Name: Peeking at Cannibals and Competing for Stouts: Asian Spectators in Colonial Museums of HK and Singap
Start: 2026-06-05T19:00:00+08:00
Location: Hong Kong Museum of History 香港歷史博物館

Peeking at Cannibals and Competing for Stouts: Asian Spectators in Colonial Museums of HK and Singap

The Hong Kong Anthropological Society in association with The Hong Kong Museum of History* Presents:
Peeking at Cannibals and Competing for Stouts: Asian Spectators in Colonial Museums of Hong Kong and Singapore
An anthropological lecture by Reynold K. W. TSANG
Friday, 5 June at 7:00 p.m.
Hong Kong Museum of History
Lecture Hall, Ground Floor, 100 Chatham Road South, Tsim Sha Tsui
All are welcome! Space, however, is limited to 139 seats.
The lecture is conducted in English.
The nineteenth century saw the emergence of museums across the British Empire, including Hong Kong and Singapore. The first public museums in the two colonies, the Old City Hall Museum and the Raffles Museum, were established in 1869 and 1874, respectively. While they were planned for and curated by the British, they drew an overwhelmingly Asian audience.
This lecture examines the Asian museum-goers within these colonial museums, moving beyond the colonists’ vision to look at the colonised experience. From searching for "cannibals"on display to guessing attendance numbers to win free stout, Asian visitors actively reinterpreted the museum space defined by the British on their own terms. Through a historical and anthropological lens, this lecture explores how these visitors subtly challenged British authority and turned a tool of imperial dominance into a site of indigenous subversion.
Reynold K. W. TSANG is a Teaching Fellow in the Department of Chinese and History at the City University of Hong Kong. His research focuses on the intersection of museums and British imperialism in Asia.
For more information, please contact [email protected], www.cuhk.edu.hk/ant/hkas, www.facebook.com/hkanthro,@HKASTalks
* The Museum makes no representations on the content of this lecture.