Berkley Center

The people of Hong Kong have long struggled to define an identity for themselves; the region has been under British control for 152 years, Japanese control for four years, and Chinese control for 18 years. With each exchange of governance, Hong Kong has integrated parts of the parent nation's culture into its own culture. Present day Hong Kong culture is a fusion of British, Japanese, and Chinese influences, along with a component that stems directly from traditional Hong Kong culture. As would be expected, the British have left the largest impact on Hong Kong society. For example, due to British influence, Hong Kongers will have tea and a snack during their daily tea time. On the political side, Hong Kongers value the democracy they enjoy while being a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China. This aspect of Hong Kong society has been under global scrutiny in recent months as protests have broken out throughout the city to preserve democracy in the SAR.

The "Umbrella Revolution" is a political movement that began in the fall of 2014 in protest of Beijing's decision to limit the democratic election process in Hong Kong in favor of the communist party. The protesters used civil disobedience to occupy large portions of metropolitan Hong Kong in order to disrupt the daily business of the city and force Beijing to allow Hong Kong to have democratic elections. At its peak, the protest saw tens of thousands of protesters flooding the narrow streets of Hong Kong Island. Since then, the protests have decreased in severity, but they still do occur throughout the region. Although the movement failed to bring any real change to the election process in Hong Kong, it did serve to highlight how much Hong Kongers value their democracy. This political system has become a distinguishing factor for Hong Kong; it is essentially what makes Hong Kong separate from the rest of China. As China attempts to integrate the region into itself, Hong Kongers actively try to remain a separate entity. The idea of democracy isn't valuable to Hong Kong because it was introduced to them as a part of British culture; it is important because it makes Hong Kong what it is—without it, Hong Kong would be similar to any other mainland Chinese city.

Last week, another example of Hong Kongers rejecting mainland Chinese influence and asserting their own independence as a region occurred near my university. In the Sha Tin mall near the area where I go to school, many locals staged a protest against the impact of mainland Chinese shoppers on the resources available to Hong Kongers. The locals are angry at mainlanders who conduct "parallel trading," a practice by which goods are bought in Hong Kong and sold in mainland China for a profit. Locals claim that the practice limits the resources and basic supplies available to local Hong Kongers. Mainlanders claim it is their right to shop in Hong Kong since the region is still a part of China. Although this protest shows the frustration of Hong Kong people with their unification with China, it also serves to show Hong Kong's struggle to maintain its own identity. Much like the umbrella movement, where Hong Kongers strove to protect the democracy that differentiated them from the mainland, the Sha Tin protest was directed at showing that Hong Kong commodities are for Hong Kong people. These movements have shown that Hong Kong has defined a culture for itself. This culture creates a clear distinction between Hong Kong and mainland China—Hong Kongers are now fighting to keep it that way.