Although heritage is often constructed and contested, comprehensive case studies which illustrate the complexity of the contestation are lacking (Ashworth; Boniface; Bruner; Bruner; Handler and Handler). In tourism studies, the issue is often cast as foreign tourists vs. local indigenous peoples, but in cosmopolitan Hong Kong, such a dichotomy would be an over-simplification, as there are more than two parties involved. In order to bring out the complexity of heritage construction from an ethnographic perspective, this paper describes the establishment of the Ping Shan Heritage Trail and how it was used or interpreted by different parties in terms of various contested meanings of heritage in the New Territories in Hong Kong. The trail, which is about 1 km long, links ten traditional “Chinese” structures consisting of a pagoda, an ancestral hall, a well, a walled village, a study hall, temples, and other buildings. It is described in the brochure for the tourists as providing an opportunity to recapture aspects of Chinese rural life “in the old days.” The buildings belong to the Tang clan and indeed they are old, as the Tangs have been settled in the area for about 30 generations, or approximately 800 years. But only recently has their “heritage” been presented for touristic consumption. It is noteworthy that the trail was only established in December 1993. It is one of a number of heritage sites that emerged in the 80s when it became evident that political control of Hong Kong was to pass from the colonial British to the People’s Republic of China.

There are at least four parties involved in the contested struggle for meaning in the Ping Shan Heritage Trail, and each has a different interest and interpretation. The first party is the Antiquities Advisory Board, which was established with the enactment of the Antiquities and Monuments Ordinance in 1976. It represents the Hong Kong government and is the main organizer in the trail construction. Regarding the relations between Hong Kong’s social history and heritage preservation, this paper asks how heritage has been regarded in Hong Kong by different groups and why the heritage “construction” led by the Antiquities Advisory Board was associated with the handover to China. Indeed, the year of the handover (1997), was officially designated by the government as “Heritage Year.” The emphasis on local heritage is presented in the larger context of a search for a distinctive Hong Kong culture and identity, one separate from the Chinese culture of the People’s Republic on the mainland. The second party is the Hong Kong Tourist Association (or HKTA) with its duty to promote all aspects of tourism industry for the benefit of the economy of Hong Kong. The master narrative of HKTA in advertising for Hong Kong tourism is the blend of the East and the West, or the traditional and the modern. This theme, with many variations, is repeated in every brochure and in the commentary of the tour guides. The Ping Shan Heritage Trail, with ancestral hall, temple, shrine of the earth god and pagoda, provides for foreign tourists a representation of the exotic East, the traditional “old China,” the rural way of life that, according to the tourist writing, is always and forever disappearing.

A third party is composed of the various domestic tour organizers who bring local Hong Kong residents to discover the history of their living place. For these domestic tourists, mostly made up of urban Hong Kong families, the Ping Shan Heritage Trail has been a favored destination. No one at first expected the tremendous interest shown in the trail by the residents of Hong Kong, but indeed these domestic tourists far outnumber the foreign ones. One may ask, why does a site in the New Territories attract such large numbers of urban Hong Kong Chinese, many of whom during the work week may be stockbrokers or investment bankers? What does the Ping Shan Heritage Trail mean to them? A final and fourth party is the local people of the Tang clan. For reasons to be explained, they are in conflict with the government and have indeed become so enraged that they have closed part of the trail. The Tangs are not poor village farmers; indeed, there are very few farms left in Hong Kong, and many members of the clan are wealthy migrants who reside in the cosmopolitan centers of the Western world, in London and Vancouver. The Tangs are not arguing about money, for they have been paid for land taken by the government. The conflict goes back to 1898, to the time the British government defeated the Tangs in military battle and established colonial hegemony over the New Territories. Then, the British built a police station on a hill overlooking the Ping Shan area, which the Tangs felt had disturbed what they call the fung-shui (literally “wind and water,” usually translated as geomancy). Fung-shui concerns the balance in nature between buildings and landscape, or the sacred harmony of the built environment, a very old cosmological Chinese belief. Conflict over the heritage trail between the government and the Tang clan provides an excellent example of the political-historic side of this case of cultural tourism.

As one can see, the Ping Shan Heritage Trail presents a complex contested story, involving the government desiring to construct heritage sites, foreign tourists seeking the exotic East, domestic tourists seeking an aspect of themselves, and the Tangs seeking to re-establish their harmony with nature. To view such complexity as a simple interaction between the tourists and the locals, a perspective frequently encountered in the tourism literature, would indeed be a gross over-simplification. This paper will lay out the various meanings associated with the Ping Shan Heritage Trail, which is conceived as one manifestation of the construction of an emerging Hong Kong identity. It will identify the various participants in this construction, the interests they have, and the meanings they attach to it. Finally, it will consider the conflict in interpretations between two of the participants that has resulted in the closing of the trail.

Invention of heritage in Hong Kong

The word “heritage” caught international attention especially in the mid-80s in connection with the UNESCO World Heritage Convention; however, as established almost at the same period, the Ping Shan Heritage Trail was never mentioned as part of this global movement. In Hong Kong, this word has been commonly used to signify monuments which were established before the British came, or else popular destinations in the New Territories, which is still considered the rural side of Hong Kong. Pre-colonial ancestral halls, temples, and shrines in the rural villages have been especially marked and developed for the tourism industry (HKAMO 1992a). But more recently, the representation of Hong Kong as a fishing village turned modern metropolis has been replaced through the construction of a heritage with distinctive Chinese traditional characteristics. Regarding the heritage trail’s emergence, the paper argues that it actually reflects the framework of ideas which has been undergoing a boom in the Hong Kong population from the mid-80s.