Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter Eight
Roots and Routes: The Myth of
Return or Transnational Circulation?
In 1991 the Miss Hong Kong Pageant went global. A long established
extravaganza produced by Television Broadcasts (TVB), the dominant sta-
tion in Hong Kong, the contest pursued the dispersing Chinese diaspora in
the 1990s, inviting communities in New York, San Francisco, Seattle,
Toronto and Vancouver to arrange for the selection of a local contestant to
send to the Pageant who was either born in Hong Kong or else held a Hong
Kong identity card. Other overseas populations in Australia, New Zealand
and London were also invited to participate but contestants had to travel to
Hong Kong to enter the qualifying rounds. Going global meant that the
Pageant not only recognized the scale of overseas migration by Hong Kong
residents, but it also reproduced a transnational social field through the
networks of popular culture. TVB programmes are available through satel-
lite subscription throughout the diaspora and may be re-transmitted by
local broadcasters like Fairchild Television in Canada.
In the four years from 1997-2000, and again in 2007, the Pageant's win-
ning contestant was a Hong Kong immigrant who had entered the competi-
tion in Vancouver; indeed, competitors from Canada's west coast have been
the most successful among the overseas diaspora in the Miss Hong Kong
Pageant. 1 Success invariably means a return to Hong Kong and a career in
film and television as a TVB actress. Anne Heung, the 1998 winner, earned
a BA in Economics from the University of British Columbia and, after her
Pageant success, became a TVB film and television actress in Hong Kong.
Her successor, Sonija Kwok, received a degree from Simon Fraser University
in suburban Vancouver and became a Cathay Pacific flight attendant.
Following her crowning in 1999, she too became a TVB actress. Like the
annual SUCCESS fund-raising gala in Vancouver mentioned in Chapter 7,
with its complement of Canto-pop and other Hong Kong entertainers, the
Miss Hong Kong Pageant deepens information flows and consolidates
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