Friends and critics of the state: The case of Hong Kong

Hong Kong has never been short of civic organizations.1 Right from the early years of its colonization by the British in the nineteenth century, local Chinese gathered in temples and discussed how to protect and promote their interests in a sociopolitical environment of foreign rule. Kaifong (neighborhood, or neighbor) and tungheung (native place) formed the social and cultural basis of the formation of collective identity and of the mobilization for collective action. Furthermore, though Hong Kong’s population has always been in flux, with migrants arriving at different critical phases of its social development, for more than 160-odd years its residents have had the will and ability to form voluntary bodies and self-help groups to deal with the social, economic, and political issues they encounter in their everyday lives. Copyright © 2005 editorial matter and selection, Robert P. Weller; individual chapters, the contributors.