| This research is a case study of Tak Ming Middle School which aims at investigating how a school in Hong Kong—a British colony which is “marginal” in the political, geographical, as well as cultural sense—undertook an education advocating Chinese nationalism.; Tak Ming Middle School was not an ordinary school, it had double identities: on the one side, Taiwan's nationalist government regarded it as an “overseas Chinese school” registered at the Committee on Overseas Chinese Affairs; on the other side, Education Department of Hong Kong government looked at it as a registered “private school”.; Situated in such historical context, the researcher seeks to analyse the relationships between a series of concepts: “nation”, “historical narrative”, “school education”, and “national identity”. First, the school identified itself as part of the national history of Chinese through constructing a narrative of its history. Second, the school carried out courses, formal and informal, so as to nurture the students to become “genuine Chinese”, i.e., the one who would identify himself with traditional Chinese culture and Taiwan's nationalist government (as the representative for the Republic of China). In other words, one has to endorse both the culture and the political leadership in order to be qualified as “Chinese”, as prescribed by the political sovereignty (namely, Taiwan's nationalist government).; Hong Kong Tak Ming Middle School was founded in 1930s. At it's peak in the 60s, the school expanded rapidly and its number of students, from pre-school to tertiary level, reached more than 12,000. However, as Hong Kong's public school system began to take shape in late 60s, the Hong Kong government gradually took up an important role in taking charge of regulations and resources. For its relations with private schools, it adopted exclusive corporatism, selectively absorbing the “non-profiting” private schools (mainly those run by the churches and beneficiary groups) into the public school system and offered them financial aid, while cutting off assistance for “profiting” schools which were outspoken in their political stance, such as Tak Ming. Thus, Hong Kong Tak Ming Middle School came to its end in 1980x.; Tak Ming's development was circumscribed by local governance, changing China-Taiwan relationships, and the different educational beliefs held by its various leaders. As a result, it seems true that a consistent philosophy was lacking. What is more, it failed to uphold its belief in nationalism when confronted by the government. We may gather from the above that the existence of Tak Ming was indeed a survival by compromise. |
