ABSTRACT
In Hong Kong, on July 1, 1997, the handover simultaneously signified a break from colonial rule and marked the historic beginning of national reunification. In theory, there can be a few different cultural strategies vis-à-vis colonialism. They range from a simple return to precolonial heritage (nativism), or a revival of nationalism which seeks to uproot anything colonial, to a more complicated process of reordering and restructuring different old and new ideological elements for a renegotiated identity in changing times. The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government has mobilized its cultural apparatus in the task of imagining a distinctive political community with a common purpose under the grandiose principle of “one country, two systems.” What we find is an attempt to evolve a cultural consciousness in society through mixed appeals to localism, nationalism, and globalism.
