論⽂の英⽂要旨
English Abstract of the Doctoral Thesis
論⽂題⽬

危機と⽇常のあいだ：⾹港 2019 年デモにみるポピュラー⽂化の政治化

Title

Between Crisis and Everyday Life: Hong Kongʼs 2019 Protest and the Politicalization of Popular Culture

⽒名⼩栗宏太Author

Kota Oguri

This paper analyses the anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill movement that broke out inJune 2019 and lasted more than half a year, by focusing not on immediate political developmentsthat directly lead to the mass protest rallies, but on more subtle cultural backgrounds that sparkedand fuelled various scenes of the protest, such as when, for instance, protesters adopted symbols
and signs from well-known Japanese anime and Hollywood films to express their views; when afamous artist’s political comment incited a heated debate among his fans or when a graffiti on thestreet urged somebody to give back the singer; when protesters rallied to liberate a shopping mallin the suburban part of the city; and when an international online network that emerged amongprotesters in Hong Kong and other Asian regions came to be named “Milk Tea Alliance.” By
analysing such examples, this paper aims to explore the movement's indirect but equally
influential connection to vibrant popular culture for which the city was once famous.
Part 1 (Chapters 1 to 2) offers a general analytical framework of the paper and somebackground information on the protest. In Chapter 1, I summarise previous studies on popular
culture in Hong Kong. Popular culture has once been analysed as a key phenomenon
characterising the city's lack of attention to politics: Hong Kong people allegedly concentrated
their energies on popular culture as the door to political power was closed by the colonial
government. Some scholars have argued more positively that mass consumption culture thatflourished in post-war Hong Kong became one of the characteristic features with which its
residents distinguish themselves from their neighbours in mainland China, and that the common
experiences of popular culture thus helped them foster their unique identity as “Hong Konger.”But, in so doing, they too highlighted the Hong Konger identity's roots in apolitical massconsumption and ordinary lifestyle, compared to allegedly more “political” sources of an identity
such as anti-colonialism or nationalism. It is yet to be confirmed how Hong Kong’s popular
culture that was once seen as mundane and apolitical came to affect serious political movements
in post-handover Hong Kong. To explore this question throughout the paper, I take up andconsider a number of scenes from the protest in 2019 where various aspects of the city's popular
culture and mass consumption in the city became issues of public concern.
Chapter 2 summarises the development of the protest through widely circulated symbols andslogans, from early 2019 to mid-2020 when it was brought to an end with the introduction of thedraconian National Security Law (NSL). Although such symbols were often referred to as “mansyun” or propaganda of words in Cantonese, they contained a number of references to local lives
in Hong Kong that were arguably undecipherable to outsiders. The following chapters examinesome examples of such inward-looking, high-context references to Hong Kong’s popular culture
during the protest.
Part 2 (Chapters 3 to 5) focuses on Cantonese popular music known as Cantopop and its
relation to political developments in the city. Although singing has been a well-known feature ofsocial movements in Hong Kong, the Cantopop industry has not always been in accord with1

political activism. Even in 2019, while some singer-activists, mostly indie artists, openly
supported the protest and released protest songs, most of mainstream singers kept silent onpolitical situations in Hong Kong to avoid provoking the Chinese authorities and losing the large
mainland market, which has become, since handover, an important source of profit to supplement
the shrinking Hong Kong market. The mass consumption in Hong Kong was once claimed to becommon experiences to the majority of residents regardless of political views, but it now has
collapsed under the growing influence of the mainland market and broken into two, representing
the growing gap between pro-Beijing and pro-democracy camps in Hong Kong.
Part 3 (Chapter 6 to 8) looks at the protest from the perspective of New Territories, a vast
rural and suburban area that lies between urban Hong Kong and the mainland city of Shenzhen.
The area has been most severely affected by the influx of tourist-shoppers from the mainland
since 2003. Suburban shopping centres were renovated to satisfy their huge and highly profitableneeds, not to serve long-time customers from local communities, or at least so the local residents
claim. Such a perception leads them to recall how beautiful the facility once was, to complain
how it “no longer serves locals or Hong Kongers,” and, in some cases, to organise rallies toreclaim it from the mainlanders. These rallies to reclaim New Territories fostered a politicalimagination that would later inspire one of the most powerful slogans in 2019, “Reclaim HongKong.”
Part 4 (Chapter 9 to 10) explores developments after the introduction of NSL to show how
popular culture continues to fuel the city even after outright political voices were silenced. The
aforementioned “Milk Tea Alliance” among Asian activists was initially triggered by a Thai
actor's trifling comments on social media in 2020, showing how common interests in global
popular culture can sometimes cultivate a new political arena. The name was taken from the
Asian communities' common taste for sweetened tea with milk, Hong Kong version of which has
long been claimed by local citizens, scholars and even by the government as the representative
taste of the city. Meanwhile, post-NSL Hong Kong also witnessed a resurge of attention tomainstream Cantopop in 2021, lead by the rising popularity of a boy band called Mirror.
Although their songs typically feature romantic declaration of love and optimistic self-affirmationthat apparently have little to do with the city's gloomy political situations, some fans see them as
Hong Kong's last hope to preserve its unique cultural identity: whatever they sing, they are Hong
Kong singers after all, and they represent that Hong Kong still has something to be proud of. A
pro-democracy media, shortly before its closure due to an NSL-related police investigation,highlighted such a slight glimmer of hope in a feature article series that was aptly titled “Thereare songs, at least.”
In conclusion, this paper argues that the accumulated concerns over Hong Kong's unique life
experiences have given considerable weight to Hong Kong’s popular culture, otherwise“mundane” and “shallow,” in the city's struggle to preserve, defend, or “reclaim” its uniquenessin the shadow of China. Even if outright political activism is to be wiped out in post-NSL Hong
Kong, such attachment to the city's past daily life experiences, or “collective memories” toborrow from a clichéd expression in Hong Kong, will be more difficult to eradicate. As Maurice
Halbwachs, who originally developed the concept of collective memory, once wrote: “Even ifstones can be moved, relationships established between stones and people are not so easily
altered.… The stones and materials will not resist, but the groups will.”2