Boston student’s avowal of her Hongkonger identity ignites Chinese outrage
- An article in a student paper for Emerson College stirs harsh debate over what it means to be Chinese
- The controversy erupts amid what many see as the rapid erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy
Sitting on a bus in Boston, thousands of miles from her home in Hong Kong, college student Frances Hui crossed paths with an inquisitive fellow passenger.
Where are you from? the passenger pressed.
When she eventually replied “Hong Kong,” the man started to get aggressive, Hui recounted. He insisted that she should define herself as “from China” – which was handed control of the former British colony in 1997.
“He kept telling me, ‘You are Chinese, you need to fix your identity,’” Hui, a junior at Emerson College, said in an interview. “I felt really insulted. Identity is really personal. It is my thing.”
It was soon followed by an intense and, at times, threatening backlash from mainland Chinese students at her college.
The squabble was far from Hong Kong, but one that reflects wider questions playing out in the ex-colony over identity amid the rapid erosion of the territory’s autonomy and promised “one country, two systems” relationship.