A historical garden and a student centre: two memorial landscapes to reposition Hong Kong, 1959–1968

Abstract

ABSTRACTSpace is not only a concrete object but also a symbol. The symbolic meaning of space is particularly clear in a memorial landscape—a special spatial arrangement to evoke or enforce a collective memory. In this article, we will examine two memorial landscapes of Cold War Hong Kong: the Sung Wong Toi Garden in Kowloon Bay and the Benjamin Franklin Centre of the Chinese University of Hong Kong in the New Territories. Opened in 1958 and 1969, respectively, these two memorial landscapes were part of the British government’s attempt to re-position Hong Kong in the bipolar global system. By highlighting Hong Kong’s roots in Chinese history (as shown in the Sung Wong Toi Garden), the British government took the city out of “Red China” (which rejected Chinese tradition) and inserted it into “Cultural China” (which supported Chinese tradition). By highlighting Hong Kong’s commitment to higher education (as shown in the Benjamin Franklin Centre), the British government included the city into the “Free World” of market economy and industrial modernization. Together, these two memorial landscapes signified a fundamental shift in Hong Kong’s position in the world. Instead of being an entrepot serving British corporations in the China trade, Hong Kong became a strategic node in the global competition between communism and capitalism, authoritarianism and democracy, the planned economy and the market economy. In these two memorial landscapes, we see how space can be configurated to win hearts and minds.KEYWORDS: Benjamin Franklin CentreBerlin of the EastCold Warmemorial landscapeSung Wong Toi Garden Special termsTableDownload CSVDisplay TableNotes1 As is well known, the dominant language in Hong Kong is Cantonese, not Mandarin. Thus, in this article, names are given in Cantonese as the locals say them. But for readers who do not speak Cantonese, pinyin are also provided. When referring to Chinese characters, only pinyin is given.2 Although the three characters written on the rock were Song Wang Tai (Song King’s Terrace), they were read by the Qing loyalists of the 1920s as Song Huang Tai (Song Emperor’s Terrace). Behind this subtle change in reading the three characters lay the loyalists’ attempt to give the Southern Song loyalists the legitimacy in fighting against the Mongols. For the Qing loyalists, the Song loyalists were fighting to keep the Song Dynasty alive even though the odds were stacked against them. They were risking their lives to make a moral statement, that is, they would rather die than succumbing to the Mongols’ rule. In reading Song Wang Tai as Song Huang Tai, the Qing loyalists affirmed the nobility of failure of the Song loyalists’ futile attempt to resuscitate the Song Dynasty. By the same token, the Qing loyalists used the nobility of failure of the Song loyalists to glorify their own futile attempt to resuscitate the Qing dynasty.3 In this quotation, I keep the original English spellings of Chinese names which rendered Cantonese in the Wade-Giles system. The text of the memorial tablet in Chinese appears in Jian Citation1960: 300–301, 310.4 Liang Hanchao, Ti Song Huang Tai jinian ji 題宋皇臺紀念集 (Preface to the Memorial Collection of the Song Emperor’s Terrace), in Jian Citation1960: vii. The translation is the author’s. The original lines are: “九龍千古傷心地，遺黎今更難忘記。宋皇臺已景全非，遺蹟猶思保千禩 … 卌年世變幾滄桑，九龍今又聚流亡。 不堪回首家山破，忡忡來對此茫茫。”5 The original lyrics of the song are: “威逼的星眼凝望，哀傷的夕陽殘照；多少的風雨侵蝕，刀刻的故事已散掉。孤清的一塊小石，現在龍城又更渺小。火捲過大地，任它灰燼風裡飄。石頭記，弓箭在腰，風捲去舊事，或有壯烈怎再昭。石頭冷，不再炫耀，或者往事已盡遺忘，事蹟早消失了。那個奪勝，那個戰敗，日後已寂寥。”Additional informationFundingThe research of this article is supported in part by Guangdong Higher Education Upgrading Plan (2021-2025) of "Rushing to the Top, Making Up Shortcomings and Strengthening Special Features" with No. of UICR0400028-21 and in part by UIC Research Grant with No. of UICR0700007-22 at BNU-HKBU United International College, Zhuhai, PR China.Notes on contributorsTze-ki HonTze-ki Hon is Professor at the Research Center for History and Culture of Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai, China. Concurrently, he is the Acting Dean of Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at BNU-HKBU United International College. Before he relocated to Zhuhai, he taught at City University of Hong Kong, State University of New York at Geneseo and Hanover College, Indiana. Over the last two decades, he wrote four books: The Yijing and Chinese Politics (2005), The Allure of the Nation (2013), Teaching the I Ching (Book of Changes) (with Geoffrey Redmond, 2014) and Revolution as Restoration (2014). He edited (or co-edited) six volumes: The Politics of Historical Production in Late Qing and Republican China (2007), Beyond the May 4th Paradigm (2008), The Decade of the Great War (2014), Confucianism for the Contemporary World (2017), Cold War Cities (2022) and The Other Yijing (2022). His articles have appeared in Journal of Chinese Philosophy, Modern China, Monumenta Serica and Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies.Chan Hok-yinHok-yin Chan, Ph.D. in Modern intellectual History of Chinese, is currently Associate Professor of City University of Hong Kong. His research activities focus on intellectual history of Republic China, with emphasis on Zhang Taiyan, Gu Jiegang, Neo-Confucianism and May Fourth Movement as well as Cold War Hong Kong in recent years. He is the co-editor of Chinese Culture: Connectivity, Globality, and Modernity (Book Series) published by Springer. His newly academic book is To Build a New China: Zhang Taiyan and the May Fourth Generation (Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 2019). In 2015, he won the Hong Kong Book Prize with his book May Fourth in Hong Kong: Colonialism, Nationalism and Localism (Hong Kong: Chung Hwa Book Company, 2014). He co-edited the special issue The Cold War and Decolonization in East Asia with Chih-yu Shih and Tze-ki Hon for Asian Perspective (spring, 2020).