ABSTRACT
Along this line of reasoning, I find it necessary to go beyond the ostensible meaning of tradition that is perceived as static, timeless, and unchanging. I take tradition as an ongoing construct, depending on the rhetoric of time. I proceed to historicize the “traditions” that British colonizers claimed to keep intact and adopted to rule over the indigenous Chinese communities in my discussion of the colonial New Territories. That is to follow the process of becoming instead of tracing out the origin of thing. Adopting Mikhail Bakhtin’s term, my interest here is to look for the “creatively effective past” instead of the “estranged past.” Therefore, the focus of attention is the intricate linkage between the past and the present instead of the past in and of itself. In particular, I foreground some local events that caused the British colonizers to use the policy of indirect rule. I concentrate upon their appropriations of “Chinese tradition” in the creation of many changing and even new features of Chinese tradition in order to suit their specific ruling needs. I also take into account the dramatic shift in their ruling policy after the end of World War II. It was to develop the New Territories for the purpose of the rapid economic growth of Hong Kong. My general objective is to discuss the colonial impacts upon the living environment and practice of the local village communities, and the British claim to preserve the traditional Chinese society in the New Territories, and to pinpoint the long-term implications of indirect rule before and after the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997.
