This research and creative project explores reparation through cultural memory, media, and poetry, centring on Hong Kong’s political turmoil and expanding to a global context. It begins by tracing the transformation and eventual banning of the June 4th memorial for the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in post-handover Hong Kong, arguing that this suppression reflects the Chinese Communist Party’s attempt to assert control and erase dissent. Despite this, the memory remains a powerful force of defiance. The project further examines how the 2019 anti-extradition protests are depicted in Western media, where these portrayals—though sometimes abstract—preserve Hong Kong’s struggle for autonomy within the international consciousness, linking it to broader global movements for democracy. Drawing on my own poetry collections, Hula Hooping (2015) and If I Do Not Reply (2024), I delve into themes of protest and censorship, with poems written during the 2019 unrest capturing pivotal moments while addressing the emotional and psychological scars left by repression. By weaving Hong Kong’s political resistance into a wider global framework, I demonstrate how cultural and artistic expressions not only serve as acts of remembrance but also as tools to challenge authoritarian regimes, promote solidarity, and contribute to a worldwide discourse on reparation and human rights.
PROF. DR. TAMMY LAI-MING HO
CURRICULUM VITAE
Tammy Lai-Ming Ho is a Hong Kong-born literary scholar, poet, and translator. She is the editor-in-chief of Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, a significant platform for the study and amplification of Asian voices, and co-editor of Hong Kong Studies, the only peer-reviewed journal focused on Hong Kong. She also serves as English editor of Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine and translation editor of The Shanghai Literary Review. A former tenured associate professor at Hong Kong Baptist University, she has completed academic work including the monograph Neo-Victorian Cannibalism (2019) and articles on Hong Kong literature and culture. Tammy has co-edited anthologies such as Desde Hong Kong: Poets in Conversation with Octavio Paz (2014), Twin Cities: An Anthology of Twin Cinema from Singapore and Hong Kong (2017), and Hong Kong 20/20: Reflections on a Borrowed Place (2017). Her poetry collections include Hula Hooping (2015), which won the Young Artist Award in Literary Arts, awarded by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, Too Too Too Too (2018), and If I Do Not Reply (2024). In 2023, she was writer-in-residence at the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa.
