I plan to organise a series of events as my intervention for the project.
WHAT
The first intervention was an immersive cultural event held in 10 May in CSM library, aimed at students from various cultural backgrounds. The event consisted of three key activities: a voting session on what participants perceived as representative of Hong Kong culture, a screening of a recent Hong Kong film “Drifting”, and an interactive Cantonese slang tutorial. It was a small scale and only 7 MAAI students joined the event.
WHY
The primary objective was to explore the perceptions of “outsiders” towards Hong Kong culture and to examine how different cultural elements resonate with people who may not have direct experience with the city. This serves as an initial step in my broader research on cultural identity, setting a foundational understanding of how cultural elements can be perceived differently depending on one’s own cultural background.
HOW
- Voting Session: Participants were presented with various elements—Hong Kong street scenes, movie posters, sounds of traffic lights, and Cantonese words—and asked to vote on what they felt was most representative of Hong Kong culture. Surprisingly, the Hong Kong street scenes received the most votes, suggesting that urban landscapes hold a strong cultural imprint even for those unfamiliar with Hong Kong.
- Film Screening: A recent Hong Kong film “Drifting” focusing on homelessness was screened. The choice of film was intentional to present a side of Hong Kong that contrasts sharply with its popular image as a bustling metropolis. The movie served as an eye-opener for the participants, offering a nuanced understanding of the city’s social issues.
- Cantonese Slang Tutorial: An interactive session teaching Cantonese slang was organized. Specific phrases related to the Queen, school, and student life were chosen to make the session engaging while also offering a glimpse into Hong Kong’s unique cultural idioms.


Basd on the result of the vote, most participants chose “HK street views” as the most recognised HK culture even some of them have never visited HK before.

** After the film screening, participants were invited to learn Cantonese slangs
After the first intervention, participants were asked to fill in the questionnaires. And based on the feedbacks, additional audio-visual sources and workshops may be conducted by HK cultura communicators to enhace participants’ understanding of HK before watching HK films. And the following intervention events will be expanded to external places with external parties.
*******************************************The Onsite Obeservation ********************************
- 7 participants joined the event, and among the 7 people, 1 is from Canton culture (Guangdong, Cantonese is her mother tongue, but not live in HK), 4 live in mainland China (1 knows some Cantonese phrase and songs, but other 2 have no ideas about Cantonese but can tell when people speak Cantonese). And there is 1 Korean and 1 American.
- The 4 Chinese participated the whole event, from the pre-screening tasks into the film watching, 3 are late, but still doing the pre-screening tasks but didn’t watch the film from the beginning.
- Due to the belated start of the event, the film didn’t finish yet, so participants didn’t watch the last part of the movie and did not know the result of the story (but some of them guessed out the result already).
- I did a questionnaire after the event and 5feedbacks received so far. Below is the questionnaire I created.
Although the whole process of the event didn’t run so smoothly as planned, because of the time limited, guests could be late etc., it is still very useful for me to collect the feedbacks and suggestions from the participants.
And even some of the participants have never been to HK before, they still selected HK street views as the most recognized one in their eyes (they place Red tags on the HK street views), and the second recognized factor is the HK film posters ( I selected Wong Ka-Wai’s films as the factors), and the Cantonese phrase teaching is the third (3 green, 1 red and 1 orange) and most of them are not very recognized the HK sounds (3 green +2 yellow).
And according to the feedbacks from the questionnaire, I found for Chinese, they indicated they can be delivered HK cultural connotation from the movie screened while 2 people outside China chose unsure.
And the pre-screen tasks, 3 chose useful, and 1 chose no, and one choice is maybe.
*************************************Reflection and the Next steps************************************************
Had the first intervention not been conducted, I might have missed out on the nuanced understanding that even people unfamiliar with Hong Kong can still find aspects of its culture that resonate with them. This was evident when participants, who were not from Hong Kong and some of whom had never even been there, identified with elements like Hong Kong’s cityscape. Some reflections as below:
- Cultural Elements as Connection Points: The first intervention revealed that urban elements, such as cityscapes, can serve as strong indicators of cultural identity. This was even true for participants who were not native to Hong Kong.
- Different Angles to Cultural Identity: Watching a Hong Kong movie that portrayed a lesser-known side of the city showed that cultural identity can also be connected to social issues, adding depth to our understanding.
- Language as a Cultural Connector: The interactive Cantonese slang session was a hit, highlighting that language can serve as a powerful tool for cultural engagement and understanding.
Next plan:
I will explore to conduct different format intervention aimed at understanding how different elements –be it cityscapes, social issues, or music—can contribute to the complex fabric of cultural identity.