Join us for an exciting event jointly organised by Hub on Migration, Exile, Languages and Space (HOMELandS) Research Centre and the Contemporary China Centre at the University of Westminster.
The panel brings together expert researchers from different countries and universities who will share with us their most recent research into diasporic Chinese heritage. Based on case studies of Chinese diasporas in Canada, Britain and Macao and through the lens of opera, food and water respectively, their fascinating work unveil the hidden heritage and marginal voices of underrepresented individuals, families and communities, asking new questions on memory, identity and belonging in Chinese diasporas and beyond.
Speakers:
- Prof. Wing Chung Ng (University of Texas at San Antonio)
- Dr. Rui Su (Middlesex University)
- Dr. Mariana Pinto Leitão Pereira (University of York)
Discussant: Prof. Cangbai Wang (University of Westminster)
The event is chaired by Professor Gerda Wielander.
Deciphering sources from the margins: The memory world of Cantonese opera musician Wong Toa (1914-2015)
Prof. Wing Chung Ng
This talk explores sources gathered, preserved, and/or created by Cantonese opera master musician Wong Toa whose life and career of unrivalled longevity bears witness to a sweeping panoramic history of traditional opera, folk music, transnational mobility, and cultural identity.
Wong Toa received only elementary schooling in his young age, practiced a low-brow musical art for plebian entertainment as his calling, struggle to build a music career in the opera circle in early Cold War-Hong Kong, and crossed the Pacific and seemingly languished as a working-class immigrant in Vancouver Chinatown. Yet, from along the margins of society he helped generate and bring forth an exceedingly rich and wide array of historical sources, largely eluding attention and remaining untapped for research. Among these valuable items are rare compendia of longstanding musical scores, self-published anecdotal accounts of an amateur chronicler, detailed documentation in museum archives, and autobiographical writings, photograph albums and audio recordings from his personal papers.
Taste of memory
Dr. Rui Su
The ‘Taste of Memory’ project draws inspiration from early 20th century Chinese restaurants in London. Beyond documenting food histories, it explores the collective memories of British-Chinese chefs and how they navigate cultural identities and overcome challenges. Through oral history collection, curation design, and festival planning, Taste of Memory highlights the crucial role of public engagement in negotiating the voices of marginalised communities. It particularly empathises how food memory connects people and place, thereby reframing migration history within the contemporary UK political economy. By reflecting on this journey from initial research in migration, memory and archive studies to the practical challenges of bringing chefs’ stories to life, Taste of Memory encourages more interdisciplinary conversations on representing marginalised community histories.
Stories of ‘Coming Ashore’: The heritage of seascape-to-landscape migrations of the waterborne communities of Macau in the Pearl River Delta
Dr. Mariana Pinto Leitão Pereira
In the past decades, Macao’s waterborne communities have transitioned to land-based settlements due to political, economic, and environmental shifts, after centuries of dwelling in the hybrid geographies of the Pearl River Delta. This paper examines the inconspicuous heritage of ‘Coming Ashore’, and the ways communities sustain and practice sea-based knowledge and water heritage after relocation to land. While heritage is often framed as a land-based making practice, this study engages with ‘Wet Ontologies’ (Peters & Steinberg, 2015) and ‘Tidalectics’ (Hessler, 2017), to foreground more liquid perspectives in Heritage Studies. Drawing from oral histories and archival research, the focus is on how seascape-to-landscape migrations shape heritage-making processes and cultural memory. The study seeks to broaden the dominant narratives of Chinese diasporic heritage, ultimately repositioning the heritage of boat-dwellers as a key expression of the community’s capacity to transform in response to displacement and marginalisation, offering new perspectives on the practices of water heritage in shifting landscapes.
About the speakers
Prof. Wing Chung Ng
Wing Chung Ng is a professor of history and chair of the history department at the University of Texas at San Antonio. He attended the University of British Columbia and earned his PhD specializing on modern China with a focus on transnational mobility, identity formation, and community politics in the context of diaspora. His more recent work delves into traditional Chinese music theater/opera, its consumption as entertainment and cultural markers, and its global circuitry. He is a former Commonwealth Scholar, a fellow at the National Humanities Center, and a Fulbright Scholar.
Dr. Rui Su
Dr. Rui Su is Senior Lecturer in Tourism and Departmental Research and Knowledge Exchange Lead at Middlesex University. Her research interests are in cultural tourism, tourist psychology, museology, war study, and urban planning. She has received several small research funding from The British Academy, The British Council, AHRC, and Middlesex University. Projects include ‘Taste of Memory’ (The London Archives), ‘London Visitor Economy Recovery’, ‘Visitor Emotional Engagement’ (National Trust), ‘Church Action on Poverty’ and ‘Storytelling Festival’. Her work has published in Annals of Tourism Research, Current Issues in Tourism, Journal of Heritage Tourism and Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change.
Dr. Mariana Pinto Leitão Pereira
Mariana Pinto Leitão Pereira is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Heritage for Global Challenges Research Centre, University of York (United Kingdom), where she looks at diaspora heritage and knowledge in relation to climate-change solutions. Mariana is finalizing her PhD corrections at the Cambridge Heritage Research Centre, University of Cambridge (United Kingdom), where she focused on the ways diaspora communities use cultural heritage to construct and navigate identity in post-displacement settings. Mariana is from the Portuguese-descendant community of Macao, in China; a board member of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (2023-2026) and a member of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies.
