This talk first goes over the meanings of ethnic and cultural identity, and then explores ethnic and cultural identity in Hong Kong. Can a South Asian who has grown up in Hong Kong be a Hongkonger?  Can an African asylum seeker be a Hongkonger?  Can a mainland Chinese graduate student at CUHK be a Hongkonger?   Can I be a Hongkonger?  What is a Hongkonger?  On the basis of extensive discussion among all present at the talk, we then analyze how ethnic and cultural identity are increasingly not given but chosen, as choices from a global cultural supermarket.  What, then, does this mean for the future of Hong Kong as a global/Chinese metropolis?

Prof. Gordon Mathews is the Chairperson, Department of Anthropology, CUHK.  His latest publications include The World in Guangzhou: Africans and Other Foreigners in South China’s Global Marketplace,  Globalization From Below: The World’s Other Economy and Ghetto at the Center of the World.