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.

WONG Chi-fai graduated from the Department of Fine Arts, the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He works mainly in meida art, video, installation and theatre design. Since 1990, Wong has created stage designs for plays and performance by Hong Kong’s Sand & Bricks Theatre, as well as for theatre groups in Taiwan. He is also active in creating video art for theatre. Productions in which his work has appeared include the Altas’ Dance Art’s Memory Disorder and 2000.1.1 Unknown; Moment of Light theatre’s Deviant/Reasonant#2; Cheung Tat Ming’s Solo; and Bird, Birds by Makoto Matsushima.