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In Conversation：Elizabeth Sinn

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"For the moment, for contemporary purposes, we really need archives for governments to be accountable. So that's one thing. But as a historian who loves archives, I mean, can you imagine that 20 years later we just won't be able to find anything on Hong Kong? That's gross. I mean, it's obscene, actually, for a place to have no archive laws."
ELIZABETH SINN

On "In Conversation" last week, Stephen Davies spoke to Miguel de Senna Fernandes about issues of identity faced by Macau's own Macanese. This week Stephen talks to fellow writer and historian Elizabeth Sinn about Hong Kong's own sense of identity.

Elizabeth's latest book "Pacific Crossing" examines Hong Kong as an in-between place, a waypoint between Chinese origins and new lives in places like California and Australia. But even for those who stay put in Hong Kong, it is not always easy to develop a sense of community and continuity. When Elizabeth and Stephen Davies were at school, the history of Hong Kong and China was not even taught.

Although she says she had hardly even been aware of Chinese history until the age of thirty, Elizabeth is today known as a historian of Modern China and Hong Kong. She was one of the leaders of a small group of woman historians that have risen to prominence here, and has written books on the history of the Tung Wah Hospital and the Bank of East Asia, and co-authored many more. She was, before retiring, the Deputy Director of the Centre of Asian Studies. She also served for many years on the Antiquities Advisory Board and the Council of the Royal Asiatic Society (Hong Kong Branch), and as an Honorary Advisor to the Hong Kong Museum of History.

But Elizabeth is still well aware that at times Hong Kong suffers from a "cultural cringe". As Stephen Davies points out, even now it's sometimes necessary for writers and historians to explain to publishers why a history of Hong Kong has more than local significance, why it has relevance in Asia or even worldwide. For Elizabeth, Hong Kong needs to be aware of its own worth.

"One of the most exciting things I found about doing my recent book is that you don't look just at Hong Kong itself. You don't look within the physical confines or the boundaries of Hong Kong. If you look at it from different parts of the world, and one of the ways you could do that is because of the archives that are outside, and you can really see Hong Kong from the outside and how important Hong Kong was to the outside world ... So there is the empire bit, the imperial aspect, there's also the international trade aspect, there is the cultural aspect: see how far Hong Kong movies have reached out, right? Not just kung fu movies in the West, but even in the 50s, 60s and 70s, a lot of Hong Kong movies were important in Southeast Asia. And I remember a lot of the radio programmes, RTHK radio programmes, Cantonese radio programmes, were broadcast in Southeast Asia, and people would close their shops to listen."
ELIZABETH SINN
Category
예술 - Art
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