How Far Can We Say that Taiwan and Hong Kong Are the Same Chinese Society? Take Masculinity As An Example

Abstract

This paper is a historical anthropology of masculinity in the Chinese societies of Hong Kong and Taiwan. Following Saussure’s insight that the conventional value of a cultural category is defined by its relations to other categories within the same cultural scheme, we shall study masculinity in relation to ethnobiology, sexuality, marriage, family, and descent in the Chinese societies of Hong Kong and Taiwan, arguing that masculinity cannot be understood on its own but should be examined in relation to other cultural categories. However, the relationship between masculinity and other social categories varies with different societies. By comparing such a relationship in the Chinese societies of Hong Kong and Taiwan, we shall understand why the conventional value/meaning of masculinity differs in these two societies. We contextualize our study of masculinity in pre-colonial, colonial, and postcolonial Taiwan and Hong Kong, demonstrating how meaning of masculinity changes in different political regimes of these two societies. This paper ends with a theoretical question: if masculinity takes on different meanings in Hong Kong and Taiwanese societies, what do we mean when we say that they are Chinese societies?