Space and Everyday Lives of Children in Hong Kong: The Interwar Period (Global Histories of Education) 3031444000, 9783031444005

Citation preview

GLOBAL HISTORIES OF EDUCATION

Space and Everyday Lives of Children in Hong Kong The Interwar Period

Stella Meng Wang

Global Histories of Education Series Editors

Christian Ydesen Department of Culture and Learning Aalborg University Aalborg, Denmark Eugenia Roldan Vera Cinvestav-Coapa Mexico City, Estado de México, Mexico Klaus Dittrich Literature and Cultural Studies Education University of Hong Kong Tai Po, Hong Kong Linda Chisholm Education Rights and Transformation University of Johannesburg Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa

We are very pleased to announce the ISCHE Global Histories of Education book series. The International Standing Conference for the History of Education has organized conferences in the field since 1978. Thanks to our collaboration with Palgrave Macmillan we now offer an edited book series for the publication of innovative scholarship in the history of education. This series seeks to engage with historical scholarship that analyzes education within a global, world, or transnational perspective. Specifically, it seeks to examine the role of educational institutions, actors, technologies as well as pedagogical ideas that for centuries have crossed regional and national boundaries. Topics for publication may include the study of educational networks and practices that connect national and colonial domains, or those that range in time from the age of Empire to decolonization. These networks could concern the international movement of educational policies, curricula, pedagogies, or universities within and across different socio-political settings. The ‘actors’ under examination might include individuals and groups of people, but also educational apparatuses such as textbooks, built-environments, and bureaucratic paperwork situated within a global perspective. Books in the series may be single authored or edited volumes. The strong transnational dimension of the Global Histories of Education series means that many of the volumes should be based on archival research undertaken in more than one country and using documents written in multiple languages. All books in the series will be published in English, although we welcome English-language proposals for manuscripts which were initially written in other languages and which will be translated into English at the cost of the author. All submitted manuscripts will be blind peer-reviewed with editorial decisions to be made by the ISCHE series editors who themselves are appointed by the ISCHE Executive Committee to serve three to five year terms. Full submissions should include: (1) a proposal aligned to the Palgrave Book Proposal form (downloadable here); (2) the CV of the author(s) or editor(s); and, (3) a cover letter that explains how the proposed book fits into the overall aims and framing of the ISCHE Global Histories of Education book series. Proposals and queries should be addressed to [email protected]. Preliminary inquiries are welcome and encouraged.

Stella Meng Wang

Space and Everyday Lives of Children in Hong Kong The Interwar Period

Stella Meng Wang The Education University of Hong Kong Hong Kong S.A.R, China

ISSN 2731-6408     ISSN 2731-6416 (electronic) Global Histories of Education ISBN 978-3-031-44400-5    ISBN 978-3-031-44401-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44401-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustation: © duncan1890 / DigitalVision Vectors / gettyimages This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Paper in this product is recyclable.

In memory of my grandparents, who gave me the perfect childhood.

A Note on Romanisation

For peoples, streets, places, and so on in Hong Kong and China, this book spells the names the same way as they have appeared in the original sources, with pinyin included in brackets where applicable.

vii

Acknowledgements

This book originated from my doctoral research at the University of Sydney. There I benefited immensely from the generosity of scholars who not only gave their time and advice but so often installed a sense of invincibility in young researchers. I wish to thank, first and foremost, Prof. Tim Allender and Prof. Helen Proctor, my thesis supervisors, mentors, and guiding lights, who filled my heart with hope and taught me step by step how to become a historian. A special thank you to Dr. Lee Stickells and Prof. Chris Smith at Sydney School of Architecture, Design, and Planning, for listening to my interest on childhood architecture, and asking ‘So, what is it really about?’. Thank you for posing questions and for suggesting reading materials that might answer them. Thank you to all the academics who said yes to the ‘Peer Mentoring Program’ – an initiative led by a cohort of friends at Sydney School of Education and Social Work and the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies. Prof. Helen Proctor, Dr. Matthew Thomas, Dr. Ilektra Spandagou, Dr. Alexandra McCormick, Dr. Yeow-Tong Chia, Dr. Pam Joseph, Dr. Nigel Bagnall, and Prof. Brian Paltridge, the guest speakers of the program, shared their expertise and took part in the Q & A session. Thank you also to Dr. Ruth Phillips for clearing all the bureaucratic hurdles and for supporting student-­led initiatives. And, of course, to the co-founders, Dr. Jan Filmer and Dr. Liberty Pascua – you made it possible! At the University of Hong Kong, where I conducted part of my archival research, Prof. David Pomfret and Dr. Patricia Chiu made me feel at home. David squeezed me into the Spring Symposium the Department of History organised on the history of childhood and introduced me to the ix

x 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

research students there. Patricia suggested potentially useful archives and offered valuable advice on girls’ schooling in Hong Kong, a paper I was working on at the time. Thank you for meeting me and for advising where to go. Thank you to the China Studies Centre and the PRSS Funding Scheme at the University of Sydney for supporting all my overseas conference trips. Thank you to the International Standing Conference for the History of Education (ISCHE) Travel Fund. And also to the Thomas T. Roberts Education Fellowships Scholarship for supporting my archival trip to Hong Kong. Thank you to all the colleagues and friends who took part in the Mission and Modernity Research Academy (MiMoRA) in Leuven, 2018. Thank you to Prof. Kim Christiaens and Prof. Idesbald Goddeeris for reading my paper on school life at St. Stephen’s Girls’ College and for offering insightful critiques that guided me toward the right direction. In developing my doctoral thesis into this book, I am in tremendous debt to my thesis examiners Prof. Andrew May and Prof. Joyce Goodman for their encouragement and feedback that planted the seed of a monograph in my heart. I also wish to thank the anonymous reviewers of the book proposal for their sobering critiques and kind guidance that lifted the rigour of historical writing. In preparing the manuscript for final submission, I wish to thank Linda Braus at Palgrave Macmillan for her speedy reply and lucid advice which made the submission process not only smooth but also enjoyable. In the spring of 2022, Dr. Klaus Dittrich at the Education University of Hong Kong contacted me regarding a postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Literature and Cultural Studies. There I began my refreshed pursuit of women’s history. In transitioning into academia upon graduation, I wish to thank Dr. Jonas Van Mulder for encouraging me to pursue a post-doc research project very early on. Thank you also to Dr. Daren Leung and Jasmine Zhu for lighting a fire in my heart that directed me to academia. A heartfelt thank you to Dr. Matthew Thomas who guided me in a moment of overwhelming outlook when I was designing new courses for MA students. Just as I landed in the academic scene in Hong Kong, the warmth and generosity of Dr. Prudence Lau inspired me to look deeper and perhaps to rethink the history of urban planning and architecture. Thank you for sharing the archival materials and for asking ‘How can I help you?’. In guiding me through the transition phase, I wish to thank Prof. Liz Jackson for her kindness and mentorship, and Prof. John Erni for supporting and guiding young researchers. I also wish to thank Prof. John Carroll, Prof. Elizabeth Sinn, Dr. Elizabeth LaCouture,

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 

xi

and Dr. Carol Tsang at HKU for their insightful comments and suggestions, and, more importantly, encouragement on keep discovering the richness of Hong Kong history. Keeping me looking beyond and forward, I wish to thank a group of dear friends; a shout out to Jamie Wang, Emily Zong, Lipei Wang, Alex Gearin, Eric Feng, and Nora Xing for being the most stimulating, inspiring, and patient sounding board. And thank you to the solid rock in my life, my parents and my sister. For permission to reproduce the images used in this book, I wish to thank Hong Kong Museum of History, St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, La Salle College, the Hong Kong Young Women’s Christian Association, the Hong Kong University Libraries Special Collection, Hong Kong Public Records Office, Hong Kong Memory, and the University of Southern California Libraries California Historical Society Collection. An early version of Chap. 6 has been published as “Shifting Spaces of Femininity: Everyday Life of Girl Guides in Hong Kong, 1921–1941,” in ‘Femininity’ and the History of Women’s Education: Shifting the Frame, eds. Tim Allender and Stephanie Spencer (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021).

Abstract

This book examines the colonial built environment and children’s everyday life in interwar Hong Kong by looking at five transnational movements and their context-­specific development. These are: (i) the Garden City movement as it engendered a new residential architecture and supervised play space for middle-class Chinese children in suburban districts; (ii) the imperial hygiene movement as it shaped school architecture and curriculum that educated a multi-racial middle-class cohort; (iii) the nationalist movement and public debate regarding higher education as this related to the professional pursuits of Chinese girls from elite families; (iv) women’s movement led by the Young Women’s Christian Association as it reconfigured patterns of social and public engagement of professional and industrial Chinese girls; and (v) the Girl Guide movement as it imagined a new cultural public space for middle-class and working-class schoolgirls residing in both urban and rural situs. These five movements cut across the domestic, school, social, and public life of Chinese children, and engaged the colonial state, private enterprises, missionaries, Chinese elites, European women, voluntary associations, and the simultaneous involvement of children. Assessed together, using Henri Lefebvre (1991)’s influential theorisation on space and everyday life, these dimensions show how the everyday spaces of childhood in colonial Hong Kong engaged with British colonial class, gender, and racial imperatives in the interwar period. The layered private and public experience of children are interrogated through a collective reading of oral histories, diaries, newspapers, school publications, visual sources, and government reports. xiii

Contents

1 Introduction  1 1.1 Histories of Childhood in the British Empire 15 1.2 Hong Kong: A Colonial City in the Everyday, 1841–1941  22 1.2.1 English Schooling for the Children of the Urban Bourgeoisie: Early Developments, 1841–1901  26 1.2.2 Expansion and Diversification of English Education 1901–1941  29 1.2.3 Higher Education 31 1.3 Methods and Sources 33 1.3.1 State Reports and Sites of Colonial Intervention 34 1.3.2 Newspapers and Everyday Life 36 1.3.3 Oral History and Lived Spaces 37 1.3.4 Siting the Visual 40 1.4 Chapter Outline 41 2 Garden  City: Urban Form, Colonial Domesticity, and Spaces of Play in Childhood, 1921–1941 45 2.1 Garden City Movement and Colonial Domesticity in Hong Kong: A Background 49 2.2 Home with a Garden: Domestic Architecture and Play Space for Children 55 2.2.1 New House-Forms for the Middle-Class: Garden Cities in the 1920s and 1930s 63

xv

xvi 

Contents

2.3 Garden City and Urban Form: Neighbourhood Playground for Children 70 2.3.1 A New Architecture of Play 71 2.3.2 Involvement of Chinese Elites 73 2.3.3 Subversive Acts of Play 75 2.4 Conclusion 75 3 Architecture  of Health: Hygiene and Schooling in Hong Kong, 1901–1941 79 3.1 Hygiene, Health, Eugenics, and Schooling 84 3.2 School Architecture and Sanitary Reform: A Background, 1890–1913  87 3.3 Building Healthy Schools: Curriculum of Hygiene, Architecture, and Medical Inspection, 1913–1921  91 3.3.1 Hygiene Education School Curriculum 92 3.3.2 New Building Design 94 3.3.3 A System of Medical Inspection 97 3.4 Health, Progressive Education, and School Architecture, 1921–1931  98 3.4.1 Progressive Ideas Informed Schooling Practices 99 3.4.2 Physical Education101 3.4.3 Founding of the School Hygiene Branch104 3.5 Timetable and Engineering of Bodily Movement, 1931–1941106 3.6 Conclusion110 4 Treading  a Different Path: Gender and the Literary Space at St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, 1921–1941113 4.1 Gender as Perspective119 4.2 English Education for Elite Chinese Girls in Hong Kong: Founding of St. Stephen’s Girls’ College122 4.3 Chinese Women in Higher Education: Debates and Experiences, 1921–1941124 4.3.1 St. Stephen’s School Curriculum and Higher Education126 4.3.2 Life in University and Profession131 4.4 Chinese Women in Public Affairs: Philanthropic Activities at St. Stephen’s, 1921–1941135

 Contents 

xvii

4.4.1 Educational Work: The Free School for Domestic Servants and Street Children137 4.4.2 Charitable Work: Fundraising Bazaars and Concerts141 4.4.3 War Relief and Medical Work in Connection with Women’s Clubs142 4.5 Conclusion144 5 Lifting  Girls: Chinese Women, Vocational Education, and the YWCA in Hong Kong, 1921–1941147 5.1 The Founding of HKYWCA151 5.2 Vocational Education for Chinese Girls in the Formal Schooling System, 1921–1941155 5.2.1 Educating a Class of Chinese Female Professionals: Foundational Phase in the 1910s156 5.2.2 New Patterns in the 1920s159 5.2.3 Industrial, Trade, and Technical Schools for Chinese Boys in the 1930s163 5.3 The HKYWCA and the Public Engagement of Female Professionals, 1921–1941166 5.3.1 Vocational Education and Literacy Classes166 5.3.2 Health Education for Mothers and Medical Care for Children171 5.4 Conclusion177 6 Reimaging  the Colonial Space: Femininity and Everyday Life of Girl Guides in Hong Kong, 1921–1941181 6.1 Theorising Femininity184 6.2 English Girls’ Schools for Middle-Class Chinese Girls, 1890–1921185 6.2.1 State and Voluntary Efforts185 6.2.2 The Multiracial Makeup of Urban English Girls’ Schools186 6.3 The Origin and Growth of Guiding in Hong Kong, 1921–1941188 6.3.1 An Urban Middle-Class Phenomenon in the 1920s188 6.3.2 Expanding Geography and Membership to Rural and Working-Class Girls in the 1930s190

xviii 

Contents

6.4 Usefulness in the Domestic and Public Sphere: A New Spatiality for the ‘Feminine Instinct of Service’192 6.4.1 The Shifting Frame of Femininity and Schooling Practice in Hong Kong, 1921–1941193 6.4.2 Usefulness and the Affective Interior of Guides: Social Work in the Public Sphere196 6.5 Feminine Physique in the Sporting and Outdoor Scene200 6.5.1 Feminine Physique and the Sporting Scene in English Girls’ Schools, 1901–1941201 6.5.2 Fit Feminine Physique as an Imperial Spectacle, 1921–1941203 6.6 Conclusion206 7 Conclusion209 Bibliography221 Index253

About the Author

Stella  Meng Wang  is a recent PhD graduate of the Sydney School of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney, Australia, and a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Literature and Cultural Studies at the Education University of Hong Kong. Stella’s research interests include history of hygiene, history of education, women’s history, urban history, and history of architecture and health.

xix

List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Fig. 1.2 Fig. 2.1

Fig. 2.2

Fig. 2.3

Fig. 2.4 Fig. 3.1

Arrival of the British. View of Lyndhurst Terrace, Central District, Hong Kong Island, 1846. Source: Courtesy of The University of Hong Kong Libraries Map of the Xin’an District, Kwangtung (Guangdong) Province, 1868. Source: Courtesy of The University of Hong Kong Libraries Nathan Road in Tsim Sha Tsui in the 1910s, Kowloon. Showing a newly developed area where traffic and commerce were scarce. Source: Courtesy of Hong Kong Memory, Hong Kong Historical Postcards Collection, image credit by Mr. Ko Tim Keung Apartment house, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China, 1900s, showing residential architecture in early developed areas. Source: Courtesy of University of Southern California Libraries and California Historical Society Houses on the Peak around 1920s. In the far background are Ap Lei Chau and Lamma Island. Source: Courtesy of Hong Kong Memory, Hong Kong Historical Postcards Collection, image credit by Mr. Ko Tim Keung Houses with small garden in the front at Prince Edward Road, Kowloon, 1930s. Source: Courtesy of The University of Hong Kong Libraries Sanitising civilian homes in Tai Ping Shan District, 1894, following the outbreak of bubonic plague. Source: Courtesy of Hong Kong Museum of History

23 24

51

51

56 68 80

xxi

xxii 

List of Figures

Fig. 3.2 Fig. 3.3 Fig. 4.1 Fig. 4.2 Fig. 4.3

Fig. 4.4

Fig. 4.5 Fig. 4.6 Fig. 5.1

Fig. 5.2 Fig. 5.3 Fig. 6.1 Fig. 6.2

Queen’s College on Hollywood Road and Aberdeen Street, Hong Kong Island, c. 1910. Source: Courtesy of Hong Kong Museum of History 95 La Salle College, 1932. Source: Courtesy of La Salle College, Hong Kong 109 Cover of school magazine News Echo, 1929. Source: Courtesy of St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, Hong Kong 114 Entrance of St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, 2018. Source: Taken by Author 123 Students and teachers at St Stephen’s Girls’ College on Lyttleton Road, Mid-Levels, Hong Kong Island, c. 1923–1924. Source: Courtesy of Hong Kong Museum of History 125 Miss Baxter (centre) and students at St Stephen’s Hostel, Hong Kong c. 1936–38, which was an off-campus residential accommodation provided by SSGC for women students at the University of Hong Kong since 1922. Source: Courtesy of St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, Hong Kong 128 A new university graduate (former St. Stephen’s student) with her Friends, 1925. Source: Courtesy of St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, Hong Kong 131 Children from the Free School of St Stephen’s Girls’ College in the 1930s. Source: Courtesy of St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, Hong Kong 137 Members of the first Board of Directors (1920): Front row from left: Lee Poon Gun, Grace Coppock, Ma Fok Hing Tong, Nell E. Elliott, Ma Fok Shui Yu; back row from left: Yung Tam Lok Yin, Wong Tong Chung Ling, Catherine F. Woo, Kwok Sheung Man, Sin Tak Hing and Mrs Cheung Pui Kau. Source: Courtesy of HKYWCA 155 YWCA offered literacy class to female workers, 1922. Source: Courtesy of HKYWCA 168 Literacy class to female workers, 1925. Source: Courtesy of HKYWCA169 Hong Kong Girl Guides in the 1930s. Source: Courtesy of Hong Kong Public Records Office 192 Netball team at St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, 1936–1937. Source: Courtesy of St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, Hong Kong 204

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

In 1924, the fourteen-year-old Betty Steel  – who had come to Hong Kong with her parents at the age of five – finished school and began to learn Pitman’s shorthand and typewriting to prepare herself for a career as a secretary. By 1926, Betty had started her first job as a secretary in the Hong Kong Telephone Co. The following year, a friend told her that the Governor Sir Cecil Clementi (1925–1930) needed a stenographer at the Government House and that she had been recommended for the job. There, at the age of seventeen, she began her career as the Governor’s secretary. Before her employment, Betty had attended a few mission-run schools. First the Italian Convent and then the French Convent, both of which had a multi-racial admission. During her school years, Betty was also a Girl Guide. She had joined the 1st Wan Chai Girl Guide Company in 1921 with her Chinese neighbour and school friend Ruby Chue. In her childhood, under the persistence of Betty’s mother, who worked as an accountant at the mercantile firm Shewan, Tomes & Co., Betty’s family constantly moved in search of a home that resembled the English countryside with ‘wide flowers’, and they at last settled in ‘a tree-lined road of houses and gardens with wild violets and ferns growing in shady places’.1

1  Betty Steel, Impressions of an Upbringing in 1920s Hong Kong. https://gwulo.com/ node/20232/view-pages. Accessed on June 6, 2022.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Meng Wang, Space and Everyday Lives of Children in Hong Kong, Global Histories of Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44401-2_1

1

2 

S. MENG WANG

By the time Betty started her job at the Government House, Annie Lee, who was born in a prosperous Chinese family in 1919, started her school life at the French Convent. Like many other Chinese merchants’ daughters of the time, Annie had attended English schools (schools where the medium of instruction was English) since kindergarten. In her childhood, Annie’s family lived in European-style houses. First, they lived in Moreton Terrace (in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong Island), where Annie recalled, ‘it was very residential, just a few houses with a small garden in front of each’. Later, her family moved to Tin Hau (not far from Moreton Terrace, Hong Kong Island). This new house was ‘a big block, in a big terrace’, and in front of the terrace ‘was a large lawn where all the children played’. This house-form – the single-family home with its own garden – was in part informed by the Garden City movement in interwar Hong Kong which gave rise to a new residential topology. The garden residence, in turn, became an important instrument in realising modern bourgeois selfhood for the Chinese merchants. During her school years, Annie was both the head prefect and a Girl Guide. After completing her study at the French Convent, Annie went on to study at Hong Kong University.2 The childhood stories of Betty and Annie carry significance for this book in a number of ways. First, the presence of European expatriate families and their domestic life and everyday home-making practices led to the proliferation of a specific typology of residential architecture. As with other British colonies, the European-style residence as they claimed presence in urban Hong Kong, they also helped create a racially stratified urban landscape where Chinese and European residential quarters were built not only in distinct architectural styles, but also in spatial segregation from one another. However, by the interwar period, this residential segregation had yielded to modern town planning practices.3 As suburban districts in Kowloon experimented planning practices along garden city 2  Annie Lee, born in 1919, Hong Kong. Hong Kong Oral History Archives: Collective Memories, Hong Kong University Library Special Collection, access no. 51. 3  For detailed discussion, see Chap. 2. Here, very briefly, in 1922, in order to ‘revise, consolidate, and coordinate the schemes of development that had been prepared in the past for various sections of the colony, and to consider the directions for future development of Hong Kong and Kowloon’, a Town Planning Committee was convened and schemes ‘prepared for the improvement of the existing layouts and the development of new areas’. This marked the systematic involvement of the colonial state in urban reforms. “Report of the Director of Public Works for the Year 1922,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 108–109.

1 INTRODUCTION 

3

lines, garden city suburbs became an attractive residential choice for the colonial middle classes, which, by this period, included a large and burgeoning cadre of Chinese merchants and professionals.4 While early garden city suburbs such as Ho Mun Tin accommodated the exclusive racial group of the Portuguese,5 the subsequent large-scale implementation of the Kowloon Tong Garden City housed predominantly Chinese residences.6 By then, Chinese middle classes and elites became avid consumers of the material culture of modernity. Living in garden city homes became an effective instrument in claiming their modern bourgeois status. Domestic architecture, in turn, was used by the Chinese bourgeoisie in interwar Hong Kong to subvert a long-established racial order. Second, beyond the domestic domain, Betty and Annie’s school life was situated in a shifting landscape of gender dynamics in the interwar period. This affected the professional aspirations and educational pursuits of both European and Chinese schoolgirls. The enlargement and expansion of women’s space from inner to outer, from private to professional, informed schooling practices at girls’ schools. The burst of European and Chinese female professionals in the urban scene of interwar Hong Kong – as headmistresses, teachers, nurses, doctors, stenographers, secretaries, accountants, clerks, and engineers was made possible by a diversified schooling system that moved to equip middle-class girls with professional expert knowledge. Accompanying this diversification of women’s education was the emergence of a social sphere of women stimulated by the formation of women’s clubs and associations such as the Hong Kong Young Women’s Christian Association (HKYWCA). Youth organisations such as Girl Guides also penetrated to Hong Kong which mobilised school children into networks of charitable services. Both Betty and Annie were Girl Guides, capturing the vibrant urban life that European and Chinese children contributed to create: they joined youth clubs and participated extensively in sports as well as social work.

4  For a discussion on the social demography of the Chinese bourgeoisie in interwar Hong Kong, see John M.  Carroll, The Hong Kong–China Nexus: A Brief History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022). 5  “The Housing Problem, Big Scheme for Kowloon Tong,” South China Morning Post, Dec. 28, 1920, 6. 6  Detailed discussion in Chap. 2. Here, of the 250 subscribers to the Kowloon Tong scheme, 210 were Chinese, 10 British, and 30 Portuguese. “Kowloon Tong Squatters,” South China Morning Post, Feb. 9, 1927, 9.

4 

S. MENG WANG

Third, this new gender dynamic moved apace with the expansion of multi-racial residential neighbourhoods, as depicted in Betty’s recount of her interactions with Chinese neighbour and schoolfriend Ruby Chue. The multi-racial urbanity in interwar Hong Kong proliferated alongside civic associational culture where a class of European and Chinese professionals (including both professional men and women) who shared similar social and professional circles helped to create.7 Local residential associations such as the Kowloon Residential Association (established in 19208) brought together the multi-racial middle classes in urban and suburban Hong Kong in a united effort for urban reform and political representation. One of their prominent achievements was that they helped establish and spread neighbourhood playgrounds in middle-class suburbs in Kowloon as well as in working-class districts on Hong Kong Island. Associational culture (including the aforementioned youth association of Girl Guides) thus created new class aspirations on the one hand and supported participation in public affairs on the other. Lastly, resonating with the rise of bourgeois culture in the global context, interwar Hong Kong can also be defined as the golden age of the Chinese bourgeoisie. Their rise in both social and cultural significance through financial successes destabilised the racial boundaries between European and Chinese community. Such was the case with Annie’s family. As the family purchased residence in newly built garden cities and sent their children to English schools (where the medium of instruction was English) run by missionaries, they claimed membership to the colonial bourgeoisie. Simultaneously, this colonial middle-class sector was part of a global bourgeoisie culture. Being active consumers of middle-class material culture and English education, the Chinese bourgeoisie of interwar Hong Kong shared the aspirations and outlooks of their transnational counterparts. This book is a study of the colonial built environment in interwar Hong Kong and children’s everyday life within this context. It concerns the lived experiences of children that belonged primarily to the colonial bourgeoisie in five distinct transnational movements. These are: (i) the Garden City 7  Vivian Kong, “Exclusivity and Cosmopolitanism: Multiethnic Civil Society in Interwar Hong Kong,” The Historical Journal 63, no. 5 (2020): 1281–1302; also see Vivian Kong, “Whiteness, Imperial Anxiety, and the ‘Global 1930s’: The White British League Debate in Hong Kong,” Journal of British Studies 59, no. 2 (2020): 343–371. 8  “Kowloon Residents’ Association, Year’s Work Reviewed,” The China Mail, Oct. 5, 1920, 8.

1 INTRODUCTION 

5

movement as it engendered a new residential architecture and supervised play space for middle-class Chinese children in the suburban districts of Kowloon and Hong Kong Island; (ii) the imperial hygiene movement as it shaped school architecture and a curriculum that educated a multi-racial middle-class cohort; (iii) the nationalist movement and public debate regarding higher education as this related to the professional pursuits of Chinese girls from elite families; (iv) the women’s movement, led by the HKYWCA, as it reconfigured patterns of social and public engagement of professional and industrial Chinese girls; and (v) the Girl Guide movement as it imagined a new cultural public space for middle-class and working-­class schoolgirls residing in both urban and rural situs. These five transnational movements (‘movement’ here denotes a cultural phenomenon that transgresses national boundaries) cut across the domestic, school, social, and public life of Chinese and European children, and engaged the colonial state, private enterprises, missionaries, Chinese elites, European female professionals, voluntary associations, and the simultaneous involvement of children. The Garden City movement was situated in a landscape of suburban expansion in interwar Hong Kong. It captured how new town planning practices reconfigured the interior spatial design of the home and the spatial use in the neighbourhood. The imperial hygiene movement, on the other hand, informed the architectural and curricular reform of the educational sites. It shaped a new school architecture and a new choreography of the body that functioned as the means through which health was defined and produced in the educational context. The nationalist discourse and public debate regarding Chinese girls in higher education engaged a paradox on how girls’ education was framed differently by the colonial state, Chinese elites, and missionaries. The Chinese women’s movement, led by the HKYWCA, captured how Chinese women navigated the gender and racial divide in the public domain and designed initiatives to uplift the welfare of the Chinese community, particularly of Chinese children and industrial girls. Lastly, the Girl Guide movement mobilised a wide spectrum of girls to participate in social service and public affairs. It pushed girls to the forefront of public light where they engaged with new ideas of femininity. This book argues that it is not that colonialism created new meanings of childhood in Hong Kong over the interwar period. Rather, it produced new entanglements where ideas of childhood were deployed by a wide spectrum of social actors – including the colonial state, European professionals, Chinese elites, voluntary associations, and private enterprises – to

6 

S. MENG WANG

claim their own legitimacy of participating in colonial and public affairs. By leading initiatives for children – such as neighbourhood playgrounds, healthy school architecture, vocational education, physical education, and children’s health centres –, these spaces contributed to colonial constructions of a fit, efficient, and healthy youth on which the future of the British empire would supposedly depend. While these projects were led in the name of the child, they nonetheless pushed this wide spectrum of social actors into colonial prominence in Hong Kong. Children and childhood occupied a ‘limelight’ space in imperial discourses and public debates in interwar Hong Kong. By engaging with issues of children, the concerned social actors articulated a public sphere and their meaningful existence therein. In examining the five transnational movements, this book is mindful of four layers of context, from the most immediate to the most global: the context of Hong Kong, Republican China, the British empire, and transnational influences. In the immediate context of Hong Kong, the interwar period was a phase of modern town planning culture that created new residential typologies such as garden city residence. This moved apace with the suburbanisation and northward provincial expansion of the Kowloon Peninsula. It was also the beginning of the children’s playground movement and the culture of suburban leisure, such as bathing, gardening, and tennis. The formation of multi-racial urbanity hailed the interwar period as the golden age of the Chinese bourgeoisie in Hong Kong.9 As they actively consumed English education and lived in European-style homes with the modern flush system, tennis courts, garden, gas stove and geyser, electric lights, refrigerator, garage, English baths (hot and cold), pantry and kitchen, dining room, sitting room, bedroom, and servants’ quarters,10 they claimed membership of the global bourgeoisie. As a global phenomenon, the historians Christof Dejung, David Motadel, and Jürgen Osterhammel suggest the bourgeois middle class emerged in the context of transnational and imperial connections. Indeed, many of the mercantile, scientific, and political networks that came into being during the long nineteenth century were established by members of 9  For a discussion on the history of the Chinese bourgeoisie in colonial Hong Kong, see John M.  Carroll, Edge of empires: Chinese elites and British Colonials in Hong Kong (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009). 10  “Advertisements Prepaid,” South China Morning Post, Aug. 17, 1926, 5; “Advertisements Prepaid,” South China Morning Post, Dec. 28, 1926, 5; “For Sale,” South China Morning Post, Nov. 19, 1931, 5; “For Sale,” South China Morning Post, Jan. 18, 1932, 5.

1 INTRODUCTION 

7

the middle classes, including businessmen, scholars, and intellectuals. It was the middle classes that staffed imperial bureaucracies and the offices of multinational companies, and it was they who ensured the effective operation of such global institutions. The modern state in the early twentieth century came to become increasingly reliant on a bureaucratic bourgeoisie of civil servants, military officers, teachers, and university professors. In colonial settings, the colonial state  – through its educational system, bureaucracy, and army – created a class of educated professionals. From bureaucrats to merchants, these professionals merged European middle-­ class culture with their own distinct forms of colonial middle-class culture.11 This, in turn, found architectural expressions in clubs, dancing halls, and gardens. As the historian John Mackenzie suggests, the phenomenal growth of the bourgeoisie in the British empire in the nineteenth century brought into being a public sphere that came to embrace ‘the cultural apparatus of the bourgeoisie’. Clubs, parks and gardens, concerts halls, and sporting facilities were built to serve distinct clienteles, often along racial, class, and gender lines.12 In Hong Kong, Vivian Kong shows that the colonial city had long had a vibrant associational culture; during the interwar years, however, its middle classes became more interested than ever in voluntary societies with a multi-ethnic membership. Just as legislation entrenched racial and class boundaries, a multi-ethnic civil society flourished with an outwardly stated goal of cross-cultural friendships. The civil societies in interwar Hong Kong resonated with the global bourgeois culture in their aspirations and claims for urban reforms and political representation. While colonial government agencies might have exercised exclusivity in their membership — with the recruitment of Chinese and Eurasian officials as rare cases rather than common practice, civic associations that celebrated a global outlook and multi-ethnic participation allowed the expanding sector of urban professional and merchant classes to exercise their interest in the colonial public sphere.13

11  Christof Dejung, David Motadel, and Jürgen Osterhammel, “The Global Bourgeoisie,” in The Global Bourgeoisie: The Rise of the Middle-Class in the Age of Empire, eds. Christof Dejung, David Motadel, and Jürgen Osterhammel (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2019), 1–41. 12  John M. MacKenzie, British Empire Through Buildings: Structure, Function and Meaning (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020), 125. 13  Vivian Kong, “Exclusivity and Cosmopolitanism: Multiethnic Civil society in Interwar Hong Kong,” The Historical Journal 63, no.5 (2020): 1281–1302.

8 

S. MENG WANG

Just as modern living made its way into the homes of the colonial middle classes, the interwar period in Hong Kong was also the heyday of imperial hygiene and the eugenics movement. In fact, anxieties and panics about pandemics and tropical diseases have long troubled and characterised the British authorities in the East.14 As David Arnold shows, the relentless counting, quarantine, vaccination, and inspection of Indian bodies during times of epidemic disease such as Bubonic Plague advanced a violent and coercive corporal form of colonisation, albeit in the name of modern health and hygiene. 15 Hygiene, in connection with modern medicine, acted as a ‘strategic tool of empire’. The missionary doctors, military doctors, and colonial administrators inadvertently functioned as ‘agents of empire’. Hygiene and Western medical discourses – mobilised by colonial experts such as sanitarian, engineers, and doctors – operated on a demarcation that framed the white European coloniser as ‘heathy’ and ‘civilised’ while it simultaneously portrayed the indigenes as ‘diseased’, ‘unhygienic’, and ‘backward’. This, to certain extent, helped to justify the colonial project as one that brought about modern scientific methods of health to indigenous communities, while at the expense of discounting or disregarding local traditions of medicine and caring.16 In colonial Hong Kong, the historian Ka-che Yip argues that, for the British colonial government, medicine and public health emerged as bio-political governance, and imperatives of health and hygiene operated as instruments of imperial rule and discipline.17 The constant flow of goods and traffic and the immigration and emigration of people passing through Hong Kong made the city prone to constant outbreaks of pandemics such as Bubonic Plague.18 Concerns for public health in British colonies and the future of the British empire were 14  See Robert Peckham and David M.  Pomfret, eds. Imperial Contagions: Medicine, Hygiene, and Cultures of Planning in Asia (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2013). 15  David Arnold, Colonizing the Body: State Medicine and Epidemic Disease in Nineteenth-­ Century India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993). 16  Liping Bu and Ka-Che Yip, “Introduction: Interpreting Science and Public Health in Modern Asia,” in Science, Public Health and the State in Modern Asia, eds. Liping Bu, Darwin H. Stapleton, and Ka-che Yip (New York: Routledge, 2012), 1–15. 17  Ka-che Yip, “Science, Culture, and Disease Control in Colonial Hong Kong,” in Science, Public Health and the State in Modern Asia, eds. Liping Bu, Darwin H.  Stapleton, and Ka-che Yip (New York: Routledge, 2012), 17–32. 18  Ibid. For other types of pandemic prevalent in colonial Hong Kong, see, for example, Margaret Jones, “Tuberculosis, Housing and the Colonial State: Hong Kong, 1900–1950,” Modern Asian Studies 37, no. 3 (2003): 653–682.

1 INTRODUCTION 

9

further elevated by the destructive emotional effects of the Boer War and World War I.  As Ana Carden-Coyne argues, the interwar decades were powerfully consumed by the project of reconstructing empire through the body. Sports and physical culture were both remedial and regenerative in seeking to heal actually and symbolically the broken bodies, and also the ‘wounded empire’, of the war years.19 Alison Bashford further suggests that health and hygiene came to define both nation and empire in the interwar years. This became a personal and political imperative that connected the everyday and the bodily to the larger governmental projects.20 In interwar Hong Kong, the feverish imperial interest in hygiene and health morphed into quotidian public health and welfare structure underlying, for example, domestic sanitary inspection and public regulation against spitting,21 and into progressive education plans. It materialised through the school timetable, school architecture, the formation of the School Hygiene Branch (established in 192522), the school gardening movement, and the standardisation and mass promotion of physical education. Suffice it to say that the schooling site in interwar Hong Kong was designed and inspected by an army of colonial sanitary, engineering, and medical experts to shore up the health of schoolchildren. Contemporary to residential architecture in newly built suburbs that integrated modern sanitary infrastructure, government and grant-in-aid schools in this period were also designed and built with modern sanitation. Albeit a British colonial city, interwar Hong Kong was home to the mass inflow and outflow of Chinese migrants coming in from the mainland and going offshore for employment in California, Australia, and even

19  Ana Carden-Coyne, Reconstructing the Body: Classicism, Modernism, and the First World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 20  Alison Bashford, Imperial Hygiene: A Critical History of Colonialism, Nationalism and Public Health (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 5. 21  Beginning in the 1910s, considerable efforts were being made to put a stop to the inveterate habit of the lower-class Chinese for spitting in public buildings and offices and on staircases, footpaths, and wharves. Notices had been posted in many public buildings, as well as in tramcars, ferry boats and other public vehicles, while lectures had been given and leaflets distributed, calling attention to the dangers incident to this habit. It was hoped in this way, coupled with the improved sanitary condition of the native dwellings, to gradually reduce the death rates of Phthisis. “Medical and Sanitary Report for the Year 1912,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 19. 22  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1925,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 5.

10 

S. MENG WANG

South America.23 As a British colonial trading port, the city attracted Chinese merchants, intellectuals, and professionals, as well as young Chinese boys and girls who came there to study from various parts of China and many parts of the world. The city was never immune to the urban culture in China’s trading ports such as Shanghai and Tientsin, which by the Republican period was increasingly being characterised as ‘cosmopolitan’. As the historian Madeleine Y. Dong depicts, Republican China (1911–1949) was a site of ‘cosmopolitan modernity’ marked, not the least, by the establishment of the nuclear family as the norm; young women and men receiving education or joining the workforce in integrated public spaces away from their parents’ homes; and the emergence of an urban culture targeting the young. It was an age defined by mobility, adventure, openness, and experiments. It is the stage of the Modern Girl and the New Woman. The modern feminine look was widely adopted by women of diverse social groups, including high school and college students, professionals, and young wives of the upper and middle classes. The image was so prevalent that by the 1930s, the Modern Girl look had become a passport to opportunity and a dress code of necessity for young female city dwellers.24 The Modern Girl in Republican China was indeed part of a global phenomenon. As the historian Rachel Leow suggests, the 1920s and 1930s were the heyday of interwar feminism. These decades witnessed the rise of feminist civil society and women’s suffrage movements, as well as the increasing participation of women in nationalist movements. This fertile ground gave rise to the Modern Girl, who was to be ‘highly educated and politically knowledgeable yet protected from the dangerous influences of social ills’. She was simultaneously traditional and modern, with images and ideas of her constantly being reinvented to shore up nationalist and imperial agendas. The contradictory features of the Modern Girl arose as result of ‘her availability for others to inscribe desires, definitions, and hopes on her, particularly those pertaining to national revival’.25 As a 23  See Elizabeth Sinn, Pacific Crossing: California Gold, Chinese Migration, and the Making of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012). 24  Madeleine Y. Dong, “Who Is Afraid of the Chinese Modern Girl?,” in The Modern Girl Around the World: Consumption, Modernity, and Globalization, eds. Alys Eve Weinbaum, Lynn M.  Thomas, Priti Ramamurthy, Uta G.  Poiger, Madeleine Yue Dong, and Tani E. Barlow (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008), 194–219. 25  Rachel Leow, “Age as a Category of Gender Analysis: Servant Girls, Modern Girls, and Gender in Southeast Asia,” The Journal of Asian Studies 71, no. 4 (2012): 975–990.

1 INTRODUCTION 

11

worldwide phenomenon, the Modern Girl did not come from any one centre, but emerged in cities everywhere, from London and Paris to Singapore and Shanghai. Viewed within the context of British colonial history, the historian Su Lin Lewis argues, the Modern Girl ‘completely collapses traditional dichotomies between the modern, imperial metropole and a ‘backward’, colonial periphery’.26 In the context of Republican China, Louise Edwards suggests the Modern Girl and New Women discourses revealed the reformist intellectual class’s concerns about power and governance in modern China when they were increasing repressed and politically marginalised. Engagement and preoccupation with the attributes of modern women was, in part, an attempt by some reformist intellectuals to reclaim their roles as moral guardians and leading advisers for the nation. As a creature of the progressive, intellectual class’s political aspirations, the symbol of the modern or new women was ‘part of a modernising discourse that made possible the imagining of a new nation’. 27 She is to be politically aware, educated, independent, and patriotic.28 As a male intellectual class invention, the Chinese New Woman has less potency for the women’s movement (that campaigned for women’s rights) than she did with the nationalist project of state building. 29 Yet, as the historian Carlton Benson suggests, resonating with commodity culture of the Modern Girl, by the 1920s and 1930s, the modern Chinese women moved from being purely the purview of the intellectual reforms and their political agendas into the realm of commercial products. In calendars and advertisements, the modern women were depicted as ‘highly desirable’. She is glamorous, fun, risk-taking, and out-­ going. She is familiar with the latest fashion trends, Hollywood news, health tips, and sports.30 The ‘modern Chinese woman’ is thus a highly fluid concept, subject to constant inventing and reinventing in everyday encounters. She can be educated but also fun-seeking, public-spirited but 26  Su Lin Lewis, “Cosmopolitanism and the Modern Girl: A Cross-Cultural Discourse in 1930s Penang,” Modern Asian Studies 43, no. 6 (2009): 1385–1419. 27  Louise Edwards, “Policing the Modern Woman in Republican China,” Modern China 26, no. 2 (2000): 115–147. 28  Sarah E.  Stevens, “Figuring Modernity: The New Woman and the Modern Girl in Republican China,” NWSA Journal 15, no. 3 (2003): 82–103. 29  Tani Barlow, “Theorising Woman: Funu, Guojia, Jiating [Chinese women, Chinese state, Chinese family],” Genders 10 (1991): 132–160. 30  Carlton Benson, “The Manipulation of Tanci in Radio Shanghai during the 1930s,” Republican China 20, no. 2 (1995): 117–146.

12 

S. MENG WANG

also feminine, professional but also sporty. The vitality of the concept lies precisely in its dynamic contradiction. Resonating with the global Modern Girl phenomenon, in interwar Hong Kong, the city witnessed the emergence a class of modern professional Chinese women. Parallel to the admission of female students to universities in the Mainland,31 Hong Kong University officially admitted women students in 1921.32 Print media, such as the newspapers and school magazines of this period, became effective instruments that circulated new ideas about women’s urban lifestyle, social activities, public initiatives, professional aspirations, and educational possibilities.33 The voice and presence Chinese females garnered in print media moved apace with the creation of a social sphere which was accelerated by the establishment of women’s clubs and associations. The urban space in interwar Hong Kong offered Chinese females a site of employment, education, leisure, entertainment, and, more importantly, possibilities for public engagement through philanthropic activities, social work, and voluntary initiatives. In mills, factories, hospitals, schools, shops, and offices, members and founders of women’s clubs emerged. There were also a class of overseas Chinese female students returning to Hong Kong eager to start local branches of women’s associations that they were part of during their university study.34 The HKYWCA was born in this context. It was started and sustained through the eagerness and readiness of Chinese females for public life. The suburbanisation and 31  As the historian Pail Bailey suggests, in 1920, nine female students became the first to attend Beijing University when they enrolled to audit a number of courses. See Paul Bailey, Gender and Education in China: Gender Discourses and Women’s Schooling in the Early Twentieth Century (New York: Routledge, 2007), 106. 32  “St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, Speech Day,” The China Mail, Jan. 19, 1922, 8. 33  While historical studies on women and print media in colonial Hong Kong are rather scarce, a recent strand of scholarship exploring Chinese women and the print media in Republican China (1911–1949) offers useful insights on the circulation of women’s magazines and periodicals in the treaty ports of China in the interwar period. See, for example, Joan Judge, Republican Lens: Gender, Visuality, and Experience in the Early Chinese Periodical Press (Oakland, CA: California University Press, 2015). 34  Further discussion in Chap. 5. Here, very briefly, the historian Marie Sandell shows how, in the early twentieth century, a class of elite Chinese girls pursued their higher education in the West. Influenced by the women’s movement during their university study, this cohort of highly educated elite Chinese girls started and led women’s organisations upon their return to China. Marie Sandell, “Learning in and from The West: International Students and International Women’s Organisations in the Interwar Period,” History of Education 44, no. 1 (2015), 5–24.

1 INTRODUCTION 

13

northward provincialisation of the Kowloon Peninsula accelerated the emergence of industrial districts in Kowloon. This, in turn, attracted manufacturing workshops and factories. Of these, the manufacture of hosiery and knitted goods were carried out chiefly by women.35 The expanding network of offices, retail stores, and institutions (such as hospitals and schools) in the Kowloon Peninsula further attracted shop attendants, doctors, teachers, nurses, clerks, and accountants, among other modern-­ educated professionals. Interwar Hong Kong thus saw a changing social demography of women, not only of Chinese women, but also of European professionals like Betty Steel. It was within this fertile ground of women’s social and public interest that HKYWCA grew into an important element in the social fabric of elite, middle- and working-class Chinese women. As much as the HKYWCA responded to the ‘home-grown’ public interest of Chinese women, it was also part of a global network of women’s clubs that sprouted and achieved transnational resonance in the early twentieth century.36 These women’s clubs, in turn, became important spaces that disseminated international trends in modern, scientific childcare.37 The HKYWCA helped modernise the practices of childrearing, and in its earnest, spread modern notions of motherhood. In the health conferences organised at the headquarters of the HKYWCA, Chinese mothers attended exhibitions by physicians on ‘bathing, clothing, and feeding’, as well as lectures on ‘the care of the mother and the child’.38 In this sense, the interwar period in Hong Kong was also a phase where the child’s body, and the women’s body, became modernised through the adoption of scientific notions of health and fitness. In urban and suburban classrooms and playgrounds, sports’ clubs and camps, gymnastics, racing, netball league, tennis tournaments, and summer swimming picnics were organised and became competitive arenas. Factory girls, mothers, 35  “Report on the Census of the Colony of Hong Kong 1921,” Hong Kong Sessional Papers, Hong Kong Government, no. 12/1921, 164, 216–217. 36  For a discussion on history of women’s clubs, see, for example, David Doughan and Peter Gordon, Women, Clubs and Associations in Britain (New York: Routledge, 2007). 37  See Margaret Mih Tillman, “Mediating Modern Motherhood: The Shanghai YWCA’s “Women’s Work for Women,” 1908–1949,” in Spreading Protestant Modernity: Global Perspectives on the Social Work of the YMCA and YWCA, 1889–1970, eds. Harald Fischer-­ Tiné, Stefan Huebner, and Ian Tyrrell (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2020), 119–144. 38  “For the Baby, Children’s Health Conference at Y.W.C.A.,” The China Mail, Feb. 28, 1924, 1.

14 

S. MENG WANG

s­choolgirls and -boys, artisans, professionals, domestic servants, shop keepers, rattan ware makers, blacksmiths, carpenters, and accountants and nurses were also avid consumers of interwar physical culture. Boys and girls attending Hong Kong schools started to wear modern sporting attire such as shorts, which would give more flexibility when exercising.39 In advertising, education, and medicine, the message that physical activity was the key to health was pervasive. A common interest in health and physical culture, and indeed a modern, actively cultivated body was instrumental in women’s liberation, along with political emancipation, greater gender equality, and expanded employment opportunities after World War I in the British context.40 As Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska shows, the modern female body became a mass phenomenon during the interwar years in Britain. Expanded from the enthusiasm for fitness activities including keep-fit classes, dancing, swimming, and hiking in the Edwardian period, by the interwar years, women were further equipped with knowledge of birth control popularised by hygienists. The modern woman was portrayed as a race mother whose civic duty to manage her body for the well-being of the nation paralleled men’s obligation to became healthy and fit workers and soldiers.41 Imperial interest in the health of women further created new experiences of girlhood. As the historian Hilary Marland suggests, already in the decades building up to the First World War, eugenic thinking had triggered anxieties about girls’ future roles as mothers. By the interwar period, in Britain, girls were described as becoming modern, and in some ways a force of modernity, with their increased engagement with knowledge and the workforce and their rapidly changing appearance.42 To a certain extent, the modern girl’s body became a site where the reviving of the British empire was imagined.43 Girls’ clubs such as Girl Guides proliferated, operating in line with the broader imperial interest in health and 39  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1933,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 16. 40  Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, “The Making of a Modern Female Body: Beauty, Health and Fitness in Interwar Britain,” Women’s History Review 20, no. 2 (2011): 299–317. 41  See Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Managing the Body: Beauty, Health, and Fitness in Britain 1880–1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). 42  Hilary Marland, Health and Girlhood in Britain, 1874–1920 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 7. 43  Charlotte Macdonald, “Body and Self: Learning to be Modern in 1920s–1930s Britain,” Women’s History Review 22, no. 2 (2013): 267–279.

1 INTRODUCTION 

15

eugenics. As much as Guiding provided girls with outdoor adventures, it was also an instrument to discipline the modern girl. As an empire-wide movement, Guiding attracted the interest of Hong Kong schoolgirls. In the short span of a decade from its commencement in 1920, Guiding in Hong Kong had grew to include girls in English and vernacular (Chinese-­ medium) girls’ schools, orphanages, hospitals, and sanatoria.44 In Empire Day, Jubilee Rally, and ordinary school outing days, Hong Kong Girl Guides in their uniforms marched as citizens of the British Empire: they are – in their fit, healthy, and strong body – a passing imagery of the empire, reminding and asserting Hong Kong was part of the British imperial world.

1.1   Histories of Childhood in the British Empire In recent decades, a burgeoning strand of literature has directed scholarly attention to histories of childhood in colonial settings. Of these, David Pomfret’s benchmark study Youth and Empire examined how childhood and youth were produced and lived in the British and French empires in a diverse range of settings, such as the colonial home, Ministering Children’s League, school, and child trafficking networks. Albeit primarily concerned with European children, the study nonetheless offered importance insights into the significance of childhood in the ‘reordering of colonial space, aesthetics of colonial modernity, practices of racial reproduction and fantasies of colonial in the imperial imagination’. Pomfret argues that in colonial contexts childhood functioned as a central ‘interpretive’ device, a measure of the highest societal and national values. Childhood and youth served as ‘screens’ onto which cultural authority and ideas about the future of imperialism could be projected into the wider realms of colonial culture, in the domains well beyond home that includes, amongst others, education, urban planning, youth culture, and medicine.45 This ‘multi-­ sited’ study of childhood has expanded early works that tended to locate children in separate domains such as education. For example, Karen Vallgårda examined the educational work of the Danish Missionary Society (DMS) in South India in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. 44  “Girl Guides Movement, Mrs. Southorn’s Interesting Broadcast Address Last Night,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Feb. 4, 1932, 7. 45  David M. Pomfret, Youth and Empire: Trans-colonial Childhoods in British and French Asia (Sandford: Stanford University Press, 2015).

16 

S. MENG WANG

Like other Christian emissaries operating throughout the colonised world in this period, the Danish evangelicals who travelled to India invested considerable resources in the education of children and youth. In day schools, boarding schools, industrial schools, Sunday schools, and orphanages, the DMS helped disseminate scientific ideas about childhood, albeit with a desire to ‘modernise’ Indian children. Transnational missionary networks in this instance, Vallgårda argues, were instrumental in creating modern experiences of childhood for indigenous children in South India.46 The idea that childhood was a battlefield for the hopes and anxieties of modernity was also the central theme in Heidi Morrison’s work on childhood and colonial modernity in Egypt. Focusing on a pivotal period in Egyptian history (at the turn of the twentieth century), during which the country was searching for an identity in the face of intensifying Western imperialism, the emerging nation-state, changing gender roles, and a rising middle class, Morrison shows that, entwining with the context of colonialism, these forces of modernity resulted in new experiences for Egyptian children. The process of making Egypt modern, Morrison suggests, touched and transformed many segments of the population: peasants now recruited to build the army and cultivate the land, mothers to raise future citizens, middle-class men to strengthen national honour, and children turned into subjects in the modernising process. Through education, Egyptian intellectuals, reformers, and nationalists sought to modernise the country and to end the British occupation by making Egyptian children competitive with their European counterparts at social, political, and economic levels. To this end, discourses about and experiences of children were a microcosm of larger forces underway in Egypt at the time.47 Morrison argues that children ‘should not be tagged onto historical narrative as an addendum, but instead discussed in the context of existing questions about the past’.48 This sheds light on the research on histories of colonial childhoods to frame children and childhood in existing questions about the making of imperial order, and about the entanglement of gender hierarchies, class segmentations, racial categorisations, and religious projects in shaping the historical experiences of modernity. 46  Karen Vallgårda, Imperial Childhoods and Christian Mission: Education and Emotions in South India and Denmark (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). 47  Heidi Morrison, Childhood and Colonial Modernity in Egypt (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). 48  Ibid., 7.

1 INTRODUCTION 

17

Childhood is thus a fruitful method to study empire and modernity. As a historically contingent experience, childhood is a useful instrument in the making of racial and class order in colonial contexts. Focusing on a period of economic expansion in the Cape Colony between 1860 and the mid-1890s, S.E. Duff shows how childhood moved from being the concern of an evangelical church, eager to reform colonial society, to being at the centre of the Cape government’s efforts to address white poverty. During this period, the expansion of the Cape’s economy fuelled the founding of new towns and villages in the interior of the colony. From the 1870s onwards, the railway was extended; the telegraph network expanded; Cape Town’s port and harbours were enlarged and modernised; towns were gradually electrified; and businessmen invested in Cape Town’s manufacturing sector, multiplying the number of factories in the city and diversifying the goods they produced. Just as Cape Town became one of the most cosmopolitan cities in sub-Saharan Africa, the colony faced an increasing number of whites living in poverty. The education and upbringing of white children, in turn, became instruments to tackle the city’s ‘poor white question’.49 Childhood, during the phase of mineral revolution in Cape Town, was reinvented as a powerful site to articulate white race identity. These historical studies on childhood in colonial contexts also attest to the argument that empire is a process, shaped by transnational networks and connections, be it commercial, evangelical, or philanthropic. In bringing together an edited volume on Children, Childhood and Youth in the British World, the historians Simon Sleight and Shirleene Robinson suggests the British empire, or the British world, as the ‘imperial system built on mass migration from Britain to places such as Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa and beyond’.50 This definition recognises that the British world was fluid and adaptable as well as nodal, relying on interconnections between settlers and across colonies and nations. Childhood was very much implicated in this imperial cultural traffic where Sleight and Robison argue relations of empire played out within the institutional frameworks that governed individual comings of age, young people’s daily 49  S.  E. Duff, Changing Childhoods in the Cape Colony: Dutch Reformed Church Evangelicalism and Colonial Childhood, 1860–1895 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). 50  Simon Sleight and Shirleene Robinson, “Introduction,” in Children, Childhood and Youth in the British World, eds. Simon Sleight and Shirleene Robinson (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 2.

18 

S. MENG WANG

lives revealing much about the way the British world functioned on both a local and a global scale. Children and young people, both British and Indigenous, both locally born and migrant, were central to the imperial project, burdened with its hopes and anxieties.51 Informed by the view of empire as a ‘web’ shaped by the circulation of ideas and the movement of people both within and beyond,52 mobility has now evolved into a strong theme in the studies on youth and empire. In an edited volume on Transnational Histories of Youth in the Twentieth Century, Richard Ivan Jobs and David M. Pomfret suggest modern childhood was redefined in and through transnationality. Simultaneously to the process of accelerating global commercial and cultural exchange defined through trading networks, the expansion of empires, and the onset of new technologies of travel and communication, new understandings of youth took shape. It was in modern cultures and contexts of transfer and exchange that childhood emerged as a life-stage distinct from that of adulthood and as a social collective distinguished from the ‘adult’ social order. Children’s everyday activities and mobilities, as Pomfret and Jobs argue, are produced in a complex dynamic between local and transnational contexts, and across global and metropolitan networks.53 Taking a transnational approach to childhood thus de-centers the nation as the primary frame of historical inquiry by studying the movements and flows of people, ideas, things, and institutions across national or other defined borders. 54 Children, as they were located in the immediate locale of home, school, or youth clubs in the colonial city, were also simultaneously located in the transnational networks and movement of ideas on home-making, education, and youth culture. Building upon this bourgeoning strand of scholarly work on colonial childhoods, this study approaches children and childhood in interwar Hong Kong as signifiers of a modernising city. Children’s everyday life is approached as a record of a colonial city in a critical phase of urban and modern transition. Hong Kong children are examined simultaneously as citizens of the British empire – carrying the hopes and anxieties about an  Ibid., 3.  See Tony Ballantyne, Webs of Empire: Locating New Zealand’s Colonial Past (Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 2012). 53  Richard Ivan Jobs and David M. Pomfret, “Introduction,” in Transnational Histories of Youth in the Twentieth Century, eds. Richard Ivan Jobs and David M. Pomfret (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 2. 54  Ibid., 5. 51 52

1 INTRODUCTION 

19

empire that has passed its zenith, and as city dwellers – living through and contributing to urban bourgeois culture. While examining a range of new typologies of architecture built for and lived by children in the domains of home, education, and medicine, this book is not primarily a study on how ideas about modern childhood materialised in the built environment in interwar Hong Kong, in a sense that it is not a study about architecture of childhood. It does not examine in detail the architects, architectural style, and building practices of the spaces created for children as a conventional study on architecture would do, such as in the study by Roy Kozlovsky on the architectures of childhood in post-war England.55 Nor is this a study on ideas about and representations of childhood and how children should live their life in the colonial setting of interwar Hong Kong. While ideas about eugenics provided a powerful reference point in physical education and medical inspection of Hong Kong children, this book is not primarily concerned with the dissemination of imperial ideas of childhood in the spheres of home, school, and clinics. This is also not a book about material culture of childhood, in that it is not a study about spaces that were intrinsically created for children, such as the studies in the benchmark edited volume by Marta Gutman and Ning de Coninck-Smith on Designing Modern Childhoods: History, Space, and the Material Culture of Children. In it, spaces and objects such as schools, hospitals, playgrounds, houses, and cell phones were examined for their significance in the making of modern childhoods.56 Such studies inevitably wrestle with a normative or scientific idea about childhood that emerged at the turn of the twentieth century and was being popularised by medical and educational experts through print press, schools, and clinics.57 This book is not primarily concerned with tracing this trajectory. Instead, this book is about how children in interwar Hong Kong engaged with the built, social, and cultural landscape of the cosmopolitan 55  Roy Kozvolsky, The Architectures of Childhood: Children, Modern Architecture and Reconstruction in Postwar England (New York: Routledge, 2013). 56  Marta Gutman and Ning de Coninck-Smith, eds. Designing Modern Childhoods: History, Space, and The Material Culture of Children (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2008). 57  For a discussion on the medicalisation of childhood, see Mona Gleason, Small Matters: Canadian Children in Sickness and Health, 1900–1940 (Montréal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013); Claudia Díaz-Díaz and Mona Gleason, “The Land is My School: Children, History, and the Environment in the Canadian Province of British Columbia,” Childhood 23, no. 2 (2016): 272–285.

20 

S. MENG WANG

urban culture in their own terms. It is a study on the lived experience and memories of a colonial city. The colonial built environments, as they appear in this book, are approached as social and cultural landscapes that recorded and documented children’s everyday life. In this sense, this book is a study on everyday life in a colonial city, a city that was segregated but also inclusive. As the historian John Mackenzie argues, colonial cities were almost always ‘a zone of cultural exchange in which the oppressed triumphantly maintained a degree of agency, speaking, negotiating, rejecting, adopting, adapting and reciprocating, however unequal the “terms of cultural trade”’.58 The colonial built environment, as Mackenzie suggests, documents the material culture of imperialism and reflects the dynamics of social change and cultural interactions with indigenous people.59 The colonial city, as much as it was physical landscape, it was also a site of everyday life, of mundane quotidian routines and activities: it is a city built, lived, remembered, imagined, subverted, adapted, and passed. In framing the colonial built environment as a document of social and cultural change and interactions, this book is formed by the cluster work of Henri Lefebvre, including, for example, Le Production de l’espace (translated into English as The Production of Space in 1991),60 The Critique of Everyday Life,61 Rhythm-analysis: Space, Time and Everyday Life.62 Lefebvre’s work has an explicit focus on ‘how social and cultural change is registered at the level of the individual’63 by connecting the everyday imagination, experience, and remaking of space. Lefebvre proposes ‘space’ has three ‘moments’: the physical, the conceptual (mental), and the social.64 These three moments (or dimensions) point to a way of seeing 58  John M. MacKenzie, British Empire Through Buildings: Structure, Function and Meaning (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020), 3. 59  Ibid., 260. 60  Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (first published in French 1974), trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 1991). 61  Henri Lefebvre, The Critique of Everyday Life: The One-volume Edition (New York: Verso Books, 2014). Also see Henri Lefebvre, “The Everyday and Everydayness,” Yale French Studies, no. 73 (1987): 7–11; Henri Lefebvre, Everyday Life in the Modern World, trans. Sacha Rabinovitch (New York: Routledge, 2017). 62  Henri Lefebvre, Rhythmanalysis: Space, Time and Everyday Life (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013). 63  Kathryne Beebe, Angela Davis, and Kathryn Gleadle, “Introduction: Space, Place and Gendered Identities: Feminist History and the Spatial Turn,” Women’s History Review 21, no. 4 (2012): 527. 64  Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 11–12.

1 INTRODUCTION 

21

space as architecturally constructed, culturally imagined, and experientially lived. The work of Yi-Fun Tuan further proposes it is the experiential aspect of space that gives it a personal, social, and cultural meaning. Tuan argues ‘place is a construct of experience’.65 Because the primary concern and interest of this book is children, when approaching childhood in colonial cities, this study also draws insights from work in the field of childhood studies, in publications such as Children in the City: Home, Neighbourhood and Community, edited by Pia Christensen and Margaret O’Brien. As Christensen and O’Brien argue, when placing children in the city, it is important to see the city as a social, cultural, and material place for children.66 In addition, the work by Karen Fog Olwig on children’s places proposes examining the city as a socio-cultural, rather than a mere physical site. This means seeing it as a place that people create and practise as they develop social and economic relationships and cultural values in relation to particular localities under varying historical, social, and personal circumstances.67 By examining the city as a social and cultural process, rather than mere physical landscapes, children as inhabitants of the city become part of a socio-cultural field of relations that could be extended and restructured according to the particular situations in which the children and their families find themselves.68 In bringing these diverse strands of scholarship together, this book sees the colonial city of interwar Hong Kong as a site of everyday activities and imaginings for children. The city is a lived process and experience. While this book concerns urban bourgeois culture and the social and public sphere created during the interwar period, this is not a study exclusively on the children of the colonial bourgeoisie. It is not solely concerned with the children from middle- and upper-class European and Chinese families. Instead, children of the rural gentry, Chinese elites, 65  See Yi-Fu Tuan, “Place: An Experiential Perspective,” Geographical Review 65, no. 2 (1975): 151–165. 66  Pia Christensen and Margaret O’Brien, “Introduction,” Children in the City: Home Neighbourhood and Community, eds. Pia Christensen and Margaret O’Brien (London: Routledge, 2003), 1–13. 67  Karen Fog Olwig, “Cultural Sites: Sustaining A Home in a Deterritorialized World,” In Siting Culture: The Shifting Anthropological Object, eds. Karen Fog Olwig and Kirsten Hastrup (London: Routledge, 2005), 23–44; also see Karen Fog Olwig and Eva Gulløv, eds. Children’s Places: Cross-Cultural Perspectives (London: Routledge, 2013). 68  Karen Fog Olwig, “‘Displaced’ Children?: Risks and Opportunities in a Caribbean Urban Environment,” in Children in the City: Home Neighbourhood and Community, eds., Pia Christensen and Margaret O’Brien (London: Routledge, 2003), 63.

22 

S. MENG WANG

European middle-class, overseas Chinese, urban migrants, and the working class all made presence. The book’s contribution, using a spatial framework, is to build an understanding of how empire is made, lived, imagined, and subverted in the everyday. By placing the colonial past of interwar Hong Kong in children’s everyday life, this book shows the gendered, classed, and, to a certain extent, racialised experience of empire.

1.2   Hong Kong: A Colonial City in the Everyday, 1841–1941 Hong Kong became a British Colony in 1841. Immediately before that, it was part of Xin’an county in Guangdong province, overseen by the Qing empire (1644–1911). The area which would later become the City of Victoria – the core of the colonial administrative, economic, and financial functions  – shared a common way of life and culture with the rest of Xin’an county and with other places around the Pearl River Delta. That is, it was a fishing and farming rural region inhabited chiefly by a number of Chinese ethnic groups, the Punti, Hakka, Tanka, and Hoklo, many of whom migrated south during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644).69 The total population at the time of the cession was a little more than 5600, which included ‘2,550 villagers and fishermen, 800 Chinese living in the Bazaar, 2,000 on craft of various kinds in the harbour and 300 “labourers from Kowloon”’.70 Upon the cession to Britain, Hong Kong underwent two territorial extensions. The first constitutive part of British Hong Kong – Hong Kong Island  – was ceded by the Qing government to Britain in 1841 upon its defeat in the First Opium War (1839–1842) (see Fig. 1.1). The second constitutive part – Kowloon – was ceded to Britain in 1860 upon Qing’s defeat in the Second Opium War (1856–1860). The last part, the New Territories, was leased to Britain for a period of 99 years from 1898.71 These three parts – Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and the 69  James Hayes, The Hong Kong Region 1850–1911: Institutions and Leadership in Town and Countryside (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012), 25–55. 70  The census return of 1931 suggests that the Chinese residents as recorded in the Gazette of May. 15, 1841, was 5650. “Report on the Census of the Colony of Hong Kong, 1931,” Hong Kong Sessional Papers, Hong Kong Government, no. 5/1931, 87. 71  This background discussion on the geography of Hong Kong is presented in the “Annual Report of the Education Department for the year 1938,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 1.

1 INTRODUCTION 

23

Fig. 1.1  Arrival of the British. View of Lyndhurst Terrace, Central District, Hong Kong Island, 1846. Source: Courtesy of The University of Hong Kong Libraries

New Territories – constituted the colony of Hong Kong governed by the British between 1841 and 1997 (see Fig. 1.2).72 One immediate outcome of the transition of administrative power from Qing to the British was the changing social makeup of the colony. As the historian Elizabeth Sinn depicts, this involved the arrival of colonial officials, European merchants, professionals, and missionaries, and, with them, a new infrastructure of everyday life emerged. Sinn suggests, from the early 1840s men came to build and sustain a governmental infrastructure that included the executive, legislative, and judicial branches; a civil service took care of revenue, public works, the postal service, medicine, law and order, and other basic aspects of administration […] Lawyers, physicians, auctioneers, appraisers, chefs, pastry cooks – even piano tuners – and

 Carroll, A Concise History of Hong Kong, 1.

72

24 

S. MENG WANG

Fig. 1.2  Map of the Xin'an District, Kwangtung (Guangdong) Province, 1868. Source: Courtesy of The University of Hong Kong Libraries other professionals found their way to Hong Kong to cater to the growing population’s various needs.73

In addition to these European communities, Sinn points out, the main population was Chinese, who – besides a class of merchants and compradors – included shopkeepers, bakers, butchers, chandlers, market operators, clerks, compositors for the presses, domestic servants, laborers, 73  Elizabeth Sinn, “Introduction,” in Meeting Place: Encounters across Cultures in Hong Kong, 1841–1984, eds. Elizabeth Sinn and Christopher Munn (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2017), x. Christopher Munn discussed extensively on the activities of these different groups of European in early colonial Hong Kong, see Christopher Munn, Anglo-­ China: Chinese People and British Rule in Hong Kong 1841–1880 (New York: Routledge, 2013), 21–53. Also see Gillian Bickley, “Early Beginnings of British Community (1841–1898),” in Foreign Communities in Hong Kong, 1840s–1950s, ed. Cindy Yik-yi Chu (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 17–38.

1 INTRODUCTION 

25

artisans, and artists.74 Census returns for 1871 suggest the distribution of population in the colony, of which 5,931 were Europeans and Americans, and 124,198 were Chinese.75 Over the next three decades (1870s–1900s), the urban districts experienced steady population influx (of both European and Chinese). Chinese shops run on the lines of nam-pak-hong (trading businesses between the north and south) specialising in selling Chinese food products, medicines, and liquors, mushroomed along Bonham Street and Wing Lok Street (in Sheung Wan).76 This commercial engagement gave rise to a class of the Chinese bourgeoisie which included entrepreneurs, compradors, bankers, industrialists, and professionals such as lawyers and physicians – ‘all members of the new business class emerging from the colony’s commercial growth and from Chinese and international trade in the late nineteenth century’.77 In addition to their commercial activities, Hong Kong Chinese merchants helped develop an extensive network of charitable services.78 For example, in 1872, the guilds of the leading trades established the Tung Wah Hospital in service of the Chinese community.79 The hospital provided medicine for the sick, shelter for the homeless, coffins and burials for the deceased. It soon extended its service to overseas Chinese, facilitating the repatriation of thousands of Chinese emigrants, as well as transmitting money, letters, and other personal effects of emigrants.80  Sinn, “Introduction,” xi.  The Hong Kong Government Gazette, Hong Kong Government, May. 6, 1871, 196. 76  Phillip Mar, “Accommodating Places: A Migrant Ethnography of Two Cities (Hong Kong and Sydney)” (PhD diss., University of Sydney, 2002), 38. For the forming of Chinese commercial districts in Hong Kong, see Frank Leeming, Street Studies in Hong Kong: Localities in a Chinese City (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977). 77  John M.  Carroll, Edge of Empires: Chinese Elites and British Colonials in Hong Kong (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 13. 78  John Carroll, “Colonial Hong Kong as a Cultural-Historical Place,” Modern Asian Studies 40, no. 2 (2006): 517–543. 79  Helen Siu, “Hong Kong: Cultural Kaleidoscope on a World Landscape,” in Tracing China: a Forty-year Ethnographic Journey (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2016), 387–400. 80   Elizabeth Sinn, “Hong Kong as an In-Between Place in the Chinese Diaspora, 1849–1939,” in Connecting Seas and Connected Ocean Rims: Indian, Atlantic, and Pacific Oceans and China Seas Migrations from the 1830s to the 1930s, eds. Donna R. Gabaccia and Dirk Hoerder (Boston: Brill, 2011), 225–247. For an extended discussion on the medical, social, and charitable services of the Tung Wah Hospital, see Elizabeth Sinn, Power and Charity: The Early History of the Tung Wah Hospital, Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1989). 74 75

26 

S. MENG WANG

The service to the Chinese community in Hong Kong notwithstanding, the Chinese elites performed complex cultural functions. As John Carroll argues, Hong Kong Chinese bourgeoisie occupied a unique position in the history of China and in the history of the British empire. On the one hand, as a generation of educated Chinese with financial means and modern ideas, they contributed to China’s nation-building. This involved a wide range of activities, including, for example, supporting the revolutionary movements to overthrow the Qing government in the late 1800s and early 1900s; sending money to native villages in the neighbouring Guangdong province; and helping China during the Japanese occupation in the late 1930s and early 1940s. On the other hand, by participating in activities such as contributing to imperial war funds, organising ceremonies for visiting British royalty, and attending imperial trade exhibitions, they helped make Hong Kong an active member of the British empire. This thus captured Hong Kong as a cultural space was shaped by its relationship with China, and by its position within the British empire.81 The contribution of Hong Kong Chinese elites to China’s nation-­ building, in particular, also derived from their support for education in Hong Kong. Many of the new class of Hong Kong Chinese bourgeoisie were educated in the colonial education system, which connected them with higher education in Europe and America. Upon completing their university study and returning to Hong Kong, the Chinese elites functioned as important supporters for the development of English education (schools where the medium of instruction was English) in the colony – providing funds for school buildings and sponsoring scholarships. Here English education performed dual functions. First, it was instrumental in preparing a class of Chinese elites for the public domain. Second, by making direct financial support for English education, the Chinese elites also articulated their contribution to the development of education in the colony. 1.2.1   English Schooling for the Children of the Urban Bourgeoisie: Early Developments, 1841–1901 The education system in pre-British Hong Kong was shaped by the civil service examination system in Imperial China. As historians of education Alan CK Cheung, E. Vance Randall, and Man Kwan Tam suggest, one key  Carroll, “Colonial Hong Kong as a Cultural-Historical Place,” 517–543.

81

1 INTRODUCTION 

27

accomplishment of Imperial China was the establishment of the civil service examination at national, provincial and district levels. This examination regime allowed the selection of intellectuals to serve in the imperial government based on their exam results.82 To this end, education performed the primary function of serving administrative and bureaucratic needs. This examination system also informed the establishment of government and private schools at the national, provincial, county, and district levels. At the district level, the private schools existed mainly in the form of sishu (private study hall) that were founded by local gentry.83 The private schooling sites of sishu in the villages of Hong Kong functioned as the principal learning space prior to the establishment of the colonial system of schooling. As the historian Anthony Sweeting suggests, in pre-­ British Hong Kong, as in other parts of the Chinese empire, local initiatives stimulated the founding of schools and other educational activities, centuries before the arrival of the British.84 The curriculum in these private study halls focused on Trimetrical Classic, Thousand Character Book, and Confucian texts such as the Four Books and Five Classics.85 In addition to formal schooling, family and the domestic space functioned as a site for informal learning activities. For example, children learned physical exercises such as Kung-Fu and Tai-chi (both are forms of Chinese martial art), art and music skills such as traditional Chinese musical instruments, and calligraphy from their family.86 Upon becoming a British colony in 1841, the education system in Hong Kong underwent a gradual transition that saw the increasing use of English as the medium of instruction in the different strands of school. 82  Alan CK Cheung, E. Vance Randall, and Man Kwan Tam, “The Development of Local Private Primary and Secondary Schooling in Hong Kong, 1841–2012,” International Journal of Educational Management 30, no. 6 (2016): 826–847; also see, Peng Deng, Private Education in Modern China (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1997). 83  Lun Ngai-ha Ng, “Village Education in The New Territories Region Under the Ching,” in From Village to City: Studies in the Traditional Roots of Hong Kong Society, eds. David Faure, James Hayes, and Alan Birch (Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong Press, 1984), 106–118. 84  Anthony Sweeting, Education in Hong Kong Pre-1841 to 1941: Facts and Opinion (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1990), 2. Cited in Cheung, Randall, and Tam, “The Development of Local Private,” 829. 85   Patrick H.  Hase, “Village Literacy and Scholarship: Village Scholars and their Documents,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch 52, (2012): 77–137, here, 78. 86  Cheung, Randall, and Tam, “The Development of Local Private,” 830.

28 

S. MENG WANG

This engaged the transnational recruitment of teaching professionals. Before the founding of government English schools, the English teaching force were primarily missionaries. For example, in 1842, the Morrison Education Society moved its school at Macau to Hong Kong Island.87 Around the same time, the Colonial Chaplain, the Rev. V.  Stanton, founded St. Paul’s College as a training college for native clergy.88 These early missionary schools served the purposes of education, evangelism, and charity. In 1847, the governor, John Davis, appointed a committee to survey the Chinese schools (where the medium of instruction was Chinese) in Victoria.89 A small grant (five dollars a month) was given to ten schools, which the Education Committee helped supervise. By 1860, Dr. James Legge, chairman of the Education Committee, had merged the ‘small government schools into a Central School’90 (a English-medium school for Chinese boys, the school changed its name to Victoria College in 1889, and eventually to Queen’s College in 1894). Over the following decades, government English schools penetrated into the principal urban districts in Hong Kong Island. In addition, a grant code was drawn up in 1873 that stimulated the subsequent growth of grant-in-aid schools.91 In this period (the second half of the nineteenth century), expansion in English education (schools where the medium of instruction was English) supported the training of a bilingual workforce – including bilingual assistants, clerks, and interpreters for the commercial and public sectors. As Anthony Sweeting and Edward Vickers suggest, one of the main aims of the early Anglo-Chinese schools was to provide Chinese boys with the bilingual skills they would need in order to act as a bridge between the local population and ‘foreign’ administrators and

87  Lun Ngai-ha Ng, Interactions of East and West: Development of Public Education in Early Hong Kong (Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 1984), 24. 88  “Annual Report of the Education Department for the Year 1939,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 1. 89  Cheung, Randall, and Tam, “The Development of Local Private,” 831. 90  This background discussion on the history of urban education in Hong Kong is included in “Report on Education in Hong Kong by E. Burney, M.C.,” published on behalf of the Government of Hong Kong by the Crown Agents for the Colonies, 4 Millbank London, SW1, 1935, 6. 91  This background discussion on the history of education in Hong Kong is presented in the “Annual Report of the Education Department for the Year 1938,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 2.

1 INTRODUCTION 

29

traders.92 This gave rise to a class of bilingual professionals that the trading economy came to depend. Employments of graduates of government schools also reflected this tendency. For example, in 1871, the Inspector of Schools, Frederick Stewart, suggested, in the course of the year, 95 boys graduated from the Central School. Of these, 40 are in business, some as interpreters, some as clerks, some as assistant compradores, some as assistants in Chinese shops, some as brokers, printers, and so on. Some have gone to California, some to Japan, others to Tientsin, Shanghai, Foochow, Canton, Macao, Saigon, Annam, and Bombay, while 25 remain in Hong Kong.93

Connection with the commercial sector was also apparent in the school curriculum that emphasised ‘Algebra, Arithmetic, Chemistry, Dictation, English Composition […] Translation from Chinese into English, and Translation from English into Chinese’.94 However, what was more significant about the employment of Hong Kong graduates was that the majority of them left Hong Kong and took up positions overseas and in China. This reflected how early Hong Kong college graduates belonged to a transnational network of commerce and trade, of which they helped build. 1.2.2   Expansion and Diversification of English Education 1901–1941 While early English education primarily served commercial ends, by the turn of the century, the growth of English education was further shaped by the transition of the colony from a rural to a predominantly urban pattern of living. Census returns in 1901 suggest that the total population in Hong Kong Island and Kowloon was 241,694 (of which 233,263 were Chinese). Of these, 181,981 resided in the City of Victoria, and 43,871 in Kowloon.95 By 1931, the total population in the colony had reached 849,751, of which 821,429 were Chinese. Within the Chinese ­population, 92  Anthony Sweeting and Edward Vickers, “Language and the history of colonial education: The case of Hong Kong,” Modern Asian Studies 41, no. 1 (2007): 1–40. 93  The Hong Kong Government Gazette, Hong Kong Government, March. 18, 1871, 116. 94  Ibid. 95  “Report on the Census of the Colony of Hong Kong, 1901,” Hong Kong Sessional Papers, Hong Kong Government, no. 39/1901.

30 

S. MENG WANG

368,739 resided in the City of Victoria and 286,896  in the towns of Kowloon and New Kowloon.96 By the 1930s, this distribution meant that well over two-thirds of the colony’s population residing in urban and suburban areas. The urban transition, particularly the rapid growth of Kowloon, touched and transformed most of the basic institutions of urban living, including home, neighbourhood, and school. A complicated pattern of accommodation to the conditions of the new urban environment emerged, among which were the new schooling needs of children from the socially, occupationally, and geographically dispersed colonial middle-class sector.97 English schools became an indispensable source of urban norms and lifestyles.98 These schools included government, grant-in-aid, and private establishments. For government schools, in particular, prior to the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941, the British colonial state maintained seven primary English schools: three in Hong Kong Island, including Ellis Kadoorie School for Chinese boys, Wanchai School, and Ellis Kadoorie Indian School; and four in Kowloon Peninsula, including Yaumati School (in Kowloon), Gap Road School, Taipo School, and Cheng Chau School (these last three schools were also known as the outlying district schools, all located in the New Territories). All of these schools were founded for Chinese boys, except the Ellis Kadoorie Indian School. In addition, the colonial government maintained two secondary schools, both in Hong Kong Island: Queen’s College and King’s College (formerly Saiyingpun School) for boys, and one girls’ school Belilios Public Schools for Chinese girls (that had both primary and secondary section), also in Hong Kong Island.99

96  “Report on the Census of the Colony of Hong Kong, 1931,” Hong Kong Sessional Papers, Hong Kong Government, no. 5/1931. 97  For a discussion on the history of urban education in relation to urban transition, see, for example, Sol Cohen, “American History, Urban History, History of Urban Education,” The Review of Education/Pedagogy/Cultural Studies 2, no. 2 (1976): 194–206. 98  For a discussion on urban education in relation to urban culture, see, for example, Gary McCulloch, “Education and The Middle Classes: The Case of The English Grammar Schools, 1868–1944,” History of Education 35, no. 6 (2006): 689–704. 99  “Annual Report of the Education Department for the Year 1939,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 4. The name of ‘Saiyingpun School’ was changed to ‘King’s College’ in 1926. “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1926,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 11.

1 INTRODUCTION 

31

The grant-in-aid English schools, on the other hand, were born out of the close collaboration between missionaries and Chinese elites. These grant-in-aid institutions included, for example, the Diocesan Boys’ School, the Diocesan Girls’ School, the French Convent, the Italian Convent, St. Joseph’s College, La Salle College, Maryknoll Convent School, St. Stephen’s College (boys), St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, and St. Mary’s School.100 Acting as important supporters for English education, Chinese elites also sponsored numerous scholarships in secondary education. In 1928, for example, Mr. Woo Hay Tong presented a large sum, the ‘interest from which provided Woo Hay Tong Scholarships in all government schools’. Mr. Woo also made a substantial provision for similar scholarships in mission schools, including St. Joseph’s College, the Diocesan Boys’ School and Diocesan Girls’ School.101 1.2.3   Higher Education In the early decades of the twentieth century, there was also a marked integration between secondary and higher education in Hong Kong. This involved the establishment of technical institution and university. In 1906, a separate strand of vocational training in the form of evening continuation classes was started and managed by a Committee under the Chairmanship of the Registrar General.102 In 1907, this form of specialised vocational training evolved into the Hong Kong Technical Institute. The Institute was a sub-department of the Education Department and was under regular inspection by the Inspector of Schools. It focused on science, commerce, and engineering and offered fixed-term studies.103 The University of Hong Kong, which, as the historian Peter Cunich suggests, was born out of the ‘pragmatic desires of the Chinese elite and the informal imperial ideals of the governor [Sir Frederick Lugard]’, was opened in 1912. Lugard framed the university as an ‘imperial’ project for the benefit

100  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1937,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 28. 101  “Annual Report of the Education Department for the Year 1938,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 4. 102  “Report of the Inspector of Schools for the Year 1906,” The Hong Kong Government Gazette, Hong Kong Government, July. 19, 1907, 451. 103  “Report of the Inspector of Schools for the Year 1907,” The Hong Kong Government Gazette, Hong Kong Government, July. 10, 1908, 297.

32 

S. MENG WANG

of China.104 The comments by the Director of Education, E. Irving, upon the opening of the university also resonated with this view. As Irving suggested, as the University is only just founded we cannot tell where the students will go after graduating, but it is expected that they will become engineers and doctors on the Coast and later in China itself. The Arts students will most probably enter the Chinese Government Service.105

Following the opening of the university, Irving suggested, ‘it was found impossible to attempt to prepare boys for both the Oxford Senior and the Hong Kong University Matriculation’. As a result, the former text had been abandoned.106 By 1915, Hong Kong matriculation had almost entirely replaced Oxford Local Examinations.107 This captured the emergence of an integrated education system in Hong Kong where a complete academic pathway was provided in the colony. Early university entrance was limited to boys. In 1921, the University of Hong Kong officially admitted female students.108 The admission of females into higher education was a significant moment in the history of colonial education in that it underwrote the entering of Chinese females into the professional and public domain, which is one of the most defining social and cultural changes in interwar Hong Kong.109 From the initial purpose of training a class of bilingual middlemen for the trading economy, to the diversification and expansion of English education to cater for new urban needs, over the course of a century 104   Peter Cunich, “Making Space for Higher Education in Colonial Hong Kong, 1887–1913,” in Harbin to Hanoi: The Colonial Built Environment in Asia, 1840 to 1940, eds. Laura Victoir and Victor Zatsepine (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2013), 181–205, here, 199. 105  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1912,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 14. 106  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1913,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 7. 107  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1915,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 21. 108  “St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, Speech Day,” The China Mail, Jan. 19, 1922, 8. 109  Patricia P.K. Chiu, “The Making of Accomplished Women: English Education for Girls in Colonial Hong Kong, 1890s–1940s,” in Meeting Place: Encounters across Cultures in Hong Kong, 1841–1984, eds. Elizabeth Sinn and Christopher Munn (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2017), 64–86.

1 INTRODUCTION 

33

(1841–1941), English education functioned as a means through which a wide spectrum of social actors claimed a presence in the colonial social and public domain. While for an extended period in colonial history, the notion of ‘Chinese elites’ clearly denoted a class of male merchants and professionals, by the interwar period, the involvement of elite Chinese women in professions, social service, and philanthropic activities110 expanded the narrow definition of ‘local elites’. Aside from the rapid expansion of English education, the historian Anthony Sweeting identifies three major influences that shaped the contour of education in Hong Kong over the interwar period. These include: first, the influence of nationalistic and cultural movements in China such as the ‘New Life’ movement in the late 1920s and 1930s. This had particular relevance on the development of vernacular (Chinese-medium) education in Hong Kong. Second, the ‘Great Depression’ that strained the trading economy of Hong Kong and underlined the subsequent development of local industries. This informed the expansion of technical education in Hong Kong in the 1930s. Third, the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War and World War II. This drew in a sustained influx of refugee children and further called for the increased concern for drilling and physical education of schoolchildren in Hong Kong.111 These social, cultural, and political influences entwined to shape the contour of schooling practices in Hong Kong and reflect how education in Hong Kong was situated in the broader national, imperial, and transnational currents. This book further develops Sweeting’s arguments in that it looks at how the social, cultural, and political influences played out differently for boys’ and girls’ schools, particularly as they shaped the vocational education in the formal schooling system in interwar Hong Kong, as Chap. 5 discusses.

1.3  Methods and Sources This section introduces the strategies and tools this study deploys to ‘locate’ the wide spectrum of social actors – including the colonial state, European professionals, Chinese elites, voluntary associations, and private enterprises – who had participated in shaping the domestic, school, social, and public life of children in interwar Hong Kong, in the physical and  Ibid.  See Anthony Sweeting, Education in Hong Kong Pre-1841 to 1941: Facts and Opinion (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1990), 343. 110 111

34 

S. MENG WANG

digital archives and across a range of sources. These historical actors suffered uneven documentations, visibilities, and representations in the textual, oral, and visual materials this book draws upon. The colonial state records stored in the Hong Kong Public Records Office and in the digital database Hong Kong Government Reports Online 1841–1941 (which will be introduced further below) were effective in making visible and substantive the role the colonial state and European professionals played in colonial enterprises – recording particularly the expert voice of colonial officials in their field of expertise, such as education, medicine, and town planning. As a result, they tended to marginalise the activities of indigenous groups, rendering relatively invisible the private and public life of Chinese women. This gendered nature of colonial archives notwithstanding, the colonial official records did capture the contribution of European female professionals to colonial education and colonial medicine. The invisibility of Chinese women in colonial archives was thus shaped more directly by the colonial categorisation of the colonial and the colonised that placed the Chinese community in a position of margin. While the colonial official records were created primarily for the purpose of colonial administration, and were informed by gender and racial imperatives, newspapers, on the other hand, were printed for public circulation. They published the everyday activities of a wider range of social actors and organisations. The different types of documents thus served distinct readerships that, in turn, shaped the scope and the nature of its content. This book draws on a diverse range of sources, including state reports, newspapers, school magazines, memoirs, biographies, and institutional publications (for example, by HKYWCA). Each of these categories of source brings to light a particular ‘everyday world’. It is the contradiction and disjuncture between the colonial space as imagined by the colonial state and as lived by a diverse range of historical actors in the everyday that this book is most interested in. To bring this disjuncture more fully into historical narrative, this book also draws on life histories and visual sources, created either in colonial or postcolonial context. 1.3.1   State Reports and Sites of Colonial Intervention The state reports used in this book are drawn primarily from Hong Kong Government Reports Online (1842–1941): a digital archive launched by the Hong Kong University. The archive contains a full-text image database providing online access to pre-World War II issues of four major

1 INTRODUCTION 

35

government publications, including Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Sessional Papers, Hong Kong Hansard, and Hong Kong Government Gazette.112 Within these four major government publications, this study made extensive use of the reports of government departments and special committees. These include: reports of the education department; public works department; medical and sanitary department, as well as the department of botany and forestry. Census returns, reports of the housing committee and the playing fields committee were also consulted. This extensive use of state reports is in part to trace how the colonial government in Hong Kong and its various apparatus intervened and shaped the domestic architecture, townscape, schooling practices, extra-curricular activities, and professional aspirations of children and youth in the interwar period. As the historian Gary McCulloch suggests, state reports are produced out of the necessity to document the development of government administration and of its dealings with different interest groups. The various governmental branches produced ‘large number of reports on the problems that they encountered and the policies they favoured’.113 This speaks particularly to the state reports used in this study where they documented how the British government in Hong Kong developed an administrative infrastructure to govern the different aspects of urban life. As official data, these state reports reflected the imperial mentalities that drove policy making, in areas such as education, public health, and town planning. For example, the education reports contain detailed accounts of the educational development in the colony. Information on school enrolment, subjects taught at government boys’ and girls’ schools, and school annual inspection on the physical condition of children and school building, were all recorded and sent back annually to the Colonial Office in London. Same for the medical and sanitary reports where the physical condition and health infrastructure of the colony were closely recorded and monitored. The state reports are useful in terms of tracing how imperial discourses and mentalities – enacted through state policies – shaped the practice of a specific childhood site, such as school. However, the official records also leave gaps as to how each individual school and pupil responded to the 112  For full description and access page, see http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkgro/index.jsp. Accessed on June 10, 2022. 113  Gary McCulloch, Documentary Research in Education, History, and the Social Sciences (London: RoutledgeFalmer, 2004), 11.

36 

S. MENG WANG

state policy. The official documents are also less attentive to the everyday experience of marginalised groups114 such as Chinese girls and women. It is for these reasons that this study also consults newspapers and oral histories, both of which are grounded in everyday events. 1.3.2   Newspapers and Everyday Life In contrast with state departmental records that were created for administrative purposes, newspapers in colonial Hong Kong were produced for mundane everyday consumption. They constituted and formed everyday culture in that the public press functioned as an effective instrument in shaping popular debates and social views at the time. As the historian John Tosh points out, as a type of archival source, newspapers document the political and social views that ‘made most impact at the time’. They also provide a ‘day-to-day record of events’.115 However, the intended readership of a certain newspaper also had bearings on its contents. This study made extensive use of four English newspapers, collected from the Hong Kong Public Libraries – Old Hong Kong Newspaper Digital Collection: a non-curated database that provides digitised images of old Hong Kong newspapers (both English and Chinese) from Hong Kong Public Library.116 These are: (i) The China Mail (the database covered the publishing period between 1866 and 1961); (ii) Hong Kong Daily Press (1864–1941); (iii) Hong Kong Sunday Herald (1929–1950); and (iv) The Hong Kong Telegraph (1881–1951). These four English newspapers were printed for a very specific section of the public. They were consumed by, and circulated among, the colonial middle class: the Western-educated, English-speaking societies. This readership implies that these English newspapers published topics and articles that were particularly relevant to the middle-class sector. For example, annual reports of the government and grant-in-aid schools (which educated middle-class children) were published in this media. In addition, the activities of the Girl Guides and the Hong Kong Young Women’s Christian Association were also published here. This recording of female-led social movements, in particular,  Ibid., 22.  John Tosh, The Pursuit of History: Aims, Methods and New Directions in the Study of Modern History (London: Longman, 2010), 97. 116  For full description and access page, see https://mmis.hkpl.gov.hk/old-hk-collection. Accessed on June. 10, 2022. 114 115

1 INTRODUCTION 

37

suggests newspapers not only ‘provided a media to document and publicise women’s charity but also facilitated circulation of new ideas about and models of charity’.117 Newspapers, as print media, are thus an effective outlet to search for women’s experiences. They also bring to light the wide range of social actors who had participated in public affairs. This study utilises these English newspapers to trace how a specific transnational movement  – for example, the Garden City movement, which was not extensively documented in state records – engaged public debates. Because newspapers reflect the attitudes of their readers, they are useful to trace which section of the colonial society – that was part of their readership – interacted with the five transcolonial movements, and in what particular ways. 1.3.3   Oral History and Lived Spaces State records and newspapers  – produced in the colonial context  – are effective in capturing the context-specific development of a transnational movement in interwar Hong Kong. However, they rarely touch on the experience of children, particularly on how children engaged with the transnational movement of ideas and practices. The lack of records produced by children at the time also contributes to the silence of children’s perspective on past events.118 In dealing with this gap in archival records, this study consulted oral histories. As Philip Gardner suggests, as a research method, oral histories can reveal not only the intimate lived experiences rooted in ‘the local, the personal and the particular’, but also notes that ‘the story of a life may also become the story of the historical landscape within which that life has been lived’.119 This use of the personal to elucidate the broader contextual and historical is also pointed out by Mary Jo Maynes where, she suggests, life histories provide a unique perspective on the intersection of individual, collective, institutional, and societal 117  Xia Shi, At Home in the World: Women and Charity in Late Qing and Early Republican China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018), 29. 118  Christopher J. Lee, “Children in the Archives: Epistolary Evidence, Youth Agency, and the Social Meanings of ‘Coming of Age’ in Interwar Nyasaland,” Journal of Family History 35, no. 1 (2010): 25–47; also see Harry Hendrick, “The Child As a Social Actor in Historical Sources: Problems of Identification and Interpretation,” in Research with Children, eds. Pia Christensen and Allison James (London: Routledge, 2008), 40–63. 119  Philip Gardner, “Oral History in Education: Teacher’s Memory and Teachers’ History,” History of Education 32, no. 2 (2003): 75–188, here 184, 187.

38 

S. MENG WANG

e­ volution as captured in narratives.120 This points to the ‘situatedness’ of everyday life in a historical context.121 The oral histories used in this study are retrieved from two major oral history archives: the oral history collection at Hong Kong Memory122 (digital) and the Oral History Project Archive at Hong Kong University Libraries Special Collection (physical). Over 300 interviews were sampled, and eventually around 30 records were selected based on the alignment between the interviewees’ childhood and the time period under study. These two oral history archives are useful for this book because their attentiveness to the lived experience of a diverse range of social actors. The oral history archive at Hong Kong Memory (collected between 2008 and 2013) contains over 120 interviews. Interviewees of different age groups, places of origin, ethnic backgrounds, social classes, and occupations were consulted on a wide range of subjects such as ‘industry, education, community, housing, art and culture, and social life in Hong Kong’.123 The Hong Kong Oral History Archives Project housed at Hong Kong University Libraries Special Collection, on the other hand, was jointly operated by the Centre of Asian Studies and Department of Sociology, The University of Hong Kong. Between 2001 and 2004, the project organised a collection of over 200 oral histories. The collection contains memories of individuals from a diversity of sectors, ethnic groups, trades and 120  Mary Jo Maynes, “Age as a Category of Historical Analysis: History, Agency, and Narratives of Childhood,” The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 1, no. 1 (2008): 114–124; also see Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson, eds. The Oral History Reader (New York: Routledge, 2015). 121  See Andreas Eckert and Adam Jones, “Introduction: Historical Writing about Everyday Life,” Journal of African Cultural Studies 15, no. 1 (2002): 5–16. 122  Hong Kong Memory is a project led by Dr. Elizabeth Sinn (of Hong Kong University) and sponsored by the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust. Its primary objective is to ‘build a digital repository for the collection, conservation, preservation and presentation of Hong Kong’s cultural heritage’. This curated database collects ‘text documents, photographs, posters, sound recordings, motion pictures and videos’, organised under specific themes. While the Government Reports Online (1842–1941) elucidates the sites of colonial intervention and the day-to-day colonial administration, Hong Kong Memory is a project designed to unearth and preserve the experience of Hong Kong people. It is interested in the local and lived experience of the colonial past. For full project description, see https://www. hkihss.hku.hk/en/research/completed_projects/hong-kong-memory-project/. Access page, https://www.hkmemory.hk/index.html. Accessed June 10, 2022. 123  For full archive description, see https://www.hkmemory.hk/collections/oral_history/ intro/index.html. Accessed on June 10, 2022.

1 INTRODUCTION 

39

occupations, associations and communities. The interviews recorded pivotal points in an interviewee’s life, such as his/her birth, family and marriage, schooling and education, employment, migration and connections with his/her home place, residence and community, leisure and social life, as well as their observation and witnesses of special historical events.124

The particular relevance of these oral history interviews to this study is that they are recollections on childhood, schooling and education, employment, and social life. I mapped ‘sites of memory’ with the five transnational movements. For example, in the collection of life histories for the Garden City movement, I was attentive to memories of childhood home, domestic architecture, neighbourhood, and play experience. And because these interviews cover individuals from diverse gender, racial, and class backgrounds, they support an analysis on how the spatial practice of individuals in everyday life was textured by social factors. In the chapter on school architecture and hygiene, I drew particularly on school memories. In certain instances, interviewees recalled a vivid account of their everyday routine at boarding school. Details on classroom interior, playground activities, curriculum subjects, daily meals, school uniform, and extra-­ curricular activities provide useful glimpses of the everyday experience of colonial education. However, the fact these childhood memories were located in the distant colonial past and were elicited in a post-colonial context also has bearings on the usefulness of these oral history interviews. As the historian Christopher Lee points out, while life histories – oral or written – recover in part children’s experience in the past, the disjuncture between ‘present age and past life stage in the formation of memory’ often resulted in retrospective assessment by informants rather than ‘event-­ oriented accounts reflective of the period in question’.125 As well, life histories are textured by ‘postcolonial reflection on the meaning of colonial identities’.126 They are reconstructed memories. It is for these reasons that this study read oral histories against the materials produced in the colonial context, including state reports, newspapers, school publications, and visual sources. For each chapter, there is thus a mapping between different 124  For full project description, see http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkoh/. Accessed on June 10, 2022. 125  Lee, “Children in the Archives,” 29. 126  Emma J.  Teng, “Reinventing Home: Images of Mobility and Returns in Eurasian Memoirs,” Centre for Chinese Studies Research Series No. 12 (2009), 355–388, here, 359. Taipei: Centre for Chinese Studies.

40 

S. MENG WANG

types of sources. This mapping across sources also brings to light how a transnational movement engaged different sectors, including, for example, the colonial state, voluntary associations, urban professionals, and children. 1.3.4   Siting the Visual The mapping of sources into specific sites also engages visual materials that were collected from a range of archives, including online visual databases – Hong Kong Memory; University of Southern California Digital Library;127 Hong Kong Public Libraries – Map Collection,128 and physical archives – Hong Kong Public Records Office, and Special Collections at Hong Kong University Libraries. The visual sources – including maps, floorplans, and photographs – offer immediate aid to see the architecture of a space, such as a classroom or a playground. As this study examines the specific sites and spaces shaped by the five transnational movements, the visual materials are categorised into specific spatial sets. For example, the chapter on the Garden City movement looks at domestic architecture, urban form, and play experience of children. As such, district maps, photographs of domestic building (both interior and exterior), and floorplans of residence were collected to form the spatial set for this movement. The chapter on the imperial hygiene movement and school architecture considers the spatial forms of school. To ‘visualise’ the spatial changes in school architecture, photographs of school buildings (both interior and exterior), images of school activities, and floorplans were collected. In approaching these visual sources, I was sensitive that visual materials of map, photograph, and floorplan, too, were produced for specific purposes and audience.129 For example, many of the photographs on school life were taken by  Searchable visual database, http://digitallibrary.usc.edu. Accessed on June 10 2022.  This collection focuses on ‘the early maps of Hong Kong since the nineteenth century, including maps of the whole territory, district plans, street maps, geological maps, topographic maps, street naming plans and other thematic maps. It greatly facilitates researches on the boundary history, landscape changes, district development and street names in Hong Kong’. More details in https://mmis.hkpl.gov.hk/web/guest/map-collection. Accessed on June 10, 2022. 129  For further discussions on the use of visual sources, see, for example, Julianne Moss and Barbara Pini, eds. Visual Research Methods in Educational Research (New York: Springer, 2016); Eric Margolis and Luc Pauwels, eds. The Sage Handbook of Visual Research Methods (London: Sage, 2011). 127 128

1 INTRODUCTION 

41

­ issionary societies to document their educational activities in the colony. m It is precisely this ‘constructed-ness’ of the visual material that when read against life histories, state reports, and newspapers, the disjuncture between the ‘everyday world’ as articulated by different social actors surfaces.

1.4   Chapter Outline Five chapters and a conclusion follow. Chapter 2, entitled ‘Garden City: Urban Form, Colonial Domesticity, and Spaces of Play in Childhood’, considers how the Garden City movement in interwar Hong Kong engendered a new residential architecture and supervised play space for middle-­ class Chinese children in suburban districts in Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. Pioneered by Ebenezer Howard in his 1899 publication To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform (reprinted as Garden Cities of To-morrow in 1902), the original garden city idea advocated for the establishment of self-sustained communities that integrated country and town life. It was a model to ‘revive the small town under twentieth century industrial conditions’.130 When transplanted to Hong Kong, the garden city idea responded simultaneously to a wide stream of cultural currents. For the colonial state, it was an effective means to enact new town planning culture – creating a healthy domestic form on the one hand and transforming suburban housing typology on the other. For the Chinese bourgeoisie, it allowed this class sector to consume the expanding material culture of respectability. Garden city estates, in turn, functioned as an expression of a class, namely, the colonial polite society. The principle of wholesome community life advocated by the garden city idea subsequently gave rise to residents’ associations that campaigned for the expansion of play architecture for children. As city-based bourgeoisie – comprising both European and Chinese mercantile and professional classes– offloaded their concern and frustration for urban health, particularly that of children, onto the newly developed garden city districts, they helped to define an architecture and landscape of play that was distinctly counter-urban. Play architecture thus functioned as an expression of class anxiety, a shared outlook of the urban elite on childhood, and, beneath it, lay the frustration about, and hope for, the future of the British empire. 130  “The First Garden City, Interesting Facts Concerning Letchworth,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Mar. 6, 1914, 3.

42 

S. MENG WANG

Chapter 3, entitled ‘Architecture of Health: Hygiene and Schooling in Hong Kong, 1901–1941’, shifts the spatial focus to the educational site. It examines how a transnational network of European sanitary, medical, and educational experts helped define the contour of architectural reform and hygiene curriculum in Hong Kong between the period 1901 and 1941. Traveling back and forth between Hong Kong and the wider British imperial world, these colonial experts brought with them new approaches to public health that subsequently shaped the practices in Hong Kong schools. As the architectural reform, hygiene education, and medical inspection were most rigorously carried out in the state-sponsored English schools (English-medium) that educated a multi-racial, but predominantly Chinese middle-class cohort, this strand of schools became the prime site where sanitary innovations and hygiene curriculum materialised. The private vernacular schools (Chinese-medium) schools, where the great majority of Chinese children sought schooling, however, hardly experienced spatial reform due to the lack of funding. Just as imperial preoccupation over the health of youth drew the spaces of the classroom, dormitory, and school playgrounds into the discourse of hygiene that created a new typology of school architecture, it simultaneously stratified a class structure in Chinese society. School health, in turn, functioned as an important means to enact new class and gender dynamics in Hong Kong in the early twentieth century, entwining with the rise of the Chinese bourgeoisie and female professionals, as well as eugenic thought that reframed the health of Hong Kong youth as directly connected with the future of the British empire. In addition, curricular innovations launched in the interwar period such as school gardens shows that, by this time, school architecture was brought into the fold of landscape and planning experiments that aimed to combat the health problems produced by overcrowded urban living. School gardens were a response to both the transnational influences such as the school gardening movement and the Garden City movement that were taking place in the educational and urban planning spheres, and the changing architectural design practices of schools in Hong Kong. Chapter 4, entitled ‘Treading a Different Path: Gender and the Literary Space at St. Stephen’s Girls’ College’, turns to the literary space of school magazines and local newspapers and examines how the nationalist discourse on girls’ education as a means to save China informed the reframing of gender in the literary world in the interwar period. The chapter focuses on one elite girls’ school: St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, founded by the Church Missionary Society (the CMS) in 1906 for the education of

1 INTRODUCTION 

43

upper-class Chinese girls in Hong Kong. By looking at how Chinese schoolgirls and European teachers engaged two specific debates concerned Chinese women in higher education and Chinese women in public affairs, the chapter shows that the literary world served as an outlet where elite Chinese girls and European teachers constructed new images and meanings of gender that legitimised Chinese females’ increased public engagement in a colonial society. As elite Chinese female students and European professionals travelled within the British empire and beyond for purposes of education and employment, they increasingly came to imagine and exercise their own gendered agencies in new ways. Forming alliances with the transnational networks of the YWCA and the CMS, and the imperial social echelons, elite Chinese girls  – with their transnational experience and outlook  – ushered in educational reforms for the working-class Chinese children, girls, and women. The literary world, in turn, provided a space where elite Chinese girls could voice their perspectives, respond to public debates, and reflect on their broader and changing roles in a colonial society. Chapter 5, entitled ‘Lifting Girls: Chinese Women, Vocational Education, and the HKYWCA’, considers how the HKYWCA  – as the only Chinese women’s organisation in Hong Kong throughout the interwar years131 – created new patterns of professional and public engagement for European and Chinese female professionals, including teachers, nurses, and physicians. Founded in 1920 for ‘the development of Chinese women along spiritual, mental, physical and social lines’,132 the HKYWCA absorbed and mobilised a wide range of female professionals to support its extensive medical, educational, and social work. The chapter focuses on the educational work the association carried out in support of industrial girls and new mothers. Concerning the former, the HKYWCA recruited paid and volunteer teachers to offer free literacy classes for working-class girls employed in industry and domestic service. The upshot of this line of educational work is that it equipped working-class girls with the skills and knowledge they needed to become engaged social actors. It reconfigured the patterns of social engagement of industrial girls in which they emerged as public actors who set up and run free schools for street children. The educational work with new mothers overlapped with the eugenic thought prevalent in Hong Kong during the interwar period. By opening up baby 131 132

 ‘Lady Caldecott at Y.W.C.A.’, Hong Kong Daily Press, July 3, 1936, 7.  ‘Chinese YWCA, First Annual Meeting’, The China Mail, Mar. 12, 1921, 1.

44 

S. MENG WANG

clinics, organising health conferences and healthy baby contests, the HKYWCA functioned as an outlet that disseminated scientific methods of motherhood and childrearing to the Chinese community. This also produced a new pattern of professional engagement for European and Chinese women physicians where they carved out an area of public life that was their own, that is, the medical care for children and women. Chapter 6, entitled ‘Reimaging the Colonial Space: Femininity and Everyday Life of Girl Guides’, considers how the Girl Guide movement constructed a new cultural geography of social service and sports for the participating middle-class and working-class Chinese girls residing in both urban and rural settings. Having started out as a multi-racial middle-class youth movement in the 1920s, Guiding broadened its membership base in the 1930s to include girls in vernacular (Chinese-medium) girls’ schools, orphanages, hospitals, and sanatoria. This expansion of membership allowed the middle-class ideals of social service and charitable work to permeate into a wider spectrum of girls. In particular, it mobilised working-­ class girls to participate in new forms of community service that included work in prisons: teaching female inmates needlework and raffia work as well as gardening and basic literacy. The emphasis Guiding placed on the physical development of girls coincided with the eugenic idea. The colonial preoccupation with the health of schoolchildren engendered new forms of physical training for schoolgirls in the interwar period. This included a transition from earlier focuses on carriage and healthy feminine demeanour to team and competitive sports. Guiding took this fit, resilient, and agile feminine body to a new ground in showcasing it in imperial celebrations such as Empire Day and the Jubilee Rally. Through these public exposures, the fit feminine body was rebranded as an imperial spectacle. The upshot of this new geography of social service and sports was that it allowed Chinese girls from diverse social backgrounds to reimagine the colonial and the public space. By drawing in a diverse array of actors, including the imperial elites, European and Chinese school teachers, schoolgirls, industrial girls, and orphans, the Girl Guide Movement provided an entrée into the upper echelons of Hong Kong colonial society. This allowed Chinese girls to put transnational youth movements to new uses involving class aspiration, public engagement, and claiming their own space in a British colonial society.

CHAPTER 2

Garden City: Urban Form, Colonial Domesticity, and Spaces of Play in Childhood, 1921–1941

In 1923, the five-year-old Catherine Joyce Symons (b. 1918), a Eurasian child (born of mixed parentage), moved with her family to their new home in Kai Tak Bund (a Garden City estate in Kowloon, named after its chief promoters: Ho Kai – a Chinese member on the Legislative Council, and Au Tak – a Chinese businessman). At the time of their relocation, Catherine suggested, very little of Kowloon Peninsula had been developed [...] Two and three storey houses stretched along Nathan Road for a couple of miles, becoming more and more scattered, and disappearing altogether before the tiny settlement of Kai Tak. From there a 10-minute walk brought us to our new home 23 Kai Tak Bund, in a small terrace of 17 houses. Across the wide road, we could actually see the sea. In marked contrast to our tiny flat in Hong Kong, the house was huge, with bright, spacious rooms, and a front garden.1

The garden-style house depicted here in Catherine’s childhood story captured a significant moment in the diversification of dwelling typology in Hong Kong over the interwar period. This new architectural design 1  Joyce Symons, Looking at Stars: Memoirs of Catherine Joyce Symons (Hong Kong: Pegasus Books, 1996), 8. Cited in Cecilia Louise Chu, “Speculative Modern: Urban Forms and the Politics of Property in Colonial Hong Kong” (PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2012), 134.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Meng Wang, Space and Everyday Lives of Children in Hong Kong, Global Histories of Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44401-2_2

45

46 

S. MENG WANG

constituted a new spatial form of suburban built environment that emerged over the phase of northward provincial urbanisation2 in the Kowloon Peninsula in the 1920s and 1930s. The resulting domestic architecture not only engaged new building practices and technologies to promote the health function of the dwelling site, but also enacted new domestic lifestyle that came to signify middle-class respectability. The spatial design of the garden city home in the interwar period thus simultaneously entered the imperial discourses on public health and domesticity. This, in turn, engendered new domestic and play experience for the middle-class child. This chapter considers the development of new residential forms in interwar Hong Kong (to distinguish, Hong Kong as appears in this chapter refers to the wider geography of Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and the New Territories) and how this change in everyday residential architecture produced new spatial experience of play – in both the domestic and public domains – for children from varied racial backgrounds, but belonged collectively to the colonial middle-class sector. In particular, the chapter examines a transnational town planning practice – the Garden City movement, as it shaped suburban domestic structure and neighbourhood planning in this period. In contrast with the nineteenth century, where colonial residential planning in Hong Kong concentrated on the separation of European- and Chinese-style houses, and, with it, the spatial segregation of European and Chinese residential quarters, by the early twentieth century, separate residential planning gave way to modern planning practices that advocated for a functional and spatially specialised townscape.3 Enacted chiefly in the provincial and rural hinterland of Kowloon, this planning reform denoted the formation of residential districts away from industrial and commercial centers. The garden city suburbs built in Kowloon over the interwar period, in turn, underpinned the reimagining of the rural space in colonial discourse and the emergence of suburban culture. For the Chinese mercantile and professional classes, the garden city estates became ‘a highly specialised instrument for realising many

2  The term of ‘provincial urbanisation’ was proposed by Tania Sengupta, see Tania Sengupta, “Living in the periphery: provinciality and domestic space in colonial Bengal,” The Journal of Architecture 18, no. 6 (2013): 905–943. 3  For a discussion on the shifting planning priorities in Hong Kong prior to 1941, see Pui-­ yin Ho, Making Hong Kong: A History of Its Urban Development (Northampton, Massachusetts: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2018).

2  GARDEN CITY: URBAN FORM, COLONIAL DOMESTICITY, AND SPACES… 

47

aspects of bourgeois selfhood’.4 They functioned as sites of ‘aspiration and desire’.5 As the countryside was reinvented as the ideal home for the colonial polite society, residence in garden city houses became a means for Chinese elites and the middle classes to claim their social status. Living among European neighbours – many of whom were of similar professional standing – in the garden houses, the Chinese bourgeois later found their way into residents’ associations that in part contributed to their rising social and political significance. More than merely frustrating the colony’s racial and class geography, the garden city estates and landscape were part of the interwar period cultural pattern that permeated to areas of urban planning, education, and leisure. This culture pattern, namely, the middle-class and urban culture, proliferated with the middle-class residential mobility out of the crowded city areas to more healthy suburban districts. And, with it, new lifestyles and values emerged that collectively defined the colonial middle classes. As the census officer J. D. Lloyd suggested, in 1921, that the increase of the population in the upper levels in Hong Kong Island – where houses were built in European style – was ‘due largely to the replacement of Europeans by wealthy Chinese’. Lloyd also expected that in the future, this residential district may be populated by a large number of middle-class Chinese, while the ‘wealthier Chinese now in occupation may be expected to build themselves country homes on the south side of the Island, now rendered accessible by good motor roads’.6 This shifting racial geography – defined through residential mobility – was in part shaped by the transient character of the European society in Hong Kong. As the census report suggested, ‘except for new professional men, employees of the Dock Companies and Civil servants, the European population almost completely change every 5 years. Most of the employees of the various firms only complete one tour of duty here, and then after the expiration of their

4  John Archer, Architecture and Suburbia: From English Villa to American Dream House, 1690–2000 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), xv; Mark E. Reinberger and Elizabeth McLean, The Philadelphia Country House: Architecture and Landscape in Colonial America (Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015), 2. 5  Georgina Gowans used the term to describe the culturally imagined colonial home, see Georgina Gowans, “Imperial Geographies of home: Memsahibs and Miss-Sahibs in India and Britain, 1915–1947,” Cultural Geographies 10 (2013): 424–441. 6  “Report on the Census of the Colony for 1921,”Hong Kong Sessional Papers, Hong Kong Government, no. 15/ 1921, 153.

48 

S. MENG WANG

home leave are transferred elsewhere.’7 With the steady growth in commerce and trade, urban Hong Kong attracted a continuous flow of non-­ Chinese merchants and professionals who came for business and employment ventures before their overly quick departure for elsewhere. Between 1911 and 1921, the number of Japanese residing in Hong Kong increased from 953 to 1,585, citizens of the USA. from 295 to 470, Portuguese (including British subjects) from 2558 to 2609, British nationals born in India from 1414 to 1474, British nationals born in Europe, America and Australia from 2236 to 3110.8 The ‘mobile’ nature of the non-Chinese population in Hong Kong also contributed toward the multiracial make-up of garden city suburbs. As a method for suburban development, garden city suburbs attracted the Chinese bourgeoisie in that it supported ‘the consumption of the expanding material culture of respectability’,9 and the imagining of new collective identities as being part of the global bourgeois and the colonial polite society. Ultimately, the garden city movement provided a ‘jumping scale’10 through which the Chinese bourgeoisie disrupted and subverted the racial order in colonial Hong Kong established through domestic architecture. It also helped create a social and cultural space in the suburban districts of Hong Kong where the European and Chinese professional classes – through their shared ideals, values, and lifestyles11 – formed associations that advocated for the provision of regulated play spaces for its residents. The residential associational culture proliferated along with the garden city movement was significant for the remaking of childhood in interwar Hong Kong in that it underlined the rise of professionally  Ibid., 159.  “Hong Kong Census: More Interesting Facts and Figures,” South China Morning Post, Dec. 17, 1921, 14. 9  Colin G. Pooley and Sian Pooley, “Constructing A Suburban Identity: Youth, Femininity and Modernity in Late-Victorian Merseyside,” Journal of Historical Geography, 36 (2010): 402–410. 10  This term was used by Emma Hunter to describe the function of the print space in help establishing a global bourgeois identity in East Africa, see Emma Hunter, “Modernity, Print Media, and the Middle Class in Colonial East Africa,” in The Global Bourgeoisie: The Rise of the Middle Classes in the Age of Empire, eds. Christof Dejung, David Motadel, and Jürgen Osterhammel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019), 105–122. 11  Christof Dejung, David Motadel, and Jürgen Osterhammel, “Worlds of the Bourgeoisie,” in The Global Bourgeoisie: The Rise of The Middle Classes in The Age of Empire, eds. Christof Dejung, David Motadel, and Jürgen Osterhammel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019), 1–41. 7 8

2  GARDEN CITY: URBAN FORM, COLONIAL DOMESTICITY, AND SPACES… 

49

designed play architecture for children in both established working-class and newly planned suburban districts. Existing studies uncovering the garden cities built in interwar Hong Kong have chiefly done so within the context of housing and urban planning. This strand of scholarship examined the garden city as a specific form of urban structure that responded to the planning priorities and housing concerns of the colonial state, such as the work of Cecilia Chu and Pui-yin Ho both spotlight the planning history and urban landscape of colonial Hong Kong.12 What is missing in these studies is the everyday domestic life of the households living in garden city suburbs, particularly the experience of children. The contribution of this chapter is thus threefold. First, it situates the Garden City movement in interwar Hong Kong in the context of colonial domestic life. In doing so, it captures the cultural geography of a specific vision of domesticity advocated by the colonial state, and how this colonial domestic imaginary was taken up by the Chinese middle classes as a means of claiming their class status in a colonial society. Second, it excavates the experience of children overlooked in the garden city discourse and shows how the image of ‘the child at play’ was an integral element of colonial domesticity. Third, it illuminates the broader impact of the garden city idea on the urban form of Hong Kong that extended beyond residential architecture to the spatial design of children’s play spaces in suburban and urban districts.

2.1   Garden City Movement and Colonial Domesticity in Hong Kong: A Background Carried out chiefly by private enterprises  – run either by European or Chinese businessmen – and with the support of the colonial Public Works Department to provide the necessary infrastructure such as sewage, electricity, and water supply, the garden city estates planned and developed in Hong Kong in the early twentieth century illustrated the close collaboration between planning professionals,13 colonial state departments, and 12  See, for example, Pui-yin Ho, Making Hong Kong: A History of Its Urban Development (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2018); Cecilia Chu, Building Colonial Hong Kong: Speculative Development and Segregation in the City (New York: Routledge, 2022). 13  For a specific discussion on how British planning professionals shaped the townscape of Hong Kong between 1841 and 1941, see Charlie Q. L. Xue, Han Zou, Baihao Li and Ka Chuen Hui, “The Shaping of Early Hong Kong: Transplantation and Adaption by the British Professionals,” Planning Perspective 27, no. 4 (2012): 549–568.

50 

S. MENG WANG

local elites in shaping the suburban domestic landscape. This new residential form  – a single family house with its own garden  – emerged in the context of a saturated urban metropolis of Victoria upon which the urban settlements in Hong Kong Island sprawled, and a vast underdeveloped rural hinterland across the Victoria Harbour on the Kowloon Peninsula. In between these two extreme forms of settlement, lay the swampy, barren, and hilly landscapes uncultivated for civic construction. This geographic feature of Hong Kong was depicted by the Medical and Sanitary Department where it suggested, topographically, the Island of Hong Kong and the Peninsula of Kowloon may be described as a series of granite ridges separated by narrow valleys and having here and there flat areas facing the sea […] In the Island the only flat level of any size was that on which the City of Victoria stood and this did not cover more than one square mile. With regard to Kowloon, not more than one half was flat and convenient for street formation.14

It was against this backdrop that the garden city model was deployed as a method for provincial urban development in Kowloon (see Figs. 2.1 and 2.2). In the early phases, housing schemes planned on garden city lines emphasised horticulture – that in part to contribute to rural development. In 1918, for example, after three years of work in levelling a paddy field, a group of ‘energetic Chinese’ developed a Garden City in the New Territories in the district of Fanling. The project was carried out by a local firm Kui Yip Land Investment and Farming Co., Ltd. It planned a Model Village that grew a wide range of fruit trees.15 By the interwar period, garden cities developed in Kowloon shifted the focus to wholesome communal planning that advocated for the provision of educational facilities, open spaces, and playgrounds for its residents.16 The reason that the garden city idea was successfully transplanted to Hong Kong and was deployed as a method for suburban and provincial development in the interwar period, was that at the time the colonial 14  This review account on the geographic feature of Hong Kong was presented in “Medical and Sanitary Report for the Year 1929,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 5. 15  “A Garden City in the New Territories, How Chinese Are Solving Housing Problem,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Dec. 23, 1918, 23. 16  “House Building in Hong Kong, Mass-Production Enterprise, How the New Garden City is Being Built,” South China Morning Post, Sep. 11, 1924, 10.

Fig. 2.1  Nathan Road in Tsim Sha Tsui in the 1910s, Kowloon. Showing a newly developed area where traffic and commerce were scarce. Source: Courtesy of Hong Kong Memory, Hong Kong Historical Postcards Collection, image credit by Mr. Ko Tim Keung

Fig. 2.2  Apartment house, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China, 1900s, showing residential architecture in early developed areas. Source: Courtesy of University of Southern California Libraries and California Historical Society

52 

S. MENG WANG

authority was struggling with similar housing issues that gave rise to the garden city in Britain. The garden city idea, as pioneered by Ebenezer Howard in his 1899 publication To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform (reprinted as Garden Cities of To-morrow in 1902), was an intervention in industrial urbanisation that produced myriad health concerns for urban residents, particularly for the working class. The first garden city, Letchworth  – located on an estate of 4500 acres, thirty-five miles from London, was established in 1905  in accordance with Howard’s plan to organise ‘in rural surroundings a workman’s city’, and ‘to achieve a healthy, natural, and economic combination of town and country life’. It was a model to ‘revive the small town under twentieth-century industrial conditions’. The developed estate was a self-sustained community that had ‘its own parks and open spaces, its own agricultural belt, its own schools, theatres, and public facilities’.17 It thus provided an alternative housing development model that actively combatted overcrowding in industrial cities and simultaneously supported the growth of small towns. This integrative model of town and country life afforded by the Garden City is also pointed out by Graham Livesey. He argues that the Garden City ‘was a direct response to what were perceived to be the evils of large industrial cities and attempted to reunite the country and town, particularly through the residential garden and the act of gardening’.18 In its broader social and cultural context, the historian Margaret Elen Deming describes the years between 1880 and 1920, during which the Garden City imagery had been popularised by urban landscape and housing reformers in England, as being defined by a series of national crises. The scarcity of affordable working-class housing, economic recessions, agricultural depressions, escalating labour unrest and class tensions, public health crises and high infant mortality, and the disastrous colonial Boer War (1899–1901), all coinciding with a population explosion in the industrial cities. Each crisis deepened a panic about the fate of the British empire. The English middle classes lamented the fitness of the British ‘race’, fearing that its military strength – staffed by working-class soldiers – was in decline. The Garden City movement grew out of the broad set of Victorian reform initiatives aimed at redressing social and economic imbalances in 17  “The First Garden City, Interesting Facts Concerning Letchworth,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Mar. 6, 1914, 3. 18  Graham Livesey, “Assemblage theory, Gardens and the Legacy of the Early Garden City Movement,” Urbanism 15, no. 3(2011): 271–278.

2  GARDEN CITY: URBAN FORM, COLONIAL DOMESTICITY, AND SPACES… 

53

England’s industrial and agricultural towns. It was to function as a formula to revitalise the working class. Domestic landscape and the utopian idea of ‘home’, in this context, acted as site where the British empire was reimagined. By the end of World War I, in Britain, the Garden City movement had been transformed into a modern state-supported housing program.19 While the original Garden City idea was proposed as a solution to crowded industrial urban living, its transference to colonial contexts often served quite different purposes. For example, the historian Liora Bigon shows that the French colonial administration in West Africa used the Garden City concept selectively, ‘diverting and adapting it to its needs in order to create a prestigious image of the quarters designated for its employees’. This then enforced ‘unofficial class segregation within the expatriate society’, and fostered ‘informal racial segregation between white and indigenous residential sectors’.20 Bigon further argues that the colonial garden cities in Africa – built either by the British or the French colonial authority – shared a common characteristic in that they contributed toward the creation of ‘racially polarised colonial urban environments’.21 In British Hong Kong, however, the garden cities completed in the interwar period served a very different end. It functioned as a means through which the Chinese mercantile and professional classes gained access to a domestic lifestyle previously enjoyed by the European expatriate society. The houses built in garden cities in Kowloon were European in style and shared a very similar spatial design with the residence built for colonial officials. In newspaper advertisements, the garden homes were depicted as equipped with modern flush system, tennis courts, garden, gas stove and geyser, electric lights, refrigerator, garage, English baths (hot and cold), pantry and kitchen, dining room, sitting room, bedroom, and servants’ quarters.22 In terms of the interior and spatial plan, as the historian Prudence Lau depicts in her study on the architectural firm C.F.E.O, which built a series of Garden City estates on Prince Edward Road in Kowloon, 19  Margaret Elen Deming, “Wish-landscapes and Garden Cities: The Myth of the Garden in Allegories of English Reform 1880 to 1920” (PhD Diss., Harvard University, 2001), 6. 20  Liora Bigon, “‘Garden City’ in the Tropics? French Dakar in Comparative Perspective,” Journal of Historical Geography 38 (2012): 35–44. 21  Liora Bigon, “Garden Cities in Colonial Africa: A Note on Historiography,” Planning Perspectives 28, no. 3 (2013), 477–485. 22  “Advertisements Prepaid,” South China Morning Post, Aug. 17, 1926, 5; “Advertisements Prepaid,” South China Morning Post, Dec. 28, 1926, 5; “For Sale,” South China Morning Post, Nov. 19, 1931, 5; “For Sale,” South China Morning Post, Jan. 18, 1932, 5.

54 

S. MENG WANG

the garage and servants quarters, store rooms, kitchen and laundry in the basement, the residence proper starting with the first floor, the servants’ entrance to which is from the rear. This style of building gives more elevation and a better view as well and greatly improves the ventilation of the house. The entrance leads to a small hall at the end of which there is a special cupboard for hats and cloaks. Each floor is provided with living room, drawing room from which entrance is made through a large archway which can be curtained, two bedrooms, two bathrooms and adequate cupboard room space. The front of the first and second floors is set back so as to form a spacious verandah facing the main roadway. At the rear of each floor is a separate stairway leading to the basement.23

This domestic architecture helped create a highly regulated domestic space where the interaction between household occupants were carefully controlled. In its broader cultural context, these garden city residences enacted a vision of domesticity that helped define middle-class culture in the British context.24 In the Victorian period, as work was gradually separated from home, the domestic space emerged as a prime ‘physical and spatial location for people’s social and emotional lives’,25 and a space where feminine accomplishments were on display.26 Properly brought up children were an integral part of the imperial discourses on domesticity and femininity, where women were tasked with the management of home life and the education of children.27 In this context, childhood became a cultural signifier of social receptibility. The discursive significance of domesticity to imperial culture helped the transplantation of European-style residential architecture in British colonial centers, and was furfure encoded in the Garden City idea developed in interwar Hong Kong. By deploying the Garden City model as a method for provincial development, this colonial domestic imaginary permeated to wider social echelons, 23  For a detailed discussion on house forms in Kowloon Garden City, see Leung Kwok Prudence Lau, “Adaptive Modern and Speculative Urbanism: The Architecture of the Crédit Foncier d’Extrême-Orient (C.F.E.O.) in Hong Kong and China’s Treaty Ports, 1907–1959” (PhD Diss., The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2013), 168. 24  For a discussion on the interaction of gender, class, and domesticity in the British context, see Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class 1780–1850 (New York: Routledge, 2019). 25  Christensen and O’Brien, eds. Children in the City, 3. 26  Andrea Kaston Tange, Architectural Identities: Domesticity, Literature and the Victorian Middle Class (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010), 63. 27  Duff, Changing Childhoods in the Cape Colony, 47.

2  GARDEN CITY: URBAN FORM, COLONIAL DOMESTICITY, AND SPACES… 

55

particularly the expanding sectors of middle- and upper-class Chinese that comprised merchants and Western-educated professionals including accountants, lawyers, educators, public health workers, surveyors and builders, specialists on shipping, and banking.28 As the historian Tania Sengupta argues, colonial provincial urbanisation ‘signified a new type of territorialisation of domestic spaces with respect to social structures at different scales’.29 Situated in between the rural and urban landscape of Hong Kong, the garden cities built in Kowloon in the interwar period captured the process by which colonial domesticity took hold in a new geography. This new residential architecture also brings to light the everyday domestic life of middle-class Chinese men, women, and children.

2.2   Home with a Garden: Domestic Architecture and Play Space for Children The first residential estate developed in Hong Kong that resonated with the Garden City idea was the European residential reserve on the Peak (see Fig. 2.3). It emerged in the context of a gradual and deliberate effort to move the home of colonial elites to the higher altitude of the colony on the ground of health and hygiene as it was commonly framed by the British colonial authority across its colonial centres. As the historian Robert Home shows, British colonial urban planning is intimately entwined with racial segregation. In the heyday of British imperialism between 1880 and 1930, residential segregation was justified on health grounds, with the so-called ‘sanitation syndrome’ being closely associated with racial zoning.30 ‘Escaping’ to the mountains, Europeans built themselves so-called ‘hill stations’ – all-European residential zones – in Africa, India, and the Far East, inventing new spaces to articulate racial lines. In India, the historian Carl Nightingale suggests the phrase ‘hill station’ (segregated military and administrative outposts) appeared as early as the 1800s where dozens of segregated cities were built in the highlands of India such as Simla. As with other tools of segregation, the hill station was 28  Helen Siu, “Hong Kong: Cultural Kaleidoscope on a World Landscape,” in Tracing China: A Forty-year Ethnographic Journey (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2016), 387–400. 29  Tania Sengupta, “Living in the Periphery: Provinciality and Domestic Space in Colonial Bengal,” The Journal of Architecture 18, no. 6 (2013): 938. 30  Robert Home, Of Planting and Planning: The Making of British Colonial Cities (New York: Routledge, 2013).

56 

S. MENG WANG

Fig. 2.3  Houses on the Peak around 1920s. In the far background are Ap Lei Chau and Lamma Island. Source: Courtesy of Hong Kong Memory, Hong Kong Historical Postcards Collection, image credit by Mr. Ko Tim Keung

encoded with new meanings that would justify the colonial policy of racial segregation: that they could reduce the dangers of epidemic disease and racial mixing; that they allowed officials to administer multi-racial colonies efficiently; and that they could protect the value of white people’s urban property.31 As a result, colonial residential segregation tool created a racially encoded spatial order through domestic architecture. In Hong Kong, urban historians Cecelia Chu and Pui-yin Ho both framed the early development of the City of Victoria on Hong Kong Island through the lens of ‘duality’ that emphasised racial segregation. The urban landscape depicted through this binary approach is thus ‘divided’, ‘separated’, and ‘polarised’.32 The European District Reservation Ordinance of 1888  – the first legislative measure to create a European reserve – explicitly required that houses in the reserved area were to be built in European models and prohibited the building of any Chinese-style 31  Carl H. Nightingale, Segregation: A Global History of Divided Cities (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 1–19. 32  Chu, Building Colonial Hong Kong; Ho, Making Hong Kong.

2  GARDEN CITY: URBAN FORM, COLONIAL DOMESTICITY, AND SPACES… 

57

tenements within the ‘European district’33 (which referred to ‘the most hilly residential areas on the Island of Hong Kong including the Mid-­ Levels and the Victoria Peak’34). This contributed to a uniformity of dwelling design within the European district. As the historian John Carroll shows, by the late nineteenth century, the Peak was a full-time residence for colonial elites full of villas erected by merchants and others to escape from the heat during the summer months and enjoy a night’s sleep in the pure and cooler air of the mountains.35 In the following decades, the colonial state passed two more bills, the Hill District Reservation Ordinance of 1904,36 and the Peak District (Residence) Ordinance of 1918,37 aiming to protect the exclusive use of this residential reserve by colonial elites. By then, the formation of European residential district engaged a specific vision of childhood. The Hill District Reservation Ordinance of 1904, in particular, utilised the discourse of the physical vulnerability of the child’s body,38 stating that the Peak District was to be a place where the ‘rising generation’ of Europeans could spend their childhood in the ‘healthiest obtainable surroundings’.39 Definition of childhood as a phase of physical 33  “Report on the Condition and Prospects of Hong Kong, By His Excellency Sir G.  William Des Voeux, Governor, & c, 1888,” Hong Kong Sessional Papers, Hong Kong Government, no. 20/89, 293. 34  Lawrence WC Lai, Valerius WC Kwong, and Jason WY Kwong, “Segregation Legal and Natural: An Empirical Study of the Legally Protected and Free Market Housing Ownership on The Peak,” Habitat International 35, no. 3 (2011): 501–507. 35  John M.  Carroll, “The Peak: Residential Segregation in Colonial Hong Kong,” in Twentieth Century Colonialism and China: Localities, the Everyday, and the World, eds. Bryna Goodman and David S G Goodman (New York: Routledge, 2012), 81. 36  “An Ordinance for the Reservation of a Residential Area in the Hill District, no. 4 of 1904,” The Hong Kong Government Gazette, Hong Kong Government, April. 29, 1904, 752. The Ordinance specified that ‘it shall not be lawful for any owner, lessee, tenant or occupier of any land or building within the Hill District to let such land or building or any part thereof for the purpose of resident by any but non-Chinese or to permit any but non-­ Chinese to reside on or in such land or building’. 37  “Peak District (Residence) Ordinance, 1918,” Hong Kong Hansard, Hong Kong Government, May 30, 1918, 29. The Ordinance specified that ‘no person shall reside within the Peak District without the consent of the Governor-in-Council’. 38  For a discussion on the argument of childhood as a phase of physical vulnerability, see Mona Gleason, Small Matters: Canadian Children in Sickness and Health (Montréal: McGill-­ Queen’s University Press, 2013). 39  CO129/322, 4 May 1904, May to Lyttleton, 638. Cited in John M.  Carroll, “The Peak: Residential Segregation in Colonial Hong Kong,” in Twentieth Century Colonialism and China: Localities, the Everyday, and the World, eds. Bryna Goodman and David S G Goodman (New York: Routledge, 2012), 86.

58 

S. MENG WANG

vulnerability thus entwined with colonial racial imperatives, contributing to the creation a racially stratified urban landscape in the name of the child. The spatial boundary the colonial state tried to maintain with the Chinese community through the creation of racially exclusive residential reserve also informed the construction of residences for colonial officials. The colonial homes built for government employees reflected a deliberate effort by the colonial authority to construct a particular domestic model for the European expatriate society and to keep them in place – a fixity in space that would sustain colonial racial order. In 1920, for example, eight European-style houses designed by the architects Messrs. Dension, Ram and Gibbs40 for European officers at Leighton Hill (located in Happy Valley, Hong Kong Island) were completed by the firm Messrs. Lam Dore (contracted by the Public Works Department).41 The buildings were uniform two-storey structures. On the ground floor, there were an entrance hall, drawing room, and dining room together with kitchen, pantry, and servants’ quarters. On the first floor were three bedrooms, with bathrooms attached (fitted with European baths). One water-flushed closet was provided in each house. There was also a basement under the front verandah.42 This two-storey house-form represented the standard prototype of residence for colonial officials. In 1921, for example, three houses for senior colonial officers located below ‘Tanderagee’ (on the Eastern Slope of Mount Gough, Hill District, Hong Kong Island) were completed by Messrs. Kien On. These houses uniform in design, with the ground floor containing ‘dining, drawing and sitting rooms and a large hall with kitchen, laundry and servants’ rooms at the back’. On the first floor, there were ‘four bedrooms, bath rooms, and two dressing rooms’. There were also verandahs on both floors and a drying room was provided over the kitchen.43 These government quarters were designed to house a European family unit, rather than a European bachelor. In them, an idyllic image of middle-­ class childhood was integral to the making of colonial homes, even if in 40  “Report of the Director of Public Works for the Year Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 52. 41  “Report of the Director of Public Works for the Year Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 32. 42  “Report of the Director of Public Works for the Year Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 37. 43  “Report of the Director of Public Works for the Year Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 45.

1918,” Hong Kong Government 1919,” Hong Kong Government 1920,” Hong Kong Government 1921,” Hong Kong Government

2  GARDEN CITY: URBAN FORM, COLONIAL DOMESTICITY, AND SPACES… 

59

practice many European expatriate families lived constantly on the move. Barbara Anslow, for example, was born in 1919 in Scotland and travelled to Hong Kong with her parents and two sisters, Mabel (aged 4) and Olive (aged 11), in 1927 and stayed for the duration of her father’s work assignment until 1929. Her father was an electrical engineer working in the Naval Dockyard. Upon arriving in Hong Kong, the family stayed in a small boarding house ‘Homeville’ in Happy Valley in Hong Kong Island, where they occupied two ground floor rooms. In those days, the Naval Dockyard used to ship an employee’s household furniture to Hong Kong for a three-year tour. It came by cargo ships. When the furniture arrived from Scotland, the family took a first-floor flat in Cameron Road, Kowloon. Barbara’s mother was able to play her piano again, and ‘at last began to settle’, especially as the household now had a living-in amah (Chinese female domestic help), Ah Ng, who did all the cooking, washing, and housework. Soon after, the family moved to a smaller flat nearby Carnarvon Road, Kowloon, where Barbara shared a bed with her sister. Before long, the family moved back to Hong Kong Island, and lived in a ground floor flat at 98 Kennedy Road. It was a small terrace reached by many flights of steps beside which ran a large nallah. There was a sliding concertina iron gate which could be locked across the main entrances at night. A little yard behind linked the flat with the amah’s quarter.

A dockyard family lived in a flat on the only floor above Barbara’s family, and another one in the flat next door. The rest of the flats in the terrace were occupied by either Portuguese or Chinese families, with whom Barbara ‘had no contact’.44 These accounts of Barbara’s family being constantly ‘on the move’ captured the contradictory image of the colonial effort trying to keep the expatriate families in place and the everyday realities a European family faced struggling to settle and establish a stable domestic life. Barbara depicted the ease of her mother upon the arrival of furniture from Scotland and the employment of a domestic servant. Being able to play the piano again helped her mother settle, which reflected how everyday home-­ making practices sustained the colonial domestic imaginary. As Alison 44  Barbara Anslow, Childhood Memories of 1920s Hong Kong. https://gwulo.com/ node/17419. Accessed on June. 6, 2022.

60 

S. MENG WANG

Blunt and Robyn Dowling argue, home is ‘both a place and a spatial imaginary’,45 and that ‘the spaces and imaginaries of home are central to the construction of people’s identities and are materially manifested in a wide range of home-making practices’.46 The colonial home of Barbara’s family – though varied in scale compared with the residence designed and built for colonial officials – nonetheless supported the image of the domestic space as performative of middle-class domesticity and refined femininity. This further resonates with A. K. Tange’s argument that the Victorian middle-class home ‘not only helped identify their [each room’s] occupations; occupants of those spaces also used cultural norms attached to those spaces as a means of creating an identity for themselves or locating themselves within a family, a social network, or domestic ideology more broadly’.47 The performance of feminine accomplishment as simple as playing the piano, to a certain extent, restored the image of middle-class home as a site of emotional comfort. As well, separate bedrooms for Barbara and her sisters (distinct from that of the living space for adult) marked a specified space for children in the household, while the separate quarter for amah signified a spatial boundary between domestic employees and family members. This spatial specialisation helped to construct the middle-class identity of this expatriate family that, in turn, reflected how the use and meaning of the domestic space was articulated differently for different members of the family. In addition to specifying the spatial use within the household, ideals of colonial domesticity also extended to other aspects of the frontier lifestyle that had an impact on children’s play experiences. For example, Barbara suggested the Naval Dockyard tennis courts in Hong Kong Island were available for employees’ families; Barbara’s mother played there regularly and sometimes she took Barbara, Mabel, and Olive with her. In addition, some evenings the family would go to watch films (silent) on HMS Tamar, an old wooden-topped Naval vessel permanently tied up in the Dockyard and used as a Fleet Accommodation Barracks. When the family lived in Kowloon, Barbara and her sister Olive also had weekly music lessons from Jean Braga, one of a large well-known Portuguese family who lived in Kimberley Road near their flat. Later, when Olive had mastered  Alison Blunt and Robyn Dowling, Home (New York: Routledge, 2006), 2.  Blunt and Dowling, Home, Preface. 47  Andrea Kaston Tange, Architectural Identities: Domesticity, Literature and the Victorian Middle Class (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010), 177. 45 46

2  GARDEN CITY: URBAN FORM, COLONIAL DOMESTICITY, AND SPACES… 

61

elementary violin, she was invited to play at a children’s party hosted at Government House, and the younger members of the family also went along. Occasionally, the Dockyard also organised parties to which children were invited.48 Here the cultural geography of play of Barbara and her sisters entwined, first, with the frontier lifestyle of the European expatriate society in which English sports and popular leisure constituted a European middle-class identity. Second, the emphasis on feminine accomplishments in the form of music marked an entanglement of the play experience in childhood with gendered notions of femininity. While the domestic architecture of Barbara’s colonial home did not afford the image of ‘children in the garden’, the cultural practice of expatriate leisure nonetheless supported a range of gender- and class-informed play experience of Barbara and her sisters. The fact that her family painstakingly maintained their European lifestyle and kept a social distance with their local neighbours also reflects domestic life and how the idea of ‘home’ was central to the making of European expatriate identity in colonial centres. As the historian David Pomfret argues, in the late imperial era, the home ‘emerged as a site of colonial power’.49 Creating a particular kind of home was not only a means of marking class distinction,50 but also an important signifier of racial order. Much of the cultural imagining of being European and middle-­class centred on the discourse of domesticity, which in turn articulated a clear spatial boundary between the inside, the European home, and the outside – Hong Kong, a Chinese city. Contrasting with the sojourn experience of Barbara’s family and their maintenance of social interactions within the expatriate circle, European children born and raised in a colonial society constantly traversed and subverted the spatial imaginary of the colonial home. The image of a distant home in the metropole was contested and unsettled by the immediate domestic site in the colony where their everyday life unfolded. Betty Steel, for example, was born in 1910 on the island of Liu Kung Tao off the coast of Shantung (Shandong) in North China (the island was part of the territory of Wei Hai Wei, which had been leased to Britain in 1898 as a summer base for the Royal Navy’s China Fleet). In 1915, the family came to 48  Barbara Anslow, Childhood memories of 1920s Hong Kong. https://gwulo.com/ node/17419. Accessed on June 6, 2022. 49  Pomfret, Youth and Empire, 54. 50   For a discussion on domestic architecture and class, see Tange, Architectural Identities, 28.

62 

S. MENG WANG

Hong Kong where her father worked in the Naval Dockyard. Upon arriving in Hong Kong, the family lived in Eden Court (in Kowloon) – a large boarding house with a garden, a tennis court, and a bamboo grove. When Betty’s father passed away owing to ill health, her mother joined the mercantile firm Shewan, Tomes & Co. as an accountant. Soon after the family moved to a flat on Kennedy Road (in Hong Kong Island), not far from the Union Church and the Peak tram station. For years, Betty shared a double bed with her sister Audrey. In the summer, they slept under a mosquito net which was tucked in all around the bed. There were two more flats on Kennedy Road. Betty’s mother moved the family to a new flat on the ground floor. A burglary put an end to this stay, and soon afterwards the family moved into a flat that was at the Wanchai end of Kennedy Road, near the Methodist Church. Their neighbour, Miss Pedden, a Canadian missionary, would occasionally visit and play the piano. Betty mentioned that wherever they lived her family always had a piano; her mother played and she and Andrey sang. From Kennedy Road, Betty’s family moved to Happy Valley, where they stayed for a number of years. They lived in one of a long terrace of houses in Wong Nei Chong Road, and at the seaward end of the road, Betty and Andrey caught the tram to school. At this time Betty’s Chinese school friend, Ruby Chue, and her younger sister Lily, lived next door. ‘On special occasions, a birthday or a wedding or Chinese New Year, they invite me to their houses to eat Chinese cakes and sweets…’. At the other end of the terrace lived an Irish family, the Tollans. In 1923, Betty’s family moved up to a house in Broadwood Road, on the Ridge overlooking Happy Valley. She described it as a ‘tree-lined road of houses and gardens with wild violets and ferns growing in shady places’.51 Betty’s home, where her mother played the piano and she and her sister sang, offers a fine example of the domestic space as a performative site of feminine accomplishments. It was also a site for ‘creating and maintaining social ties and relationships’52 where neighbours came to visit and invited each other on special occasions. Rather than residing in an ‘insulated’

51  Betty Steel, Impressions of an upbringing in 1920s Hong Kong. https://gwulo.com/ node/20232/view-pages. Accessed on June 6, 2022. 52  Gunilla Halldén, “Children’s Views of Family, Home and House,” in Children in the City: Home Neighbourhood and Community, eds. Pia Christensen and Margaret O’Brien (London: Routledge, 2003), 34.

2  GARDEN CITY: URBAN FORM, COLONIAL DOMESTICITY, AND SPACES… 

63

boundary of the colonial home, Betty played with her Chinese school friends next door. Reflecting on this time, Betty suggested, …Mamma would tell us nostalgically of the beautiful English countryside with its wild flowers. But for Andrey and me, England was just a name. Hong Kong was our home. Living among the Chinese as we did, we felt an affinity with them, and admired their commonsense, patience, courtesy and humor. We seemed to laugh at the same things.53

Here the notion of ‘home’ was depicted at a variety of different scales. For Betty, the large scale, of the city of Hong Kong, was also considered home. It was a site of everyday life, a place that located Betty’s childhood memory and belonging. For Betty’s mother, on the other hand, home was the ‘English countryside’ – a place she wanted to return to time and again. It was an idealised home, an imaginary that constituted part of her identity, her sense of self. As Georgina Gowans argues, the sense of home is both lived and imagined. For expatriate families, ‘imperial discourses encouraged a sense belonging with Britain’.54 The colonial home in Hong Kong was a culturally displaced home for Betty’s mother. The constant movement of the household captured the search and longing for a comfortable and idealised home that could, in part, realise the imaginary of an English home with ‘wild flowers’. More than a search for a physical site, it was an imagined home in which Betty’s mother desired to live. Domestic architecture thus both supported and sustained a cultural image of home, located distantly in the metropole. 2.2.1   New House-Forms for the Middle-Class: Garden Cities in the 1920s and 1930s The cultural practice of home-making by European families in part contributed to the construction of an imagined community – the European expatriate society that functioned at a spatial distance from the Chinese society. However, the colonial racial order made through domestic architecture was by no means stable. As separate residential planning gave way to new town planning practices, particularly the development of new 53  Betty Steel, Impressions of an upbringing in 1920s Hong Kong. https://gwulo.com/ node/20232/view-pages. Accessed on June 6, 2022. 54  Gowans, “Imperial Geographies of Home”.

64 

S. MENG WANG

residential districts on Garden City lines, a new neighbourhood dynamic emerged. Attracting a large number of wealthy Chinese, the Garden City estates emerged as multi-racial suburbs that disrupted the spatial order and boundary between the European and the Chinese community. The formation of these multi-racial residential neighbourhoods hailed a new phase in colonial town planning that aimed to form a new method for urban development and particularly to avoid the repetition of the ‘chaotic’ urban layout of Victoria due to the lack of planning in the early colonial decades when town planning practices were even rare in England.55 The Garden City housing model proliferated with modern planning culture that advocated for the functional and spatial specialisation of urban landscape.56 It was hoped that through the gradual relocation of factories and industries to the outskirt and north peninsula of Hong Kong that ‘a number of good results would follow’, one being that ‘garden settlement could be created around them’. It was hoped that this decentralisation would help with slum clearance in the congested districts on Hong Kong Island.57 In suburbs of Kowloon, the separation of residence from industrial and commercial activities and the inclusion of public amenities such as parks, playing fields, markets, and theatre58 were all part of the ­principles that underlined the creation of an ordered and functional townscape. The construction of this functional urban landscape, and, with it, newly built forms, entered a formative phase in Hong Kong in the 1920s. In 1922, in order to ‘revise, consolidate, and coordinate the schemes of development that had been prepared in the past for various sections of the colony, and to consider the directions for future development of Hong Kong and Kowloon’, a Town Planning Committee was convened and schemes ‘prepared for the improvement of the existing layouts and the development of new areas’.59 This marked the systematic involvement of the colonial state in urban reforms. An integral part of these reforms was to solve urban 55  “Housing, 1935,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 13. 56  For a discussion on functional zoning and modern urban planning practices, see, for example, see Gergely Baics and Leah Meisterlin, “Zoning Before Zoning: Land Use and Density in Mid-Nineteenth-Century New York City,” Annals of the American Association of Geographers 106, no. 5 (2016): 1152–1175. 57  “Town Planning,” South China Morning Post, June 23, 1934, 12. 58  “Kowloon Tong Area Being Extended,” South China Morning Post, May. 20, 1933, 17. 59  “Report of the Director of Public Works for the Year 1922,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 108–109.

2  GARDEN CITY: URBAN FORM, COLONIAL DOMESTICITY, AND SPACES… 

65

housing tension that had long troubled the colonial authorities.60 Faced with a saturated urban metropolis in Hong Kong Island, the colonial state turn to the Kowloon Peninsula as a strategic geography for urban expansion. Even before the formation of the town planning committee, the colonial government had under consideration for some time to develop the Kowloon Tong area (located south of Beacon Hill and north of Boundary Street, in the west of Kowloon) into a residential district.61 It was decided that the best method of carrying the scheme into effect ‘is for the government to do the work of levelling and draining the area and to sell the land to a company, which under certain restrictions will arrange for the building of houses’.62 In 1921, the General Manager of Union Insurance Society of Canton, Mr. Montague Ede,63 came to the bid and proposed to convert the area into a residential site to be laid out on Garden City lines.64 The site would provide 250 residences,65 with parks, playgrounds, and open spaces.66 This marked the first step in the development of the Kowloon Tong Garden City (which survives to the present day). The Public Works Department carried out the filling and levelling of the site which ‘formerly lay under rice cultivation’.67 Ede subsequently acted as the General Manager of the Kowloon Tong and New Territories Development Co., a company formed to carry out the Kowloon Tong Garden City Scheme.68 The untimely death of Ede in 1925 caused some anxiety among the subscribers. Two months following the passing of Ede, 60  A detailed discussion on the problems of urban housing was provided in “Report of the Housing Commission, 1935,” Hong Kong Sessional Papers, Hong Kong: Noronha & Co., no. 12/1938, 262. 61  “The Housing Problem, Big Scheme for Kowloon Tong,” South China Morning Post, Dec. 28, 1920, 6. 62   “Our Finances Reviewed, Governor’s Budget Speech, Next Year’s Programme Outlined,” The China Mail, Oct. 27, 1921, 5. 63  “Kowloon’s Garden City, Slow progress of Mr. Ede’s PET Scheme,” The China Mail, May 24, 1924, 5. 64  “Another Garden City, Big Scheme at Kowloon Tong,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Aug. 5, 1921, 1. 65  “Kowloon’s Garden City, Slow progress of Mr. Ede’s PET Scheme,” The China Mail, May 24, 1924, 5. 66  “Wanted Houses, Hong Kong’s Most Urgent Problem,” The China Mail, Jan. 28, 1924, 9. 67  “Another Garden City, Big Scheme at Kowloon Tong,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Aug. 5, 1921, 1. 68  “The Colony’s Loss, Death of Mr. Montague Ede,” The China Mail, May 22, 1925, 1.

66 

S. MENG WANG

The Kowloon Tong Garden City Association (or the Association of the Subscribers to the Kowloon Tong Scheme) was formed under the leadership of Mr. S. Y. Kwan, who was temporarily elected chairman. In the first meeting, it was decided that ‘one Chinese president should be elected, with two vice-presidents, one of whom should be a foreigner’. The election of a Chinese president was because ‘the great majority of subscribers are Chinese’. A committee of twelve members was formed with ten Chinese and two European members.69 In fact, of the 250 subscribers to the Kowloon Tong scheme, 210 were Chinese, 10 British, and 30 Portuguese.70 While originally planned that 56 European houses would be completed by 1925,71 owing to the extensive amount of infrastructural work, accompanied by significant delays and other difficulties in the construction process, substantial building work only commenced by 1926.72 In 1927, for example, the Director of Public Works, Harold T. Creasy, suggested, 60 European houses were completed and certified in Kowloon Tong Estate, while another 70 European houses were in the course of construction.73 In 1928, another 42 European houses were completed and certified in the Kowloon Tong Estate, with 39  in the building process.74 Ultimately, Kowloon Tong Garden City would evolve into a middle-class suburban district that attracted a multi-racial but predominantly Chinese cluster of residents. Following the completion of the building phase, the former Kowloon Tong Garden City Association was reformed as the Garden City Recreation Club of Kowloon Tong. The organisational structure captured the racial composition of Kowloon Tong Garden City, with Mr. J. M. Wong acting as chairman, Mr. H. F. Un as secretary, and Messrs. W. S. P. Curtiss, 69  “The Kowloon Tong Scheme, Association of Subscribers Formed,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Aug. 24, 1925, 7. The full list of committee members are: Messrs. Cheng So, H. M. Siu, Wong Chee-wah, Dr. S. Y. Kwan, Chow Chung, Fan Chak-min, A. Basto, Fung Choy-lum, Peter Wong, Fung Chak-man, Lai Im-po (secretary and treasurer) and E. da Rosa. “The Kowloon Tong Scheme,” South China Morning Post, Aug. 24, 1925, 4. 70  “Kowloon Tong Squatters,” South China Morning Post, Feb. 9, 1927, 9. 71  “Kowloon’s Garden City, Slow progress of Mr. Ede’s PET Scheme,” The China Mail, May 24, 1924, 5. 72  “Company Meeting, Excavation Pile Driving and Construction,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, July 1, 1926, 3. 73  “Report of the Director of Public Works for the Year 1927,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 13, 20. 74  “Report of the Director of Public Works for the Year 1928,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 14, 18.

2  GARDEN CITY: URBAN FORM, COLONIAL DOMESTICITY, AND SPACES… 

67

E. J. D. Figueiredo, S. P. Hsu, Wong Chak-nam and Chan Nai-pan serving as board members. The association was formed to look after the interests of residents and to provide a clubhouse and recreation grounds for the use of persons living in the district.75 The successful experiment of the Kowloon Tong Garden City stimulated the subsequent housing development in the Kowloon Peninsula on Garden City lines. For example, in 1931, Mr. J.  P. Braga, Managing Director of the Hong Kong Engineering and Construction Co., Ltd., purchased a large inland lot between the Kowloon Hospital and the Diocesan Boys’ School. The site (with three road frontages, namely Waterloo Road, Argyle Street, and Prince Edward Road) was to be built into a garden city with detached or semi-detached houses and of European style.76 Each house would have a ‘small garden, a tennis court, and a garage’ (see Fig. 2.4).77 The architectural design of Garden City homes was carefully considered to support new forms of suburban living. The inclusion of garden and tennis court captured new patterns in domestic building design that signified an image of English middle-class country life.78 This form of domestic architecture signified a departure from previous dwelling design in Hong Kong that lacked provision for sports and outdoor spaces within the residential compound. It marked the creation of a suburban lifestyle that emphasised a connection between health, architecture, and class status. The garden in the home provided the single family in residence with a ‘pristine yard, a managed landscape, and defined boundaries’.79 The interior of Garden Cty homes further accommodated the material culture of modern living. In newspaper advertisements, houses – either for 75  “Kowloon Tong Development, Garden City Recreation Club Formed,” South China Morning Post, Mar. 16, 1931, 13. 76  “Huge Residential Scheme, Big Land Purchase by Construction Co, Another Garden City in Kowloon,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Nov. 17, 1931, 9. 77  “Garden Suburban Scheme, Ceremony of Turning Sod Performed, Scheme Outlined,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Jan. 21, 1932, 2. 78  The cultural image of the English middle-class country home with garden and tennis court was depicted by Georgina Gowans, see Georgina Gowans, “A Passage from India: Geographies and Experiences of Repatriation, 1858–1939,” Social & Cultural Geography 3, no. 4 (2002): 403–423. 79  This cultural image of the domestic garden was depicted by Virginia Scott Jenkins, in The Lawn: A History of an American Obsession (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2015). Cited in LeeAnn Lands, Culture of Property: Race, Class, and Housing Landscapes in Atlanta, 1880–1950 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009), 43.

68 

S. MENG WANG

Fig. 2.4  Houses with small garden in the front at Prince Edward Road, Kowloon, 1930s. Source: Courtesy of The University of Hong Kong Libraries

lease or for sale – would be emphasised on the inclusion of modern sanitation amenities, garden, garage, and tennis courts, which signifies that by the interwar years, in Hong Kong, motor vehicle, electric lights and fans, refrigerators, and flush lavatories were already part of daily life of the urban and suburban bourgeoises.80 The Garden City home would, in turn, help proliferate this material culture of modernity and transform the practice of everyday life in middle-class households. Even in the rural interior of the New Territories, European-style houses slowly established their presence. On the advertisement page of the South China Morning Post, readers  “Advertisements Prepaid,” South China Morning Post, Aug. 17, 1926, 5.

80

2  GARDEN CITY: URBAN FORM, COLONIAL DOMESTICITY, AND SPACES… 

69

would be exposed to leasing vacancies such as a six-roomed European style house in New Territories ‘equipped with all modern conveniences, garage, beautiful situation, extensive grounds’.81 Health amenities would be stated explicitly when the advertisement would include details on the number of baths. One house was depicted as ‘six roomed house, Repulse Bay [Hong Kong Island] three baths, flush, modern fittings, hot and cold water, plenty of ground, concrete swimming tank’.82 Garden City homes in Kowloon were commonly built with European bathroom, flush system, modern kitchen, and servants’ quarters.83 They would be designed with ‘large airy rooms, verandah, tiled baths, ceiling fans’, with ‘electric, gas and water laid’.84 Modern garden home living in interwar Hong Kong thus moved apace with the expanding material culture of modernity and the gradual extension of sanitary infrastructure in the colony. Garden residence, in turn, served myriad purposes. For the colonial state, it was an effective means to enact a new planning culture – creating a healthy domestic architecture on the one hand and transforming suburban housing design on the other. It also redefined the suburban space as a residential precinct for the middle classes, annotating a new cultural meaning of the burgeoning Garden City estates. Lastly, it opened up spaces for the Chinese middle and upper class to challenge an established colonial social order made through domestic architecture. While the garden city estates were chiefly built in the Kowloon Peninsula, the garden city idea nonetheless inspired many new housing developments across the harbour. Annie Lee (born in 1919 in a wealthy Chinese family), for example, suggested her first childhood home was in Moreton Terrace (in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong Island). It was a residential neighbourhood ‘with just a few houses. Each house had a garden in front of it.’ When Annie was about 7, the family moved to Tin Hau (an area in Wanchai District, on the north side of Hong Kong Island, close to Moreton Terrace). The new house was ‘a big block, in a big terrace’, in front of the terrace ‘was a large lawn where all the children played’. Here Annie’s family lived next to that of Oswald Cheung. (Born in 1922, he later became Sir Oswald Cheung. He was the first Chinese to become a Queen’s Council in Hong Kong and the first Chinese chairman of the  “Advertisements Prepaid,” South China Morning Post, Dec. 4, 1926, 5  “Advertisements Prepaid,” South China Morning Post, Dec. 28, 1926, 5. 83  “Advertisements Prepaid,” South China Morning Post, Dec. 1, 1926, 5. 84  “For Sale,” South China Morning Post, Jan. 18, 1932, 5. 81 82

70 

S. MENG WANG

Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club.). Annie added that it was a small community: ‘their children also come over to play with us, and we know each other well’.85 The residential garden in Annie’s home allowed the offloading of domestic play activities into the outdoor area, and within safe walls. It illustrated the everyday life and play practice of children within a particular built form of residence. The domestic garden was rearticulated as a space for children, in that their private and social experience of play gave new meaning to this place.86 This idyllic image of the ‘child in the garden’ coincided with the invention of a new vision of childhood as a ‘symbolic counterweight’ to the dangers and stresses of urbanised modern life.87 As colonial urban expansion took hold in new geographies, the protection of children in Hong Kong reached a new height. The emergence of new play architecture captured the anxieties and struggles of the professional middle classes as they responded to a fast-changing suburban landscape. The construction of supervised play spaces in Kowloon and Hong Kong Island was in part their deliberate effort to inscribe order, and more importantly, an ideal image of childhood, into the suburban and urban landscape.

2.3   Garden City and Urban Form: Neighbourhood Playground for Children The original Garden City idea advocated for the creation of a self-­sustained community. It did not specify, however, a particular form of domestic architecture. Its goal was always aimed at the broader scope of community life, rather than domestic life. Most of the garden cities built by private developers in Kowloon during the interwar period were initially housing estates; the provision of schools, hospitals, green belts, open spaces, and playgrounds was achieved in a later phase and engaged a particular political body  – the residents’ associations. Led by groups of European 85  Annie Lee, born in 1919, Hong Kong. Hong Kong Oral History Archives: Collective Memories, Hong Kong University Libraries Special Collection, access no. 51. 86  Yi-Fu Tuan argues that it is the experiential aspect of place that gives it a personal, social, and cultural meaning. See Yi-Fu Tuan, “Place: An Experiential Perspective,” Geographical Review 65, no. 2 (1975): 151–165. 87  Adrienne E. Gavin and Andrew F. Humphries, “Worlds Enough and Time: The Cult of Childhood in Edwardian Fiction,” in Childhood in Edwardian Fiction: Worlds Enough and Time, eds. Adrienne E. Gavin and Andrew F. Humphries (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 2.

2  GARDEN CITY: URBAN FORM, COLONIAL DOMESTICITY, AND SPACES… 

71

professionals, these voluntary associations captured the effort of the European middle class to intervene in matters relating to town planning and district land use. Their desire to create an ordered and functional suburban landscape also engaged a particular vision of childhood. Faced with the rapid transition from suburban to urban forms of living, European middle classes advocated for specialised leisure facilities for residents from different age groups. The play spaces for children were to safeguard not only the health and physical development of children, but also to sustain an idealised image of childhood as a phase of protected innocence.88 Within the fences of neighbourhood playgrounds, children were to be protected, supervised, and guided. While initially campaigned by the residents’ associations, in the 1930s, voluntary association such as the Children’s Playground Association was also formed that pushed for more playgrounds in working-class neighbourhoods. The upshot of these voluntary efforts was that they engendered a new architecture of play for children, and they helped to spread this new play space in middle-class and working-class districts alike. 2.3.1   A New Architecture of Play One residents’ association that was instrumental in transforming the new garden cities in Kowloon into self-sustained communities was the Kowloon Residents’ Association (KRA), formed in 1920. Mr. B. L. Frost, the first president of the KRA, suggested one of the objectives of the association was ‘to consider and if thought desirable, to make representations to the Government with regard to the annual financial estimates affecting Kowloon and its adjacent territories’.89 Its areas of interest concerned ‘the proposed Kowloon Hospital, housing problem, the lighting and policing of Kowloon, the regulation of traffic, drainage, motor roads, athletic grounds, a public hall, education […] and agricultural development’.90 With regard to the play spaces for children in Kowloon, ever since the 88  This image of innocent childhood was discussed by Sarah L. Holloway and Gill Valentine, “Children’s Geographies and The New Social Studies of Childhood,” In Children’s Geographies: Playing, Living, Learning, eds. Sarah L.  Holloway and Gill Valentine (New York: Routledge, 2005), 3. 89  “Kowloon Residents’ Association, Year’s Work Reviewed,” The China Mail, Oct. 5, 1920, 8. 90  “Kowloon Residents’ Association, the Presidents’ Speech,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Oct. 5, 1920, 2.

72 

S. MENG WANG

KRA had been in existence, it had a special playground sub-committee (under the convenorship of Mr. R. Packham91) to whom ‘care of the playground had largely been entrusted’.92 Similar residents’ association also existed in Hong Kong Island. For example, the Peak Residents’ Association was formed in 1922.93 It functioned as a voluntary body advocating for the provision and maintenance of public facilities in the Peak District, including the play space for children.94 In addition, the Mid-Levels Residents’ Association was founded in 1925 under the leadership of Mr. J. S. Gillingham, and supported by a provisional committee of nine members consisting of, among others, ‘Mrs. Harman, Mr. Brister, Mr. Hackling […] and Mr. Brooks’.95 Its immediate initiatives concerned, for example, ‘the provision of a children’s playground near May Road Station, the unsatisfactory chair service at the Robinson chair stand and the questions of traffic control’.96 The persistent efforts of urban reform-minded residents brought into being two neighbourhood playgrounds. The first playground in Kowloon, and also in the colony of Hong Kong, the Chatham Road Playground, was opened in August 1914. Subsequent expansions such as the addition of modern play apparatus of swings took place in 1915.97 By 1932, the second playground in Kowloon, the Middle Road Playground, had come into use.98 The new playground included an area where children could take exercises on ‘roller-skates, scooters and bicycles’. Also enclosed in the ground was a shelter with seating accommodation, and a row of seats under Signal Hill which faced the harbor. Maypoles, see-saws, swings, and separate lavatories for boys and girls were among the additional features.99 91  “Kowloon Residents’ Association, Report of the General Committee,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Feb. 2, 1924, 5. 92  “Children’s Playground,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Oct. 5, 1922, 3. 93  “Peak Residents’ Association Formed,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Mar. 29, 1922, 5. 94  “Peak Residents’ Association, Children’s Gardens,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, April 13, 1923, 2. 95  “Mid-Level Residents, Formation of Residents’ Association Discussed,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, July 16, 1925, 5. 96  “The Mid-Levels, Report of Residents’ Association,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, March 8, 1926, 12. 97  “Kowloon Playground to be Extended,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Sep. 12, 1925, 7. 98  “Kowloon Residents’ Association, Children’s Playground,” The China Mail, Feb. 15, 1932, 7. 99  “P.W.D. Plans for Kowloon, Schemes for Open Spaces, Better Roads and Lighting: The Children’s Playground Begun at Last,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Oct. 26, 1929, 4.

2  GARDEN CITY: URBAN FORM, COLONIAL DOMESTICITY, AND SPACES… 

73

In 1933, the government approved four additional playgrounds to be built in working-class neighbourhoods. Two in Hong Kong Island (at Wanchai and Blake Garden) and two in Kowloon (on Shantung Street and Tong Mi Street).100 By then, the Children’s Playground Association was established that advocated for the timely maintenance of urban and suburban playgrounds.101 By means of proposing playground sites to the government,102 raising funds through public subscription,103 and collaborating with various state departments on the maintenance of playgrounds,104 urban reformers – led by European professionals – helped create a highly regulated suburban and urban play landscape for children. 2.3.2   Involvement of Chinese Elites However, how had the Chinese elites supported the provision of public play spaces for children? In other words, how did they collaborate with the European professionals in entrenching a specially designed urban and suburban play architecture for children? As part of a class of Western-educated professionals, a few Chinese elites were members of the residents’ association committee. For example, Dr. S. W. Ts’o (1868–1953, a distinguished Hong Kong lawyer and educationalist, who was one of the founders of St. Stephen’s Boys’ College and St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, and a member of the Board of Education, amongst his other educational activities) was on the committee of the KRA.105 In addition, Mr. F.  C. Mow Fung (1882–1950, an Australia-born Chinese merchant) was the elected

100  “New Amenities for the Colony, $21,960 for 4 Children’s Playgrounds,” The China Mail, Sep. 26, 1933, 1. 101  “Children’s Playground Association, Satisfactory Progress Made Last Year,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Mar. 12, 1935, 7. 102  For example, in 1921, the Kowloon Residents’ Association corresponded with the colonial government on converting three plots of land in Kowloon into recreation grounds. In “Kowloon Residents’ Association, Review of a Year’s Work,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Feb. 15, 1921, 2. 103  “Children’s playground, Appeal for More Funds,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Mar. 20, 1934, 17. 104  For example, in 1922, the Kowloon Residents’ Association approached the Public Works Department on the safety issue of the equipment at Chatham Road playground. In “Kowloon Residents’ Association,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Aug. 19, 1922, 3. 105  “Kowloon Residents’ Association, Interesting Matters Discussed,” The Hong Kong Telegraphy, Mar. 19, 1926, 2.

74 

S. MENG WANG

president of KRA in 1931.106 The KRA elected another Chinese president Mr. Li Chor-chi (1888–1940, accountant of the Oversea Chinese Banking Corporation and secretary of the Ho Hong Company107) in 1935.108 The Children’s Playground Association also had a few prominent Chinese members. For example, Dr. S. W. Ts’o served as the Vice-President of the association in 1933 and 1934.109 As well, Mr. Li Hoi Tung (1888–1973, managing director of Messrs. Bankers and Co., importers and exporters110) served in the Executive Committee of the association in 1933, and Mr. Tang Shiu-kin (1901–1986, entrepreneur and philanthropist) was elected a member of the Executive Committee in 1934.111 In addition to these Chinese elites forming the executive committee of the Children’s Playground Association, play directors of the neighbourhood playgrounds were also staffed by Chinese members. For example, in 1935, Mr. Chung Tse Keung was assigned as the play director for the children’s playground at Blake Gardens (in Sheung Wan, Hong Kong Island). Similarly, Mr. Cheung Yan Shing oversaw the two playgrounds at Wan Chai (next to Central, Hong Kong Island), Mr. Tam Hok Nin took care of the playgrounds at King’s Park and Kowloon City, and Mr. Kwok Mok Hoi looked after the playgrounds at Shantung Street (in Mong Kok, Kowloon) and Tong Mei Road (in Mong Kok, Kowloon). All of these playgrounds were situated in densely populated working-class neighbourhoods.112 Designed and supervised by urban professionals, the neighbourhood play spaces were thus simultaneously discursive and physical, which connected with the gradual move of children and childhood to the centre stage of public concern in interwar Hong Kong.

106  “Kowloon Residents’ Association, Policy Outlined by Rev. J. Horace Johnston,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Mar. 10, 1931, 6. 107  “Death of Mr. Li Chor-chi,” The China Mail, Mar. 20, 1940, 15. 108  “Kowloon Residents’ Association, Mr. Li Chor Chi Elected President,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Mar. 16, 1935, 7. 109  “The Children’s Playgrounds, Appeal for More Funds,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Mar. 20, 1934, 17. 110  “The International Club Idea, Views of Prominent Chinese Residents,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Dec. 2, 1925, 5. 111  “The Children’s Playgrounds, Appeal for More Funds,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Mar. 20, 1934, 17. 112  “Children’s Playground Association, Satisfactory Progress Made Last Year,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Mar. 12, 1935, 7.

2  GARDEN CITY: URBAN FORM, COLONIAL DOMESTICITY, AND SPACES… 

75

2.3.3   Subversive Acts of Play While the proliferation of neighbourhood playgrounds constituted a key change in the urban and suburban landscape in interwar Hong Kong, in practice, children’s play practices were hardly confined within the fences of the domestic and public gardens. Born and raised in the countryside of Kowloon, Ng Chuen Kung (b. 1924) suggested he liked to stroll about when small. His pastimes in those years included swimming, ball games, kites, marble games, and fishing. Ng recalled Kowloon had a small population but vast open grounds. He never had to worry about the lack of recreational spots. He bought himself a monthly bus pass on $3, and sometimes went to Lai Chi Kok (a neighbourhood in western Kowloon) for swimming or some ball games. He also used to go fishing mottled spinefoot at Kowloon City Pier. Ng added he was never into books when small. His parents never controlled him, and there were hardly any interactions between the two generations. In contrast with urban-based merchants, businessmen, and professionals ‘migrating’ to provincial and rural areas, Ng’s father belonged to the gentry class that owned large farmland in the countryside. The family lived in a large house of a couple storeys in Lai Chi Yuen (located in north Kowloon). Typical of the country home built at the time, the residence was a tiled house with a small courtyard. ‘It faced a big garden of tens of thousands square feet. There was an orchard full of fruit trees on the uplands nearby.’113 As the city-based bourgeoisie – comprising both European and Chinese mercantile and professional classes – offloaded their concern and frustration for urban health, particularly that of children, onto the newly developed garden city suburbs, they helped to define an architecture and landscape of play that was distinctly counter-urban. Play architecture thus functioned as an expression of class anxiety, a shared outlook of the urban elite on childhood, and beneath it, lies the frustration about and hope for the future of the British empire.

2.4   Conclusion This chapter has examined how the Garden City movement in interwar Hong Kong redefined the architecture of play for children in distinct and new ways. It situates children’s play practice in both the domestic and 113  Ng Chuen Kung, male, born in 1924, Hong Kong. Hong Kong Memory Project: Oral History Archives, https://www.hkmemory.hk/collections/oral_history/All_Items_OH/ oha_107/records/index.html. Accessed on April. 7, 2022.

76 

S. MENG WANG

public domains. These two dimensions related to the key spaces the Garden City idea helped to transform. In the domestic domain, the Garden City housing model engendered a new form of residential architecture for middle- and upper-class Chinese. This residential architecture was encoded with the ideals of colonial domesticity that imagined the colonial home as a site of stable, ordered, and well-maintained family life. Such an image of ordered domestic life supported a vision of the British empire as stable rather than chaotic. This colonial domestic imaginary, first and foremost, shaped the architectural form of European homes built by the colonial state for the expatriate families. Integral to this form of domestic architecture was gender- and class-based spatial design that specified the everyday use of different spaces within the home. While the colonial state built government quarters and European-style houses for colonial officials – with an intent to maintain a specific form of domestic life and spatial order in the colony; in practice, many European families lived constantly on the move. Despite this mobility in space, life histories illustrated European families tried to sustain their middle-class identity and the cultural image of the colonial home through everyday home-making practices. The gendered notion of domesticity and expatriate leisure practice also informed the cultural geography of play for children in European middle-class families. Domestic architecture was thus an important means through which colonial racial order was imagined and sustained in the colony. Previously connected with the European middle-class identity of the expatriate families, the single-family house with its own garden planned in the Garden City suburbs in Kowloon over the interwar period attracted a burgeoning class of wealthy Chinese. By taking up the domestic form of the European community, the Chinese families residing in Garden City homes unsettled the spatial imaginary of the middle-class home associated with colonial racial order. While the Garden City residence attended to the gender and class considerations in domestic spatial design, it was also a distinct house-form in that it emphasised a connection between health and the architecture of home. Provisions of domestic garden, outdoor open spaces, and tennis court hailed a new phase in suburban housing development where residential architecture functioned as part of the remedial measures aimed to improve the health and wellbeing of the middle-class. This new dwelling typology emerged in the context of a new planning culture where separate residential planning gave way to modern planning practices that advocated

2  GARDEN CITY: URBAN FORM, COLONIAL DOMESTICITY, AND SPACES… 

77

for a functional and spatially specialised urban landscape. This functional townscape denoted the separation of residence from industrial, commercial, and administrative activities. The construction of residential districts also drew the space of the home into a new discourse on proper forms of childrearing in the middle-class household. The domestic garden was rearticulated as a safe play space for children. The original Garden City idea envisioned a self-sustained community. Its goal was to produce a particular form of communal living that integrated town and country life. This goal thus extended beyond the mere change of domestic architecture, but advocated for a wholistic spatial planning of Garden City suburbs that integrated educational, recreational, industrial, and agricultural functions. Most of the Garden Cities built by private developers in Kowloon in the interwar period were initially housing estates, facilities such as hospitals, schools, open spaces and playgrounds were completed in a later phase and engaged the efforts of residents’ associations. The Kowloon Residents’ Association – a voluntary association led by European professionals, for example, was instrumental in engendering a new architecture of play  – the neighbourhood playground  – for children in the suburban and urban districts of Kowloon. These public play spaces not only provided specially designed play facilities for children such as maypoles, swings, and seesaws, but also a set of rules that regulated the everyday use of the playground. Similar residents’ associations also existed in Hong Kong Island, such as the Peak Residents’ Association and the Mid-Levels Residents’ Association, both of which advocated for increased play space for children in their precincts. While initially campaigned by residents’ associations, in the 1930s, a specialised voluntary association advocating for children’s play space was formed, namely, the Children Playground Association (still active in the present day). This allowed the new form of play architecture to permeate into working-class neighbourhoods. Here urban reformers inscribed a particular vision of childhood as a phase of protected innocence into the suburban and urban landscape in interwar Hong Kong. The Garden City movement also gave rise to modern school architecture. Schools such as La Salle College, Diocesan Boys’ School, and Maryknoll Convent School were all planned in the Kowloon Tong Garden City. The next chapter shifts to the architecture of the educational space and looks at how colonial sanitary, medical, and educational experts constructed and developed the health infrastructure for schoolchildren in Hong Kong between the period 1901 and 1941. It examines two specific

78 

S. MENG WANG

instruments the colonial experts used to improve school health: school architecture and curriculum. These two instruments were shaped by imperial mentalities of efficiency and eugenics that aimed improve child health through sanitary improvement, physical training, and responsible personal hygiene conduct. The chapter focuses on one strand of colonial schooling site where colonial experts’ advice on health and hygiene was most effectively carried out: the state-sponsored English schools that educated the multi-racial middle-class cohort. This shift to school architecture and curriculum also brings to light how domestic architecture and school architecture were shaped by distinct and yet entwining imperial discourses.

CHAPTER 3

Architecture of Health: Hygiene and Schooling in Hong Kong, 1901–1941

By the turn of the twentieth century, the British colonial government in Hong Kong was struggling with the provision of health infrastructure for the urban working class, whose living quarters were identified by sanitary experts as breeding grounds for a range of contagious diseases.1 At the time, the colony was still in recovery from the Bubonic Plague outbreak in 1894 which had claimed 2426 lives in just the first two months of the outbreak. The plague subsequently paralysed the economy of the whole city.2 In an investigation into the causes of the plague outbreak, Medical Officer Dr. James A.  Lowson suggested the structural defects of urban tenements – ‘the want of ventilation, light and air in them, the inadequate water supply, the want of proper drainage, the overcrowded condition of 1  In the nineteenth century, the sanitary discourse was used by the colonial state in Hong Kong to create a racially segregated urban landscape. The urban working-class dwelling was criticised by sanitary experts as the breeding grounds of contagions. For a discussion on disease and planning, see, for example, Margaret Jones, “Tuberculosis, Housing and the Colonial State: Hong Kong, 1900–1950,” Modern Asian Studies 37, no. 3 (2003): 653–682. 2  “The Plague in Hong Kong,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, July 31, 1894, 2. After the resumption of the Plague-infected residential district of Taipingshan in 1894, in 1901, the whole of the City of Victoria, together with the villages of Hunghom, Hok Un, Yaumati and Mongkok Tsui in the Kowloon Peninsula, was declared by the Acting Secretary G.  A. Woodcock as infected with Bubonic Plague. “City of Victoria and Certain Villages Declared Infected,” The Hong Kong Government Gazette, Hong Kong Government, May 4, 1901.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Meng Wang, Space and Everyday Lives of Children in Hong Kong, Global Histories of Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44401-2_3

79

80 

S. MENG WANG

Fig. 3.1  Sanitising civilian homes in Tai Ping Shan District, 1894, following the outbreak of bubonic plague. Source: Courtesy of Hong Kong Museum of History

the houses […] the filthy condition of wells’ – was contributing directly to the rapid spread of the plague in the Chinese quarters (see Fig. 3.1).3 In the immediate decades following the 1894 Plague outbreak, colonial anxieties over the sanitary condition of working-class dwelling underwrote a series of interventionist measures, including compulsory domestic cleansings, sanitary inspections, and building regulations. The domestic space was indeed the one of the sites where sanitary reform in colonial Hong Kong first materialised. The Sanitary Department urged ‘even more important than the cleansing of the streets was the cleansing of the dwellings of the poorer classes of Chinese, and this work was now coming to occupy most of the energies of the Sanitary Department’. Tanks of soap and water were provided in the streets for the respective blocks of houses, 3  “Medical Report on the Epidemic of Bubonic Plague in 1894,” Hong Kong Sessional Papers, Hong Kong Government, no. 16/95, 175.

3  ARCHITECTURE OF HEALTH: HYGIENE AND SCHOOLING IN HONG… 

81

and notice was served on the residents that their houses must be cleaned by a certain day – when all floors, rooms and cubicles must be cleared out and they with their furniture ready for inspection.4 Accompanying these sanitary measures were building regulations which came into place when the colonial state passed the Public Health and Buildings Ordinance of 1903. This landmark legislation systematically reshaped the spatial character of urban buildings, ensuring minimum hygiene and sanitary standards in buildings used for domestic, commercial, and industrial purposes.5 The timeframe within which the Public Health and Buildings Ordinance of 1903 was passed is significant in that it suggests prior to the phase of suburban expansion in the interwar period, sanitary and building regulations were already in place to police the spatial forms of residential and other types of civic building. It also illuminates how colonial professionals – particularly the medical, sanitary, and planning experts who travelled from the metropole to Hong Kong – played an instrumental role in developing the sanitary and public health infrastructure in the urban environment. The hygiene discourse that informed the spatial reforms of the dwelling site also permeated into the educational context where the architecture of school was underlined by the sanitary and hygiene movement that started in Hong Kong in the late nineteenth century. In the schooling context, the discourse of hygiene further entangled with imperial imperative of eugenics that framed the health of youth as the foundation of the British empire.6 Because most of the health interventions into the schooling site solidified before the interwar period, this chapter starts with an early temporal focus – the first two decades of the twentieth century as they were the formative phase of school sanitary improvements in Hong Kong.

4  “Medical and Sanitary Report for the Year 1914,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 5; In 1915, a new by-laws was passed empowering the Sanitary Board to carry out cleansing and lime-washing in tenement houses which had not been cleansed and lime-washed by their owners within the appointed periods and to charge the cost of the work to the defaulting owners. “Medical and Sanitary Report for the Year 1915,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 4. 5  “Ordinance Passed and Assented to: Public Health and Buildings, No. 1, 1903,” The Hong Kong Government Gazette, Hong Kong Government, February 27, 1903, 201. 6  On eugenic thought that links health of youth with the future of British empire, see, for example, Fiona Skillen, “‘A Sound System of Physical Training’: The Development of Girls’ Physical Education in Interwar Scotland,” History of Education 38, no. 3 (2009): 403–418.

82 

S. MENG WANG

The chapter considers how colonial sanitary, medical, and educational experts constructed and developed the health infrastructure for schoolchildren in Hong Kong in the period between 1901 and 1941. It examines two specific instruments the colonial experts devised to improve school health: school architecture and curriculum. These two instruments were, in part, shaped by imperial mentalities of efficiency and eugenics that aimed improve child health through sanitary improvement, physical training, and responsible personal hygiene conduct. The chapter focuses on one strand of school where colonial experts’ advice of health and hygiene was most effectively carried out: the state-sponsored English schools that educated the multi-racial middle-class cohort. This strand of school included government-run schools for boys and girls, and grant-in-­ aid schools that received government financial support and building grants. The chapter argues this strand of school (where the medium of instruction was chiefly English but most students were of Chinese descent) was purposefully constructed as the healthy conduit on the suburban and urban landscape that performed public health functions. In contrast, the private vernacular schools (where the medium of instruction was Chinese) were depicted by sanitary and medical experts as ‘overcrowded, poorly lit, inadequately ventilated, lacking in furniture, deficient in latrine accommodation and defective as regards water supply and means of disposal of refuse’. They were in a ‘filthy’ and ‘insanitary’ condition that was degenerative to pupils’ health.7 Paradoxically, despite the awareness of the poor spatial arrangement in private vernacular schools (where they were housed in tenements intended for domestic purposes), and the conclusions drawn from sanitary inspections, medical examination and treatment of pupils in pre-World War II Hong Kong were only carried out in state-sponsored schools. The private vernacular schools were the sites that received heavy criticism from sanitary experts, and yet, in practice, they received little state support to improve their physical condition. Here the discourse of hygiene contributed toward the demarcation between state-sponsored English schools and private vernacular learning sites. While both types of school-educated, and chiefly Chinese, children, 7  This image on the ‘insanitary’ condition in private schools appeared constantly in education and medical reports across 1901 to 1941. Details in, for example, “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1912,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 4–5, which will be referred later in this chapter; here these details were offered in “Annual Medical Report for the Year 1938,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 23.

3  ARCHITECTURE OF HEALTH: HYGIENE AND SCHOOLING IN HONG… 

83

they catered for a very different social stratum. The state-sponsored English schools attracted Chinese children from middle- and upper-class families. The private vernacular schools, by contrast, educated Chinese children from working-class backgrounds. And yet only a small fraction of schooling children attended the government schools, while the majority were educated in the vernacular schools (both aided and unaided). For example, in 1934 (this year was chosen because by the late 1930s, the figure of schoolchildren of in Hong Kong was significantly elevated by the population influx caused by the turbulence on the Mainland), ‘of the schools controlled by the Education Department only 20 were “provided” or government schools, 333 were aided or subsidised by grants from public funds, and 718 were unaided. The number of pupils in attendance at government schools was 5476; similar figures for the aided and unaided schools were 28,677 and 39,195 respectively. In a total of 73,348.’8 While the aided schools occasionally included vernacular (Chinese-medium) establishments, the unaided schools were predominantly vernacular (Chinese-medium). In 1934, for example, of the 718 unaided schools, 594 were vernacular, and only 123 were English schools.9 This uneven distribution of state educational funds contributed to a class divide within the schooling context. Between the period 1901 and 1941, colonial intervention into school health was run along two main lines. First, the sanitary regulation of school building informed by sanitary and hygiene movements. This strand of regulatory measures was primarily environmental in nature, covering details on the provision of water, light, air, ventilation, and heating as measures linked to infectious diseases control. It has specific implications on the architectural design of school building. Second, medical inspection and health instruction for schoolchildren that emphasised the role of individual habits and public provision in affecting health status.10 This strand of health intervention affected the bodily practice of schoolchildren by engendering a new health education curriculum and a regime of physical examination. The first 8  “Annual Medical Report for the Year Ending 31st December 1934,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 43. 9  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1934,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 4. 10  These two lines of public health management were discussed in Milton J.  Lewis and Kerrie L. MacPherson, “Public health in Asia and the Pacific: An introduction,” in Public Health in Asia and the Pacific: Historical and Comparative Perspectives, eds. Milton J. Lewis and Kerrie L. MacPherson (London: Routledge, 2007), 1.

84 

S. MENG WANG

strand of intervention  – sanitary requirements  – applied to both state-­ sponsored English schools and private vernacular schools. However, what separated these two types of school on the matter of health was that the former had the financial resource to build multi-­storeyed functional buildings – professionally designed as schools – that provided specific spaces for different learning activities. Their choice of classroom furniture also took into account of pupils’ health, particularly to accommodate their physical growth and to protect their eyesight. The private vernacular schools, on the other hand, due to the lack of funding, were housed in domestic tenement buildings ill-suited for the purpose of education. The lack of medical staff for the school health service also entailed that health examination prioritised children attending state-­sponsored schools (who themselves paid a medical examination fee11), rather than the private vernacular learning sites where the majority of Chinese children sought schooling.12

3.1   Hygiene, Health, Eugenics, and Schooling Regulation of school architecture and curriculum for the purpose of improving school health is one of the most defining changes in the educational context in interwar Hong Kong. This reflected colonial preoccupation over 11  For example, in 1931, an updated fee requirement was published in The Hong Kong Government Gazette where it suggested, ‘It is hereby notified that after 1st January 1931, in place of the existing entrance fees, charges, payable as are school fees, will be made for the medical inspection of pupils at the undermentioned schools, as set forth in the following table: Queen’s college, King’s college, Belilios Public School, Ellis Kadoorie School, Yaumati School, Wanchai school, Gap Road School, vernacular middle school, vernacular normal school for women, $3 for each pupil; Ellis Kadoorie school for Indian $1 for each pupil’. “School Medical Inspection Fees,” The Hong Kong Government Gazette, Hong Kong Government, Sep. 4, 1931, 614. 12  As will be introduced later in the chapter, the School Hygiene Branch was established in 1925. By 1935, the Branch extended its medical services through the growth of staff. By then, the Branch consisted of the Health Officer for Schools, two Chinese health officers, one part-time lady medical officer and five school nurses. Its duties also extended to include ‘medical treatment with regard to general disease, defects of ear, nose, and throat, and eye defects; and health instructions’. This expansion of the school medical service notwithstanding, by 1936, the physical examination of pupils was still confined to 17 government schools containing 4,988 pupils. The primary vernacular schools, containing 59,977 pupils, were left ‘more or less untouched though it was here the need for health measures was most urgent’. “Medical and Sanitary Report for the Year 1935,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 54; “Medical and Sanitary Report for the Year 1936,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 57.

3  ARCHITECTURE OF HEALTH: HYGIENE AND SCHOOLING IN HONG… 

85

the health of youth drew the spaces of the classroom, dormitory, and school playgrounds into the discourse of hygiene that functioned to ensure the cleanliness of these sites. The colonial concern over school health notwithstanding, existing studies on the connection between hygiene and the built environment for children in colonial Hong Kong tended to focus narrowly on the experience of white children. For example, David Pomfret shows how the framing of the vulnerability of the white child’s body – accentuated through a discourse of ‘tropicality’ – was entwined with a sense of racial difference. The constructed image of the vulnerable white child in the ‘tropical’ colony, in turn, legitimised the creation of racially separate residential and play spaces for the white race in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.13 Within this strand of scholarship, imperial hygiene discourse thus functioned as a means through which the spatial divide between the European and Chinese community was imagined and articulated. This use of hygiene discourse to enunciate social boundaries also played out in the educational site. Here hygiene discourse helped create a stratified class structure within the Chinese community. The effect of the hygiene discourse on schooling practices in Hong Kong between 1901 and 1941 was produced in connection with another two paradigms at play in the British empire in this period, namely, eugenics and public health. As the historian Anna Devin shows, as early as the 1890s, in Britain, some municipalities were distributing leaflets on infant care and providing instructions through visits to their homes. In the wake of the disastrous Boer War (1899–1901), fears about the national standards of physique reached a peak. This triggered legislative measures designed to improve the conditions of infant and child health, among which midwives were required to have training and school children were to be medically inspected.14 Just as eugenics matured as a form of ­intervention into the management of personal health, public health, as the 13  David Pomfret, “Tropic Childhood: Health, Hygiene and Nature,” in Youth and Empire, 22–54. 14  Anna Davin, “Imperialism and Motherhood,” in Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World, eds. Ann Laura Stoler and Frederick Cooper (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1997), 87–152; also see also see Lucy Bland and Lesley Hall, “Eugenics in Britain: A View from the Metropole,” in The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics, eds. Alison Bashford and Philippa Levine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 213–228; Diane B. Paul, John Stenhouse, and Hamish G. Spencer, eds. Eugenics at the Edges of Empire: New Zealand, Australia, Canada and South Africa (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).

86 

S. MENG WANG

historian Alison Bashford argues, is also a form of governance of the body with knowledges, institutions, and practices of public health aimed to regulate the circulation and contact of matter and people. The interest and concern for public health grew hand in hand with industrial expansion with the period between the mid-1860s and World War II saw an expanding scope and bureaucratisation of public health within government in Britain.15 The historian Paul Lombardo further argues public health and eugenics matured simultaneously in the early twentieth century, and leaders in the two fields shared three key ideas: ‘prevention, efficiency, and progress’. Lombardo points out that the key premise of eugenics was that ‘efficient prevention of social problems was a necessary condition for social progress’.16 While eugenics has commonly been associated with questions of race, heredity, and social progress, within the movement there were rather heated debates on the methods for race improvement. In 1928, an article by M.D.  Halliday Sutherland was published in the local English newspaper Hong Kong Daily Press, clarifying two strands of eugenics of the day: ‘positive and negative eugenics’: By positive eugenics we seek to discover the most suitable moral and physical environment for the race. That covers a vast field including ante-natal care, infant welfare, education (religious and secular), school medical inspection, general hygiene and sanitation. The aim of negative eugenics is narrower – namely, to suppress the offspring of inferior stocks by compulsory segregation or by sterilisation.17

Regarding these two alternative approaches to eugenics thinking, the historian Chloe Campbell argues that they were the two main methods of using eugenics ‘to change the social composition of the nation’.18 In the schooling context, ‘positive’ eugenics operated as a branch of ideas that aimed to produce physical strength, and the notion of a healthy body and a healthy mind. It was for this reason that studies on eugenics in the 15  Alison Bashford, Imperial Hygiene: A Critical History of Colonialism, Nationalism and Public Health (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 2. 16  Paul Lombardo, “Eugenics and Public Health: Historical Connections and Ethical Implications,” in The Oxford Handbook of Public Health Ethics, eds. Anna C. Mastroianni, Jeffrey P. Kahn and Nancy E. Kass (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), 642–653. 17  “The Taint in the Family: Brilliant Children of a Strange Family, Eugenics Problem,” Hong Kong Daily Press, May 28, 1928, 10. 18  Chloe Campbell, Race and Empire: Eugenics In Colonial Kenya (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), 13.

3  ARCHITECTURE OF HEALTH: HYGIENE AND SCHOOLING IN HONG… 

87

educational context have focused on the curriculum of physical education. Phillipa Levine and Alison Bashford, for example, argue that the eugenics movement enacted through physical education had a specific aim to bring about fitter life.19 The physical education school curriculum was also shaped by the public health paradigm. As Sudipa Topdar shows, physical education was important for purposes of the public health agenda in British colonial centres, which underlined the critical need to discipline indigenous bodies that were considered ‘unhygienic and disorderly’.20 This chapter broadens the studies on eugenics and education by integrating a previously overlooked aspect: the built environment of schools. The chapter examines school architecture in relation to one specific branch of eugenics – ‘positive eugenics’. The broader focus of ‘positive eugenics’ on the methods used for social improvement lends itself to the analysis of health infrastructure built for schoolchildren in Hong Kong between 1901 and 1941, where architectural and curricular reform were vigorously carried out.

3.2  School Architecture and Sanitary Reform: A Background, 1890–1913 The sanitary and hygiene movement that started in Hong Kong in the late nineteenth century problematised the urban shophouse tenements as a major public health concern. The fact that schools in this period were also housed in these tenements that combined domestic and commercial use entailed that school accommodation was a site for heavy criticism launched in the name of sanitary reform. For example, in April 1890, an article written by an ‘independent reviewer’, a Mr. C.  S. Addis, was published in China Review (an academic journal circulating in Hong Kong between 1872 to 1901), critiquing two defects of the education system in Hong Kong: ‘the shortcomings in the matter of school accommodation and the absence of any provision for physical training’.21 The inadequacy of school accommodation persisted in different strands of school. Earlier in 1887, 19  Levine and Bashford, “Introduction: Eugenics and the Modern World,” in The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics, 3–27. 20  Sudipa Topdar, “The Corporeal Empire: Physical Education and Politicising Children’s Bodies in Late Colonial Bengal,” Gender & History 29, no. 1 (2017): 176–197. 21   “The Educational Report for 1890,” Hong Kong Sessional Papers, Hong Kong Government, no. 23/31, 294.

88 

S. MENG WANG

the Inspector of Schools, Frederick Stewart, suggested that ‘the question of accommodation seriously affects the results of school teaching in every country, and more particularly so in a tropical climate’; however, ‘among the 204 schools in the colony there were hardly ten or twelve which were located in suitable premises’: the vast majority of the schools were accommodated in ordinary semi-­ Chinese or Chinese dwelling houses, ill-suited for the purpose of classrooms and were in most cases deficient as regards to light and ventilation and especially in respect of lavatories. Even most Government Schools, with the exception of four, were all more or less badly housed, being located in narrow tenements of Chinese construction which were originally built for Chinese domestic purposes and for which the government paid a heavy monthly rent. The Grant-in-aid Schools were, with a few exceptions, in the same plight. The Aided Schools in the villages were mostly accommodated in window-less cottages, generally of a worse type than the dwelling of the villagers themselves, many of these schools receiving light and ventilation exclusively from the open door-way.22

This image of the defect in school accommodation was constructed in the broader context of sanitary reform that denoted the role colonial sanitary experts played in shaping the public health infrastructure in Hong Kong over the early twentieth century. In 1882 and 1902, sanitary expert Osbert Chadwick, the son of Edwin Chadwick (the British social reformer), was commissioned to visit Hong Kong and to investigate on the questions of housing, water supply, and sewage as they impacted on the matter of public health. On these two visits, Chadwick pointed out the connection between domestic hygiene and public health and suggested the structural defect of tenement buildings posed myriad urban health concerns.23 He subsequently promoted ‘public health reforms through better architectural and engineering designs’.24 Chadwick’s advice was incorporated by the colonial state in the drafting of the Public Health and Buildings Ordinance of 1903. This ordinance resembled the English Public Health Act of 1875, and systematically reshaped urban domestic structure through 22  “Annual Report on Education in Hong Kong for the Year 1887,” Supplement to the Hong Kong Government Gazette, Hong Kong Government, April 21, 1888, 403. 23  “Preliminary Report on the Sanitary Condition of Hong Kong, 1902,” The Hong Kong Government Gazette, Hong Kong Government, April 11, 1902, 590. 24  Ka-che Yip, Yuen Sang Leung, and Man Kong Timothy Wong, Health Policy and Disease in Colonial and Post-Colonial Hong Kong, 1841–2003 (London: Routledge, 2016), 13.

3  ARCHITECTURE OF HEALTH: HYGIENE AND SCHOOLING IN HONG… 

89

‘the specific requirements on the provision of skylight, air, and ventilation in rooms used for dwelling’. Also pertinent in this ordinance was the regulation of ‘building height, street width, and the inclusion of back-yards and open spaces’.25 The emphasis on environmental factors as a means to improve domestic hygiene reflected sanitation and environmental improvements were the main tools of disease control in Hong Kong by the turn of the century.26 Engineers and sanitarians played an important role in public health management.27 This sanitary approach to public health also permeated to the schooling context. In 1906, for example, the ‘unhealthy nature of the surroundings’ of the government school Victoria British School (for European children) ‘caused some anxiety’ for the Education Department. In order to drain the swampy land near the school and clear the grounds of the brushwood, the state sanctioned ‘a large sum of money’. Meanwhile, the concrete flooring inside the school caused ‘a great deal of trouble’ and had made ‘it impossible for the school to be kept as clean as it should be’. This defect was also remedied.28 These earlier sanitary interventions into the schooling site were eventually rationalised in the Educational Ordinance of 1913. This ordinance was informed by the Public Health and Buildings Ordinance of 1903 and had specific requirements concerning the spatial arrangement and sanitary condition of schools. As the Director of Education E. Irving suggested, the aim of the ordinance was to ‘ensure a certain minimum of sanitation and disciplinary and educational attainment in every school in the Colony’.29 It stipulated: in every classroom the windows or other openings to external air shall be situated on at least two sides of the classroom and shall have a total area equal at least to one-eighth of the area of the floor of the classroom [...] In addition, no desk shall be placed nearer to the blackboard than three feet, 25  “Medical and Sanitary Report for the Year 1932,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 12–13. 26  Liping Bu and Ka-che Yip, “Introduction: interpreting Science and Public Health in Modern Asia,” in Science, Public Health and the State in Modern Asia, eds. Liping Bu, Darwin H. Stapleton and Ka-Che Yip (New York: Routledge, 2012), 2. 27  Yip, Leung, and Wong, Health Policy and Disease, 24. 28  “Report of the Inspector of Schools for the Year 1906,” Supplement to the Hong Kong Government Gazette, Hong Kong Government, July 19, 1907, 447. 29  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1913,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 2.

90 

S. MENG WANG

and the blackboard shall be placed in such a position (that it is, in the opinion of an Inspector) adequately illuminated and so arranged as to provide every pupil with an easy and unobstructed view thereof [...] Meanwhile, every classroom shall be swept out daily at least two hours before the opening of the school, and the floors of every classroom shall be washed and treated at least once a week with a dust laying disinfectant.30

These requirements on the height, dimension, and lighting of school buildings and the placement of classroom furniture addressed aspects of school that were viewed as potentially ‘damaging’ to pupils’ health, particularly concerning their spine development and eyesight. The emphasis on ventilation was to amend the health effects of overcrowding prevalent in urban schools by the turn of the century, while daily ‘sweeping’ and ‘sanitising’ of classrooms were preventative measures against the development and spread of any contagions. These regulations were drafted to address the defects of school accommodation at the time. By 1912, while the principal government and grant-in-aid English schools gradually moved out of the crowded tenements into separate and specially-designed premises, private vernacular schools were still housed in ‘dark’ and ‘evil-­ smelling places’. As the Director of Education E. Irving observed, in many instances, little effort has been made to keep the place clean; and in some great effort had been made to exclude the light of the day […] Some of the schools are positively unhealthy, being used as living and sleeping apartments. Some of the premises are also used as workshops.31

The Education Ordinance of 1913 marked the beginning of state intervention into school architecture and a colonial desire to transform schools – state, aided, and unaided alike – into conduits for the production of healthy youth. While it may have appeared that the new set of building regulations – specified in the ordinance – amended the structural defects of private vernacular schools, in practice, the lack of state surveillance and medical inspection, coupled with the lack of funding, limited any significant improvement of the health condition of this type of school. Prior to 1941, the vast majority of them continued to be housed in tenement

 The Hong Kong Government Gazette, Hong Kong Government, Sep. 1, 1939, 785–8.  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1912,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 4–5. 30 31

3  ARCHITECTURE OF HEALTH: HYGIENE AND SCHOOLING IN HONG… 

91

buildings prior.32 In contrast, what contributed to a new era of school health development was the practical teaching of hygiene; the construction of purposefully designed school building; and a system of medical examination for middle-class children, as the next section now turns to.

3.3   Building Healthy Schools: Curriculum of Hygiene, Architecture, and Medical Inspection, 1913–1921 School health emerged as a distinctive feature of the Hong Kong educational scene in the early twentieth century. The health regime that governed the learning sites included three key components: hygiene education; healthy school architecture; and medical inspection. These three elements were shaped by eugenics thinking that advocated education, sanitation, and surveillance.33 While hygiene was made a compulsory subject in government and grant-in-aid English schools as early as 1906,34 it was not until the 1910s that the syllabus of the subject was adjusted to the environmental condition of Hong Kong that offered special lessons on infectious diseases.35 Another important feature of hygiene education was its gendered character where lessons on homemaking and cookery were offered to girls. The second component, the healthy school architecture, was shaped by a preventative approach to good health36 that informed the 32  By 1936, the Medical and Sanitary Report recorded that ‘Many of the subsidised schools [private institutions which receive a subsidy from government when the conditions warrant it] and most of the unaided schools are institutions occupying one or more floors in old or newer tenement buildings. Such were designed for domestic purposes and not for schools and in many of them it is impossible to provide for the pupils satisfactory hygienic conditions’. “Medical and Sanitary Report for the Year 1936,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 54–56. 33  Leslie Baker, “‘A Visitation of Providence’: Public Health And Eugenic Reform In The Wake Of The Halifax Disaster,” Canadian Bulletin of Medical History 31, no. 1 (2014): 99–122. 34  “Report on the Teaching of Hygiene in the Schools of Hong Kong 1906,” Hong Kong Sessional Papers, Hong Kong Government, no. 7/1907, 3. 35  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1913,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 20. 36  Mona Gleason discussed the dominant paradigms underlining the school health governance, see Gleason, “Learning the Body: Schools, Curriculum, and Health,” in Small Matters: Canadian Children in Sickness and Health, 1900–1940 (Montréal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013), 85–102.

92 

S. MENG WANG

functional specialisation of spaces inside the school building and the provision of light, air, and ventilation as measures for the improvement of health. The emphasis on school sanitation and hygiene as part of the measures related to disease control also identified with environmental-based eugenic thought. While initially informed by sanitary experts’ views of good health, by the mid-1910s, medical experts began to play an instrumental role in the administration of school health. The system of medical inspection functioned as a mechanism of surveillance that reflected the wider impact of germ theory on the management of public health. Physicians and medical experts, rather than engineers and sanitarians, began to play ‘an increasingly important role in the formulation of health and disease-control policies’.37 Eugenics and public health paradigms thus entwined to shape the educational reform in Hong Kong in the 1910s. These two paradigms provided a reference point for colonial medical and educational experts in the development of a healthy, fit, and efficient future professional class. 3.3.1   Hygiene Education School Curriculum The teaching of hygiene in schools related directly to how the educational space was framed in public health discourse. Informed by the view that ‘not only is care of the school child’s health of importance in preventing the development and spread of disease but the education of his mind in matters of hygiene and public health is the surest method of spreading the gospel of health among people’,38 as early as 1905, the Board of Education in Hong Kong issued an outline scheme for teaching hygiene and temperance to children attending government elementary schools. The aim of the scheme was to equip children with the necessary knowledge and skill to practice hygiene in their homes and in everyday life. The scheme, being drawn up by the Medical Officer of Health Dr. W. W. Pearse,39 covered four principal aspects, including: ‘domestic hygiene; personal hygiene; eating and drinking; and illness’. Therein, pupils were instructed on the cleansing of rooms and furniture; on cleanliness, carriage, posture, change  Yip, Leung, and Wong, Health Policy and Disease, 24.  This statement was offered in a review account by the Medical and Sanitary Department on the teaching of hygiene in schools. “Medical and Sanitary Report for the Year 1936,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 53. 39  “Report on the Teaching of Hygiene in the schools of Hong Kong 1906,” Hong Kong Sessional Papers, Hong Kong Government, no.7/1907, 3. 37 38

3  ARCHITECTURE OF HEALTH: HYGIENE AND SCHOOLING IN HONG… 

93

of clothing and bedding, quiet speech, and restraint; on food preparation and preservation; and on disease prevention and how to deal with minor illness.40 By making hygiene a compulsory subject in all government and grant-in-aid English schools, this new form of hygiene knowledge was first introduced to middle-class children.41 To stimulate the learning of the subject, the governor Sir Matthew Nathan offered prizes and a shield as trophy (awarded in the annual hygiene examination, and to be held for one year).42 While in this period (1900s–1910s), it was the working-class dwelling that attracted heavy sanitary reform, in schools the teaching of hygiene was predominantly targeted at middle-class children. The schools that competed for the Governor’s hygiene shield included only the principal government and grant-in-aid English schools. For example, in 1906, the list of the competing schools included ‘Queen’s College, St. Joseph’s College, Italian Convent, Wantsai District School, Belilios Public School […] and Yaumati District School’.43 Furthermore, the Board of Education suggested, the teaching of hygiene ‘should begin by getting them [pupils] accustomed to rooms which are thoroughly well ventilated, scrupulously clean, and as bright and cheerful as circumstances permit’.44 Schools for working-class children could hardly satisfy this premise. Even though the hygiene textbook used in English schools was translated into Chinese in 1906,45 and that in 1912, hygiene was made a compulsory subject ‘in vernacular schools in all standards above the third grade’,46 in practice, the annual hygiene examination remained a competitive affair among the state and grant-in-aid English schools. Here existed a disjuncture between the perceived low standard of hygiene among the working class and the readiness of the Education Department to implement changes to the teaching of hygiene for working-class children. The Inspector of Schools E. Irving criticised the working-class homes for endangering the physical welfare of children ‘through the serious neglect in their homes of the fundamental

 “Education in Hygiene and Temperance,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Sep. 9, 1905, 5.  “The Teaching of Hygiene in Schools,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Feb. 22,1906, 2. 42  “Examination in Hygiene,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Jan. 13, 1906, 4. 43  Ibid. 44  “Education in Hygiene and Temperance,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Sep. 9, 1905, 5. 45  “Education in Hong Kong,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, June 23, 1906, 5. 46  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1912,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 17. 40 41

94 

S. MENG WANG

rules of health’,47 and yet hygiene education was only effectively carried out and supervised in state-sponsored English schools that educated the future professional class.48 The hygiene curriculum was informed by eugenic thought which considered that, through education, individuals could learn to take responsibility for healthy conduct. The expected outcome of this strand of teaching was that middle-class children would become efficient and responsible professionals and parents. Hygiene education also had an implicit gendered aspect. Before the subject was made compulsory in all state and grant-in-aid schools, it was taught as part of domestic science.49 By the late 1910s, hygiene had become an integral part of domestic science at English girls’ schools. At the government girls’ school Belilios Public School for Chinese Girls, for example, ‘fresh air in the classrooms, boiled water in the filters, cleanliness of persons and apparel were all matters of the course’. In the upper school, practical lessons were given with simple apparatus in sick-nursing and sick-room matters generally.50 Additional subjects, such as laundry and cookery, were all part of this training on domestic hygiene.51 This teaching of practical homemaking skills for girls connected with eugenics thinking in the training of efficient middle-class mothers. 3.3.2   New Building Design The teaching of hygiene in Hong Kong was informed by the idea of equipping pupils with a toolbox of knowledge to manage and deal with the  “Education in Hygiene and Temperance,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Sep. 9, 1905, 5.   This persisted throughout the interwar period where the Medical and Sanitary Department constantly pointed out the ‘unsatisfactory’ teaching of hygiene in vernacular schools. For example, in 1935, the Medical and Sanitary Report suggested, ‘The teaching of hygiene in private vernacular schools leaves much to be desired. Most of the teachers have grown up in insanitary surroundings and having received no training in the subject regard it as one of little importance. The few who are sympathetic are handicapped by the fact that the school premises do not demonstrate the principles of hygiene’. “Medical and Sanitary Report for the Year 1935,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 56. 49  “Report on the Teaching of Hygiene in the schools of Hong Kong 1906,” Hong Kong Sessional Papers, Hong Kong Government, no. 7/1907, 3. 50  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1915,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 12. 51  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1919,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 7. 47 48

3  ARCHITECTURE OF HEALTH: HYGIENE AND SCHOOLING IN HONG… 

95

‘tropical’ environment; however, one direct response the colonial state initiated to change the health function of schools was the design and construction of a type of school architecture that addressed specifically the ‘tropical’ climate in Hong Kong. While this prototype of colonial school architecture had early precursors in the building design of Queen’s College in the 1890s, it was not until the 1910s that the idea to use architecture as a method to combat ‘tropicality’ became a common practice in the design of government schools. This type of school architecture resembled the ‘staple’ feature of hospital architecture in the inclusion of verandah and wide corridors for the perceived heath value of fresh air (see Fig. 3.2).52 Furthermore, internal spatial design also took into account of functionality. In 1913, for example, the extension at the government school, the Belilios Public School for Chinese Girls, incorporated numerous measures to improve the efficiency and health function of the school building. The extension consisted of a two-storeyed building with ‘eight classrooms […]

Fig. 3.2  Queen’s College on Hollywood Road and Aberdeen Street, Hong Kong Island, c. 1910. Source: Courtesy of Hong Kong Museum of History 52  For a discussion on hospital architecture and health, see Alison Bashford, “Tuberculosis: Governing Healthy Citizens,” in Imperial Hygiene: A Critical History of Imperialism, Nationalism and Public Health (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 59–79.

96 

S. MENG WANG

four cloak-rooms, four lavatories’. To facilitate the ventilation of the building and to reduce potential clutter, wide corridors were ‘provided on both floors throughout the full extent of the building’. Cross-ventilation inside the classrooms was aided with the installation of large windows, a feature that also allowed natural light to penetrate into the building.53 In 1915, while drafting the design of the Peak School (a co-ed government British School), the idea of the effective use of the constructive site for health benefits also underpinned the spatial plan. The work comprised the erection of a one-storeyed building containing ‘three classrooms, each capable of accommodating 24 scholars […] and lavatories for boys and girls’. In order to maximise the exposure to outdoor fresh air and natural light, the building ‘was approximately semi-hexagonal in shape, the space between it and Gough Hill Road forming a small enclosed yard’. A wide verandah and corridor were enclosed, extending the full length of the classroom,54 and allowing daily excises in the ‘pure outside air’.55 In 1916, the newly erected Ellis Kadoorie School for Indians (a government district school) also adhered with the building principles of maximising exposure to natural light and air. The schoolhouse featured wide verandahs on two sides of the building. A wide open space was enclosed in front of the building. On the north side ‘was a lawn large enough for a tennis court, and on the south a larger plot…mainly used for football practices. At the back of the building there was more ground.’56 In addition to government schools, the principal grant-in-aid English schools in this period were also designed and built according to modern hygiene principles. At the French Convent, for example, the classrooms of the school were depicted in local newspapers as ‘large, airy and well equipped’, and ‘the whole building is delightfully cool and commodious’.57 53  “Report of the Director of Public Works for the Year 1913,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 50. 54  “Report of the Director of Public Works for the Year 1915,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 56. 55  The health benefits of wide verandah in both domestic and civic buildings, particularly hospitals, has been well studied, see Alison Bashford, “Cultures of confinement: tuberculosis, isolation and the sanatorium: Alison Bashford,” in Isolation: Places and Practices of Exclusion, eds. Alison Bashford and Carylon Strange (London: Routledge, 2003), 135–150. 56  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1916,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 21; “The Opening Ceremony at the Ellis Kadoorie School for Indians,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Oct. 17, 1916, 3. 57  “Anglo-French convent school, New Wing at Causeway Bay Opened by The Governor,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Oct. 7, 1916, 3.

3  ARCHITECTURE OF HEALTH: HYGIENE AND SCHOOLING IN HONG… 

97

The spatial layout and planning of these schools reflected a colonial preoccupation with the health function of school architecture. The emphasis on light, air, and cross-ventilation captured how the sanitary and hygiene movement shaped the spatial character of schools in Hong Kong in the early twentieth century. These building practices also resonated with the modern health movement in Europe in this period.58 The health feature of these government and grant-in-aid English schools resembled those of open-air schools in its emphasis on ‘health amenities, the complexity of their lighting and ventilation systems, and their close links with nature’.59 The healthy school architecture emerged in Hong Kong in the 1910s thus illustrated how ideas on healthy school design in the m ­ etropole were reformulated as part of a solution to the ‘tropical’ climate in Hong Kong. 3.3.3   A System of Medical Inspection The teaching of hygiene and architectural improvements of school reflected how environmental-based eugenics was taken up by educational experts such as E. Irving (Inspector of Schools 1901–1909; Director of Education 1909–1924) in Hong Kong and informed the curricular and architectural reform that took shape in the first two decades of the twentieth century. However, one important element in safeguarding this school health regime was a system of medical inspection. This new intervention into the learning sites captured the increasing role medical experts played in shaping the health of children. In August 1914, an order was passed by the Governor-in-Council Sir Francis Henry May requiring ‘a medical examination of every boarding school be conducted every six months by a registered medical practitioner on the general health of boarders and on the sanitary condition of school buildings as a whole and of the dormitories in particular’.60 This order was drafted to prevent the crowding of dormitories and the outbreak of epidemics in the boarding quarters. Following the order, medical examination of boarders was conducted and reports were sent to the Education Department. At one of the principal 58  For a discussion on the modern health movement in Europe, see Pomfret, “The City of Evil and the Great Outdoors.” 59  Anne-Marie Chatelet, “A Breath of Fresh Air: Open-air Schools in Europe,” in Designing Modern Childhoods: History, Space, and The Material Culture of Children, eds. Marta Gutman and Ning de Coninck-Smith (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2008), 107–127. 60  “Medical Examination of Boarding Schools,” The Hong Kong Government Gazette, Hong Kong Government, Aug. 20, 1915, 407.

98 

S. MENG WANG

grant-in-aid girls’ schools the Italian Convent, for example, in December 1915, a medical inspection was conducted by Dr. O. Marriott, of the firm of Drs. Hartigan, Stedman and Harrison.61 By 1918, school medical inspections were broadened to include day pupils where a system of medical examination was instituted at the government boys’ school Queen’s College, ‘under which a complete medical history of each pupil started to be accumulated’.62 In 1919, the government district schools were included in the health examination regime.63 By 1921, the medical inspection of Queen’s College, Belilios Public School, and the government district schools had been put on a regular basis. The grant-in-aid schools were inspected by their own doctors.64 These medical inspections acted chiefly as preventative measures in disease control that promoted the public health function of schools in detecting ‘sick and ailing in their early stages’.65 This system of medical examination laid the foundation for a scheme of school health service in the interwar period, marked by the founding the School Hygiene Branch, as the next section discusses.

3.4   Health, Progressive Education, and School Architecture, 1921–1931 The ending of World War I was a turning point in the framing of national efficiency in the British empire. The English middle classes feared the best and fittest generation of the nation had been lost in the war. The anxiety over racial degeneration was further aggregated by a declining fertility among the middle classes. In this context, the educated middle class in Britain turned to eugenics as a means to secure racial fitness.66 Education 61  “Italian Convent School, Distribution of Prizes This Afternoon,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Dec. 22, 1915, 4–5. 62  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1918,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 3. 63  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1919,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 2. 64  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1921,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 7. 65  The purpose of school medical inspection was reviewed in “Medical and Sanitary Report for the Year 1935,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 54. 66  Richard Carr and Bradley W. Hart, “Old Etonians, Great War Demographics and the Interpretations of British Eugenics, c. 1914–1939,” First World War Studies 3, no. 2 (2012): 217–239.

3  ARCHITECTURE OF HEALTH: HYGIENE AND SCHOOLING IN HONG… 

99

reform was also used as part of the broader set of social reform that aimed to bring about fitter life. Against this imperial context, in Hong Kong, eugenics ideas – operated in the educational context – denoted two principal aspects: the health and the efficiency of youth. These two principal aspects underwrote a series of curricular experiments that resonated with progressive ideas of education in the interwar period. These included: manual instruction, school gardening, and physical education. In addition, the physical development of middle-class pupils (of both European and Chinese descents) came under tighter scrutiny where a special branch devoted to the health of schoolchildren was established within the Medical Department, namely, the School Hygiene Branch. While other local factors such as economic shifts influenced the curricular changes in Hong Kong in the interwar period (for example, in the form of expanding vocational education as Chap. 5 further discusses), eugenic thought was at play that contributed to this branch of the progressive curriculum, and the development of sports. Both of which specifically addressed imperial concerns over the physical decay among pupils in an urbanising and ‘tropical’ environment. 3.4.1   Progressive Ideas Informed Schooling Practices Progressive education as a branch of educational practices has a wide spectrum, broadly defined as child-centered learning that emphasises hands-on skills and real-life experiences.67 However, what is being examined here is one of its specific forms that overlapped with eugenic thought in the 1920s in government schools in Hong Kong, that is, the interest in the outdoor and nature-based learning. In this period between 1920s and 1930s, woodwork, carpentry, cookery, and gardening were among the new experiments the Education Department introduced in selected government schools. Rather than training pupils to master these skills, its purpose was to provide middle-class European and Chinese children with hands­on experiments that expanded their previous learning experience. In 1922, for example, at the government district school the Ellis Kadoorie School for Chinese boys, the Inspector of English Schools E.  Ralphs observed ‘certain classes have taken up basket work’. At the Wantsai School (a 67  William J.  Reese, “Progressive Education,” in The Oxford Handbook of the History of Education, eds. John L. Rury and Eileen H. Tamura (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), 459–475.

100 

S. MENG WANG

government district school for Chinese boys), school gardening was introduced and attracted the interest of Chinese boys. The school garden, ‘under somewhat trying conditions have produced very creditable results’.68 As well, at the Ellis Kadoorie School for Indians, the school run ‘a flourishing garden where flowers, fruit and vegetables are produced in abundance […] cotton and coffee were also grown’.69 Again in 1923, new school gardens had been started at outlying government district schools at Tai Po and Tai Wai (both located in the New Territories).70 In fact, the Director of Education E. Irving was the chief advocate for the school gardening movement in Hong Kong in the 1920s. ‘Inspired by’ what he ‘saw of the excellent system of School Garden in the Philippines’, Irving started several school garden projects in government schools with the support of the Botanical and Forestry Department, and was instrumental in the introduction of agriculture in outlying district schools.71 While small in scale, this experiment in manual instruction and school gardening nonetheless reflected how environmental-based eugenics informed ideas about the development and planning of a curriculum that equipped pupils with outdoor experiences and hands-on skills. Progressive ideas also entwined with a gendered definition of efficiency that, in turn, reconfigured differently at boys’ and girls’ schools. While boys were trained in gardening and woodcrafts, eugenics thinking informed a framing of girls as the future mothers of the British empire. This framing underlined the introduction of science-based home management skills in government girls’ schools. In 1926, for example, the subject of house-wifery was introduced at Belilios Public School for Chinese Girls. Though it was not immediately possible to set apart a room for this purpose, certain structural alterations to the school building were proposed 68  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1922,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 10. 69  Ibid., 15. 70  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1923,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 10. 71  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1922,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 11; also in “Report on the Botanic and Forestry Department for the Year 1923,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 7. Where the Superintendent reported ‘at the request of the Director of Education, school gardens were opened at Taipo, Tai Wai and Un Long. They are now maintained and worked by the pupils of the schools. Seeds of vegetables were given on several occasions and the experiments appear to have been most successful’.

3  ARCHITECTURE OF HEALTH: HYGIENE AND SCHOOLING IN HONG… 

101

to enable the practical teaching of this subject. The schoolgirls, as the headmistress Miss H. F. Skinner suggested, are responsible for supervising the entire cleanliness and freshness of the building and the washing of paint and curtains; cleaning of windows, polishing of floors and care of plants in the cookery compound. Laundry work is also included in the house-wifery course.72

This new subject was part of the deliberate effort to replace needlework with ‘a wider and more generally useful subject’ of domestic science.73 The discourse of eugenics, in turn, drew the intimate spaces of the home, particularly the kitchen and laundry, into the school curriculum. The management of these domestic spaces became part of the curricular reform at the government girls’ school that integrated professional and scientific methods to train efficient future mothers. 3.4.2   Physical Education Physical education was a key site that underwent dramatic expansion in the interwar period for its perceived effect on the health and development of pupils. By the mid-1920s, the physical education curriculum at government and grant-in-aid schools had evolved from its earlier focus on gymnastics and drills, to include outdoor games and sports. At the government district school Ellis Kadoorie School (for Chinese boys), for example, ‘games, drill, excursions by launch, train and motor-bus, swimming and educational walk are an essential part of’ the school curriculum. The school headmaster Mr. F. J. de Rome suggested that he found, time allowed off during the afternoons in which to play volleyball competitions, football at Causeway Bay, to swim at Kennedy Town, to explore the island and the New Territories in connection with geography lesson, to visit the reservoirs, industrial undertakings, etc. does not react unfavourably on the work in school.74

72  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1926,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 15. 73  Ibid. 74  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1927,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 13.

102 

S. MENG WANG

This expansion of the physical education curriculum in schools in the 1920s drew on the same kinds of eugenic ideas that also influenced youth movements such as the Boy Scouts (started in Hong Kong in 1913)75 and Girl Guides (started in Hong Kong in 1921).76 Imperial concern with the fitness of Hong Kong youth materialised in a diverse range of settings, instituting a new bodily training regime on the one hand, and transforming urban health architecture on the other. The fact that in the 1920s there was an increased use of the natural spaces outside the school compound for subject learning such as geography, nature study, and physical training suggests there was a broader movement at play, that is, the ‘greening’ of the urban space. In this period, the colonial state avidly advocated for the development of urban leisure culture as a measure to improve public health in a phase of industrialisation and urban transition. The Public Works Department and the Department of Botany and Forestry were instrumental in the construction and maintenance of bathing beaches, parks, and gardens.77 These were part of the specific spaces of environmental reform the colonial state initiated which, in turn, provided sites for the outdoor expeditions and physical training of schoolchildren. For schools that lacked sizable play spaces within their premises, state departments, voluntary organisations, and recreational clubs offered support. By the late 1920s, more recreational spaces, such as the public parks managed by the Botanic and Forestry Department, were appropriated for sport training of government schools. For example, portions of the King’s Park in Kowloon had been placed at the disposal of the government schools in its vicinity, including Yaumati School (a government district school for Chinese boys) and a co-ed British school Central British School.78 A football ground at Causeway Bay was 75  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1913,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 22. 76  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1921,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 8. 77  This line of work on the maintenance of public parks and gardens was documented in the annual report of the Public Work Department, and the Botany and Forestry Department. In 1924, for example, the Botany and Forestry Department reported ‘King’s Park, Kowloon has now been laid out by Public Works Department as a sports ground and all flowering trees have been lifted and removed to Sung Wong Toi and elsewhere’. In “Report on the Botanic and Forestry Department for the Year 1924,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 3. 78  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1926,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 8.

3  ARCHITECTURE OF HEALTH: HYGIENE AND SCHOOLING IN HONG… 

103

allocated to Queen’s College (for Chinese boys) for ball games.79 In addition, Blake Gardens (in Hong Kong Island) were allocated for the use of schools in its vicinity.80 These urban recreational spaces were part of a solution to a social problem, that is, urban health. The allocation of these spaces for the use of school physical training further reflected a colonial preoccupation with the physical health of schoolchildren. The expansion of the physical education curriculum in the 1920s was driven by a colonial desire to formulate a bodily training regime that would respond specifically to the ‘tropical’ climate in Hong Kong. In particular, swimming was framed by the Education Department to perform important health and hygiene functions. At the principal government boys’ school Queen’s College, for example, the headmaster Mr. R. E. O. Bird suggested ‘swimming parties are taken out every week in the summer. There were also several all-day excursions’.81 A similar line of aquatic sports was carried out in grant-in-aid schools. At Ying Wa College (a grant-in-aid boys’ school), for example, the school organised a games club, where swimming was organised twice a week from May to July.82 Here physical education was not only to bring about improvement to the health of middle-class children, it was also the means by which health was defined. There was a standardised and an imperial notion of physical fitness at play that denoted strength and capability for sports as important attributes of health. The expansion from indoor to outdoor activities, from drill to team sports, thus reveals the shifting forms of bodily training the colonial state formulated to enable the diffusion of physical education.83 However, despite the various forms physical education took on in the 1900s, 1910s, and 1920s, its purpose remained as to institute health as a supervised schooling practice. 79  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1925,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 5. 80  “Report on the Botanic and Forestry Department for the Year 1931,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 3. 81  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1925,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 12. 82  Ying Wa Echo Quarterly 1, no. 1 (July 1924): 23–4. Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong Libraries. 83  For a discussion on the different bodily forms that enabled the diffusion of physical education in British colonial context, see David-Claude Kemo Keimbou, “Games, Body and Culture: Emerging Issues in the Anthropology of Sport and Physical Education in Cameroon (1920–60),” International Review for the Sociology of Sport 40, no. 4 (2005): 447–466.

104 

S. MENG WANG

3.4.3   Founding of the School Hygiene Branch How was the effect of progressive and physical education curriculum on pupils’ health measured, monitored, and reported? In 1925, in the context of expanding supervision of school health, a special branch within the Medical Department  – the School Hygiene Branch  – was established. Hitherto, the medical examination of schoolchildren was performed by government medical officers who also worked at hospitals and therefore could only inspect schools on a limited scope. The founding of the school hygiene branch entailed a health officer Mrs. Minett, M.D., who was specially allocated for school medical service (the professional engagement of European female physicians with Chinese children will be discussed further in Chap. 5).84 The purpose of this assignment, as the Medical Department indicated, was ‘not only to detect the sick and ailing in their early stages, but also to seek for anomalies of growth and development, so that measures may be taken to prevent not only the progress of ill-health but also its causes’.85 Upon appointment, Mrs. Minett conducted a health survey of all children in the eighteen government schools and thirteen of the grant-in-aid schools, while reports were made on the hygienic aspect of school premises and furniture.86 These reports served as the basis for the improvement of sanitary infrastructure in schools. In addition, school nurses performed home visits where they advised parents on good habits of health and how to care for their children. Where hospital treatment was necessary the school nurse often escorted the child and the parent to hospital.87 The School Hygiene Branch emerged in the context where there was yet to be a system of specialised medical service for children in Hong Kong. At the time, there was a lack of hospitals and clinics designated for children, which reflected a systematic neglect in the colonial medical

84  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1925,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 5. 85  “Annual Medical Report for the Year ending 31. Dec, 1934,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 44. 86  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1925,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 5. 87  “Medical and Sanitary Report for the Year 1931,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 46.

3  ARCHITECTURE OF HEALTH: HYGIENE AND SCHOOLING IN HONG… 

105

system for this age group.88 The school medical service was the first set of measures that examined, documented, and reported on the health condition of children and offered ‘therapeutic’ advice in the case of defects. Before the founding of the first school clinic – managed and run by the School Hygiene Branch – in 1931 at Ellis Kadoorie School for Chinese boys, children were referred to the Government Civil Hospital and Chinese Public Dispensaries for treatment.89 However, more than performing medical examination of pupils and a ‘reinspection of children found defective’, the work of the Branch also covered the reporting on efficiency of school and classroom design, daily hygiene, and health instruction in schools.90 The purpose of the inspection of school architecture was to detect any environmental factors deemed degenerative to pupils’ health and provide remedial advice. By then, medical officers functioned as another group of colonial experts – that is, in addition to sanitary and educational experts – that influenced the spatial forms of school. In 1927, for example, Dr. (Mrs.) Minett advocated for the inclusion of swimming pool in schools where she praised the ‘swimming-bath in St. Paul’s Girls’ School has been a great addition to the health equipment of the school’.91 Again in 1929, Mrs. Minett’s report on Diocesan Girls’ College reflected the function of the school medical officer in safeguarding school hygiene: I visited the Diocesan Girls’ School, for the purpose of making a half-yearly report, on July 4. …A physical training mistress has been added to the staff this year, and I saw a number of classes (senior and middle school) at drill. The covered playground allows these to be taken in the open air, and although it rained very heavily during part of my visit, it was quite possible to keep dry. The 88  The Tung Wah Eastern Hospital was among the first hospitals in Hong Kong to include a Children’s Ward, which only started in the 1930s. “Medical and Sanitary Report for the Year 1932,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 88. In 1933, a children’s clinic was also opened at The Kwong Wah Hospital, which were held twice a week. “Medical and Sanitary Report for the Year 1933,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 87. 89  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1931,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 16. 90  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1928,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 7. 91  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1927,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 7.

106 

S. MENG WANG

work was excellent, consisting of free movement, balancing exercises, good walking and running. The “special remove” class, of older Chinese girls had obviously taken to the new idea and the improvement in walking, posture, and freedom of movement was well-marked. Almost without exception, the girls were in a simple and loose white uniform which gave ample freedom and looked neat and by no means “foreign” for Chinese […] The classrooms and dormitories were all in good order. One classroom is well filled, and measurements are being taken as to floor space, but as there are windows and doors always open on opposite sides, ensuring good cross ventilation, I do not think there is much possibility of health detriment. Some improvements are to be made to rooms when the builders have finished the kitchens. A definite improvement and better use of space has been made in cloakroom provision.92

This inspection of the environmental aspect of school architecture, the health education curriculum, and classroom furniture contributed toward the gradual standardisation of classroom interior and health instruction at government and grant-in-aid schools. Furthermore, the fact that children were weighed, and their eyes, ear, chest, heart, lungs, spine and posture were assessed,93 suggests there was a normalised notion of the child’s body and health at play. The medical discourse around child health underlined the physical inspection of schools and functioned as an important factor that shaped the medical surveillance of schoolchildren. The upshot of this medical surveillance on schools was that it produced not only standardised classroom design, but also a new engineering of bodily movement in schools, facilitated by the instrument of the timetable

3.5  Timetable and Engineering of Bodily Movement, 1931–1941 So far, this chapter has examined the ways in which colonial sanitary, educational, and medical experts informed, influenced, and gave a particular meaning and context to the development of school architecture and the health education school curriculum in Hong Kong. The chapter has 92  “Pupils’ Health, Report on Diocesan Girls’ School,” Hong Kong Sunday Herald, July 21, 1929, 8. 93  Early medical inspections focused on eyes, ears, and teeth, by 1926, heart and lungs were included for the first time in medical examination. “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1926,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 8.

3  ARCHITECTURE OF HEALTH: HYGIENE AND SCHOOLING IN HONG… 

107

shown that eugenics thinking was integrated in the wider set of reforms that aimed to improve the health of middle-class children. This last section argues that the upshot of colonial intervention into schooling practice – in the name of health – was that it constructed a new choreography of the body where learning, play, and rest were restructured. This new choreography of the body was also the means through which health was defined and produced in the educational context. Historians have paid attention to the function of school architecture in creating new bodily experience in schools. For example, Kellee Frith and Denise Whitehouse have shown, the spatial organisation within schools and classrooms were used to construct and shape experiences.94 However, this section illustrates school architecture was only part of the mechanism that shaped children’s spatial practice in schools. What truly transformed the new school design and curricular reform into a way of bodily practice was the instrument of the timetable.95 In the interwar period, concerns with ‘personal hygiene, fresh air, sunshine, rest and recreation for the wellbeing of children’96 shaped the design of the school timetable. The temporal use of different spaces in school was carefully considered by educational experts for health preservation and physical development of schoolchildren. At the grant-in-aid girls’ school the French Convent, for example, a former student Magdalene Fung (b. 1920) suggested, every day, we finished at 3pm, I would go to the study room. At about 4.30pm, I would go out and play, first I would have a shower though. At about 6.30pm, it was dinner, and 8.30pm was bed time. In the morning, I got up at 6am to go to the chapel. In the cold days, there would be no water, so I had to save some before I went to bed the day before […] While

94  Kellee Frith and Denise Whitehouse, “Designing Learning Spaces that Work: A Case for the Importance of History,” History of Education Review 38, no. 2 (2009): 94–108. 95  This attention to the function of timetable in shaping schooling experience is informed by one particular French scholar, Louis Boulonnois, where he suggests, ‘the most important thing in a school is not the body of the building or the way the alveolae [classroom] are grouped. It is the articulations of the classrooms, the corridors, the changes of level, the actual representation of the movements required by the timetables’. See Louis Boulonnois, “Architecture segment reel,” Euvres et maître d’oeuvre, 10 (1948): 1–3. Cited in Anne-Marie Chatelet, “A Breath of Fresh Air: Open-air schools in Europe,” in Designing Modern Childhoods, 107–127. 96  Frith and Whitehouse, “Designing Learning Spaces that Work,” 100.

108 

S. MENG WANG

I was a boarder, we each had a basket, for laundry. About ten of us shared one room, I slept on the upper bunk.97

What is significant in this recollection is the narration on how hygiene has been instituted as part of everyday school routine. The shower before dinner, dormitory design, and laundry arrangement illuminates how early teaching on personal hygiene materialised into schooling practices as ‘a way of school life’. This, in turn, points to the link between personal hygiene conduct and school health. Also prominent is the details on school hours that spotlight the importance of abundant rest and exercise for the perceived benefit on the development of children. The mechanism of the timetable thus simultaneously enacted the medical debate on proper rest and the hygiene discourse on personal health conduct for their perceived effect on child health. Institutional supervision, again, was instrumental in carrying the timetable into full effect. As the headmistress Miss Sawyer at the Diocesan Girls’ School (a grant-in-aid girls’ school) stressed, I think that growing girls need plenty of good food and plenty of sleep with fresh air, and I try to carry this out in practice with the boarders. All dormitory light must be out by 9pm except Saturday by 9.30pm. And no children are allowed to be downstairs before 7am. It is also forbidden to shut a dormitory door or window. We have very little backlash among the boarders.98

This engineering of healthy bodies through the structuring of time reflected the function of the school timetable in redefining the movement of the body ‘through transforming the spatial and temporal structure of daily life’.99 The standardisation of the physical education school curriculum by the Education Department in the late 1930s further contributed to the inclusion of physical exercise as part of everyday school life.100 A 97  Magdalene Fung, born in 1920, Hong Kong. Hong Kong Oral History Archives: Collective Memories, Hong Kong University Library Special Collection, access no. 32. 98  “Diocesan Girls’ School, Annual Distribution of Prizes,” The China Mail, Feb. 15, 1930, 12. 99  Catherine Burke and Ian Grosvenor, “The Hearing School: An Exploration of Sound and Listening in the Modern School,” Paedagogica Historica 47, no. 3 (2011): 323–340. 100  In 1937, the Education Department standardised PE curriculum at urban government and grant-in-aid schools requiring that ‘at least one hour per week shall be devoted to physical education exclusive of organised games’. Further details in “Annual Report of the Education Department for 1938,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 16.

3  ARCHITECTURE OF HEALTH: HYGIENE AND SCHOOLING IN HONG… 

109

Fig. 3.3  La Salle College, 1932. Source: Courtesy of La Salle College, Hong Kong

former student of a grant-in-aid boys’ school La Salle College (see Fig. 3.3), Arthur Garcia (b. 1924), suggested, we had first of all this exercise business or physical education. It was compulsory. Before class you had all this limbering up and all that. And then we had recess which came about…we start school early in the morning about 8am and recess was about 10am […] Some boys would be kicking around a ball in the football field. There was a big field in La Salle. And some of the boys would practice their running because La Salle has also a very good team and some would even play tennis but very rare […] We played after school hours. Morning is 8am to 12:30pm. Then 2pm to 4pm was the usual school day.101

Here what further distinguished the government and grant-in-aid schools from private vernacular learning sites was a mechanism of bodily movement designated by the timetable. This mechanism of movement 101  Arthur Garcia, born in 1924, Hong Kong. Hong Kong Oral History Archives: Collective Memories, Hong Kong University Library Special Collection, access no. 192.

110 

S. MENG WANG

allowed the change of space and change of activities in daily school life. It was a means by which medical and educational experts constructed the choreographies of pupils. While ideas about healthy school architecture had solidified and brought spatial changes to state-sponsored schools well before the interwar period, curricular reform and timetable design were the principal tools that improved the efficient use of school buildings in the interwar period. Here, it was the bodily movement in schools that underwent systematic reform. Short school hours, proper rest, and outdoor exercise characterised the timetable of state-sponsored English schools that reflected the influence of medical discourse around child health on schooling practice and experience.

3.6  Conclusion Eugenic thought eventually took up a formal institutional presence in Hong Kong in 1936 when the Hong Kong Eugenics League was established. The League specialised in offering birth control advice for working-­ class women.102 However, long before the founding of an institution, eugenic ideas entwined with public health paradigm in Hong Kong and acted as an important imperial imperative in shaping the schooling experience of middle-class children. Here, in contrast with the dwelling context where it was the working class that attracted heavy interventionist measures in the form of building regulations and domestic cleansing, in a schooling context it was the government and grant-in-aid English schools that educated the future professional class that underwent systematic architectural and curricular reform. In the 1900s and 1910s, architectural reform, hygiene education, and medical inspection were informed by the sanitary reform that started in Hong Kong in the late nineteenth century. In these two decades, environmental-based eugenics influenced the emergence of a new typology of school architecture. This new spatial form of school carefully considered the factors of air, light, and ventilation as they affected pupils’ health. It reflected how eugenic thought was integrated into architectural reform that addressed the specific health concern posed 102  ‘Hong Kong Eugenics League’, Hong Kong Daily Press, April. 10, 1937, 1. The first annual report of the League suggests its primary objects were ‘i) the provision of advice for women, and particularly women of the poorest classes, whose health makes pregnancy medically undesirable, and ii) the provision of clinics for women whose circumstances are such that both public policy and their individual good demand family limitation’.

3  ARCHITECTURE OF HEALTH: HYGIENE AND SCHOOLING IN HONG… 

111

by the ‘tropical’ climate in Hong Kong. Curricular measures such as hygiene education was also introduced by the colonial state with the aim to equip middle-class children with a toolbox of knowledge and skills to survive and stay healthy in a ‘tropical’ colony. Medical inspection, on the other hand, functioned as a mechanism of surveillance that monitored the physical development of schoolchildren. It also performed public health function in the detection and treatment of ailments in their early stages. In the interwar period, this environmental-based eugenics took on new forms that entwined with progressive ideas of education that stressed outdoor hands-on experience and physical training. Woodwork, cookery, and school gardening were among the new experiments the Education Department introduced at government schools. Yet, the point here is not the specific forms that progressive education took on in Hong Kong, but, rather, what historical forces that made progressive education an active experiment and how it related to the broader framing of efficient citizens in this period. The chapter has shown that progressive education was advocated by the Education Department in that it tapped into the reframing of ‘fitness’ in schools. This ‘fitness’ entailed the function of education in preparing pupils for their future social roles. The fact that manual instruction was added for boys, and cookery was introduced for girls reflected a gendered aspect of progressive education that tied to a gendered notion of efficiency. The physical education curriculum was also underlined by progressive ideas in that the colonial state formulated a specific set of bodily training regime responsive to the environmental challenges in Hong Kong. In the context of educational reform launched in the name of health, the colonial state also exercised improved medical surveillance of schoolchildren. The founding of the School Hygiene Branch signified the increasing role medical experts played in shaping school health. The inspection on the environmental aspects of school architecture, health education curriculum, and classroom furniture contributed toward the gradual standardisation of classroom design and health instruction at state-sponsored schools. However, the upshot of this medical surveillance was that it produced not only standardised classroom interior, but also a particular choreography of the body. The chapter argues what truly transformed the new school design and curricular reform into a way of bodily practice was the instrument of the timetable. By ways of engineering the temporal use of indoor and outdoor spaces in school with an emphasis on

112 

S. MENG WANG

rest and exercise, health became an invented experience for middle-class children. School health, in turn, functioned as an important means to enact new class and gender dynamics in Hong Kong in the early twentieth century, entwining with the rise of Chinese bourgeoisies and female professionals, as well as eugenic thought that reframed the health of Hong Kong youth as directly connected with the future of the British empire. In addition, curricular innovations launched in the interwar period such as school gardens shows that, by then, school architecture was brought into the fold of landscape and planning experiments that aimed to combat the health problems produced by overcrowded urban living. School gardens were a response to both the transnational influences such as the school gardening movement and the Garden City movement that were taking place in the educational and urban planning spheres, and the changing architectural design practices of schools in Hong Kong. The next chapter turns to the literary space of school magazines and local newspapers and examines how the nationalist discourse on girls’ education as a means to save China informed the reframing of gender in the literary world in the interwar period. The chapter focuses on one elite girls’ school: St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, founded by the Church Missionary Society in 1906 for the education of upper-class Chinese girls in Hong Kong. By looking at how Chinese schoolgirls and European teachers engaged with two specific debates concerned Chinese women in higher education and Chinese women in public affairs, the chapter shows that the literary world served as an outlet where elite Chinese girls and European teachers constructed new images and meanings of gender that legitimised Chinese females’ increased public engagement in a colonial society.

CHAPTER 4

Treading a Different Path: Gender and the Literary Space at St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, 1921–1941

In 1929, one graduate of St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, then working as a dental practitioner in Hong Kong, reflected on her experience in the profession. The writing was published in the Alumnae Section of the school’s bilingual magazine News Echo (see Fig. 4.1): I have had people who asked me the following questions often, through sheer curiosity I suppose, because lady dentists were practically unheard of before in China and I hope it was not with the intention to insult. “Can you ‘pull’ teeth with a small hand like yours?” I simply laughed and replied saying “oh, no I have got to use my feet besides!” and they knew that I was making fun of them and they could not help laughing. Then I explain to them that it is not so much the strength but the proper technic which accounts for the success in extraction […] It seems to me that there is a great field for women in dentistry, I mean to those who are inclined, as women are naturally gifted with a deeper sympathy and a keener sense of touch, which qualities are so essential to a successful operator at the dental chair and especially when working with children.1

Both school magazines and the public press were effective outlets for Chinese and European female professionals to articulate new ideas of 1  “My Experience in Dentistry,” News Echo, no. 2 (1929), 8. Hong Kong Public Records Office, File No. HKMS 136-1-88.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Meng Wang, Space and Everyday Lives of Children in Hong Kong, Global Histories of Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44401-2_4

113

114 

S. MENG WANG

Fig. 4.1  Cover of school magazine News Echo, 1929. Source: Courtesy of St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, Hong Kong

gendered professional and public engagement in interwar Hong Kong. In an era of burgeoning urban print culture where magazines, periodicals, and newspaper columns were increasingly created both by and for Chinese girls and women, the literary space of print media circulated new ideas about women’s urban lifestyle, social activities, public initiatives, professional aspirations, and educational possibilities.2 In this extract, the school 2  While historical studies on women and print media in colonial Hong Kong are rather scarce, a recent strand of scholarship exploring Chinese women and the print media in Republican China (1911–1949) offers useful insights on the circulation of women’s magazines and periodicals in the treaty ports of China in the interwar period. See, for example, Joan Judge, Republican Lens: Gender, Visuality, and Experience in the Early Chinese Periodical Press (Oakland, California: California University Press, 2015). A popular women’s magazine circulated in China in this period was Ling Long, recently digitised by Columbia University Libraries, which offers glimpses into the everyday life of Chinese women. See https://exhibitions.library.columbia.edu/exhibits/show/linglong/collection. Accessed on June. 10, 2022. Here, in interwar Hong Kong, newspaper columns published extensively on the activities of women’s clubs and voluntary associations, as this and the next chapter will show. Institutional publications such as those by the Hong Kong Young Women’s Christian Association were an important outlet that published women’s writings.

4  TREADING A DIFFERENT PATH: GENDER AND THE LITERARY SPACE… 

115

magazine provided a print space in which a Chinese female dentist could define her own professional identity and respond to stereotypes against female physicians circulating among the public.3 Writing for magazines and the public press thus became a means through which women could voice their perspectives and reflect on their broader roles in society. By expressing their viewpoints on girls’ social and professional engagement, female writers helped define and shape new ideas regarding women’s usefulness in the public domain. This chapter is situated in the literary space and it examines how European female teachers and Chinese schoolgirls at St. Stephen’s Girl’s College deployed the print space of its school magazine News Echo and local English newspapers to articulate new ideals of female usefulness in interwar Hong Kong. Through their choices of what to include in the print space, the editors of the magazine, who were either students or alumnae of the school, helped define a particular vision of gendered agency. This new vision of female usefulness circulated in the print press ultimately points to the ever-shifting landscape of girls’ education. In the interwar years, girls’ education in Hong Kong responded simultaneously to multiple forces, including changes in Hong Kong’s urban economy that gravitated toward an expanded vocational education curriculum. In addition, it reacted to the ‘New Women’ movement in Republican China. As historians have shown, in the Republican era, the image of the New Women (a cultural figure that portrayed women as ‘educated, political, and intensely nationalistic’4) was mobilised in the political discourse for the modernisation of China.5 Even in the late decades of the Qing empire (1644–1911), the public engagement of Chinese women became one of the most defining social changes. This new public arena drew in the ‘new women’ – students, teachers, suffragists, revolutionaries, writers, doctors, and other modern-educated professionals who emerged during this period. The areas of their professional and public engagement included, 3  Also see Kristin E.  Kondrlik, “Fractured Femininity and ‘Fellow Feeling’: Professional Identity in the Magazine of the London School of Medicine for Women, 1895–1914,” Victorian Periodicals Review 50, no. 3 (2017): 488–516. 4  Sarah E.  Stevens, “Figuring Modernity: The New Woman and the Modern Girl in Republican China,” NWSA Journal 15, no. 3 (2003): 82–103. 5  See, for example, Bryna Goodman and Wendy Larson, eds. Gender in Motion: Divisions of Labour and Cultural Change in Late Imperial and Modern China (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005); Paul Bailey, Gender and Education in China: Gender Discourses and Women’s Schooling in the Early Twentieth Century (London: Routledge, 2007).

116 

S. MENG WANG

amongst others, public schools, hospitals, feminist and patriotic associations, and business offices.6 At this time female professionalism was an important context that allowed Chinese women to reposition themselves and to become effective public actors. It was also against the backdrop of professional education for women that ‘the public, private, and domestic spheres were being remade and rethought’ in early-twentieth-­ century China.7 While historians of girls’ education in Hong Kong such as Patricia Chiu have studied women’s education through the Victorian gender paradigm,8 little study has focused on the impact of the nationalist discourse in shaping Chinese girls’ schooling experience and career aspirations in interwar Hong Kong. This chapter thus serves as a pioneering study that examines how the nationalist sentiment of Chinese elites in Hong Kong shaped the emergence of a new group of professional Chinese women. Most importantly, this chapter shows how both European female teachers and Chinese schoolgirls deployed the image of the ‘New Women’ to exert their own gendered agency and to claim their legitimacy to participate in public affairs. In addition, historians studying gender in the context of British imperialism have unearthed the role European female teachers played in colonial girls’ education and showed how they contributed toward changing the social position of indigenous girls and women,9 this chapter moves beyond this dominant narrative of evangelisation and civilisation. By examining the intricate engagement of Chinese school girls with powerful and emerging urban dynamics, including the expansion of print culture, the diversification of the secondary and higher education system, and the spread of women’s transnational networks, the chapter spotlights the multiple arrays of cultural currents that helped define the landscape of girls’ education in interwar Hong Kong. The site of study is an elite English girls’ school: St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, which was founded by the Church Missionary Society (the CMS) 6  Xia Shi, At home in the World: Women and Charity in Late Qing and Early Republican China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018), 2–4. 7  Ibid., 8. 8  Patricia Pok-kwan Chiu, “‘A Position of Usefulness’: Gendering History of Girls’ Education in Colonial Hong Kong (1850s–1890s),” History of Education 37, no. 6 (2008): 789–805. 9  This is an extensively researched field that looks closely at white women’s place in colonial education, see Tim Allender, Learning Femininity in Colonial India, 1820–1932 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016).

4  TREADING A DIFFERENT PATH: GENDER AND THE LITERARY SPACE… 

117

in 1906 for the education of upper-class Chinese girls in Hong Kong. Before being added to the grant-in-aid school list in 1924, the college was a self-supporting mission school fully funded by the donations of Chinese elites. The CMS provided the key managerial body of the school, including the Principal, whereas the teaching force comprised both English and Chinese staff.10 The timeframe of this study is the interwar period during which urban education in Hong Kong featured a progressive curriculum that moved to bring boys and girls (of both European and Chinese descent) into touch with real-life experiences. In government schools, woodcraft, carpentry, and gardening were introduced to boys, while cookery, nursing, and first aid were added for girls (vocational education in the formal schooling system will be discussed further in Chaps. 5 and 6).11 In grant-in-aid boys’ and girls’ schools, the upper (senior) class further included an emerging strand of professional training such as stenography, which prepared pupils for the diverse career options after college.12 As well, Hong Kong Technical Institute provided an opportunity of higher education for students who had completed college. Instructions were given in building construction, chemistry, physics, electricity, commercial English, French, shorthand, book-keeping, cookery, and translation.13 In addition, Hong Kong University (founded in 1912, and officially admitted female students in

10  Details in “St. Stephen’s Girls School, Annual Prize Distribution,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Jan. 13, 1909, 2; “Report of the Director of Education for the year 1924,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 5. 11  Details on the introduction of manual instruction at boys’ schools and cookery, first aid, and home nursing at girls’ schools were included in, for example, “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1921,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 12–14;15. In which manual training had been started at Kowloon School where a room had been ‘fitted for “woodwork”, and furnished with carpenters’ benches and a cabinet containing complete sets of tools’. At Belilios Public School for Chinese Girls, a Normal School had been opened in 1921 to ‘train women as vernacular teachers, a two years’ course being given’. 12  Professional training for schoolgirls in the interwar period will be further discussed in the next chapter. Here, the example of stenography was added at the Italian Convent School as early as 1915. “Italian Convent School, Distribution of Prizes This Afternoon,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Dec. 22, 1915, 4–5. 13  The Hong Kong Technical Institute, formerly known as ‘Evening Continuation Classes’ started in October 1906. Details on the courses offered in “Report of the Inspector of Schools for the Year 1907,” Hong Kong Sessional Papers, Hong Kong Government, no. 20/1908, 380–7.

118 

S. MENG WANG

1921) provided courses in engineering, medicine, and arts.14 This integrated urban education system where a close link was forged between primary, secondary, and higher education was underlined by the strategic role urban education played in preparing an adequate workforce for the urban economy, which by this period gradually gravitated toward industrial activities. This shifting landscape of urban education produced new opportunities and possibilities for Chinese schoolgirls. Besides the traditionally ‘feminised’ professions of teaching and nursing, in the interwar period, Chinese women took up new professions such as practicing medicine. As the census returns suggested, with regards to the professional occupations of Chinese females in Hong Kong in 1921, 10 were practicing dentists, 20 doctors (Chinese treatment), 59 midwives, 61 nurses, 67 in religion, 73 hospital attendants, and 324 teachers.15 By 1931, 7 were practicing physicians, 27 dentists, 56 doctors (Chinese treatment), 177 midwives, 235 nurses, 435 in religion, and 866 teachers.16 This entry of Chinese women into professional spheres was supported by the development of the colonial education system that provided schoolgirls with the possible pathways for a professional life, in the form of higher education and specialised training. In this period, secondary girls’ schooling and higher education acted upon each other and gender acted upon both. These professional pursuits reflected how the education provided in the colonial learning sites for Chinese girls functioned as a means through which they contested gender, and, to a certain extent, racial boundaries in the colonial society. However, education for Chinese girls in the interwar period was often discussed by European teachers at St. Stephen’s in newspapers and school magazines through a paradoxical ‘nationalist’ discourse that framed girls’ education as a means to save China. In the interwar period, the interior of China was struck by famine and war, in the words of historian Xia Shi, it was a period with ‘a weak central government and 14  In the founding year, the University of Hong Kong had 72 students. 37 of the students took Engineering and 21 Medicine. The Provisional Arts Course gave course in ‘physics, chemistry, mathematics, Chinese, English, history and economics’. The degree is modelled on the London Pass Degree. Details in “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1912,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 14. 15  “Report on the Census of the Colony of Hong Kong 1921,” Hong Kong Sessional Papers, Hong Kong Government, no. 12/1921, 216. 16  “Report on the Census of the Colony of Hong Kong 1931,” Hong Kong Sessional Papers, Hong Kong Government No. 5/1931, 183.

4  TREADING A DIFFERENT PATH: GENDER AND THE LITERARY SPACE… 

119

an unusual frequency of natural disasters’.17 The political and social unrest in the Mainland served as a common context in which Chinese elites, schoolgirls, and European teachers discussed the purpose and usefulness of girls’ education in Hong Kong. In the period between 1921 and 1941, schooling practices for Chinese girls at St. Stephen’s engaged in two specific public debates in Hong Kong: Chinese women in higher education and Chinese women in public affairs. Both of these connected with how female professional pursuits contradicted established gender ideals. The chapter argues that the literary world of school magazines and newspapers served as an outlet where Chinese schoolgirls and European teachers constructed a new image of Chinese women they wanted the public to understand. This new image is analysed through the lens of ‘space’ where the chapter looks at how the public, professional, and higher education space were constructed in these literary works and how that construction reflected a shifting understanding of gender in relation to the social connotation of space. While this chapter deals with the writings of two distinct groups of women, Chinese schoolgirls (and alumna) and European teachers, it suggests that they both wrote for a particular set of audience, that is, the students, parents, and patrons of the college. One important function of their writing was to publicise the success of the college; they also hoped to raise funds. As such, these writings reveal a constructed image, rather than the resistance and struggles that Chinese girls might have experienced in the everyday. To place school life at St. Stephen’s in the broader conversation on how Chinese girls from elite families in interwar Hong Kong voiced their navigation in a phase of social and cultural changes concerning gender ideals, the life histories this chapter draws upon are not limited to graduates of St. Stephen’s, but also included educated Chinese girls more broadly.

4.1   Gender as Perspective The entry of Chinese females into the professional and public domain represents one of the most dramatic social and cultural changes in interwar Hong Kong. The fact that in this period women’s usefulness was 17  Xia Shi, At Home in the World: Women and Charity in Late Qing and Early Republican China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018), 19. While Xia Shi initially used to phrase to describe the period around the turn of the twentieth century in China, these patterns of natural disasters particular famine continued well into the 1920s and 1930s in China.

120 

S. MENG WANG

increasingly defined in relation to the public domain suggests that gender is reflective of emergent social formations. This resonates with the arguments of historian Joan Scott that gender is a contextually produced cultural construct which takes on different meanings across time and space.18 The argument that the connotation of gender is fluid also lends itself to the study of girls’ education in colonial Hong Kong where the school curriculum was shaped by the dominant views of gender at a particular era. For example, as the historian Patricia Chiu shows, for an extended period in the nineteenth century, schooling practices in mission girls’ schools in Hong Kong were informed by the Victorian social understanding of gender, which outlined the notion of a ‘separate sphere’ for women.19 The accomplishments curriculum was a common practice in state and grant-in-­ aid English girls’ schools that ensured middle-class girls were educated in the skills that they could perform in the domestic sphere. Here performativity was an important aspect of gender where refined femininity was considered performative of middle-class social status.20 This strand of training in feminine accomplishments was also instrumental in producing a particular form of urban domestic culture that marked colonial civility and respectability (as Chap. 2 has discussed). While the ‘separate spheres’ frame of gender had long been debated as a Victorian cultural phenomenon that imagined the public and the private spheres as distinct spaces for men and women, respectively,21 the notion that the inner quarters of the home were the more ‘appropriate’ space for the feminine was also a familiar context in the framing of girls’ education in Chinese society. As literary historian Grace Fong points out, in imperial China, women were categorically excluded from all access to a public career. While men were authorised to participate in the functioning of the  Joan Wallach Scott, “Gender: Still a Useful Category of Analysis?,” Diogenes 57, no. 1 (2010): 7–14. 19  Patricia Pok-kwan Chiu, “ ‘A Position of Usefulness’: Gendering History of Girls’ Education in Colonial Hong Kong (1850s–1890s),” History of Education 37, no. 6 (2008): 789–805. 20  Domestic femininity in the Victorian period was a middle-class notion that connected with industrial capitalism that produced a new urban middle class and with it new gendered bodies. For further discussions, see, for example, Deborah Gorham, The Victorian Girl and the Feminine Ideal (New York: Routledge, 2012). 21  E.  Lisa Panayotidis and Paul Stortz, eds. Women in Higher Education, 1850–1970: International Perspectives (New York: Routledge, 2017), 1–34. 18

4  TREADING A DIFFERENT PATH: GENDER AND THE LITERARY SPACE… 

121

government through the institutions of a formal education and the civil service examination system, women lived in a ‘structure of exclusion’ that rendered them invisible in public affairs.22 Fong’s study on the literary work of women of the educated class in late imperial China challenged this dominant view on women as the ‘subordinated and silent gender’ in Chinese society and shows the writings of gentlewomen served both social and political purposes. Most importantly, Fong’s study illustrates the literary world as a site of resistance where Chinese women from the elite class voiced their discontent with the gender structure in a patriarchal society.23 While Chiu’s and Fong’s studies on Chinese girls and women were set within very different contexts – one examining the institutional experience of colonial schooling in Hong Kong, and the other the literary work of educated elite Chinese women in imperial China – both of their accounts draw on the notion that the everyday experience of women was situated in social and institutional constraints that operated through a dominant cultural view of gender.24 This chapter is not a study on how these institutional constraints played out differently in interwar Hong Kong. Such an inquiry would require a comparative examination of the schooling practices in the different strands of girls’ school and cross a broader timeframe to reveal the changing patterns in mission, state, and private educational provision for Chinese girls. Nor is this chapter an inquiry into the colonial and local frames of gender and how the cultural contestation played out through the education system, though it would be a worthy question. Instead, this chapter is a site-specific case study that looks at how elite Chinese girls constructed new images and meanings of gender in the literary space that legitimised their increased public engagement in a colonial society.

 Grace Fong, Herself an Author: Gender, Agency, and Writing in Late Imperial China (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2008), 1–8. 23  For discussion on the writing of educated Chinese women, also see Grace Fong and Ellen Widmer, eds. The Inner Quarters and Beyond: Women Writers from Ming through Qing (Boston: Brill, 2010). 24  Theresa De Lauretis argues gender as the product and process of various social technologies, and of institutionalized discourses, as well as practices of daily life. See Teresa De Lauretis, Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory, Film, And Fiction (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987). 22

122 

S. MENG WANG

4.2  English Education for Elite Chinese Girls in Hong Kong: Founding of St. Stephen’s Girls’ College St. Stephen’s Girls’ College was founded to meet the educational need of a particular class of Chinese girls – that is, Chinese girls from elite families – in Hong Kong. By the turn of the twentieth century, the Chinese elites grew increasingly dissatisfied with the education the colonial state provided for their daughters. At the time, missionary and government girls’ schools had targeted the underprivileged and the middle-class Chinese girls in the colony and offered a curriculum that did not include extensive teaching on Chinese literature and culture. The curriculum at the government girls’ school Belilios Public School for Chinese Girls, for example, consisted of reading, arithmetic, English composition, grammar and analysis, geography, map drawing, history and needlework, and the study of classical Chinese was optional.25 In 1901, the Chinese elites – led by Ho Kai, Wei Ayuk, Fung Wa Chun, Chan Tung Shang, Uen Lai Chun, Lo Kun Teng, S. W. Tso, and Wei On – petitioned the colonial government to set up a separate strand of schooling for their sons and daughters.26 Having been turned down by the colonial government on the ground that such establishments would be exclusionary in character (catering only for the upper-class boys and girls), the Chinese elites approached the CMS.27 In collaboration with the CMS, in 1903, St. Stephen’s College (for boys) was founded, and, in 1906, St. Stephen’s Girls’ College also came into existence (and still is) (see Fig. 4.2).28 In the School Prospectus of 1909, St. Stephen’s Girls’ College was branded by the CMS as a site to inculcate ‘morality, modesty, and true womanliness’ through its unique approach of installing western civility and instantaneously preserving Chinese girls’ cultural character. The CMS described the aim of the college was to,

25  “Report of the Government Central School for Girls for 1891,” Hong Kong Sessional Papers, Hong Kong Government, no. 4/92, 135–136. 26  “School For European Children, and English School for Chinese of the Upper Class,” Hong Kong Sessional Papers, Hong Kong Government, no. 2/1902, 14–15. 27  For the support of Chinese elites for girls’ education in Hong Kong, see Chiu, “The Making of Accomplished Women.” 28  “St. Stephen’s Girls School, Annual Prize Distribution,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Jan. 13, 1909, 2.

4  TREADING A DIFFERENT PATH: GENDER AND THE LITERARY SPACE… 

123

Fig. 4.2  Entrance of St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, 2018. Source: Taken by Author conserve and stimulate all that is noblest and best in the character of Chinese young ladies, and at the same time to provide for them an excellent modern education under the direction of experienced English ladies. Hence while they are instructed in Western science and arts they are required to hold on to their own national good manners and propriety.29

The dual purpose of training in the western curriculum and Chinese learning set the college apart from other colonial girls’ schooling sites that discounted Chinese traditions of learning. The college consisted of three divisions: kindergarten, preparatory school, and girls’ college. In the girls’ college, subjects taught in the morning classes included scripture knowledge, English, reading and recitation, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, history, geography, physical geography, hygiene, nature study, singing, Swedish drill, and drawing. In the afternoon, lessons were given in Chinese language and literature, needlework, music, and extra English for pupils preparing for the Oxford Local Examination (the school leaving 29  “Prospectus of St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, 1909,” CMS Source File. G1/CH 1/O 1909/72. Published on Hong Kong Memory, https://www.hkmemory.hk/collections/education/All_Items/PreWarEdu_Prints/201303/t20130311_57555.html. Accessed on April 7, 2022.

124 

S. MENG WANG

examination prior to 1915, as discussed in the Introduction chapter).30 To accommodate the Chinese girls coming to study at the college from various parts of China and from overseas, a boarding quarter was provided and managed by four English ladies and one Chinese matron. By 1913, the college had 17 boarders31 and an average daily attendance of 105 students (see Fig. 4.3).32

4.3  Chinese Women in Higher Education: Debates and Experiences, 1921–1941 The high social profile of St. Stephen’s as a learning site sponsored by Hong Kong Chinese elites drew imperial interest to the college. Every year, the wife of the governor was invited to the speech day and school concerts of the college. The speech made by the headmistress was also published in  local newspapers. As such, the schooling practice at St. Stephen’s captured the public debates on gender and education at the time. For example, while laying the foundation stone of the new college site of St. Stephen’s on April 7, 1922, the Prince of Wales made a public speech about girls’ education in Hong Kong, …in the present day there is doubtless a call on educated women to play a larger part in the life of China. They can do much to develop the position of women, which I trust the aims of the College may receive a full measure of success.33

Set in industrial Hong Kong, this speech captured a shift in colonial framing of education for Chinese girls. In contrast with the dominant approach in state and grant-in-aid girls’ schools in the nineteenth century 30  “St. Stephen’s Girls’ College Prospectus, 1913,” CMS Source File. G1/X/g 1/3 Prospectus. Published in Hong Kong Memory, https://www.hkmemory.hk/collections/ education/All_Items/PreWarEdu_Prints/201303/t20130311_57539.html. Accessed on April 7, 2020. 31  Ibid. 32  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1913,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 10, stated that ‘St. Stephen’s and St. Paul’s Colleges belonging to the Church Missionary Society account for 388 boys, and the same body manages St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, which has an average daily attendance of 105.’ 33  The full speech was published in News Echo, no. 8 (1936), 1. Hong Kong Public Records Office, File No. HKMS-136-1-90.

4  TREADING A DIFFERENT PATH: GENDER AND THE LITERARY SPACE… 

125

Fig. 4.3  Students and teachers at St Stephen’s Girls’ College on Lyttleton Road, Mid-Levels, Hong Kong Island, c. 1923–1924. Source: Courtesy of Hong Kong Museum of History

that emphasised the Victorian model of an accomplishments curriculum, schooling for Chinese girls in the early twentieth century gravitated toward the ‘outer spheres’ of life, shaped particularly by the nationalist sentiment of Hong Kong Chinese elites. The nationalist discourse on girls’ education as a means to save China was also deployed by European female teachers as a means to exert their own gendered agency. While their engagement with Chinese girls’ education reflected the participation of white professional women in the imperial web of knowledge and practice transfer, their employment at St. Stephen’s further illustrated how their professional expertise was deployed by local elites to advance their own social and political agendas. At St. Stephen’s, European female teachers helped design a school curriculum that actively prepared Chinese girls for higher education, particularly through the introduction of science subjects. This, in turn, underwrote the entering of Chinese elite girls into university-trained professions such

126 

S. MENG WANG

as doctors, lawyers, and engineers. In this period, while the nationalist discourse set in motion a new vision and a new set of schooling practices for Chinese girls, it also opened up spaces for European teaching professionals to exert and realign their feminist activism agendas. Girls’ education thus functioned as a site where nationalist, feminist, imperial ideals of gender converged and diverged to shape the professional aspirations of Chinese girls. 4.3.1   St. Stephen’s School Curriculum and Higher Education Chinese girls’ entry into higher education started well before the interwar period, and, before Hong Kong University officially admitted female students in 1921, many continued their studies in Europe and America. In 1909, for example, the headmistress at St. Stephen’s Miss Carden reported that the school had sent their first candidate Wan Suk Ching, daughter of Dr. Wan Tuen Mo, for the Oxford Local Examination. Miss Wan succeeded as the first Chinese girl to have passed the Oxford examination in Hong Kong,34 and being awarded an Aassociate of Arts degree at Oxford.35 This colonial examination system, which connected Hong Kong girls with educational institutions in the metropole, reflected the way in which the academic pathway of Chinese girls in the colony was placed within an imperial system of knowledge and practice transfer. European women of influence in Hong Kong were particularly instrumental in enabling this mode of academic pursuit where they acted as advocates for girls’ higher education. In 1910, for example, Lady Florence Cecil (wife of Lord William Cecil, Bishop of Exeter) organised a committee of European women to assist Chinese girls who ‘desire to complete their education in England’. The Committee selected schools and arranged accommodation for Chinese girls and made reports on the education and general progress of the pupils.36 The attendance of Chinese girls in British universities was published in local newspapers in Hong Kong that framed the entry into imperial learning space as ‘success’. In 1921, for example, The China Mail reported, 34  “St. Stephen’s Girls School, Annual Prize Distribution,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Jan. 13, 1909, 2. 35  “My School Days at St. Stephen’s,” News Echo, no. 2 (1929), 4. Hong Kong Public Record Office, File No. HKMS 136-1-88. 36  “Chinese Girl Students in England,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Nov. 2, 1910, 2.

4  TREADING A DIFFERENT PATH: GENDER AND THE LITERARY SPACE… 

127

Miss Chang Ying-yuen has graduated as Master of Arts in Edinburgh University. She is the first Chinese lady to take the full course of Master of Arts degree there where she attained distinctions in many of her classes.37

While it initially served as a space to publicise the opportunities the colonial education system offered for Chinese girls, and the involvement of elite European women in local educational affairs, by the early 1920s the local newspapers had transitioned into a space that shaped public debate about Chinese girls in higher education, and Chinese women’s place in society in general. In 1922, for example, following the opening of admission for female students at Hong Kong University, a series of discussions was raised in local newspapers on ‘what does this higher education lead to [for women]?’. The headmistress of St. Stephen’s, Miss Middleton-­ Smith, relied to The China Mail, suggesting that, …in the future we hope in some cases that it will lead to the university so some of our students may become efficient doctors, and teachers in their own country, but the greater majority of those who leave us are, as we would have them most naturally and befittingly taking places as center of influence in their own homes.38

While in this comment, the domestic space was still constructed by the European headmistress as the naturally fitting place for women, she also reframed the professional sphere as a site where women may find meaning and fulfilment. This shift in the framing of the purpose of girls’ education brought gradual changes to the school curriculum. For example, in 1922, to prepare girls for university entrance, Miss Middleton-Smith added a matriculation class into the usual school work at St. Stephen’s (while the curriculum itself did not undergo systematic change).39 Henceforth, all matriculation examination results were published in both school magazines and local newspapers. In addition, to enable more Chinese girls to study at the Hong Kong University (HKU), St. Stephen’s established a Women’s Hostel for female students (see Fig. 4.4).40 Hitherto, the requirement of residence upon admission and the lack of such accommodation  “Chinese Lady’s Success at Edinburgh University,” The China Mail, July 16, 1921, 7.  “St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, Speech Day,” The China Mail, Jan. 19, 1922, 8. 39  Ibid. 40  “My School Days at St. Stephen’s,” News Echo, no. 2 (1929), 5. Hong Kong Public Record Office, File No. HKMS 136-1-88. 37 38

128 

S. MENG WANG

Fig. 4.4  Miss Baxter (centre) and students at St Stephen's Hostel, Hong Kong c. 1936–38, which was an off-campus residential accommodation provided by SSGC for women students at the University of Hong Kong since 1922. Source: Courtesy of St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, Hong Kong

for females had been an obstacle to girls’ entry into HKU.41 St. Stephen’s management of the hostel marked a progressive step in the spatial provision for women in universities. In 1924, the school reported that it had sent five pupils to HKU: three in the Medical Faculty, one in Arts, and one in Engineering.42 In the following years, the school continued as one of the main feeders for HKU.43 By 1928, Miss Atkins, the new headmistress, suggested that the demand for the teaching of science grew and, as more pupils passed on to the university, the school planned to build a new wing that would better prepare pupils for university study.44 In 1929, with the financial support of Chinese elites, the new wing was completed with an Art Room, a covered playground, and a Science Laboratory for the  “Our University, Vice Chancellor Interviewed,” The China Mail, Aug. 30, 1921, 4.  “Interesting Ceremony at St. Stephen’s Girls’ College,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Jan. 26, 1924, 5. 43  “St. Stephen’s Girls’ College Speech Day,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Jan. 27, 1927, 5. 44  “St. Stephen’s, Speech Day at Girls’ School,” The China Mail, Jan. 18, 1928, 3. 41 42

4  TREADING A DIFFERENT PATH: GENDER AND THE LITERARY SPACE… 

129

teaching of physics and chemistry.45 In 1930, the school had secured the service of Miss F. B. Wood, B.Sc., who travelled to St. Stephen’s to teach botany, physics, and chemistry.46 The provision of science subjects at St. Stephen’s was significant in that it challenged a dominant social construct of science as a ‘masculine’ space.47 The interest in science also reconfigured the physical experience of the colonial urban space for Chinese girls as botanical gardens, parks, bays, and waterworks were utilised for teaching purposes. On March 16, 1932, for example, Miss Wood took Form I for a Botany walk to Sai Wan Bay. On March 18, ‘a division of Form III went for a Botany walk on the Peak; and on May 8th, a division of Form II went for a Botany walk to Repulse Bay’.48 School magazines in this period also published articles on the value of science subjects that reconstructed the dissonance between science and femininity. G. A. C. Herklots from HKU, for example, wrote on the learning of botany at girls’ schools, suggesting that botany was a subject for boys and girls in all schools in that it would train pupils to ‘perceive the essentials of a problems […] to arrange thoughts and actions in a logical manner’.49 By 1934, a more progressive division of science learning emerged at St. Stephen’s. In the upper school (senior), the morning classes included scripture, arithmetic, mathematics, English literature, history, geography, physics, chemistry, botany, hygiene, drawing, and singing. In the lower school (junior), the morning subjects included scripture, arithmetic, English (conversation, composition, and grammar), science, history, geography, drawing, reading, gymnastics, and nature study.50 This progressive science curriculum at St. Stephen’s also informed the teaching of science for Chinese girls in government schools. In 1937, the Director of Education, G. R. Sayer, reported that the appointment from 45  “Good year’s Work, Speech Day at St. Stephen’s Girls’ College,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Feb. 2, 1929, 24. 46  “St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, Distribution of Cups and Certificates,” The China Mail, Feb. 5, 1931, 7. 47   See Ruth Watts, Women in Science: A Social And Cultural History (New York: Routledge, 2013). 48  “School Diary,” News Echo, no. 5 (1932), 27. Hong Kong Public Record Office, File No. HKMS 136-1-89. 49  “The Value of Botany As A School Subject,” News Echo, no. 2 (1929), 15–16. Hong Kong Public Record Office, File No. HKMS 136-1-88. 50  “Prospectus of St Stephen’s Girls’ College and Fairlea School, 1934,” 6. Hong Kong Public Record Office, File No. HKMS 138/1/151. The afternoon session was devoted to the study of classical and modern Chinese literature, history and composition.

130 

S. MENG WANG

England of a biology mistress to the Belilios Public School ‘marked a step in the progress of science teaching for Chinese girls’.51 These science teachers employed from the metropole were instrumental in constructing new gender ideals for Chinese girls, as they opened up the previously restricted spaces of science and medicine as new learning experiences. By 1938, by means of connecting the school curriculum with higher education, St. Stephen’s had sent nineteen students to HKU. Universities in the interior of China also opened doors for female students, where eight St. Stephen’s girls were admitted in Lingnam (a university in Canton), one in Yenching (a university in Peking), and one in Ginling at Chengdu in Szuchuan (a province in Southwest China).52 Scholarship opportunities at the Faculty of Medicine at HKU further increased the chances for females to continue studying science at higher education institutions (see Fig. 4.5).53 The science curriculum developed for Chinese girls in the interwar period reflected the improvement in girls’ education as it equipped pupils with the tools they needed to pursue careers beyond the domestic sphere. The progressive curriculum where the gender boundaries in science subjects were gradually torn down also had a lasting impact on Chinese girls’ learning experiences in the post-war era. For many, science opened up spaces for resistance, a site to express their discontent with the gender roles assigned to women by dominant Chinese cultural norms. Commenting on her school life at St. Claire’s Girls’ School in the post-war era, Vera Waters (b. 1936) suggested, …at secondary school, we could take either science or domestic science. I didn’t like to learn cooking, so I chose science, to dissect frogs. Later I found it was not of much use, and I should have chosen domestic science. But at the time, I was quite resistant to the idea of a traditional woman, doing cooking and taking care of children.54

51  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1937,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 5. 52  “St. Stephen’s Girls’ College Speech Day,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Oct. 19, 1938, 8. 53  “Alumnae News,” News Echo, no. 8 (1935–1936), 5. Hong Kong Public Records Office, File No. 136-1-90. 54  Vera Waters, born in 1936, Hong Kong. Hong Kong Oral History Archives: Collective Memories, Special Collection at Hong Kong University Libraries, access no. 27. Vera is of Chinese descent and has a English husband.

4  TREADING A DIFFERENT PATH: GENDER AND THE LITERARY SPACE… 

131

Fig. 4.5  A new university graduate (former St. Stephen’s student) with her Friends, 1925. Source: Courtesy of St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, Hong Kong

Even in retrospect, Waters constructed domestic science in her school years as a subject that tied women to the domestic sphere. It acted as a tool that reinforced a gender arrangement she tried to break away from. Science, by contrast, functioned as a space of subversion. 4.3.2   Life in University and Profession How was the social phenomenon of Chinese girls in higher education being deployed in a political discourse for lifting the position of Chinese women not only in Hong Kong, but also in China? And how did European female teachers contribute to the debate? In the interwar period, school magazines and newspapers served as a space where news of present and past students at St. Stephen’s were disseminated – through the narration of school headmistress and graduates – to the public. The reporting was designed to construct a particular image of Chinese women. In 1922, for

132 

S. MENG WANG

example, headmistress Miss Middleton-Smith suggested, ‘quite a large number [of students] are continuing their studies in America and I hear that shortly two will be returning to open a much needed Christian Girls’ School in a place not far distant’.55 Here studying overseas was part of the portrait of Chinese women as having the freedom to forge their own path and to lead social change for girls. One graduate of St. Stephen’s, R.C., wrote that she used to be ‘in awe of’ the Hong Kong University building and when she passed matriculation and ‘entered within its wall’, she was beyond happy. R.C. went on to describe, …as a university student, I have a great deal of more freedom and a more interesting life I have at school, but I have also a greater responsibility […] There is a Union in which all the students are members, also special Associations for the Arts, Medical and Engineering students; clubs for tennis, cricket, and other sports as well as a Christian Association.56

In this reflection, the gender tension in university was intentionally silent, and higher education was portrayed as a space where girls would experience freedom and being trained to take responsibility. More than offering an account of daily life at universities, Chinese girls’ writing on their experience of higher education in this period was purposefully deployed to frame university as an accessible space for women, and to publicise St. Stephen’s success as a pioneering site of girls’ education in Hong Kong. In the literary space, university appeared as a gender-neutral place. Such an image was constructed in the context where only very few Chinese girls entered university level. A male student at St. Stephen’s College (for boys), Michael Funk (b. 1924) suggested, at that time, after secondary school, if you were to go to university, which was a big deal, there were a few options. There was Oxford, or Cambridge, or Singapore, and also Shanghai, mainly boys, very few girls. Boys often choose to go to Hong Kong University.57

 “St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, Speech Day,” The China Mail, Jan. 19, 1922, 8.  “My Experience as a “Greenhorn” at the Hong Kong University,” News Echo, no. 2 (1929), 6–7. Hong Kong Public Records Office, File No. HKMS 136-1-88. 57  Michael Funk, born in 1924, North Borneo. Hong Kong Oral History Archives: Collective Memories, Special Collection at Hong Kong University Libraries, access no. 55. 55 56

4  TREADING A DIFFERENT PATH: GENDER AND THE LITERARY SPACE… 

133

Here the disjuncture between the constructed image of Chinese women in higher education and the actual circumstance reveals the function of public writing in communicating school success. In addition, while students and the European female teachers at St. Stephen’s framed higher education as an aspirational space for Chinese girls, in the 1920s and 1930s, Chinese female students often had different outlooks on university study. For some, university was seen as not well-equipped to offer them skills to be self-independent. Magdalene Fung (b. 1923), for example, a graduate of French Convent School, was admitted to HKU as an Arts major. Instead of accepting the offer, Fung went to a secretarial school for a year and later studied at Hong Kong Northcote Teacher’s Training College.58 Leung Yuk Jan (b. 1925), a student of a school run by the Wan Chai Methodist Centre, suggested, when she was in senior secondary level, that she chose the one-year business course thinking that she ‘would not be able to enjoy university education’ (her mother wanted her to get married). With that training, she ‘could find a job easily and become economically self-reliant’.59 While Chinese women in higher education raised heated public debates in the interwar period, what laid at the centre of these debates was the upshot of university education for women as it concerned the changing place of the female gender in society. With an increasing number of Chinese women entered professional employment, the secondary learning site functioned as a key space that shaped the career choices of pupils. In 1930, for example, at School Prize Day headmistress Miss Atkins at St. Stephen’s suggested, a few of our old girls have decided to train as nurses, and we are hoping that as time goes on more will decide to take up this profession, for there is, perhaps, no greater need in China today than the need for helpers in medical work.60

 Magdalene Fung, born in 1923, Hong Kong. Hong Kong Oral History Archives: Collective Memories, Special Collection at Hong Kong University Libraries, access no. 32. 59  Leung Yuk Jan, female, born in 1925, Hong Kong. Hong Kong Memory Project: Oral History Archives, https://www.hkmemory.hk/collections/oral_history/All_Items_OH/ oha_38/records/index.html#p74300. Accessed on April 7, 2020. 60  “St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, Lady Clementi Distributes the Prizes,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Jan. 17, 1930, 6. 58

134 

S. MENG WANG

Here professional pursuit in nursing was framed by the school headmistress as a way to exercise Chinese women’s usefulness in their own country. While this explicit nationalist sentiment was absent in state education report – where discussions on Chinese girls’ schooling focused on changes in school curriculum, struggles over the means of instruction, and girls’ engagement with imperial youth organisations, such as the Ministering Children’s League and the Girl Guides,61 in the reporting of European teachers at St. Stephen’s, education for Chinese girls served a rather different end. Chinese elites’ financial support was a factor at play that shaped this different framing. Acting as direct sponsors for the college, Chinese elites were influential not only in shaping the school curriculum that integrated Chinese learning, but also in how the social purpose of the school was depicted to the public. The shaping of pupils’ career choices was strategically enacted through newspapers and school magazines. In particular, in the 1930s, the school magazine News Echo published extensive details on alumnae’s ‘life after college’ – covering aspects such as their employment, major of study at universities, and means of contact by supplying their address. These details were published under the alumnae section that functioned as a space to show the achievement and success of the college to its students and patrons. In 1932, for example, three St. Stephen’s graduates (Hilda Chan, Helen Lim, and Lim Wai Kwan) had entered HKU and chose to study Medicine. One alumna (Cheng Hung Yue) was a practitioner in the Government Civil Hospital. Two alumnae (Choy Wai Haan and Choy Oi Chee) graduated from university and joined the teaching staff of St. Agnes’s Girls’ College. Ten alumnae were in training as nurses in the Government Civil Hospital. There were also details on alumnae’s study in the universities of China and overseas and their employment therein.62 While these details were selected to portray the college’s success, they 61  These aspects were evident through a reading of the report of the government girls’ school Belilios Public School. In 1922, for example, Belilios Public School raised the sum of $1,307 at the Ministering Children’s League bazaar. “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1922,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 18. In 1926, the school reported several curricular changes of ‘progressive nature have been introduced, the chief being the extension of the study of English to the lower classes of the school’. Further details in “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1926,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 14–15. 62  “Alumnae News,” News Echo, no. 5 (1932), 3–5. Hong Kong Public Records Office, File No. HKMS 136-1-89.

4  TREADING A DIFFERENT PATH: GENDER AND THE LITERARY SPACE… 

135

nonetheless captured the aspirations and career access of elite Chinese women at the time. In addition to teaching and nursing, an increasing number of females (though few) was employed as doctors at hospitals. In 1936, for example, one alumna (Lo Chung Fai) was in practice in the Maternity Block, Kowloon Hospital.63 By the late 1930s, the learning interest and career prospect of Chinese women expanded to include pioneering fields for women such as engineering. In 1938, for example, one alumna (Rosa Wong) graduated from the HKU Engineering Faculty and was qualified as an engineer.64 Furthermore, as the interior of China struggled with war, St. Stephen’s graduates in Hong Kong and China led local and national war relief associations. In 1939, for example, three alumnae (May Choy, Rose Lan, and Ellen Tsao) were involved in relief work through the Chinese Women’s Club, and in support for the Red Cross in Hong Kong. Three alumnae (Choy Wai Haan, Wong Yeuk Lan, and Ip Sau Ying) were in the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) and specialised in war orphans’ and students’ work in Hong Kong. One alumna (Helen Chung) was in the YWCA in Kunming (in South China), one (Kwok Sheung Man) in refugee relief work in Tientsin (in North China). Graduate Yung Hei Wan was president of the Canton Branch of the YWCA.65 This network of women’s associations in support of war relief reflected not only how political circumstances in China affected Hong Kong Chinese women’s career outlook, but also the place of Hong Kong girls’ colleges in shaping and enabling Chinese females’ participations in these public activities, as the next section further discusses.

4.4  Chinese Women in Public Affairs: Philanthropic Activities at St. Stephen’s, 1921–1941 Character training on the line of social service was a common practice in state and grant-in-aid girls’ schools in interwar Hong Kong. However, in contrast with government and other grant-in-aid girls’ schools where this 63  “Alumnae News,” News Echo, no. 8 (1935-1936), 5–6. Hong Kong Public Records Office, File No. HKMS 136-1-90. 64  “News of Old Girls,” News Echo, no. 10 (1938-1939), 33. Hong Kong Public Records Office, File No. HKMS 136-1-91. 65  “News of Old Girls,” News Echo, no. 10 (1938–1939), 30–3. Hong Kong Public Records Office, File No. HKMS 136-1-91.

136 

S. MENG WANG

social work was carried out in connection with imperial youth movements such as the Ministering Children’s League and the Girl Guides, St. Stephen’s charitable activities emphasised a national connection. The purpose of this strand of schooling practice was framed by the European teachers as a means to lift the position of women of China. At St. Stephen’s Speech Day in 1919, for example, the headmistress Miss Middleton-Smith commented upon the various branches of social service performed by the pupils, suggesting that, the pupils were trained to sink themselves in their endeavour to help the women of China, and through them, the Chinese nation itself, to progress […] The time has come now for them to do more independent thinking and not to rely wholly on their teachers as in the past.66

This comment by the European headmistress constructed the welfare of Chinese women as part of a national concern. In contrast with earlier missionary framings of girls’ education in Hong Kong as part of their civilising and evangelical mission in the nineteenth century,67 education for Chinese girls at St. Stephen’s in the interwar period marked a definite shift in training girls to self-organise and lead initiatives in aid of the problems and struggles both in in Hong Kong and in China. Here the nature of the school as a mission learning site managed by the CMS also had a part to play. The extensive network of missionary sites of the CMS in South China was one means that connected the charitable work of St. Stephen’s with the Mainland. This was a distinct feature of the CMS-­ managed schools in Hong Kong where they were part of the CMS South China Mission and, therefore, their philanthropic activities served the dual purposes of both maintaining a local connection and contributing to the broader cause. Additionally, the women’s movement in Republican China (1911–1949) underwrote the founding of Chinese female-led voluntary associations in Hong Kong (a point will be discussed further in the next chapter). The social work performed by St. Stephen’s girls was integrated into this network of Chinese women’s philanthropy. This, in turn, entwined St. Stephen’s community work simultaneously with the missionary agenda of the CMS and the feminist agenda of Chinese women.  “St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, Speech Day,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Jan. 28, 1919, 3.  See Chiu, “‘A Position of Usefulness’.”

66 67

4  TREADING A DIFFERENT PATH: GENDER AND THE LITERARY SPACE… 

137

4.4.1   Educational Work: The Free School for Domestic Servants and Street Children The educational work  – as a specific branch of social service  – run by schoolgirls with connections to St. Stephen’s with a wide spread of spaces in the city. First, within the school, a Free School was set up and run by St. Stephen’s alumnae and pupils in service of domestic servants and street children and was carried out throughout the interwar period (see Fig.  4.6).68 Second, the schoolgirls visited and taught in prison on Sundays.69 Third, the school had a branch of the YWCA and its youth club Wa Kwong club (Light of China) that offered evening classes for domestic servants and factory girls.70 These three strands of educational work St. Stephen’s pupils participated captured the contribution of elite Chinese schoolgirls and voluntary organisations such as the YWCA to women’s education in Hong Kong. For an extended period in colonial history, females had been categorically underrepresented in colonial education.

Fig. 4.6  Children from the Free School of St Stephen's Girls' College in the 1930s. Source: Courtesy of St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, Hong Kong  “St. Stephen’s Girls’ College Speech Day,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Oct. 19, 1938, 8.  “Victoria Diocesan Association, St. Stephen’s Girls’ College,” Hong Kong Daily Press, April 29, 1926, 7. 70  “The Wa Kwong Report for Year 1932,” New Echo, no. 5 (1932), 33. Hong Kong Public Records Office, File No. HKMS 136-1-89. 68 69

138 

S. MENG WANG

While by the interwar period, an increasing number of girls were educated either in state, aided, or private institutions, on the whole, girls only accounted for approximately 30 percent of school children. As the Director of Education, G.P. de Martin, reported in 1930, out of the 62,297 children under instruction in the schools of the colony, 18,136, or 29 percent, were girls. Of these, 14,806 were in vernacular (Chinese-medium) schools, and 3330 were in English schools (English as medium of instruction).71 By ways of offering free education to women and girls who had little or no schooling prior to their employment in homes and industry, elite Chinese schoolgirls became part of the network that worked for the welfare of Chinese women in the colonial society. This educational work also provided schoolgirls with an outlet to exert their social influence. One student, Fung Fung Ting, for example, reflected on her experience of teaching in the Free School: The Free School is one of our best services for society. It is run with the aim of helping poor children to get more knowledge and to be useful to the country […] They were altogether seven teachers and more than sixty students. Time passes quickly, when we look back, we realise how little we have done. But anyway we have tried our best to bring up those poor children, so that they may be useful as they become bigger.72

Here teaching in the Free School was discussed through a narrative of service and usefulness to society. This particular form of learning space – run and managed by schoolgirls – was founded in the context of Chinese women and took a greater interest in the issues and problems of the society. The construction of this new image of women  – both by females’ active participation in social service and by their writing on these activities – conveyed a definition of ‘New Women’ these Chinese females wanted to public to understand. The Free School was part of this new image that reflected the constructed nature of gender, in that schoolgirls ‘both constructs the space that defines her and builds the definition of herself that she wants others to understand’.73 By training the street children to

71  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1930,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports. Hong Kong Government, 9. 72  “Report of the Free School,” New Echo, no. 5 (1932), 32. Hong Kong Public Records Office, File No. HKMS 136-1-89. 73  Tange, Architectural Identities, 79.

4  TREADING A DIFFERENT PATH: GENDER AND THE LITERARY SPACE… 

139

become useful members of the society, the schoolgirls also exercised the usefulness that they themselves sought to achieve. Besides school-led initiatives, the social service of St. Stephen’s constituted part of a transnational network: the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), an ‘organisation by means of which women could step from home to community life and service’.74 As early as 1917, a school branch of the YWCA was formed at St. Stephen’s. The school organiser Miss W. U. Kwok spoke on the training the branch offered in ‘how to organise and carry through work by their [schoolgirls’] own effort’.75 By 1920, the HKYWCA evolved into a branch run by Chinese women that served primarily religious and educational purposes.76 In 1922, the association started to offer literacy class to domestic servants and female factory workers.77 One aspect distinguishing the HKYWCA from other transnational youth associations that recruited schoolgirls in Hong Kong in this period was its emphasis on the national network with the YWCA in China (as early as 1890, the YWCA had started city branches in China), of which HKYWCA was a sub-unit. This national network also shaped the organisation and experience of school branches of the HKYWCA. Between 1925 and 1930, for example, to support the young women’s education campaign launched by the National Committee of the YWCA, the HKYWCA formed Wa Kwong Club (Light of China) for young women in junior and secondary schools, and factories in Hong Kong.78 St. Stephen’s was one of the first schools to establish a branch of Wa Kwong Club.79 By 1932, Wa Kwong Club had a membership of approximately 400 girls under the age of 20 and consisted of 12 different clubs, situated in schools, factories and villages.80 74  “The Y.W.C.A., Dr. Ernest Best Now in Hong Kong,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, April 9, 1930, 3. 75  “St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, Speech Day,” The China Mail, Jan. 28, 1919, 5. 76  “Y.W.C.A., Chinese Women Busy Organising,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Mar. 11, 1920, 1. 77  “The Chinese Y.W.C.A., A Successful Year’s Work,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Mar. 11, 1927, 5. 78  “Y.W.C.A’s work, rapid progress in Hong Kong,” The China Mail, July 15, 1931, 6. 79  “Chinese Women’s Y.W.C.A., Celebration of Twelfth Anniversary,” The China Mail, Mar. 11, 1932, 7. 80  “The Chinese Y.W.C.A., Excellent Social and Educational Work,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Mar. 11, 1933, 6.

140 

S. MENG WANG

The transnational web of women’s activism developed through the YWCA opened up spaces for Chinese schoolgirls to exert their leadership in the service of Chinese women and children in a British colonial society. It also functioned as a space where Hong Kong Chinese females connected with the broader network of active women in China. While the social work at St. Stephen’s was discussed in school magazines and local newspapers through a narrative of changing the social welfare of women as a means of contributing toward the national reconstruction of China, such nationalist sentiment was often absent in the account of those schoolgirls  – from state and other grant-in-aid English girls’ schools  – who engaged in social service in the interwar period. For example, Dorothy Lee (b. 1921), a student of Diocesan Girls’ School, who later worked in social work, suggested it was her readings in school that influenced her career choice: When I was in school, we had for our literature, Dickens’ Oliver Twist. It affected me very much. At that time, I didn’t know Hong Kong had poverty, so many in Sai Ying Pun. You see, you only read, you are not really aware. At the time, I was really not aware of my surroundings. Because you know, we were living in Robinson Road, so far away. Besides, you are not encouraged to go to those places. So Oliver Twist had a terrific impact on me, knowing how hard life can be. That led me to think in what way can I help these people […] So for quite some time before the war, I volunteered to help street sleepers. I had a branch of Girl Guides with me.81

In contrast with the image portrayed in public writings of elite Chinese schoolgirls as engaged and concerned with social affairs, in everyday life, many were actually not ‘really aware’ of the surroundings. The parental discouragement to go to the poverty-stricken part of the town also illustrates that there was a spatial boundary between different social classes living in Hong Kong. However, what was significant in this narrative was Dorothy’s willingness and capacity to subvert this spatial boundary, which reflected a broader shift of gender norms at play. Similarly, albeit by different means, and through a different narrative, the social work of Chinese girls at St. Stephen’s and those of other girls’ schools served a rather similar end. That is, they contributed toward the first wave of Chinese female 81  Dorothy Lee, born in 1921, Hong Kong. Hong Kong Oral History Archives: Collective Memories, Special Collection at Hong Kong University Libraries, access no. 84.

4  TREADING A DIFFERENT PATH: GENDER AND THE LITERARY SPACE… 

141

professionals, activists, and social workers who not only pioneered the career access of women in the interwar period, but also paved the way for future women’s movements on gender issues in Hong Kong.82 4.4.2   Charitable Work: Fundraising Bazaars and Concerts While the educational work functioned as a means of spatial crossing that connected elite Chinese girls at St. Stephen’s with girls from diverse social backgrounds, in the interwar period, St. Stephen’s social work was also carried out in connection with the CMS missionary network in South China. This branch of social work was chiefly performed through fundraising that turned the learning space at St. Stephen’s into a site that drew in the patrons of the CMS and those concerned with social issues in Hong Kong and China. The funds were primarily collected from the prominent Chinese in the colony. This network of charitable funds transfer from Hong Kong to China enabled the Chinese elites to channel their influence through the network of the CMS. Chinese schoolgirls functioned as part of this missionary network where they contributed concert performance and handcrafts. In 1920, for example, through a school concert, St. Stephen’s pupils raised $970 HKD that was sent to the Famine Relief Fund in North China.83 The schoolgirls also raised funds for the Leper Hospital in Pakhoi (a city in South China), and for the Chinese Home Mission to Yunnan (a province in the southwest of China).84 Again in 1925, through a Sale of Work (where students contributed knitted goods and embroidered handcrafts) held in the school, schoolgirls raised a sum of $1200 HKD that was sent to the Ministering Children’s League. Another substantial check was transferred to the local hospitals and to hospitals in Yunnanfu (a city in Yunnan Province) and Pakhoi.85 In the following year, by means of concert and sale of work, over $3000 HKD 82  Pik Wan Wong conducted a study on women’s movement for legal reform in colonial Hong Kong, see Pik Wan Wong, “Negotiating Gender: The Women’s Movement for Legal Reform In Colonial Hong Kong” (PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2000). 83  “Famine Relief, St. Stephen’s Girls Concert,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Dec. 14, 1920, 4. 84  “Hong Kong Schools, St. Stephen’s Girls’ College,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Jan. 31, 1921, 3. 85  “St. Stephen’s Girls School, Successful Sale of Work,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Nov. 17, 1925, 3.

142 

S. MENG WANG

was sent to different charities to help poor schools and hospitals in different parts of China.86 The specific sites included: Ministering Children’s League $1500; Nethersole Hospital $200; Yunnanfu Hospital $150; Yunnanfu School $150; Foochou Cathedral $150; Pakhoi Hospital $120; Chinese Diocesan Fund $100; Door of Hope Mission $100; Industrial School, Kowloon $100; Victoria Home, Kowloon $100; Limechow School $100; St. Mary’s Treat, Blind Home Treat, Amahs’ Treat $100; Boat Mission $50.87

What stood out here was not the act of schoolgirls raising funds, but rather that these funds contributed toward missionary-led medical and educational development in both Hong Kong and China. It made visible the specific sites of progress the CMS initiated. Furthermore, by ways of raising and allocating funds for local hospitals and orphanages, and for schools and hospitals in China, the Chinese girls at St. Stephen’s were kept informed about local and national affairs, particularly in terms of how they impacted the welfare of women and children. Here fundraising interweaved female-led social change with the missionary network and revealed the Chinese schoolgirls’ role in contributing to the development of medical and educational infrastructure in Hong Kong and the Mainland. 4.4.3   War Relief and Medical Work in Connection with Women’s Clubs So far, this section has focused on the educational and fundraising activities carried out by St. Stephen’s schoolgirls. It shows two key transnational networks at play that shaped this female-led social work: the YWCA, and the missionary network of the CMS. This section now turns to the alumnae network of St. Stephen’s as it informed the war relief and medical work of Chinese schoolgirls. This branch of social work started in the late 1930s and was in part a response to the increased war casualties in China as a result of fighting against the Japanese invasion. In contrast with government and other grant-in-aid girls’ English schools that had a multi-­ racial makeup and therefore lacked a coordinated institutional body to 86  “St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, Lady Clementi Presents Cups and Certificates,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Mar. 17, 1926, 8. 87  “Sale of Work, St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, Principal’s Report,” The China Mail, Nov. 27, 1926, 7.

4  TREADING A DIFFERENT PATH: GENDER AND THE LITERARY SPACE… 

143

lead Chinese girls in war relief work, St. Stephen’s was set up for and educated primarily Chinese girls and operated as the liaison centre of Chinese female-led social work in schools. One alumna of St. Stephen’s, Ellen Tsao Li, for example, founded the Hong Kong Chinese Women’s Club (which is still in operation today) in 1938. The Club undertook the care of orphans and refugees and was involved in the relief work of wounded soldiers. It also ran a line of specialised educational work for refugee girls and women by offering training classes in ‘dressing making and the use of sewing machine’.88 This network of women’s relief clubs offered an outlet for Chinese schoolgirls to participate in a wide range of war relief activities. With the increased war casualties pouring in from South China, particularly from Fukien (Fujian) and Kwangtung (Guangdong) (both provinces in South China), St. Stephen’s pupils were helping to make bandages, swabs, hospital suits, and padded coats at the Hong Kong Women’s Medical Association and the Hong Kong Chinese Women’s War Relief Association.89 They were also volunteering at the Women’s Street Sleepers’ Shelter during the winter, and at the Food Center in the old St. Peter’s Church in the summer.90 Here, schoolgirls’ participation in war relief was part of the development of a national network of Chinese women’s associations involved in humanitarian assistance. By 1939, the headmistress Miss Atkins commented on the relief work of past and present pupils, suggesting that, we have now found many more alumnae in Hong Kong busy in relief work of one form or another. While they in the wider sphere of Relief Committees, Medical and Health work, Y.W.C.A social services and in other ways are serving their nation and generation, we in school have been trying to carry into our school life that same ideal of service. In the Free School, in our monthly contributions to the Red Cross work, in the making of bandages, our interest in and subscriptions to the camp schools, we have tried to look beyond the confines of home and school and to enter into the problems of the community in which we live.91

88  “At the Alumnae Reunion by Ellen Tsao Li,” News Echo, no. 10 (1938–1939), 34–8. Hong Kong Public Records Office, File No. HKMS 136-1-91. 89  “School Diary,” News Echo, no. 10 (1938–1939), 5. Hong Kong Public Records Office, File No. HKMS 136-1-91. 90  “St. Stephen’s Girls’ College Speech Day,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Oct. 19, 1938, 8. 91  News Echo, no. 10 (1938–1939), 1. Hong Kong Public Records Office, File No. HKMS 136-1-91.

144 

S. MENG WANG

Here women’s relief work was presented and discussed through a narrative of service. While the political and social changes in China served as a common context where Chinese women took up a greater presence and involvement in public affairs, what made the social work of Chinese girls at St. Stephen’s distinctive was that it was initiated from a British colonial context. And, paradoxically, this branch of social work was one aspect the European teachers and Chinese elites used to mark the educational model at St. Stephen’s. It was a colonial girls’ school situated in a broader national network of Chinese women’s activism. The educational and medical infrastructure in Hong Kong was seriously strained in the late 1930s by the need to cope with the sustained influx of war refugees from the Mainland.92 Just a year before the British colonial government in Hong Kong fought against the Japanese troops and failed (on December 25, 1941), St. Stephen’s pupils were making regular monthly collection to the National Young Men’s Christian Association Emergency Service to soldiers in Central China and also to pay for a teacher in the school at St. Peter’s Soup Kitchen.93 The Chinese women’s relief work in Hong Kong reflected the role of voluntary female-led associations in assisting the national resistance to Japanese invasion in China. This relief work was also in aid of the British colonial state who struggled to provide school, shelter, food, and care for the war refugees.

4.5  Conclusion In school magazines and local newspapers, Chinese schoolgirls and European teachers at St. Stephen’s wrote for specific audiences: the patrons and students of the college and also the English-speaking communities who were daily consumers of local English newspapers. School magazine and newspaper editors might also have edited the school reports before publication and added their own views on the purpose and aim of this college, and on education for Chinese girls in Hong Kong in general. 92  “Annual Report of the Education Department for the Year 1939,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 1. Where it states ‘the continued unsettled condition in China caused by the Sino-Japanese conflict was responsible for a further influx of both Chinese and Europeans, and the maximum enrolment in all classes of schools reached the new record of 118,193, an increase of 14,059 over the enrolment of the previous year, which was itself a record’. 93  “St. Stephen’s Girls’ College Carrying on Its Useful Labours,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Nov. 8, 1940, 8.

4  TREADING A DIFFERENT PATH: GENDER AND THE LITERARY SPACE… 

145

As such, these writings were both a record of the school activities at the time, and a portrait of the dominant gender ideals that shaped and produced these schooling practices. While Chinese girls and European teachers at St. Stephen’s purposefully constructed their school’s success and their involvement in social service through a nationalist discourse that emphasised the capacity of females to lead social change, a read of life histories of Chinese girls from a broader range of schools in the interwar period reveals the diverse motives and outlooks girls had in respect of higher education and professional work. While these writings reveal European women’s educational work at St. Stephen’s, their life outside the school remain largely undiscussed in these sources. These writings thus could be read as a means through which the European female teachers exerted their meaningful existence in a British colony. With the relative absence of personal accounts of their experience in the colonial society in sources such as diary and personal letters, it was hard to assess how these European women truly felt about their employment in Hong Kong. Recently, Cindy Chiu has published two books based on the letters of Maryknoll sisters writing on their missionary work in Hong Kong in the 1920s and 1930s.94 Such sources offer rare glimpses into the everyday encounters and reflections of white professional females in colonial Hong Kong. There was also a disjuncture between the written and oral sources of elite Chinese girls reflecting on their schooling experience in the interwar period. While writings produced by schoolgirls at St. Stephen’s were located in the school magazine, their experiences of a personal nature – as in contrast with the public audience these school writings intended for  – was not found. This chapter has dealt with this source ­challenge by drawing on the oral histories of elite Chinese girls who attended other girls’ schools in the interwar period. By comparing their narrations on higher education, school curriculum, and social work with those in the St. Stephen’s school magazine, the chapter has shown the purposeful construction of the literary space by St. Stephen’s to broadcast a particular image of the kind of Chinese women produced by the college. It might seem incongruous that an elite Chinese girls’ college in a British colony would emphasise explicitly in print media that the college not only supported, but also actively engaged in (through raising funds, 94  Cindy Yik-yi Chiu, The Maryknoll Sisters in Hong Kong, 1921–1969: In Love with the Chinese (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004); Cindy Yik-yi Chu, ed. The Diaries of the Maryknoll Sisters in Hong Kong, 1921-1966 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).

146 

S. MENG WANG

for example) the reconstruction of China. What would appear even more striking was that such nationalist sentiment was found not only in Chinese girls’ writing, but also in the writing and public speeches of European teachers. However, what stood out here was not the acts of Chinese girls raising funds, or offering free education, or visiting hospitals; rather, these funds and undertakings contributed toward female-led medical and educational development in both Hong Kong and China. It made visible the specific sites of progress elite Chinese schoolgirls and women in Hong Kong initiated in the interwar period. The next chapter looks at a specific women’s association in Hong Kong: the Hong Kong Young Women’s Christian Association (HKYWCA). It considers how the association – as the only Chinese women’s organisation in Hong Kong throughout the interwar period95 – engendered new patterns of professional and public engagement for European and Chinese female professionals, including teachers, nurses, and physicians. While this chapter has touched upon the youth branch (Wa Kwong Club) of the HKYWCA which was established at St. Stephen’s, the next chapter situates the discussion on the activities of the association in the context of expanding vocational education for middle-class Chinese girls in the formal schooling system. It examines how the HKYWCA provided an outlet for a new class of Chinese female professionals  – trained in the formal schooling system – to use their field-specific expert knowledge (such as in education and medicine) to develop areas of public life that were their own.

 “Lady Caldecott at Y.W.C.A.,” Hong Kong Daily Press, July. 3, 1936, 7.

95

CHAPTER 5

Lifting Girls: Chinese Women, Vocational Education, and the YWCA in Hong Kong, 1921–1941

In the 1940s, shortly after the end of World War II, Leung Pui Ching (b. 1930), a female factory worker at Hong Shing Weaving Factory (located in Kowloon), attended HKYWCA’s evening school for female workers, which was held from 7pm to 9pm. At the time, Leung was also working from 7am to 7pm every day. Having worked in weaving factories throughout her girlhood, Leung had little formal schooling. After being introduced to the YWCA by her workmate, Leung regularly attended the female workers’ evening school which charged lower tuition fees for the evening course than the day course. The school also provided textbooks of Chinese Model Letter Writing. Afterwards, Leung enrolled herself at the Mong Kok Workers’ Children School and continued to finish her primary school education.1 Literary classes for female factory workers, as a line of educational work for industrial girls offered by HKYWCA, started as early as 1922.2 At the time, Hong Kong was transitioning into an industrial economy that absorbed a wide cluster of working women, from both rural areas and  Leung Pui Ching, born in 1930, retired textile worker. Age at interview 70. Hong Kong Memory Oral History Archive, https://www.hkmemory.hk/collections/oral_history/All_ Items_OH/oha_36/records/index.html#p74325.Accessed May 10, 2022. 2  “The Chinese Y.W.C.A., A Successful Year’s Work,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Mar. 11, 1927, 5. 1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Meng Wang, Space and Everyday Lives of Children in Hong Kong, Global Histories of Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44401-2_5

147

148 

S. MENG WANG

neighbouring provinces. The city witnessed a rapid change in social demography among women. As the census returns in 1931 suggested, concerning the occupations of Chinese females, ‘as is to be expected the largest group of female workers is of those engaged in personal service. They numbered 28,088, or nearly 285 per 1000 of those occupied. 26,590 of these women are in private domestic service and 689 laundry workers […] professional occupations absorbed 2366 women, the majority being teachers, nurses and members of religious bodies […] The main other occupations of women are in the manufacture of rubber boots and shoes, and rattan ware makers.’3 As manufacturing workshops and factories, as well as the expanding network of offices, retail stores and institutions (such as hospitals and schools) mushroomed in the newly provincialised Kowloon Peninsula, new social, cultural, medical, and professional needs of Chinese women emerged, and it was in this context that HKYWCA grew into an important element in the social fabric for elite, middle- and working-class Chinese women. This chapter considers how the HKYWCA – as the only Chinese women’s organisation in Hong Kong throughout the interwar years4 – engendered new patterns of professional and public engagement for European and Chinese female professionals, including teachers, nurses, and physicians. Founded in 1920 for ‘the development of Chinese women along spiritual, mental, physical and social lines’,5 the HKYWCA absorbed and mobilised a wide range of female professionals to support its extensive medical, educational, and social work. The chapter focuses on the educational work the association carried out for industrial girls and new mothers. Concerning the former, the HKYWCA recruited paid and volunteer teachers to offer free literacy class for working-class girls employed in industry and domestic service. The upshot of this line of educational work was that it equipped working-class girls with the skills and knowledge they needed to become effective public actors. It reconfigured the patterns of social engagement of industrial girls, in which they emerged as public actors who set up and run free schools for street children. The educational work with new mothers, on the other hand, overlapped with the eugenic thought prevalent in Hong Kong in the interwar period. By opening up 3  “Report on the Census of the Colony of Hong Kong, 1931,” Hong Kong Sessional Papers, Hong Kong Government, no. 5/1931, 125. 4  “Lady Caldecott at Y.W.C.A.,” Hong Kong Daily Press, July 3, 1936, 7. 5  “Chinese YWCA, First Annual Meeting,” The China Mail, Mar. 12, 1921, 1.

5  LIFTING GIRLS: CHINESE WOMEN, VOCATIONAL EDUCATION… 

149

baby clinics (late changed to the name of Children’s Health Centers) and organising children’s health conferences, the association functioned as an outlet for disseminating scientific methods of childrearing and modern notions of motherhood to the Chinese community. This also produced a new pattern of professional engagement for European and Chinese women physicians where they led the medical reform for children and women in the colony. The chapter is set against the backdrop of expanding vocational education for Chinese girls in interwar Hong Kong. While this period has been recognised as a phase of greater career prospects for Chinese women,6 little attention has been paid to examine how Chinese women arrived on the historical scene as professionals; that is, what vocational training was in place within the formal schooling system for female? And how did the colonial state, missionaries, and voluntary organisations shape the professional possibilities for Chinese women? The area of gender and vocational education also constitutes one of the most neglected topics in the current scholarship on gender and education. As the historian Marie Clarke argues, the gendered history of vocational education has been an overlooked area in the history of education. Existing studies on gender and education tended to focus on ‘primary and secondary schools; the role played by religious orders; the experiences of female teachers […] and ideological influences on curriculum’. Clarke stresses the ‘omission’ of studies on vocational training for girls is significant as such an inquiry offers insights into ‘state policies and priorities for the education of girls, the impact of social class, and national and local circumstances’.7 Historians of education also argue that study in women’s vocational education is important to understand the development of women’s access to work, education, and public life.8 This chapter contributes to the gendered history of vocational education by looking at how industrial and urban transition in interwar Hong Kong engendered a new vision of girls’ vocational education for the colonial Education Department and voluntary organisations. It is particularly interested in the gender and class dynamics within state-provided vocational training.  Chiu, “The Making of Accomplished Women.”  Marie Clarke, “Education for Girls in Ireland: Secondary and Vocational Curricular Provision 1930–1960,” History of Education 45, no. 1 (2016): 79–102. 8  Åsa Broberg, Viveca Lindberg, and Gun-Britt Wärvik, “Women’s Vocational Education 1890–1990  in Finland and Sweden: the Example of Vocational Home Economics Education,” Journal of Vocational Education & Training 73, no. 2 (2021): 217–233. 6 7

150 

S. MENG WANG

Vocational education for Chinese boys expanded in the 1930s in the form of state-funded technical, trade, and industrial schools that connected boys with local engineering and building firms through pre-­ apprenticeship programs. This indeed resonated with the vocational education movement in the transnational context where historians of education have suggested that vocational training in its early days was often led male school officials who hoped to better prepare working-class boys for the industrial workforce.9 However, this chapter shows that vocational education for Chinese girls in state-sponsored schools in interwar Hong Kong, on the other hand, was limited to normal (teacher training) schools, commercial classes, and nursing preparatory courses. This limited scope of vocational training offered by the colonial Education Department for girls produced a narrower career path for middle-class Chinese schoolgirls where they concentrated in teaching, nursing, secretarial, and clerical positions. Professions trained through higher education, such as doctors and engineers, were dominated by elite Chinese girls who had the financial means to pursue university studies. What surfaced here was a class division in professions created by the colonial education system. However, despite this stratified system of vocational education, Chinese girls from varied social classes made the best of this situation. Skills acquired through vocational training allowed Chinese girls to be self-reliant. It thus provided a viable alternative to early marriage. The HKYWCA further provided an outlet whereby these newly trained female professionals – particularly the middle-class girls  – acted as ‘agents of change’ where they worked to address the educational needs of working-class Chinese women in Hong Kong. Another important context this chapter situates in is the transnational wave of women’s activism in the interwar period. As the historian Marie Sandell shows, in the early twentieth century, a class of elite Chinese girls pursued their higher education in the West. Influenced by the women’s movement during their university study, this cohort of highly educated elite Chinese girls started and led women’s organisations upon their return to China.10 The YWCA in China was born in this context. It was led by 9  See Ruby Oram, ““A Superior Kind of Working Woman”: The Contested Meaning of Vocational Education for Girls in Progressive Era Chicago,” The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 20, no. 3 (2021): 392–410. 10  Marie Sandell, “Learning in and from The West: International Students and International Women’s Organisations In The Interwar Period,” History of Education 44, no. 1 (2015), 5–24.

5  LIFTING GIRLS: CHINESE WOMEN, VOCATIONAL EDUCATION… 

151

Chinese women of the elite class who were well-educated and, in most cases, experienced philanthropists.11 The HKYWCA was affiliated with the National Committee of the YWCA in China.12 It was situated in this broader network of Chinese women’s philanthropic movement. The association functioned as a vehicle for social development. Its program reflected how Chinese middle- and upper-class women in Hong Kong interpreted and responded to the economic and social changes of the time.13 While retaining a strong connection with the broader national network of the YWCA, the HKYWCA was distinct in that it operated in a British colony where the Chinese community was the subordinated race. An examination of its activities thus reveals how Chinese women navigated the racial divide in the public domain and led initiatives to uplift the welfare of Chinese community in Hong Kong. As the previous chapter has shown, newspapers and colonial state reports were particularly effective in making visible the participation of European women in the educational and public affairs in Hong Kong. This chapter throws light on how Chinese women  – through their own enterprises – contributed to the educational and medical reform in interwar Hong Kong.

5.1   The Founding of HKYWCA As part of the broader international women’s movement, the YWCA was born in the context of rapid industrialisation in the Western world. In the 1850s, ‘inspired by the evangelical Protestant revivalism that gave rise to the YMCA’, London women philanthropists convened the YWCA to bring wholesome housing and moral guidance to the city’s single, working-­ class women.14 Concern for moral decay of factory girls in newly developed industrial areas was the key focus of the movement in its early decades. The YWCA addressed the middle-class moral anxiety by providing services such as single-sex boarding houses, vocational instruction, employment bureaus, physical education, and holiday camps. It f­ unctioned  Shi, At Home in the World, 1–37.  “Chinese YWCA, First Annual Meeting,” The China Mail, Mar. 12, 1921, 1. 13  Eve Colpus points out how women’s philanthropy was a way of responding to social and cultural changes of a particular ear. See Eve Colpus, Female Philanthropy in the Interwar World: Between Self and Other (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018), 1–30. 14  Amanda L. Izzo, “‘By Love, Serve One Another’: Foreign Mission and the Challenge of World Fellowship in the YWCAs of Japan and Turkey,” Journal of American–East Asian Relations 24, (2017): 347–372. 11 12

152 

S. MENG WANG

as a social network that responded to the accommodation, vocational, and recreational needs of working-class girls and women.15 This service to working-class women notwithstanding, the association embraced a diverse membership structure. From the outset, one of its early founders, Emma Robarts, stated that ‘the several divisions of class, ranging from princesses, the daughters of the middle classes, young wives and mothers, shop women, domestic servants and factory girls, should be encouraged to join’.16 This membership structure also reflects the changing social demography of professional women in England. As the historian Vanessa Heggie suggests, when middle-class women first joined the professional scene in Victorian England, their work was predominantly located in the areas of health and welfare, sanitary reform, and missionary activity. Later, these roles were supplemented with secretarial and administrative work.17 The expansion of industries absorbed a large cluster of working-class women, contributing to a shifting social demography of urban women in England. Shortly after the establishment of the London office, the YWCA reached the shore of the United States. The association offered the first boarding house for female students, teachers, and factory workers in the New York City. In other cities, the YWCA offered vocational training in typewriting and sewing machine operation; employment assistance facilitated thousands of women with finding jobs; and English-as-a-second-language was offered to immigrant women.18 By 1890, the movement had reached China with the first branch of the YWCA being founded in Hangchow.19 A similar economic context contributed to this transplantation of the YWCA to China. With the rise of factories and the sudden influx of women 15  The religious and moral aspects of the YWCA movement has been studied by quite a few scholars. See, for example, Dorothea Browder, “A ‘Christian Solution of the Labour Situation’: How Workingwomen Reshaped the YWCA’s Religious Mission and Politics,” Journal of Women’s History 19, no. 2 (2007): 85–110; Bruce P. Bottorff, “Foundations of Influence: YWCA of Honolulu Structures and the Assertation of Moral Authority, 1900–1927,” Hawaiian Journal of History 52, (2018): 117–154. 16  David Doughan and Peter Gordon, Women, Clubs and Associations in Britain (London: Routledge, 2007), 87. 17   Vanessa Heggie, “Women Doctors and Lady Nurses: Class, Education, and the Professional Victorian Woman,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 89, no. 2 (2015): 267–292. 18  Antoinette J.  Lee, “Supporting Working Women: YWCA Buildings in the National Register of Historic Places,” OAH Magazine of History 12, no. 1 (1997): 5–6. 19  Alison R. Drucker, “The Role of the YWCA in the Development of the Chinese Women’s Movement, 1890-1927,” Social Service Review 53, no. 3 (1979): 421–440.

5  LIFTING GIRLS: CHINESE WOMEN, VOCATIONAL EDUCATION… 

153

and children workers into the industrial centers, a new crop of social needs sprang up, such as the health and housing needs of workers.20 The city associations of the YWCA in China were founded to address these new needs. As the historian Alison Drucker argues, the YWCA thrived in the United States and Britain because it advanced ‘the cause of women by helping them move into new social roles during industrialisation’. The movement was successfully transplanted to China in that it ‘served the same function as to meet the needs of urban Chinese women facing similar socioeconomic transition and crisis’.21 The HKYWCA was also born In an industrial economy that produced new categories of women. These included urban working-class Chinese girls newly employed in manufacture. As early as 1921, the manufacture of hosiery and knitted goods in Yaumati (in Kowloon) and the making of cigarettes at Wanchai (in Hong Kong Island) were carried out chiefly by women. In addition to industrial girls, there was also a cluster of business and professional girls newly recruited in teaching, medicine, nursing, and commerce. As well, the largest employment sector of Chinese females continued to be domestic service.22 Recognising the lack of social network and infrastructure for these new and distinct groups of Chinese females – covering ‘industrial girls’, ‘career girls’,23 and domestic servants, in 1918, a group of six Chinese women convened to discuss an initiative to start a city association of the YWCA in Hong Kong. Later, ‘some teachers, some mothers, and some women from various churches’ formed a pre-­ organisation committee. The committee sought advice from the National General Secretary (of the YWCA in China), Miss Coppock, who was passing through on her way to Canton, to help organise, and, she said, ‘secure a Chinese secretary first, then the National Committee will send a Western secretary’.24 The committee secured a Chinese secretary Miss Shin Tak Hing, who was a former mistress at the Belilios Public School for Chinese

 “The Y.W.C.A. in China,” The China Critic, Nov. 15, 1934.  Drucker, “The Role of the YWCA.” 22  “Report on the Census of the Colony of Hong Kong 1921,” Hong Kong Sessional Papers, Hong Kong Government, no. 12/1921, 164, 216–217. 23  The term ‘career girls’, and ‘industrial girls’ were derived from Katrina Hagen, “From ‘Industrial Girls’ To ‘Career Girls’: Postwar Shifts In Programs For Wage-Earning Women In The Portland YWCA,” Journal of Women’s History 15, no. 3(2003): 204–208. 24  “New premises of the Y.W.C.A., opened by Lady Peel at Bonham Road,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, April 9, 1931, 2. 20 21

154 

S. MENG WANG

Girls.25 The National Committee of the YWCA in China sent a foreign secretary Miss Nellie Elliott (Canadian).26 After this preparatory work, the YWCA in Hong Kong was officially established in April 1920. At the time, there were already city associations of the YWCA organised in Peking and Shanghai, as well as in major trading ports of Tientsin, Canton, Foochow, and Changsha. The student associations of the YWCA in China – branches of the World Student Christian Movement – were attached to some 72 mission and government schools.27 By 1923, the YWCA became a potent factor in the life of modern women in China, eight thousand women, from all parts of China, were members of this organisation.28 Resonating with its transnational organisational model of ‘middle-class volunteers, professional social workers, and working-­class clientele’,29 the HKYWCA in the interwar years served as an effective platform that mobilised a cluster of professional women (both European and Chinese) to address the diverse educational, medical, and social needs of women emerged in industrial economy. A Board of Directors comprising of twelve elected Chinese women, many of whom were married to prominent Chinese businessmen, was responsible for the work of the local branch in Hong Kong (see Fig. 5.1). The first president of the HKYWCA, Mrs. Ma Ying Piu, for example, was the wife of ‘the chairman of the Board of Directors of the Sincere Companies at Hong Kong, Canton, and Shanghai’.30 The chief aim of the association, as stated by general secretary Miss Nellie Elliott in 1921, was ‘the development of Chinese women along spiritual, mental, physical and social lines’. This was carried out by various committees, including religious, educational, social, and membership ones.31 These committees organised devotional meetings, a day school on vocational training, free night schools on literacy, summer holiday camps, a chain of women’s hostels, an employment 25  “Belilios Public School, Annual Prize Distribution,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Feb. 10, 1920, 1. 26  “New premises of the Y.W.C.A., opened by Lady Peel at Bonham Road,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, April 9, 1931, 2. 27  “Y.W.C.A., Chinese Women Busy Organising,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Mar. 11, 1920, 1. 28  “Chinese Women Leaders,” South China Morning Post, Dec. 29, 1923, 10. 29  Margaret A. Spratt, “The Pittsburgh YWCA and Industrial Democracy in the 1920s,” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 59, no. 1 (1992): 5–20. 30  “Chinese Y.W.C.A., Reception of New Members,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Jan. 24, 1927, 6. 31  “Chinese YWCA, First Annual Meeting,” The China Mail, Mar. 12, 1921, 1.

5  LIFTING GIRLS: CHINESE WOMEN, VOCATIONAL EDUCATION… 

155

Fig. 5.1  Members of the first Board of Directors (1920): Front row from left: Lee Poon Gun, Grace Coppock, Ma Fok Hing Tong, Nell E. Elliott, Ma Fok Shui Yu; back row from left: Yung Tam Lok Yin, Wong Tong Chung Ling, Catherine F.  Woo, Kwok Sheung Man, Sin Tak Hing and Mrs Cheung Pui Kau. Source: Courtesy of HKYWCA

bureau, two children’s health centers, and vaccination campaigns.32 This wide range of activities notwithstanding, the focus of this chapter is on the work performed by the educational committee. In particular, the chapter scrutinises how under this committee both Chinese professionals and industrial girls constructed new patterns of public engagement. This concerns first with the emergence of a class of Chinese female professionals, as they were the actors that initiated and sustained this educational work.

5.2   Vocational Education for Chinese Girls in the Formal Schooling System, 1921–1941 Vocational education and professional training emerged as a dominant theme in state and grant-in-aid girls’ schools (that educated a multi-racial, but chiefly Chinese middle-class cohort) in interwar Hong Kong under 32  “Work Done by The Y.W.C.A. in HK, Lady Macgregor’s Radio Address on Practical Service & What It Means,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Feb. 22, 1940, 6.

156 

S. MENG WANG

three interweaving currents. First, as discussed in Chap. 4, the nationalist discourse championed by Chinese intellectuals and elites increasingly framed females’ usefulness in relation to the professional and public domain. This then set in motion a new vision of professional training for Chinese girls that prioritised field-specific expert knowledge, such as medicine. Second, and this is more of a practical concern, that is, the increasing cost of ‘outsourcing’ teaching and medical professionals from Britain to Hong Kong. This necessitated a cohort of locally trained female professionals to fill the various occupational posts in the educational and medical domain. It subsequently gave rise to two lines of state-sponsored vocational training: teacher training courses; and nursing preparation courses. Third, the expansion of the urban economy and the recruitment of females in the commercial sector opened up new sites of professional engagement for Chinese women. This underwrote an additional line of commercial and business classes that taught shorthand, stenography, typewriting, and accounting (further details in Chap. 6). Within the formal schooling system, vocational education for middle-­ class Chinese girls thus prioritised a link with professional roles. In contrast, vocational education offered by the colonial state for Chinese boys covered a much wider spectrum of subjects. In addition to the commercial classes offered alongside school work, the Education Department set up technical and industrial schools in the 1930s that gave rise to a male-­ dominated artisan class. The upshot of this was that it simultaneously contributed to a gender divide within the professional domain (i.e., the feminisation of certain occupations), and a class divide within employed women where the skilled positions tended to be filled by middle-class girls. 5.2.1   Educating a Class of Chinese Female Professionals: Foundational Phase in the 1910s While it gained major resonance in the interwar years, vocational education actually entered the learning scene for middle-class girls in Hong Kong in the pre-World War I period. In the 1910s, training in teaching, nursing, and clerical skills slowly took shape. Together they emerged as the principal lines of vocational education at middle-class girls’ schools. For teaching, there were normal classes conducted both in English and Chinese that prepared English and vernacular (Chinese-medium) Chinese female teachers. These normal classes were run in government secondary schools and the Technical Institute (founded in 1907), which offered

5  LIFTING GIRLS: CHINESE WOMEN, VOCATIONAL EDUCATION… 

157

evening continuation classes. The government girls’ school Belilios Public School for Chinese Girls, for example, run a normal class that trained its own junior teaching staff.33 The same line of normal training for boys was carried out at the government boys’ school Queen’s College (founded for Chinese boys).34 By 1913, the Education Department maintained five normal classes, with the length of the course ranging from one to three years. The Normal School for Pupil Teachers at Queen’s College extended over three years that trained Chinese boys to be teachers at Queen’s College and the District Schools (which were feeders for Queen’s College). At the end of the three-year course, the pupil teachers were then required to take a further three-year course (named the Student Teachers’ Class) in English and Pedagogy at the Technical Institute. In addition, there were Student Teachers’ Classes for women where senior girls at the British (for girls of European, but predominately British descent) and Belilios Public School (for Chinese girls) were appointed student teachers at those schools and took a three-year training course at the Technical Institute. These three normal classes were instructed in English. As well, the Education Department run two vernacular (Chinese-medium) teachers’ classes, one at the Technical Institute that was attended by vernacular masters at government, grant-in-aid, and private schools. The other was for women and was held at the Belilios Public School for the teachers and a few outside students.35 This institutionalisation of normal training for women was in part a response to the increasing demand for female teachers in this period. As the Director of Education E. Irving suggested, ‘the demand for Chinese women teachers is very great’. In 1913, ‘17 girls had left the Belilios Public School to this employment’.36 In 1914, 16 girls trained in the vernacular (Chinese medium) normal class at Belilios Public School graduated and became teachers in Kwangtung (Guangdong) Province and elsewhere.37 The expansion of teacher training further supported the 33  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 10. 34  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 8. 35  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 20. 36  Ibid., 9. 37  “Report of the Director of Education for the year Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 7.

1911,” Hong Kong Government 1910,” Hong Kong Government 1913,” Hong Kong Government

1914,” Hong Kong Government

158 

S. MENG WANG

gradual standardisation of the teaching profession in Hong Kong. In particular, it gave rise to a tightened requirement of the certification and regulation of teaching. In 1914, for example, a new edition of the Grant Code was published requiring that ‘all teachers in schools must be either certificated teachers or students from the Normal Classes of the Technical Institute’.38 Following this new Grant Code, pupil teachers at grant-in-aid schools attended the night classes at the Technical Institute as a compulsory part of their employment. At the grant-in-aid girls’ school the Italian Convent, for instance, in 1915, in order to comply with the requirement of the Education Department, pupil teachers had been attending the Teachers’ Class of the Technical Institute.39 While normal (teacher training) education moved apace with the reform in the colonial schooling system that pushed for a more specialised and standardised teaching force, the professionalisation of nursing in the 1910s constituted another important factor that gave rise to a strand of nursing training within the formal schooling system.40 In 1915, at the Italian Convent, for example, Dr. V. M. Kooh of the Government Civil Hospital gave a course of lectures on first aid to the senior girls. The lectures were delivered under the auspices of the St. John Ambulance Association, and the usual examination was held at the end of the course for the certificate.41 As well, in February 1916, a class was formed in connection with the St. John Ambulance Association at Belilios Public School. Dr. McGregor had been given the lectures, while Miss Esther Kotewall, a former pupil of the school, gave lesson on bandaging. After the course, 17 candidates sat for an examination prepared by Dr. Koch, and all passed. ‘Stimulated by this success’, a course on first aid was added for the senior girls. The Inspector of English Schools E. Ralphs suggested,

 Ibid., 10.  “Italian Convent School, Distribution of Prizes This Afternoon,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Dec. 22, 1915, 4–5. 40  David Kang argues the 1910s was the phase where nurses’ professional identity emerged in Hong Kong. See David Kang, “The Professional Stage: Birth of the Nurses’ Professional Identity and Expansion of Their Roles (1912–1920),” in “Missionaries, Women, and Health Care: History of Nursing in Colonial Hong Kong (1887–1942)” (PhD diss., The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2013), 124–148. 41  “Italian Convent School, Distribution of Prizes This Afternoon,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Dec. 22, 1915, 4–5. 38 39

5  LIFTING GIRLS: CHINESE WOMEN, VOCATIONAL EDUCATION… 

159

the subject has been exceedingly popular, especially with the Chinese pupils, with whom it has been the first introduction to Western methods of dealing with accidents and sickness. Judging by the aptitude displayed in the practical work, they ought to make excellent nurses, should such a field ever be opened up for them.42

Here vocational training in the secondary schooling system was preparatory in nature reflecting a gradual expansion of employment opportunities for middle-class schoolgirls. It also captured the function of formal schooling in shaping the professional future of Chinese girls. The two specific professions examined above, teaching and nursing, were situated in the colonial educational and medical domains that demanded an increasing number of locally trained Chinese female staff. 5.2.2   New Patterns in the 1920s While by the 1920s, Chinese girls had gained access to higher education where the universities in Hong Kong and Mainland officially admitted female students, in practice, the high tuition fees and the limited number of scholarships were factors that constrained middle-class Chinese girls to pursue university degrees. In 1930, for example, the Headmistress at Belilios Public School, Miss Skinner, suggested that, ‘all the students of Class I [final year] are now teaching in the colony. Four of their number matriculated but one only, Ho Sui Hing was able to enter the University through obtaining a Government Scholarship. There being no available scholarship or gift of money for the remaining aspirants who had perforce to relinquish their hopes.’43 The upshot of this was that university-trained professions such as doctors, engineers, and lawyers were primarily attained by Chinese girls from elite families. The middle-class girls, on the other hand, tended to concentrate in teaching and nursing professions. For teaching, a few new patterns emerged in the interwar period. First, while in the 1910s, normal classes were integrated into the secondary schooling system, by the 1920s, there was a gradual tendency to move normal training into the higher education system. This separate strand of normal training in the university was designed to train leadership positions in 42  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1916,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 19. 43  “Prize-giving Day at Belilios Girls’ School,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Jan. 20, 1930, 7.

160 

S. MENG WANG

government schools such as masters and mistresses and enrolled largely male students. This gendered enrolment was related to the fact that throughout the interwar period, the government maintained only one girls’ school for Chinese girls (that is, the Belilios Public School, which had both primary and secondary section), while running seven district primary schools and two secondary schools for Chinese boys. The university teachers’ class was designed to prepare masters for these government boys’ schools.44 Additionally, while the normal classes for leadership positions were male-dominated, the vernacular normal classes that trained Chinese-­ medium teachers were largely attended by females. This created a stratification within the teaching profession where positions with higher pay, such as leadership roles offered in government and grant-in-aid schools, were occupied by Chinese males; Chinese females, on the other hand, were largely employed in the private vernacular sector (schools where the medium of instruction was Chinese). This feminisation in the vernacular teaching profession emerged in the 1920s. In 1922, for example, at the vernacular teachers’ class run by the Technical Institute, women students outnumbered men: there were 64 men and 87 women enrolled in the first term, and 54 men and 74 women in the second term.45 In addition, a normal school specialising in the training of women as vernacular teachers was opened at Belilios Public School.46 Here, shaped by the state provision in the normal training of Chinese female teachers, particularly for the vernacular sector, teaching emerged as a mainstream profession for ­ Chinese women. Parallel to the feminisation of the teaching profession in the 1920s, nursing emerged as another mainstream career choice for Chinese schoolgirls. In this period, the senior Chinese girls undertaking nursing 44  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1922,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 6. 45  “Report of the Director of Education for the year 1921,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 19; the feminisation of the vernacular teachers aggregated in the 1930s. By 1932, in the normal classes run by the Technical Institute, ‘the English classes were attended by 42 teachers of whom 2 were in provided schools. Of these 42, 30 were men and 12 women. The vernacular classes were attended by 184 of whom 51 were men and 133 were women’. “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1932,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 7. 46  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1921,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 16.

5  LIFTING GIRLS: CHINESE WOMEN, VOCATIONAL EDUCATION… 

161

preparatory courses were already integrated into the medical network that supported public health campaigns such as vaccination. For example, in 1921, the Victoria Nursing Division of the St. John Ambulance Brigade at Belilios Public School (formed in 191847) had recruited 31 members of the staff and senior pupils.48 Every year, this Division took duty on various public occasions. In 1927, for example, members of the Division performed 124 vaccinations for women and children at the school and at the YWCA.49 The practical training, as well as other foundational courses of nursing within secondary girls’ schools, was in part a preparation for the nursing workforce at hospitals. In 1928, for example, the headmistress at Belilios Public School, Miss H. F. Skinner, suggested, there were five past pupils of the school working as probationer nurses at the Government Civil Hospital and two past pupils nursing at other hospitals.50 This application of specialised knowledge of nursing in public health campaigns reflected the characteristic of the very notion of ‘profession’ as ‘an occupation essentially concerned with the use of [specialised] and exclusive knowledge in the service of others’.51 The institutionalisation of normal education and nursing training captured the instrumental role of formal schooling in training middle-class girls to acquire expert knowledge. This specialised training became a means through which middle-­ class Chinese girls claimed a presence, in both the professional and public domains. A former student of the Belilios Public School, Molly Chiu (b. 1923), for example, suggested professional life was already a common choice among the college graduates of her time, half of my classmates went out to work in many different fields such as office work in foreign or Chinese companies, government jobs as well as teaching and nursing, which had just begun to recruit female staff. At that time, 47  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1918,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 6. 48  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1921,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 16. 49  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1927,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 17. 50  “Belilios Public School, a Very Satisfactory Year’s Work,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Feb. 25, 1928, 4. 51   J.  George, “Moving with Chinese Opinion: Hong Kong’s Maternity Service, 1881–1941” (PhD diss., University of Sydney, 1992), 23. Cited in David Kang, “Missionaries, Women, and Health Care: History of Nursing in Colonial Hong Kong (1887–1942)” (PhD diss., The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2013), 124.

162 

S. MENG WANG

Queen Mary Hospital had recruited a lot of my seniors in Belilios Public School. During the Japanese occupation, many of them who worked in Queen Mary Hospital went to Chongqing [a city in southwest China] to continue their work as nurse and start studying medicine.52

Upon graduating from Belilios Public School, Molly worked for the government in the Air Raid Precaution Bureau before the outbreak of the Pacific War. In fact, Molly lived in a family of professional women. Her mother was one of the first graduates of the Vernacular Normal School for Women (the classes of which were held at Belilios Public School) and had a few years of teaching experience in the primary section of Belilios Public School. Molly’s elder sister also studied at Belilios Public School before studying at Kwong Wah Hospital at the age of 15 for a four-year nursing training course and later a two-year midwifery course at Tung Wah Eastern Hospital. After qualifying as nurse and midwife, she worked at Tsan Yuk Hospital after the war.53 Professional education within the formal schooling system thus underpinned the spatial crossing of Chinese females into the ‘outer spheres’ of life. The resulting spatial movement from inner to outer, the crossing of boundaries between private and social and public spheres, and ‘in a fundamental sense, the historical enlargement or expansion of women’s space’54 in and through professional employment reflected vocational reform in industrial economy sustained the reimagining and rethinking of women’s usefulness in society. This remaking of women’s place in the professional sphere – particularly their concentration in the teaching profession –, in turn, brought new dynamics into the educational system where Chinese women emerged as a group of the private sector that set up and managed schools. Wong Mo Yan (b. 1924), a retired kindergarten teacher, for example, suggested that both her mother and her grandmother used to run schools. She points out, in those days (1920s), that many women ran private schools. Her mother studied at the Belilios Public School from the age of 10 to 14. After her father passed away, her mother then set up the Sau Fong Girls’ Vocational School at Nathan Road (in Kowloon). The school taught 52  Molly Chiu, born in 1923, Hong Kong. Graduate of Belilios Public School, age at interview 88. Hong Kong Memory Oral History Archive, https://www.hkmemory.hk/collections/oral_history/All_Items_OH/oha_48/records/index.html. Accessed May. 6, 2022. 53  Ibid. 54  Grace S. Fong, “Introduction,” in The Inner Quarters and Beyond: Women Writers from Ming through Qing, eds. Grace S. Fong and Ellen Widmer (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 11.

5  LIFTING GIRLS: CHINESE WOMEN, VOCATIONAL EDUCATION… 

163

embroidery, Chinese painting, weaving and other skills. Later, the school merged with Southwestern College, and was renamed the Southwestern Girls’ College, Kowloon. Wong Mo Yan studied from Primary 5 to junior secondary grades at Southwestern Girls’ College along with one of her elder sisters, where her mother also taught. Concerned that her family ‘might not have enough money to support the tuition fee for university study’, Wong eventually applied for a teacher training school and was admitted by Heep Woh Girls’ Normal School in Macau, while her elder sister went for a nursing course in Guangzhou (Guangdong Province). Reflecting on the career paths of her sisters, Wong Mo Yan suggests one of her elder sisters graduated from Belilios Public School and continued to study commerce. After this, she worked in a bank. The elder sister, who was a nursing student in Guangzhou, went to Singapore.55 Here vocational education not only supported the spatial subversion of Chinese females into the outer sphere, but also allowed Chinese women to form social and professional networks that, in turn, increased their public influence. Just as Åsa Broberg, Viveca Lindberg, and Gun-Britt Wärvik argue, access to education played an important role in enabling women’s participation in the public society.56 The fact that Chinese women through their own initiatives set up and run schools reflected vocational education contributed to the emergence of Chinese women as public actors. Previously occupying a position of margin in the colonial society, Hong Kong Chinese women’s public engagement in the interwar period shows the space of margin can offer ‘one the possibility of radical perspective from which to see and create, to imagine alternatives, new worlds’.57 5.2.3   Industrial, Trade, and Technical Schools for Chinese Boys in the 1930s Within the formal schooling system, vocational education for Chinese girls targeted middle-class schoolgirls and prioritised teaching, nursing, 55  Wong Mo Yan, female, born in 1924, Hong Kong. Retired kindergarten teacher, age at interview 86. Hong Kong Memory Oral History Archive, https://www.hkmemory.hk/collections/oral_history/All_Items_OH/oha_68/records/index.html. Accessed May 6, 2022. 56  Åsa Broberg, Viveca Lindberg, and Gun-Britt Wärvik, “Women’s Vocational Education 1890–1990  in Finland and Sweden: the Example of Vocational Home Economics Education,” Journal of Vocational Education & Training 73, no. 2 (2021): 217–233. 57  bell hooks, “Choosing the Margin as a Space of Radical Openness,” Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media, no. 36 (1989): 15–23, here, 20.

164 

S. MENG WANG

and commercial skills. Vocational training provided by the colonial state for Chinese boys, however, covered a much wider subject range. This gendered division in vocational education emerged in the 1930s when a separate strand of vocational education for Chinese boys in the form of industrial and technical schools were established by the Education Department. One upshot of this wider spectrum of vocational education for boys was that it absorbed male students from various social classes into the colonial schooling system. For example, in 1930, the Salesian Industrial School was founded. The school provided elementary education in conjunction with vocational training for orphans and other poor children. The trades taught included shoe-making, tailoring, printing, and carpentry.58 In addition, in 1933, a Junior Technical School was opened. The school run a four-year course for the pre-apprenticeship training of prospective artisans. 40 boys over the age of eleven were admitted annually.59 Toward the late 1930s this enrollment doubled.60 The principal of the Junior Technical School was not only ‘responsible to the Director of Education for the institution, but also [acted as] his general adviser in all matters connected with the education of industrial workers’.61 This gendered admission in industrial and technical schools produced a class of skilled artisans and craftsmen who were predominantly male. The technical schools founded by the colonial state were staffed by European teachers and were instructed in English. In 1935, a new Trade School was opened that offered courses in engineering and building trades.62 The Junior Technical School and government boys’ schools (such as Queen’s College and the district schools) functioned as feeders for the Trade School.63 By 1936, engineering course became a dominant component at the Junior Technical School, where the laboratory had been further 58  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1930,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 9. 59  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1933,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 17. 60  For example, in 1938, average attendance at the Junior Technical School was 97. “Annual Report of the Education Department for the Year 1938,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 13. 61  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1931,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 13. 62  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1935,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 10. 63  “Annual Report of the Education Department for the Year 1938,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 43.

5  LIFTING GIRLS: CHINESE WOMEN, VOCATIONAL EDUCATION… 

165

equipped with apparatus for experiments on mechanics and heat engines. As well, machine and hand tools for the teaching of building and engineering were purchased from England for the Trade School.64 This system of technical education for Chinese boys supplied a steady stream of apprentice engineers and builders to the dockyard and local engineering companies, such as the Kowloon–Canton Railway, the Dock Companies, and the Royal Naval Yard.65 Here training for Chinese boys in industrial and technical schools reflected how vocational education was shaped by the industrial transition in the interwar period that demanded a cohort of engineers, mechanics, and skilled workers to support industrial expansion. This new vision of vocational education also influenced schoolboys’ own career aspirations and educational paths. Arthur Gomes (b. 1917), a graduate of St. Joseph’s College (a grant-in-aid boys’ school), for example, suggested, …people go to university if they want to become a doctor. If they want to be an engineer they join the shipyard. For mechanical, they join China Lights as an apprentice engineer and you learn, they teach you. They have tutors, they have night class. And you get your degree from either Kowloon Docks, Tai Koo Docks or China Lights and they are very good, you get your qualification that is worth more than a university degree.66

The upshot of this gendered admission in industrial schools was that skilled workers employed in industry were predominantly male, and females largely took up unskilled positions. The gendered landscape of vocational education within the formal schooling system thus first contributed to the feminisation of certain professions such as teaching and nursing. Second, it created a class divide within employed women where the middle-class females were professionally trained through formal schooling, and the working-class females – those lacking any educational support within the formal schooling system – had narrower career choices where they tended to concentrate in unskilled positions. The educational work 64  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1936,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 25. 65  “Annual Report of the Education Department for the Year 1938,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 13. 66  Arthur Gomes, born in 1917, Hong Kong. Hong Kong Oral History Archives: Collective Memories, Special Collection at Hong Kong University Libraries, access no. 47.

166 

S. MENG WANG

carried out by the HKYWCA for industrial girls was an intervention into this neglect of working-class girls in the formal schooling system, as the next section discusses.

5.3   The HKYWCA and the Public Engagement of Female Professionals, 1921–1941 Responding to the social, educational, and medical needs of Chinese women residing in Hong Kong  – both emergent and existing, the HKYWCA functioned simultaneously as an outlet that offered employment opportunities for a new class of Chinese professional women, and a social service center where this cohort of female professionals worked to address these diverse needs of the Chinese community. The association organised a day school on vocational classes, night schools on literacy, mother’s help classes, children’s health conferences and clinics: each helped define a specific area of Chinese women’s public engagement. These domains of professional engagement illuminates, in this period, Chinese women extended their sphere of influence ‘in the family to wider society, not as competing for power and influence with men but as developing areas of public life that were their own’.67 The association made use of the shifts in the colonial schooling system that trained the first-­ generation Chinese female professional teachers, nurses, clerks, and doctors in the colony. It used these professional networks to define both its organisational character and its areas of community service. Engagement with education, healthcare, and child-care, in turn, allowed these female professionals to exercise their expertise and claim a useful presence in public life. 5.3.1   Vocational Education and Literacy Classes Preparation of Chinese girls for the professional and public domain engaged simultaneously the colonial education department and voluntary associations. However, they each served a distinct clientele. Within the formal schooling system, vocational education for girls targeted the middle-­class sector. Vocational classes given by the HKYWCA, while mirroring those provided in secondary girls’ schools, nonetheless offered 67  Sue Innes, “Constructing Women’s Citizenship In The Interwar Period: The Edinburgh Women Citizens’ Association,” Women’s History Review 13, no. 4 (2004): 639.

5  LIFTING GIRLS: CHINESE WOMEN, VOCATIONAL EDUCATION… 

167

qualification opportunities for a much wider clusters of women, and from varied age groups. It thus allowed Chinese women to expand their professional skillsets, and, in some cases, paved ways for women to change their career paths. In 1921, for example, under the educational department (of the HKYWCA), day classes had been conducted on language, vocational training, arts, and physical education. Subjects taught included Chinese, Mandarin, English, home nursing, first aid, needlework, music, drawing, and physical training, with a total enrolment of 156. Of these, home nursing and first aid classes were linked to certification where 15 women succeeded in taking the examination.68 These training classes were in part the HKYWCA’s response to the upward mobility and economic independence of Chinese women.69 In 1923, new vocational training classes in Chinese and foreign cooking methods were added.70 These day classes were taught by a group of both paid and volunteer teachers. In 1927, for example, the educational branch recruited nine volunteer teachers and four paid teachers.71 By 1928, the vocational classes in the day school had expanded to include accounting, whilst the previous lines on nursing and first aid continued. Of the attending 277 students, 22 girls qualified in the St. John’s examination for first-year certificate in first aid and 5 for third-year certificates while 13 received certificates in home nursing. From this group, 20 girls were organised into a division of the St. John Ambulance Brigade.72 Here again the professionalisation of nursing was an important context underpinning the program of vocational training at the HKYWCA. The standardisation of this profession affected the formal schooling system and voluntary women’s organisations alike, reorienting the vocational classes to prioritise scientific training and professional knowledge as pillars in Western traditions of medical care. By the late 1920s, the day classes specialised in offering vocational education to prepare Chinese girls and women for professional employment. The night classes, on the other hand, allowed domestic servants and industrial girls who were employed during the day to learn reading and writing (see Figs. 5.2 and 5.3). By 1930, the four night classes run by the  “Chinese Y.W.C.A., First Annual Meeting,” The China Mail, Mar. 12, 1921, 1.  Also see Daphne Spain, “Voluntary Associations with an Urban Presence,” in How Women Saved the City (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2001), 87–122. 70  “Chinese Y.W.C.A., Annual Meeting,” The China Mail, Mar. 12, 1923, 4. 71  “Chinese Y.W.C.A., A Successful Year’s Work,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Mar. 11, 1927, 5. 72  “Hong Kong Y.W.C.A. Work, The Eighth Annual Report,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Mar. 19, 1928, 13. 68 69

168 

S. MENG WANG

Fig. 5.2  YWCA offered literacy class to female workers, 1922. Source: Courtesy of HKYWCA

HKYWCA had attracted 40 girls who were mostly amahs (Chinese female domestic help), servants, and mui-tsai (Chinese bond-servant girl). The classes were run once a week, and were graded according to a four-year primary course, each with a teacher in charge. In addition, there was a separate literacy class for a group of 50 women and girls (ranging from the age of 14 to 40) who were mainly workers in stocking and candy factories. The teacher for this class was a ‘young woman who had had normal school training and has been working with YWCA for three years’.73 In 1932, the

73  “Night Classes For Girls, Y.W.C.A.  Teaching For Factory Workers,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, May 16, 1930, 4.

5  LIFTING GIRLS: CHINESE WOMEN, VOCATIONAL EDUCATION… 

169

Fig. 5.3  Literacy class to female workers, 1925. Source: Courtesy of HKYWCA

free night school for industrial girls had reached 220 girls.74 Besides literacy, the night classes also taught ‘simple hygiene, handicrafts, domestic science, citizenship and religious education’.75In this period (the 1930s), the HKYWCA also extended its educational work to street children. For example, in 1934, under Miss Leung and four young teachers, a Street Sunday School was started, and 52 children between the ages of 4 and 14 attended the classes.76 This expansion of educational work for Chinese girls and children was supported by the increased recruitment of newly trained teachers into the HKYWCA. The employment of teachers to support the educational provision for factory workers reflected how the HKYWCA responded to the educational and social needs of Chinese girls produced by industrial economy. Recognising the lack of social network and infrastructure for working-­ class girls as they transitioned into their new employment, in 1939, the HKYWCA formulated a plan to establish in the industrial districts of Hong 74  “Chinese Women’s Y.W.C.A., Celebration Of Twelfth Anniversary,” The China Mail, Mar. 11, 1932, 7. 75  “Chinese Y.W.C.A., Annual Meeting Held on Saturday,” South China Morning Post, May 16, 1938, 5. 76  “Educational Progress By Chinese YWCA,” The China Mail, Mar. 12, 1934, 9.

170 

S. MENG WANG

Kong a cultural center for Chinese women factory workers. It was intended that this center would house ‘one day and five night schools, an arts and crafts group for women workers who specialise in handicrafts, a hostel and a creche during the day for the younger children of the married women workers’.77 Yet, what did this educational work for industrial girls lead to? And how did it change the experience and the public status of working-­ class Chinese women? One upshot of these literacy classes with factory workers was that it equipped working-class girls with the knowledge and skills they needed to become publicly active. With it, industrial girls achieved a public presence and claimed new forms of usefulness beyond the factory floors. This network of activism was captured in a public speech made by Lady MacGregor (wife of the Chief Justice Sir Atholl MacGregor, a patroness of the HKYWCA) in 1940, where she suggested, Industrial girls, drawn to the Y.W.C.A. through the services given to them, in turn, develop such appreciation and such leadership that they themselves now have organised street children’s schools and clubs. Industrial girls are the teachers and leaders and all funds for these schools are secured by girls themselves as their service to the community of Hong Kong.78

By creating a social sphere that brought together Chinese women from diverse class and professional backgrounds and by offering continued educational training for factory women and domestic servants, the HKYWCA disseminated new patterns of public engagement to working-class Chinese women. It absorbed industrial girls into the network of women’s activism. While previously social service and charitable work was largely a middle-­ class phenomenon that engaged schoolgirls and professional and home (married and unemployed) women from the middle-class strata,79 the expansion of educational work for Chinese girls and women employed in industry and service – through the HKYWCA – allowed the ideals of community service to permeate into a wider social spectrum. This then expanded the narrow definition of Chinese women’s movement led by the 77  “Chinese Y.W.C.A.  To Help Women Workers,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Mar. 27, 1939, 7. 78  “Work Done by The YWCA in HK, Lady Macgregor’s Radio Address on Practical Service & What It Means,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Feb. 22, 1940, 6. 79  Eva Colpus points out that the idea of service was an integral part of middle-class feminine identity, see Eve Colpus, “Women, Service, and Self-Actualisation in Interwar Britain,” Past and Present, no. 238 (2018): 197–232.

5  LIFTING GIRLS: CHINESE WOMEN, VOCATIONAL EDUCATION… 

171

YWCA as a middle-class experience.80 It encouraged ‘young women’s capacities for self-development’,81 and brought the industrial girls into public light, where they contributed to the education of street children. Furthermore, social work has long been considered as ‘a means of building character’.82 The fact that the educational work with industrial girls transformed this group of working females into active participants in community work also reflected one of the founding aims of the HKYWCA, that is, the moral development of working-class girls.83 5.3.2   Health Education for Mothers and Medical Care for Children The mother’s help class run by the HKYWCA was a direct response to the heightened eugenic concerns in interwar Hong Kong. As Chap. 3 has shown, in the 1920s, the colonial state established a regime of school hygiene inspection where the health of children in government schools was closely monitored, supervised, and documented. Children in grant-in-­ aid schools were also periodically visited by doctors and their health reports were sent to the Education Department. This colonial preoccupation with the health of children in part supported the broader movement of public health where the state deployed a preventative approach. It was against this backdrop that the HKYWCA formulated a branch of educational work that was targeted specifically at the welfare of children. However, the work carried out by the HKYWCA was distinct in that it was guided by an integrated method where the education for mothers, the physical examination of women, girls, and children, and professional training in childcare were all parts of the program. Already in 1921, a course on home making designed to be of special help to new mothers was offered in the day school.84 This class absorbed chiefly middle-class mothers, and amahs 80  Xia Shi discussed the class dynamics within the YWCA, and how it largely absorbed urban middle-class women as members, see Xia Shi, At home in the World: Women and Charity in Late Qing and Early Republican China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018). 81  Eve Colpus, Female Philanthropy in the Interwar World: Between Self and Other (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018), 104. 82  Georgina Brewis, “From Working Parties to Social Work: Middle-Class Girls’ Education and Social Service 1890–1914,” History of Education 38, no. 6 (2009): 761–777. 83  “Chinese YWCA, First Annual Meeting,” The China Mail, Mar. 12, 1921, 1. 84  “Chinese YWCA, First Annual Meeting,” The China Mail, Mar. 12, 1921, 1.

172 

S. MENG WANG

(Chinese female domestic help) who, in most cases, were the primary caregiver of children at home.85 By 1923, the HKYWCA opened its first Baby Clinic where children under two may be brought in every two weeks to be weighed and examined by a doctor.86 In contrast with the hygiene inspection of schoolchildren, the HKYWCA targeted infants and children of pre-school age. By offering Chinese mothers expert advice on childrearing, this line of ‘mothers’ work’ marked the beginning of the spread of scientific methods of childcare to the Chinese community. The fact that children were weighed, measured, and examined, and that a progressive weekly report was kept, suggests that there was a scientific understanding of child health at play. The science-based notion of child growth underlined medical discourses on motherhood and parenting87 that, in turn, shaped the design of mother’s help classes and babies clinic at the HKYWCA. This line of mother’s work also reflected how the HKYWCA responded to local and colonial eugenics concern, while simultaneously promoting international trends in modern, scientific childcare.88 As the president of the association Mrs. Paul S.F. Tso suggests, HKYWCA is concerned with the ‘ultra-modern experiment’ of imparting eugenic knowledge to mothers.89 It is a platform that disseminates knowledge and practices of modern motherhood, childrearing, and birth control. The fact that HKYWCA’s mothers’ help classes mobilised and absorbed a cohort of primarily female European and Chinese nurses and physicians also reflected the gendered nature of the medical profession in the interwar period. As the historian Melissa Kravetz suggests, the concentration of female physicians in the medical service of women and children related to the gendered hierarchy of the medical profession. Upon first entering the field of medicine after World War I, women doctors were pushed by their 85  “Baby Welfare in Hong Kong, Y.W.C.A. Clinic Visited by Lady Peel,” Hong Kong Daily Press, May 24, 1930, 7. 86  “Chinese YWCA, Annual Meeting,” The China Mail, Mar. 12, 1923, 4. 87  For a discussion of the emergence of scientific motherhood in the interwar period, see, for example, Rima D. Apple, Perfect Motherhood: Science and Childrearing in America (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2006). 88  Also see Margaret Mih Tillman, “Mediating Modern Motherhood: The Shanghai YWCA’s “Women’s Work for Women,” 1908–1949,” in Spreading Protestant Modernity: Global Perspectives on the Social Work of the YMCA and YWCA, 1889–1970, eds. Harald Fischer-Tiné, Stefan Huebner, and Ian Tyrrell (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2020), 119–144. 89  “Chinese Y.W.C.A., Lady Caldecott is New Patroness,” South China Morning Post, Nov. 14, 1936, 9.

5  LIFTING GIRLS: CHINESE WOMEN, VOCATIONAL EDUCATION… 

173

male colleagues to the margins of the medical profession ‘where they primarily treated women and children in schools’. However, by initiating medical reform for women and claiming their authority in the medical care of girls and children, women physicians ‘carved out a niche for themselves in a hostile, male-dominated work environment’.90 In Hong Kong, the YWCA functioned as one of the spaces where women doctors exerted their professional influence. The liaison with this professional network of medical workers further transformed the HKYWCA as a key provider of medical service for Chinese children and women in the colony. With the aim to equip Chinese mothers with science-based knowledge on the upbringing of children, in 1924, the HKYWCA organised its first Children’s Health Conference. A cohort of leading physicians, including, for example, Dr. S. To Wong, Dr. Wan Man Kai, Mrs. I. Mitchell, M.D., Dr. Gladys Fraser, and Dr. T. P. Woo, formed the committee. The General Secretary, Miss Nellie Elliott, suggested that the four-day conference (which recorded an average daily attendance of 90) was convened to ‘give parents of the community an opportunity of learning facts with regard to the care of their children’. Professional advice on everyday childrearing tasks was delivered in the form of physical demonstration and lectures. For example, there were exhibitions by physicians on ‘bathing, clothing, and feeding’, as well as lectures on ‘the care of the mother and the child’.91 Through the outlet of the HKYWCA, new methods of childrearing based on the Western paradigm of child-care were disseminated to Chinese mothers. Following the conference, the name of the previous Babies Clinic was changed to the Children’s Health Centre and examined children up to the age of seven. The senior Chinese secretary, Mrs. Yung Yeung Yuk Sin, suggested that the object of the Centre was to ‘keep children well rather than treat those who are ill’.92 This preventative approach to child health resonated with the state approach to school health where emphasis was placed on the early detection and prevention of the spread of disease. Similar to the functions of the school medical officer and school nurse, the HKYWCA recruited doctors (with Dr. Wan Yit Shing being the director of the health 90  Melissa Kravetz, “Finding A Space In Schools: Female Doctors and the Reform of Girls’ Physical Education in Weimar Germany,” Journal of Women’s History 29, no. 1 (2017), 38–62. 91  “For the Baby, Children’s Health Conference at Y.W.C.A.,” The China Mail, Feb. 28, 1924, 1. 92  “The Y.W.C.A.  In Hong Kong, Annual Report,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Mar. 12, 1924, 3.

174 

S. MENG WANG

centers) and well-trained nurses to give Chinese mothers helpful tips and instructions on the rearing of children. In some cases, ‘where it is considered necessary’, a Chinese nurse performed home visits and gave more practical advice.93 Women physicians assisted in the weekly running (the clinic was open every Thursday morning) of the clinic. For example, in 1926, Dr. Victoria Cheung performed medical examinations at the facility for several months.94 An additional course of six lectures on the moral training of children and on the formation of right habits was also part of the health education program at the site.95 The weekly consultations and home visits were the means by which scientific and medical expert knowledge on motherhood intervened in the everyday child-care practices in Chinese homes. Stimulated by the success of the first conference, in November 1927, a second Children’s Health Conference was convened at the HKYWCA headquarters. It was open to ‘any parents who wish to get expert advice from skilled physicians on the care of their children’.96 Over the three-day conference, Dr. (Mrs.) E. M. Minett, medical officer of the School Hygiene Branch, delivered a lecture on ‘Feeding the Child’. Dr. Chau Wei Cheung, president of the Hong Kong Branch of the China Medical Association, lectured on ‘some essentials in child nursing’, whilst Dr. T. P. Woo spoke on ‘common diseases of children and their prevention’. Local physicians, including, for example, Dr. S.  C. Ho (a Chinese member of the Hong Kong Sanitary Board), Dr. C. W. Ho, Dr. S. T. Wong, and Dr. S. N. Chau, performed the medical examinations. The Children’s Health Centres continued their free service to Chinese mothers and children with an average weekly visits of around 40 children.97 By this period (the late 1920s), the HKYWCA also began to play a more prominent role in the matter of women’s health. In March 1928, in connection with the Medical Association, the HKYW and the YMCA organised a one-week health campaign for adults where lectures on ‘personal and home hygiene and public health’, and free vaccinations were delivered. During the campaign, women physicians were in charge of the physical examination for women, 93  “China’s Womanhood, Annual Meeting of The Y.W.C.A.,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Mar. 11, 1926, 2. 94  “Chinese Y.W.C.A., Sixth Annual Meeting,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Mar. 11, 1926, 5. 95  “Aiding Girls, Local Work of the Y.W.C.A.,” The China Mail, Mar. 11, 1926, 9. 96  “Children’s Health Conference at the Chinese Y.W.C.A.,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Nov. 2, 1927, 5. 97  “Children’s Welfare Work, A Three Day’s Campaign, Enterprise of Chinese Y.W.C.A.,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Nov. 8, 1927, 5.

5  LIFTING GIRLS: CHINESE WOMEN, VOCATIONAL EDUCATION… 

175

whilst examinations for men were conducted by members of the Medical Association.98 Here medical professionals, in connection with the HKYWCA, found new platforms to exercise their expertise. Through the connection the HKYWCA had with Chinese women and children, these medical professionals exerted their wider influence in the medicalisation of motherhood. The HKYWCA thus functioned as an outlet where Western-trained physicians reconstructed motherhood and childhood in both a medical and a practical sense. The science-based parenting practices hailed a new phase by the late 1920s where healthy baby contests were organised. For example, in October 1929, Mrs. Ng Shi Sheung, a member of the Education Committee of the HKYWCA, organised a Babies Health Conference at which 130 babies were examined. Following this, ten babies were given prizes for ‘their perfect health’. These physical examinations were carried out by Dr. Martha Hoa Hing, along with a group of local physicians who had assisted in the medical work of the HKYWCA (including, for example, Dr. S.  N. Chau, Dr. T.  C. Wong, Dr. K.  S. Shin).99 By this time, the HKYWCA had become a leading figure in the matter of women and children’s welfare in the colony. Its work had also expanded to supporting public health campaigns. For example, for five months in 1930, the HKYWCA opened a vaccination clinic for the prevention of smallpox. During this period a total of over 900 children were vaccinated by a team of nurses trained and led by Dr. E. M. Minett, divisional surgeon of the Nursing Division of St. John Ambulance Brigade.100 This performance of vaccination as a measure of preventative health service illustrates the contribution of women medical professionals and voluntary organisations in the building of public health in interwar Hong Kong. In the 1930s, while the earlier preoccupation with infant welfare and mothers’ education continued to be the main focus of the medical work carried out by the HKYWCA, new lines also emerged. These included medical examination and health service for girls, work in rural hospitals, and professional training on childrearing which was offered to teachers. During the health campaign week in 1930, for example, health 98  “Health Campaign for Adults, Arranged by Chinese Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A.,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Feb. 28, 1929, 8. 99  “Infant Welfare in Colony, Health Conference at Chinese Y.W.C.A.,” The China Mail, Oct. 28, 1929, 10. 100  “Vaccination Clinics, Y.W.C.A. Closes Season’s Activities,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, April 15, 1930, 12.

176 

S. MENG WANG

examinations for women and girls were performed. This program was led by Mrs. A. L. J. Dovey, M. B., Ch. B, along with Dr. S. M. Chau, Dr. Martha Hoa Hing, and Dr. J. W. Chau. The principal aim of these health examinations was to spread the ‘idea and habit of preventative health measures’.101 By the mid-1930s, the preventative health intervention carried out by the HKYWCA had permeated into the rural areas. In 1934, for example, the HKYWCA Nursing Division of the St. John Ambulance Brigade performed 9870 vaccinations in central Hong Kong, Wanchai (a Chinese working-class neighbourhood), and the New Territories (the rural hinterland).102 The division also assisted in the hospitals in the rural districts of the New Territories.103 The medical work carried out in the rural interior reflected the gradual integration of the rural districts into the colonial public health and medical service system. One resident, Lee Foo (b. 1929), who had grown up in the rural area of Hong Kong, suggested, during the 1930s, it was already common for villagers to get vaccinated against smallpox. All children must get a vaccine from the clinic on Argyle Street after birth. Each vaccine cost three cents. Birth certificate would not be issued unless the child had documental proof of vaccination.104

What was distinct about the medical work performed under the HKYWCA was that it was led by a cohort of European and Chinese women physicians and nurses. The professional engagement with Chinese women and children in the colony became a means by which these women medical professionals claimed an area in public life. As the historian Elizabeth Littell-Lamb argues, in the interwar period, women increasingly used their newly acquired ‘professional expertise to define their authority and businesslike language to defend their involvement in public life’.105 101  “Fight Against Smallpox, Y.W.C.A. Vaccination Clinic Closes,” Hong Kong Daily Press, April 15, 1930, 4. 102  “Educational Progress By Chinese Y.W.C.A.,” The China Mail, Mar. 12, 1934, 9. 103  “Chinese Y.W.C.A., Record Of Social Work In The Colony,” The China Mail, Mar. 11, 1936, 9. 104  Lee Foo, male, born in 1929, Hong Kong. Former Village Headman of Nga Tsin Wai. Age at interview, 83. Hong Kong Memory Oral History Archive, https://www.hkmemory. hk/collections/oral_history/All_Items_OH/oha_92/records/index.html. Accessed on May 6, 2022. 105  Elizabeth Littell-Lamb, “Caught In The Crossfire: Women’s Internationalism And The YWCA Child Labour Campaign In Shanghai, 1921–1925,” Frontier 32, no. 3 (2011): 134–168.

5  LIFTING GIRLS: CHINESE WOMEN, VOCATIONAL EDUCATION… 

177

Medical work provided an outlet where European and Chinese women physicians professionally engaged with Chinese girls, mothers, and children. In addition, in the late 1930s, the HKYWCA started a line of professional training in child-care. In 1936, for example, a three-month training course on child psychology, child development, care of children, games, storytelling etc., as conducted by trained kindergarten teachers as nurse and another who had done some special study in child psychology was added to the day classes. 37 young mothers and teachers attended the class.106 This line of educational work underwrote the spread of science-­ based methods of childrearing in an educational context, which extended the previous focus on the training of mothers in the domestic domain. It also signified the gradual move of childrearing from the domestic context into the educational sphere, namely, the kindergarten.

5.4   Conclusion This chapter argues that the activities of HKYWCA in the interwar years need to be considered in four important contexts. First, the gendered and classed landscape of vocational education for Chinese women within the formal schooling system. This resulted in the concentration of middle-­ class Chinese girls in certain professions such as teaching, nursing, and clerical positions, as well as the systematic neglect of skill training for working-class Chinese women. HKYWCA’s education work with industrial girls is not so much a remedy to the vocational provision in the formal schooling system, as, rather, a complementary component that catered for a much wider social stratum of women. By providing skill training and literacy classes, HKYWCA supported factory women to experiment with new forms of usefulness beyond the factory floors where they set up free schools for street children. Education in this case redefined working-class Chinese women’s access to public life. Second, the rise and growth of women’s organisations in the phase of urban transition in interwar Hong Kong. In this period, as Chinese women increasingly moved into the professional and public life, a social sphere for women emerged in the form of clubs and organisations run by women. These social spaces became an important element that brought together ‘middle-class volunteers, professional social workers, and working-class

 “Chinese YWCA, Record of Social Work in Colony,” The China Mail, Mar. 11, 1936, 9.

106

178 

S. MENG WANG

clientele’.107 In factories, schools, and working-class neighbourhoods, a network of contacts and a social sphere emerged that addressed the medical, social, and professional needs of urban Chinese women who increasingly sought work outside home. This cluster of urban Chinese women included those who came to work in Hong Kong from neighbouring provinces and from the rural hinterland. As the expanding network of offices, retail stores, factories, and institutions absorbed a cluster of clerks, workers, secretaries, nurses, and teachers, who came from all parts of China and many parts of the worlds, HKYWCA provided a social ‘refuge’ and assisted these women. Third, colonial concern about eugenics as this intersected with the modernisation of motherhood and childcare in interwar Hong Kong. As the School Hygiene Branch exercised increased scrutiny over the health of schoolchildren, the HKYWCA devised children’s health centers and conferences that helped disseminate modern and scientific methods of childrearing to the Chinese community. Later, the association also led public health campaigns that served factory girls, women, and the rural children. By running health examinations, vaccinations, hygiene education, and maternal and child health education for Chinese children, girls, and mothers, in both urban neighbourhoods and the rural countryside, the HKYWCA helped integrate the urban and the rural interior into the colonial public health and medical service orbit. As a result, the association helped the circulation of modern parenting advice, and this became an effective means by which the HKYWCA reconstructed motherhood and childhood in both a medical and a practical sense. It promoted the modernisation and the application of scientific childrearing principles to everyday life. Fourth, the transnational circulation of women’s activism of which HKYWCA was a part. Much of the HKYWCA’s activities drew strength from the transnational institutional framework of the YWCA. The association actively recruited professional women from an international pool of educated women. The industrial work with factory women, the educational work with new mothers, and the medical work with urban and rural children all reflected areas of public life of Chinese women. However, they also captured how Chinese women drew upon the institutional model of the YWCA to address local and Hong Kong concerns of the Chinese 107  Margaret A. Spratt, “The Pittsburgh YWCA and Industrial Democracy in the 1920s,” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 59, no. 1 (1992): 5–20.

5  LIFTING GIRLS: CHINESE WOMEN, VOCATIONAL EDUCATION… 

179

community that emerged in the phase of provincialisation and industrialisation. Like the YWCA in other urbanising contexts, the HKYWCA in the interwar period was dealing with an urban demography that was rapidly shifting, ethnically diverse, and highly mobile (in the sense that there was increased everyday mobility between the urban, suburban, and rural districts). This shifting social demography entailed that for the HKYWCA to be successful in serving Chinese women, it had to speak to the distinct needs of the diverse clusters of urban and rural working women. In establishing a medical and social service network and penetrating to factory floors, schools, and working-class districts, the HKYWCA circulated new models of women’s public usefulness. The next chapter moves to the Girl Guide movement. It looks at how Guiding engaged with new ideas of femininity as they interacted with public debates on girls in public affairs and girls in sports. Distinct patterns emerged as a result of this interaction that resulted in a shifting landscape of gender interplay in the interwar period. The chapter shows that, in contrast with formal schooling for middle-class girls that offered schoolgirls specialised training which, in turn, allowed girls to use professional expert knowledge to claim authority in public life, Guiding invoked a discourse of the affective interior of the female gender as nurturer. This had a contradictory effect on the professional training formal schooling accentuated. In the interwar period the training of a new feminine physique in Guiding overlapped with eugenic ideas prevalent in Hong Kong. The colonial preoccupation with the health of children affected formal schooling and Guiding alike and engendered new forms of physical training for girls.

CHAPTER 6

Reimaging the Colonial Space: Femininity and Everyday Life of Girl Guides in Hong Kong, 1921–1941

On April 6, 1922, the Prince of Wales visited Hong Kong on his Far Eastern tour.1 The then 12-year-old Betty Steel, who was a Girl Guide, paraded for the Prince on Murray Parade Ground.2 After the parade, the local Boy Scouts and Girl Guides were invited to the Government House for luncheon where the Prince presented a life-saving medal to a Chinese Boy Scout.3 Molly Chiu (b. 1923) was a Girl Guide at Belilios Public School (a government English girls’ school for Chinese girls) and recalled, ‘every year, the Governor of Hong Kong invited the Girl Guides to the Government House and the Governor’s residence on the Peak to have fun for a day’, and that Guiding was the main extra-curricular activity during her schooldays.4 A Former Guide at Lai Chack Girls’ School (a vernacular (Chinese medium) girls’ school), Leung Yuk Jan (b. 1925) added that during her time as a Guide she had ‘to wear uniform, learn marching, knot

 “Tomorrow’s Royal Visit,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, April 5, 1922, 1.  Betty Steel, Impressions of an upbringing in 1920s Hong Kong. https://gwulo.com/ node/20232/view-pages. Accessed on Nov. 6, 2022. 3  “Preparations to Welcome the Prince,” Hong Kong Daily Press, April 3, 1922, 3. 4  Molly Leung Wai Chiu, born in 1923, Hong Kong. Hong Kong Memory Project: Oral History Archives, https://www.hkmemory.hk/collections/oral_history/All_Items_OH/ oha_48/records/index.html#p48150. Accessed on Nov. 6, 2022. 1 2

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Meng Wang, Space and Everyday Lives of Children in Hong Kong, Global Histories of Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44401-2_6

181

182 

S. MENG WANG

ties and build a lookout terrace’, and she had ‘marched in a large playground near the Ruttonjee Hospital’.5 As these movements grew, Scouting and Guiding mobilised schoolchildren from diverse social backgrounds in public and imperial spaces in interwar Hong Kong. For Guiding, in particular, this movement mobilised schoolgirls as active participants in public affairs. The high visibility of Guides in the imperial social and public service scene exposed the nature of the gender landscape at this historical moment: the spatial crossing of the feminine into the public sphere. This spatial crossing, in turn, reinvented the ways in which the public and imperial spaces were physically experienced and culturally imagined in the everyday lives of European and Chinese schoolgirls. This chapter considers how Girl Guiding interacted with English girls’ schools (schools for middle-class girls where the medium of instruction was English). These schools taught girls, mostly of at least part Chinese descent. Distinct patterns emerged as a result of this interaction that resulted in a shifting landscape of gender interplay in the interwar period. This chapter shows that English girls’ schools diversified their curriculum to incorporate a separate branch of professional training to prepare schoolgirls for professional careers after college, such as teaching and clerical jobs. However, Guiding, on the other hand, invented ‘alternate’ performative spaces for ‘useful’ skills, particularly those that related to newly feminised nurturing roles such as nursing.6 This ‘alternate’ spatiality to perform conventional ‘feminine’ qualities of serving and compassionate care was enacted under the social service branch of Guiding.7 This program then reached out to females who were in rural areas and those who belonged to the working-class: groups of females outside the privileged realms of the colonial ambit. The chapter argues that a key distinction emerged between English girls’ schools and Guiding as each responded differently to the public debate of women in the professional and the public realm. The schooling 5  Leung Yuk Jan, born in 1925, Hong Kong. Hong Kong Memory Project: Oral History Archives, https://www.hkmemory.hk/collections/oral_history/All_Items_OH/oha_38/ records/index.html#p74300. Accessed on Nov. 6, 2022. 6  For a discussion on the gendered history of the medical profession, see, for example, Katherine Magyarody, “Odd Woman, Odd Girls: Reconsidering How Girls Can Help to Build Up the Empire: The Handbook for Girl Guides and Early Guiding Practices, 1909–1918,” Children’s Literature Association Quarterly 41, no. 3 (2016): 238–262. 7  “Girl Guides,” The China Mail, Mar. 11, 1925, 6.

6  REIMAGING THE COLONIAL SPACE: FEMININITY AND EVERYDAY LIFE… 

183

site – situated as part of an integrated and broader educational system – actively connected middle-class girls with higher education and professional training, thus contributing toward the emergence of the first-generation of female Chinese professionals in Hong Kong. In contrast, Guiding’s social service branch brought participating schoolgirls into the public space. The alternative narratives created by Guiding emphasised the affective interior of the female gender as nurturer, rather than as custodians of professional expert knowledge that middle-class girls’ schools began to garner. Guiding thus had a ‘de-professionalising’ effect on the education of middle-class Chinese girls. In addition to the debate of girls in public life, this chapter also focuses on another site of ‘transgression’ which concerns middle-class girls in sport. In interwar Hong Kong, the female body was a key site through which the social construct of sport and what was ‘appropriate’ for women was transformed. While the expanding learning and employment opportunities indicated a shifting social view of the intellectual competence of the ‘feminine mind’,8 the increasing presence of women in leisure and sports, on the other hand, illuminated a new cultural definition of the physical capability of the feminine body. In this period, the body became an important spatiality for the reconstruction of femininity where the earlier narrow focus on healthy feminine demeanour in English girls’ schools was replaced by a broader physical training regime that incorporated racing and team and competitive sports.9 Guiding took this fit, resilient, and agile feminine body to a new ground in ‘showcasing’ it in imperial celebrations such as Empire Day and Jubilee Rally.10 Through these public exposures, the fit feminine body was rebranded as an imperial spectacle. Distinct to Hong Kong, Guiding functioned as a social space where girls from diverse social and cultural backgrounds ‘intermingled’. While earlier members were recruited directly from urban English girls’ schools, and hence exhibited a multi-racial middle-class character (illustrative of the racial and class makeup of these learning sites), the movement broadened its membership in the 1930s to include a wide spectrum of girls from rural and working-class domains, English and vernacular (where the 8  For a discussion on the historical view of the intellectual capability of the feminine mind, see Ruth Watts, Women in Science: A Social and Cultural History (New York: Routledge, 2013). 9  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1932,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 13. 10  “Girl Guides Beat Scouts at Marching, Large Crowd Witness Very Impressive Display,” The Hong Kong Mail, May. 9, 1935, 7.

184 

S. MENG WANG

medium of instruction was Chinese) girls’ schools, orphanages, hospitals, and sanatoria.11 This changing geography and membership structure of Guiding also reflected the movement’s cultural function to bridge new ideas and forms of femininity to the diverse spaces and communities in which European and Chinese girls resided.

6.1   Theorising Femininity This chapter historicises the feminine body as a spatial body in that it sees the social and cultural connotations of femininity associate the female body with particular sites and spaces that are deemed ‘suitable’ for the female gender. Rather than approaching femininity as an ‘object’ with a tangible essence, the chapter examines it as a sociocultural ‘sign’, or ‘act’ that changes over time, and through the body.12 This ‘sign’ is produced in the enactment and performance of gender. It is an ‘effect’ generated through ‘bodily gestures, movements, and enactments of various kinds’, that create, in Judith Butler’s words, an ‘illusion of an abiding gendered self’.13 Butler’s assertion on gender as ‘performative’ acknowledges both the mundane and subversive bodily act that inscribes gender on the surface of the body and the historical conditions that give these performances meaning.14 Seen in this light, femininity functions as the ‘stylised act’15 fitted to the contours of the social circumstances and practices of a time. These social circumstances also operate as the ‘historical conditions of possibility’16 that allow space for change, for alternate experiences.

11  “Girl Guides Movement, Mrs. Southorn’s Interesting Broadcast Address Last Night,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Feb. 4, 1932, 7. 12  This approach is inspired by the work of Mary Jane Kehily. See Mary Jane Kehily, “Bodies In and Out of Place: Schooling and the Production of Gender Identities Through Embodied Experience,” in Handbook of Children and Youth Studies, eds. Johanna Wyn and Helen Cahill (New York: Springer, 2015), 217–229. 13  Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (London: Routledge, 1990), 140. 14  Butler, Gender Trouble, 190. 15  Judith Butler, “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory,” Theatre journal 40, no. 4 (1988): 519. 16  Butler asserts the body’s living and acting is conditioned by the infrastructural and environmental constraints. See Judith Butler, Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015), 64–65.

6  REIMAGING THE COLONIAL SPACE: FEMININITY AND EVERYDAY LIFE… 

185

6.2  English Girls’ Schools for Middle-Class Chinese Girls, 1890–1921 6.2.1   State and Voluntary Efforts English girls’ schools as a separate strand of schooling in Hong Kong emerged in the late nineteenth century in the context of rising state concern about English education for the middle-class Chinese girls in the colony. Up until the 1890s, apart from the private effort of home tutoring, Chinese girls from respectable families seeking an English or Anglo-­ Chinese education were not properly catered for by the education system, or, as the Inspector of Schools E. J. Eitel suggested, ‘they practically have no school to go to’.17 This was partly owing to the fact that the sole provider of girls’ formal schooling in this period, the missions, devoted their efforts primarily to the care of destitute Chinese girls. Eitel proposed the establishment of a government English girls’ school – run on the same line as the Central School for Boys (founded in 1862).18 The proposal led to the opening of the Central School for Girls (later renamed as Belilios Public School for Chinese Girls) on March 1, 1890, that marked the systematic involvement of the colonial state in girls’ education. The curriculum at this school followed the public schools in England, subjects taught included reading, arithmetic, English composition, grammar and analysis, geography, map drawing, history, and needlework.19 By the turn of the century, in addition to missionary and state involvement (who had targeted the underprivileged and the middle-class girls in the colony), girls’ education was further textured by the growing interest the Chinese elites took in the education of their daughters.20 In 1901, the Chinese elites petitioned the colonial state to establish upper-class English schools for their sons and daughters, stating that the English education offered by the state was insufficient and undesirable in its ‘intermingling of students from all social classes.’21 The request to use public funds for  The Hong Kong Government Gazette, Hong Kong Government, Mar. 30, 1889, 245.   “Proposal for Girls’ School, 1889,” Hong Kong Sessional Papers, Hong Kong Government, no. 18/89, 275–279. 19  “Report of the Government Central School for Girls for 1891,” Hong Kong Sessional Papers, Hong Kong Government, no.4/92, 135–136. 20  Pomfret, Youth and Empire, 209–243. 21  “A Petition for the Establishment of a High School for Chinese”’ Appendix A, in ‘Report of the Committee on Education, 1902’, Hong Kong Sessional Papers, Hong Kong Government, no. 14/ 1902, 399–408. 17 18

186 

S. MENG WANG

the setting up of such exclusive institutions was rejected by the secretary of state for the colonies.22 The Chinese elites then approached the Church Missionary Society (the CMS). In collaboration with the CMS, in 1903, St. Stephen’s College (for boys) was founded, and in 1906, St. Stephen’s Girls’ College also came into existence (as Chap. 4 has discussed).23 6.2.2   The Multiracial Makeup of Urban English Girls’ Schools In this period (1900s–1920s), the growing interest the Chinese elites took in the matter of education also contributed to the increased presence of Chinese girls in grant-in-aid English girls’ schools, such as the Diocesan Girls’ School (founded by the Anglican Church in 1860 for the care of girls of mixed parentage, later had a multi-racial admission),24 the French Convent (founded by Sisters of St. Paul de Chartres in 1847 for European children, later had a multi-racial admission),25 and the Italian Convent (founded by the Canossian Sisters of Charity in 1860, pupils being chiefly Chinese and Portuguese).26 At the Italian Convent School, for example, the Rev. Mother suggested, more and more are the Chinese becoming alive to the necessity of female education along western lines, and the marked success of Chinese girls in this school may be regarded as a very satisfactory evidence that the Italian Convent takes its place among the contributory factors towards the advancement of western education among the Chinese in Hong Kong.27

By the early 1920s, these principal English girls’ schools all had a multiracial admission. At the French Convent, for example, Betty Steel recalled during her school years there were ‘English, French, Chinese, Portuguese, Scottish, Siamese, Parsee, Spanish, German, American, and Eurasian’

 Chiu, “The Making of Accomplished Women.”  Ibid. 24  “Diocesan Girls’ School, Lady Caldecott Distributes Prizes,” The China Mail, Jan. 16, 1937, 4. 25  “French Convent School, Prize Distribution,” The China Mail, Jan. 31, 1917, 4. 26  “Italian Convent Prize Giving,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Feb. 28, 1933, 7. 27  “Italian Convent, School Prize Day,” The China Mail, Feb. 11, 1925, 4. 22 23

6  REIMAGING THE COLONIAL SPACE: FEMININITY AND EVERYDAY LIFE… 

187

girls.28 In addition, at the Diocesan Girls’ School, a former student, Jean English, suggested, the school was quite multiracial, with white Russians and Germans, French, Spanish and Portuguese, Filipinos and Greeks, Parsees, Japanese and Danes and of course heaps of Chinese girls and just a smattering of English.29

Molly Chiu described a similar makeup at the government English girls’ school Belilios Public School: when I was in secondary school [at Belilios Public School], some of my classmates were not Chinese and some were of mixed race and could speak Cantonese fluently. All the classmates got along very well. Outside the class, everyone would chat and chase each other for fun.30

Here the multi-racial makeup of the urban English girls’ schools reflected the social character of a racially diverse urban middle class in interwar Hong Kong. The curriculums at these English girls’ schools also set them apart from the vernacular (Chinese-medium) girls’ schools in its emphasis on feminine accomplishments – captured in the master of fine arts, namely ‘music, drawing, and fancy needlework’.31 This inculcation of refined femininity, as the historian Marjorie Theobald argues, produced a form of feminine aesthetic  – ‘women at the piano’  – where femininity became a performance that intimately connected with the cultural life of the urban middle class.32 This gendered curriculum also reflected an imperial ethic that saw ‘empire as a space in which cultured femininity was a dominant force to ensure the right class of women could be in place to domesticate and civilise the colony’.33 In its foundational years in Hong 28  Betty Steel, Betty Steel’s Diary: Impression of an up-bring in 1920s Hong Kong. https:// gwulo.com/node/20284. Accessed on Nov. 6, 2019. 29  Jean English, A Vanished World: My Memories (publication for private circulation), 22–23, cited in Chiu, “The Making of Accomplished Women”. 30  Molly Leung Wai Chiu, Hong Kong Memory Project: Oral History Archives. https:// www.hkmemory.hk/collections/oral_history/All_Items_OH/oha_48/records/index. html#p48150. Accessed on Nov. 6, 2019. 31  “French Convent School, Distribution of Prizes,” The China Mail, Dec. 22, 1912, 7. 32  Marjorie Theobald, Knowing Women: Origins of Women’s Education in Nineteenth-­ Century Australia (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 27. 33  Lisa Chilton, “A New Class of Women for The Colonies: The Imperial Colonist and the Construction of Empire,” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 31, no. 2 (2003): 36–56.

188 

S. MENG WANG

Kong, Guiding recruited members directly from these urban English girls’ schools. Rather than discarding this form of ‘refined femininity’, Guiding rebranded and expanded these feminine accomplishments for alternate purposes such as fundraising and entertainment that legitimised Guides’ presence in a range of social service and imperial spaces.34

6.3   The Origin and Growth of Guiding in Hong Kong, 1921–1941 6.3.1   An Urban Middle-Class Phenomenon in the 1920s The Girl Guide movement  – as a counterpart of the Boy Scouts  – was officially started in England in 1909 by Boy Scouts’ founder and imperial war hero Robert Baden-Powell, in a landscape of fear and frustration among the middle and upper classes regarding the blurring gender ideals.35 Its initial purpose was to reinforce ‘appropriate’ gender norms and ‘reorient’ girls to be ‘efficient women citizens, good home-keepers and mothers’.36 The outbreak of World War I opened up new spaces for Guides to perform their trained ‘character, handicraft, service for others, health and hygiene’ in the outer sphere.37 By 1915, news of Guides’ active participation in the war relief scene travelled to Hong Kong as the local newspaper The China Mail reported on the growth of the movement in the British empire, praising its ‘usefulness’ in inculcating a sense of service.38 In the following year, Miss Day, a keen believer and active worker in the movement, arrived in Hong Kong from Home and started two companies similar to those in England in connection with one British school (Victoria British School, for European children only) and the Kowloon Young Women’s Christian Association (Kowloon YWCA). In an early ‘recruitment’ meeting, Miss Day corrected the public anxiety for the movement in ‘inspiring girls to be boyish and the military drill was not suitable for them’, stating that drill was used as a means of installing discipline which  “Girl Guides, Kowloon Dance Success,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Nov. 11, 1926, 1.  Kristine Alexander, Guiding Modern Girls: Girlhood, Empire, and Internationalism In the 1920s and 1930s (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2017), 4. 36  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1923,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 27. 37  “Girl Guide,” The China Mail, Jan. 6, 1915, 5. 38  Ibid. 34 35

6  REIMAGING THE COLONIAL SPACE: FEMININITY AND EVERYDAY LIFE… 

189

was essential to proper training. Miss Day further explained the ‘comprehensive’ program Guiding offered, including: work of the home, cookery, housekeeping, first aid, home nursing, dress making, care of children, physical development, Swedish drill, the laws of health, life-saving, out-of-door games, woodcarving, camping, swimming, cycling, natural history, map reading and discipline.39

Unlike in other British colonial centres, where Guiding started out and was sustained though voluntaries bodies, such as missionaries and the YWCA,40 in Hong Kong, the movement acquired an imperial leadership from 1920 when Lady Stubbs (the wife of Governor Sir Reginald Stubbs) accepted the Commissionership.41 In February 1921, under this imperial leadership, Guiding – as an instituted movement  – officially started in Hong Kong. In the first year, its membership reached 130, with 100 Guides (girls over eleven) enrolled in five companies, and one pack of 30 Brownies (girls under eleven).42 Early members were recruited directly from the principal urban English girls’ schools, and hence exhibited a multi-racial middle-class character. In 1922, at the Italian Convent (multi-racial admission), for example, at the invitation of Lady Stubbs, 30 pupils availed themselves of the opportunity to join the Girl Guides under the leadership of Miss Price (troop Guider).43 By 1923, there were Guide companies attached to Kowloon British School (a co-ed government school for European children), the Diocesan Girls’ School (multi-racial admission), Wanchai Wesleyan Church, Garrison School (for European children), and the Italian Convent.44 In 1926, pupils at Belilios Public School expressed a wish that the school should become identified with the Girl Guide Movement, and three members of the staff 39  “Girl Guides, the Movement Progressing in Hong Kong,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Feb. 17, 1916, 4. 40  See Carey A. Watt, “The Promise of ‘Character’ and the Spectre of Sedition: The Boy Scout Movement and Colonial Consternation in India, 1908–1921,” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 22, no. 2 (1999): 37–62. 41  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1920,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 10. 42  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1921,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 8. 43  “Italian Convent School,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Jan. 25, 1922, 7. 44  “Our Girl Guides and Brownies, the Growth of the Local Division,” Hong Kong Daily Press, April 16, 1923, 5.

190 

S. MENG WANG

together with two former pupils trained as officers with this end in view.45 In the same year, seven Chinese school teachers were admitted as Guiders.46 By January 1927, the Belilios Public School company was formed under the leadership of Mrs. Cressy and Miss Lopes.47 6.3.2   Expanding Geography and Membership to Rural and Working-Class Girls in the 1930s Over the following decade, the expansion of schooling provision for rural and urban working-class girls in the colony48 also created opportunities for the Girl Guide Movement to penetrate into the diverse class sectors within the colonial society. Started out as a multi-racial middle-class youth movement, by the 1930s, the movement broadened to include members from orphanages and vernacular (Chinese-medium) girls’ schools. In 1932, for example, there were Guiding branches at Victoria Home and Orphanages (a grant-in-aid school founded in 1888 by Rev J. B. Ost and Mrs. Ost for the education of Chinese girls, whether orphans or otherwise, and for the reception and rescue of destitute girls49), St. Paul’s College for Girls (a grant-in-aid school founded in 1915 by Miss Lam Woo and a group of St. Paul’s Church members to provide a Chinese education to Chinese girls50), Mui Fong School (a private vernacular school founded in 1918 by Ms. Ng Mun Chee for the education of Chinese girls51), St. Mary’s Convent School (a grant-in-aid school found in 1900 by the Institute of the Canossian Daughters of Charity for Portuguese girls, later had a

45  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1926,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports. Hong Kong Government, 15. 46  “Hong Kong Girl Guides, Welcome the Chinese Recruits,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Sep. 25, 1926, 1. 47  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1927,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 17. 48  “Annual Report of the Education Department of Hong Kong for 1939,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 18. 49  “Women, Clubs and Associations in Britain Victoria Home and Orphanage, Presentation of Prizes,” The China Mail, Jan. 24, 1889, 3. 50  “New College Site: Extension of St. Paul’s Girls’ College,” The China Mail, June 8, 1925, 11. 51  “Inauguration Special Issue of Mui Fong Girls’ Secondary School, 1934.” Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong Library.

6  REIMAGING THE COLONIAL SPACE: FEMININITY AND EVERYDAY LIFE… 

191

multiracial admission52), Central British School (a co-ed government school for European children53), Belilios Public School, the Italian Convent, and the Diocesan Girls’ School.54 Recruiting Guides from this diverse range of schooling establishments became an important means for Guiding to retain its vitality. In the words of the Chief Commissioner Mrs. Southorn (wife of Governor Thomas Southorn), the movement has consolidated considerably during the past year. We welcome heartily the formation of the new Chinese companies and we hope that many Chinese girls will join the training class so that they may qualify to assist in forming new companies and pack. It is only through the whole-­ hearted cooperation of Chinese women and girls that we can make the movement far-reaching in the colony. The Chinese Guide can convey to her sisters the true meaning and aims of Guiding.55

With this emphasis on multiculturalism, Guiding’s membership reached 330  in the early 1930s, among which there were ‘English, Chinese, Portuguese, American, Norwegian, German, French and Dutch Guides’ (see Fig. 6.1).56 By the late 1930s, Guiding had penetrated into the rural hinterland of Hong Kong. In 1938, connected with the schools on Hong Kong Island, there were five companies (87 members) of Guides and four packs of Brownies (69 members). In Kowloon and the New Territories (the rural interior of Hong Kong), the corresponding figures were six companies (121) of Guides and three packs (72) Brownies. The major difficulty hindering the further expansion of the movement was finding more officers, and this had been a constant struggle since its beginning.57

52  The school became a grant-in-aid school in 1904. School history in “St. Mary’s School,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Dec. 23, 1911, 5. 53  Former Kowloon British School, opened in 1902. “Report of the Inspector of Schools for the Year 1902,” Hong Kong Sessional Papers, Hong Kong Government, no. 4/1903, 14. 54  “Report of the Director of Education for the year 1932,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 9. 55  “The Girl Guide Movement,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Jan. 23, 1930, 7. 56  “Girl Guides Movement, Mrs. Southorn’s Interesting Broadcast Address Last Night,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Feb. 4, 1932, 7. 57  “Annual Report of the Education Department of Hong Kong for 1938,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 17.

192 

S. MENG WANG

Fig. 6.1  Hong Kong Girl Guides in the 1930s. Source: Courtesy of Hong Kong Public Records Office

6.4  Usefulness in the Domestic and Public Sphere: A New Spatiality for the ‘Feminine Instinct of Service’ Across the British empire, the interwar period was one in which the culturally imagined divide between the domestic and public sphere was reconfigured by the new spaces opened up for women. As Kristine Alexander shows, even in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, the expanding possibilities for young women in leisure, employment, and higher education had begun to frustrate the urban middle and upper classes: they lamented that girls were drifting away from domesticity into pleasure and autonomy.58 This cultural landscape – reflecting a shifting code of femininity – presented a paradox for schools and youth organisations. In interwar Hong Kong, at the English girls’ schools, on the one hand, the middle-­ class accomplishment curriculum branding ‘refined femininity’ lingered on, particularly as many middle- and upper-class Chinese merchants valued this strand of learning. On the other hand, professional training and science subjects entered the learning scene, and proved to be popular. In  Alexander, Guiding Modern Girls, 5.

58

6  REIMAGING THE COLONIAL SPACE: FEMININITY AND EVERYDAY LIFE… 

193

a schooling context, the shifting gender dynamics thus resulted in an expansion – rather than replacement – of earlier focuses on arts subjects. In Guiding, instead of merely ‘holding on’ to the conventionally feminine pursuits of ‘work of the home’, the movement devised new performative spaces for these ‘feminine’ skills. The historian Susan H. Swetnam depicted this new spatiality Guiding invented for conventional feminine qualities as ‘a careful dance between reinforcing the socially acceptable norms of a particular time and place and inviting girls to imagine lives beyond such constraints’.59 This new spatiality – underlined by the idea of ‘serving and compassionate care’ in the outer sphere – entailed the dissemination of health and hygiene knowledge to the public, and the performance of ‘affective and emotion work’ in carceral and healing spaces such as the prison where Guides taught reading and gardening to female inmates; the hospitals where Guides visited the sick and ‘cheered up the children there’; and war relief associations where Guides assisted in medical supplies.60 By devising new performative spaces for these ‘desirable’ feminine skills, Guiding offered alternative ways for schoolgirls  – from diverse social and cultural backgrounds – to experience and to ‘reimagine’ the previous male-dominated public sphere. 6.4.1   The Shifting Frame of Femininity and Schooling Practice in Hong Kong, 1921–1941 In contrast with the nineteenth century, when schooling practices in Hong Kong were shaped by the dominant Victorian gender ideals that associated the feminine body with the domestic scene,61 the interwar period was a phase of rapid urban transition that saw the first-generation female professionals entering the work scene.62 This new spatiality – the profession – denoted alternative forms and expressions of femininities that connected with the newly reconfigured spheres of work. This changing landscape of gender also textured schooling practices at urban girls’ schools. By the early 1920s, an integrated educational system emerged that connected 59  Susan H. Swetnam, “Look Wider Still: The Subversive Nature of Girl Scouting in the 1950s,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 37, no. 1 (2016): 90–114. 60  “Girl Guides, Annual Report of Association,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Nov. 10, 1936, 5; “Annual Meeting of Hong Kong Girl Guides’ Association,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Nov. 28, 1939, 5. 61  Chiu, “‘A Position of Usefulness.’” 62  Chiu, “The Making of Accomplished Women.”

194 

S. MENG WANG

schoolgirls with higher education and professional training. Hong Kong University officially admitted female students in 1921; thereafter, girls at secondary level started to sit for matriculation examination.63 With this complete academic pathway now made available to schoolgirls, government and grant-in-aid English girls’ schools – acting as the primary feeders for universities  – also adapted their curriculum to prepare girls for the professional possibilities after college. In the different strands of girls’ schools, the pace of adopting curricular change, however, was uneven. In elite English girls’ schools, such as the Church Missionary Society-sponsored St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, there was a gradual decline in the training of traditional home skills, and an increasing emphasis on science subjects. The college was one of the first girls’ schools in the colony to offer physics and chemistry in addition to botany and biology as the science subjects for Chinese girls.64 In the urban English girls’ schools that catered for the middle-class clientele, in addition to home skills and the accomplishments curriculum, an emerging strand of professional training chiefly run on the lines of clerical and nursing skills entered the learning scene. At the Italian Convent, for example, as early as 1915, complementing the subjects prescribed by the syllabus, the school offered private lessons in Portuguese, Italian and French, typewriting and shorthand, as well as painting and drawing. Many pupils attended these private classes, and there was evidence that typewriting and stenography were becoming increasingly popular.65 In 1916, a course of lectures in first aid was offered under the assistance of the St. John’s Ambulance Association, and the usual examination was held at the end of the course for the certificate.66 By 1919, the school reported that ‘stenography had become an attractive subject of study with the girls in the higher classes, probably because of its commercial value (when added to a practical knowledge of typewriting) after the girls left school’.67 In 1920, no less than 144 Pitman’s shorthand certificates were issued from England to

 “St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, Speech Day,” The China Mail, Jan. 19, 1922, 8.  “Prospectus of St Stephen’s Girls’ College and Fairlea School, 1934,” Hong Kong Public Records Office, File No., HKMS 138/1/151, 6. 65  “Italian Convent School, Distribution of Prizes This Afternoon,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Dec. 22, 1915, 4–5. 66  “Italian Convent School,” The China Mail, Dec. 22, 1916, 4. 67  “Shorthand, Italian Convent School Results,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Sep. 8, 1919, 4. 63 64

6  REIMAGING THE COLONIAL SPACE: FEMININITY AND EVERYDAY LIFE… 

195

scholars attending the shorthand classes.68 As well, at the French Convent (multi-racial admission), shorthand was introduced as an evening class.69 At the Diocesan Girls’ School (multi-racial admission), lectures in nursing and first aid were also offered. In 1922, for example, 23 girls passed the Home Nursing examination in connection with the St. John’s Ambulance Association.70 Here as economic transitions opened up possibilities for females to pursue professional careers, school life at secondary level also became increasingly diversified, with girls trailing their own ambitions and paths. As Molly Chiu suggested, in the 1930s: Belilios Public School did not offer family education for women. There were more sports activities than education on family care. Students there gave priority to study as preparation for future employment. At that time, many of my classmates quitted school to get married, but there were also some who planned to get into university.71

These competing ideas on the pursued spaces of the feminine, either home- or profession- oriented, reflected how the interwar period was characterised by the ‘multiple and contradictory meanings’ attached to gender.72 These multiplicities shaped and influenced the way in which girls lived their daily lives and their learning outcomes. In Butler’s words, the multiplicities functioned as the historical ‘conditions of possibility’ that allowed space for change.73 The ‘change’ referred here denoted both the social and practical status of women. Regarding the former, Butler asserts, the social understanding of gender undergoes drastic changes when ‘women first enter a profession or gain certain rights, or are reconceived in legal or political discourse in significantly new ways’.74 This changing 68  “Italian Convent School, Annual Report and Prize List,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Jan. 19, 1920, 4. 69  “French Convent School, Distribution of Prizes,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Feb. 1, 1912, 5. 70  “Prize Day, Diocesan Girls’ School,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Feb. 13, 1922, 3. 71  Molly Leung Wai Chiu, Hong Kong Memory Project: Oral History Archives. https:// www.hkmemory.hk/collections/oral_history/All_Items_OH/oha_48/records/index. html#p48150. Accessed on Nov. 6, 2022. 72  Joan Wallach Scott, Gender and the Politics of History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 25. 73  Butler, Gender Trouble, 190. 74  Butler, “Performative acts and gender constitution,” 524.

196 

S. MENG WANG

­ ender dynamics in society further shapes the spatial practice of the female g body in everyday life. Commenting on the spatiality of the gendered body, Henri Lefebvre suggests women’s social status is intimately connected with their symbolic and practical status: ‘indeed, these two aspects are inseparable as far as spatiality is concerned’.75 Women’s presence in the previous male-dominated professions, and a range of cultural, recreational, and social spaces in interwar Hong Kong reflected a changing spatiality – textured by the factor of race and social class – of the female body. 6.4.2   Usefulness and the Affective Interior of Guides: Social Work in the Public Sphere When Guiding started in Hong Kong, it entered this dynamic gender scene where middle- and upper-class schoolgirls were exploring the possibilities of their agentic work outside the domestic sphere. The movement promised a comprehensive package of new experiences, including cooking classes, nature study, rambles, first aid and sick nursing lectures, folk dancing, and handicraft, together with many social meetings.76 For skill training in particular, while Guiding’s program coincided with many that were already on offer through schools, one key distinction was that instead of using these trainings to prepare girls for professional futures, Guiding invented new cultural meanings to the ‘desirable’ feminine skills and constructed an ‘affective’ dimension of ‘happiness and fun’ to ‘being useful’.77 This rebranding of conventional skills in a new narrative tactically reinvented the movement so that it appealed to both the ‘conservative’ middle-­class parents who feared their daughters losing ‘femininity’ and also the urban girls who were eager to try new things and have fun.78 Betty Steel recalled her excitement of learning the ‘new and unusual’ things: At this time [1921] the Girl Guide Movement began in Hong Kong. Mrs. Porri, the energetic wife of the Methodist Church parson, the Reverend Clouston Porri, organised the first troop to be raised in the colony – ours.  Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 248.  “The Girl Guide Movement in the Colony, to the editor of the ‘China Mail’,” The China Mail, Nov. 23, 1926, 6. 77  “Empire Day in Hong Kong, Celebration by Boy Scouts and Girl Guides,” Hong Kong Daily Press, May 25, 1932, 7. 78  “Girl Guides Movement, Mrs. Southorn’s Interesting Broadcast Address Last Night,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Feb. 4, 1932, 7. 75 76

6  REIMAGING THE COLONIAL SPACE: FEMININITY AND EVERYDAY LIFE… 

197

The Porris lived on Morrison Hill and our meetings were held in their garden, or if it rained in their house. We were known as the 1st Wanchai Girl Guides. Mrs. Porri was Captain. I joined with school friends Nancy McEwen, Marjorie Hansen, Ruby Chue and Daphne Nicol among others. We learned first aid, bandaging; and to drill, to track, to signal by morse and semaphore, to tie sailors' knots, and many other new and unusual things. We were immensely proud of our blue uniforms, and our hats, stripes, badges and Girl Guides belts. I was leader of the Forgetmenot Patrol, a strange flower to choose in a land where there were no forgetmenots! 79

Here Guiding appealed to urban girls for its promise of new experiences while simultaneously allowing space for both schoolgirls and European women to take up leadership roles. This capacity to self-­organise and lead initiatives ‘provided the girls with opportunities to get out on their own, to be independent, to develop a close friendship with their schoolmates […] and to know their city’.80 More importantly, it legitimised Guides’ presence in the public sphere and contributed toward a new cultural geography of girlhood. This new spatiality was underlined by the idea of ‘serving’ in the outer sphere. In 1922, for example, several lectures in first aid were offered for Guides at Wanchai where Dr. Hickling gave a special course on ‘artificial respiration’ and ‘how to save the apparently drowned.’81 In the same year, the Wanchai Wesleyan Church Guides gave a public demonstration of the procedures of life-saving in the case of drowning.82 This dissemination of health knowledge and emergency response to a public audience reflected a wider geography where Guides’ performance of useful skills took place. By the late 1920s, Guiding’s social work extended to new spatiality including prisons and hospitals. In 1928, for example, Miss Woo, herself a Guide, in conjunction with Miss Atkins and Miss Hazelnut, had carried on prison work where they taught various forms of needlework and raffia

79  Betty Steel, Betty Steel’s Diary: Impression of an up-bring in 1920s Hong Kong. https:// gwulo.com/node/20284. Accessed on Nov. 6, 2022. 80  Chu, The Maryknoll Sisters in Hong Kong, 45. 81  “Our Girl Guides and Brownies, the Growth of the Local Division,” Hong Kong Daily Press, April 16, 1923, 5. 82  “Girl Guides and Brownies, an Enjoyable Entertainment,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Dec. 1, 1922, 6.

198 

S. MENG WANG

work, reading and writing, and pot gardening to female inmates.83 One woman told Miss Hazelnut that ‘the coming of these ladies had made all the difference to their lives’.84 In the 1930s, Dr. G.R.  Nash, who had assisted in the first aid and sick nursing course for Guides, suggested that Chinese, or Chinese-speaking Guides, might visit the Chinese hospitals to cheer up the children there by teaching them games, singing, etc. Mrs. Herklots immediately took up the matter with her company and, with the cooperation of the parents of the Guides, Lieut. Miss Chan and two patrol leaders made weekly visits the Tung Wah hospital (a Chinese philanthropic hospital).85 In the late 1930s, when the Pacific War broke out, the Chinese Guides worked in connection with the International Red Cross to offer assistance in hospital supplies.86 Here Guides’ performance of ‘meaningful’ work in the carceral and healing spaces had an explicit ‘affective’ dimension that reflected a gendered division of emotion work.87 The emphasis on Guides to be ‘helpful, happy, and cheering under all circumstances’88 depicted the emotional demand Guiding put on girls to inspire ‘optimism and happiness’.89 This ‘emotion work’, while drawing upon a ‘conservative’ view of femininity that associated the females with the ‘feminine’ instincts of caring and serving, nonetheless mobilised girls to lead initiatives that allowed them to ‘know their city’. This new spatiality of serving illustrated the ‘constraints’ and ‘conventions’ of what was deemed culturally ‘desirable’ in the female gender functioned as the very means that sustained the performance of this ‘desirable’ femininity in ‘alternate’ spaces. As Butler asserts, ­‘constraint 83  “Girl Guides, Annual Report Shows Brownie Increase,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Nov. 15, 1928, 10. 84  “The Girl Guide, Hong Kong Association Report,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Nov.15, 1928, 4. 85  “Girl Guides, Annual Report of Association,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Nov. 10, 1936, 5. 86  “Annual Meeting of Hong Kong Girl Guides’ Association,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Nov. 28, 1939, 5. 87  For a discussion on gender and emotion work, see Kristine Alexander, “Agency and emotion work,” Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures 7, no. 2 (2015): 120–128. 88  “Our Girl Guides and Brownies, the Growth of the Local Division,” Hong Kong Daily Press, April 16, 1923, 5. 89  At the Maryknoll Convent School, the school’s Girl Guides regularly visited patients and crippled children at Lai Chi Kok Hospital. A Sister said these activities were specially designed to provided ‘opportunities for enjoying optimism and happiness’. In Chu, The Maryknoll Sisters in Hong Kong, 46.

6  REIMAGING THE COLONIAL SPACE: FEMININITY AND EVERYDAY LIFE… 

199

is not necessarily that which sets a limit to performativity; constraint is, rather, that which impels and sustains performativity’.90 Just as ‘constraint’ was a social and cultural product of its time, the performance of gender conditioned upon it also varied in time and place. In addition to introducing Guides to the philanthropic scene, the social service branch of Guiding also expanded through the growth of membership. In 1932, for example, Guiding started an extension branch, which included ‘Ranger (girls over fifteen) and Guide companies and Brownie packs in hospitals and sanatoria, in homes and schools for cripples, for the blind and deaf, and for mentally defective’. Therein, the Colony Commissioner Mrs. Southorn modified Guiding’s program to suit the circumstances of these children ‘who feel themselves cut off from their active normal sisters and they are taught handicrafts, if in poor circumstances, which enable them to earn money’. Camps for visual- and hearing-­ impaired Guides had also been held, and letters in braille were sent to blind girls living at home.91 As well, in 1938, a new Guide company was opened at the Taipo Rural Home.92 Here through the broadening of membership to include Chinese Guides from diverse social backgrounds in the 1930s, Guiding opened up spaces for a wider spectrum of Chinese girls to participate in social service and to perform meaningful work in the war relief scene. As Katherine Magyarody asserts, Guiding allowed girls to ‘reimagine what is possible […] when searching for lives outside existing definitions of what was possible for women’.93 In interwar Hong Kong, Guiding brought new experiences to schoolgirls of varied social and cultural backgrounds not through considerable modifications of its training programs to suit a particular sub-­ group, but, rather, through the broadening of its membership. The idea was to penetrate into wider geographies of rural and working-class neighbourhoods as a means to sustain Guiding’s vitality in the colony and also to bridge new forms of girlhood to Chinese girls. This cultural function of Guiding to bridge new possibilities of femininity and girlhood to Chinese girls – urban and rural alike – was a distinct feature of the movement in Hong Kong. As Kristine Alexander shows, in  Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter (New York: Routledge, 2011), 60.  “Girl Guides Movement, Mrs. Southorn’s Interesting Broadcast Address Last Night,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Feb. 4, 1932, 7. 92  “Annual Meeting of Hong Kong Girl Guides’ Association,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Nov. 28, 1939, 5. 93  Magyarody, “Odd Woman, Odd Girls.” 90 91

200 

S. MENG WANG

interwar India and Canada, Guiding’s feminine brand of training for citizenship and social service was modified to accommodate the class and racial diversity within the movement,94 which to certain extent intensified, rather than rectified social divisions. As well, in interwar South Africa, Tammy Proctor shows that, in Scouting and Guiding, ‘each race, each class, each sex, each religion needed a program tailored to meet its needs’.95 In Hong Kong, Guiding created a new social space where girls from diverse racial and class backgrounds ‘intermingled’. Through the social service branch Guiding also reinvented the ways in which the public space was experienced and culturally imagined in the everyday lives of schoolgirls.

6.5   Feminine Physique in the Sporting and Outdoor Scene Rather than inventing new forms of femininity, Guiding’s social service branch created new performative spaces for the ‘feminine’ instincts of serving and compassionate care.96 This new spatiality stretched from the domestic sphere – traditionally seen as the performative spaces to which these ‘feminine’ skills of caring were attached. In addition to inscribing new cultural meanings and new spatiality to ‘conventional’ feminine qualities, Guiding contributed toward the creation of a new feminine physique: one that associated the feminine body with the sporting and outdoor scene. As Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska shows, post-World War I, the body was a key site for the construction of femininity. A modern, actively cultivated body functioned as an important element of women’s liberation, along with political emancipation, greater gender equality, and expanding employment opportunities.97 In addition, the historian Charlotte MacDonald stresses, in the decades between the 1920s and 1930s, the active and sporting female body became ‘a prime signifier of modernity, a 94  Kristine Alexander, “The Girl Guide Movement and Imperial Internationalism During the 1920s and 1930s,” The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 2, no. 1 (2009): 37–63. 95  Tammy M Proctor, “‘A Separate Path’: Scouting and Guiding in Interwar South Africa,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 42, no. 3 (2000): 605–631. 96  “Girl Guides,” The China Mail, Mar. 11, 1925, 6. 97  Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, “The Making of a Modern Female Body: beauty, health and fitness in interwar Britain,” Women’s History Review 20, no. 2 (2011): 299–317; also see Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Managing the Body: Beauty, Health, and Fitness in Britain, 1880–1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).

6  REIMAGING THE COLONIAL SPACE: FEMININITY AND EVERYDAY LIFE… 

201

marker of the disjuncture of this period from what had gone before’.98 In city and countryside, keep-fit exercises and outdoor pursuits such as camping, hiking and cycling were among the most conspicuous forms of interwar modernity.99 This ‘explosive’ interest in health and fitness was indeed an empire-wide movement that intimately connected with the destructive emotional effects of World War I. The interwar period, in turn, was considered a phase of ‘reconstruction’. As Ana Carden-Coyne argues, the interwar decades were powerfully consumed by the project of reconstructing empire through the body. Sport and physical culture were both remedial and regenerative that sought to heal actually and symbolically the broken bodies, and also a ‘wounded empire’, of the war years.100 In a schooling context, the development of physical education and sports had an earlier origin that coincided with wider movements for imperial efficiency arguments that emanated from Edwardian Britain.101 Enacted through Guiding, the imperial mentalities of eugenics further underlined the public display of the fit feminine physique as an imperial spectacle.102 6.5.1   Feminine Physique and the Sporting Scene in English Girls’ Schools, 1901–1941 The female body in sport has been a historically contested phenomenon. As Patricia Vertinsky argues, of all school subjects, physical education (PE), with its central focus on the body, has been most strongly influenced by the social understanding of gender attached to each sex. Traditionally, the activities offered to girls emphasised cooperation over competition, restricted their space, reduced their speed, and constrained their bodies. Femininity was constructed by accentuating ‘sociability, health, and beauty functions that focused not on skilled or competitive performance but on 98  Charlotte Macdonald, “Body and Self: Learning to be Modern in 1920s–1930s Britain,” Women’s History Review 22, no. 2 (2013): 267–279. 99  Ibid. Also see, Charlotte Macdonald, Strong, Beautiful and Modern: National Fitness in Britain, New Zealand, Australia and Canada, 1935–1960 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2013). 100  Ana Carden-Coyne, Reconstructing the Body: Classicism, Modernism, and the First World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 101  See Watt, “The Promise of ‘Character.’” 102  For a discussion on the intersection of imperial mentalities of eugenics, femininity, and youth movements, see, for example, Marion E.P. de Ras, Body, Femininity and Nationalism: Girls in the German Youth Movement 1900–1934 (New York: Routledge, 2012). For a discussion on the development of the eugenics ideas in the British world, see, in particular, Bashford and Levine, eds. The Oxford Handbook of The History of Eugenics.

202 

S. MENG WANG

womanly play and the body as a reproductive machine and sexual object’.103 Sheila Scraton, focusing on the body in physical training, also suggests sport as a gendered phenomenon where desirable femininity functioned to emphasise appearance and control, and desirable masculinity highlighted physical strength and aggression.104 In colonial Hong Kong, from the late nineteenth and well into the early twentieth century, physical education for Chinese and European girls was discussed in the state education reports through a discourse that emphasised the function of PE and sport as a site to improve the physique and carriage of the female body. At Belilios Public School, for example, the headmistress Miss Bateman suggested in 1910 that, ‘classes in physical drill were started in September […] The drill seemed to do good, as an improvement in carriage was noticeable, and among the Chinese girls there were fewer rounded shoulders and narrow chests.’105 In addition, at Kowloon British School (a co-ed government school for European children), the Director of Education E. Irving suggested, physical education was carried on ‘under the best condition, the result is already apparent in the upright carriage and healthy appearance of the pupils’.106 By the 1920s, physical education at urban girls’ schools expanded these earlier focuses on healthy feminine demeanor to include competitive and team sports such as racing and ball games. This expansion of physical education affected European and Chinese girls alike, and through a broader training regime, the feminine body took on new forms associated with qualities such as resilience, agility, and cooperation emphasised in team sports.107 The performative spaces of this new bodily practice featured the outdoor, and often beyond the individual school compound. At the Italian Convent, for example, by 1921, races and outdoor games had been set up for schoolgirls in the Convent’s garden. Day pupils also took part annually 103  Patricia Vertinsky, “Reclaiming Space, Revisioning the Body: The Quest for Gender-­ Sensitive Physical Education,” Quest 44, no. 3 (1992): 373–396. 104  Sheila Scraton, Shaping Up to Womanhood: Gender and Girls’ Physical Education (Buckingham: Open University, 1992). 105  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1910,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 16. 106  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1921,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 14. 107  This depiction of the desired qualities of female body in sports was offered by games mistress Miss Westcott at St. Stephen’s Girls’ College in the school’s magazine, News Echo, no. 8 (1936), 36–39. Hong Kong Public Records Office, File No.: HKMS 136-1-90.

6  REIMAGING THE COLONIAL SPACE: FEMININITY AND EVERYDAY LIFE… 

203

in the race at the athletic sports in Happy Valley held under St. Joseph’s College Old Boys’ Association.108 At Central British school (a co-ed government school for European children) and the Diocesan Girls’ School, hockey teams were formed, inside and outside matches were frequently organised. Additional team sports such as netball and tennis were becoming increasingly popular at the principal girls’ schools.109 By the 1930s, sport became a highly regulated site at secondary schools where the colonial state standardised the PE curriculum.110 At girls’ schools, physical training had been modernised with different gymnastic traditions.111 In the newly built sporting spaces, including, for example, gymnasium and tennis courts, the female body was disciplined, scrutinised, and transformed into a modern ideal of the feminine. As the Inspectors of English Schools A.R. Sutherland and A. O. Brawn suggested in 1933, ‘Chinese girls are now very keen on modern physical training and have even adopted “shorts” for use in the gymnasium.’112 By 1938, through the intervention of the colonial state, all girls in government and grant-in-aid schools received a minimum of one hour’s physical education each week. Netball was recorded as ‘the most popular game’ (see Fig. 6.2). An interschool league was formed to promote this game, and in 1938 this was won by the Belilios Public School.113 6.5.2   Fit Feminine Physique as an Imperial Spectacle, 1921–1941 This body training regime at girls’ schools was mirrored in Guiding where drill, racing, and ball games were organised. While many of these activities exhibited a similar character to PE in a schooling context; one key distinction, however, was that Guiding functioned as an inclusive social space  “Italian Convent, Annual Report,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, 23. Feb, 1921, 2.  “Diocesan Girls, Work Reviewed at Prize Distribution,” The China Mail, Mar. 15, 1926, 2. 110  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1936,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 6. 111  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1931,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 9. 112  “Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1933,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 16. 113  “Annual Report of the Education Department of Hong Kong for 1938,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports. Hong Kong Government, 14. 108 109

204 

S. MENG WANG

Fig. 6.2  Netball team at St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, 1936–1937. Source: Courtesy of St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, Hong Kong

where Guides from different school branches came together and performed the ‘fit feminine physique’ to an imperial or public audience. In April 1922, for example, sports and games among the four Guide companies and five Brownie packs took place at the Government House. Among those present were H.R.E. the Governor, Major-General Sir John Fowler and Lady Fowler, the Hon. E. A. Irving (Director of Education) and Mrs. Irving and the Hon. Mr. Claud Severn.114 This exposure to imperial audiences increased Guides’ public visibility, and through which ‘they appeared to have lost that shyness which was so noticeable when they made their first visit to the Government House’.115 In the following years, Guides functioned as active agents in raising public awareness of healthy living and bodily fitness. In 1925, for example, 114  “Farewell to Lady Stubbs, Girl Guides Gathering,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, April 20, 1922, 2. 115  “Our Girl Guides and Brownies, the Growth of the Local Division,” Hong Kong Daily Press, April 16, 1923, 5.

6  REIMAGING THE COLONIAL SPACE: FEMININITY AND EVERYDAY LIFE… 

205

a display was given by Guides and Brownies at the Helena May Institute (for the care of women, and opened in 1916 by Governor Sir Francis Henry May and his wife Helena May). The program was varied including signal drill, enrolment with color knot tying, and ambulance and stretcher drill.116 By then, the portrait of the feminine body as fit and disciplined became intimately intertwined with the broader imperial project that branded a multicultural and ‘reviving’ British empire.117 On Armistice Day in 1926, for example, Guides were for the first time represented at the cenotaph, side by side with the regular forces. One unique item in the ceremony was the laying of the Guides’ wreath on the cenotaph by one Chinese and one English guide (Miss Kotewall and Mrs. Remington) – ‘a token of the comradeship existing between the girls of both nations’.118 This ‘inclusive’ view of the British empire further extended to the sporting and social events Guiding organised. In 1928, for example, a tennis tournament for Guides was arranged by Miss Marybud Hancock. The players included girls from varied racial backgrounds. All officers or Guides over 18 years of age playing for their company were handicapped.119 Furthermore, with an imperial leadership, Guides were frequent guests at the Government House and the Governor’s Residence. These imperial spaces functioned as another performative site of fitness where Guides engaged in parade, games, and racing. In 1932, for example, nearly five hundred Boy Scouts and Girl Guides attended a tea party at Mountain Lodge (governor’s residence) at the invitation of the Governor Sir William Peel, who was the Chief Scout of Hong Kong, and Lady Peel, who was the Colony’s Chief Guide. The afternoon started with a parade by Scouts and Guides. After tea, ‘all troops, packs, and companies indulged in their own games’. For many boys and girls, ‘it was the first time they had been to the

116   “Girl Guide Display, Entertainment at Helena May Institute,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Mar. 9, 1925, 5. 117  Fiona Skillen showed the physical training of girls in schools and youth organisations in interwar Britain was underpinned by an imperial emphasis that connected the health of youth with the strength of the British empire. See Fiona Skillen, Women, Sport and Modernity in Interwar Britain (Bern: Peter Lang AG International Academic Publishers, 2013). 118  “Girl Guides at the Cenotaph, Armistice Day Ceremony,” Hong Kong Daily Press, Nov. 13, 1926, 1. 119  “Girl Guides, Presentation to Lady Stuart Taylor,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Sep. 27, 1928, 3.

206 

S. MENG WANG

Peak [European Reserved Residential District, where Mountain Lodge was situated in]’.120 Here the female body in sports, games, marching, and parade, or, more broadly, ‘in motion’, created, in Butler’s words, a new ‘style of the flesh’.121 The performance of these ‘styles’ generated new forms of femininity. These styles emerged at a time when the imperial imperative of eugenics desired ‘fitter’ bodies122 of European and Chinese schoolgirls. The ‘inclusiveness’ of Guiding’s activities allowed these new forms and ideals of the feminine body to be bridged to a wide spectrum of girls in the colony. For urban Chinese schoolgirls, in addition to the performative spaces of fitness such as Empire Day and Jubilee Rally, the outdoor pursuits Guiding encouraged also became a means for them to explore the less frequented spaces in the city. In March 1940, for example, at the vernacular (Chinese-­ medium) girls’ school Mui Fong School, the school’s Guides went on a trip to Taikoo Reservoir where they engaged in tracking and training in outdoor skills.123

6.6  Conclusion Rather than examining Guiding as an isolated cultural phenomenon texturing the experience of girlhood, this chapter has situated the movement within the wider picture of schoolgirls’ everyday life. The chapter has discussed Guiding as a site in which competing ideas of the feminine opened up new possibilities for girls to take up agentic performances in the spheres of philanthropy and sport. This positioning of Guiding in the wider social institutions of youth shifted the focus from the internal functioning of the movement as it responded to class and racial imperatives to the interactions and transactions of institutional practices. For Guides in the philanthropic scene, this spatial crossing concerned females entering higher education and the spheres of professional work. In response to this, schools, as a key institution through which gender was made and remade, adjusted their curriculum and fostered the idea of usefulness of the feminine in the outer sphere. Guiding took its brand of professional training in  “Scouts and Guides Tea Party,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, Oct. 2, 1933, 17.  Butler, Gender Trouble, 190. 122  Levine and Bashford, “Introduction: Eugenics and the Modern World,” in The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics, 1–23. 123  Periodical of Mui Fong Secondary School, no. 292, August 1940, 14. Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong Libraries. 120 121

6  REIMAGING THE COLONIAL SPACE: FEMININITY AND EVERYDAY LIFE… 

207

girls’ schools into new areas, using it to inculcate an affective interior of the feminine that, in turn, constructed Guides to be ‘cheering, helpful, and prepared’ under all circumstances. The training of feminine physique through Guiding, however, offered a more intricate picture. On the one hand, the movement continued to embrace the image of cultured femininity where girls were proficient in musical and theatrical skills. Simultaneously, it emphasised a fit feminine body through training Guides in drills, marching, and sports. One key distinction that separated Guiding’s physical training from that of other social institutions of youth was that Guiding gave access to schoolgirls to the upper levels of white colonial society. And this while participation in this movement was also broadened to include girls from rural and working-­ class backgrounds. Throughout the interwar period, Guiding’s program in Hong Kong did not undergo drastic change, but the broadening of its membership brought the new ideas of the feminine to schoolgirls from many classes in Hong Kong society.

CHAPTER 7

Conclusion

This book has examined the intimate spaces of children’s everyday life – the home, playground, school, and clinic – as the specific sites where colonial gender, racial, and class order was subverted and reconfigured in particular ways in interwar Hong Kong. These childhood spaces – each as they were located in the domestic, town planning, educational, and medical domain – captured the distinct and entwining imperial discourses that shaped both the architectural design and everyday practice in these sites. In the domestic domain, this book has situated the domestic architecture of European and Chinese middle-class children in a new town planning practice in interwar Hong Kong: the Garden City movement. Deployed as a method for provincial urbanisation in the Kowloon Peninsula over the interwar period, garden residence served myriad purposes. For the colonial state, it was an effective means to enact new planning culture  – creating a healthy domestic form on the one hand and transforming suburban housing structure on the other. It also redefined the suburban space as a residential precinct for the colonial middle class, annotating a new cultural meaning of the burgeoning garden city suburbs. Lastly, it opened up spaces for the Chinese middle and upper class to challenge an established colonial social order made through domestic architecture. With regard to this last aspect, the garden residence built in Kowloon carried a specific vision of domesticity advocated by the colonial state, a © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Meng Wang, Space and Everyday Lives of Children in Hong Kong, Global Histories of Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44401-2_7

209

210 

S. MENG WANG

key element of which was the imagined divide between the private and public spheres. The interior domestic space of the single-family home with its own garden was marked by gender and class considerations. Each room was allocated and planned for a specific purpose that reflected a middle-­ class preoccupation with spatial and social boundaries. As well, spatial strategies were deployed to carefully control the daily interactions between different members of the household. This residential architecture functioned to signify middle-class respectability and civility previously associated with the European expatriate society. By spatially subverting this colonial domestic imaginary, that is, by taking up the residential form and lifestyle afforded by garden city homes, the Chinese middle and upper class redefined the colonial racial order articulated through domestic architecture. The Garden City movement thus provided a point of spatial crossing for the Chinese bourgeoisie where they manipulated the imperial discourse of domesticity to claim their class status in a colonial society. It also simultaneously created a stratified class structure within the Chinese community where the middle classes gradually moved away from the crowded downtown centre to specially designed residential districts in Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. As far as children were concerned, the Garden City movement engendered new play practices for Chinese middle-class children in the domestic domain. The domestic garden was rearticulated as a space for children to play within safe walls. This provision of specialised play space for children soon offloaded to the middle-class and working-class neighbourhoods. In the period between 1921 and 1941, the entrenchment of professionally designed play and school architecture for Chinese children in the suburban and urban districts of Kowloon and Hong Kong Island is one of the most defining changes in the colonial built environment in Hong Kong. In the newly developed towns in Kowloon, the Kowloon Residents’ Associations (KRA) – founded in 1920 by European professionals – petitioned for the enlargement and expansion of neighbourhood playgrounds. As a result, the Chatham Road Playground and the Middle Road Playground in Tsim Sha Tsui (Kowloon) were brought into use. In the subsequent decade, the Children’s Playground Association (established in 1933) advocated for the construction of playgrounds in crowded working-­ class neighbourhoods. In response to this, the colonial Public Works Department built four additional playgrounds in Chinese working-class districts. Two in Hong Kong Island at Wanchai and Blake Garden, and two in Kowloon on Shantung Street and Tong Mi Street. Equipped with

7 CONCLUSION 

211

maypoles, see-saws, swings, and areas for football, volleyball, and basketball, and supervised by Chinese play directors, play architecture for Chinese children emerged as a distinct colonial spatial form. With regard to school architecture, by the 1930s, a new typology of modern schoolhouse bloomed in Kowloon Tong Garden City. Underpinned by modern hygiene principles and building technologies, the schools built (and relocated) here included a few principal grant-in-aid schools, such as La Salle College, Diocesan Boys’ School, and Maryknoll Convent School. The design principles underwriting this new typology of school architecture can be traced back to the landmark legislation that shaped the built form of school in interwar Hong Kong: the Education Ordinance of 1913. In it, specific requirements were laid out on the height, dimension, ventilation, and lighting of school building and the placement of classroom furniture. Everyday hygiene practices such as daily sanitising and the sweeping of the classroom were also specified. This ordinance served to ensure the minimum sanitation attainment in all the schools in the colony. The preoccupation with the sanitary condition of the learning site was in part shaped by the imperial sanitary and hygiene movement that started in Hong Kong by the turn of the twentieth century. Better architectural and engineering designs were considered by the colonial state as effective means to improve public health. The resulting school design – informed by imperial hygiene imperatives – was simultaneously defined by the functional restructuring of the interior space and the inclusion of spatial features such as verandahs, wide corridors, and large windows to allow natural light and fresh air to penetrate into the classrooms. It was a significant departure from earlier schools that were housed in shophouse tenements. Colonial concerns over the health of youth thus drew the spaces of classroom, dormitory, and school playgrounds into the discourse of hygiene that functioned to ensure the cleanliness of these sites. The architectural reform was primarily enacted in government and grant-in-aid schools that educated the multi-racial middle-class cohort. This reflected hygiene discourse contributed toward a demarcation between the urban working-class and middle-class learning spaces. The state preoccupation with school health in the 1920s and 1930s was particularly influenced by a broader imperial mentality: eugenic thinking. When located in the educational scene in Hong Kong, eugenic thinking denoted two principal aspects that helped govern school architecture and schooling practices, that is, the health and efficiency of youth. As far as

212 

S. MENG WANG

school architecture was concerned, eugenic thought entwined with hygiene discourse that emphasised the function of architectural design in promoting pupils’ health. In terms of schooling practices, eugenic concern underlined a few curricular experiments at government schools (that educated a multi-racial, but chiefly Chinese middle-class cohort). These included: school gardening and woodwork (for boys); cookery, house-­ wifery, and domestic science (for girls); and physical education. Here eugenic ideas underpinned a gendered definition of ‘efficiency’ that connected with the function of education in preparing pupils for their future social roles. Domestic science subjects were designed to equip middle-­ class schoolgirls with professional and scientific methods of home management: they were intended to train efficient future home keepers and mothers. This reflected eugenic thinking simultaneously framed girls as youth and future mothers of the British empire. Furthermore, with the assistance of the Medical and Sanitary Department, a School Hygiene Branch was formed (in 1925) to exercise periodical medical inspection of children in government schools. At its peak (in terms of staff size), the branch consisted of the Health Officer for Schools (Mrs. Minett, M.D.), two Chinese health officers, one part-time lady medical officer and five school nurses.1 The school health service performed by the branch covered both the physical health of pupils and the hygiene condition of school buildings. Inspection of the environmental aspects of school architecture, the health education curriculum, and classroom furniture, in turn, contributed toward the gradual standardisation of classroom interior and health instruction at government and grant-in-aid schools in Hong Kong. Within selected government schools such as Ellis Kadoorie School for Chinese boys (in Hong Kong Island) and Yaumati School (in Kowloon), school clinics were established in the 1930s and managed by Mrs. Minett.2 This inspection and surveillance of school health related directly to how the educational space was framed in the public health discourse. Informed 1  This staff size was recorded in 1935, in “Medical and Sanitary Report for the Year 1935,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 54. 2  The school clinic at Ellis Kadoorie School was opened in September 1931. In October 1932, the second school clinic was started at Yaumati School in Kowloon. In February 1933, a third school clinic was opened at the Junior Technical School. “Medical and Sanitary Report for the Year 1932,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 53; and “Medical and Sanitary Report for the Year 1933,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 52.

7 CONCLUSION 

213

by the view that the care of children is of pivotal importance in preventing the development and spread of diseases and that hygiene education for schoolchildren ‘is the surest method of spreading the gospel of health among people’,3 routine health examinations of children were performed (though again only for the middle-class sector). To ensure the hygiene standards practiced in the learning site is carried through in the domestic space, school nurses performed home visits where they advised parents on domestic hygiene and child health. Sanitary and hygiene discourse thus acted simultaneously on the architectural design of the dwelling and learning site, engendering a new set of building regulations on the one hand, and transforming urban built form on the other. Engagement with school health reform further defined a specific domain of professional and public engagement for European and Chinese female medical professionals. This enlargement of women’s space in and through professional employment captured a shifting gender landscape as it affected Chinese girls’ educational possibilities and career outlooks. In this period between 1921 and 1941, the emergence of Chinese female professionals and their subsequent concentration in the educational and medical domain represents one of the most dramatic social and cultural changes in Hong Kong. As the image of the New Women (a cultural figure that portrayed women as ‘educated, political, and intensely nationalistic’4) was mobilised in the political discourse for the modernisation of China, girls’ education was reframed by Chinese elites in China and Hong Kong as a means to save China, and to help it to progress. In the case of the elite girls’ school St. Stephen’s Girls’ College (founded by the Church Missionary Society in 1906 for Chinese girls from upper-class families), this reframing entailed a gradual move away from the accomplishments curriculum to place heavier emphasis on science subjects such as physics, chemistry, and botany. The school avidly secured the service of a science mistress, Miss F. B. Wood, B.Sc., for this purpose. This curricular reform was designed to better prepare Chinese girls to enter Hong Kong University (HKU, opened in 1912 and officially admitted female students

3  This statement was offered in a review account by the Medical and Sanitary Department on the teaching of hygiene in schools. “Medical and Sanitary Report for the Year 1936,” Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, Hong Kong Government, 53. 4  Sarah E.  Stevens, “Figuring Modernity: The New Woman and the Modern Girl in Republican China,” NWSA Journal 15, no. 3 (2003): 82–103.

214 

S. MENG WANG

in 1921), which had just started to admit female students. As a result, the school functioned as a primary feeder of HKU in the interwar period. Here, instead of framing women’s usefulness in relation to the domestic sphere, at St. Stephen’s, the nationalist discourse informed the repositioning of women’s usefulness in relation to the professional and public domain. The ‘outer spheres’ of life was reconfigured as a site where women could find fulfilment and exert their social influence. This new vision of girls’ education was also deployed by European female teachers to exert their own gendered agency. By designing a school curriculum that actively prepared Chinese girls for higher education, European female professionals underwrote the entering of elite Chinese girls into university-trained professions such as doctors, lawyers, and engineers. The professional spaces St. Stephen’s gradates entered included, amongst others, education, medicine, and commerce, spread over Hong Kong and China. In addition to actively prepare Chinese girls for higher education, social service and community engagement was a prominent feature at St. Stephen’s. This was carried out in connection with the CMS missionary network in South China, and with the network of women’s voluntary associations. The specific activities performed by schoolgirls included: running a free school for domestic servants and street children within St. Stephen’s; organising fundraising concerts and bazaars to support the educational and medical work of the CMS in Hong Kong and South China; and volunteering at the Women’s Street Sleepers’ Shelter and at Hong Kong Women’s Medical Association and the Hong Kong Chinese Women’s War Relief Association. These specific sites of social work illustrated elite Chinese schoolgirls’ role in contributing to the development of educational and medical infrastructure in Hong Kong and China. The spatial crossing of Chinese girls into the public sphere  – through social work – also resonated with the dominant theme in girls’ education in the 1920s and 1930s, that is, training in professional expert knowledge through vocational education. In this interwar period, vocational education for middle-class girls (of both European and Chinese descent) at government and grant-in-aid girls’ schools was run on three main lines: teacher training courses; nursing preparation courses; and commercial classes that taught shorthand, typewriting, stenography, and business courses such as accounting. These diverse streams of vocational training prepared a class of professional Chinese girls who filled positions in government departments and in the private sector, where they worked as teachers, nurses, clerks,

7 CONCLUSION 

215

stenographers, and typists. Professional expert knowledge also helped Chinese girls to claim authority in public life. The Hong Kong Young Women’s Christian Association (HKYWCA, founded in 1920) was born in this context. Led by a group of elite Chinese women (who served as the Board of Directors), the association recruited a cohort of Chinese female professionals, including teachers, nurses, and physicians, to support its extensive branches of educational, medical, and social work. These included a day school on vocational training, mother’s help classes, free night schools on literacy, summer holiday camps, a chain of women’s hostels, an employment bureau, two children’s health centres, and a series of health conferences and vaccination campaigns. Each of these sites of social service helped define a specific area of Chinese women’s public engagement. As a subunit of the YWCA in China, these lines of community work aligned with the agenda of the National Committee of the YWCA in China. However, they also responded to local gender dynamics. In the interwar years, the global economic recession put a significant strain on the trading economy of Hong Kong and underlined the subsequent development of local industries. Small factories, as well as large industrial plants, were set up that recruited women to fill, chiefly, the unskilled positions. The manufacture of hosiery and knitted goods, for example, recruited a cohort of young girls. This gave rise to a new category of women in addition to the emerging ‘business girls’, that is, ‘industrial girls’. Recognising the lack of social network and infrastructure to support industrial girls as they moved into their new employment, the HKYWCA organised holiday camps as well as night schools that offered a free elementary vernacular (Chinese-medium) education. This line of educational work, in turn, equipped Chinese working-class girls with the skills and knowledge they needed to become effective public actors. By the 1930s, through their own fundraising effort, industrial girls set up and taught in street children’s schools and clubs. Here the association helped engender new patterns of social and public engagement for Chinese working-class girls in a colonial society. The fact that industrial girls were oriented toward social service and were encouraged to claim a useful presence in public life illustrated leaders of the association designed these night schools as a means to enact middle-class ideals of feminine philanthropy. This then disseminated new ideas and models of Chinese women’s charity. As well as spreading new ideas about women’s social work in the factory night schools, the HKYWCA also helped disseminate science-based methods of motherhood and childrearing into new spaces. This line of

216 

S. MENG WANG

educational and medical work took the form of mother’s help classes, children’s conferences, and babies’ clinics. It absorbed Western-trained European and Chinese physicians to give lectures and physical demonstrations on everyday childrearing tasks such as the bathing, feeding, and clothing of children. In addition, physical examinations on children of pre-school age were performed weekly by Western-trained Chinese female physicians at the headquarters of the association. Through the contact the HKYWCA had with Chinese women and children, a group of nurses  – trained and led by Mrs. Minett (Divisional Surgeon of the Nursing Division of St. John Ambulance Brigade, also Health Officer for Schools) – performed a series of vaccination campaigns for the prevention of smallpox. Later, this line of medical work permeated to the rural interior where the HKYWCA Nursing Division assisted in the hospitals in the rural districts of the New Territories. Here engagement with childcare and healthcare helped European and Chinese female medical professionals to develop areas of public life that were their own. It also facilitated the building of social and professional networks between these two groups of female professionals. By the late 1930s, this cohort of medical professionals further supported a line of professional training on childcare. Courses on child psychology, child development, and storytelling entered the day school (at the HKYWCA) that were attended by new mothers and teachers. This line of educational work underwrote the spread of science-based methods of childrearing in an educational context, that extended the previous focus on the training of mothers in the domestic domain. It also signified the gradual move of childrearing from the domestic space into the educational sphere, namely, the kindergarten. While in the interwar period, professional education was the dominant theme in state and grant-in-aid girls’ schools, the Girl Guide movement as it entered the educational scene in Hong Kong produced a rather contradictory effect on this strand of learning. When Guiding started in Hong Kong in 1921 (under the commissionership of Lady Stubbs, wife of Sir Reginald Stubbs), it entered the dynamic gender scene where middle- and upper-class schoolgirls were exploring the possibilities of their agentic work outside the domestic sphere. The movement promised a comprehensive package of new experiences including nature study, rambles, first aid and sick nursing lectures, handicraft, and folk dancing. For skill training, in particular, although Guiding’s program coincided with many that were already on offer through schools, one key distinction was that instead of using these trainings to prepare girls for professional futures, Guiding

7 CONCLUSION 

217

emphasised the affective interior of the female gender as nurturer, rather than as custodians of professional expert knowledge that middle-class girls’ schools began to garner. This was in part shaped by the imperial discourse of eugenics that framed girls as the future mothers of the British empire. Guiding thus had a ‘de-professionalising’ effect on the education of middle-class Chinese girls. This contradictory effect on professional education notwithstanding, Guiding did mobilise participating members into the public sphere through social service where girls visited prison and taught needlework and rafflia work, reading and writing, and pot gardening to female inmates. By the 1930s, Guiding expanded to recruit members from orphanages, hospitals and sanatoria, vernacular (Chinese-medium) girls’ schools, and the rural interior. This expansion of membership drew diverse clusters of Chinese girls into the imperial social and public service scene. Participations in imperial celebrations such as Empire Day and the Jubilee Rally, where Guides marched alongside Boy Scouts, further captured a new feminine physique produced by imperial preoccupations with the health and fitness of youth. This new feminine physique was trained through outdoor expeditions, sports, marching, and drill organised by Guiders. The resulting fit and healthy feminine physique expanded the earlier accomplishments curriculum at government and grant-in-aid girls’ schools that embraced the image of cultured femininity where middle-class girls were trained in musical and theatrical skills. The performance of this new feminine physique introduced participating Chinese girls into a range of imperial spaces such as the Government House and the Governor’s Residence. The upshot of this was that Guiding gave access to schoolgirls to the upper levels of white colonial society. Performance of healthy childhood became an imperial spectacle that reflected the gradual move of children and childhood to the centre stage of colonial concerns in interwar Hong Kong. The entrenchment of childhood architecture in the suburban and urban built environment is a defining moment in colonial spatial forms in Hong Kong. Healthy school architecture, neighbourhood playgrounds, urban playing fields, school clinics, and children’s health centres as they were constructed in the 1920s and 1930s still find their visible architectural traces in the present day. At the time of their construction, these spaces captured the distinct ways the colonial state, European professionals, and Chinese elites and professional women responded to colonial concerns over the health and efficiency of youth. While these projects were led in the name of the child, they nonetheless pushed these diverse range of

218 

S. MENG WANG

social actors into colonial prominence in Hong Kong. Engagement with educational and medical reform for Chinese children, in turn, helped European and Chinese female professionals to exercise their enterprise to articulate a public sphere and their meaningful existence therein. Childhood – the ideas about and experience of it – therefore functioned a site where the colonial state, European and Chinese female professionals, and local elites realigned the imperial, feminist, and nationalist agendas. As they inscribed childhood architecture onto the suburban and urban landscape, they enunciated their legitimacy, authority, and expertise in participating in colonial and public affairs. Children, in turn, lived in the limelight of the space they occupied in dominant imperial discourses and public debates of the day. This is not only reflective of, but also responsive to, the undeniable link forged between youth and empire. This link, as it operated in the colonial past of Hong Kong, finds its powerful remaking in the post-colonial context where the project of nation-building sets in motion new imaginings and interventions of childhood. This book has shown that although Hong Kong was part of the British colonial footprint with common colonial imperatives coming out of the metropole, there were also important distinguishing features in this colonial domain. The deployment of spatial theorisation underscores these differences as ‘the local’ in Hong Kong offered up new kinds of engagement, some familiar in other parts of the empire but others quite different. Concerns with sanitation, hygiene, and public health as they shaped the built environment were very much in line with the products of empire in other colonies, though with local differences too. In the Hong Kong scene, imperial sanitary and hygiene discourses simultaneously drew the space of the home, the neighbourhood, and the school into the picture as crucial sites for the production of health. By problematising the homes of the Chinese working classes as a public health concern, these entwining discourses first contributed to a spatial divide between the European and the Chinese community, and then a further stratified class structure within the Chinese society. However, there were also very different local products of empire in Hong Kong as well, once the veil of empire was lifted. The Garden City movement as it was deployed by the colonial government in Hong Kong as a method for provincial urbanisation destabilised the colonial racial order articulated through domestic architecture. The transnational recruitment of European female professionals fed into the local women’s movement that brought elite and professional Chinese women into the public domain. From the vantage point of colonial administrators

7 CONCLUSION 

219

at Westminster it may have seemed Hong Kong was another part of a common imperial endeavour. Yet, as this book has shown, Hong Kong was a distinctive colonial domain where the imperatives around race, gender and class produced new products of empire where the child, the garden, the school, and sport turned out to be the main dynamics in play in this interwar period.

Bibliography

Primary Sources Government Documents ‘An Ordinance for the Reservation of a Residential Area in the Hill District, no. 4 of 1904.’ The Hong Kong Government Gazette. Hong Kong Government, April. 29, 1904. ‘Annual Medical Report for the Year 1938–1939.’ Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports. Hong Kong Government. ‘Annual Report of the Education Department of Hong Kong for 1938–1939.’ Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports. Hong Kong Government. ‘Census Report 1891.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government, no. 30/91. ‘Changes in the Public Health Organisation of Hong Kong during the period 1929 to 1937.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government, no. 4/1937. ‘Correspondence Arising out of the Report of the Education Committee (1902).’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government, no. 39/1903. ‘Further Papers Respecting the Proposed New Government Offices, 1897.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government, no. 2/98. ‘Girls’ School, 1889.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government, no. 18/89.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Meng Wang, Space and Everyday Lives of Children in Hong Kong, Global Histories of Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44401-2

221

222 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

‘Governor’s Despatch on the Incipience and Progress of the Bubonic Plague in Hong Kong during 1896.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government, no. 27/96. ‘Housing, 1935.’ Hong Kong Government Administrative Report. Hong Kong Government. ‘Medical and Sanitary Report for the Year 1911–1937.’ Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports. Hong Kong Government. ‘Medical Report on the Epidemic of Bubonic Plague in 1894.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong: Noronha & Co., no. 16/95. ‘Peak District (Residence) Ordinance, 1918.’ Hong Kong Hansard. Hong Kong Government, May. 30, 1918. ‘Report of the Commission Appointed to Enquire into the Conditions of the Industrial Employment of Children in Hong Kong, and the Desirability and Feasibility of Legislation for the Regulation of Such Employment, 1921.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government, no. 11/1921. ‘Report of the Committee on Practical Technical Education, 1931.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government, no. 6/1931. ‘Report of the Committee on the Training of Teachers, 1938.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong: Noronha & Co., no. 8/1938. ‘Report of the Director of Education for the Year 1909–1937.’ Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports. Hong Kong Government. ‘Report of the Director of Public Works for the Year 1902–1939.’ Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports. Hong Kong Government. ‘Report of the Government Central School for Girls for 1891.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government, no. 4/92. ‘Report of the Housing Commission, 1923.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government, no. 10/1923. ‘Report of the Housing Commission, 1935.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong: Noronha & Co., no. 12/1938. ‘Report of the Inspector of Schools for the Year 1907.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government, no. 20/1908. ‘Report of the Playing Fields Committee, 1930.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government, no. 2/1930. ‘Report of the University (1937) Committee.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government, no. 8/1937. ‘Report on a New Museum in Hong Kong, 1938.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong: Noronha & Co., no. 1/1938. ‘Report on a Petition from the Po Leung Kuk or Society for the Protection of Women and Children, 1892.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government, no. 11/92.

 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

223

‘Report on a Proposed General Scheme for the Inauguration of a System of Technical Education in Hong Kong, 1934.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government, no. 6/1934. ‘Report on Education in Hong Kong by E. Burney, M.C.’ Published on behalf of the Government of Hong Kong by the Crown Agents for the Colonies, 4 Millbank London, S.W.1. 1935. ‘Report on Labour and Labour Condition in Hong Kong, 1939.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong: Noronha & Co., no. 3/1939. ‘Report on the Blue Book for 1902.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government, no. 26/903. ‘Report on the Botanic and Forestry Department for the Year 1901–1939.’ Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports. Hong Kong Government. ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1897.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government, no. 23/97. ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1901.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government, no. 39/1901. ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1906.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government, no. 16/1907. ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1911.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government, no. 17/1911. ‘Report on the Census of the Colony for 1921.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government. ‘Report on the Census of the Colony of Hong Kong 1931.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government, no. 5/1931. ‘Report on the Condition and Prospects of Hong Kong, By His Excellency Sir G.  William Des Voeux, Governor, & c., 1888.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government. ‘Report on the Organisation, Operation, Cost, and Equipment of the Trade Schools, Etc., of Malaya with reference to the Institution of a Trade School in Hong Kong, 1933.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government, no. 3/1934. ‘Report on the Teaching of Hygiene in the schools of Hong Kong 1906.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government, no. 7/1907. ‘Reports of the Medical Officer of Health, the Sanitary Surveyor, and the Colonial Veterinary Surgeon, for the Year 1900.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government, no. 20/1901. ‘Reports of the Medical Officer of Health, the Sanitary Surveyor, and the Colonial Veterinary Surgeon, for the Year 1902.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government, no. 12/1903. ‘School For European Children, and English School for Chinese of the Upper Class.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government, no. 2/1902.

224 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

‘School of Tropical Medicine, 1903.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government, no. 29/1903. ‘The Acting Colonial Surgeon’s Report for 1895.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government, no. 21/95. ‘The Educational Report for 1890.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government, no. 23/91. ‘The Principal Civil Medical Officer’s Report for 1897.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong Government, no. 31/98. ‘University of Hong Kong, 1938.’ Hong Kong Sessional Papers. Hong Kong: Noronha & Co., no. 11/1938. Supplement to the Hong Kong Government Gazette. Hong Kong Government, April. 21, 1888, July. 19, 1907. The Hong Kong Government Gazette. Hong Kong Government, March. 18, 1871, Sep. 5, 1874, Feb. 24, 1877, July. 26, 1890, July. 21, 1900, Mar. 19, 1901, May. 4, 1901, July. 13, 1901, April. 11, 1902, June. 10, 1902, July. 11, 1902, Feb. 27, 1903, Aug. 20, 1915, April. 26, 1918, April. 17, 1919, Sep. 6, 1929, Sep. 4, 1931, Feb. 19, 1932, Dec. 9, 1932, Oct. 18, 1935, Dec. 6, 1935, Mar. 6, 1936, July. 24, 1936, Mar. 12, 1937, April. 9, 1937, May. 14, 1937, Oct. 1, 1937, April. 22, 1938, Sep. 9, 1938, Sep. 16, 1938, April. 6, 1939, June. 23, 1939, Sep. 1, 1939, May. 3, 1940, Dec. 20, 1940, April. 25, 1941, Aug. 1, 1941, Sep. 26, 1941.

Life Histories Chen, Rong Guang. Male, born in 1919, Hong Kong. Hong Kong Oral History Archives: Collective Memories, access no. 108. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Library Special Collection. Cheng, Maximo. Born in 1920, Panama. Hong Kong Oral History Archives: Collective Memories, access no. 35. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Library Special Collection. Fung, Magdalene. Born in 1923, Hong Kong. Hong Kong Oral History Archives: Collective Memories, access no. 32. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Library Special Collection. Funk, Michael. Born in 1924, North Borneo. Hong Kong Oral History Archives: Collective Memories, access no. 55. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Library Special Collection. Garcia, Arthur. Born in 1924, Hong Kong. Hong Kong Oral History Archives: Collective Memories, access no. 192. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Library Special Collection. Gomes, Arthur. Born in 1917, Hong Kong. Hong Kong Oral History Archives: Collective Memories, access no. 47. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Library Special Collection.

 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

225

Huang, Jian Li. Male, born in 1923, Hong Kong. Hong Kong Oral History Archives: Collective Memories, access no. 164. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Library Special Collection. Lee, Annie. Born in 1919, Hong Kong. Hong Kong Oral History Archives: Collective Memories, access no. 51. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Library Special Collection. Lee, Dorothy. Born in 1921, Hong Kong. Hong Kong Oral History Archives: Collective Memories, access no. 84. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Library Special Collection. Li, Shou Hui. Male, born in 1920, Guangzhou. Hong Kong Oral History Archives: Collective Memories, access no. 63. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Library Special Collection. Remedios, Freddie. Born in 1931, Hong Kong. Hong Kong Oral History Archives: Collective Memories, access no. 71. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Library Special Collection. Siron, Jules. Male, born in 1914, Trinidad. Hong Kong Oral History Archives: Collective Memories, access no. 34. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Library Special Collection. Waters, Vera. Born in 1936, Hong Kong. Hong Kong Oral History Archives: Collective Memories, access no. 27. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Library Special Collection. Wu, Zhao Xi. Male, born in 1917, Kunming. Hong Kong Oral History Archives: Collective Memories, access no. 33. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Library Special Collection. Chiu, Molly. Female, born in 1923, Hong Kong. Graduate of Belilios Public School. Age at interview, 88. Hong Kong Memory Oral History Archive, https://www.hkmemor y.hk/collections/oral_histor y/All_Items_OH/ oha_48/records/index.html. Accessed May. 6, 2022. Grandma Leung. Female, born in 1933, Hong Kong. Former factory worker. Age at interview, 79. Hong Kong Memory Oral History Archive, https://www. hkmemory.hk/collections/oral_history/All_Items_OH/oha_94/records/ index.html. Accessed on Mar. 16, 2022. Huang, Rayson. Male, born in 1920, Shantou. Former Vice-Chancellor, The University of Hong Kong. Age at interview, 90. Hong Kong Memory Oral History Archive, https://www.hkmemory.hk/collections/oral_history/All_ Items_OH/oha_52/records/index.html. Accessed on Mar. 16, 2022. Lee, Foo. Male, born in 1929. Former Village Headman of Nga Tsin Wai. Age at interview, 83. Hong Kong Memory Oral History Archive, https://www.hkmemory.hk/collections/oral_history/All_Items_OH/oha_92/records/index. html. Accessed on May. 6, 2022. Leung, Pui Ching. Female, born in 1930, retired textile worker. Age at interview 70. Hong Kong Memory Oral History Archive, https://www.hkmemory.hk/

226 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

collections/oral_histor y/All_Items_OH/oha_36/r ecords/index. html#p74325. Accessed May 10, 2022. Leung, Yuk Jan. Female, born in 1925, Hong Kong. Hong Kong Memory Oral History Archive, https://www.hkmemory.hk/collections/oral_history/All_ Items_OH/oha_38/records/index.html#p74300. Accessed on April. 7, 2022. Ma, Ho Fu. Female, born in 1925, Hong Kong. Retired primary school teacher. Age at interview, 85. Hong Kong Memory Oral History Archive, https://www. hkmemory.hk/collections/oral_history/All_Items_OH/oha_46/records/ index.html. Accessed on Mar. 16, 2022. Ng, Chuen Kang. Male, born in 1924, Hong Kong. Building contractor. Age at interview, 88. Hong Kong Memory Oral History Archive, https://www.hkmemory.hk/collections/oral_history/All_Items_OH/oha_107/records/index. html. Accessed on Feb. 10, 2022. Ng, Fat Chuen. Male, born in 1935, Hong Kong. Farmer. Age at interview, 77. Hong Kong Memory Oral History Archive, https://www.hkmemory.hk/collections/oral_history/All_Items_OH/oha_100/records/index.html. Accessed on Feb. 10, 2022. Ng, Sai Ming. Male, born in 1922, Hong Kong. Former policeman. Age at interview, 90. Hong Kong Memory Oral History Archive, https://www.hkmemory. hk/collections/oral_history/All_Items_OH/oha_104/records/index.html. Accessed on Feb. 20, 2022. Wat, Wai Chun. Female, born in 1923, Hong Kong. Retired nurse. Age at interview, 86. Hong Kong Memory Oral History Archive, https://www.hkmemory. hk/collections/oral_history/All_Items_OH/oha/records/index.htmlAccessed on Feb. 20, 2022. Wong, Mo Yan. Female, born in 1924, Hong Kong. Retired kindergarten teacher. Age at interview, 86. Hong Kong Memory Oral History Archive, https://www. hkmemory.hk/collections/oral_history/All_Items_OH/oha_68/records/ index.html. Accessed May. 6, 2022. Yung, An Wan. Female, born in 1932, Hong Kong. Retired primary school teacher. Age at interview, 78. Hong Kong Memory Oral History Archive, https://www.hkmemor y.hk/collections/oral_histor y/All_Items_OH/ oha_79/records/index.html. Accessed on April. 30, 2022. Cheng, Irene. Clara Ho Tung, a Hong Kong Lady: Her Family and Her Times. Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1976. Anslow, Barbara. Childhood memories of 1920s Hong Kong. https://gwulo.com/ node/17419. Accessed on June. 6, 2022. Steel, Betty. Impressions of an upbringing in 1920s Hong Kong. https://gwulo. com/node/20232/view-pages. Accessed on June. 6, 2022.

 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

227

Newspapers Hong Kong Daily Press, Feb. 22, 1906, Jan. 13, 1909, Oct. 17, 1916, Jan. 28, 1919, Oct. 5, 1920, Mar. 29, 1922, April. 3, 1922, Aug. 19, 1922, Oct. 5, 1922, April. 16, 1923, April. 24, 1923, Jan. 26, 1924, Feb. 2, 1924, Mar. 12, 1924, May. 15, 1924, Aug. 16, 1924, Sep. 12, 1925, Dec. 2, 1925, Mar. 11, 1926, Mar. 17, 1926, April. 29, 1926, Sep. 25, 1926, Nov. 13, 1926, Jan. 24, 1927, Jan. 27, 1927, Mar. 11, 1927, Nov. 2, 1927, Nov. 8, 1927, Feb. 21, 1928, Feb. 25, 1928, Feb. 28, 1929, May. 28, 1928, Sep. 7, 1928, Nov. 15, 1928, Oct. 26, 1929, Jan. 17, 1930, April. 15, 1930, May. 24, 1930, Mar. 10, 1931, Nov. 17, 1931, Feb. 4, 1932, May. 25, 1932, Feb. 28, 1933, Mar. 11, 1933, Mar. 12, 1935, Mar. 16, 1935, July. 3, 1936, April. 10, 1937, Oct. 19, 1938, Mar. 27, 1939, April. 7, 1939, Nov. 28, 1939, Feb. 22, 1940, Nov. 8, 1940. The China Mail, Jan. 24, 1889, Dec. 22, 1912, Jan. 6, 1915, Aug. 11, 1916, Dec. 22, 1916, Jan. 31, 1917, Jan. 28, 1919, Oct. 5, 1920, Mar. 12, 1921, July. 16, 1921, Aug. 30, 1921, Oct. 27, 1921, Jan. 19, 1922, Mar. 12, 1923, Feb. 28, 1924, May. 24, 1924, Feb. 11, 1925, Mar. 11, 1925, May. 22, 1925, June. 8, 1925, Mar. 11, 1926, Mar. 15, 1926, Nov. 23, 1926, April. 22, 1926, Nov. 27, 1926, Jan. 18, 1928, Oct. 28, 1929, Feb. 15, 1930, Feb. 5, 1931, July. 15, 1931, Feb. 15, 1932, Mar. 11, 1932, Sep. 26, 1933, Mar. 12, 1934, Mar. 11, 1936, Jan. 16, 1937, Jan. 19, 1938, Mar. 20, 1940. The Hong Kong Telegraph, July. 31, 1894, Sep. 9, 1905, Jan. 13, 1906, June. 23, 1906, Nov. 2, 1910, Dec. 23, 1911, Feb. 1, 1912, Mar. 6, 1914, Dec. 22, 1915, Feb. 17, 1916, Dec. 23, 1918, Sep. 8, 1919, Jan. 19, 1920, Feb. 10, 1920, Mar. 11, 1920, Dec. 14, 1920, Jan. 31, 1921, Feb. 15, 1921, 23. Feb, 1921, Aug. 5, 1921, Jan. 25, 1922, Feb. 13, 1922, April. 5, 1922, April. 20, 1922, Dec. 1, 1922, April. 13, 1923, Feb. 1, 1924, Mar. 9, 1925, July. 16, 1925, Aug. 24, 1925, Nov. 17, 1925, March. 8, 1926, Mar. 19, 1926, Mar. 11, 1926, July. 1, 1926, Nov.11, 1926, Mar. 19, 1928, Sep. 27, 1928, Nov. 15, 1928, Feb. 2, 1929, Jan. 20, 1930, Jan. 23, 1930, April. 9, 1930, April. 15, 1930, May. 16, 1930, April. 9, 1931, Jan. 21, 1932, Oct. 2, 1933, Mar. 20, 1934, Nov. 10, 1936. Hong Kong Sunday Herald, July. 21, 1929. The China Critic, Nov. 15, 1934. The Hong Kong Mail, May. 9, 1935. South China Morning Post, Dec. 28, 1920, Dec.17, 1921, Dec.29, 1923, Sep. 11, 1924, Aug. 24, 1925, April. 17, 1926, Aug. 17, 1926, Dec. 1, 1926, Dec. 4, 1926, Dec. 28, 1926, Feb. 9, 1927, Mar. 16, 1931, Nov. 19, 1931, Jan. 18, 1931, May. 20, 1933, June. 23, 1934, Nov. 14, 1936, May. 16, 1938.

228 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

School Publications ‘A Report Card of a Student of St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, 1936.’ CMS Source File: Acc 127_Z8. Published on Hong Kong Memory, https://www.hkmemory. hk/collections/education/All_Items/Images/201303/t20130311_57573. html. Accessed on Mar. 30, 2022. ‘Annual Report of Victoria Home and Orphanage, 1912.’ CMS Source File: CMS G1_X_g 1_3 Report. Published on Hong Kong Memory, https://www.hkmemory.hk/collections/education/All_Items/PreWarEdu_Prints/201303/ t20130311_57544.html. Accessed on Mar. 16, 2022. ‘Annual Report of Victoria Home and Orphanage, 1920.’ CMS Source File: CMS G1_CH 1_O 1921_14. Published on Hong Kong Memory, https://www. h k m e m o r y. h k / c o l l e c t i o n s / e d u c a t i o n / A l l _ I t e m s / P r e Wa r E d u _ Prints/201303/t20130311_57548.html. Accessed on Mar. 16, 2022. ‘CMS Day Schools Report for 1913.’ CMS Source File: CMS G1_CH 1_O 1914_65. Published on Hong Kong Memory, https://www.hkmemory.hk/coll e c t i o n s / e d u c a t i o n / A l l _ I t e m s / P r e Wa r E d u _ P r i n t s / 2 0 1 3 0 3 / t20130311_57565.html. Accessed on Mar. 30, 2022. ‘CMS Day Schools Report for 1940.’ CMS Source File: CMS AS 35_59 G1_CH 1_1_25a, 25b. Published on Hong Kong Memory, https://www.hkmemory. hk/collections/education/All_Items/PreWarEdu_Prints/201303/ t20130311_57564.html. Accessed on Mar. 30, 2022. ‘Log Book of St. Stephen’s Girls’ College.’ Hong Kong Public Records Office, File No., HKMS 132-1-1. ‘Prospectus of St Stephen's Girls' College and Fairlea School, 1934.’ Hong Kong Public Records Office, File No., HKMS 138/1/151. ‘Prospectus of St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, 1909.’ CMS Source File: G1/CH 1/O 1909/72. Published on Hong Kong Memory, https://www.hkmemory. hk/collections/education/All_Items/PreWarEdu_Prints/201303/ t20130311_57555.html. Accessed on April. 7, 2022. ‘St. Stephen’s Girls’ College Prospectus, 1913.’ CMS Source File: G1/X/g 1/3 Prospectus. Published on Hong Kong Memory, https://www.hkmemory.hk/ c o l l e c t i o n s / e d u c a t i o n / A l l _ I t e m s / P r e Wa r E d u _ P r i n t s / 2 0 1 3 0 3 / t20130311_57539.html. Accessed on April.7, 2022. ‘St. Stephen’s Girls’ College Speech Day Program, 1939.’ CMS Source File: CMS AS 35_59 G1_CH 1e7_35, 35b. Published on Hong Kong Memory, https:// www.hkmemor y.hk/collections/education/All_Items/PreWarEdu_ Prints/201303/t20130311_57563.html. Accessed on Mar. 16, 2022. ‘St. Stephen’s Girls’ College Speech Day Program, 1940’. CMS Source File: CMS AS 35_59 G1_CH 1e7_33e. Published on Hong Kong Memory, https://www. h k m e m o r y. h k / c o l l e c t i o n s / e d u c a t i o n / A l l _ I t e m s / P r e Wa r E d u _ Prints/201303/t20130311_57562.html. Accessed on Mar. 16, 2022.

 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

229

‘St. Stephen’s Girls’ College Timetable, 1913.’ CMS Source File: CMS G1_X_g 1_3 time table. Published on Hong Kong Memory, https://www.hkmemory. hk/collections/education/All_Items/Images/201303/t20130311_57542. html. Accessed on Mar. 16, 2022. Commemorative Album of Kun Kwok Wah Kwong Club, 1930–1932. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Young Women’s Christian Association. Girls’ Camp, 1935. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Young Women’s Christian Association. Government Vernacular Middle School Annual, 1928. Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong Libraries. Government Vernacular Middle School Annual, 1933. Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong Libraries. Graduation Special Issue of To Sau Girls’ Secondary School, 1937. Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong Libraries. Inauguration Special Issue of Mui Fong Girls’ Secondary School, 1934. Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong Library. Munsang Voice 3, June 1928. Hong Kong: Munsang College. Munsang Voice 4, Jan 1929. Hong Kong: Munsang College. Munsang Voice 9, Jan 1933. Hong Kong: Munsang College. Munsang Voice 10, July 1934. Hong Kong: Munsang College. Munsang Voice 11, June 1936. Hong Kong: Munsang College. News Echo, no. 2 (1929). Hong Kong Public Records Office, File No. HKMS 136-1-88. News Echo, no. 5 (1932). Hong Kong Public Record Office, File No. HKMS 136-1-89. News Echo, no. 8 (1936). Hong Kong Public Records Office, File No.: HKMS 136-1-90. News Echo, no. 10 (1938–1939). Hong Kong Public Records Office, File No. HKMS 136-1-91. News Echo, no. 11 (1939–1940). Hong Kong Public Records Office, File No. HKMS 136-1-92. Opening Special Edition of Cheung Shing Secondary School, 1933. Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong Libraries. Periodical of Ling Ying College 1, no. 4 (1939). Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong Libraries. Periodical of Ling Ying College 1, no. 6 (1939). Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong Libraries. Periodical of Mui Fong Secondary School, no. 292 (August 1940). Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong Libraries. School Journal of Chung Wah Middle School, 1938. Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong Libraries.

230 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Textbook on Health Education (published in the 1920s). Hong Kong Museum of History, File no.: E 1995. 878. The 10th Anniversary Special Issue of Yeung Chung Secondary School, 1934. Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong Libraries. The 15th Anniversary Special Issue of Yeung Chung Secondary School, 1939. Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong Libraries. The 25th Anniversary Special Issue of Kong Kiu Secondary School, 1935. Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong Libraries. The 2nd Graduation Special Issue of Mui Fong Secondary School for Boys and Girls, 1937. Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong Libraries. The Chimes 33, no. 1 (May, 1939). Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong Libraries. The Organisation of Wah Kwong Club, 1930. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Young Women’s Christian Association. The Road to Wah Kwong, 1933. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Young Women’s Christian Association. Ying Wa Echo Quarterly 1, no. 1 (1924). Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong Libraries. YWCA Twentieth Anniversary Special Bulletin, 1920–1940. Published on Hong Kong Memory, https://www.hkmemory.hk/collections/education/All_ Items/PreWarEdu_Prints/201305/t20130518_58569.html?f=classinfo&cp= 期 刊 &ep=Serial&path=/collections/education/All_ Items/8178/8835/8836/index.html. Accessed on April. 6, 2022.

Secondary Sources Articles Aderinto, Saheed. “Empire Day in Africa: Patriotic Colonial Childhood, Imperial Spectacle and Nationalism in Nigeria, 1905–60.” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 46, no. 4 (2018): 731–757. Aderinto, Saheed. “Researching Colonial Childhoods: Images and Representations of Children in Nigerian Newspaper Press, 1925–1950.” History in Africa 39, no. 1 (2012): 241–266. Alcalde, Angel. “Spatialising Transnational History: European Spaces and Territories.” European Review of History 25, no. 3–4 (2018): 553–567. Alexander, Kristine “The Girl Guide Movement and Imperial Internationalism During the 1920s and 1930s.” The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 2, no. 1 (2009): 37–63. Alexander, Kristine. “Agency and Emotion Work.” Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures 7, no. 2 (2015): 120–128.

 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

231

Alexander, Kristine. “Can the Girl Guide Speak?: The Perils and Pleasures of Looking for Children's Voices in Archival Research.” Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures 4, no. 1 (2012):132–145. Allender, Tim, and Stephanie Spencer. “Travelling across National, Paradigmatic and Archival Divides: New Work for the Historian of Education.” History of Education 38, no. 6 (2009): 721–727. Allender, Tim. “Understanding Education and India: New Turns in Postcolonial Scholarship.” History of Education 39, no. 2 (2010): 281–288. Andrews, Maggie. “Homes Both Sides of the Microphone: The Wireless and Domestic Space in Inter-War Britain.” Women's History Review 21, no. 4(2012a): 605–621. Arias, Santa. “Rethinking Space: An Outsider’s View of the Spatial Turn.” GeoJournal 75, no. 1 (2010): 29–41. Baics, Gergely, and Leah Meisterlin, “Zoning Before Zoning: Land Use and Density in Mid-Nineteenth-Century New York City.” Annals of the American Association of Geographers 106, no. 5 (2016): 1152–1175. Baker, Leslie. “‘A Visitation of Providence’: Public Health and Eugenic Reform in The Wake of The Halifax Disaster.” Canadian Bulletin of Medical History 31, no. 1(2014), 99–122. Balfour, S. F. “Hong Kong Before the British: Being a Local History of the Region of Hong Kong and the New Territories Before the British Occupation.” Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 10, (1970): 134–179. Barlow, Tani. “Theorizing woman: Funu, Guojia, Jiating [Chinese women, Chinese state, Chinese family].” Genders 10 (1991): 132–160. Beaumont, Caitriona. “Citizens not Feminists: The Boundary Negotiated Between Citizenship and Feminism by Mainstream Women's organisations in England, 1928–39.” Women's History Review 9, no. 2 (2000): 411–429. Beaumont, Caitríona. “Fighting for the ‘Privileges of Citizenship’: the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), Feminism and the Women’s Movement, 1928–1945.” Women’s History Review 23, no. 3 (2014): 463–479. Beaumont, Caitríona. “What Do Women Want? Housewives’ Associations, Activism and Changing Representations of Women in the 1950s.” Women's History Review 26, no. 1 (2017): 147–162. Beebe, Kathryne, Angela Davis, and Kathryn Gleadle. “Introduction: Space, Place and Gendered Identities: feminist history and the spatial turn.” Women's History Review 21, no. 4 (2012): 523–532. Benson, Carlton. “The Manipulation of Tanci in Radio Shanghai During the 1930s.” Republican China 20, no. 2 (1995): 117–146. Bigon, Liora. “‘Garden City’ in the Tropics? French Dakar in Comparative Perspective.” Journal of Historical Geography 38 (2012a): 35–44.

232 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bigon, Liora. “A History of Urban Planning and Infectious Diseases: Colonial Senegal in the Early Twentieth Century.” Urban Studies Research, (2012b): 1–12. Bigon, Liora. “Bubonic plague, colonial ideologies, and urban planning policies: Dakar, Lagos, and Kumasi.” Planning Perspectives 31, no. 2 (2016): 205–226. Bigon, Liora. “Garden Cities in Colonial Africa: A Note on Historiography.” Planning Perspectives 28, no. 3 (2013), 477–485. Bigon, Liora. “Sanitation and Street Layout in Early Colonial Lagos: British and Indigenous Conceptions, 1851–1900.” Planning Perspectives, 20 (2005): 247–269. Blunt, Alison, and Olivia Sheringham. “Home-City Geographies: Urban dwelling and Mobility.” Progress in Human Geography 43, no. 5 (2019): 815–834. Blunt, Alison. “Cultural Geographies of Migration: Mobility, Transnationality and Diaspora.” Progress in Human Geography 31, no. 5 (2007): 684–694. Blunt, Alison. “Cultural Geography: Cultural Geographies of Home.” Progress in Human Geography 29, no. 4 (2005): 505–515. Blunt, Alison. “Imperial Geographies of Home: British Domesticity in India, 1886–1925.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 24, no. 4 (1999): 421–440. Bottorff, Bruce P. “Foundations of Influence: YWCA of Honolulu Structures and the Assertation of Moral Authority, 1900–1927.” Hawaiian Journal of History 52, (2018), 117–154. Brewis, Georgina. “Education for Service: Social Service and Higher Education in India and Britain, 1905–1919.” History of Education Review 42, no. 2 (2013): 119–136. Brewis, Georgina. “From Working Parties to Social Work: Middle‐Class Girls’ Education and Social Service 1890–1914.” History of Education 38, no. 6 (2009): 761–777. Broberg, Åsa, Viveca Lindberg, and Gun-Britt Wärvik. “Women’s Vocational Education 1890–1990  in Finland and Sweden: The Example of Vocational Home Economics Education.” Journal of Vocational Education & Training 73, no. 2 (2021): 217–233. Browder, Dorothea. “A ‘Christian Solution of the Labour Situation’: How Workingwomen Reshaped the YWCA’s Religious Mission and Politics.” Journal of Women’s History 19, no. 2 (2007), 85–110. Burke, Catherine, and Ian Grosvenor. “The Hearing School: An Exploration of Sound and Listening in the Modern School.” Paedagogica Historica 47, no. 3 (2011): 323–340. Burke, Catherine. “Containing the School Child: Architectures and Pedagogies.” Paedagogica Historica 41, no. 4 & 5 (2005): 489–494. Burke, Catherine. “Feet, Footwork, Footwear, and “Being Alive” in the Modern School.” Paedagogica Historica 54, no. 1–2 (2018): 32–47.

 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

233

Burke, Catherine. “Fleeting Pockets of Anarchy”: Streetwork. The Exploding School.” Paedagogica Historica 50, no. 4 (2014): 433–442. Burton, Antoinette. “House/Daughter/Nation: Interiority, Architecture, and Historical Imagination in Janaki Majumdar’s ‘Family History’.” The Journal of Asian Studies 56, no. 4 (1997): 921–946. Burton, Antoinette. “Thinking Beyond the Boundaries: Empire, Feminism and the Domains of History.” Social History 26, no. 1 (2001): 60–71. Butler, Judith. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.”  Theatre Journal 40, no. 4 (1988): 519–531. Carr, Richard, and Bradley W. Hart. “Old Etonians, Great War Demographics and the Interpretations of British Eugenics, c. 1914–1939.” First World War Studies 3, no. 2 (2012), 217–239. Carroll, John M. “Colonial Hong Kong as a Cultural-Historical Place.” Modern Asian History 40, no. 2 (2006a): 517–543. Carroll, John M. “Colonialism, Nationalism, and Difference: Reassessing the Role of Hong Kong in Modern Chinese History.” The Chinese Historical Review 13, no. 1 (2006b): 92–104. Cheung, Alan CK, E. Vance Randall, and Man Kwan Tam. “The development of local private primary and secondary schooling in Hong Kong, 1841–2012.”  International Journal of Educational Management  30, no. 6 (2016): 826–847. Chilton, Lisa. 2003. “A New Class of Women for the Colonies: The Imperial Colonist and the Construction of Empire.”  The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 31, no. 2 (2003): 36–56. Chiu, Patricia P.K. “‘A Position of Usefulness’: Gendering History of Girls’ Education in Colonial Hong Kong (1850s–1890s).” History of Education 37, no. 6 (2008): 789–805. Clarke, Marie. “Education for Girls in Ireland: Secondary and Vocational Curricular Provision 1930–1960.” History of Education 45, no. 1 (2016), 79–102. Cohen, Sol. “American History, Urban History, History of Urban Education.” The Review of Education/Pedagogy/Cultural Studies 2, no. 2 (1976): 194–206. Colpus, Eve. “Women, Service, and Self-Actualisation in Interwar Britain.” Past and Present, no. 238 (2018a): 197–232. Comacchio, Cynthia. ““The Rising Generation”: Laying Claim to the Health of Adolescents in English Canada, 1920–70.”  Canadian Bulletin of Medical History 19, no. 1 (2002): 139–178. Díaz-Díaz, Claudia and Mona Gleason. “The Land is My School: Children, History, and the Environment in the Canadian Province of British Columbia.” Childhood 23, no. 2 (2016): 272–285.

234 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Drucker, Alison R. “The Role of the YWCA in the Development of the Chinese Women’s Movement, 1890–1927.” Social Service Review 53, no. 3 (1979), 421–440. Eckert, Andreas, and Adam Jones. “Introduction: Historical Writing about Everyday Life.” Journal of African Cultural Studies 15, no. 1 (2002): 5–16. Edwards, Louise. “Policing the Modern Woman in Republican China.” Modern China 26, no. 2 (2000): 115–147. Ethington, Philip J. “Placing the Past: ‘Groundwork’ for a Spatial Theory of History.” Rethinking History 11, no. 4 (2007): 465–493. Evans, Stephen. “The Introduction of English‐language Education in Early Colonial Hong Kong.” History of Education 37, no. 3 (2008): 383–408. Fong, Grace. “Female Hands: Embroidery as a Knowledge Field in Women's Everyday Life in Late Imperial and Early Republican China.” Late Imperial China 25, no. 1 (2004): 1–58. Foucault, Michel. “Of Other Spaces.” Diacritics 16, (1986): 22–27. Frith, Kellee, and Denise Whitehouse. “Designing Learning Spaces that Work: A Case for the Importance of History.” History of Education Review 38, no. 2 (2009): 94–108. Gardner, Philip. “Oral History in Education: Teacher’s Memory and Teachers’ History.” History of Education 32, no. 2 (2003): 175–188. Gleason, Mona. “Avoiding the Agency Trap: Caveats for Historians of Children, Youth, and Education.” History of Education 45, no. 4 (2016): 446–459. Gleason, Mona. “Between Education and Memory: Health and Childhood in English-Canada, 1900–1950.”  Scientia Canadensis: Canadian Journal of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine/Scientia Canadensis: revue canadienne d'histoire des sciences, des techniques et de la médecine  29, no. 1 (2006): 49–72. Gleason, Mona. “In Search of History’s Child.”  Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures 1, no. 2 (2009): 125–135. Gleason, Mona. “Race, class, and health: School medical inspection and “healthy” children in British Columbia, 1890 to 1930.”  Canadian Bulletin of Medical History 19, no. 1 (2002): 95–112. Goodman, Joyce, Andrea Jacobs, Fiona Kisby, and Helen Loader. “Travelling Careers: Overseas Migration Patterns in the Professional Lives of Women Attending Girton and Newnham before 1939.” History of Education 40, no. 2 (2011): 179–196. Goodman, Joyce. “Sex and the City: Educational Initiatives for “Dangerous” and “Endangered” Girls in Late Victorian and Early Edwardian Manchester.” Paedagogica Historica 39, no. 1 (2003a): 75–84. Goodman, Joyce. “The Gendered Politics of Historical Writing in History of Education.” History of Education 41, no. 1 (2012): 9–24.

 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

235

Goodman, Joyce. “Troubling Histories and Theories: Gender and the History of Education.” History of Education 32, no. 2 (2003b): 157–174. Gowans, Georgina. “A Passage from India: Geographies and Experiences of Repatriation, 1858–1939.” Social & Cultural Geography 3, no. 4 (2002): 403–423. Gowans, Georgina. “Imperial Geographies of Home: Memsahibs and Miss-Sahibs in India and Britain, 1915–1947.” Cultural Geographies 10 (2013): 424–441. Guilford, Michael. “A Look Back: Civil Engineering in Hong Kong 1841–1941.” Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 37, (1998): 81–101. Hagen, Katrina. “From ‘Industrial Girls’ To ‘Career Girls’: Postwar Shifts in Programs for Wage-Earning Women in The Portland YWCA.” Journal of Women’s History 15, no. 3 (2003), 204–208. Hamlett, Jane. “‘The Dining Room Should be the Man’s Paradise, as the Drawing Room is the Woman’s’: Gender and Middle-Class Domestic Space in England, 1850–1910.” Gender & History 21, no. 3 (2009a): 576–591. Hamlett, Jane. “The British Domestic Interior and Social and Cultural History.” Cultural and Social History 6, no. 1 (2009b): 97–107. Hancock, Mary. “Home Science and the Nationalization of Domesticity in Colonial India.” Modern Asian Studies 35, no. 4 (2001): 871–903. Hase, Patrick H. “Village Literacy and Scholarship: Village Scholars and their Documents.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch 52, (2012): 77–137. Hayes, James. “The Education of Boys in Hong Kong Villages.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch 52, (2012a): 300–309. Heggie, Vanessa. “Women Doctors and Lady Nurses: Class, Education, and the Professional Victorian Woman.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 89, no. 2 (2015): 267–292. Holloway, Sarah L, and Gill Valentine. “Spatiality and the New Social Studies of childhood.” Sociology 34, no. 4 (2000): 763–783. hooks, bell. “Choosing the Margin as a Space of Radical Openness.” Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media, no. 36 (1989): 15–23. Horton, John, and Peter Kraftl. “What else? Some More Ways of Thinking and Doing ‘Children’s Geographies’.” Children’s geographies 4, no. 1 (2006): 69–95. Hughes, David. “Just A Breath of Fresh Air in an Industrial Landscape? The Preston Open Air School in 1926: A School Medical Service Insight.” Social History of Medicine 17, no. 3 (2004): 443–461. Innes, Sue. “Constructing Women’s Citizenship in The Interwar Period: The Edinburgh Women Citizens’ Association.” Women’s History Review 13, no. 4 (2004), 621–648. Izzo, Amanda L. “‘By Love, Serve One Another’: Foreign Mission and the Challenge of World Fellowship in the YWCAs of Japan and Turkey.” Journal of American-East Asian Relations, 24 (2017), 347–372.

236 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Jones, Margaret. “Tuberculosis, Housing and the Colonial State: Hong Kong, 1900–1950.” Modern Asian Studies 37, no. 3(2003): 653–682. Kehily, Mary Jane, and Anoop Nayak. “Global Femininities: Consumption, Culture and the Significance of Place.” Discourse 29, no. 3 (2008a): 325–42. Keimbou, David-Claude Kemo. “Games, Body and Culture: Emerging Issues in the Anthropology of Sport and Physical Education in Cameroon (1920–60).” International Review for the Sociology of Sport 40, no. 4 (2005): 447–466. Kong, Vivian. “Exclusivity and Cosmopolitanism: Multi-ethnic Civil Society in Interwar Hong Kong.” The Historical Journal 63, no. 5 (2020a): 1281–1302. Kong, Vivian. “Whiteness, Imperial Anxiety, and the “Global 1930s”: The White British League Debate in Hong Kong.”  Journal of British Studies  59, no. 2 (2020b): 343–371. Kondrlik, Kristin E. “Fractured Femininity and “Fellow Feeling”: Professional Identity in the Magazine of the London School of Medicine for Women, 1895–1914.” Victorian Periodicals Review 50, no. 3 (2017): 488–516. Kravetz, Melissa. “Finding A Space in Schools: Female Doctors and the Reform of Girls’ Physical Education in Weimar Germany.” Journal of Women's History 29, no. 1 (2017): 38–62. Lai, Lawrence WC, Valerius WC Kwong, and Jason WY Kwong. “Segregation Legal and Natural: An Empirical Study of the Legally Protected and Free Market Housing Ownership on The Peak.” Habitat International 35, no. 3 (2011): 501–507. Lang, Jennifer. “Taikoo Sugar Refinery Workers’ Housing: Progressive Design by a Pioneering Commercial Enterprise.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch 57 (2017): 130–157. Larsson, Anna. “A Children’s Place? The School Playground Debate in Post-war Sweden.” History of Education 42, no. 1 (2013): 115–130. Lee, Antoinette J. “Supporting Working Women: YWCA Buildings in the National Register of Historic Places.” OAH Magazine of History 12, no. 1 (1997): 5–6. Lee, Christopher J. “Children in the Archives: Epistolary Evidence, Youth Agency, and the Social Meanings of “Coming of Age” in Interwar Nyasaland.” Journal of Family History 35, no. 1 (2010): 25–47. Lee, Klaudia Hiu Yen. “Contested Boundaries: Domesticity, Spatiality, and Short Fiction in the South China Morning Post, 1904–1907.” Victorian Periodicals Review 50, no. 1 (2017): 157–171. Leow, Rachel. “Age As a Category of Gender Analysis: Servant Girls, Modern Girls, and Gender in Southeast Asia.” The Journal of Asian Studies 71, no. 4 (2012): 975–990. Lefebvre, Henri. “The Everyday and Everydayness.” Yale French Studies, no. 73 (1987): 7–11.

 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

237

Lewis, Su Lin. “Cosmopolitanism and the Modern Girl: A Cross-Cultural Discourse in 1930s Penang.”  Modern Asian Studies  43, no. 6 (2009): 1385–1419. Littell-Lamb, Elizabeth. “Caught In the Crossfire: Women’s Internationalism and The YWCA Child Labour Campaign in Shanghai, 1921–1925.” Frontier 32, No. 3 (2011), 134–168. Livesey, Graham. “Assemblage theory, Gardens and the Legacy of the Early Garden City Movement.” Urbanism 15, no. 3(2011): 271–278. Macdonald, Charlotte. “Body and Self: Learning to be Modern in 1920s–1930s Britain.” Women’s History Review 22, no. 2 (2013a): 267–279. Magyarody, Katherine. “Odd Woman, Odd Girls: Reconsidering How Girls Can Help to Build Up the Empire: The Handbook for Girl Guides and Early Guiding Practices, 1909–1918.” Children's Literature Association Quarterly 41, no. 3 (2016): 238–262. Maynes, Mary Jo. “Age as a Category of Historical Analysis: History, Agency, and Narratives of Childhood.” The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 1, no. 1 (2008): 114–124. McCulloch, Gary. “Education and The Middle Classes: The Case of The English Grammar Schools, 1868–1944.”  History of Education  35, no. 6 (2006): 689–704. Mintz, Steven. “Reflections on Age as a Category of Historical Analysis.”  The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 1, no. 1 (2008): 91–94. Morton, Tara. “Changing Spaces: Art, Politics, and Identity in the Home Studios of The Suffrage Atelier” Women's History Review 21, no. 4 (2012): 623–637. Oram, Ruby. ““A Superior Kind of Working Woman”: The Contested Meaning of Vocational Education for Girls in Progressive Era Chicago.” The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 20, no. 3 (2021): 392–410. Paris, Leslie. “Through the Looking Glass: Age, Stages, and Historical Analysis.” The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 1, no. 1 (2008): 106–113. Perry, Elisabeth Israels. “From Achievement to Happiness: Girl Scouting in Middle Tennessee, 1910s–1960s.” Journal of Women's History 5, no. 2 (1993): 75–94. Peyrefitte, Magali, and Erin Sanders-McDonagh. “Space, Power and Sexuality: Transgressive and Transformative Possibilities at the Interstices of Spatial Boundaries.” Gender, Place & Culture 25, no. 3 (2018): 325–333. Philo, Chris. “‘To Go Back up the Side Hill’: Memories, Imaginations and Reveries of Childhood.” Children’s Geographies 1, no. 1 (2003): 7–24. Philo, Chris. “The Corner-Stones of My World' Editorial Introduction to Special Issue on Spaces of Childhood.” Childhood 7, no. 3 (2000): 243–256. Pomfret, David M. “‘A Muse for the Masses’: Gender, Age, and Nation in France, Fin de Siecle.” The American Historical Review 109, no. 5 (2004): 1439–1474.

238 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Pomfret, David M. “Representations of Adolescence in the Modern City: Voluntary Provision and Work in Nottingham and Saint-Etienne, 1890–1914.” Journal of Family History 26, no. 4 (2001a): 455–479. Pomfret, David M. “The City of Evil and the Great Outdoors: The Modern Health Movement and the Urban Young, 1918–40.” Urban History 28, no. 3 (2001b): 405–427. Pooley, Colin G., and Siân Pooley. “Constructing a Suburban Identity: Youth, Femininity and Modernity in Late-Victorian Merseyside.” Journal of Historical Geography 36, no. 4 (2010): 402–410. Prasad, Srirupa. “Sanitising The Domestic: Hygiene and Gender in Late Colonial Bengal.” Journal of Women's History 27, no. 3 (2015), 132–153. Proctor, Helen, and Heather Weaver. “Creating an Educational Home: Mothering for Schooling in the Australian Women’s Weekly, 1943–1960.” Paedagogica Historica 53, no. 1–2 (2017): 49–70. Proctor, Helen, and Heather Weaver. “The Question of the Spotted Muumuu: How the Australian Women’s Weekly Manufactured a Vision of the Normative School Mother and Child, 1930s–1980s.” History of Education Quarterly 58, no. 2 (2018): 229–260. Proctor, Helen, and Kellie Burns. “The Histories of Mass Schooling and Public Health.” History of Education Review 46, no. 2 (2017): 118–124. Proctor, Tammy M. 2000. ““A Separate Path”: Scouting and Guiding in Interwar South Africa.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 42(3): 605–631. Rasmussen, Kim. “Places for Children – Children’s Places.” Childhood 11, no. 2 (2004): 155–73. Rogers, Rebecca. “Language Learning Versus Vocational Training: French, Arab and British Voices Speak About Indigenous Girls’ Education in Nineteenth-­ Century Colonial Algeria.” Paedagogica Historica 48, no. 3 (2012): 369–379. Sandell, Marie. “Learning in and from The West: International Students and International Women’s Organisations in The Interwar Period.” History of Education 44, no. 1 (2015): 5–24. Scott, Joan Wallach. “Gender: Still a Useful Category of Analysis?.” Diogenes 57, no. 1 (2010): 7–14. Sengupta, Tania. “Between Country and City: Fluid Spaces of Provincial Administrative Towns in Nineteenth-Century Bengal.” Urban History 39, no. 1 (2012): 56–82. Sengupta, Tania. “Between the Garden and the Bazaar: The Visions, Spaces and Structures of Colonial Towns in Nineteenth-Century Provincial Bengal.” Visual Culture in Britain 12, no. 3 (2011): 333–348 Sengupta, Tania. “Living in the Periphery: Provinciality and Domestic Space in Colonial Bengal.” The Journal of Architecture 18, no. 6 (2013): 905–943.

 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

239

Sengupta, Tania. “Papered Spaces: Clerical Practices, Materialities, and Spatial Cultures of Provincial Governance in Bengal, Colonial India, 1820s–1860s.” The Journal of Architecture 25, no. 2 (2020): 111–137. Skillen, Fiona. “‘A Sound System of Physical Training’: The Development of Girls’ Physical Education in Interwar Scotland.” History of Education 38, no. 3 (2009): 403–418. Sloan, Catherine. ““Periodicals of an objectionable character”: Peers and Periodicals at Croydon Friends' School, 1826–1875.”  Victorian Periodicals Review 50, no. 4 (2017): 769–786. Smith, Carl T. “The Emergence of a Chinese Elite in Hong Kong.” Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 11, (1971): 74–115. Spencer, Stephanie. “A Uniform Identity: Schoolgirl Snapshots and the Spoken Visual.” History of Education 36, no. 2 (2007): 227–246. Spratt, Margaret A. “The Pittsburgh YWCA and industrial democracy in the 1920s.”  Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies  59, no. 1 (1992): 5–20. Steedman, Carolyn. “The Space of Memory: In an Archive.” History of the Human Sciences 11, no. 4 (1998): 65–83. Stevens, Sarah E. “Figuring Modernity: The New Woman and the Modern Girl in Republican China.” NWSA Journal 15, no. 3 (2003): 82–103. Sweeting, Anthony, and Edward Vickers. “Language and the History of Colonial Education: The Case of Hong Kong.”  Modern Asian Studies  41, no. 1 (2007): 1–40. Sweeting, Anthony, and Edward Vickers. “On Colonising ‘Colonialism: The Discourse of History of English in Hong Kong.” World Englishes 24, no. 2 (2005): 113–130. Sweeting, Anthony. “Education in Hong Kong: Histories, Mysteries and Myths.” History of Education 36, no. 1 (2007): 89–108. Swetnam, Susan H. “Look Wider Still: The Subversive Nature of Girl Scouting in the 1950s.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 37, no. 1 (2016): 90–114. Teng, Emma. “Reinventing Home: Images of Mobility and Returns in Eurasian Memoirs.” Centre for Chinese Studies Research Series No. 12 (2009), 355–388. Taipei: Centre for Chinese Studies. Topdar, Sudipa. “The Corporeal Empire: Physical Education and Politicising Children's Bodies in Late Colonial Bengal.”  Gender & History  29, no. 1 (2017): 176–197. Tuan, Yi-Fu. “Place: An Experiential Perspective.” Geographical Review 65, no. 2 (1975): 151–165. Vertinsky, Patricia. “Reclaiming Space, Revisioning the Body: The Quest for Gender-Sensitive Physical Education.” Quest 44, no. 3 (1992): 373–396.

240 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Watt, Carey A. 1999. “The Promise of ‘Character’ and the Spectre of Sedition: The Boy Scout Movement and Colonial Consternation in India, 1908–1921.” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 22, no. 2 (1999): 37–62. Watts, Ruth. “Gendering the Story: Change in the History of Education.” History of Education 34, no. 3 (2005): 225–241. Watts, Ruth. “Universities, Medical Education and Women: Birmingham in the late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries.” History of Education 42, no. 3 (2013a): 306–319. Wright, Valerie. “Education For Active Citizenship: Women’s Organisations in Interwar Scotland.” History of Education 38, no. 3(2009): 419–436. Xue, Charlie Q. L, Han Zou, Baihao Li and Ka Chuen Hui. “The Shaping of Early Hong Kong: Transplantation and Adaption by the British Professionals.” Planning Perspective 27, no. 4 (2012): 549–568. Zelizer, Viviana A. “The Priceless Child Turns Twenty-seven.” The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 5, no. 3 (2012), 449–456. Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Ina. “The Making of a Modern Female Body: Beauty, Health and Fitness in Interwar Britain.” Women's history review  20, no. 2 (2011): 299–317.

Books Abe, Kaori. Chinese Middlemen in Hong Kong’s Colonial Economy, 1830–1890. New York: Routledge, 2018. Aderinto, Saheed, ed. Children and Childhood in Colonial Nigerian Histories. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Alexander, Kristine. Guiding Modern Girls: Girlhood, Empire, and Internationalism In the 1920s and 1930s. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2017. Allan, Graham, and Graham Crow, eds. Home and Family: Creating the Domestic Sphere. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1989. Allender, Tim. “Historical Analysis: New Approaches to Postcolonial Scholarship and the Subcontinent.” In Methodological Choice and Design: Scholarship, Policy and Practice in Social and Educational Research, edited by Lina Markauskaite, Peter Freebody, and Jude Irwin, 143–155. New York: Springer, 2011. Allender, Tim. Learning Femininity in Colonial India, 1820–1932. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016. Andrews, Maggie. Domesticating the Airwaves Broadcasting, Domesticity and Femininity. London: Continuum International Pub. Group, 2012b. Andrews, Maggie. The Acceptable Face of Feminism: The Women’s Institute as a Social Movement. London: Lawrence & Wishart Limited, 2015. Apple, Rima D. Perfect Motherhood: Science and Childrearing in America. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2006.

 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

241

Ariès, Philippe. Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life. Translated by Robert Baldick. New York: Vintage, 1962. Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space (La Poétique de l’espace, 1957). Translated by Maria Jolas. Boston MA: Beacon, 1994. Bailey, Paul. Gender and Education in China: Gender Discourses and Women’s Schooling in the Early Twentieth Century. London: Routledge, 2007. Baker, Kathleen E. Change and Continuity: A History of St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, Hong Kong, 1906–1996. Hong Kong: St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, 1996. Ball, Nancy. Educating the People: A Documentary History of Elementary Schooling in England 1840–1870. London: Maurice Temple Smith, 1984. Ballantyne, Tony. Webs of Empire: Locating New Zealand’s Colonial Past. Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 2012. Bashford, Alison, and Carylon Strange, eds. Isolation: Places and Practices of Exclusion. London: Routledge, 2003. Bashford, Alison. Imperial Hygiene: A Critical History of Imperialism, Nationalism and Public Health. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Bashford, Alison. Purity and Pollution: Gender, Embodiment and Victorian Medicine. New York: St. Martin Press, 1998. Bland, Lucy and Lesley Hall. “Eugenics in Britain: A View from the Metropole.” In The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics, edited by Alison Bashford and Philippa Levine, 213–228. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Blunt, Alison, and Robyn Dowling. Home. New York: Routledge, 2006. Boucher, Ellen. Empire’s Children: Child Emigration, Welfare, and the Decline of the British World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Bremner, G.A., ed. Architecture and Urbanism in the British Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Bristow, Roger. Land-use Planning in Hong Kong: History, Policies and Procedures. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1984. Bu, Liping, Darwin H. Stapleton, and Ka-che Yip, eds. Science, Public Health and the State in Modern Asia. New York: Routledge, 2012. Burke, Catherine, and Ian Grosvenor. School. London: Reaktion, 2008. Burton, Antoinette, and Dane Kennedy, eds. How Empire Shaped Us. London: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2016. Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter. New York: Routledge, 2011. Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. London: Routledge, 1990. Butler, Judith. Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015. Campbell, Chloe. Race and Empire: Eugenics in Colonial Kenya. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007. Carden-Coyne, Ana. Reconstructing the Body: Classicism, Modernism, and the First World War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

242 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Carroll, John M. A Concise History of Hong Kong. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007. Carroll, John M. “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, 81–92. New York: Routledge, 2012. Carroll, John M. The Hong Kong-China Nexus: A Brief History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. Carroll, John. M. Edge of Empires: Chinese Elites and British Colonials in Hong Kong. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009. Chang, Jiat-Hwee. A Genealogy of Tropical Architecture: Colonial Networks, Nature and Technoscience. New York: Routledge, 2016. Chatelet, Anne-Marie. “A breath of fresh air: Open-air schools in Europe.”  In Designing Modern Childhood: History, Space, and the Material Culture of Children, edited by Marta Gutman and Ning De Coninck-Smith, 107–127. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2008. Chiu, Patricia P. K. “Female Education and the Early Development of St. Stephen’s Church, Hong Kong (1865–1900s).” In Christian Encounters with Chinese Culture: Essays on Anglican and Episcopal history in China, edited by Philip L. Wickeri, 47–64. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2015. Chiu, Patricia P.K. “The Making of Accomplished Women: English Education for Girls in Colonial Hong Kong, 1890s–1940s.” In  Meeting Place: Encounters across Cultures in Hong Kong, 1841–1984, edited by Elizabeth Sinn and Christopher Munn, 64–86. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2017. Christensen, Pia, and Margaret O’Brien, eds. Children in the City: Home, Neighbourhood and Community. London: Routledge, 2003. Chu, Cecilia. Building Colonial Hong Kong: Speculative Development and Segregation in the City. New York: Routledge, 2022. Chu, Cindy Yik-yi, ed. Foreign Communities in Hong Kong, 1840s  – 1950s. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Chu, Cindy Yik-yi, ed. The Diaries of the Maryknoll Sisters in Hong Kong, 1921–1966. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Chu, Cindy Yik-yi. The Maryknoll Sisters in Hong Kong, 1921–1969: In Love with the Chinese. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Colpus, Eve. Female Philanthropy in the Interwar World: Between Self and Other. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018b. Cunningham, Hugh. The Invention of Childhood. London: Random House, 2012. Davidoff, Leonore, and Catherine Hall. Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class 1780–1850. New York: Routledge, 2019. Davin, Anna. “Imperialism and Motherhood.” In Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World, edited by Ann Laura Stoler and Frederick Cooper, 87–152. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1997.

 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

243

De Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life (first published in French 1980). Translated by Steven F.  Rendall. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984. Dejung, Christof, David Motadel, and Jürgen Osterhammel, eds. The Global Bourgeoisie: The Rise of the Middle-Class in the Age of Empire. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2019. De Lauretis, Teresa. Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory, Film, And Fiction. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987. De Ras, Marion E.P. Body, Femininity and Nationalism: Girls in the German Youth Movement 1900–1934. New York: Routledge, 2012. Deborah Simonton, ed. The Routledge History of Women in Europe since 1700. London: Routledge, 2006. Deng, Peng. Private Education in Modern China. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1997. Dong, Madeleine Y. “Who Is Afraid of the Chinese Modern Girl?.” In The Modern Girl Around the World: Consumption, Modernity, and Globalization, edited by Alys Eve Weinbaum, Lynn M.  Thomas, Priti Ramamurthy, Uta G.  Poiger, Madeleine Yue Dong, and Tani E. Barlow, 194–219. Durham: Duke University Press, 2008. Doughan, David, and Peter Gordon. Women, Clubs and Associations in Britain. London: Routledge, 2007. Duff, S.  E. Changing Childhoods in the Cape Colony: Dutch Reformed Church Evangelicalism and Colonial Childhood, 1860–1895. New  York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Edwards, Sian. Youth Movements, Citizenship and the English Countryside: Creating Good Citizens, 1930–1960. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2018. Fong, Grace, and Ellen Widmer, eds. The Inner Quarters and Beyond: Women Writers from Ming through Qing. Boston: Brill, 2010. Fong, Grace, Nanxiu Qian, and Richard Smith, eds. Different worlds of discourse: Transformations of gender and genre in late Qing and early Republican China. Boston: Brill, 2008. Fong, Grace. Herself an Author: Gender, Agency, and Writing in Late Imperial China. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2008. Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (first published in French 1975). Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Random House, 1977. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality (first published in French 1976). Translated by Robert Hurley. London: Allen Lane, 1979. Fuchs, Eckhardt, and Eugenia Roldán Vera, eds. The Transnational in the History of Education: Concepts and Perspectives. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. Gavin, Adrienne E, and Andrew F.  Humphries, eds. Childhood in Edwardian Fiction: Worlds Enough and Time. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

244 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Giard, Luce, Michel de Certeau, Pierre Mayol, and Timothy Tomasik. The Practice of Everyday Life, Vol. 2, Living and Cooking. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 2014. Gleason, Mona. Small Matters: Canadian Children in Sickness and Health. Montréal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2013. Glover, William J. Making Lahore Modern: Constructing and Imagine a Colonial City. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2007. Go, Julian, ed. Postcolonial Sociologies: A Reader. Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2016a. Go, Julian. Postcolonial Thought and Social Theory. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016b. Goodman, Bryna, and Wendy Larson, eds. Gender in Motion: Divisions of Labour and Cultural Change in Late Imperial and Modern China. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005. Goodman, Joyce, Rebecca Rogers, and James Albisetti, eds. Girls' Secondary Education in the Western World: from the 18th to the 20th Century. New York: Springer, 2010. Gorham, Deborah. The Victorian Girl and the Feminine Ideal. New  York: Routledge, 2012. Gutman, Marta, and Ning de Coninck-Smith, eds. Designing Modern Childhoods: History, Space, and The Material Culture of Children. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2008. Hancock, Mary. “Gendering the Modern: Women and Home Science in British India.” In Gender, Sexuality and Colonial Modernities, edited by Antoinette Burton, 149–161. New York: Routledge, 2006. Hayes, James. The Hong Kong Region 1850–1911: Institutions and Leadership in Town and Countryside. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012b. Heywood, Colin. A History of Childhood: Children and Childhood in the West from Medieval to Modern Times. Oxford: Wiley, 2013. Ho, Pui-yin. Making Hong Kong: A History of Its Urban Development. Northampton, Massachusetts: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2018. Hoe, Susanna. The Private Life of Old Hong Kong: Western Women in the British Colony, 1841–1941. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1991. Holloway, Sarah L, and Gill Valentine. Children’s Geographies: Playing, Living, Learning. New York: Routledge, 2005. Home, Robert. Of Planting and Planning: The Making of British Colonial Cities. New York: Routledge, 2013. Hsiung, Ping-chen. A Tender Voyage: Children and Childhood in Late Imperial China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005. Hunter, Emma. “Modernity, Print Media, and the Middle Class in Colonial East Africa.” In The Global Bourgeoisie: The Rise of the Middle Classes in the Age of

 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

245

Empire, edited by Christof Dejung, David Motadel, and Jürgen Osterhammel, 105–122. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019. Izzo, Amanda L. Liberal Christianity and Women's Global Activism: The YWCA of the USA and the Maryknoll Sisters. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2018. James, Allison, Chris Jenks, and Alan Prout. Theorising Childhood. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998. Jenkins, Virginia Scott. The Lawn: A History of an American Obsession. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2015. Jobs, Richard Ivan, and David M. Pomfret, eds. Transnational Histories of Youth in the Twentieth Century. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Jones, Claire. Femininity, Mathematics and Science, 1880–1914. New  York: Springer, 2009. Judge, Joan. Republican Lens: Gender, Visuality, and Experience in the Early Chinese Periodical Press. Oakland, California: California University Press, 2015. Kehily, Mary Jane and Anoop Nayak. Gender, Youth and Culture: Young Masculinities and Femininities. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008b. Kehily, Mary Jane. “Bodies In and Out of Place: Schooling and the Production of Gender Identities Through Embodied Experience.” In Handbook of Children and Youth Studies, edited by Johanna Wyn and Helen Cahill, 217–229. New York: Springer, 2015. King, Anthony. Colonial Urban Development: Culture, Social Power and Environment. London: Routledge, 2012. Kirk, David, and Patricia Vertinsky, eds. The Female Tradition in Physical Education: Women First Reconsidered. London: Routledge, 2016. Kozvolsky, Roy. The Architectures of Childhood: Children, Modern Architecture and Reconstruction in Postwar England. New York: Routledge, 2013. Lands, LeeAnn. Culture of Property: Race, Class, and Housing Landscapes in Atlanta, 1880–1950. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009. Lee, Vicky. Being Eurasian: Memories Across Racial Divides. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004. Leeming, Frank. Street studies in Hong Kong: Localities in a Chinese city. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977. Lefebvre, Henri. Everyday Life in the Modern World. Translated by Sacha Rabinovitch. New York: Routledge, 2017. Lefebvre, Henri. Rhythmanalysis: Space, Time and Everyday Life. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013. Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space (first published in French 1974). Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 1991. Lefebvre, Henri. The Critique of Everyday Life: The One-volume Edition. New York: Verso Books, 2014.

246 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Levine, Philippa, ed. Gender and Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Levine, Phillipa, and Alison Bashford, eds. The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Lewis, Milton J, and Kerrie L. MacPherson. Public Health in Asia and the Pacific: Historical and Comparative Perspectives. London: Routledge, 2007. Lindner, Ulrike, and Dörte Lerp, eds. New Perspectives on the History of Gender and Empire: Comparative and Global Approaches. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018. Lombardo, Paul. “Eugenics and Public Health: Historical Connections and Ethical Implications.” In The Oxford Handbook of Public Health Ethics, edited by Anna C.  Mastroianni, Jeffrey P.  Kahn and Nancy E.  Kass, 642–653. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. Macdonald, Charlotte. Strong, Beautiful and Modern: National Fitness in Britain, New Zealand, Australia and Canada, 1935–1960. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2013b. MacKenzie, John M. British Empire Through Buildings: Structure, Function and Meaning. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020. Margolis, Eric, and Luc Pauwels, eds. The Sage Handbook of Visual Research Methods. London: Sage, 2011. Marland, Mary. Health and Girlhood in Britain, 1874–1920. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. McClintock, Anne. Imperial leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest. New York: Routledge, 1995. McCulloch, Gary. Documentary Research in Education, History, and the Social Sciences London: RoutledgeFalmer, 2004. Midgley, Clare. Gender and Imperialism. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998. Morrison, Heidi. Childhood and Colonial Modernity in Egypt. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Moss, Julianne, and Barbara Pini, eds. Visual Research Methods in Educational Research. New York: Springer, 2016. Munkelt, Marga, Markus Schmitz, Mark Stein, and Silke Stroh, eds. Postcolonial Translocations: Cultural Representations and Critical Spatial Thinking. Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi, 2013. Munn, Christopher. Anglo-China: Chinese People and British Rule in Hong Kong 1841–1880. New York: Routledge, 2013. Ng, Lun Ngai-ha. “Village Education in The New Territories Region Under the Ching.” In From Village to City: Studies in the Traditional Roots of Hong Kong Society, edited by David Faure, James Hayes, and Alan Birch, 106–118. Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong Press, 1984a.

 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

247

Ng, Lun Ngai-ha. Interactions of East and West: Development of Public Education in Early Hong Kong. Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 1984b. Ngo, Tak-Wing, ed. Hong Kong’s History: State and Society Under Colonial Rule. New York: Routledge, 1999. Nightingale, Carl H. Segregation: A Global History of Divided Cities. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. Olwig, Karen Fog, and Eva Gulløv, eds. Children's Places: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. London: Routledge, 2013. Olwig, Karen Fog. “‘Displaced’ Children?: Risks and Opportunities in a Caribbean Urban Environment.” In  Children in the City: Home Neighbourhood and Community, edited by Pia Christensen and Margaret O’Brien, 46–66. London: Routledge, 2003. Olwig, Karen Fog. “Cultural Sites: Sustaining A Home in a Deterritorialized World.” In Siting Culture: The Shifting Anthropological Object, edited by Karen Fog Olwig and Kirsten Hastrup, 23–44. London: Routledge, 2005. Panayotidis, E. Lisa, and Paul Stortz, eds. Women in Higher Education, 1850–1970: International Perspectives. New York: Routledge, 2017. Paul, Diane B., John Stenhouse, and Hamish G.  Spencer, eds. Eugenics at the Edges of Empire: New Zealand, Australia, Canada and South Africa. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. Peckham, Robert, and David M.  Pomfret, eds. Imperial Contagions: Medicine, Hygiene, and Cultures of Planning in Asia. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2013. Peckham, Robert, ed. Empires of Panic: Epidemics and Colonial Anxieties. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2015. Perks, Robert, and Alistair Thomson, eds. The Oral History Reader. New York: Routledge, 2015. Pomfret, David M. Youth and Empire: Trans-colonial Childhoods in British and French Asia. Sandford: Stanford University Press, 2015. Proctor, Tammy M. On My Honour: Guides and Scouts in Interwar Britain. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2002. Proctor, Tammy M. Scouting for Girls: A Century of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger/ABC-CLIO, 2009. Purivs, Jane, ed. Women’s History: Britain 1850–1945. New York: Routledge, 2006. Qvortrup, Jens, ed. Studies in Modern Childhood: Society, Agency, Culture. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Reese, William J. “Progressive Education.” In The Oxford Handbook of the History of Education, edited by John L.  Rury and Eileen H.  Tamura, 459–475. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. Rose, Nikola. Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self. London: Routledge, 1990.

248 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Scott, Joan Wallach. Gender and the Politics of History. New  York: Columbia University Press, 1999. Scraton, Sheila, and Anne Flintoff, eds. Gender and Sport: A Reader. London: Routledge, 2002. Scraton, Sheila. Shaping Up to Womanhood: Gender and Girls’ Physical Education. Buckingham: Open University, 1992. Spain, Daphne. How Women Saved the City. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2001. Shi, Xia. At home in the World: Women and Charity in Late Qing and Early Republican China. New York: Columbia University Press, 2018. Simmel, Georg. Simmel on Culture: Selected Writings, edited by David Frisby and Mike Featherstone. London: Sage Publications, 1997. Sinn, Elizabeth, and Christopher Munn, eds. Meeting Place: Encounters across Cultures in Hong Kong, 1841–1984. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2017. Sinn, Elizabeth. “Hong Kong as an In-Between Place in the Chinese Diaspora, 1849–1939.” In Connecting Seas and Connected Ocean Rims: Indian, Atlantic, and Pacific Oceans and China Seas Migrations from the 1830s to the 1930s, edited by Donna R. Gabaccia and Dirk Hoerder, 225–247. Boston: Brill, 2011. Sinn, Elizabeth. Power and Charity: The Early History of the Tung Wah Hospital, Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1989. Sinn, Elizabeth. Pacific Crossing: California Gold, Chinese Migration, and the Making of Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012. Siu, Helen, ed. Merchants’ Daughters: Women, Commerce, and Regional Culture in South China. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010. Siu, Helen. Tracing China: A Forty-year Ethnographic Journey. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2016. Skillen, Fiona. Women, Sport and Modernity in Interwar Britain. Bern: Peter Lang AG International Academic Publishers, 2013. Sleight, Simon. Young People and the Shaping of Public space in Melbourne, 1870–1914. New York: Routledge, 2016. Sleight, Simon, and Shirleene Robinson, eds. Children, Childhood and Youth in the British World. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Spencer, Stephanie. Gender, Work and Education in Britain in the 1950s. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. St. George, Robert Blair, ed. Material Life in America, 1600–1860. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1988. Steedman, Carolyn. An Everyday Life of the English Working Class: Work, Self and Sociability in the Early Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Steedman, Carolyn. Dust. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001.

 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

249

Steedman, Carolyn. Master and Servant: Love and Labour in the English Industrial Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Stoler, Ann Laura, and Frederick Cooper, eds. Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World. Berkeley, California: University  of  California Press, 1997. Stoler, Ann Laura. Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Race and The Intimate in Colonial Rule. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Sweeting, Anthony. Education in Hong Kong Pre–1841 to 1941: Facts and Opinion. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1990. Tange, Andrea Kaston. Architectural Identities: Domesticity, Literature and the Victorian Middle Class. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010. Teng, Emma. Eurasian: Mixed Identities in the United States, China, and Hong Kong, 1842–1943. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013. Theobald, Marjorie. Knowing Women: Origins of Women’s Education in Nineteenth-­ Century Australia. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Tillman, Margaret Mih. “Mediating Modern Motherhood: The Shanghai YWCA’s “Women’s Work for Women,” 1908–1949.” In Spreading Protestant Modernity: Global Perspectives on the Social Work of the YMCA and YWCA, 1889 –1970, edited by Harald Fischer-Tiné, Stefan Huebner, and Ian Tyrrell, 119–144. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2020. Tosh, John. The Pursuit of History: Aims, Methods and New Directions in the Study of Modern History. London: Longman, 2010. Tuan, Yi-Fu. Space and place: The perspective of experience. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001. Ure, Gavin. Governors, Politics and the Colonial Office: Pubic Policy in Hong Kong, 1918–1958. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012. Vallgårda, Karen. Imperial childhoods and Christian Mission: Education and Emotions in South India and Denmark. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Walf, Barney, and Santa Arias, eds. The Spatial Turn: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. New York: Routledge, 2009. Watts, Ruth. Women in Science: A Social and Cultural History. New  York: Routledge, 2013b. Woollacott, Angela. Gender and Empire. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Yip, Ka-che, Yuen Sang Leung, and Man Kong Timothy Wong. Health Policy and Disease in Colonial and Post-Colonial Hong Kong, 1841–2003. London: Routledge, 2016. Zeiher, Helga. “Children’s Islands in Space and Time: The Impact of Spatial Differentiation on Children's Ways of Shaping Social Life.” In  Childhood in Europe: Approaches-Trends-Findings, edited by du Bois-Reymond, Manuela, Heinz Sünker, and Heinz-Hermann Krüger 139–159. New  York: Peter Lang, 2001.

250 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Zeiher, Helga. “Shaping Daily Life in Urban Environments.” In Children in the City, edited by Pia Christensen and Margaret O’Brien, 66–82. London: Routledge, 2003. Zelizer, Viviana A. Pricing the Priceless Child: The Changing Social Value of Children. New York: Basic Books, 1985. Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Ina. 2010. Managing the Body: Beauty, Health, and Fitness in Britain, 1880–1939. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Dissertations Chu, Cecilia Louise. “Speculative Modern: Urban Forms and the Politics of Property in Colonial Hong Kong.” PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2012. Deming, Margaret Elen. “Wish-landscapes and Garden Cities: The Myth of the Garden in Allegories of English Reform 1880 to 1920.” PhD Diss., Harvard University, Cambridge, 2001. Firpo, Christina Elizabeth. “The Durability of the Empire: Race, Empire and ‘Abandoned’ Children in Colonial Vietnam 1870–1956.” PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2007. Horowitz-Behrend, Dona W. “A Room of My Own: The Child Centered Home 1900–1960.” PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2005. Jorae, Wendy Rouse. “The Children of Chinatown: Growing up Chinese American in San Francisco, 1850–1920.” PhD diss., University of California, Davis, 2007. Kang, David. “Missionaries, Women, and Health Care: History of Nursing in Colonial Hong Kong (1887–1942).” PhD diss., The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2013. Lau, Leung Kwok Prudence. “Adaptive Modern and Speculative Urbanism: The Architecture of the Crédit Foncier d’Extrême-Orient (C.F.E.O.) in Hong Kong and China’s Treaty Ports, 1907–1959.” PhD diss., The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2013. Mar, Phillip. “Accommodating Places: A Migrant Ethnography of Two Cities (Hong Kong and Sydney).” PhD diss., University of Sydney, 2002. Sewell, Jessica Ellen. “Gendering the Spaces of Modernity: Women and Public Space in San Francisco, 1890–1915.” PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2000. Soppelsa, Peter S. “The Fragility of Modernity: Infrastructure and Everyday Life in Paris, 1870–1914.” PhD diss., The University of Michigan, 2009. Tan, Zheng. “Conditions of the Hong Kong Section: Spatial History and Regulatory Environment of Vertically Integrated Developments.” PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2014.

 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

251

Teoh, Karen M. “A Girl Without Talent is Therefore Virtuous: Educating Chinese Women in British Malaya and Singapore, 1850s–1960s.” PhD diss., Harvard University, Cambridge, 2008. Toledano, Alexander Michael. “Sharing Paris: The Use and Ownership of a Neighbourhood, Its Streets and Public Spaces, 1950–2012.” PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2012. Wicentowski, Joseph Charles. “Policing Health in Modern Taiwan, 1895–1949.” PhD diss., Harvard University, Cambridge, 2007. Wong, Pik Wan. “Negotiating Gender: The Women’s Movement for Legal Reform in Colonial Hong Kong.” PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2000.

Index

A Accomplishments curriculum, 125 Accountants, 3 Accounting, 156 Addis, C. S. (Mr.), 87 Administrative Reports, 35 Agriculture, 100 Ah Ng, 59 Air Raid Precaution Bureau, 162 Alan CK Cheung, 26 Alexander, Kristine, 192 Algebra, 123 Alumnae network, 142 Amahs, 59, 171 Ambulance, 205 Annie Lee, 2 Architects, 19 Architectural style, 19 Argyle Street, 67 Arithmetic, 123 Arnold, David, 8 Atkins, Edna Sabrina (Miss), 133, 197 Australia, 9 Au Tak, 45

B Baby Clinics, 43–44, 172 Baden-Powell, Robert, 188 Ball games, 75 Bankers, 25 Bashford, Alison, 9, 86, 87 Bateman, Elizabeth Annie (Miss), 202 Bathing beaches, 102 Beacon Hill, 65 Bedroom, 6 Belilios Public School for Chinese Girls, 30, 94 Benson, Carlton, 11 Betty Steel, 1 Bigon, Liora, 53 Biographies, 34 Bird, R. E. O. (Mr.), 103 Birth control, 14 Bishop of Exeter, 126 Blake Gardens, 73, 103 Blunt, Alison, 59–60 Boarding houses, 151 Board of Education, 92 Boer War, 52

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Meng Wang, Space and Everyday Lives of Children in Hong Kong, Global Histories of Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44401-2

253

254 

INDEX

Bonham Street, 25 Book-keeping, 117 Botanical and Forestry Department, 100 Botany, 129 Boundary Street, 65 Boy Scouts, 102 Braga, Jean, 60 Braga, J. P. (Mr.), 67 Brawn, A. O., 203 Brister (Mr.), 72 British empire, 6, 52 Broberg, Åsa, 163 Brooks (Mr.), 72 Bubonic Plague, 8, 79 Building construction, 117 Building practices, 19 Building regulations, 80 Built environment, 87 Butler, Judith, 184 C California, 9 Campbell, Chloe, 86 Canada, 17, 200 Candy factories, 168 Canossian Sisters of Charity, 186 Cape Colony, 17 Carden-Coyne, Ana (Miss), 9, 126, 201 Carnarvon Road, 59 Carpentry, 164 Carroll, John, 26, 57 Causeway Bay, 2 Cecil, Lady Florence, 126 Cecil, Lord William, 126 Cecilia Chu, 49 Census returns, 29 Central British School, 102 Central School, 28 Chadwick, Edwin, 88

Chadwick, Osbert, 88 Chan Tung Shang, 122 Chan (Miss), 198 Chang Ying-yuen (Miss), 127 Changsha, 154 Chatham Road Playground, 72 Chau, J. W. (Dr.), 176 Chau, S. M. (Dr.), 176 Chau, S. N. (Dr.), 174, 175 Chau Wei Cheung (Dr.), 174 Chemistry, 117 Cheng Chau School, 30 Cheng Hung Yue, 134 Cheung Yan Shing (Mr.), 74 Child psychology, 216 Childrearing, 13 Children School, 147 Children’s Health Centre, 173 Children’s Health Conference, 173 The China Mail, 126 China Review, 87 Chinese bourgeoisie, 4 Chinese Home Mission, 141 Chinese elites, 5 Chinese martial art, 27 Chinese migrants, 9 Chinese Model Letter Writing, 147 Chinese painting, 163 Chinese Public Dispensaries, 105 Chinese Women’s Club, 135 Choy Oi Chee, 134 Choy Wai Haan, 134, 135 Christensen, Pia, 21 Chung Tse Keung (Mr.), 74 Church Missionary Society (CMS), 42 Cigarettes, 153 Cindy Chiu, 145 City of Victoria, 22 Civic associational culture, 4 Civil servants, 7 Civil service examination system, 26 Clarke, Marie, 149

 INDEX 

Classical Chinese, 122 Classroom, 85 Claud Severn, Hon (Mr.), 204 Clementi, Cecil, 1 Clerks, 3 Cloakroom, 106 Coffee, 100 College students, 10 Colonial state, 5 Color knot tying, 205 Commercial English, 117 Commodity culture, 11 Compradors, 25 Coninck-Smith, Ning de, 19 Contagious diseases, 79 Cookery, 91, 94 Coppock, Grace (Miss), 153 Cosmopolitan modernity, 10 Cosmopolitan urban culture, 19–20 Cotton, 100 Creasy, Harold T., 66 Cressy (Mrs.), 190 Cunich, Peter, 31 Curriculum, 78 D Dancing, 14 Danish Missionary Society (DMS), 15 Davis, John, 28 de Martin, G. P., 138 de Rome, F. J. (Mr.), 101 Dejung, Christof, 6 Deming, Margaret Elen, 52 Dension, 58 ‘De-professionalising’ effect, 183 Devin, Anna, 85 Dining room, 6 Diocesan Boys’ School, 31 Diocesan Girls’ College, 105 Diocesan Girls’ School, 31 Director of Education, 129

255

The Dock Companies, 165 Doctors, 3 Domestic architecture, 3 Domestic cleansings, 80 Domestic hygiene, 94 Domestic science, 94, 101 Domestic servants, 137 Dormitory, 85 Dovey, A. L. J. (Mrs.), 176 Dowling, Robyn, 60 Drawing, 123 Drills, 101 Drucker, Alison, 153 Duff, S. E., 17 E Ede, Montague (Mr.), 65 Eden Court, 62 Educated professionals, 7 The Educational Ordinance of 1913, 89 Education Committee, 28 Edwardian, 14 Edwards, Louise, 11 Efficiency, 78 Egypt, 16 Eitel, E. J., 185 Electricity, 49 Electric lights, 6 Ellen Tsao Li, 135, 143 Elliott, Nellie (Miss), 154 Ellis Kadoorie Indian School, 30 Ellis Kadoorie School, 30 Embroidery, 163 Empire Day, 15 Employment, 12 Employment bureaus, 151 Engineers, 3 English baths, 6 English Public Health Act of 1875, 88 English sports, 61 Entrepreneurs, 25

256 

INDEX

Environmental-based eugenics, 110 Eugenics, 8, 78 Eugenic thinking, 14 Eurasian, 45 Europe, 97 European District Reservation Ordinance of 1888, 56 European female professionals, 5 Expatriate society, 53 Eyesight, 90 F Factories, 12 Factory girls, 137 Famine Relief Fund, 141 Fanling, 50 Farming, 22 Female usefulness, 115 Femininity, 5 Feminism, 10 Feminist civil society, 10 First aid, 167 The First Opium War, 22 Fishing, 22 Fong, Grace, 120 Foo Lee, 176 Foochow, 154 The Food Center, 143 Football, 102 Fowler, Lady, 204 Fowler, Sir John, 204 Fraser, Gladys M. D. (Dr.), 173 Free School, 137 French, 117 French Convent, 1, 96 Frith, Kellee, 107 Frost, B. L. (Mr.), 71 Fukien, 143 Fung Fung Ting, 138 Fung Wa Chun, 122 Funk, Michael, 132

G Gap Road School, 30 Garage, 6 Garcia, Arthur, 109 Garden City, 2 Garden City Recreation Club of Kowloon Tong, 66 Garden city suburbs, 3 Gardens, 6, 102 Gardner, Philip, 37 Garrison School, 189 Gas stove, 6 Geography, 102 Geometry, 123 Germ theory, 92 Geyser, 6 Gibbs, 58 Gillingham, J. S. (Mr.), 72 Girl Guide, 2 Girl Guide movement, 179 Gomes, Arthur, 165 Gough Hill Road, 96 Government Civil Hospital, 105 Government House, 1, 61, 181 Gowans, Georgina, 63 Grant Code, 158 Grant-in-aid schools, 28 Guangdong, 22 Gutman, Marta, 19 Gymnasium, 203 Gymnastics, 101 H Hackling (Mr.), 72 Hakka, 22 Hancock, Marybud (Miss), 205 Hangchow, 152 Happy Valley, 58 Harman (Mrs.), 72 Harrison, 98 Hartigan (Drs.), 98

 INDEX 

Hazelnut (Miss), 197 Headmistresses, 3 Health conferences, 44 Health infrastructure, 82 Healthy baby contests, 44 Heep Woh Girls’ Normal School, 163 Heggie, Vanessa, 152 The Helena May Institute, 205 Helen Chung, 135 Herklots, Geoffrey Alton Craig (Mrs.), 129, 198 Hickling, Alice (Dr.), 197 Hiking, 14 Hilda Chan, 134 Hill District Reservation Ordinance of 1904, 57 Hill stations, 55 Historical conditions of possibility, 184 Ho, C. W. (Dr.), 174 Ho Hong Company, 74 Ho Kai, 45, 122 Ho Mun Tin, 3 Ho, S. C. (Dr.), 174 Ho Sui Hing, 159 Hockey, 203 Hoklo, 22 Holiday camps, 151 Home management, 100 Home, Robert, 55 Homemaking, 91 Hong Kong Chinese Women’s Club, 143 Hong Kong Chinese Women’s War Relief Association, 143 Hong Kong Daily Press, 86 The Hong Kong Engineering and Construction Co., Ltd., 67 Hong Kong Eugenics League, 110 Hong Kong Government Gazette, 35 Hong Kong Government Reports Online 1841–1941, 34

257

Hong Kong Hansard, 35 Hong Kong Island, 2 Hong Kong Memory, 38 Hong Kong Northcote Teacher’s Training College, 133 Hong Kong Public Libraries – Old Hong Kong Newspaper Digital Collection, 36 Hong Kong Sessional Papers, 35 The Hong Kong Technical Institute, 31 Hong Kong Telephone Co., 1 Hong Kong University, 2 Hong Kong Women’s Medical Association, 143 Hong Kong Young Women’s Christian Association (HKYWCA), 3, 5 Hong Shing Weaving Factory, 147 Horticulture, 50 Hosiery, 153 Hospitals, 12 House-wifery, 100 Howard, Ebenezer, 41 Hygiene, 8 Hygiene discourse, 85 Hygienists, 14 I Imperial hygiene movement, 5 India, 17, 200 Industrialists, 25 Infant care, 85 Infectious diseases, 91 Inspector of English Schools, 99 Ip Sau Ying, 135 Irving, E., 32, 89 Irving, Hon. E. A., 204 Irving, Edward Alexander (Mrs.), 204 Island of Liu Kung Tao, 61 Italian Convent, 1, 98

258 

INDEX

J Jean English, 187 Jobs, Richard Ivan, 18 Joyce Symons, Catherine, 45 Jubilee Rally, 15 Junior Technical School, 164 K Ka-che Yip, 8 Kai Tak Bund, 45 Keep-fit classes, 14 Kennedy Road, 59 Kennedy Town, 101 Kien On, 58 Kimberley Road, 60 Kindergarten, 177 King’s College, 30 King’s Park, 74, 102 Kitchen, 6 Kites, 75 Koch, Wilfred Vincent Miller (Dr.), 158 Kooh, V. M. (Dr.), 158 Kotewall, Esther (Miss), 158, 205 Kowloon, 2 Kowloon–Canton Railway, 165 Kowloon City, 74 Kowloon City Pier, 75 Kowloon Hospital, 67, 135 Kowloon Residential Association, 4 Kowloon Tong and New Territories Development Co., 65 Kowloon Tong Garden City, 3 Kowloon Tong Garden City Association, 66 Kowloon Young Women’s Christian Association (Kowloon YWCA), 188 Kozlovsky, Roy, 19 Kravetz, Melissa, 172 Kui Yip Land Investment and Farming Co., Ltd., 50 Kung-Fu, 27

Kunming, 135 Kwan, S. Y. (Mr.), 66 Kwangtung, 143 Kwok Mok Hoi (Mr.), 74 Kwok Sheung Man, 135 Kwok, W. U. (Miss), 139 Kwong Wah Hospital, 162 L La Salle College, 31 Lai Chack Girls’ School, 181 Lai Chi Kok, 75 Lai Chi Yuen, 75 Lam Woo (Miss), 190 Laundry, 94 Laundry workers, 148 Lawyers, 25 Lee, Christopher, 39 Lee, Dorothy, 140 Lefebvre, Henri, 20, 196 Legge, James (Dr.), 28 Leow, Rachel, 10 Leper Hospital, 141 Letchworth, 52 Leung (Miss), 169 Leung Pui Ching, 147 Leung Yuk Jan, 133, 181 Levine, Phillipa, 87 Li Chor-chi (Mr.), 74 Li Hoi Tung (Mr.), 74 Light of China, 137 Lim, Helen, 134 Lim Wai Kwan, 134 Lindberg, Viveca, 163 Littell-Lamb, Elizabeth, 176 Livesey, Graham, 52 Lloyd, J. D., 47 Lo Chung Fai, 135 Lo Kun Teng, 122 Local gentry, 27 Lombardo, Paul, 86

 INDEX 

London, 11, 52 Lopes (Miss), 190 Lowson, James A. (Dr.), 79 Lugard, Frederick, 31 M Ma Ying Piu (Mrs.), 154 Macau, 28 MacDonald, Charlotte, 200 MacGregor, Lady, 170 MacGregor, Sir Atholl, 170 Mackenzie, John, 7 Madeleine Yue Dong, 10 Magazines, 114 Magdalene Fung, 107 Magyarody, Katherine, 199 Man Kwan Tam, 26 Manual instruction, 99 Map drawing, 122 Marble games, 75 Marland, Hilary, 14 Marriott, O. (Dr.), 98 Martha Hoa Hing (Dr.), 175, 176 Maryknoll Convent School, 31 Material culture, 3 Matriculation class, 127 May Choy, 135 May, Helena, 205 May, Sir Francis Henry, 97, 205 Maynes, Mary Jo., 37 McCulloch, Gary, 35 McGregor, Agnes Brymner (Dr.), 158 Medical and Sanitary Department, 50 Medical experts, 82 Medical inspection, 91 Medical Officer of Health, 92 Memoirs, 34 Methodist Church, 62 The Middle Road Playground, 72 Middleton-Smith (Miss), 127 Mid-Levels Residents’ Association, 72

Midwives, 85 Military officers, 7 Minett, E. M. (Dr.), 175 Minett, Ethel Mary (Mrs.), 104 Ming Dynasty, 22 Ministering Children’s League, 15 Miss Day, 188 Missionaries, 5 Mitchell, I. (Mrs.), 173 Mobility, 10 Modern bourgeois, 3 Modern Chinese woman, 11 Modern flush system, 6 Modern Girl, 10 Modern health movement, 97 Modernity, 3 Modern medicine, 8 Modern town planning, 2 Molly Chiu, 161 Mong Kok, 74 Mong Kok Workers, 147 Moreton Terrace, 2 Morrison Education Society, 28 Morrison, Heidi, 16 Motadel, David, 6 Motherhood, 13 Motor-bus, 101 Mount Gough, 58 Mow Fung, F. C. (Mr.), 73 Mui Fong School, 190 Mui-tsai, 168 Multi-ethnic membership, 7 Multi-racial, 82 Multi-racial urbanity, 4 Murray Parade Ground, 181 N Nam-pak-hong, 25 Nash, G. R. (Dr.), 198 Nathan Road, 45 Nathan, Sir Matthew, 93

259

260 

INDEX

Nationalist movement, 5 National Young Men’s Christian Association Emergency Service, 144 Nation-state, 16 Nature-based learning, 99 Nature study, 102, 123 Naval Dockyard, 59 Needlework, 101 Neighbourhood planning, 46 Neighbourhood playgrounds, 6 News Echo, 113 Newspapers, 12 The New Territories, 22 New Woman, 10 New Zealand, 17 Ng Mun Chee (Ms.), 190 Ng Shi Sheung (Mrs.), 175 Nightingale, Carl, 55 Northward provincial urbanisation, 46 Nurses, 3 Nursing, 182 O O’Brien, Margaret, 21 Olwig, Karen Fog, 21 Open-air schools, 97 Oral History Project Archive, 38 Orphanages, 15, 184 Ost (Mrs.), 190 Ost, Rev J. B., 190 Osterhammel, Jürgen, 6 Oswald Cheung, 69 Outdoor games, 101 Oversea Chinese Banking Corporation, 74 Oxford Local Examination, 123 P The Pacific War, 162 Packham, R. (Mr.), 72

Pakhoi, 141 Pantry, 6 Paris, 11 Parks, 102 Patricia Chiu, 116 The Peak, 55 The Peak District (Residence) Ordinance of 1918, 57 Peak Residents’ Association, 72 The Peak School, 96 Pearl River Delta, 22 Pearse, W. W. (Dr.), 92 Pedden (Miss), 62 Peel, Lady, 205 Peel, Sir William, 205 Peking, 154 Periodicals, 114 Philanthropic activities, 12 Philippines, 100 Physical education, 6 Physicians, 13 Physics, 117 Piano, 62 Pitman, 1 Pomfret, David, 15 Portuguese, 3 ‘Positive’ eugenics, 86 Pot gardening, 198 Price (Miss), 189 Prince Edward Road, 53, 67 Prince of Wales, 124 Printing, 164 Print media, 12 Prison, 137 Professionals, 25 Progressive education, 99 Provincial urbanisation, 209 Prudence Lau, 53 Public affairs, 5 Public health, 9 The Public Health and Buildings Ordinance of 1903, 81 Public press, 113

 INDEX 

Public Works Department, 49, 102 Pui-yin Ho, 49 Punti, 22 Q Qing empire, 22 Quarantine, 8 Queen’s College, 28, 30 R Race, 86 Ralphs, E., 99, 158 Ram, 58 Randall, E. Vance, 26 Rattan ware makers, 148 Red Cross, 135 Refrigerator, 6 Remington (Mrs.), 205 Republican China, 6 Repulse Bay, 129 Residential architecture, 46 Residential forms, 46 Robarts, Emma, 152 Robinson, Shirleene, 17 Rosa Wong, 135 Rose Lan, 135 Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club, 70 The Royal Naval Yard, 165 Rubber boots, 148 Ruby Chue, 1 Ruttonjee Hospital, 182 S St. Agnes’s Girls’ College, 134 St. Claire’s Girls’ School, 130 St. John Ambulance Association, 158 St. Joseph’s College, 31 St. Joseph’s College Old Boys’ Association, 203

261

St. Mary’s Convent School, 190 St. Mary’s School, 31 St. Paul’s College, 28 St. Paul’s College for Girls, 190 St. Paul’s Girls’ School, 105 St. Peter’s Church, 143 St. Stephen’s College (boys), 31 St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, 31, 112 Sai Wan Bay, 129 Saiyingpun School, 30 Salesian Industrial School, 164 Sanatoria, 15, 184 Sandell, Marie, 150 Sanitary Department, 80 Sanitary infrastructure, 104 Sanitary inspections, 80 Sanitary reform, 88 Sanitation syndrome, 55 Sau Fong Girls’ Vocational School, 162 Sawyer, Dorothy H. (Miss), 108 Sayer, G. R., 129 School architecture, 5, 9 School gardening, 99 School gardening movement, 9 School gardens, 42 School Hygiene Branch, 9, 98 School magazines, 12 School nurses, 104 School playgrounds, 85 School timetable, 9 Scientific childcare, 13 Scott, Joan, 120 Scraton, Sheila, 202 Secretaries, 3 Sengupta, Tania, 55 Servants’ quarters, 6 Sewage, 49 Sewing machine, 143 Shanghai, 10, 11 Shantung (Shandong), 61 Shantung Street, 73

262 

INDEX

Sheung Wan, 25 Shewan, Tomes & Co., 1 Shin, K. S. (Dr.), 175 Shin Tak Hing (Miss), 153 Shoe-making, 164 Shorthand, 117 Signal drill, 205 Sincere Companies, 154 Singapore, 11 Sinn, Elizabeth, 23 Sishu, 27 Sisters of St. Paul de Chartres, 186 Sitting room, 6 Skinner, H. F. (Miss), 101, 159, 161 Sleight, Simon, 17 Smallpox, 175 Soap, 80 Social institutions of youth, 206 Social service, 5 South Africa, 17, 200 South America, 10 South China, 143 Southorn, Bella Woolf (Mrs.), 191 Southorn, Thomas, 191 Southwestern College, 163 Southwestern Girls’ College, 163 Spine development, 90 Sports, 9 Stanton, Rev. V., 28 State reports, 34 State-sponsored English schools, 82 Stedman, 98 Stenographers, 3 Stenography, 117 Stewart, Frederick, 29, 88 Stocking, 168 Street Sunday School, 169 Stretcher drill, 205 Stubbs, Lady, 189 Stubbs, Sir Reginald, 189 Su Lin Lewis, 11 Suburban districts, 2

Suburban domestic landscape, 50 Suburban domestic structure, 46 Suburban expansion, 5 Sutherland, A. R., 203 Sutherland, M. D. Halliday, 86 Swedish drill, 123 Sweeting, Anthony, 27 Swetnam, Susan H., 193 Swimming, 14 T Tai-chi, 27 Tailoring, 164 Tai Po, 100 Taipo Rural Home, 199 Taipo School, 30 Tai Wai, 100 Tam Hok Nin (Mr.), 74 Tammy Proctor, 200 Tang Shiu-kin (Mr.), 74 Tange, A. K., 60 Tanka, 22 Teachers, 3 Tennis courts, 6, 203 Theobald, Marjorie, 187 Tientsin, 10 Timetable, 107 Tin Hau, 2 Tong Mei Road, 74 Tong Mi Street, 73 Topdar, Sudipa, 87 Tosh, John, 36 Town Planning Committee, 64 Trade School, 164 Train, 101 Translation, 117 Transnational networks, 17 Tropicality, 85 Tsan Yuk Hospital, 162 Tsim Sha Tsui, 210 Tso, Paul S. F. (Mrs.), 172

 INDEX 

Tso, S. W. (Dr.), 73, 122 Tung Wah Eastern Hospital, 162 Tung Wah Hospital, 25 Typewriting, 152

263

V Vaccination, 8 Vallgårda, Karen, 15 Vernacular schools, 83 Vertinsky, Patricia, 201 Vickers, Edward, 28 Victoria British School, 89 Victoria Cheung (Dr.), 174 Victoria College, 28 Victoria Home and Orphanages, 190 Victorian gender paradigm, 116 Victoria Nursing Division, 161 Violin, 61 Vivian Kong, 7 Vocational education, 6 Voluntary associations, 5 Voluntary initiatives, 12 Vulnerability, 85

Wan Chai Methodist Centre, 133 Wan Man Kai (Dr.), 173 Wan Suk Ching, 126 Wan Yit Shing (Dr.), 173 Wanchai School, 30 Wanchai Wesleyan Church, 189, 197 Wantsai School, 99 Wärvik, Gun-Britt, 163 Waterloo Road, 67 Water supply, 49 Waters, Vera, 130 Weaving, 163 Web, 18 Wei Ayuk, 122 Wei On, 122 Welfare structure, 9 Whitehouse, Denise, 107 Wing Lok Street, 25 Women’s clubs, 12 Women’s Hostel, 127 Women’s Street Sleepers’ Shelter, 143 Women’s suffrage movements, 10 Wong Mo Yan, 162 Wong Nei Chong Road, 62 Wong, J. M. (Mr.), 66 Wong, S. T. (Dr.), 174 Wong, T. C. (Dr.), 175 Wong, To S. (Dr.), 173 Wong Yeuk Lan, 135 Woo Hay Tong, 31 Woo (Miss), 197 Woo, T. P. (Dr.), 173, 174 Wood, F. B. (Miss), 129 Workforce, 14 Working class, 53 World War I, 14

W Wa Kwong club, 137 Wan Chai, 1

X Xia Shi, 118 Xin’an, 22

U Uen Lai Chun, 122 Union Church, 62 Union Insurance Society of Canton, 65 University of Hong Kong, 31 University professors, 7 Urban culture, 10 Urban leisure culture, 102 Urban shophouse tenements, 87 Urban working class, 79

264 

INDEX

Y Yaumati District School, 93 Yaumati School, 30 Yi-Fu Tuan, 21 Ying Wa College, 103 Youth movements, 102 Yung Hei Wan, 135

Yung Yeung Yuk Sin (Mrs.), 173 Yunnan, 141 Yunnanfu, 141 Z Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Ina, 14, 200