Every year, the Vietnamese people reportedly burned about 50,000 tons of joss papers, which took the form of not only bank notes, but iPhones, cars, clothes, even housekeepers, in hope of pleasing the dead. The practice was mistakenly attributed to traditional Buddhist teachings but originated in fact from China, which most Vietnamese were not aware of. In other aspects of life, there were many similar examples of Vietnamese so ready and comfortable with adding new norms, values, and beliefs, even (...) contradictory ones, to their culture. This phenomenon, dubbed “cultural additivity”, prompted us to study the co-existence, interaction, and influences among core values and norms of the Three Teachings –Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism–as shown through Vietnamese folktales. By applying Bayesian logistic regression, we evaluated the possibility of whether the key message of a story was dominated by a religion (dependent variables), as affected by the appearance of values and anti-values pertaining to the Three Teachings in the story (independent variables). Our main findings included the existence of the cultural additivity of Confucian and Taoist values. More specifically, empirical results showed that the interaction or addition of the values of Taoism and Confucianism in folktales together helped predict whether the key message of a story was about Confucianism, β{VT ⋅ VC} = 0.86. Meanwhile, there was no such statistical tendency for Buddhism. The results lead to a number of important implications. First, this showed the dominance of Confucianism because the fact that Confucian and Taoist values appeared together in a story led to the story’s key message dominated by Confucianism. Thus, it presented the evidence of Confucian dominance and against liberal interpretations of the concept of the Common Roots of Three Religions (“tam giáo đồng nguyên”) as religious unification or unicity. Second, the concept of “cultural additivity” could help explain many interesting socio-cultural phenomena, namely the absence of religious intolerance and extremism in the Vietnamese society, outrageous cases of sophistry in education, the low productivity in creative endeavors like science and technology, the misleading branding strategy in business. We are aware that our results are only preliminary and more studies, both theoretical and empirical, must be carried out to give a full account of the explanatory reach of “cultural additivity”. (shrink)

This paper attempts to examine how the concepts of power, transparency and control are perceived in the life of ordinary Hong Kong people, and how the latter have been adapting to their perceptions and evaluations. The 2008 global financial tsunami and its aftermath will likely have a serious impact on their values. Hong Kong people’s experiences may in some ways represent those of modern men, especially those in East Asia. Democracy is premised on the (...) ideal that life is meaningful through political participation. For most Hong Kong people, this is too demanding an ideal and they instead opt for economic power at the micro-level to secure an optimal measure of control over the socio-economic aspects of their own life. But even this objective has proven extremely difficult to fulfil because of the asymmetry in power between the individual on one hand, and authoritarian regimes, big businesses, organized interest groups, etc. on the other. Very often exit is not a viable option. There may be a tendency to seek satisfaction from religious pursuits, voluntary work, or other external agencies. (shrink)

ABSTRACT After Hong Kong’s return to Chinese Sovereignty in 1997, the terms ‘mainlander’ and ‘Hongkonger’ have been widely used by English-language media in Hong Kong to differentiate between people from the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong. This study examines representations of Chinese mainlanders and Hongkongers in a 17.4-million-token corpus containing 30,279 articles published between 1998 and 2019 by the South China Morning Post, a leading English-language newspaper in Hong Kong. By comparing (...) the collocational behaviour of the noun lemmas mainlander and Hongkonger, the study identifies the topoi, or stereotypical characterizations, associated with the two groups. The analysis demonstrates the way in which the ‘othering’ of or sometimes discrimination against mainland migrants/visitors has served as part of the process through which the distinctive ‘Hongkongers’ identity’ is pronounced after the 1997-handover in Hong Kong’s English language newspaper of record. (shrink)

Guanxi is perceived as a major determinant for successful business in China. This research paper investigates the importance of Guanxi from the Hong Kong Businessmen's viewpoint. It confirms previous findings in this area and adds on new dimensions. Therefore, practitioners and academics may further refine their knowledge in this subject.

Nine years into the tumultuous life of Hong Kong as a special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China, it has become clearer what role Hong Kong plays in China’s modernization. This paper argues that Hong Kong’s role is that of a transforming catalyst. In dealing with the affairs of this city, Beijing from time to time has to put aside its normal instincts. This creates opportunities with potentially far-reaching consequences for the (...) nation as a whole even though questions have often been raised as to whether “two systems” will survive as Hong Kong becomes more integrated into “one China.” Hong Kong’s plight is difficult and there are constant risks of being overwhelmed by the much larger mainland system. Nevertheless, just looking at what may be seen as Hong Kong’s losses in the process of integration will prevent a deeper examination of how the mainland has been affected at the same time. Hong Kong presents Beijing with many challenging issues as well that go to the core of party ideology and practices. This is not to say that Beijing intends Hong Kong to be a pacesetter for political reform on the mainland, but at least in one corner of the country where debates are in the open and where the people’s behavior is different, the result is that Hong Kong has a gradual transforming effect on China’s modernization by forcing deliberation, debate, and possibly even behavioral change on some of the most sensitive issues to the Chinese leadership. (shrink)

At present, Hong Kong does not have a publicly-managed mandatory contributory retirement protection scheme. The Hong Kong Government launched a consultation on the universal pension scheme in 2015. The Government’s plan provoked many controversies and eventually failed. This paper will examine the problem of the welfare ideology and system in Hong Kong from a historical perspective, taking the universal pension scheme as an example. This paper argues that the reason for the failure of the (...) universal pension scheme was that Hong Kong people do not have a complete sense of citizenship and hold a distorted welfare ideology for historical reasons. This paper is one of the first to offer some reflections on the question of poverty and lack of social justice from a historical perspective. (shrink)

Hong Kong is a territory of only 400 square miles in size, but with a large population of six million people. We have excellent medical facilities in both the public and private sector and the general health indices of the population are good, with low infant mortality rates and long life expectancies.

St. Stephen's Society, Hang Fook Camp, Kowloon, Hong Kong was formally registered in 1981, but its origins go back to 1966. It is a member of the Hong Kong Council of Social Services and the central Registry of Drug Abuse. The Society works in cooperation with the courts, doctors and social workers to provide a spiritual, physical, emotional, educational and social rehabilitation programme. St. Stephen's houses about 300 people on any given day. It meets in (...) Hang Fook Camp which is leased to them by the Hong Kong Government where a regular meeting is held for Christian Fellowship, the Hang Fook Christian Fellowship. (shrink)

Sinophobia has become normalised and increasingly acceptable in Hong Kong in recent decades. Such Sinophobia intersects with aims of protecting what is local in the society, as seen in Hong Kong news media. This paper first explores the concept of Sinophobia. It then provides a background on Sinophobia in Hong Kong, explaining the tensions between the identities of Hong Kong/hongkongers and Mainland China/mainland Chinese. After elaborating on the role of media and the (...) nature of local media in Hong Kong, this paper examines Sinophobic, stereotypical and quasi-racist discourse in three major Hong Kong news sources. While respecting Hong Kong heritage is a valuable goal, the Sinophobia accompanying some such aims can be seen to fuel hatred among people. In this context, encouraging a more inclusive and reflective discourse is warranted to work against the pitfalls of Sinophobia as a particular form of xenophobia in Hong Kong. (shrink)

IntroductionThis paper employs Confucianism to illustrate a kind of differential or benevolent love, which people give in accordance with their relations and roles. In this sense, Confucian benevolent love is more of a duty to create mutual belonging than an emotion of solidarity.1 This benevolent love contrasts with the universal love of liberalism and the resultant solidarity that those who express this form of love feel for one another—these people often being the distant and unacquainted—whose presence would puzzle (...) Confucian leaders in terms of their roles and duties. Confucian roles are, in comparison, contextual, evolving, and reciprocal in order to cope with encountered strangeness. The liberal belief in everyone being ontologically equal and free de-emphasizes the relevance of experiencing the other’s strangeness. As a result of this, a Confucian’s and liberal’s love for one another may ironically cause, in both, a moral outrage qua deprived belonging.2. (shrink)

Hong Kong, as a former colony of the United Kingdom, is characterised as a hybrid of East and West. Its colonial history is commonly seen as establishing many positive aspects of Hong Kong and shaping good qualities of its people, such as the value of rule of law, free speech, freedom of the press, and fluency in English. Yet the majority of people in both Hong Kong and China share Han Chinese ethnicity, (...) which has been used by both the Chinese and Hong Kong governments to promote a blood-based idea of Chinese identity for decades. This paper explores “Chineseness", or Chinese identity, as promoted by the Hong Kong government. It first explores the concept of Chineseness, elaborating on a blood-based view that connects with ethnic-nationalism, in contrast with a pluralistic view of identity in the Hong Kong context. The paper then examines how Hong Kong government officials promote Chineseness through major outlets, on government websites and in speeches captured in media. As we show, the government tends to advocate a blood-based view of Chineseness akin to ethnic-nationalism. A more inclusive and pluralistic view which recognises the dynamic nature and multiple visions of Chinese identity better fits Hong Kong’s multicultural context. (shrink)

Hong Kong, as a former colony of the United Kingdom, is characterised as a hybrid of East and West. Its colonial history is commonly seen as establishing many positive aspects of Hong Kong and shaping good qualities of its people, such as the value of rule of law, free speech, freedom of the press, and fluency in English. Yet the majority of people in both Hong Kong and China share Han Chinese ethnicity, (...) which has been used by both the Chinese and Hong Kong governments to promote a blood-based idea of Chinese identity for decades. This paper explores “Chineseness", or Chinese identity, as promoted by the Hong Kong government. It first explores the concept of Chineseness, elaborating on a blood-based view that connects with ethnic-nationalism, in contrast with a pluralistic view of identity in the Hong Kong context. The paper then examines how Hong Kong government officials promote Chineseness through major outlets, on government websites and in speeches captured in media. As we show, the government tends to advocate a blood-based view of Chineseness akin to ethnic-nationalism. A more inclusive and pluralistic view which recognises the dynamic nature and multiple visions of Chinese identity better fits Hong Kong’s multicultural context. (shrink)

This paper begins with a question: can concepts generated in the Chinese context in the sociocultural relations of the periphery contribute to the development of the social sciences in the field of Health and Physical Education (HPE) that have their roots in the metropole? Setting the scene in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), a postcolonial city reverted to the rule of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1997, this paper aims to develop a critical (...) sociology of HPE by having a dialogue among Continental philosophies (e.g., Bourdieu) and Chinese philosophies around embodiment concepts. Although HKSAR is a complex meeting point of Eastern and Western ideologies, the current HPE field tends to focus on Western and ‘scientific’ ways of knowing, such as the measurement of health and physical fitness, and often at the expense of sociocultural perspectives, social justice and diversity and inclusion in HPE. In other words, the (post) positivistic research paradigm underpins the HPE field. This paper argues that in order to reap the benefits of a more holistic health education for academics and students in HPE, it is vital to de-imperialise the positivistic ways of teaching and being in HPE. In doing so, this paper creates a space for Bourdieu’s habitus to meet Chinese perspectives on embodiment to engage in a dialogue for knowledge production that extends the current knowledge base in HPE. (shrink)

Hong Kong is a peculiar case for the study of cultural practices. One of the most Westernized cities in Asia, Hong Kong is, to many people in China, one ofthe most ‘Chinese’ places in the country. Hong Kong’s no-place situation presents an interesting example of the tensions within and without cultural systems and their relations to language.

This article examines the social development of Hong Kong's cultural and national identity since its return from the UK to the People's Republic of China nearly six years ago, focusing on the extent to which Hong Kong students are now inculcated in traditional Chinese music and express their devotion to the PRC through singing the national anthem. Hong Kong music teachers experience conflicts concerning their roles as music teachers and as purveyors of values (...) education. These observations raise fundamental questions concerning the sociopolitical function of values education in the music classroom. (shrink)

Globalisation has accelerated economic development in emerging economies through the outsourcing of their supply chains and at the same time has accelerated the degradation of environmental and social conditions. Society expects corporations to play an essential role in creating economic, environmental and social prosperity beyond their country of origin. In order to regulate outsourcing activities in the supply chain, many multinationals are constantly searching for ways to manage their indirect environmental and social impacts accordingly, as well as to meet their (...) stakeholder expectations. Because expectations of stakeholders vary widely across different regions, this study intends, by engaging with major stakeholders, to identify what are the local and regional supply chain stakeholders' perceptions and expectations. The findings would help in building consensus, strengthening the implementation and establishing the future corporate social responsibility (CSR) frame-work. This study collects and analyses data from 21 major stakeholders in Hong Kong and Mainland China. The results indicate that local and regional stakeholders perceive that CSR is fairly significant to largely export-oriented businesses, but it is lagging behind the West due to the fact that most local/regional companies only become involved in CSR when this is a client requirement. They see responsible corporations as meeting the local legislative requirement; going beyond this requirement is unnecessary. A voluntary approach favours multi-party partnership initiatives with pilot trust programmes aimed at managers' and workers' capacity building. Most stakeholders favour the proposed regional partnership initiative, supply chain task forces aimed at bringing together relevant organisations and people with different sets of skills. Distinct roles of different organisations are identified to assist suppliers to understand CSR, and only this will bring about long-term sustainable change. (shrink)

Hong Kong’s Covid-19 epidemic circumstances have given us a valuable opportunity to reflect on Hong Kong’s elderly care policies. This essay argues that Hong Kong should learn from the West and provide a subsidy to family caregivers for proper elderly care. We rebut the social and moralistic reasons for not introducing such a subsidy in Hong Kong. We indicate that providing cash subsidy to family caregivers does not monetize or tarnish Confucian filial (...) obligation to take care of elderly people, but enable adult children from low-income families to undertake this obligation effectively. In addition, we contend that providing such a subsidy would not significantly affect the job market in Hong Kong and that incurred financial and manpower costs for monitoring family care are controllable. (shrink)

This special issue of Educational Philosophy and Theory considers the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement as an educational event, which has impacted attitudes and outlooks and conceptions of young people’s role, of education, and of society. This essay serves as an introduction to the more substantive pieces that follow. It describes two alternative perspectives on youth civic engagement in Hong Kong historically; and in so doing, it addresses some of the challenges related to free academic expression (...) that hinder scholarly research and publishing on the area of Hong Kong-China relations looking into the future. It concludes with a brief glimpse of the contributions that follow. (shrink)

Following a government campaign run by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) in 1994, many Hong Kong companies and trade associations adopted written codes of conduct. The research study reported here examines how and why companies responded, and assesses the impact of code adoption on the moral climate of code adopters. The research involved (a) initial questionnaire surveys to which 184 organisations replied, (b) longitudinal questionnaire-based assessments of moral ethos and conduct in a focal sample of 17 code (...) adopting companies, (c) interviews with 33 managers in the focal companies examining the adoption and impact of the codes, and (d) content analysis of 41 company codes of conduct, including those of most focal companies, plus the ICAC model code.While a mixture of prudential and altruistic reasons were given for code adoption, content analysis suggested that the prime motive was corporate self-defence. The prevailing themes were bribery, conflict of interest, insider information, gambling, moonlighting, accuracy of records and misuse of corporate assets. Wider social responsibility tended to be neglected. Companies appeared to have imposed their codes top-down, emphasising disciplinary procedures rather than ethics training, and appointing neither ethics counsellors nor ombuds-people. The longitudinal study over a seven month period suggested that while moral ethos may have declined, overall standards of perceived conduct had not changed. (shrink)

Political trust is a cornerstone of political survival and development. This paper makes use of data from the 2006 AsiaBarometer Survey to examine the level of political trust in Hong Kong and Taiwan. It finds that the people of Hong Kong have a high level of trust in their government and judiciary, but a relatively low level of trust in their legislature. In contrast, the Taiwan people have a lower level of trust in all (...) of their executive, judicial, and legislative branches, reflecting a serious problem with political confidence in Taiwan. A further analysis shows that institutional factors such as ratings of government performance, life satisfaction, and satisfaction with democratic rights and freedoms, and cultural factors such as interpersonal trust, post-materialism, and traditionalism have varying degrees of effect on the different domains of political trust in Hong Kong and Taiwan, but institutional factors appear to be more powerful than cultural factors in explaining the experiences of both societies. (shrink)

This special issue of Educational Philosophy and Theory considers the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement as an educational event, which has impacted attitudes and outlooks and conceptions of young people’s role, of education, and of society. This essay serves as an introduction to the more substantive pieces that follow. It describes two alternative perspectives on youth civic engagement in Hong Kong historically; and in so doing, it addresses some of the challenges related to free academic expression (...) that hinder scholarly research and publishing on the area of Hong Kong-China relations looking into the future. It concludes with a brief glimpse of the contributions that follow. (shrink)

The practice of critical care medicine has long been a difficult task for most critical care physicians in the densely populated city of Hong Kong, where we face limited resources and a limited number of intensive care beds. Our triage decisions are largely based on the potential of functional reversibility of the patients. Provision of graded care beds may help to relieve some of the demands on the intensive care beds. Decisions to forego futile medical treatment are frequently (...) physician-guided family-based decisions, which is quite contrary to the Western focus on patient autonomy. However, as people acquire knowledge about health care and they become more aware of individual rights, our critical care doctors will be able to narrow the gaps between the dif ferent concepts of medical ethics among our professionals as well as in our society. An open and caring attitude from our intensivists will be important in minimizing the cross-cultural conflict on the complex issue of medical futility. (shrink)

In this article, we analyzed the effect of various factors on moral judgment and ethical attitudes of working persons. It was found that the effect of various socio-demographic factors on ethical attitudes varied between the two different categories of ethical issues under study, issues which involve explicit violation of laws vis-à-vis issues which involved social concerns. Our results did not support the implication of Callahan’s hypothesis that males are more sensitive to rule-based ethical issues while women are to issues involving (...) social concerns; it was found that females have a lower acceptability of unethical behaviors related to both categories of issues in Hong Kong, whereas gender effect was not statistically significant in Mainland China. University education also had no significant effect on ethical attitudes. Religion played an important role in affecting ethical attitudes, however, its effect varied with different types of religions; Christianity was found to be most favorable to higher ethical standards, but people of traditional Chinese religion had a higher acceptability of unethical behaviors involving social concerns compared to people with no religion. Our finding also indicated that employees in state-owned enterprises, private employees, employees in foreign-investment firms, and employers in Mainland China all had a higher acceptability of unethical law-breaking behaviors compared to workers in collectives, throwing doubt on the validity of convergence theory in Mainland China. (shrink)

This is a quantitative research study with a cross-sectional designand a survey approach to address the views of a large sample of youngpeople in relation to family responsibility in a society where East meets West.The survey results suggest that the sample hold relatively positive attitudestowards Chinese cultural values and family responsibility. The traditional valueof importance of family, filial piety and harmony with others were still stronglysupported by many young people. The findings further revealed that the morethe Chinese cultural values (...) the young people associated with, the more thepositive attitudes in family obligation they would have. However, globalinfluences which emphasize the right of freedom and to have personal choicemay have been at work too. There are implications for a matrix of policies tosupport young people in their transitions to adulthood. (shrink)

People obtain value, or gain utility, from procedures rather than merely from outcomes. Academic researchers are slowly and selectively coming to terms with this fact, but it is neither sufficiently nor widely appreciated by actors in Hong Kong’s political arena, whether at the center or on the periphery. The territory is grappling with the issue of democratic reform—both its pace and scope—but the heated exchanges between the proponents and the opponents of representative government are confined to the (...) outcome utility of the various constitutional proposals. It is essential to incorporate the procedural element into this incomplete picture. (shrink)

In the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, Italy, Spain, New York, and Hong Kong stood out for the ir high rates of infections. Given this scenario, a web-based international multisite and cross-sectional study was conducted between April and May 2020 to investigate the psychological impact of the pandemic and the restrictions imposed by the governments in these countries. We expected similar patterns in European countries, and no significant differences in terms of psychological impairment between Hong (...) class='Hi'>Kong and the other areas. Participants were 1955 adults from the above-mentioned areas. We assessed anxiety, depression, COVID-19-related threats, and perceived burden of restrictive measures. Two-explorative factor analyses with Promax rotation identified COVID-19-related factors: personal physical threat, personal economic threat, global economic threat, and restriction-related burden. ANOVAs studied locations’ differences and two-separate hierarchical multiple regression analyses by location determined whether and how COVID-19-related variables were associated with anxiety and depression, adjusting for age and sex. Italy and Hong Kong showed higher anxiety than Spain ; Hong Kong scored higher on depression than Italy and Spain, which highlighted the lowest mean-score. New York participants showed the poorest mental health conditions. Anxiety was predicted by restriction-related burden and personal economic threat in New York and Hong Kong ; by global economic threat and restriction-related burden in Italy ; and by personal physical threat in Spain. Depression was predicted by restriction-related burden and personal economic threat in New York and Hong Kong ; by global economic threat in Italy ; and no predictors emerged in Spain. Findings could contribute to understanding the specific impact of the pandemic on people’s psychological health in each area, along with the factors that impacted mental health. This information may be useful to implementing prevention interventions in case of restrictions. (shrink)

Based on selected writings on women's experiences of and reflections on dress and travel published in the Hong Kong feminist journal Nuliu, this paper discusses the politics of female subjectivity in relation to the everyday. The context of the discussion is the changing actualization of the well-known feminist slogan ‘the personal is political’ within the local feminist movement in Hong Kong between the 1980s and the 1990s. The paper aims to create a new paradigm for analysing (...) agency – the key concept in subject formation – by critiquing the ideology of choice, which is a liberal value system that connects people's imagination with the notion of personal ‘liberation’. As demonstrated by the examples of dress and travel, the everyday is a site of both possibilities and conflict for women, who generate new strategies or tactics to negotiate not only with institutions, structures and policies, but also with ‘interpellations’, ‘temporality’, ‘spatiality’, ‘performativity’, ‘symbolism’ and ‘psyche’. (shrink)

Globalisation has accelerated economic development in emerging economies through the outsourcing of their supply chains and at the same time has accelerated the degradation of environmental and social conditions. Society expects corporations to play an essential role in creating economic, environmental and social prosperity beyond their country of origin. In order to regulate outsourcing activities in the supply chain, many multinationals are constantly searching for ways to manage their indirect environmental and social impacts accordingly, as well as to meet their (...) stakeholder expectations. Because expectations of stakeholders vary widely across different regions, this study intends, by engaging with major stakeholders, to identify what are the local and regional supply chain stakeholders’ perceptions and expectations. The findings would help in building consensus, strengthening the implementation and establishing the future corporate social responsibility framework. This study collects and analyses data from 21 major stakeholders in Hong Kong and Mainland China. The results indicate that local and regional stakeholders perceive that CSR is fairly significant to largely export-oriented businesses, but it is lagging behind the West due to the fact that most local/regional companies only become involved in CSR when this is a client requirement. They see responsible corporations as meeting the local legislative requirement; going beyond this requirement is unnecessary. A voluntary approach favours multi-party partnership initiatives with pilot trust programmes aimed at managers’ and workers’ capacity building. Most stakeholders favour the proposed regional partnership initiative, supply chain task forces aimed at bringing together relevant organisations and people with different sets of skills. Distinct roles of different organisations are identified to assist suppliers to understand CSR, and only this will bring about long-term sustainable change. (shrink)

Although the idea of freedom has been well studied as an ideal in political philosophy, relatively little scholarship has focused on the human experience of freedom. Drawing on ethnographic research between 2012 and 2013, I examine how freedom was achieved by people who practice freeganism and freecycling in Hong Kong. I show that the freedom that these people pursue, either individually or collectively, is not a freedom without constraints but a freedom that must be attained through (...) the exercise of deliberation, restraint, and self-discipline. While freegans seek liberation by withdrawing from the world and practicing self-cultivation (chushi asceticism), freecyclers do so by engaging with worldly affairs in order to create social changes (rushi asceticism). In both cases, by reimagining freedom as ethical practices rather than a right that comes naturally with birth, freegans and freecyclers in Hong Kong are able to experience moments of freedom despite inevitable structural constraints. (shrink)

Enquiry teaching approaches are widely considered as more useful than didactic approaches for the development of environmentally responsible behaviour. This paper is a report of an empirical study on the validity of this belief with reference to higher-ability and lower- to medium-ability groups drawn from geography classes at the Advanced Level in Hong Kong. The hypotheses were that, taken together, enquiry approaches are more effective than didactic approaches for the development of environmentally responsible behaviour in both the short (...) and long terms for students as a whole, and for students within the same range of academic ability. A quasi-experimental control group design was used for selecting students and classes from schools in the territory. A questionnaire survey and a series of interviews were conducted to collect data about students' behaviour before and after they were taught a people-environment topic with a didactic approach or an enquiry approach. The results suggest that the students on the whole were not behaving as positively for the environment as their peers in other countries. For both the higher- and the lower- to medium-ability classes, those who were taught with an enquiry approach were behaving positively in more areas than those who were taught with a didactic approach in both the short and long terms. This trend could be attributed to their greater attention to critical thinking, positive behavioural changes, and the development of internal locus of control, while society as a whole was still largely apathetic to personal efforts for improving environmental quality. To further enhance the effectiveness of enquiry for the development of environmentally responsible behaviour, it is suggested that teachers should give more attention to the elements of concern and empathy in the classroom. Improvements in teacher education and training and in the guidelines for teachers, restructuring and revision of environmental education in schools, providing adequate funding and resources, and revision of the style and content of questions in public examinations are also recommended. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:206 Feminist Studies 46, no. 1. © 2020 by Feminist Studies, Inc. Pang Laikwan Identity Politics and Democracy in Hong Kong’s Social Unrest Hong Kong’s anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill (anti-ELAB) movement began with legislation proposed in February 2019 to allow the transfer of fugitives to jurisdictions with which the city lacks formal extradition treaties. The law quickly attracted a tremendous amount of criticism and generated (...) enormous anxiety because mainland China was one of those jurisdictions.1 In fact, many believe that this bill was proposed to allow the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to transfer wanted persons of any nationality from Hong Kong to China, subject to a legal process that many view as highly dubious. A large-scale anti-government movement exploded in June 2019 when pro-establishment legislators in Hong Kong insisted on passing it, and millions of people took to the streets. The government waited three months to withdraw the bill, only doing so after some of the most violent confrontations between civilians and the police in Hong Kong’s history. With Beijing’s 1. The law was originally proposed after a Hong Kong man, who killed his pregnant girlfriend in Taiwan, could not be extradited back to Taiwan to stand trial for the murder due to the lack of formal extradition laws. The proposed law, which would be applied to Hong Kong citizens, foreign residents, and even people passing through on business or as tourists, is being opposed due to the fear that it would be used to extradite Hong Kong political/civil rights activists and dissidents to China, where they would be harshly punished. Pang Laikwan 207 support, the Hong Kong government has doggedly resisted negotiating with the protestors over other demands, such as setting up an independent inquiry into police misconduct. As people have become completely disillusioned with the government and their own futures, tensions have increased. Collapsing many of the city’s socioeconomic problems into one cause, the anti-ELAB movement is primarily an anti-authoritarian impulse motivated by the unifying power of the term “Hongkongers.” As the movement unfolds, one of the most popular slogans, “Add Oil, Hongkongers!” (meaning “Keep going, Hongkongers!”) gradually transformed into “Rebel, Hongkongers!” and “Revenge, Hongkongers!” showing the protestors ’ anger about unrestrained police violence and the Beijing regime behind it. The militarization associated with these protests is both worrisome and symptomatic. This short essay analyzes this movement and uses it as a vehicle to disentangle social and political identity. My concern is about how a large-scale political movement can realign identities to generate power from the bottom. I use an Arendtian approach to ground my theoretical orientation, asking: How can political actions be understood as the pursuit of freedom to transcend one’s biological and social identity? From an intersectional feminist angle, if we are aware that social discrimination operates within a complex network of simultaneous discriminations, real social change can only be envisioned using a broad political canvas. Hong Kong’s anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill movement provides such a setting. Division and Inclusion “The people” might be the emptiest, but also the most powerful, phrase in the modern political lexicon. It can be used by politicians to justify groundless proposals or criticisms, but it is also the foundation and source of legitimacy for all modern political institutions. Indeed, the most basic meaning of democracy is “rule of the people,” which is impossible to avoid in any democratic imagination. As has been widely seen throughout the world, however, “the people” is often attached to various degrees of xenophobia—hatred of outsiders in the name of in-group solidarity. While the Hong Kong protestors’ courageous demands for the PRC to honor its promise to grant the city a high degree of autonomy have gained widespread international sympathy, thorny social divisions persist within the movement. 208 Pang Laikwan While Hong Kong has never been a united society, the anti-ELAB protests—like most social movements—have been highly divisive, splitting Hong Kong people apart. Most obviously, “the people” are divided by their political identifications, forming a primary antagonism between those who support the protests and those who do not, usually described... (shrink)

The geohistorical disjunctures between Hong Kong—colonial territory, global city, and special administrative region—and China challenge understandings of the relationship. Hong Kong officially maintains certain core values that differ from those of the People’s Republic of China, while unofficial Chinese Communist Party united-front activity in Hong Kong has arguably narrowed the range of the sayable, in Jacques Rancière’s terms, in the public sphere. How does this admixture of core values, at turns antithetical and contested, (...) appear in the space and time of Hong Kong? Interventions in the ideational dynamic between the city and the state—through images, utterances, performances, and alternative artworks—produce space for the appearance of subjects defined by the people. Not a postcolonial culture of disappearance but an ontology of politics where spaces of disagreement make apprehensible that which is politically unsayable. During the decade before the Umbrella Movement, in a fervent aesthetics of politics at the crossroads of hurtling urban transformation and accelerating illiberal governance, alternative art in Hong Kong populated social-movement activity with claims on public space and the possibilities of the people in the sightlines of a democratic future. (shrink)

This essay analyses the Historical Evolution of Hong Kong, from the colonial period to the return to China sovereignty in 1997, according to the political philosophy of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, and the principle “one country, two systems”, which means that Hong Kong is part of China and enjoys a high degree of autonomy, except in foreign and defence policy, as stipulated by the Basic Law of The Hong Kong Administrative Region of the (...) class='Hi'>People’s Republic of China. The political system implemented in HKSAR corresponds to the matrix of the People’s Republic of China, but its economic base and legal system remained untouched in essence; an extreme model of liberal capitalism, deregulated and functioning on the margins of international law, with deep social inequalities, millions of new poor (workers and students in a situation of necessity) and a serious problem of access to housing. This essay analyses the political nature of the conflict around the extraction laws, distinguishing internal causes, and external interferences. At least, this essay analyses the system of political representation of HKSAR, the government program to overcome crisis and the new legislation after crisis. Keywords: history, one country, two systems, paradox, HKSAR, fallacies. (shrink)

This paper explores the philosophy of tertiary civic education in Hong Kong. It does not only investigate the role of tertiary education that can play in civic education, but also explores the way to achieve the aim of integrating liberal democratic citizenship and collective national identity in the context of persistent conflicts between two different identity politics in Hong Kong: politics of assimilation and politics of difference. As Hong Kong is part of China and (...) is inevitably getting closer cooperation with the mainland in the future, I argue that Hong Kong citizenship should affirm its own distinctiveness while also identifying with Chinese nationality. Thus, tertiary civic education should foster a trans-cultural political vision so that the two different horizons can be synthesized and the political framework and identity can be transformed in order to reduce conflicts between the two peoples. (shrink)

Enquiry teaching approaches are widely considered as more useful than didactic approaches for the development of environmentally responsible behaviour. This paper is a report of an empirical study on the validity of this belief with reference to higher-ability and lower- to medium-ability groups drawn from geography classes at the Advanced Level in Hong Kong. The hypotheses were that, taken together, enquiry approaches are more effective than didactic approaches for the development of environmentally responsible behaviour in both the short (...) and long terms for students as a whole, and for students within the same range of academic ability. A quasi-experimental control group design was used for selecting students and classes from schools in the territory. A questionnaire survey and a series of interviews were conducted to collect data about students' behaviour before and after they were taught a people-environment topic with a didactic approach or an enquiry approach. The results suggest that the students on the whole were not behaving as positively for the environment as their peers in other countries. For both the higher- and the lower- to medium-ability classes, those who were taught with an enquiry approach were behaving positively in more areas than those who were taught with a didactic approach in both the short and long terms. This trend could be attributed to their greater attention to critical thinking, positive behavioural changes, and the development of internal locus of control, while society as a whole was still largely apathetic to personal efforts for improving environmental quality. To further enhance the effectiveness of enquiry for the development of environmentally responsible behaviour, it is suggested that teachers should give more attention to the elements of concern and empathy in the classroom. Improvements in teacher education and training and in the guidelines for teachers, restructuring and revision of environmental education in schools, providing adequate funding and resources, and revision of the style and content of questions in public examinations are also recommended. (shrink)

Entrepreneurship is a tool for driving economic and social progress. Especially in Hong Kong, the government has recently taken steps to encourage young people to engage in entrepreneurship. However, Hong Kong youths’ entrepreneurial intentions are still low. The objective of this study is to empirically explore the impacts of personality traits on start-up preparation among Hong Kong youths through the constructs of the theory of planned behavior. Through a multi-channel survey, we finally collected (...) 230 valid respondents aged 18 to 40. In addition, this study used SmartPLS software to conduct confirmatory factor analysis for the measurement model as well as path analysis for the structural model. This study’s results suggested that creativity, risk-taking propensity, need for achievement, and internal locus of control influence TPB models’ components and indirectly influence start-up preparation through TPB models’ components. Also, attitude and perceived behavioral control influence intention, and intention influences preparation. Furthermore, prior entrepreneurial experience and entrepreneurship education positively influence preparation. In conclusion, this study revealed the mediating effects of TPB components between four personality traits and start-up preparation. Finally, this study had theoretical implications by providing the influence of six personality traits on youths’ entrepreneurial intention and preparation through the TPB model and the human capital theory. This study also had practical implications by providing suggestions for the government and higher education institutions. (shrink)

Shuilu fahui is a Buddhist rite for saving all sentient beings (pudu) with a complex layer of ritual activities incorporating elements of all schools of Chinese Buddhism, such as Tantric mantras, Tian Tai rituals of asking for forgiveness (chanfa), and Pure Land reciting of Amitabha’s name. The ritual can be dated to the Tang Dynasty (c. 670–673 CE) and has been one of the most spectacular and popular rituals in Chinese Buddhism. Shuilu fahui is still performed in China, Hong (...) Kong, Taiwan and Singapore, and continues to be very popular amongst such Chinese communities. This study is an aid to understanding how Chinese Buddhism is practised by monks and nuns in Hong Kong, and how they interact with lay Buddhists through Shuilu fahui. This rite constructs and represents a unified religious world that contains many important and profound religious meanings, and it continuous to ­develop in order to accommodate the various demands of people in Hong Kong. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:216 Feminist Studies 46, no. 1. © 2020 by Feminist Studies, Inc. Sealing Cheng Pikachu’s Tears: Children’s Perspectives on Violence in Hong Kong How do children experience the sudden onset of massive unrest, violence, and police brutality? It has been difficult even for many adults to process how Hong Kong—a cosmopolitan city known for its stability and low crime rate—descended overnight, on June 12, 2019, (...) into tear gas and violent confrontations. What began as a mass protest against amendments to a bill that would have facilitated the extradition of fugitives in Hong Kong to mainland China for trial turned into a protracted struggle for universal suffrage and investigations into police brutality. In the process, countless scenes of excessive police violence against protestors have challenged any dichotomous, black-and-white worldview of good cop/bad criminal; the geography and tempo of the city have been remade by protests, crackdowns, and transportation shutdowns; and social and familial tensions and divisions about the source of the violence have plagued the routines of everyday life. Children, like adults, have to find new ways of being and becoming in the city during this political upheaval. Their existential liminality, however, provides children with a unique perspective from which to sense, experience, and engage with the volatility around them. Careful listening allows children’s “small voices” to speak to “big issues.”1 1. Allison James, “Giving Voice to Children’s Voices: Practices and Problems, Pitfalls and Potentials,” American Anthropologist 109, no. 2 (2007): 261–72. Sealing Cheng 217 Unmooring children from “the restrictive and constricting frameworks of innocence and/or victimhood” with “incomplete moral and social personhood,” Karen Lury analyzed the child as a version of Berlant’s “infantile citizen,” whose “‘stubborn naïveté’ gives her/him enormous power to unsettle, expose, and reframe the machinery of national life.”2 I offer reflections below as an observer of the ways my children participate in their changing world as socio-moral beings. I write as a mother who searches for her own ethical anchor with and through my children in a collective project of engaging with our fears, hopes, and possibilities. “Will the Government Talk to Us?” I am a mother of two girls, ages six and nine. My daughters usually want to go swimming on Sundays, but since June 9, 2019, our family has instead spent many Sundays at marches and protests against the anti-extradition law and police brutality, reiterating the “five demands” of the movement. Our family has participated in protest marches before, but the prospect of walking in a crowd through the city streets for hours in the summer heat—rather than swimming in the pool—was highly unappealing to my kids. I had to explain to them why it was important. I said that if amendments to the Extradition Law passed, we could be accused of committing a crime under mainland Chinese laws, and we would lose our rights to do many of the things we had taken for granted. As an example, I explained that they would not be allowed to watch Winnie the Pooh again because President Xi did not like that people likened him to the cute bear. My daughters found it puzzling why anyone would object to such an innocuous comparison. I also said that if the law passed, we might no longer be free to say the words “8964” commemorating the June 4, 1989, Massacre on Tiananmen Square. (While these changes might not really happen, they speak to Hongkongers’ utter distrust of the judicial system in China.) I explained to my daughters that we needed to tell Chief Executive Carrie Lam and her government that we did not want this law passed. They agreed. 2. Karen Lury, “Children in an Open World: Mobility as Ontology in New Iranian and Turkish Cinema,” Feminist Theory 11, no. 3 (2010): 284; Lauren Berlant, The Queen of America Goes to Washington City: Essays of Sex and Citizenship (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997), 29, quoted in Lury, “Children in an Open World,” 284–5. 218 Sealing Cheng When we joined our first anti-extradition march toward the government headquarters on June 9, we were among one million people who... (shrink)

Abstract Our Hong Kong-based study used interviews with volunteers and other stakeholders to investigate the perceived integrity and commitment of firms’ adoption of actively managed corporate volunteerism (AMCV), to examine whether AMCV was removing barriers against voluntary community service work and to identify volunteers’ motives for AMCV involvement. Interviewees perceived that firms were adopting strategically instrumental approaches to AMCV, combining community service provision with corporate image promotion and/or with organisational development. They indicated that although AMCV was mobilizing (...) class='Hi'>people, who would not otherwise have chosen to volunteer, instances of ‘conscription’ were uncommon. Those who had served as volunteers described positive motives for their own involvement, such as altruism, principlism, self-development, loyalty to the firm and relationship building with colleagues and service recipients. Some expressed that volunteering had been a highly rewarding self-transformation experience. Our study also used the career orientations inventory (COI) to examine career anchors. COI scores indicated that non-governmental organisation (NGO)-based employees and some firm-based paid AMCV organisers preferred the service/dedication to a cause anchor and that firm-based unpaid organisers-cum-participants preferred the lifestyle anchor. Volunteers without organiser roles had miscellaneous preferences but leaned toward the security anchor. From our findings, we argue that it would benefit all parties if firms, in close collaboration with NGOs, were to expand the range of volunteering opportunities that are available to employees and help them to choose activities and roles that are congruent with their career anchors, if they so wish. Content Type Journal Article Category Original Paper Pages 1-29 DOI 10.1007/s13520-011-0011-3 Authors Robin Stanley Snell, Department of Management, Lingnan University, 8, Castle Peak Road, Tuen Mun, New Territories, Hong Kong SAR, China Amy Lai Yu Wong, Department of Management & Marketing, Faculty of Business, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China Journal Asian Journal of Business Ethics Online ISSN 2210-6731 Print ISSN 2210-6723. (shrink)

This article begins with a review of the literature on the ethics of tax evasion and identifies the three main views that have emerged over the centuries, namely always ethical, sometimes ethical, and never or almost never ethical. It then reports on the results of a survey of HK and U.S. university business students who were asked to express their opinions on the 15 statements covering the three main views. The data are then analyzed to determine which of the three (...) viewpoints is dominant among the sample population. Although it was found that HK scores were significantly different from the U.S. scores, both HK and U.S. respondents were opposed to the view that tax evasion is always or almost always ethical. The strongest arguments justifying tax evasion were in cases where the government was corrupt, the tax system was unfair and unaffordable. The weakest arguments for justifying tax evasion were in cases where there was a selfish motive. The underlying cultural differences are further explored in hope of accounting for differing perceptions of ethics of tax evasion. Policy implications for increasing people’s awareness of ethics on tax evasion are also highlighted. (shrink)

This essay discusses methods of pedagogy and educational philosophy stirred up by the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement/occupy-hong Kong Movement at the end of 2014. It situates these events as a way to envision a new type of public university. To this end, the essay proposes a model of ‘wandering scholarship,’ in which educators and activists walk through urban environments and use dialogic esthetics to reclaim them as ‘Commons.’ Wandering means a multisensory exploration and learning based on (...) the historical concept of ‘psychogeography,’ a drifting through sites and interpellation of their embedded ideologies. As opposed to traditions of introspective wandering, this kind of ‘dialogic wandering’ is done within groups and encourages people to talk to fellow-walkers or random bystanders. As will be shown, these modes of wandering while addressing publics were pioneered in the 1960s student movements and also adopted in a unique manner by the young activists of the Umbrella Movement. Dialogic wandering leads to affective languages and embodied learning as opposed to modes of analytical reasoning and logic within higher education. To further study the impact of this aspect of social movements within a university curriculum, it will be shown by means of example how students can meaningfully adopt dialogic wandering to survey people’s affect and ideological positioning within environments. (shrink)

This essay discusses methods of pedagogy and educational philosophy stirred up by the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement/Occupy-Hong Kong Movement at the end of 2014. It situates these events as a way to envision a new type of public university. To this end, the essay proposes a model of ‘wandering scholarship,’ in which educators and activists walk through urban environments and use dialogic esthetics to reclaim them as ‘Commons.’ Wandering means a multisensory exploration and learning based on (...) the historical concept of ‘psychogeography,’ a drifting through sites and interpellation of their embedded ideologies. As opposed to traditions of introspective wandering, this kind of ‘dialogic wandering’ is done within groups and encourages people to talk to fellow-walkers or random bystanders. As will be shown, these modes of wandering while addressing publics were pioneered in the 1960s student movements and also adopted in a unique manner by the young activists of the Umbrella Movement. Dialogic wandering le... (shrink)

The notion of “agent bookkeeping” was proposed when the “Accounting Law of the People’s Republic of China” was updated in 1993. Since their business is specialized in serving small and micro-enterprises, this has created the industry characteristic of generally small in the size of company and low in the salary of employees in Chinese agent bookkeeping companies. Such characteristic results in a series of problems including negative work attitude of employees in the development process, which seriously limit the development (...) of Chinese agent bookkeeping companies. However, issues occurred in the development of agent bookkeeping, such as negative employee attitudes, which severely hampered the growth of Chinese agent bookkeeping companies. Therefore, a model of three dimensions of work attitude has been set up in this paper to demonstrate the working attitude of the staff of the agent bookkeeping companies in China’s Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, including emotional dimension, behavioral dimension, and cognitive dimension which consists of eight factors: work environment, career satisfaction, interpersonal relationship, role engagement, work vitality, responsibility attitude, emotional identity, and retention attitude. The result indicates that female employees outnumber male ones in agent bookkeeping companies, most employees have a low sense of belonging to the company, limited career development affects employees’ enthusiasm for work, work attitudes are influenced by mediocre work performance among employees with a graduate degree or higher. (shrink)

With an increasing awareness of what they eat and the provenance of their food, people nowadays often raise such questions as where does the food come from? How is it produced? This concern over food ingredients and origins has resulted in a burgeoning interest in growing one's own food, both for the satisfaction in having done it oneself and for the assurance of food quality and safety. But how to grow one's own food in the midst of an urban (...) metropolis? How to do it without a real garden?This book points the way, especially for beginners and those who may only have a balcony or a rooftop and are limited to growing in containers. It is not just about gardening in a narrow sense. It delves into the growing of plants as a multidisciplinary activity involving not only botany, but also zoology, geology, meteorology, philosophy, ornithology, and more. The book sends a strong environmental message for a reevaluation of modern lifestyle. (shrink)

Although most Asian states are signatories to UNCLOS, which offers options for dispute resolution by either voluntary or compulsory processes, in reality fewer than a dozen Asian states have taken advantage of such an approach. The decision to adopt third-party mechanisms comes under great scrutiny and deliberation, not least because of the entailing legal procedures and the politically sensitive nature of disputes. Vietnam claims the second-largest maritime area in the South China Sea dispute after China. A comparison of two recent (...) cases—the arbitration between the Philippines and China and the conciliation between Timor-Leste and Australia—highlights the importance of selecting between binding and nonbinding decisions and framing a complaint. In particular, any legal action under UNCLOS should specify China’s claims and actions in areas that encroach on Vietnam’s claimed exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and violate international law. (shrink)

The relationship between Vietnam and China could be captured in the Chinese expression of “同床异梦”, which means lying on the same bed but having different dreams. The two countries share certain cultural and political similarities but also diverge vastly in their national interests. This paper adds to the extant literature on this topic by analyzing the element of trust/mistrust in their interactions in trade-investment, tourism, and defense-security. The analysis shows how the relationship is increasingly interdependent but is equally fragile due (...) to the lack of trust on both sides. The mistrust or even distrust of Chinese subjects run deep within the Vietnamese mindset, from the skepticism of Chinese investment, Chinese tourists, discrimination against ethnic Chinese, to the caution against Chinese aggression in the South China Sea. The paper forecasts that, despite the deep-seated differences and occasional mistrust, going forward, neither side would risk damaging the status quo even when tensions peak. (shrink)

This study investigates the relationship between the ethical, educational, and disciplinary development of professional accountancy organizations in a given country and the development of that country’s stock market. Using a comprehensive measure based on the responses of the major PAOs in 36 countries to a questionnaire designed by the International Federation of Accountants to assess the development of PAOs internationally, we find a significantly positive association between the development of PAOs and stock market development. In addition, we find the positive (...) association between the development of PAOs and stock market development to be more pronounced in countries with higher levels of investor protection, a stronger public enforcement environment, or lower levels of corruption, suggesting the importance of complementary institutions in the relationship between PAOs and stock market development. We also find that better-developed PAOs are associated with better-quality financial reporting. Finally, our result also shows that relative to the investigation and discipline mechanism and educational requirements imposed by PAOs, the ethical development of a country’s professional accountants appears to have the strongest positive association with a country’s stock market development. (shrink)