On the road, towards feelings of national belonging: a study on Hong Kong university students’ cultural identity and their national identification with China.

Abstract

‘Where are you from?’ is a question you can’t avoid as a traveller, migrant or foreigner. But what if you live in a state of which you don’t feel you belong to its nation? What if your national identity is not an important identity marker at all? The paradox these days is that political and cultural boundaries often don’t coincide anymore as a result of transnational connectedness. This makes it very hard to define to what national culture one belongs, which is exactly the case for Hong Kongers. In 1997 Hong Kong was reunited with China, after having been colonized by Great Britain for over a century. During colonial rule Hong Kongers managed to construct a very own and unique Hong Kong identity, unlike adopting a British identity or holding on to a Chinese identity. Therefore nowadays feelings of national identification are rather confusing to most Hong Kongers. The objective of this research is to understand what the Hong Kong identity is, how it is constructed and given meaning to, and how it influences processes and perceptions of national identification.