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following Foucault, raised such questions of the interlocking of forms of knowledge, with forms of power, and it is worth reflecting on this discursive power a little in the Hong Kong context, and the formation of 'post-colonial subjects' in Hong Kong.
I cannot at all agree with Abbas' (1997) strange claim that the invention of the Hong Kong subject took place in a cultural 'space of disappearance' or 'disappearing space', nor with his remarks that Hong Kong had no pre-colonial history to speak of or was until recently a 'cultural desert', nor generally that Hong Kong occupies a unique position in the history of colonialism when we think of the range of differences and unique situations that colonialism has brought about. Nor does Chan Hoi-Man's deeply conservative critique of Hong Kong's 'lack of a unifying cultural foundation' or 'hegemonic foundation of high culture' work very well when one thinks (in Gramscian terms) of the alliance of hegemonic interests represented by British and (mainland) Chinese cultures (Chan 1994).
12 Rozanna Lilley's (1998) argument that the 'muting of local identity' in Hong Kong in the past was achieved with reference to two master narratives, those of Chinese and European history, seems to me far more to the point. And it is precisely from these sorts of colonialist disjuncture that strong senses of local identity eventually emerge. Evans and Tam (1997) trace the history of the interest in the emergence of a particular Hong Kong sense of identity, from Baker (1984) to Wong Siu-lun (1986) and Lau and Kuan (1988). Guldin's pioneering work on ethnicity also stressed the significance of a 'Hong Kong' identity (Guldin 1977a; 1977b; cf. Guldin 1997). Gary Hamilton (1999) emphasises the transition of the people of Hong Kong from temporary migrants from south China to 'Hong Kongers', people who identify deeply with the locale and its urbane outlook'. Graham Johnson (1997) similarly notes a ‘sense of Hong Kong identity that was not apparent until the 1970s', and Gordon Mathews (2000) also remarks the emergence of a 'sense of Hongkongese as an autonomous cultural identity' from the post-war generation, emphasising (1997) that Hong Kong people are 'not chameleons' who can easily adopt or transmute their senses of cultural identity.
13 In this formation of a specific local identity, however much it may be confined to a particular generation or sector of the population, and however much it may now be challenged by the future political status of Hong Kong, Hong Kong's role in a global