Self-censorship and social identity in the post-colonization Hong Kong

As 2017 marks the 20th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong from the British colony to Chinese sovereignty, the evolving social identity of Hong Kong people and upheaving dilemma reflecting on recent phenomena of social movements are predominantly observed in this unique era of pos-colonisation. The post-colonization theme impacts on a wide spectrum of people’s daily life and social behaviour in Hong Kong, e.g. in singing of Chinese national anthem in local schools’ assemblies, songs of Cantopop sung at the recent social movements in comparison to the national flag raising ceremonies of official governmental events. This presentation aims to construct critical discussion based on the development of social movements in the 21st century Hong Kong, focusing on the following main scopes: (1) literature review and content analysis of communicative events including both academic and local news articles, as well as critical discourse in contemporary scholarly works; (2) observation and sharing of challenges as a researcher in conducting data collection for music education projects specifically dealing with self-censorship, as well as a choral conductor in dealing with tri-lingual repertoires in Mandarin, Cantonese and English; and (3) discussion and analysis of metaphors in the most popular songs of Cantopop specifically of those which were sung commonly at the recent social movements in Hong Kong, such as ‘Occupy Central’ and ‘Umbrella Revolution’ in 2014, to reflect on the shift and change of social identity of Hong Kong people. By examining and reviewing those evidences of phenomena in music education research, the symposium participants will get a glimpse of the challenges and impact of post-colonisation process on music education at large, with a specific focus on the dilemma encountered by educators in music classrooms and researchers in dealing with obstacles of data collection and subsequent analysis. To overcome the abovementioned difficulties, this presentation will then share some strategies and solutions in coping with the challenging, ever-changing social identity and self-censorship of Hong Kong people in the 21st century music classrooms and research projects of music education.