Writing from the Outside? Post-1997 Expatriate Writing in Hong Kong

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Notes

1 So significant is the mobility of Hong Kong residents that Census reports, for example, take into account the differences between ‘mobile’ and ‘usual’ residents – broadly understood as those who have stayed in Hong Kong for more or less than one month in the six months prior to the date of the census. See HKSAR, 1–2.

2 The issue has recently migrated from shopping malls to the Hong Kong classroom, where the teaching of simplified Chinese characters has been mooted by some and angrily rebuffed by others. See Yau, ‘Character Assassination?’.

3 We borrow the term vehicular language from Henri Gobard as a way of talking about languages that are primarily urban in production (and use), such as commercial, diplomatic, and governmental languages. See Gobard 293.

4 For an insider's take on political implications of that programme's closure, see Thien. For the literary aftermath of the programme, see the fascinating anthology Afterness, edited by Rebekah Chan.