Introduction
The empirical and theoretical study of ethnic identity in Hong Kong rests firmly on an enduring conceptualisation of a binary opposition, depicted as a kind of localist identity, juxtaposed against a staunchly Chinese nationalist identification (Ma and Fung 1999; Mathews, Ma, and Lui 2008).
The historical beginnings of this binary opposition are well-documented. From the 1970s onward, Hong Kong locals began identifying themselves based on perceived distance from the Mainland, amid popular constructions of Hong Kong as a modern, “forward” society emancipated from the “backward” Mainland (Ma E. 1999). Reflecting on city-wide surveys of ethnic identification from 1996 to 2006, Ma and Fung remark: “the greater the distance between Hong Kong people’s self-image and their image of Chinese, the stronger their sense of belonging to the localized culture of Hong Kong became” (2007: 173). Similarly, several case studies have descriptively shown that the rhetorical frames adopted b...