18 March 2024 Hosted by the Department of Asian Studies, the Hong Kong Studies Initiative (HKSI) at the University of British Columbia is devoted to promoting the teaching and research of this most-improbable metropolis, both as an extraordinary Chinese city and as a spectacular international and transnational hub. |
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Dear Friends of HKSI, As we welcome spring here in Vancouver and begin to contemplate the end of another academic term, we look forward to seeing you in any (or all!) of the events featured below. With all best wishes,
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Asian Independent Cinema Showcase & South Taiwan Film Festival Co-presented by the South Taiwan Film Festival and the Asian Independent Cinema Showcase, this selection of short films features TOH Tze Wei’s The Darkest Night, WU Yu-Fen’s There, and KWOK Zune’s Night is Young. With dialogues in Cantonese, Hokkien, Malay, Mandarin, Taiwanese, and Indonesian, the three award-winning short films tell stories of the underrepresented in different parts of Asia and the possibility of finding hope and home. The Darkest Night is the recipient of the Best Director Award (Student Category) at The European Film Award for Best Cinematographer. There received the Best Live Action Short (Student Category) at the Golden Harvest Awards. Night is Young was named the Best Live Action Short Film at the Golden Horse Awards. This is the third program of the inaugural edition of the Asian Independent Cinema Showcase. The three directors will participate in a virtual conversation following the screening. English subtitles provided. In-person event. All are welcome. Registration required. |
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Community Hong Kong has experienced tremendous transformation since 2019 and 2020. On the one hand, many civil society organizations, political groups, and critical media outlets have disappeared. But on the other hand, the society has also witnessed the emergence of a new group of online media. Many civil society organizations are continuing their work. Citizens can be using various means to maintain their values, identities and lifestyle. How should we understand the public sentiments in contemporary Hong Kong? To what extent and in what ways is the Hong Kong society—particularly the institutions that embody the city’s “core values”—exhibiting resilience under the current adverse conditions? The speaker will discuss these issues based on his continual research in Hong Kong in the past three years. Dr. Francis L. F. Lee 李立峰 is a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, a Fellow of the International Communication Association, Editor of the Chinese Journal of Communication, and a founding co-chair of the Society for Hong Kong Studies. His latest book, Democracy Protests in Hong Kong: Relational Dynamics between the Umbrella Movement and the Anti-Extradition Uprising, is forthcoming from the State University of New York Press. This community talk is organized by the Vancouver Hong Kong Forum Society with the support of the UBC Hong Kong Studies Initiative, and the SFU Institute For Transpacific Cultural Research. In-person event in Cantonese. This community talk is fully subscribed; we look forward to seeing those who have kindly registered. |
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Seminar This talk is grounded in over two decades of fieldwork on the preservation of historical memory tabooed by the CCP regime. Drawing on contextualized personal accounts, Rowena He will illuminate the unequal contest between state-imposed interpretations of history and independent scholarship on China’s forbidden past, and their implications for nationalism, democratization, and the field of China studies. Highlighting her extensive interactions with local and mainland Chinese students during Hong Kong’s unprecedented social movement, she illustrates how memory becomes a form of resistance that embodies citizen autonomy and agency. The power of the powerless. Dr. Rowena He 何曉清 is author of Tiananmen Exiles: Voices of the Struggle for Democracy in China and a three-time recipient of Harvard University’s Certificate of Teaching Excellence. Her research has been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Harvard’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, the National Humanities Center, and the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas, Austin. Her op-eds have appeared in the Washington Post, Nation, Guardian, Globe and Mail, and Wall Street Journal. Born and raised in China, she received her Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. This seminar is organized by the UBC Hong Kong Studies Initiative with the support of the Watt Family—Hong Kong Studies Initiative Fund and generously co-sponsored by: Department of Asian Studies, Department of History, Centre for Chinese Research, and St. John’s College. In-person event. All are welcome. Registration required. |
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Asian Independent Cinema Showcase Vincent Chui's Leaving in Sorrow 憂憂愁愁的走了 (2001) is the first Hong Kong production filmed in the "Dogme 95" style and will be featured as the closing film for the 2023/2024 Asian Independent Cinema Showcase. The film portrays Hong Kong in the year of 1997 and how the characters find their lives suddenly turned upside down by events beyond their control. We invite you to revisit this representative work of Hong Kong indie cinema which demonstrates the pursuit of timeless vision and creativity through independent filmmaking. English subtitles are provided, and the post-screening conversation with Director Vincent Tsui 崔允信 will be conducted in English. In-person event. All are welcome. Registration required. |
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11 March 2024: Dr. Sebastian Veg, of the School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS), Paris, shared his research on "Knowledge Circles in Colonial Hong Kong 1945-1997: From Offshore Publics to Civic Communities." The talk was well attended by academics, students, and members of the public and has generated an engaging dialogue across various disciplines (photos). |
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Please kindly consider a tax-deductible donation to HKSI (hksi.ubc.ca/support-us). Thank you, as always, for your support of the UBC Hong Kong Studies Initiative. |
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