Writing Hong Kong’s Ethos

Louise Ho, the Hong Kong-born poet, who writes in English, describes one of her goals as the creation of “a space where the English literary language expresses, as well as is incorporated into, the local ethos.” What Ho wishes to do in her poetry is to use English in such a way that it is a tool to express Hong Kong experience and history, but, at the same time, it can be “incorporated into the local ethos”-in other words, made into Hong Kong, creating a third space that is neither entirely English nor entirely Chinese. This chapter looks at the different ways non-English-native Hong Kong poets make use of Chinese as well as incorporate foreign elements in their work to express a “local ethos.”