Guided Viewing and Talk: "1952 Hong Kong" with Mr. Douglas So and Dr. Joseph Ting

Join us for a Sunday visit to F11! The Museum Society is delighted to have Mr. Douglas So guide us through the photographic exhibition 1950s Hong Kong, to be followed by a talk by Dr. Joseph Ting on Crisis and Opportunities: Hong Kong in the 1950s.

“Exhibition – 1950s Hong Kong”
After working in Japan for 10 months, Magnum photographer Werner Bischof and his wife, Rosellina, arrived in Hong Kong by sea in May 1952. He spent two months working on photo-documentation of the then British Colony which was suffering deeply from the embargo America and the United Nations had imposed on China due to the
Korean War.

The 85 photos selected for this exhibition constitute a lively documentary of the 1952 Hong Kong where extremes abound. Bischof’s photos revealed Hong Kong as a rapidly growing community in search of a delicate balance between East and West, old and new, affluence and otherwise, with a strong common desire to begin a new page in this haven of hope.

“Talk – Crisis and Opportunities: Hong Kong in the 1950s”
In the aftermath of destruction brought about by war and the Japanese occupation, Hong Kong slowly recovered in the late 1940s. Before long, civil war broke out in Mainland China, and thousands of Chinese fled to Hong Kong, causing the population to soar. The local Chinese had to settle down and call Hong Kong their home after the founding of the Communist regime in China and the subsequent closure of the border. Meanwhile the Korean War broke out in 1950, Hong Kong’s entrepôt trade received a fatal blow as a result of the embargo enforced by the United Nations. Under such circumstances, the colonial government began to formulate long term plans and policies regarding housing, education and social service, as well as promoting local industry to cope with these traumatic changes, thus laying the foundation for rapid developments in the following decades.

Resource Persons
Mr. Douglas So obtained his Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) and Postgraduate Certificate in Laws (PCLL) from The University of Hong Kong (HKU). He became a solicitor of Hong Kong in 1993. Douglas practised commercial law, corporate finance, as well as mergers and acquisitions before joining The Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) as Legal Counsel in 2000. Until his recent resignation, Douglas was the Vice-President and Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Institutional Advancement) of the University of Hong Kong. Douglas founded F11 Foto Museum in a Grade III heritage building in Happy Valley in 2014 to promote photography, heritage conservation and private museums in Hong Kong.

Dr. Joseph Ting majored in Chinese Literature and Chinese History at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) and graduated with a BA degree in 1974. He was conferred an MPhil in 1979 and a PhD in 1989, also from HKU. Dr. Ting was appointed Chief Curator of the Hong Kong Museum of History in 1995 and retired in 2007 after serving for 28 years. He is currently an Honorary Assistant Professor in the HKU School of Chinese, and was an Honorary Research Fellow at the former Centre of Asian Studies. He is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of History at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and a Member, inter alia, of the Antiquities Advisory Board, the Lord Wilson Heritage Trust and the Education Bureau of Hong Kong.