This video provides a provocative look at history of Hong Kong as a British Colony in Asia as constructed by the media. It combines Hong Kong TV commercials, British Government footage, and images from films made during the Japanese occupation, in the format of karaoke—a form of popular entertainment, to evoke a “typical” Hong Kong experience. The last image is a child, unmistakably Chinese, staring back at the camera.

Born in Hong Kong, Yau Ching is known in the Chinese-speaking world as a prolific writer and in the English-speaking world as a filmmaker and video artist. While managing her multiple identities, she has been making socially engaged work for more than three decades. She studied at the University of Hong Kong, New School for Social Research, Whitney Independent Study Program in New York, and received her PhD from Royal Holloway, University of London. While she was teaching at Hong Kong Lingnan University and Taiwan National Chengchi University, among others, she was actively involved in community organizing and public education. Yau Ching has authored more than twelve books. Her award-winning film/video works have been invited to venues including Alexanderplatz Station of the Berlin Underground, Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, Galarie nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris, Museum of Modern Art in New York, and broadcast in North America, Europe and Japan.

Ellen Pau, born in Hong Kong, began her art career while studying radiography at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, creating her first experimental super-8 film, The Glove. She co-founded Videotage in 1986 and received the Asia Cultural Council Fellowship in 1992, creating Song of the Goddess in the U.S. Her international career launched at the 1995 Gwangju Biennale, followed by exhibitions at “City on the Move”, Asia Pacific Triennial, Shanghai Biennale and Taipei Biennale. Since 1996, she has been a director at the Microwave International Media Art Festival. At the 2001 Venice Biennale, she presented Recycling Cinema. Recent exhibitions include Awakening: Art in Society in Asia 1960s–1990s (2019) at the National Gallery Singapore, What About Home Affairs (2019) at Para-site and Shape of Light at M+ Facade (2022). Her works are held in collections of the Hong Kong Museum of Art, M+, and Griffith University. The Asia Art Archive launched her archive in 2023.