Talk:History of Hong Kong

NPOV?
I wonder why the descriptions about the colonial Hong Kong is so short compared to the long period before. In fact, Hong Kong only raises to its importance when it becomes a colony. The relevant sections should be expanded in much greater details, if compared to the (already so long) pre-colonial Hong Kong history. In effect, the problem stated here is the same as that in the Chinese version.

I'm adding details especially before WWII. To be honest it's not a terribly exciting time for HK between 1860 and 1930 but since my studies force me to go through it I'm passing the savings on to you! Karajanis 05:08, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Is all set. I got that section expanded and split.  Now colonial specifically refer to 1800s to 1930s.  Benjwong 04:57, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Grammar
"The territory was settled by Han Chinese since the Han Dynasty"

This is grammatically incorrect, but I am not sure whether it wants to say "has been settled by...since" or "was settled by...in". --Beland


 * "Has been". It still is. Not past tense yet, now that the Han of the Mainland can freely come in. :-) --Menchi 04:40, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Verb tense fixed. Another page says visas are still required from mainland China. Is that incorrect? -- Beland


 * That's probably right. I was semi-joking. --Menchi 10:34, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)~

Tenses
The "would be"s all need changed to was, it _did_ happen, it's not yet to happen. Chris 01:41, 28 August 2007 (UTC)


 * There are unfortunately a LOAD more of these, but I've fixed them all up. lril 15:31, 15 January 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Laurelenril (talk • contribs)

Zhao Shi and Zhao Bing
"The older boy, Zhao Shi was declared emperor at age nine, and in 1277, the imperial court sought refuge first in Silvermine Bay (Mui Wo) on Lantau Island and later in today's Kowloon City (see Sung Wong Toi). The older brother became ill and died, and was succeeded by the younger, Zhao Bing, aged seven."

Wait, were they aged nine and seven in 1277, or at different times, when they were respectively named emperor? These entries do not yet exist; is there a definitive bio that lists the birth years? -- Beland


 * I think it means Shi was 9 in 1277, and Bing was 7 in the 1278 succession. Poor kids with the burden of a nation... :-( There's a list of reigning years at Song Dynasty, but no birth years. --Menchi 04:40, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Minor inaccuracies in "Transition to Chinese Rule"
I wouldn't say they're wrong though, it just gives me an impression that people might read it wrong.


 * 1) Many schools would now teach in Putonghua, or Mandarin Chinese, in parallel to English. English is still an official language (see Hong Kong Basic Law) and is still being taught in all schools.

- To my knowledge, mandarin is still much less important than English in teaching. The medium of instruction in schools are either Cantonese or English.


 * 1) Queen Elizabeth II's portrait disappeared from banknotes, postage stamps and public offices. As of 2003, many pre-1997 coins are still in circulation.

- I don't really remember about banknotes/stamps/etc, but Queen Elizabeth II's portrait appeared no more on coins since the early 1990's.

-- sydneyfong Jan 18 2005 07:30 (GMT)
 * New issued coins stop putting on the Queen's portrait since 1992 or 1993, but coins issued before this with the Queen's portrait are still legal tender, and are still in circulation. Coins issued as early as 1978 can still be sometimes found.


 * What you said about Putonghua in schooling is true. Either Cantonese or English is used as the medium of instruction. Some schools used Putonghua to teach the Chinese language, but that's very rare. At most schools, Putonghua is offered as a separate subject, with only a few lessons per week, until Form 3. &mdash; Instantnood 15:07, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)


 * Regular definitive stamps before the 1996 "Hong Kong Island from Victoria Habour" version all have the design of the Queen/King's portrait, except sometimes replaced by the HK colonial flag of colonial enblem. What you don't remember doesn't mean that they don't exist. If you easily verify my words if you visit some old stamp stalls in Hong Kong. Anyhow, what you mentioned about banknotes maybe true, it seems that the Queen's portrait is rarely used there.

Main articles
I think this is a general page about Hong Kong history. Could there be more detailed main articles concentrating on Japanese Occupation and Transition to China? -- Jerry Crimson Mann


 * And we need to update the 'History in the 2000's' section. It just talks about buildings, when we have some major political and other developments too! Onanoff (talk) 11:21, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

The section on Heads of Hong Kong
With regard to this edit, should the section be pointed to the articles on governors and chief executives, or be moved to a separate article? &mdash; Instantnood 17:35, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

History of the PRC template
Is there a way we can fit this - Template:History of the People's Republic of China - in the article? The template links to this article, but there're so many pictures at the article's beginning that I don't know what would be a good place for it. Not sure if the middle of the article is the best place for a navigation template like that. --- Hong Qi Gong 00:31, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Two templates would eat up the whole page. There is no possible way they will fit.  Benjwong 07:13, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

This page needs to restructure and Change Time eras
I am about to reshuffle the periods and make it consistent across ALL templates, pages and timelines. The correct sequence should be the following. While modern hong Kong was governed by the British colony, it is not quite referred to as Colonial Hong Kong.

- Prehistory (BC etc)

- Imperial China era  (many dynasties)

- Colonial (1890s - 1930s)

- Japanese occupation (1940s)

- Modern Hong Kong (1950s - 1990s)

- 1997 and Beyond (1997 - Present)

If anyone think this is not the correct order or that it should be in some other format, please speak as soon as possible. I am pretty sure all the changes can be incorporated since there are way too much overlap right now. Benjwong 07:13, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
 * The first BIG reconstruction has been done. The format can now expand.  The old Colonial HK era ends in the 1930s with everything after the Japanese occupation as "Modern Hong Kong". It is also now utilizing the 50s, 60s, 70s pages. Benjwong 16:24, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Good work! Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 07:12, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I just did a major fix up of the individual pages over the past week. colonial, 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s are done.  I just got to do the 90s next.  This page in particular still need to do some balancing on the bottom half.  The handover year is taking up too huge of a portion even though it is a separate article already. 1997 was important, but wikipedia historical article is not about 1 year. The rest of the history has to fit in.  Benjwong 06:22, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
 * The Transfer of the sovereignty of Hong Kong article needs a lot of work with referencing. It only has two sources, and they're not online.  Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 06:49, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
 * The Transfer of the sovereignty of Hong Kong is now fully enhanced with pics, references etc. The research for the references took some time, I'll admit.  Benjwong 06:53, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

The 1970s photo is left / right flipped 202.64.35.176
 * You might want to talk to the person who uploaded the pic. We just use it.  Benjwong 13:35, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Referencing
This article has the workings of GA status or even FA status if only the content was inline referenced. As of now, it needs a lot of work in that department. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 15:01, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I expanded it alittle. The only way to really expand it alot is to literally wipe out the 50s/60s/70s articles etc and copy-paste all the contents to this one. That is probably not a good idea. Remember the history is only 1 century or so.  I think it has a good chance to move the ratings up at least some.  Benjwong 05:05, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Etymology
I came looking for what Hong Kong translates to and did not find a section discussing the name origin. PerlKnitter (talk) 19:00, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It used to be in the first paragraph of the main article. It needs to be somewhere. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Shanghaiese in the 1950s
Former Central Policy Unit head Leo Goodstadt devotes three pages in his 2005 book Uneasy Partners [ISBN 9622097332] to debunking the myth that Shanghaiese entrepreneurs arriving after WWII were a decisive factor in Hong Kong's industrialization. "The newcomers from Shanghai have been portrayed as heroic figures who transformed Hong Kong into a manufacturing centre . . . The mythical role . . . seems highly unlikely." He goes on to quote a past Directory of Commerce and Industry, "It shows just how short and fallible human memory can be that people generally assume nowadays that our cotton spinning industry dates back only to 1947." DOR (HK) (talk) 08:54, 20 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The cotton mills in the 50's were all created by "Shanghainese"(more properly: Jiangnanese) entrepreneurs, while there were cotton mills prior, it wasn't until Dainan mills that Hong Kong didn't need to import thread and could spin their own cotton which resulted in other Shanghainese joining in the clothing manufacturing market, leading to the formation of the Cotton Spinners Association that pushed Hong Kong into the industrial era for the next 20 odd years until the shipping and real estate boom in the late 70's after the market crash of 1973. Without the massive emigration of cheap labour and "Shanghainese" money, the industrialization wouldn't have happened so quickly.  similarly while plastics began in the 50's, plastics manufacturing boom that happened in the mid-60's and also the shipping industries boom of the 70's were aided in part due to the mass immigration of cheap Chiuchow labour.

http://www.hkmemory.hk/collections/postwar_industries/manufacturing_industries/textiles/industry_focus/index.html Some expat's recollections are just as fallible. Writing it in a book doesn't make it true. Anonymous - 15:13, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added tag to http://www.asiasociety.org/speeches/wong.html
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Citation needed - suggestion
Under Point 4, the second paragraph "In 1860, at the end of the Second Opium War..." has a citation needed remark on it. There is a preview of a report from the American journal of International Law that cites the Convention of Peking treaty document here: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-journal-of-international-law/article/abs/convention-between-the-united-kingdom-and-china-respecting-an-extension-of-hong-kong-territory1/6E31B0966018C982CAF9DDBBB898BE56 The bottom of the preview document actually cites exactly the line in question. Is this a valid citation for this?

tokyoahead (talk) 14:21, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Change dating system to Common Era
I will be changing the dating system on this article away from the biased, Christian based AD/BC to the common era system next week. This will bring the article into alignment with secular usage such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_India. If you object, please state why you are ok with the biased system here. Eupnevma (talk) 19:27, 3 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Before you go changing AC BC please read Manual of Style, specifically MOS:VAR. Also, instead of hundreds of discussions regarding the changes on hundreds of different talk pages, get a conversation going here: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. Thanks! Masterhatch (talk) 20:57, 3 February 2023 (UTC)