A study of the complex role of the seaside as a leisure space in colonial Hong Kong.
British sports were in many respects more meaningful in the empire than literature, music, art, or religion. They served as an instrument of cultural association and later of cultural change, promoting imperial union and then postimperial goodwill. Poon analyses the ways in which British colonists and Chinese leaders, backed by the rhetoric of public health and nationalism, respectively, transformed the Hong Kong seaside into a leisure space. She argues that the growing popularity of seaside resorts and sea bathing as a preferred form of leisure activity across the social and ethnic spectrums served an important role in shaping the racial relationship between Westerners and the Chinese population, as well as the Chinese people’s perception of the female body and the seaside, during the colonial period. The popularity of British leisure forms in colonial Hong Kong does not necessarily mean the triumph of “Britishness.”
This book will be of great interest to historians with an interest in leisure and in Empire and Colonialism, as well as historians of Colonial Hong Kong and Modern China.
Author(s): Shuk-Wah Poon
Series: Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Asia
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 147
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
List of figures
List of maps
List of tables
Acknowledgement
1. Introduction
Structure of the Book
2. Politics of Recreation: Colonial Governance and the Bathing Beaches, 1842–1930s
Rational Recreation, Colonial Governance, and Racial Politics in Hong Kong
Public Recreation and Bathing Beaches
Commerce vs Recreation: The Contested Seaside
Conclusion
3. Nationalism and Collaboration: Chinese Sports Associations and Sea Bathing in Hong Kong
Nationalism and Sports: Emergence of Chinese Athletic Associations in Hong Kong
Leisure and Political Collaboration: Bathing Beaches at Seven Sisters
Leisure and Chinese Activism: Defending the Bathing Beaches at Seven Sisters
Rebuilding and Decline of Bathing Beaches after the Second World War
Conclusion
4. Cross Harbour Swim: Competition and Integration
Westerners’ Cross Harbour Swim: From Male Domination to Gender Equality
Sports and Nationalism: Chinese Athletes’ Participation in the Cross Harbour Swim
Postwar Cross Harbour Swim: From Racial Glory to Individual Fulfilment
Conclusion
5. Liberty and Morality of the Body on the Beach
Mixed Bathing, Swimsuits, and Morality
The Modern Body: Hong Kong Mermaid Yang Xiuqiong
The Rise and Fall of the Nudist Movement in Hong Kong, 1930s–1960s
Conclusion
6. Seaside Tourism: Class, Race, and Spatial Reconfigurations of Repulse Bay, 1920–1982
Discovery” of Repulse Bay and Building of the Repulse Bay Hotel
Contesting the Beach Space: General Public, Lido, and Beach Tents
Sinification of Repulse Bay and Demolition of the Repulse Bay Hotel
Conclusion
7. Epilogue: From the Seaside to the Swimming Pool
Bibliography
Index
