Welcoming remarks

Dear Colleagues and Friends, A very warm welcome to the 21st Annual Conference of the Hong Kong Sociological Association sponsored this year by the School of Humanities and Social Science at HKUST. And a huge thank you to all of you for supporting the work of the HKSA. What a year to be a sociologist in Hong Kong! Not only has there been considerable social turmoil in the city, but also major international upheavals including Brexit, trade wars, climate change protests and migration crises. In this year’s conference we’ve brought together scholars who can give us sociological perspectives on and find linkages between these events, along with other issues of traditional concern to sociologists. Among the highlights of our conference is our Keynote Speech, by Professor Danny Dorling, “Brexit, the UK, Hong Kong, China and the future”. Professor Dorling is one of the UK’s foremost public intellectuals who has being thrilling audiences around the world with his maps on social inequalities and numerous books on topics of profound importance to sociologists, including housing, health, employment, education, wealth and poverty. In his most recent book Slowdown: The End of the Great Acceleration, Dorling develops an interest in China and the region with his thoughts on the deceleration of technological, economic and demographic trends in the context of climate change. In addition, we have second Plenary Session in which the entire Conference will come together to discuss post-1997 social and political conflicts in the city, featuring four prominent Hong Kong scholars: Ming Sing (HKUST), Susanne Choi Yuk Ping (CUHK), Lawrence Ho Ka Ki (EdUHK) and Petula Ho Sik Ying (HKU). The HKSA takes an enormous interest in the teaching of sociology. We also have a special roundtable this year on the theme of teaching Hong Kong society in times of turmoil, convened by Professor Stephen Chiu Wing Kai (EdUHK). We hope that everybody has a fantastic day of intellectual collaboration and exchange.

Julian M. Groves President, Hong Kong Sociological Association

Table of contents

Conference Programme .................................................................................. 5-9

Keynote and plenary sessions ....................................................................... 9-13

Abstracts (according to author’s surname) ................................................. .14-32

Housekeeping information…………………………………………………………………….…..33-34

About the Hong Kong Sociological Association .................................................. 35

5

Hong Kong Sociological Association 21st Annual Conference

Theme: Regional Integration, Social Division

Programme

Registration: The registration desk is in outside Rm G012, Lee Shau Kee Business Building. It will be open from 08:30-16:20. Concurrent Sessions

Room 1007 1009 1010 1011 1014 G012

Panel 1A 1B 1C 1D 1E 1F

09:20-10:40

Concurrent Sessions

One

Internet Sociology Chair: Sara Zhong,

CUHK

Nationalism Chair: Greg Fairbrother,

EdUHK

Youth Studies and inclusion Chair: Gizem Arat, Lingnan U

Education Practicum Chair: Wai Chung Ho, HKBU

Family, Fertility and Ageing Chair: Lake Lui, PolyU

Health and Medicine Chair: Trevor Lee, EdUHK

Cybercrime in Asia: Policing, Technological

Environment, and Cyber-Governance

Laurie Lau

Asia Pacific Association of Technology and

Society, Hong Kong

Cosmopolitanism versus nationalism(s)? Theoretical

clarification of "Water Revolution" as a Hong

Kong nationalist movement

Yuk Man Cheung

Ritsumeikan University

The promotion of positive youth development in South Asian and South-East Asian

minorities in Hong Kong

Gizem Arat

Lingnan University

Parental Meritocratic Beliefs and Educational Outcomes in China: A

Cross-Lagged Structural Model

Francisco Olivos

CUHK

Family Policies, Social Norms and Fertility Decisions: A Survey

Experiment

Lake Lui PolyU

Strategic Interactions in Monetary

Commensuration: An Ethnography of Medical

Dispute Resolution in Contemporary China

Long Zhang

HKU

The proliferation of cybercrime among

Ghanaian youths and its impact on global on-

line trade (e-commerce) in Ghana

Aikins Amoako Asiama

CUHK

Collective patriotism under the threat of regional

disintegration: an ethnographic case study of

Chinese mainlanders’ response to Hong Kong’s

Umbrella movement

Magdalena Wong CUHK

Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Hong Kong Youth’s Intention of

Emigration and the Role of Political Participation

Lok Yi Wendy Leung

CUHK

School Teachers’ Conceptions of Creativity

in Teaching Classroom Music in China

Wai Chung Ho

HKBU

(Un)married with children? Testing Second

Demographic Theory in Hong Kong

Stuart Gietel-Basten

HKUST

Assembling the Traditional Tibetan

Medicine: geopolitical cultures through a

historical lens

Arjun Chapagain CityU

6

Governance Reflected from Political Leaders’

Internet “Diary” -- Analysis of Donald

Trump’s Twitter Account

Yu-cheng Liang

Sun Yat-sen University

The Mutual Transformation of Paternalism and

Nationalism in Chinese State Legitimation

Discourse

Greg Fairbrother EdUHK

The social construction of musical identities in Hong

Kong’s school music education

Stephanie Hoi Ying Chan

Institute of Education, UCL

Premarital Abortion: Reproductive Politics in

Post-Socialist China

Ruby Yuen Shan Lai Lingnan U

In-service Socialization Experiences of Secondary

School Moral-political Education Teachers in

Mainland China

Huaxin Yang EdUHK

“Old age” as political discourse. A socio-

historical perspective on the construction of age in

1950s China

Justine Rochot School for Advanced Studies in the Social

Sciences (EHESS), Paris

10:40-11:00

Tea break

11:00-12:30

Welcoming Remarks

HKSA President - Julian Groves, HKUST Prof. Kellee Tsai, Dean of Humanities and Social Science, HKUST

Keynote Speech - "Brexit, the UK, Hong Kong, China and the future"

Prof. Danny Dorling, University of Oxford [Venue: G012]

12:30-14:00

Lunch

Conference Lodge

7

14:00-15:30

Plenary – “Social Science Perspectives on post-1997 social and political conflicts”

Ming Sing, HKUST Petula Sik-ying Ho, HKU

Lawrence Ho, EDUHK Susanne Choi, CUHK

Moderator: Agnes Ku, HKUST [Venue: G012]

Room 1007 1009 1010 1011 1014 G012

Panel 2A 2B 2C 2D 2E

15:30-16:50

Concurrent Sessions

Two

Crime and Criminalization

Chair: Peng Wang, HKU

Migration Chair: Shiwei Chen,

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Youth Studies: Subjectivity Chair: Priscilla Sham, HKU

Post-Handover Movements Chair: Tommy Tse, HKU

Gender Chair: Adam Cheung,

HKBU

Teaching Sociology Moderator: Stephen Chiu

(EdUHK)

Casinoization of Taxi Industry in Macau

Jianhua Xu

University of Macau

How do Asylum Seekers Cope with Destitution in

the World’s Most Expensive City – Hong

Kong: Roles of Economic, Cultural and Social

Capitals

Ka Wang Kelvin Lam CUHK

Hong Kong Post-90s Young Women Doing Daughterhood

Priscilla Sham

HKU

From the Umbrella Movement to the Anti-

Extradition Bill Protests: Hong Kong’s political

predicament under Chinese rule

Kwun-sun Raymond Lau

HKBU

Gendering Modern Spirituality: Resolving the Gender Puzzle in

Body-Mind-Spirit Activities in Hong Kong

Lok-hang Fung

HKU Roundtable: Teaching Sociology in Times of

Turbulence

Wai Yip Ho (EdUHK)

Julian Groves (HKUST) Susanne Chan (HKU

SPACE) Beatrice O Y Lam (OUHK)

Life course and blocked vending dreams:

understanding street vendors’ drift in criminal economy in Guangzhou,

China

Anli Jiang University of Macau

Striving to be the one and only: migration

diplomacy of the Communist and

Nationalist China from 1949 to 1971—overseas

Chinese policy in perspective.

Lok Ping Lai

CUHK

Effect of parental incarceration on their

children: children’s experience of parents’ arrest and information

disclosure to children on their parents’ arrest

Afua Amankwaa Lingnan University

How Japanese Community in Hong Kong Has Confronted Protests against Extradition

Law

Daichi Ishii CUHK

Gender and nursing: A case study of Chinese

male nurses

Tevin Shu-han Fang EdUHK

8

“It’s just like smoking or drinking”: A qualitative

study of the perceptions of synthetic drugs and normalization tactics among Chinese youth

Wei Yao

CUHK

Socialism from afar to Socialism at Your Door: Home Visits and Party-building in Rural China

Shiwei Chen

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Bridging the Divide: Querying The Conflicto Armado’s Relevance for

Postwar Guatemalan Youth

Alexander Chon

Independent Scholar

HKSAR Socio-political Siuation in 2019

Jean Berlie

EdUHK

“Womenomics” in Japan: Election Success of

Female Politicians and Public Attitudes towards

Female Laboring

Wenhao Jiang HKUST

An exploratory study on the experience of elder drug users in Hong Kong

Vincent Shing Cheng

OUHK

An Analysis of the Christian Church’s Response to the Handover of Hong Kong

around 1997

Ann Gillian Chu The University of St Andrews

Homeownership, Intergeneration, Gender:

a case of Hong Kong

Pui-Chi Yip CUHK

16:50- 17:10

Tea Break

Room 1007 1010 1011 1014 G012

Panel 3A 3C 3D 3E 3F

17:10-18:30

Concurrent Sessions

Three

Policing & Social Control Chair: Vincent Cheng,

OUHK

Identities and Politics Moderator: Benjamin Li,

CUHK

Internationalizing Education Chair: Ewan Wright, EdUHK

Geopolitical Cultures Chair: Lawrence Ho,

EduHK

Technology and Discourse

Chair: Christian Greiffenhagen, CUHK

Policing outsourcing and the threat of legitimacy:

the case study of outsourced staff’s

compensatory consumption in

Guangzhou, China

Qipu Hu University of Macau

Panel for special issue of Social Transformations

in Chinese Societies:

“Identities and Politics of Hong Kong Society”

Pedagogies for Global Citizenship Education in

Hong Kong: Universal Ideals, Contextual Realities and

Teachers’ Difficulties

Adrian Kin Cheung Yan University College London

Global Integration without Compromising Autonomy: Reassessing the Developmental Era

of Hong Kong

Shiufai Wong Macao Polytechnic

Institute

Toward a new critical theory of Popular Culture

Matthew Chew

HKBU

9

Fixing autocrat’s broken windows: grid

governance in China

Siying He University of Macau

Changing Articulation in Financialization and

Homeownerhsip (1970s to 1990s)

Chung-kin Tsang (Hong Kon

Shue Yan University)

Colonial Governance and Denationalisation: The

Case of the Chinese Language Movement in Hong Kong in the 1970s

Chi Keung Charles Fung

(CUHK)

International schooling in East Asia: Forming globally-

engaged and locally-disconnected identities?

Ewan Wright

EdUHK

Explaining the Decline of Hong Kong Football: How Important is the impact

of globalization?

Chun Wing Lee College of Professional

and Continuing Education, PolyU

The Dynamics of Online Shaming: A sociological Study of Hong Kong’s

Virtual World

Yui Fung Yip Lingnan U

Organized crime in cyberspace: How

traditional criminal groups exploit the peer-to-peer lending market

in China

Peng Wang HKU

Internationalization, the Bridge to My future! Taiwanese Students

Imagination and Experience of Hong Kong’s Higher

Education

Hsunhui Tseng CUHK

Minority Leaders as Tokens?

Nilay Saiya

Nanyang Technological University

Mediating Online and Offline Sexual Identities: An Analysis of Online and

Offline Behaviour of Hong Kong Rainbow

Families and Same-sex Couples

Tsz-chun Siu

HKUST

Multiple Institutional Logics and State-society Synergy: Evidence from the “Targeted Poverty

Alleviation” Campaign in Rural China

Yuanhang Zhu

University of Chicago

Boarding at School and Experience of Victimization in the Context of Parental

Migration and School Merging Program in China

Yuying Tong

CUHK

9

Brexit, the UK, Hong Kong, China and the future Danny Dorling University of Oxford, UK

[Venue: G012]

Abstract There are so many parallels and so many differences. The UK is made up of a series of medium and small sized islands, roughly quarter of a million square kilometres in land area and home to around sixty-six million people. Hong Kong is made up of a series of small and very small islands, about two hundred and twenty times smaller in area as compared to the UK but being home to a population that is only nine times smaller. The UK is low-rise, and Hong Kong is high-rise. The UK contains the core of what was, just a century ago, the largest empire the world has ever known and still includes parts of two of its first colonies within it. Hong Kong was once a colony of the UK. The European Union and China are two of the three largest and most powerful trading blocks in the world today, the third being the USA. As things stand, almost all the wealth of the world is contained within those three blocks; but each is slowing down in terms of wealth accumulation. In this lecture I will I will firstly try to explain how and why the UK tried to leave the EU and how that was related to the legacy of the British Empire and the imperial imagination of some people in Britain. There will be a general election on December 12th 2019 in the UK which might possibly determine what happens next, although much of what happens next is out of the control of the people of the UK because it will be determined by the declining economic position of Britain and a confrontation between the reality of its situation and the imperial imagination that many people still hold (partly because of what they were taught at school when growing up in Britain). The basis of this part of my talk are the books Peak Inequality (2018) and Rule Britannia (2019) and the reality and imagination respectively. Secondly, I will talk about the future. I will show a series of graphs of global and regional trends, including for population numbers and fertility, concentrating on China – but also on India and the rest of Asia and Europe; as well as highlighting how the current trend and UN demographic predictions for the USA differ from the rest of the Americas. The human world is slowing down in many ways. The British Empire reached its greatest extent at the point of greatest social and demographic acceleration. China is coming to the fore at a point of great global deceleration, not just of worldwide population growth, but also economic activity and technological change. The basis of this part of my talk is the forthcoming book Slowdown. All of this is occurring in the context of a climate crisis which was not even taught about when I was a school child – because it was not known to be occurring by all but a tiny minority at that time. This context for the future of all of us is almost certainly more important than immediate events that seem so important right now – not least for people who live on a series of small and often low-lying islands.

Keynote Speech 11.00-12.30

10

Professor Danny Dorling is the Halford Mackinder Professor in the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford. He was previously a professor of social geography at the University of Sheffield, and before then a professor of quantitative geography at the University of Leeds. His earlier academic posts were in Newcastle, Bristol, and New Zealand. His most recent book, with Sally Tomlinson, is titled Rule Britannia: Brexit and the end of Empire concerning what the 2016 EU referendum and 2019 attempts at ‘exit’ reveals. In 2018 he published Peak Inequality on issues of housing, health, employment, education, wealth and poverty in the UK. In 2020 he is publishing a book with Yale University Press on Slowdown: The End of the Great Acceleration—and Why It’s Good for the Planet, the Economy, and Our Lives

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Social Science Perspectives on post-1997 social and political conflicts Ming Sing, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Petula Ho Sik Ying, The University of Hong Kong Lawrence Ho Ka Ki, The Education University of Hong Kong Susanne Choi Yuk Ping, The Chinese University of Hong Kong Moderator: Agnes Ku, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

[Venue: G012]

Topics:

Ming Sing: Initial Reflections over the Largest Legitimacy Crisis in Hong Kong in the last 60 Years

Petula Ho: Beyond 100 days of protest: What can and can't be said?

Lawrence Ho: Policing the 4-month Social Unrest in Hong Kong: A Primary Observation

Susanne Choi: Women on the Front Line: Gendered Opportunities and Constraints in Hong Kong’s 2019 Leaderless Protests

Plenary Roundtable 14.00-15.30

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Teaching Sociology in Times of Turbulence Wai Yip Ho, The Education University of Hong Kong Julian M. Groves, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Susanne Chan, HKU SPACE Community College Beatrice O Y Lam, The Open University of Hong Kong Moderator: Stephen WK Chiu, The Education University of Hong Kong

[Venue: G012]

Sociology, as a coherent discipline, emerged out of the Enlightenment tradition in eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe. So how can we help our students be sociologically mindful when examining the current situation in Hong Kong? Which perspectives and methods can we use to guide our students in their understanding of this unique city? And how can we manage the diversity of students and opinions that we often encounter? This session brings together five seasoned educators who will share their experiences and open up a conversation about teaching post-1997 Hong Kong society.

Identity and Politics of Hong Kong Society Tsang Chung Kin, Hong Kong Shue Yan University Fung Chi Keung Charles, The Chinese University of Hong Kong Moderator: Benjamin Li, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

[Venue: 3C]

There will be a special issue for Social transformations in Hong Kong, titled “Identities and politics of Hong Kong which is scheduled to be published next year. In this issue, we gather about 5-6 papers on this particular topic. In this panel, we will invite some of the contributors presenting their works. As the title implies, Social Transformations in Chinese Societies advocates the notion that social changes are uneven and multiple across spheres and sectors. It also reflects a commitment to a comparative agenda within Chinese societies. To achieve this comparative agenda, it requires an adequate understanding of various institutional fabrics of individual society with sharp analytical dimensions for cross-societal comparison. As such, echoing the title of our journal, this collection of studies focuses on one of the Chinese societies, Hong Kong, and uses “identity” and “politics” as key dimensions for comparison.

Special Roundtable on Teaching Sociology 15.30-16.50

Special Panel for Social Transformations in Chinese Societies 17.10-18.30

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Changing Articulation in Financialization and Homeownerhsip (1970s to 1990s) Tsang, Chung-kin, Hong Kong Shue Yan University

This paper builds on the author’s previous discussion about “House Buying as Hope Mechanism” (Submitted) in Hong Kong that was formed in the 1970s to the 1990s. By comparing three short stories – The Intersection 對倒 (1972), The Story of House Buying 買樓記 (1982), and House Seeing 看樓 (1998), this paper traces the

trajectory of and the changes in the articulation between financialization and homeownership in Hong Kong during this formation period. This paper draws from Aalbers’s (2008) discussion of different stages in “capital switching” during the financialization of real estate, and examines how hope, risk, and subject were differently addressed along the process of financialization in Hong Kong. The above three literatures are chosen for their explicit attempts in making sense of urban development and the use of financial tools. The Intersection by Liu Yichang (劉以鬯) captures the moment when Hong Kong was in transition after the 1966 and 1967 riots, and

depicts an optimistic projection towards the personal and social future through discussing the housing market and urban development. The Story of House Buying by Bai Luo (白洛) and House Seeing by Kuang Guohui (鄺

國惠) are both about financial tool and skill – mortgage and being the confirmor to resell the property. In the

former piece, mortgage is seen as the heavy burden and strict constraint to the future planning of a family, and risk from committing to the long-term mortgage is avoided for the family to stay hopeful. In the latter piece, reselling as confirmor is the inevitable route, and risk is involuntarily embraced to achieve the protagonists’ uncertain dream of homeownership. Dissecting the above elements contributes to a subtler understanding about how the culture of homeownership has been circulated and changing over time, and goes beyond the pervasive Chinese essentialism that treat achieving homeownership as an innate desire in Hong Kong.

Colonial Governance and Denationalisation: The Case of the Chinese Language Movement in Hong Kong in the 1970s Fung Chi Keung Charles, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Despite the importance of the Chinese Language Movement in the early 1970s that elevated the status of Chinese as an official language in British Hong Kong, few research has been conducted to trace why a pro-English colonial administration would grant the vernacular language official language status. Based on archival evidence and available narratives written by historians of language policy in Hong Kong, this article revisits the rationales and process of the reformist colonial administration’s cultural incorporation of the Chinese language amid the 1970s.

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Effect of parental incarceration on their children: children’s experience of parents’ arrest and information disclosure to children on their parents’ arrest Afua Amankwaa, Lingnan University

We examined the arrest experience and information disclosure of parents arrest to 17 children of incarcerated parents and their caregivers. Using in-depth interviews with children and their caregivers, data were gathered on the experience of children during their parents’ arrest, and how information on parents’ arrest was disclosed to children who were not available during their parents’ arrest. Analyses of interview transcripts thematically showed that 6 out of the 17 children were available during the arrest of their parents. This happened as police officers did not make enquires on presence of children before arriving at their arrest venue. Further, most of these children were exposed to their parents been violently treated by police officers which had emotional effect on them, while some retain vivid memories of the arrest. Our results also suggest that, there was little or no preparation of children who were not available during their parents’ arrest psychologically for the receiving of information on their parents’ arrest. As some got to know about their parents’ arrest while in school, others got to know through teasing by their friends as their caregivers lied to them concerning their parents’ whereabouts. Disclosure of information on parents’ arrest to children led to some children been emotionally traumatized. In comparison of children with incarcerated mothers to children with incarcerated fathers, children with incarcerated mothers were more likely to have witnessed the arrest of their mothers. Implications for these findings are discussed in the study.

The promotion of positive youth development in South Asian and South-East Asian minorities in Hong Kong Gizem Arat, Lingnan University Paul Wai-Ching Wong, The University of Hong Kong

To enhance the human capital of aging societies in the Eastern settings, such as Hong Kong, ethnic minorities are seen as a social capital. Positive youth development (PYD) in ethnic minorities in Hong Kong is yet to be examined. An exploratory sequential mixed-methods design (qualitative> QUANTITATIVE) was performed to fill this research void. In the first phase, 59 South Asian and South-East minority youth and other stakeholders (e.g., parents, community/religious leaders, and social workers) were interviewed to conceptualize the positive factors to foster PYD. Expanding on the findings of the qualitative phase, 708 secondary students (ethnic minority: South and South-East Asians and ethnic Chinese as a comparison group) were surveyed in the quantitative phase. Ethnic minorities were found to be not very different from their ethnic Chinese counterparts regarding the protective factors of PYD. We recommended culturally relevant research, practice, and policy implications to integrate minority and majority young populations.

The proliferation of cybercrime among Ghanaian youths and its impact on global on-line trade (e-commerce) in Ghana. Aikins Amoako Asiama, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

The use of internet has become a double-edged sword, providing opportunities for individuals and businesses, and concurrently bringing with it an increased information security threat, cybercrime. This

Abstracts of Papers (in alphabetical order by authors’ surnames)

15

type of fraudulent cyber deeds, which has emerged worldwide, is alleged to originate mostly from the West African coast where cyber criminals capitalize on system vulnerabilities, ignorance, and trustfulness on the part of users to perpetrate their heinous criminalities. Interestingly, Ghana has been listed among the world’s top ten cybercrime states and is the second most regularly blocked country by United State of America online traders because of forged orders from Internet scammers. It is also reported that cybercrime has become common and rampant among the youth in Ghana, damaging the image of the nation in terms of online trading. Yet, little research has been conducted on the proliferation of cybercrime and its impact on global trade in Ghana. Therefore, this study would specifically look at the various and most committed cybercrimes among Ghanaian youths, the factors that drive the youth into cybercrime and its impacts on Ghana and the global market, policies and interventions that have been put in place to curb cybercrime in Ghana, and find out feasible ways that could be employed to minimized if not eliminate cybercrime in Ghana. The study would employ the mixed method approach (triangulation) to collect data from the authorities in security service (specifically, crime unit in the Ghana Police Service), the youth in various internet café, businesspersons who engage in on-line trading and the ministry of trade and industry bearing in mind all the necessary ethical considerations.

HKSAR Socio-political Siuation in 2019 Jean Berlie, The Education University of Hong Kong

My paper will be a socio-historical presentation of the events. In fact for the first time since 30 July 1997, Hong Kong stability have never been so much shaken. The events of the Umbrella Movement in 2014 were only a sort of starter of the present situation. The situation mid-2019 in Hong Kong is often out of control and violence is too common. Many shouting youth may ignore the meaning Xianggang Xianzhai Geming which indubitably could be assimilated to a direct negation of the Basic Law. Mainlandization and the spirit of the Basic Law of HKSAR are sine qua non conditions for the useful construction of future scenarios regarding the HKSAR’s evolution. Unity among Hong Kong Chinese and political parties is necessary. I will try to propose recommendations.

The social construction of musical identities in Hong Kong’s school music education Stephanie Hoi Ying Chan, Institute of Education, University College London

The concept of musical identities defines the roles in music and the roles derived from music making. In Hong Kong, music is a compulsory subject in the education system. Different identities such as global, national, local and personal identities are expected to carry out through school music lessons. However, how far does the official music curriculum influence the construction of musical identities? By analysing the music curriculum and related literatures, the findings argue that the music curriculum suggests a wide range of musical identities but the challenge remains in the education of school music teachers. Majority of the music teachers in Hong Kong are educated with western classical music while the curriculum requires knowledge and skills of diverse musical genres including world music, Chinese music and local Hong Kong music. This study recommends that if school music teachers need to deliver the curriculum contents and develop student’s musical identities effectively, pre-service and in-service education must be reviewed.

16

Assembling the Traditional Tibetan Medicine: geopolitical cultures through a historical lens Arjun Chapagain, City University of Hong Kong

In eighth century, Tibetan King Trisong Deutsen invited nine traditional doctors from neighboring regions for his medical treatment, that later assembled into the first International Medical Symposium. The symposium output and further development, the book entitled “The Four Medical Tantras” published in twelfth century, marked the formation of Tibetan medical theory, as the science of healing assembled with a wide variety of medicinal and aromatic plants, animal’s part, minerals, and the knowledge on their medical functions, and Buddhist practices. The establishment of the Tibetan medicine, and its maintain and dissemination, required continuous laboring to channel the network, and in return, conditioned by them. Here, with some tentative reflections on the identity, assembling and dissembling of Tibetan medicine, we argue an assemblage of heterogeneous components, encountered ecological, economic, technological, political, ritual, social, medical and knowledge systems, as well as from localized currents of tradition filtered through individual agency and daily practice.

Socialism from afar to Socialism at Your Door: Home Visits and Party-building in Rural China Shiwei Chen, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

This paper examines social welfare policy implementation in Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, focusing on Precision Poverty Alleviation (jing zhun fu pin) and Action Plan to Vitalize Border Areas and Enrich the People (xing bian fu min). I show that in recent years the direct interactions between grassroot-level officials and rural households have significantly increased due to home visits and the establishment of files that track individual households. I argue that the implementation of these “precision policies” is a step away from what has been described as the “socialism from afar” model (Zhang and Ong 2008). I show that the implementation of these policies is intertwined with nationalization in the ethnic minority regions. Beyond actual economic benefits, they are also (symbolic) “gestures” that can proliferate ethnic and national frames among the residents and that nationhood is constructed to embrace different ethnic groups through fostering recognition of the party.

An exploratory study on the experience of elder drug users in Hong Kong Vincent Shing Cheng, The Open University of Hong Kong Florence Lapto, The Open University of Hong Kong

As informed by studies on social suffering (Kleinman, Das, & Lock, 1997; Singer, 2006) and Elder Self-neglect (ESN) (Iris, Ridings & Conrad, 2009), this project explores the life stories of elder drug users in Hong Kong with a particular focus on their experience of stereotyping and discrimination as a result of (1) drug abuse and (2) ageism and how the intertwining experience of drug abuse and ageing might further increase elder drug users’ vulnerability. This study adopts a life-history approach to answer these three questions. With in-depth-interviews with 15 drug users aged above 50, this research offers a qualitative examination of the issue by answer three questions: 1. How do the elder drug users in Hong Kong experience /suffer from the intertwining effect ageing and drug abuse? 2. How do the Hong Kong elder drug users respond to the intertwining effect of ageing and drug abuse? 3. What are the potential social factors/variables that might be associated with elder drug users’ experience of suffering?

17

Toward a new critical theory of Popular Culture Matthew Chew, Hong Kong Baptist University

This is a theoretical paper that tackles the sociological problematic of how popular culture generates sociopolitical impacts. Three sets of solutions were offered. The first is the mass culture theory of the Frankfurt School. As the ‘old critical theory of popular culture,’ it negatively views popular culture as ideology and a part of the superstructure of capitalist society. The second is the cultural studies tradition; it emphasizes that audience agency and multifarious reception contexts help disrupt ideology and facilitate social change. The third is the dozens of recently established bodies of scholarships that rethink the problematic without relying on mass culture theory or cultural studies. They include for example narrative sociology, aesthetic public sphere, sociology of storytelling, affective publics, interactional ritual theory, and carnival theory. I articulate and systematize insights from these various new bodies of scholarship with relational sociology, practice theory, and studies of emotions and affect.

Bridging the Divide: Querying The Conflicto Armado’s Relevance for Postwar Guatemalan Youth Alexander Chon, Independent Scholar

Existing social analysis typically attributes rates of youth homicide, poverty, and unemployment to the legacy of the Civil War, claiming that Guatemalan youth culture is fundamentally a product of the Conflicto Armado. Comparison of civil war history, Guatemalan youth studies, and original fieldwork reveals that the Civil War framework is not as relevant to all youth in certain Guatemalan localities. A series of 30 interviews conducted with youth and adults in Cobán revealed a significant majority aged 35 and below did not consider the Conflicto Armado to be important to them. In analyzing the gap between the current Civil War-focused scholarship and the contrasting fieldwork data, this paper will argue that the Conflicto Armado gave rise to the multiplicity of social problems facing contemporary Guatemalan youth, suggesting that Guatemalan youth are largely unaware in this respect because of the lack of relevance the Civil War has on their daily lives.

An Analysis of the Christian Church’s Response to the Handover of Hong Kong around 1997 Ann Gillian Chu, The University of St Andrews

Following the handover of Hong Kong around 1997, the Christian church’s varied response brings forth the question of how the church in Hong Kong can improve its approach to socio-political issues and interactions with the post-colonial Hong Kong government. In this paper, the author argues for Hong Kong theologians to develop a theology that is most suitable for the Hong Kong context because it is unique in its situation of decolonization in comparison to other former colonies, and the extensive borrowing of foreign, especially German, theologians’ ideologies and applying it to Hong Kong cannot replace it, even with thoughtful contextualization. After an introduction to Hong Kong’s colonization and subsequent decolonization, its effects on the Christian church and society at large are discussed. Then, an analysis of the church’s attempts to interpret and react to the handover points out several different approaches, such as migrating to the Western world, perceiving China as a mission field, and participating in social demonstrations. The author acknowledges the heavy borrowing of foreign theology, as well as the pragmatism of the Hong Kong people, that leads to a lack of systematic teaching on how Christians should interact with socio-political issues. The Hong Kong people have unique qualities, represented in the “under the Lion’s Rock” mentality. In order to be helpful to the Hong Kong Christian community, Christian churches in Hong Kong need to collaborate with local theologians to shape a theological view that is suitable and helpful for Hong Kong Christians and society at large. This collaboration will allow them to process socio-political matters through the Christian lens and attempt to maintain a dialogue

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with the government in order to perform its prophetic role in society. This research is important for the academic world to understand how the discourse community of certain religious circles interacts with the rhetoric of the secular world and whether it is mutually influential.

The Mutual Transformation of Paternalism and Nationalism in Chinese State Legitimation Discourse Greg Fairbrother, The Education University of Hong Kong

This paper addresses the question of the mutual transformation of the concept of nationalism and institutionalized Chinese conceptions of good governance, as the Chinese state, in the interest of its legitimation from the late imperial period to the present, has constructed moral-political education discourse. Rules of governance are treated as the logic of “paternalism,” encompassing dimensions of fidelity to orthodoxy, moral exemplariness, concern for people’s spiritual and material livelihood, attentiveness to people’s views, and encouragement of responsibilities. The institutional logic of the “nation-state” is conceptualized as encompassing boundedness, identity, collective goal achievement, economy, progress, law, popular sovereignty, rights, and obligations. The paper draws upon text from state-promulgated moral-political education policy directives, carrying out a detailed discourse analysis of the integration of prescribed knowledge of “paternalism” and the “nation-state” to elicit the specific changes that have taken place in each dimension by virtue of its positioning with other dimensions.

Gender and nursing: A case study of Chinese male nurses Tevin Shu-han Fang, The Education University of Hong Kong Anita Kit Wa Chan, The Education University of Hong Kong

Nursing has been a typical female-dominated occupation in which male nurses are significantly under-presented. Many countries have addressed the imbalance by recruiting and retaining more men, but stigmatization prevails and the job remains gender segregated. In the past decade, the Chinese authority also launched campaigns to attract more men, rendering male nurses ‘Xiang Bobo’ (viz. the favorites) in hospital recruitment. The issue has attracted much media attention, but not academic studies. This paper, informed by studies on gender and work, fills this gap. Based on in-depth interviews with 12 male nurses in a Guangzhou hospital, it examines how they make sense of the nursing profession, their work experiences and their career aspiration. Our findings show that nursing in China is still stigmatized as a low-status, low-skilled woman’s job. Even though male nurses did not experience any discrimination at work, they used various strategies to protect and enhance their masculine identities. Strategies include emphasizing their physical strength, technical expertise, better social skills, and not least distancing themselves from the General Ward and female colleagues. More interestingly, better promotion prospect may not retain ambitious Chinese male nurses, who readily take up side-lines or forever look for better opportunities offered by China’s booming market economy. The discussions of this qualitative study have implications regarding attracting and retaining male nurses in contemporary China.

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Gendering Modern Spirituality: Resolving the Gender Puzzle in Body-Mind-Spirit Activities in Hong Kong Lok-hang Fung, The University of Hong Kong

The preponderance of female in religiosity is said to be universal in the modern world, and even more prominent in New Age spirituality, widely known as Body-Mind-Spirit (身心靈) in Hong Kong. Supported by

participant observation at Body-Mind-Spirit activities and in-depth interviews with people engaging with Body-Mind-Spirit, this paper interrogates, while existing literature focus largely on the modern West, the gender gap in Body-Mind-Spirit in Hong Kong. It argues that the gender gap can be explained by a more positive help-seeking attitudes of women than men and the gendered nature of Body-Mind-Spirit activities due to their close association with traditionally female realms including healing, well-being and emotionality, while emphasising on the importance of one’s habitus, particularly a religious upbringing, in influencing help-seeking choices especially of male participants in Body-Mind-Spirit activities. Hence, it is not the pursuit of spirituality that is gendered, but the way it is pursued.

(Un)married with children? Testing Second Demographic Theory in Hong Kong Stuart Gietel-Basten, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Georgia Verropoulou, University of Piraeus

Numerous studies have explored the relationship between marriage and childbearing - a central component of Second Demographic Transition theory. Studies of this relationship in East Asia have usually found the link to be very strong, and non-marital fertility to be linked to lower educational and socio-economic groups, in contrast a the ‘vanguard’ population which some studies might predict. The majority of work in this area, however, has focussed on the relationship between marriage and first birth. Using a very large microdataset from Hong Kong, in this paper, we set out to explore the relationship between marriage and childbearing across the life course; in particular examining the frequency of marriage between parities, and the various predictors of marrying or not. We find that rather than ‘life long’ cohabiters, roughly half of all couples who have a first birth outside of marriage do, in fact, marry before having their second child. We also find that there is a positive association between lower education/income and the propensity to bear children outside of marriage. The study concludes with some exploratory reasons for the apparently strong continuation of the relationship between marriage and childbearing in Hong Kong.

Fixing autocrat’s broken windows: grid governance in China Siying He, University of Macau Jianhua Xu, University of Macau

Grid governance (网格化治理) is one of the most cutting-edge innovations in China’s stability maintenance

regime. According to geographic and administrative boundaries, China’s street offices and residential communities are divided into small grids with government personnel assigned to be responsible for social control in each grid. Using data collected from institutional ethnography in a street level grid governance office, this research explores the logic and operational mechanism of grid governance in China. Our empirical data revealed that in order to filter out the so-called instability information to prevent them from escalation, a large number of noise and irrelevant information was collected by the system. We argue that broken window theory in criminology could provide an insightful explanation for the information filtering practice in grid governance. However, we argue that the grid governance may become counter-productive in the long run as it focuses on

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social control rather than solves the roots social problems in China. In addition, even in the short term, the effectiveness of grid governance remains to be seen as various alienations and resistances were widely observed at the grassroots level.

School Teachers’ Conceptions of Creativity in Teaching Classroom Music in China Wai Chung Ho, Hong Kong Baptist University

Education, knowledge, information, and creativity are progressively becoming driving forces behind new social, cultural, and educational structures. In response to social change, this study will examine the development of school music education in China, focusing on culture-based creativity. With the advance of Information Technology (IT), China’s Ministry of Education (MoE) issued a guideline in 2015 on exploring maker education (also known as the maker movement) to reform educational practices and ideology in China. The inception of China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative has also generated internationally-geared cultural diversity and various outputs of cultural industries and international education to increase social inclusion and to seek closer political, economic, and creative ties. To analyse the impact of relevant social change on creativity in music education, this study will employ multiple research and data-collection methods, including the analysis of official documents and official approved music textbooks; other relevant literature; and in-depth semi-structured interviews with teachers conducted between the summer and autumn of 2019. This study will focus on the investigation of the relationship between teacher training and knowledge and informed pedagogical decisions, as well as the limits to creativity in music education in teaching classroom music in the changing society of China.

Policing outsourcing and the threat of legitimacy: the case study of outsourced staff’s compensatory consumption in Guangzhou, China Qipu Hu, University of Macau Jianhua Xu, University of Macau

Policing outsourcing has become a global trend. On one hand, the public police may outsource much of its work and service to private sectors. On the other hand, private security companies may also send their employees to work under the instruction of the police offices in the form of providing outsourced service. The practice complicates the power dynamics within the police force as the outsourced staff are usually treated as the third class citizens compared with the first class sworn officers and the second class civilian employees. In this research, using the data collected from six months participant observation with the outsourced staff in a local police station in Guangzhou, China, we examine how the outsourced staff cope with their low social status and the corresponding consequences. We find that the outsourced staff have been widely engaged in compensatory consumption to make up their lost masculinity. However, some compensatory consumption may backfire and severely affect the police legitimacy in China.

How Japanese Community in Hong Kong Has Confronted Protests against Extradition Law Daichi Ishii, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Japanese is one of the largest non-Chinese ethnic groups in Hong Kong and has formed well-established communities by their associations and media. They are diverse in terms of age, occupations and language proficiencies, but share identities as Japanese and many of them often gather together. Their ideas about the protest against the extradition law in Hong Kong is also diverse and they sometimes conflict among Japanese

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communities. This research shows their complicated divisions as Hong Kong residents under the same identity as Japanese. Furthermore, Japanese community in Hong Kong is strongly connected with Japanese in Guangdong and also interacted with Hong Kongner community in Japan. This presentation also clarifies how they influence their views about Hong Kong, China and Japan each other.

Life course and blocked vending dreams: understanding street vendors’ drift in criminal economy in Guangzhou, China Anli Jiang, University of Macau Jianhua Xu, University of Macau

With three years ethnographic field work in Guangzhou, this research examines the impact of a city-wide campaign to crack down on street vending and the vendors’ adaptation to the campaign. We find that while the campaign has little impact on some well-connected local vendors, it works as a turning point for some migrant vendors to upgrade themselves to better occupations, other migrant vendors to even more precarious status in vending, and still others to an illegal and criminal economy. We further explore how street vendors’ social, economic and cultural capital affect their different adaptions. This research contributes to a better understanding of how macro-structural anomic situation affect the life course of the marginal population and their drift in and out of criminal activities.

“Womenomics” in Japan: Election Success of Female Politicians and Public Attitudes towards Female Laboring Wenhao Jiang, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Yuji Mizushima, Waseda University

After years of economic stagnation, female labor forces are believed to be Japan’s next engine of economic growth. As an example of ‘womenomics’, Prime Minister Abe pioneered in appointing five female politicians in his cabinet in 2014. With no evidence of their modelling effect, however, there was only one left by late 2018. This paper uses the ballot position - a randomly assigned position on campaign poster boards in lower house election, 2000-14, as an instrument to estimate the effect of female political success on the public attitude towards female laboring. While ballot position is randomly drawn, the corresponding position on campaign poster boards can affect the public exposure of candidates: higher ballot position leads to higher possibilities to win. These estimates are not biased by the fact that female-friendly districts prefer female candidates that causes simultaneous causality. Results show that the election success of female politicians can improve the females’ own perception of working in the corresponding electorate. The effect can spillover to the males, despite in a smaller scale.

Striving to be the one and only: migration diplomacy of the Communist and Nationalist China from 1949 to 1971—overseas Chinese policy in perspective. Lok Ping Lai, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

A divided China due to the Chinese Civil War, Beijing and Taipei’s respective alliances with the Soviets and the Americans had all made the cross-strait relations complicated. During the period of 1949-1971, considerable discussion was devoted to high-stakes political and security matters, and migration issues tended to disappear from the diplomatic history narrative. Even so, it does not mean that immigration policy did not play a part in

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forming the early-Cold War ROC-PRC relations. This paper calls attention to the Communist and Nationalist attempt of using immigration as a foreign policy instrument to manage their larger complex relations. It explores the question of how their immigration policies served their respective claims as the sole legitimate government of China. The period studied is 1949-71, the years between the establishment of the Communist PRC and the switch of UN diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. I argue that the interrelations between immigration and Cold War in China were far more intricate than either the Nationalists or the Communists would have us believe. Using archives, this paper tries to uncover how the PRC and the ROC took advantage of the relatively low-stakes area of immigration in the emerging Cold War context to strike up new relationships with the US and the Chinese migrants overseas, and connect it with their larger foreign policy goals, including safeguarding national security and facilitating loyal overseas Chinese to return. In addition to showing how foreign policy affects migration, this paper hopes to demonstrate that policymakers can also use migration policy as a means to benefit foreign policy. The paper makes two related arguments. First, migration policies serve to be a litmus test for testing the ‘health’ or quality of a relationship. Second, the management of migration issues has become increasingly important to the overall management of political and diplomatic relations, but it does not mean that managing migration well will definitely lead to the achievement of foreign policy goals.

Premarital Abortion: Reproductive Politics in Post-Socialist China Ruby Yuen Shan Lai, Lingnan University This thesis examines reproduction among the unmarried population in China by focusing on premarital abortion in relation to the family, the state, and the market. Based on the findings, I introduce a framework that incorporates the individual, relational, and social dimensions of reproduction. The framework suggests that the experiences of premarital abortion are situated in a web of interpersonal relationships that are entwined between the women, their male partners and their parents. These relationships serve as the interfaces that connect the women reproductive selves to the macro social structures, and are interweaved in the lives of these women. I argue that abortion is essential for women to exercise their bodily control and to survive in an increasingly uncertain and stratified society, but it is insufficient for them to achieve reproductive autonomy. To enhance individuals’ reproductive freedom, policy should be directed at eliminating discriminations based on gender, class, and migration status.

How do Asylum Seekers Cope with Destitution in the World’s Most Expensive City – Hong Kong: Roles of Economic, Cultural and Social Capitals Ka Wang Kelvin Lam, The Chinese University of Hong Kong Sara Hua Zhong, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

This study examines the ways asylum seekers cope with destitution in the world’s most expensive city – Hong Kong, under a limited welfare provision and work prohibition. Bourdieu’s economic, cultural and social capitals, supplemented by Granovetter’s twofold social network, namely weak ties and strong ties, are applied to guide the research analysis. Method: In-depth interviews are conducted with 10 adult asylum seekers who are mainly Southern Asian and African. Results: Social capital is found the most important technique for asylum seekers to survive in an environment where they are unfamiliar. Weak ties, particularly people with commonalities in terms of identities and language, enabling them to bride community organisations and thus access useful information and resources. Strong ties facilitate their accumulation of economic capital given a larger amount of allowance to share among members. Embodied cultural capital, that is, language proficiency, also

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strengthens their capability of building up social network.

From the Umbrella Movement to the Anti-Extradition Bill Protests: Hong Kong’s political predicament under Chinese rule Kwun-sun Raymond Lau, Hong Kong Baptist University

Hong Kong has for months been rocked by protests, triggered by the government’s proposal of an extradition bill. With demonstrations taking on a much wider scope of demanding democratic reform, this paper attempts to offer possible explanations for the current political impasse between Hong Kong and mainland China over the issue of universal suffrage. In doing so, this paper seeks to construct a triangular model of institutional constraint, clashing visions of democracy and mutual political distrust for understanding the struggle of the political parties in the pan-democratic camp (the pan-democrats) for realizing universal suffrage in Hong Kong since the 1980s, the nature of current political predicament they found themselves in and the current political impasse between the pan-democrats and Beijing. While acknowledging that Hong Kong’s democratization has been a slow and frustrating process, this paper argues that the dilemma facing Hong Kong’s pan-democrats and Beijing’s leadership is attributed to the institutional constraints of Basic Law on Hong Kong’s system of governance, the clashing visions of Beijing-led Chinese-style democracy and Western-style liberal democracy as advocated by the pan-democrats and the mutual political distrust between the two parties.

Cybercrime in Asia: Policing, Technological Environment, and Cyber-Governance Laurie Lau, Asia Pacific Association of Technology and Society, Hong Kong

This paper examines the most pressing and contentious issues in relation to cybercrime facing in Asia presently by looking at through multidimensional approach via sociological perspective, since it is likely that each ‘nation blocks’ are using differences of approaches on policing, governance (including cyber-governance), culture, economic development and even in technological developments are set differently, this is because each ‘nation blocks’ set their own national priority differently, as a result, these ‘nation blocks’ tackle cybercrime problems are set policing priority differently too. In doing so the paper by way of using example of how block (three blocks of nations: upper, middle and the bottom, in term level of cybercrime readiness) of nations in Asia (ASEAN nations) are reacting to the evolution, development and challenges of cybercrime, especially the latest trends and issues in cybercrime prevention and control.

It is imperative, that this paper will be providing a snapshot of picture on how, where, what, when and why certain ‘nation blocks’ in Asia are not quite reach the level of readiness on cybercrime, despite of that the technological advancement in Asia keep push fast forward in a pace that seemingly unstoppable. The paper will than conclude and provide some answers to some key questions that why certain block of nation has been reached the level of readiness on cybercrime that they became the leader in Asia, yet while other ‘nation blocks’ have not.

Explaining the Decline of Hong Kong Football: How Important is the impact of globalization? Chun Wing Lee, College of Professional and Continuing Education, HK PolyU

Following professional football in Hong Kong used to be one of the most significant leisure activities for many in Hong Kong. But since the 1990s, the popularity of the local game has declined rapidly. Based on more than 50 in-depth interviews with football fans in Hong Kong, and supplemented by results of an online survey, this presentation aims to shed light on the factors that contribute to the lack of interest in local football. More

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specifically, I will attempt to assess to what extent can the decline of local football can be attributed to the impact of globalization, and how can the dramatic change of Hong Kong’s football scene in the past two or three decades can inform us about debates concerning cultural globalization.

Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Hong Kong Youth’s Intention of Emigration and the Role of Political Participation Lok Yi Wendy Leung, The Chinese University of Hong Kong Anthony Y.H. Fung, The Chinese University of Hong Kong Stephen W.K. Chiu, The Education University of Hong Kong Gary Tang, Hang Seng University of Hong Kong

“Emigration” and “Political Participation” are two key solutions, suggested by youth, to cope with their disappointment with Hong Kong’s political development. Albert O. Hirschman, in his classic Exit, Voice and Loyalty, explained “Exit” and “Voice” as two conflicting options that people adopt to express their dissatisfaction towards a product or system. While applying Hirschman’s theory and conducting a mixed-method analysis of a telephone survey (N=777) and eight focus group interviews (N=63), this research aims to explain Hong Kong youth’s intention of emigration (Exit) and how forms of political participation (Voice) play a role in their sensemaking process. Given that Hong Kong youth who are more concerned about future political conditions have higher intention to emigrate, despite their involvement in political participation (in the past year) does not affect their likelihood to emigrate, their voting experience (in 2016 election) has an amplifying effect on their motivation of emigration.

Governance Reflected from Political Leaders’ Internet “Diary” -- Analysis of Donald Trump’s Twitter Account Yu-cheng Liang, Sun Yat-sen University

According to the content analysis from his own Twitter account since he became the US president, Trump is mainly concerned with his historical status, which has nothing to do with the domestic economy of the United States under his governance. It is only about the relationship between the nation and the world that he aims to arrange for.

The explanation seems explicit. The US economy has always been the world's top one. This impregnable position is hard to be challenged whether the economic performance is good or bad and therefore the historical status of the president is not related to the economy.

The revelation and reference to China is that we often speculate Trump would ease international tension in the trade war because of the worse US economy, which is a false judgment based on Trump's psychological structure reflected from his Internet diary.

Family Policies, Social Norms and Fertility Decisions: A Survey Experiment Lake Lui, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Adam Cheung, Hong Kong Baptist University

The ultra-low fertility rate across East Asian countries has long been a thorny issue for policymakers. In particular, many young people are retreating from childbirth or delaying it. To counter the policy challenges posed by an increasing older population and improve fertility rates, scholars have suggested various family

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friendly policies to enhance people’s desire to raise children. Others have suggested introducing initiatives to alleviate the financial burden incurred by childbirth. Despite the importance of past studies, the effectiveness of policy recommendations remains unevaluated because of methodological limitations. Using a multifactorial vignette design that creates hypothetical policy scenarios (varied by types of parental leave, childcare service provisions, work hour policies, housing policies, and organization norms), this research determines the effect of family-friendly policies and social norms on the fertility decisions of Hong Kong people. We draw on a random sample of 1,000 respondents, who were each given eight sets of randomly constructed vignettes to evaluate their expected fertility with each scenario. Our random effects model suggests that among the pool of policies, fertility is effectively raised by the following measures: unpaid leave for up to one year for the mother or father of young children, increased aid for childcare centers, home-purchasing subsidies for first-married couples, and the legal enforcement of maximum work hours. Organizational norms of utilizing family-friendly policies without gender biases are also significant. Professionals are particularly sensitive to these policies. These results illuminate the optimal policy combination to achieve a low-cost fertility target.

Parental Meritocratic Beliefs and Educational Outcomes in China: A Cross-Lagged Structural Model Francisco Olivos, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Defenders of meritocratic ideals indicate that it serves to two purposes: first, enables to allocate efficiently scarce resources and, second, incentivizes effort. However, unequal and underserved starting positions lead to the understanding that meritocracy violates its own merit principle. It legitimates societal inequalities as justly deserved, and misfortune becomes a personal failure. This study is aimed to test these two perspectives simultaneously in the case of the Chinese educational system: How do parents’ meritocratic beliefs and children’s educational outcomes are affected by each other? Based on a duel-process model of culture, we hypothesize that meritocratic beliefs could be motivators and legitimators of children's outcomes. Using data from the China Educational Panel Survey and cross-lagged structural models, we test both effects simultaneously. The findings suggest, that meritocratic beliefs only play the role of legitimators. Implications for educational inequality are discussed.

“Old age” as political discourse. A socio-historical perspective on the construction of age in 1950s China Justine Rochot, School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS), Paris

“Old age” too often appears as a natural and obvious social category, associated nowadays to a “social problem”. Sociologist of aging, however, have shown the importance of deconstructing such a category: the words used to designate ages of life, the statistical thresholds defining their limits, as well as the moral values applied to them change over time, and reflect broader evolutions in our representations of society (Rémi Lenoir, 1979). In Chinese studies, such socio-historical perspectives on ages of life are mostly limited to the study of “youth” (Chen Yingfang, 2007) but “old age” has been largely ignored in this perspective. Through the analysis of the first social inquiries conducted by China’s pioneering gerontologist, Zheng Guozhang (郑国章),

at the end of the 1950s, this paper offers a renewed perspective on the ways representations of old age in Maoist China bear the mark of broader ideological concerns.

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Minority Leaders as Tokens? Nilay Saiya, Nanyang Technological University

The theory of tokenism holds that pioneers do not necessarily blaze trails. I apply this theory to politics, specifically the election of minority leaders. If the theory of tokenism is correct, we would expect to see that countries that elect women, racial minorities and religious minorities to office once are not more likely than countries that have never elected minorities to the highest office to elect minorities to the highest office in future elections. The reason for this paradox can be attributed to a form of moral license: an initial moral action—in this case electing a minority leader to high office—leads to problematic future actions—not electing minorities in future elections. Using a unique dataset consisting of all political leaders in the world since the end of the cold war, I test the theory of tokenism against the empirical record.

Hong Kong Post-90s Young Women Doing Daughterhood Priscilla Sham, The University of Hong Kong

Little research has been conducted to understand young women of the Post-90s generation and their lived experiences in their roles as daughters in times of political turbulence. This study explores the family relationships of five young women, who were born in the 1990s, and the impacts of these relationships on them in the past decade. Interviews and other forms of engagement with the informants were first conducted during my MPhil. study between 2010 and 2012 and in 2019 again to investigate how their engagement in anti-establishment political activism impacted their relationships with their parents. Through a comparison of data collected between 2010 – 2012 and 2019, this study examines how the intersection of gender, age and political identity impact their doing of family. It argues that, throughout the past ten years, they engage in a politics of maturity to do their daughterhood. Such doing of daughterhood involves negotiations for their new daughter role and a politics of emotion. In their doing of daughterhood, they continuously do, redo and undo the meaning of being a filial daughter amid all tension in times of political turbulence.

Mediating Online and Offline Sexual Identities? Analysis of Online and Offline behaviour of Hong Kong Rainbow Families and Same-sex Couples Tsz-chun Siu, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Mediation of online and offline sexual identities is also addressed in one recent research. De Koster (2010) articulates online interactions as purposive actions that all forms of interactions are done for reasons. Based on this assumption, the practical solution to day-to-day problems in online forums is transforming into concrete actions in daily life. In other words, when same-sex couples are asking for opinions on how should they disclose their sexual identities in reality, there is great potential for turning online advice into concrete actions. This paper explains the mediation of identities clearly that online forums are information hubs for same-sex couples to gain knowledge and the reality is a laboratory for them to practise the knowledge. When online knowledge is permeable to the offline situation, this leaves enquiries why same-sex couples are failed in practising such knowledge – Is there any cultural restriction in the society that same-sex couples are discouraged from disclosing their sexual identities? To answer these questions, the paper includes an online posts analysis from a Facebook Group - Rainbow Families Hong Kong and interviews of 11 users of the forum to see the difference between online and offline behaviour.

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Boarding at School and Experience of Victimization in the Context of Parental Migration and School Merging Program in China Yuying Tong, The Chinese University of Hong Kong Jenny Li, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

In rural China, the establishment of boarding schools has been an important national strategy to sustain rural secondary school education by pooling resources. In more recent years, such boarding practice has been expanded to the primary school level due to the school merging program due to declining number of students. However, few studies have examined how boarding experience is linked to students’ experience of victimization. Using a unique data set collected from 26 schools in rural China, we found that boarding at school is associated with a higher level of victimization, and the experiences of boarding and the score of victimization exhibit a non-linear relationship. The positive association increases first then decrease with more years of boarding at schools. Moreover, earlier exposure to boarding such as boarding starting at the primary school level has a stronger positive association with experience of victimization than exposure at a later stage such as in secondary school. Secondarily, we found that instead of a double disadvantage of de-attachment from parents and family environment, boarding at schools actually can reduce the level of victimization caused by father absence, but it is not the case for mothers’ absence. Third, we find that boys are more vulnerable to victimization when they are boarding, and it is particularly the case when their mothers are migrating.

Internationalization, the Bridge to My future! Taiwanese Students Imagination and Experience of Hong Kong’s Higher Education Hsunhui Tseng, The Chinese University of Hong Kong This paper aims to examine the study experience of Taiwanese undergraduate students in Hong Kong with a focus on internationalization. In the past years, Hong Kong has seen an increasing number of elite students from Taiwan studying at leading universities. These universities attract Taiwanese students with geographic closeness to Taiwan, a large amount of scholarship, high rankings in the world universities, and the vision of internationalization. Internationalization, an indication of high quality of education and easy accessibility of cross-regional resources, is frequently considered a lack in local top universities in Taiwan. Taiwanese students widely believe that they can enjoy the study environment of internationalization in Hong Kong without going to the West. While they come to Hong Kong with the aspiration of becoming the cosmopolitan subjects, we do not clearly know how they go through the subject formation and how they respond to, or reflect on, the idea of internationalization after studying there for a while. This inquiry is meaningful especially after Hong Kong underwent rapid re-Sinicization in the past decades. Based on 32 interviews with Taiwanese undergraduate students at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, this paper found that some students feel frustrated with the environment for their misreading internationalization as westernization, while others do enjoy building up networks as a way to accumulate human capital. Moreover, students from the business school are more likely to embrace this idea, while those from social sciences and humanities are more cautious about its implied commercial orientation endorsed by the university.

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Organized crime in cyberspace: How traditional criminal groups exploit the peer-to-peer lending market in China Peng Wang, The University of Hong Kong Mei Su, The University of Hong Kong

How do traditional organized crime groups employ the internet to expand their traditional illegal businesses? This article examines the ways in which groups of illegal loansharks make use of the peer-to-peer lending markets to lend money to University students for extremely high rates of interests in China. It firstly examines the rise of underground lending markets in China targeting specifically on University and college students. It then investigates how illegal lenders marketize their services online (i.e. online internet lending platforms) and offline. Given that an illegal lender has to give money to a student loaner first, this article therefore pays special attention to how the illegal moneylender reduces transaction risks and avoid opportunistic behaviors. To be specific, it explores how illegal lenders make use of soft violence, ‘relational repression’ and (the threat to use) lawsuits to enforce loan repayment and discusses the way in which they reduce risks of detection and punishment. This article is based on field research, interviews with moneylenders, victims and their family members, University teachers, police officers, and a review of official documents and news reports in Chinese and English.

Collective patriotism under the threat of regional disintegration: an ethnographic case study of Chinese mainlanders’ response to Hong Kong’s Umbrella movement Magdalena Wong, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

This paper looks at the response of Chinese mainlanders to the Umbrella movement in Hong Kong as an example of how patriotism is invoked in the face of threats of regional disintegration. The author provides an intimate report of the concerns, anxieties and bewilderment associated with patriotic sentiments that were being expressed in Nanchong city, Sichuan, in 2014. Information in the study is derived from the author’s daily interactions with people while she was engaged in ethnographic research on other subjects. The paper reveals that a plurality of factors and complicated feelings inspire patriotic proclamations and popular nationalism. There were divided opinions, but people were joined by a strong desire for national unity. It also becomes clear from the analysis that mass sentiments were being heavily shaped by social discourse promulgated in public media.

Global Integration without Compromising Autonomy: Reassessing the Developmental Era of Hong Kong Shiufai Wong, Macao Polytechnic Institute

As a long-recognized model of governance originally emerged from a few East Asian countries half a century ago, the developmental state referring to a market economy coordinated by the state is well-known for its capability to achieve rapid and significant national economic growth. However, since the East Asian developmental states started global integration with liberalization and re-regulation in the 1990s, they have experienced a continued decline in GDP. While some argue that the liberalization causes the country to lose its autonomy, others blame re-regulation for being non-growth-focused. They spark off heated debates on whether the developmental state is doomed to fail under global integration or bound to be misinterpreted. From a psycho-sociological perspective, this paper reassesses the highly successful developmental era of Hong Kong. It is discovered that the developmental state rooted in a psycho-sociological “soil” could achieve global

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integration without compromising autonomy.

International schooling in East Asia: Forming globally-engaged and locally-disconnected identities? Ewan Wright, The Education University of Hong Kong

Across East Asia, more affluent local families are “opt outing” of mainstream education to pursue international qualifications at English-medium high schools. The experience of international schooling is having a profound impact on the identities of a growing population of young people. This mixed-method research explored the identities of International Baccalaureate alumni at leading universities in Hong Kong. An online undergraduate survey (n=734) found that International Baccalaureate alumni self-reported significantly greater capacities than other undergraduate students in cultural sensitivity and global-mindedness. In-depth interviews (n=42) illuminated how cosmopolitan sensibilities were central to the identities of International Baccalaureate alumni. A self-perceived cosmopolitanism was manifested in globally diverse social cliques, globally-oriented extra-curricular activities, and global economic futures. However, these students also discussed a lack of belonging and a detachment with local people in their home societies. Implications of the expanding international schooling sector for the formation of globally-engaged and locally-disconnected identities will be discussed.

Casinoization of Taxi Industry in Macau Jianhua Xu, University of Macau Wai-kin Wong, University of Macau

Macau taxi industry has been notorious for its problematic practices such as overcharging, customers screening, and violence toward clients. Using data collected from interviews with taxi drivers who were involved in illegal activities, interviews with clients as well as data mining in media reports about taxis in Macau, we argue that casinoization of Macau society provides a powerful theoretical framework to understand various problems in Macau taxi industry. For drivers, casinoization provides both rationales and skills of their involvement in illegal activities. For main customers, casinoization makes them the ideal victims. For government, casinoization contextualizes the loose regulation in the industry. The research not only offers a critical analysis about problems in Macau taxi industry, it also enriches the understanding of the relationship between crime and gambling industry in general.

Pedagogies for Global Citizenship Education in Hong Kong: Universal Ideals, Contextual Realities and Teachers’ Difficulties Adrian Kin Cheung Yan, University College London

This paper examines the teaching of human rights in the Hong Kong school curriculum. As an East-meets-West city, one of the emerging tensions of citizenship education in Hong Kong lies in the different interpretations of human rights between civil society and the Chinese Community Party. This study attempts to make sense of the pedagogical challenges experienced by Liberal Studies teachers by identifying the factors that facilitate and inhibit their pedagogical actions. Drawing on qualitative interviews with nine Liberal Studies teachers, findings suggested that the teaching of human rights is contingent upon a range of factors from subject status, high-stakes examinations to student diversity. Granted these contextual realities, Liberal Studies teachers were able to draw on a number of socio-political issues to prompt students’ reflections on their construction of local, national, and global identities. It is hoped that these findings will shed light on teachers’ role in implementing global citizenship education.

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In-service Socialization Experiences of Secondary School Moral-political Education Teachers in Mainland China Huaxin Yang, The Education University of Hong Kong

This study has explored the experiences of pre-service teacher education and in-service socialization of secondary school moral-political education teachers in Mainland China, through semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 18 participants who have diverse backgrounds and work in different locations. Since pre-service teacher education is deemed by participants as insufficient in preparing them for being moral-political education teachers in secondary schools, how they nominally, cognitively, sentimentally, pedagogically, and instructionally become secondary school moral-political education teachers in service thus becomes the focus of analysis which aims to illuminate the complexities of in-service socialization experiences of participants in professional identity formation and pedagogical-instructional relearning. The findings show their limited and uncommitted employment experiences, changeable and contradictory experiences of professional identity formation interwoven with hesitation and distraction, and pedagogical-instructional learning experiences at school and local levels involving the roles of mentorship, teacher subject group, teaching-researcher, and teacher network beyond school.

“It’s just like smoking or drinking”: A qualitative study of the perceptions of synthetic drugs and normalization tactics among Chinese youth Wei Yao, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Normalization theory has been the prevalent theoretical paradigm for explaining recreational drug use among young people since the 1990s. However, in the Chinese political and social context, society is intolerable towards any kind of drug, and the judicial system severely punishes drug users. Normalization theory does not apply to the Chinese context. Nonetheless, in the globalization context, are young people's perceptions of certain types of drugs also changing? Differential normalization theory suggests that some types of drugs and drug use may be normalized by particular groups of people. Based on this theoretical framework, this paper explores how Chinese young users of synthetic drugs perceive the drugs they use and their drug use behavior. This research has found that, on the one hand, they tend to normalize the recreational use of synthetic drugs and perceive it the same as smoking or drinking. On the other hand, young people acknowledge their drug use behaviors were problematic. Beyond the perspective of neutralization theory, tactics adopted by the youth to normalize their behavior have also been explored.

Homeownership, Intergeneration, Gender: a case of Hong Kong Pui-chi Yip, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

This paper explores the relationship among housing, intergenerational relationship and gender. Based on in-depth interview data with 30 young people aged between 25-33 in Hong Kong, it uncovers the process of how parents transit their children to become homeowners from a gender-sensitive lens. Given the growing difficulties of housing-buying in different global cities, the role of parents has become increasingly vital. However, existing discussion tends to address parents’ immediate and visible form of assistance - financial help. This paper identifies 4 other long-term and less-visible mechanisms – physical support, emotional reconfirmation, transfer of financial skills and socialization of gendered homeownership norms. The findings are twofold. Firstly, it is found that parents’ housing expectations on their children are regulated by traditional gender norms and are further translated into practices. Secondly, parents’ homeowning status is found to become a structural advantage, which conceptually and practically prepare children for homeownership at an early age.

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The Dynamics of Online Shaming: A Sociological Study of Hong Kong’s Virtual World Yui Fung Yip, Lingnan University This presentation is part of my MPhil research that studies the “dynamics” of online shaming in the context of Hong Kong society. The term “online shaming” is generally understood to refer to a form of stigmatization, in which people try to condemn “alleged-deviants”. By introducing Erving Goffman and Randall Collins’ discussions on the Interaction Ritual, my research offers a sociological explanation for the phenomenon of online shaming, and the interaction mechanism behind it. In particular, I argue that online shaming is not only a practice of condemning “deviant” actors as it has been usually conceptualized. Rather, it is a dynamic interactive process that revolves around different types of actors and modes of participation (e.g. deliberately shame or defend a person, intentionally withdraw from a shaming event, etc), which is a crucial aspect of online shaming that previous research has yet to address. Fundamentally, I propose to distinguish three forms of online shaming, namely Behavioral Labelling, Publification, and Unmasking. What is of no less importance is the fact that there is an emotional-energy-like force that drives netizens to engage in or disengage from online shaming events, which I call “the sense of companions”. Such a diversity of elements, I argue, define some of the major patterns of online interaction among Hong Kong netizens nowadays.

Strategic Interactions in Monetary Commensuration: An Ethnography of Medical Dispute Resolution in Contemporary China Long Zhang, The University of Hong Kong

Monetary commensuration implies the process in which different qualities are converted into a common metric, that is an amount of money. Resolution of medical disputes provides ideal cases to probe into controversies surrounding monetary commensuration of the “intangibles”, like suffering, injury, and death. Based on a 6-month ethnography in a Chinese hospital, this article explores how the widely existing compensation in medical dispute resolution is determined, or how the “intangibles” are commensurated monetarily when neither the legal principle nor market principle has gained absolute hegemony in practice. The author argues that strategic interactions constitute the key mechanism in constructing the economic value of “intangibles”; the amount of compensation reached shows a minimum compromise on a “negotiated justice”. Key strategy sets utilized by hospital and complainants are illustrated in the article. This research tries to bring in culture and symbolic interactionism to enrich the commensuration literature.

Multiple Institutional Logics and State-society Synergy: Evidence from the “Targeted Poverty Alleviation” Campaign in Rural China Yuanhang Zhu, University of Chicago

Existing research has focused on state coercion and collective resistance at the grassroots level of authoritarian and transitional regimes, but few have considered the possibility, process and outcome of state-society synergy. Drawing on the ethnographic data from a Chinese county during the “targeted poverty alleviation” campaign, this article explores how the state-society relations change from antagonistic detachment to state-led synergy. First, it identifies four institutional logics governing behaviors of various state and social actors for poverty alleviation: logics of performance legitimacy, bureaucracy, market and social recognition. Second, it highlights how the confliction and convergence of the multiple logics change the micro institutional conditions and generate space for agency, thus constructing conditions for synergy. Within the state organizations, the bureaucratic coherence and capacity are strengthened through enforcement of formal rules, intensification of

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incentive designs and concentration of state resources. Spanning the public-private boundary, state embeddedness is legitimated and social capitals are raised through cooptation of prestigious elites, hierarchical cultivation of civic associations, patriarchal assistance to the poor and political contracts with private entrepreneurs. The construction process not only integrates rural communities and economically benefits rural areas but also expands state penetration into and hegemony over society, providing comprehensive implications for understanding authoritarian resilience and accountability.

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Housekeeping information: venue, WiFi, refreshments Getting to The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST)

By Public Transport:

Choi Hung, Ngau Tau Kok, Hang Hau and Sai Kung are the closest interchange points to the University, and you can board a bus, minibus or taxi (details below) to the entrances of HKUST.

Interchange Train station exit/ Bus Stop Route No. Destination

Choi Hung Exit C2 / Ngau Chi Wan Village Bus 91, 91M, Minibus 11 HKUST North

Ngau Tau Kok Exit A / Ngau Tau Kok Station Minibus 104 HKUST South

Hang Hau Exit B1 / Hang Hau Station Bus 91M, Minibus 11M HKUST South

Sai Kung -- / Sai Kung Bus Terminus Bus 792M HKUST North

Registration

The registration desk is outside Rm G012, Lee Shau Kee Business Building.

Conference Venue

The Conference will be held in the Academic Building of HKUST in rooms of the Lee Shau Kee Business Building. Plenaries will take place in the lecture theatre Rm G012, and all other sessions will be in rooms nearby. Signage will direct you to the rooms.

Please refer to the conference website for directions http://prtg.cle.ust.hk/events/conference/venue.

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Wi-Fi Access

If you do not have access to Eduroam Wi-Fi, you can connect to “Wi-Fi.HK via HKUST”. This service is provided by ITSC for university guests. You simply need to:

1. Enable WiFi on your device 2. Select “Wi-Fi.HK via HKUST” on the available network list 3. Accept the terms and conditions to use the service

More details can be found here (https://itsc.ust.hk/services/general-it-services/wifi/wi-fi- services/configuration-wifihk/).

Refreshments and lunch

10:40-11:00 Morning coffee/tea Outside Lecture Theatre G012

12:30-14:00 Lunch Conference Lodge

16:50-17:10 Afternoon coffee/tea Outside Lecture Theatre G012

Amenities at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology On the Chia Wei Woo Academic Concourse and on the Entrance Piazza (facing the iconic “red bird” statue) you can find a number of amenities.

mini-banks plus ATMs

the University Bookstore

various food and beverage outlets

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About the Hong Kong Sociological Association

History

The predecessor of the Hong Kong Sociological Association is Hong Kong Sociological Society which was set up in May 1966. Professionals in the field such as Professors S.L. Wong, Maurice J. Anderson and Aline Wong were elected to become its Presidents from 1966 to 1969. The Society, however, ceased to function in 1972 due to the small number of sociologists in Hong Kong at that time. The sociologists in Hong Kong follow their footsteps, hoping to contribute to the society with their professional knowledge. Thus, the Hong Kong Sociological Association was established in November 14, 1998, after preparation for almost one year.

Mission

To contribute professional knowledge to the development and progress of Hong Kong society.

To enhance communication among sociologists in Hong Kong, and to serve as a bridge between them and their counterparts in other regions.

To promote sociological research in Chinese society in general and Hong Kong society in particular and,where necessary, to endeavour to provide publication outlets for such research.

To facilitate teaching of sociology in Hong Kong.

To furnish professional judgement on the standard and quality of sociological outputs.

To raise community awareness of sociology in Hong Kong.

The 11th Council (2018-2020)

Prof. Julian M. Groves (President) Prof. Tommy HL Tse (Vice-President) Prof. Ho Keung sing (Membership Secretary) Prof. Ting Tin-yuet (Secretary) Prof. Chen Hon Fai (Treasurer) Prof. Lui Tai-lok (Chief Editor, HKSA Journal) Prof. Christian Greiffenhagen Prof. Gao Chong Dr. Lee Tsz Lok Trevor Dr. Adam Cheung Prof. Agnes Ku

To find out more about the Association, please visit our website http://www.hksa.ust.hk/.