In Pictures: Most visitors to revamped, renamed Hong Kong museum unaware of patriotic education push
Hong Kong Free Press
Visitors to the Hong Kong Museum of the War of Resistance and Coastal Defence this week were largely unaware that its recent revamp was part of a broader plan to enhance patriotic education.
The museum, previously called the Museum of Coastal Defence, was on Tuesday renamed to refer to the Second Sino-Japanese War, more commonly known in China as the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression.
Tuesday marked the 79th anniversary of Victory Day in the war.
The renaming was part of a patriotic education push announced last year that includes a new national security exhibition at the Hong Kong Museum of History in Tsim Sha Tsui.
In a statement on Tuesday, Lee said the government would “spare no effort to promote patriotic education, strengthen people’s national pride and sense of responsibility and ownership.”
He continued: “The [museum] will enhance the understanding of the public, in particular young people, about the arduous years during wartime and the contribution of martyrs through… exhibitions on the War of Resistance.”
‘Indoctrination’
Cheung, a homemaker in her thirties, was at the museum when it reopened to the public on Wednesday with her son, a young military history buff. She stressed that her son’s interest in the new exhibit was his own choice, rather than a mandatory requirement.
Cheung, who was not previously aware the revamp was part of the government’s patriotic education push, told HKFP she believed students should have the freedom to decide for themselves.
Her nine-year-old, who was peering at exhibits about HMS Belfast, a Royal Navy ship that sailed for Hong Kong in the late 1940s, was not particularly “patriotic,” she added.
“He’s always been interested in world wars and the military, and I think that however he chooses to interpret and understand those things is his own right. These things should work on a voluntary basis. [Students] shouldn’t be indoctrinated under a mandatory system,” Cheung said in Cantonese.
Following the 2019 protests and unrest and the imposition of a national security law a year later, the city in 2021 introduced mandatory national security education for children aged six or above.
Part of that includes learning about Beijing’s national security legislation, which was inserted directly into Hong Kong’s mini-constitution in June 2020 bypassing the local legislature. It criminalised subversion, secession, collusion with foreign forces and terrorist acts broadly defined to include disruption to transport and other infrastructure.
A new thematic exhibition about the East River Column’s efforts to battle the Japanese in Shenzhen and Hong Kong – called “Brothers in Arms” – features installations with titles referencing a combined front, such as “Shared Roots of Shenzhen and Hong Kong” and “Shenzhen and Hong Kong Stand Shoulder to Shoulder.”
According to a pamphlet, the new exhibition – one of about a dozen at the museum – was jointly organised with the Shenzhen Dongjiang Column Memorial Hall and the Memorial Hall of Chinese Cultural Celebrity Rescue to show the joint efforts of the two places during World War Two.
“This exhibition highlights the War of Resistance activities of the East River Column in Shenzhen and Hong Kong, illustrating the arduous journey of these two closely connected areas in resisting foreign aggression and promoting the patriotic spirit of our martyrs who fought during the War of Resistance,” the pamphlet reads.
“I suppose it’s about time,” said Ng in Cantonese, a septuagenarian who regularly visited the original museum but was unaware of the revamp or the patriotism push. “It’s been so long since the Handover, so I think it’s fine that they’ve added more elements about Chinese national identity.”
“But you can’t rush these things. There’s a limit to how much kids can take,” he added.
A married couple surnamed So came to the museum on Wednesday after seeing it advertised on the MTR. Among the visitors that HKFP spoke to on Wednesday, they were the only ones who knew that it had been rebranded.
“Enhancing national identity and one’s understanding of the country and its history – that’s a good thing,” said the husband, agreeing with his wife that the 2019 protests had been “too extreme.”
“Even if you don’t like it or don’t accept it, you can’t bring bystanders into it,” she said, referring to the pro-democracy demonstrations and unrest five years ago that, at times, turned violent. But in addition to a bolstered patriotic education regime, the government needed to prove that it valued people’s opinions, she added.
Her husban said it was regrettable that free speech and criticism had been stamped out under the city’s current political climate, with people “self-censoring” so as not to cross red lines. “Things aren’t as open as they used to be,” he said.
Students from a local secondary school were also at the museum on Wednesday. Two teachers identified themselves as staff at the Hong Kong Institute of Contemporary Culture Lee Shau Kee School of Creativity.
Brian Goulter, a tourist from New Zealand who was working in Hong Kong during the 2019 protests, said he believed it was important to be proud of one’s homeland. He also told HKFP that while he admired the pro-democracy protesters’ goals, he disapproved of the violent methods employed by some of them.
“Being proud of the place you come from is important, so I think that’s a good thing to be doing,” Goulter said. “I think Hong Kong people will still be able to say ‘I come from Hong Kong’ and be proud of that.”
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