UBC Hong Kong Studies Initiative

04/06/2026

On March 24, 2026, the UBC Hong Kong Studies Initiative hosted Dr. Wayne Wong (Lecturer of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield) for a presentation of his work Project Sifu and his monograph Martial Arts Ecology: Aesthetics, Philosophy and Cinematic Mediation (Edinburgh University Press, 2026).

This is the first time his work is presented in Canada.

The event is attended by community members and the students of the course ASIA325 Hong Kong Cinema at UBC.

03/18/2026

Organized in conjunction with the Backreading Hong Kong Symposium 2026 and hosted by the UBC Hong Kong Studies Initiative, Producer Prof. Helen F. Siu (Professor emerita of Anthropology, Yale University) presented the documentary film Metamorphosis of the Bay Area 灣區變形記 (2025) at the Asian Centre Auditorium at the University of British Columbia on March 11.

The film is a production of the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, at the University of Hong Kong.

This first ever screening of the film in Canada drew close to 100 participants,

The event is organized by UBC Hong Kong Studies Initiative, and UBC Asian Studies; and is supported by the UBC Centre for Chinese Research , UBC Department of English , UBC Campus + Community Planning, and the Sustainability Initiative Committee of the UBC Department of Asian Studies, as well as Cha: An Asian Literary Journal.

03/01/2026

Join the talk “The Transnational Impact on Identity Formation in Theatre Across the Chinese-Speaking World” by Dr. Wah Guan Lim of National Chung Hsing University.

📆 Tuesday, 10 March, 2026
⏰ 2:00 - 3:30pm
🏫 Room 604, Asian Centre, UBC

Details: https://asia.ubc.ca/events/event/the-transnational-impact-on-identity-formation-in-theatre-across-the-chinese-speaking-world/

The event is free and open to the public. No registration required.

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About the talk:

The 1980s was the most important decade for global Chinese theatre. In large part prompted by changes in regional geopolitics, the search for a local identity peaked among the Chinese communities in East and Southeast Asia. This period coincided with the rise of the professional careers of four important diasporic director-playwrights—Gao Xingjian 高行健 (b. 1940), Danny Yung Ning Tsun 榮念曾 (b. 1943), Stan Lai Sheng-chuan 賴聲川 (b. 1954), and Kuo Pao Kun 郭寶崑 (1939–2002)—whose efforts shaped the contemporary Chinese-language theater scenes across China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore.

While the geopolitical conditions of the Cold War imposed ethno-nationalist identities across the region, in contrast, these dramatists weaved together native, foreign, and Chinese elements in their theater praxis to give voice to the local. At the same time, by performing cultural identities alternative to the ones sanctioned by their own states, they also debunked the notion of a unified “Chineseness.”

In this talk, Dr. Wah-Guan Lim will highlight the key role theater and performance played in suturing identity in the diaspora and circulating people and ideas across geographical space, well before cross-strait relations were yet to thaw.

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About the speaker:

Wah Guan LIM (BA Hons 1 UNSW, MSt Oxford, MA Princeton, PhD Cornell) is an Associate Professor of Transcultural Chinese Theatre at National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan.

His research interests span Chinese-language drama, cinema, and literature. His first monograph Denationalizing Identities: The Politics of Performance in the Chinese Diaspora (Cornell University Press, 2024) examines the role theatre and performance have played in identity formation in Chinese communities across East and Southeast Asia.

Most recently the recipient of the Yushan Fellowship for Early Career Academics, he was the sole awardee in the Arts and Humanities category that year in the Taiwan Ministry of Education’s effort to attract outstanding academics globally to strengthen the international standing of higher education in the country. He served previously as Assistant Professor at Bard College in New York and the University of New South Wales, Sydney, where he was Lecturer in Chinese Studies in the School of Humanities and Languages, and Fellow of New College.

The event is organized by the UBC Asian Studies and is sponsored by the UBC Hong Kong Studies Initiative.

02/26/2026

Join us for the book talk presented by Charles Fung, PhD student in sociology at State University of New York, Stony Brook, about the co-edited volume "A New Documentary History of Hong Kong, 1945–1997” (2025), in collaboration with Dr. Florence Mok of Nanyang Technological University.

📆 Tuesday, 10 March, 2026
⏰ 4:45 - 5:30pm
🎞️ Auditorium, Asian Centre, UBC

All are welcome. Registration required: https://hksi.ubc.ca/events/event/bhk2026-book-talk-charles-fung/

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About the book:

In this collection of essays, Fung, Mok, and other contributors analyse newly released archival records from The National Archives in London, the Government Records Service in Hong Kong, and other sources across the world. This collection provides an updated and improved understanding of basic aspects of the city, such as governance, economy, society, and culture. It also aims to investigate topics that are under-exploited in previous sourcebooks, such as race and diasporas, gender and familial relations, medicine and healthcare, and the environment and natural disasters.

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About the speaker:

Charles Fung is a PhD student in sociology at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. His research interests include state (trans)formation, fiscal politics, identity-making, geopolitics, and governance, focusing on how these processes unfold in the context of imperial/colonial rule. He is the co-author of Hong Kong Public and Squatter Housing: Geopolitics and Informality, 1963–1985 (Hong Kong University Press, 2023), co-editor of A New Documentary History of Hong Kong, 1945–1997 (Hong Kong University Press, 2025), and has contributed articles to journals such as Asian Perspective, Social Transformations in Chinese Societies, and East Asia.

This is part of the special program of the Backreading Hong Kong Symposium 2026 University of British Columbia, hosted by UBC Hong Kong Studies Initiative, and UBC Asian Studies; and is supported by the UBC Centre for Chinese Research , UBC Department of English, UBC Campus + Community Planning, and the Sustainability Initiative Committee of the UBC Department of Asian Studies, as well as Cha: An Asian Literary Journal.

Event Details Start: 10 March 2026 4:45 pm End: 10 March 2026 5:30 pm Venue: Asian Centre, UBC Categories: Book Launch, Celebration, Symposium Backreading Hong Kong Symposium 2026 A New Documentary History of Hong Kong, 1945–1997 Book Talk by Charles Fung Date: Tuesday, March 10, 2026 Time: 4:45.....

02/25/2026

Join us for the book talk presented by Dr. Ting Guo (Assistant Professor of Language Studies, University of Toronto) who will be sharing her book Religion, Secularism, and Love as a Political Discourse in Modern China (2025).

📆 Tuesday, 10 March, 2026
⏰ 2:00 - 2:45pm
🎞️ Auditorium, Asian Centre, UBC

All are welcome. Registration required: https://hksi.ubc.ca/events/event/bhk2026-book-talk-ting-guo/

Dr. Ting Guo specialises in religion, politics, and gender in transnational Asia. Through her publication, she explores socialist modernity narratives, as well as modern governance and religious nationalism. She is also the Honorary Researcher at the Richard Charles Lee Canada-Hong Kong Library, University of Toronto, and Book Review Editor for the Journal of the American Academy of Religion and co-hosts a podcast called 時差 in-betweenness ().

The book is the first systematic study to trace the evolution of ai 愛 (love) as a political discourse for modern Chinese nationalism.

This is part of the special program of the Backreading Hong Kong Symposium 2026 University of British Columbia, hosted by UBC Hong Kong Studies Initiative, and UBC Asian Studies; and is supported by the UBC Centre for Chinese Research , UBC Department of English, UBC Campus + Community Planning, and the Sustainability Initiative Committee of the UBC Department of Asian Studies, as well as Cha: An Asian Literary Journal.