From the 1960s to the 1990s HK people have built up a unique and diasporic cultural identity (Turner, 1995), which differentiates herself from both the West and Mainland China (the two “Others”). Baker (1983:478) made a vivid description of this diasporic attribute as follows:

“… something unique has been emerging from Hong Kong’s cities: it is the Hong Kong Man. He is go-getting and highly competitive, tough for survival, quick-thinking and flexible. He wears western clothes, speaks English or expects his children to do so, drinks western alcohol, has sophisticated tastes in cars and household gadgetry, and expects life to provide a constant stream of excitement and new openings. But he is not British or western (merely westernised). At the same time he is not Chinese in the same way that the citizens of the People’s Republic of China are Chinese.”

Eric Ma used the term ‘de-sinicisation’ to denote the process of how the cultural identity of Hong Kong detached herself from that of mainland China socially, politically, and culturally since the 1950s (Ma, 1999:25). But what is paradoxical is that it is a common perception among Hongkongers and her two Others that Chineseness is always and “inevitably a narrative associated in certain ways with notions of ‘tradition’”, Westernised is linked with modernity (Clarke, 1995), and Hongkongness is a hybrid formation of the two. If identity is marked by differences (Woodward, 1997), and based on the fact that the capitalistic West and communist mainland China are two very different cultural entities, nothing could help to reveal more on the ambiquous nature of this hybrid identity of Hong Kong when it is placed against these two entities.

The image of Hong Kong is projected heavily in tourism promotion. These images reflect directly on how the Hong Kong government wants the others to see Hong Kong. This essay is to take the Discover Hong Kong website (www.discoverhongkong.com), the official website of the Hong Kong Tourism Board, as a case study to deduce the diasporic nature of the cultural identity of Hong Kong by examining the information the website provided, as well as the image of Hong Kong represented through the images and the suggested itineraries for the tourists. Besides marketing concerns to the target visitors, this essay is to make a qualitative analysis on the similarities and differences of the image of Hong Kong being represented to the two Others, and tries to explain the reason behind the phenomenon.

Discover Hong Kong (www.discoverhongkong.com)
The Discover Hong Kong website has been one of the channels for foreign visitors, mainly from North America, Europe and Japan where internet is more accessible, to obtain information about visiting Hong Kong since 2001. The government also utilised it as a means for the promotion of the image of Hong Kong. For years the English section of this website is already well-structured and user-friendly to the target audience, and resembles very much like popular international touring publications such as Lonely Planet. Since the introduction of the Individual Visit Scheme in July 2003, in a few months’ time over 460,000 mainland visitors have applied for the individual visit travel permits and over 200,000 visitors have visited Hong Kong on that basis (HK Government Press Release, Speech by Secretary for Economic Devt & Labour to tourism delegates in Beijing, 21 October, 2003 (http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/200310/21/1021139.htm). A new dedicated section in the simplified Chinese version of the site has been introduced so as to provide mainland visitors to obtain information about Hong Kong. Suggested itineraries are also provided. How Hong Kong government presents the image of Hong Kong to these mainlanders is interesting. What do the government want these new visitors to see in Hong Kong? What do the government thinks they will be interested in?

The hybrid nature of Hong Kong is already very significant with the different openings of the English and the simplified Chinese versions. The first photo on the English page is an extremely stereotyped image of Hong Kong to the West — a fishing junk against the Victoria Habour waterfront which presents the highly modern skyline from Central to Wanchai. Parallel to this page the simplified Chinese version presents to the audience a night scene of the same waterfront, but without the junk. The photos which follows the two first are the Buddha Statue in Lantau (English version) and the Peak Tram against a Peak view of the harbour (simplified Chinese version). Under the discourse of Orientalism as introduced by Edward Said (1979), the image of ‘East-meets-West’ is repeatedly applied on Hong Kong as a place where an small exotic oriental fishing village (signified by the junk) is modernised through time (signified by the waterfront). To the West, Hong Kong, ‘Pearl of the Orient’, deserves gratitude to the West for its introduction of modern capitalistic and consumer culture during the colonisating period, which is vital in making Hong Kong a legend in economic accomplishment from the 1980s to the 1990s. This representation of Hong Kong is widely favoured by the West and it is what makes Hong Kong a place they like to visit in order to capture the superiority of the West. The English version of the website actually has a dedicated section on colonial attraction. On the contrary, Hong Kong does not need to reveal so much of its Chineseness in the past to attract the mainland visitors. The modern and only the modern face of Hong Kong with its capitalistic glamour (signifed by the night scene of the waterfront) as well as colonised historical artifacts are what looks unique to them. Turner put it as “the unifying image of modernity… was that of the imported Western design.” (1995:127) On the simplified Chinese opening pages, it is notable that a special slogan and a photo representing how the parent-child relationship could be enhanced in a Hong Kong tour, unique to this language version and not seen in the English one. A photo of a kid wearing a pirate’s hat is shown, signifying the presence of a western style theme-park, the Ocean Park, which is totally a western lifestyle favoured by the mainland visitors.

Digging into the pages of the simplified Chinese version, numerous itinerary suggestions are shown so as to give the audience a good grasp of Hong Kong in a few days’ tour. What is interestingly notable is that the sightseeing places could easily be categorised under 3 main themes: (1) to reveal the Westernised/modernised glamour of Hong Kong; (2) to reveal the Chinese nationalistic and cultural ties with Hong Kong’s motherland; (3) to reveal the typical consumer culture/lifestyle of Hong Kong.

To explain the presence of the first theme, I would like to borrow from Eric Ma’s superb and in-depth analysis (1999) of why Hong Kong people find a desparate need to exhibit to the mainlanders the modern and prosperous side of Hong Kong — the economic success it projects is an essential component of self-identity and pride for most Hong Kong people before the mainlanders since the mid-1980s. Ma wrote that “[i]n retrospect, the formation of a distinctive local identity has only taken root since the late 1970s, when the new-found Hong Kong identity was largely constructed by foregrounding cultural differences between Hongkongers and mainland Chinese. The majority of Hong Kong people are ethnic Chinese like the people in mainland China, but in mass media, mainlanders were stigmatised as ‘uncivilised’ outsiders against which modern, cosmopolitan Hongkongers could define themselves. … On the one hand, Hong Kong people identified with traditional Chinese culture in an abstract and detached sense, but on the other hand, they discriminated against particular cultural practices which were seen as affiliated with the communist regime on the mainland.” (Ma, 1999:1) Ironically Ma also noted that “… the new mainland immigrants of the 1970s were differentiated as ‘non-Hongkongers’ by the people of Hong Kong, who were themselves previous Chinese immigrants or their descendants.” (Ma, 1999:2) But what downplayed this similarity is that “… the experience of the ‘us’ is strengthened by the presence of the ‘them’ (Cohen, 1985; Wang, G., 1991). … Hong Kong people… were, in their own eyes, Hong Kong Chinese, in dramatic contrast to the mainland Chinese.” (Ma, 1999:32) “… [T]he categorisation of mainland Chinese as non-Hongkongers” portraited in popular melodramatic TV serials, as argued by Ma, revealed the exclusion of the new mainland immigrants, who flooded into Hong Kong in the 1970s, in the minds of most Hongkongers, who characterised themselves as “clever, savvy, progressive, rich, and modern (Cheng Yu, 1990)” when compared to the mainlanders who were considered as “stupid, slow on the uptake, backward, poor…” as represented by a popular character named Ah Chian in the TV serial The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. (Ma, 1999:35) Hong Kong people will feel the pride before the mainlanders if they could reveal before them all those achievements brought about since the 1980s. This explains why the “‘Hong Kong Dream’, the ‘Economic Miracle of Asia’ and the ‘Pearl of the Orient’ have become standard descriptions of the colony in the popular media…” (Ma, 1999:50) Although Ma commented that these terms are actually “detached from social reality and acquired only an ideological tone”, he admitted that it is “an authentic experience to some social class, and a source of identity and pride for most Hong Kong people.” (Ma, 1999:50) Ma also used the non-fictional TV series Hong Kong Legend as an example to argue about the construction of “the discourse of unfailing capitalism” since the post-war decades. In the series, “[t]here has been virtually no sad story of the social underclass of the poor. Even members of subordinate social groups, if they appear on the programme, seem satisfied with their living conditions. The message is that those who participate and work hard can eventually make a success here. For Hongkongers, economic success is a source of pride and a constant reassurance in a time of uncertainty. … This positioning further essentialises capitalistic ideology as an inseparable part of Hong Kong identity. This ‘excessive’ capitalistic discourse is parallel to the discursive position offered to Hong Kong by the international community. It is also politically correct since Hong Kong is continuously defined by China as a commercial and apolitical city.” (Ma, 1999:107–108) The image represented by the itineraries highly harmonise with Ma’s arguments.

Revealing the Chinese nationalistic and cultural ties with the mainland is unique in the itineraries for the mainland visitors because the government saw the need to ‘re-sinicise’, using Ma’s term, the national identity of Hong Kong. Since 1997 “Hong Kong people have had to face again their oncesuppressed Chinese identity… The Hong Kong media have recently turned their attention to the historical ‘roots’ of Chinese culture, and mainlanders have been represented in more favourable terms. This remapping of identity boundaries involves complex and dynamic struggles among institutions and actors, which engenders the selective processes of remembering and forgetting.” (Ma, 1999:1) Ma used the term ‘re-sinicisation’ to denote the “recollection, reinvention, and rediscovery of historical and cultural ties between Hong Kong and China.” (Ma, 1999:45). The growing narrative in promoting patriotism and nationalism to the general public through new icons and rituals like the introduction of hoisting of the national flag, the playing of the national anthem, and the set up of the Golden Bauhinia Square… Whether these new public icons and rituals will help “to forge a new sense of national collectivity in the post-1997 Hong Kong” (Ma, 1999:56) is still in doubt and may still be verified through time, it is extremely ‘natural’ and welcomed by mainland visitors to look at these icons and participate in these rituals during their tour (although it is still a rare public ritual for most Hong Kong people). This makes the Square and the ceremony a tailor-made point of interest just for the mainland visitors, rather than for the local residents or the western tourists, that Hong Kong is now part of China. On the other hand, the set up of the Buddha statue in Lantau, the enactment of the Buddha’s birthday as public holiday, and the revival of various (traditionally regarded as supertitious) cultural rituals like the praying to Che Gung in Tai Wai, Shatin NT, the Wishing Tree in Lam Tsuen in Tai Po NT… mostly included in the itineraries, interestingly confirmed what Ma argued that “forgotten ethnic and historical ties with ‘cultural China’ have been revived. Cultural identification, unlike political identification, can please China and at the same time does not offend the Hong Kong public. … Mediated culture will continue to tap into the cultural resource of an essentialist and timeless Chinese heritage.” (Ma, 1999:56–57) “Identities are built around icons and symbols embedded in media discourse and social practices. These icons are emotional ‘anchors’ of identification. … Hong Kong people in general… identify strongly with Chinese cultural and historical icons (such as the Great Wall of China) but are hesitant about national and military icons (such as the national flag, the national anthem being broadcasted before evening news on TV everyday, and the People’s Liberation Army).” (Ma, 1999:112) Therefore it will not be surprising that itineraries linked with cultural and historical icons and rituals will continued to be invented as new additions.

Representations of Hong Kong by the website common to both groups of target visitors are tied around the themes of eating, shopping and entertainment, which are the essence of Hong Kong lifestyle, discursively formed after the de-politicisation of its national identity (Turner, 1995:26). These attractions, essential as a Hong Kong ‘way-of-life’, witnessed what Robins (1997) observed that globalisation helps to transnationalise the economic and cultural lives of people far earlier than the mainland. The changes in production and consumption patterns of Hong Kong people, like MacDonald-eating and Walkman-wearing, shared many of the phenomenon of the global development of capitalism from the West (Woodward, 1997). However, it appeals to both Others and not exclusively because the mainland Chinese caught up quickly in recent years when the economy flourishes significantly in China. On the other hand the Western visitors will sense their superiority when they can experience a similar consumer culture in an Oriental city. So lifestyle can no longer serve by itself a marked identical difference among Hongkongers, mainland Chinese and Western tourists, although each approach it with different motivations.

Conclusion
In facing the western world, Hong Kong government seeks to emphasize the unique changes Hong Kong went through. The marketing of Hong Kong becomes a discourse on the internalisation of Orientalism as imagined by the West. Well-taught and believing in the discourse of Orientalism, Hong Kong people adopted the Western culture of adopting the set of assumptions and representations about ‘the East’ which constructs it as a source of exotic fascination through icons of Chinese heritage and colonisation artifacts. “Since the collapse of the communist East, the West has lost an imaginary boundary for maintaining cultural identities. Brett (1996) elaborates on the global trend of aestheticising histories for touristic consumption. Kammen (1993) talks of a ‘heritage syndrome’ in America, where the public is historicising the present by adapting past heritage for identity confirmation. … In Asian countries, the question of identity is often related to the discursive strategy of essentialising Asian traditions and defending these traditions against Westernisation (Wang, M.L., 1991; Yao, 1994).” (Ma, 1999:19) Seeing herself processing the recipes of such fascinations, the Hong Kong government then meet the marketing needs with such elements. On the other hand, Hong Kong was revealed as a westernised and modern world city to the mainlanders, who viewed Hong Kong as a “sample” (or maybe even the only) city which incorporates the essence of the western (capitalistic) world, a “shop window of democracy” (Turner, 1995) not found anywhere within the PRC national territory. It is also this uniqueness that no other ity in China can compare, Hong Kong people cannot help to avoid re-discovering their complex identity which gives them the sense of pride as well as the problematic obstacle in being totally embraced by their motherland.

Bibliographic references
Baker, H. (1983). “Life in the cities: The emergence of Hong Kong man”, The China Quarterly. 1995:469–479.
Brett, D. (1996). The Construction of Heritage. Ireland: Cork University Press.
Clarke, D. (1995). “Hongkongness, Chineseness and Modernity — Issues of Identity in Hong Kong Art”, Hong Kong Cultural Studies Bulletin. Issue 4 Winter 1995:82–84.
Cohen, A. P. (1985). The Symbolic Construction of Community. London: Routledge.
Kammen, M. (1993). Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture. New York: Vintage.
Ma, E. (1999). Culture, Politics, and Television in Hong Kong. London: Routledge.
Robins, K. (1997). “Global times: what in the world’s going on? in du Gay P. (ed.) Production of Culture/Cultures of Production. London: Sage and the Open University.
Said, E. (1979). Orientalism. NY: Vintage.
Turner, M., and Ngan, I. (eds.) (1995). Hong Kong Sixties: Designing Identity. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Arts Centre.
Wang, G. W. (1991). “Among non-Chinese”, Daedalus 120(2):135–157.
Wang, M. L. (1991). “Who is dominating whose ideology?”, Asian Journal of Communication 2(1):51–70.
Woodward, K. (ed.) (1997). Identity and Difference. London: Sage and Open University.
Yao, S. (1994). “The predicament of modernity: Mass media and the making of the West in Southeast Asia”. Asian Journal of Communication 4(1):33-51.