Music education across the border between China and Hong Kong (SAR)

During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, western countries had significant influence on the political, economic, and cultural development of many Asian countries. Traditional culture and music in these Asian countries have undergone continuous challenges from the impact of western culture and music. China has been a communist country since 1949. Hong Kong was a British colony from 1842-1997 and is now a special administrative region (SAR) of chin. At the beginning of the third millennium, education reforms come to the forefront in both china and Hong Kong. Although the two regions had undergone different political systems in the past, both experienced similar western influences in culture and education from the historical perspective, and currently are facing challenges of globalization with regard to educating their future generations. This paper focuses on the development of music education in relation to traditional Chinese music in china and Hong Kong in the past century and examines the recent development in curriculum changes in china in order to establish a direction for the ongoing music education reform in Hong Kong.