portuguese neutrality, 160, 222 War Revenue Ordinance (1940), 80 Sino-Japanese War, 183 Wei Yuk, 47 Wells, Rev. H. R., 101 whiteness ‘British races’. See Britishness, ‘British races’ constructed, 53 as equivalent to Britishness. See Britishness, white Britons as equivalent to European, 59, 245 White Australia policy. See Australia and Australians, White Australia policy White British League. See Cassel, Major Louis, White British League (British Whites League) white supremacy. See racism and racialisation, white supremacy

276

Index

Williams, S. P., 172 Wilson, David, 237 Wilson, Woodrow, 179 Wodehouse, Philip, 35–36 Wong Shing, 47 Woo, Arthur, 181, 188 Wood, Leilah, 203 Wu Han-ching, 115

Yamashita, Mr., 87 Yao Baichun, 123 Yeo, K. C., 188 Young, Sir Mark, 199, 201, 206, 208 Zhang Zuolin (Chang Tso-lin), 49 Zhu Guangqian, 109, 110