Screening + Academic x Filmmaker Conversation
Friday, 27 October 2023, 18:00–20:00 PDT
AERL 120, Aquatic Ecosystems Research Lab
(2202 Main Mall, University of British Columbia, Vancouver)

Join us for the screening of The Grass is Greener on the Other Side 野草不盡 (2022), a documentary that explores the persistence of trauma, the question of identity, and the quest for a place called home among Hongkongers in diaspora. The post-screening conversation will feature a sharing by director Crystal Wong (joining virtually) and HKSI Faculty Associate Dr. Miu Chung Yan (UBC School of Social work).

In person event. Registration required.

This event is organized by the UBC Hong Kong Studies Initiative with the support of the Watt Family—Hong Kong Studies Initiative Fund, the Department of Asian Studies, and the Centre for Chinese Research.

Housing Unites, Housing Divides:
Comparing Singapore and Hong Kong as Property States
Dr. David Ley (Professor Emeritus, Geography, UBC)
Thursday, 9 November 2023, 17:30–19:00 PST
120, C. K. Choi Building, UBC
1855 West Mall, Vancouver

Singapore and Hong Kong are gateway cities, wide open to global flows of capital and immigrant labour. Both have a common background as colonial entrepots and continue to link rich hinterlands with global economies. Anne Haila has identified both cities as ‘property states’, where to an unusual degree residential and commercial property shape individual and corporate wealth accumulation and government revenues. Investment capital has streamed into each city, creating ‘surplus demand’ that competes with the housing needs of local residents. But in Singapore long-established housing policy, rigorously maintained, has confirmed housing as a tool for national unity. In contrast, in Hong Kong, unequal access to housing has exacerbated generationally defined class tensions, dividing the society. A broader objective of the presentation is to urge the centrality of housing in contemporary society, widely understood in everyday life, but incompletely acknowledged in mainstream social science.

Dr. David Ley was Head of the Department of Geography from 2009 to 2012 and the founding UBC leader of the Metropolis Centre of Excellence, an interdisciplinary research programme on immigration in Canadian cities. Among his many honors, Dr. Ley has been a Trudeau Fellow, a Canada Research Chair, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (UK), and an Officer of the Order of Canada.

This book talk is organized by the UBC Hong Kong Studies Initiative with the support of the Watt Family—Hong Kong Studies Initiative Fund, the Department of Asian Studies, and the Centre for Chinese Research.

In-person event. Registration appreciated.

October 25: The UBC Library to host a screening of Unarchived (2022) and a panel discussion with directors Hayley Gray and Elad Tzadok on “Archives as Past, Present, and Future.”

October 25: Dr. Chih-Jou Jay Chen (Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica) will present findings from ongoing surveys on the extent of public support for China’s leadership—part of the “China Logics” series co-organized by the UBC Centre for Chinese Research and Green College.