One country,two systems,three flags: Imagining Olympic nationalism in Hong Kong and Macao

Abstract

In 2008, the Olympic Games were held in Beijing, capital city of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). As Special Administrative Regions (SARs) of China, Hong Kong and Macao, despite existing as separate sporting entities under the principle of ‘One Country, Two Systems’, were surprisingly enthused with what Chinese people called an Olympic nationalism. Using a cognitive–affective–conative attitude framework, this paper examines how secondary school students (n=1391) in the two SARs constructed ‘imagined communities’ through their attitudes toward the Beijing Olympics. The average mean scores and Cohen’s Effect Size (d) were calculated between the two groups of students to reveal similarities and differences. The study concludes that, regardless of three different flags under one country, Hong Kong and Macao shared the Olympic spirit and nationalist sentiment with the rest of the Chinese in the motherland. Internal competition within the Chinese community did not necessarily exacerbate division and, indeed, resisted transcending the two systems in a one nation approach. On the contrary, the profound Chinese culture displayed throughout the Games and an appreciation of international solidarity united students in the two regions and provided a watershed in their understanding of their Chinese identity.

Keywords

affection Beijing Olympics cognition conation Hong Kong Macao nationalism

Introduction

Since the 1990s, academics have regularly discussed nationalism and national identity in relation to sport and major sporting events (Bairner, 2001; Brownell, 2004; Roche, 2000). Billig (1995) uses the idea of banal nationalism to explain how sport symbols signal national solidarity, while Anderson (1991)’s concept of the imagined community helps to explain how a nation is united through an imagining of common interests. Of specific interest has been the role that hosting the Olympic Games has played in relation to national identity formation and reproduction. This is particularly true in the case of host cities in countries where national identity remains a contested issue. Examples include Montreal (1976) and Barcelona (1992). In both cases, questions could be asked about the extent to which hosting the games gave greater potency to separate nationalist aspirations or, conversely, helped to consolidate a multinational civic identity (Hargreaves, 2000; Kidd, 1992). While studies of the 1988 Seoul Olympics provided what MacAloon and Kang (1990) have described as the beginning of an examination of a new form of nationalism in non-European societies, the 2008 Beijing Olympics opened up new opportunities in this regard and, in particular, a new vehicle for seeking to understand the rise of a ‘confident, ambitious, and at times Chinese nationalism … compromised by its internal contradictions’ (Lovell, 2008: 24).

An extensive body of research has been conducted to understand both the tangible and intangible legacies of hosting and participating in the Beijing Olympics (Lovell, 2008; Mangan and Dong, 2009; Price and Dayan, 2008; Xu, 2008). However, regional distinction appears to have been relatively ignored. For example, relatively little research has been conducted on the effect of the Games on regional nationalism, especially in Asia. Furthermore, the city regions of Hong Kong and Macao, being Special Administrative Regions (SARs) of China, have tended to be ignored more generally in Western sport scholarship despite their relevance to an understanding of the ‘Two Chinas’ conundrum that characterizes the relationship between Taiwan and China (Mangan and Dong, 2009; Xu, 2008). This is arguably because Hong Kong is not well known as a sporting city and the Olympic torch relay route included Hong Kong and Macao as the first two stops on Chinese soil, thereby appearing to suggest a three-way national cohesiveness between Hong Kong, Macao, and China suggestive of a unified Chinese nationalism.

In fact, when table tennis players Li Ching and Ko Lai-chak won Hong Kong’s first post-handover Olympic silver medals, the Olympics provided a potential catalyst for the promotion of nationalism in Hong Kong. In addition, although the International Olympic Committee (IOC) granted Hong Kong the right to co-host the equestrian event, the concept of Olympic nationalism in Hong Kong and Macao has as yet remained rarely mentioned in Olympic studies.

By adopting a tripartite cognitive, affective and conative attitude model, this study seeks to provide an understanding of the relationship between the Olympic Games and its neighbourhood effect on nationalism in Hong Kong and Macao. These city regions are geographically proximate to China, have intimate ties to colonial history and culture, and exhibit complex multilayered identities which have, in part, been structured by their colonial relationships with the British and the Portuguese respectively. Both Hong Kong and Macao have also benefited from the support of the central government of China despite their differing colonial trajectories. While these experiences have imparted various lessons to each region, there has been little interaction between the people of the two regions in the sporting arena in general. Indeed, virtually the only common phenomenon to have affected each of them is Beijing’s hosting of the 2008 Olympic Games.

The paper is divided into four sections. The first section comments on the exploitation of the modern Olympic Games for nationalistic purposes and explores how the Olympics are related to questions of national identity. Section two discusses the tripartite formulation of the cognitive–affective–conative framework adopted in the development of national education in Hong Kong and Macao and explains how the Beijing Olympics represented an appropriate tool with which to teach national identity. Section three presents the research methodology and the results of surveys conducted with 1391 secondary school students in Hong Kong and Macao. The final section discusses how the findings shed light on both the cultivation of national identity in Hong Kong and Macao and the implications of this research for future Olympics studies.

To begin, it is important to provide a definition of the two key terms guiding this paper. First, national education is used interchangeably with nationalistic education, political education, citizenship education, patriotic education, and civic education. It is translated from ‘gongmin jiaoyu’ in the Chinese language and refers to an endeavour to

cultivate a sense of national identity, pride and responsibility in our people … through enhancing the public knowledge of China, including its culture, history, peoples and current development, that would enable them to develop a better understanding of, and in turn greater affection and a sense of belonging to the motherland [which] would then influence their behavior. (Commission on Strategic Development, 2008: 7–8).

Second, national identity is referred to as ‘the understanding that “we are all Chinese” and the close compatriot relationship and feelings of intimacy among ourselves’ (Commission on Strategic Development, 2008: 7–8).

The modern Olympics, Nationalism and national identity

The modern Olympic movement began in 1896 under the leadership of Baron Pierre de Coubertin who was interested in educational reform in France and in how physical fitness and sport could contribute to nation-building. He believed that the Olympic Games could serve as a means of establishing world peace, breaking down barriers between countries, and fostering a transnational spirit in a nationalist world (Kyrolainen, 1981).

Although de Coubertin himself defined Olympism from time to time in earlier discourses and essays (De Coubertin, 2000), the former President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) provided different interpretations of Olympism (Girginov and Parry, 2005), the most common being in accordance with Fundamental Principle Two of the Olympic Charter, published by the IOC in 2003, which states,

Olympism is a philosophy of life; exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind. Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the job found in effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principle. (International Olympic Committee, 2003: 10).

Despite this philosophical approach to Olympism, the value of the modern Olympic Games has different dimensions. Sage (1990) believes that the Olympic Games convey messages about norms, values, and dispositions to remind people of their common destiny. Ugboajah (1987) suggests that the Olympic Games flashes a moment of fraternity and cools down racial prejudices. This claim is based on the assumption that sport itself is a neutral, risk-free, and a socially approved cultural exchange tool, which attracts high interest from both athletes and spectators and is comprehensible to the general public (Seppanen, 1984).

However, Mandell (1976) aptly describes the competition process as the ‘Olympic paradox’ which intensifies patriotism while simultaneously encouraging internationalism, two apparently contradictory political processes. This helps to explain Billings and Eastman’s (2003) claim that the ‘Olympics represents a mix of nationalism, internationalism, sport and human drama unmatched by any other event’. In other words, the Olympics Games do not necessarily reduce or eliminate tensions between or within nations. Indeed, they frequently provide nation states and other agents with a venue for the pursuit of their own interests and the assertion of their power which in turn can amplify conflicts.

In addition to the controversy over the use of sports in the dichotomy between nations and nationalism, the psychological influence on the acquisition of national identities is also noteworthy. According to Tom (2003), nationalism is a pursuit and a manifestation of a national identity which corresponds to certain internal and psychological needs in society. Nikolas (1999) describes nationalism as a mass movement that is predominantly determined by the motivations for its emergence, regardless of whether these consist of a ‘natural’ process of nation-building or a reaction to another nation’s development. The inception of a national consciousness is, thus, separate from arguments as to whether this relates to a politically demarcated territory or is distinct from state development.

However, Billig (1995: 7–8) believes that an ‘identity is a short-hand description for ways of talking about the self and community … [which] involves being situated physically, legally, socially, as well as emotionally … within a homeland’. He further suggests that nationalist thinking is required for one to claim possession of a national identity. This involves the demarcation of ‘us, the nation’ and ‘them, the foreigners’, from whom ‘we’ identify “ourselves” as different’ (p. 61). As Hargreaves and Ferrando (1997: 69) argue, ‘nations and nation-states cannot simply be invented out of nothing’. Elias (1991) in particular observed how an individual’s I/we identity interweaves with his/her social habitus which can be multilayered and overlapping (Maguire and Poulton, 1999)

As Anderson (1991) highlights, in order for a social group to come into being, its members are required to engage in exclusive social interaction to affirm their special relationship to each other. This means that a nation can be categorized as a symbolic collection of cultural institutions, symbols, and representations that generate an imagined community with a specific sense of loyalty and empathy (Maguire and Tuck, 1998: 105) which can all help to provide an explanation of the social and nationalistic impact of the Olympic movement. Hence, with the Olympic Games being held in Beijing in August 2008, this research engaged in an empirical study of how secondary school students in Hong Kong and Macao create an ‘imagined community’ through their attitudes towards the Beijing Olympics.

Promoting Nationalism in Hong Kong and Macao

The main reason for studying Hong Kong and Macao was their respective colonial histories which are of crucial importance in understanding how they embrace national identities as two SARs of China. Hong Kong became a British colony in 1842 and was returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, while Macao was under the Portuguese administration starting in 1557, and reverted to China in 1999. Although a growing awareness of globalization has long coexisted with a strong sense of cultural/national identity among the Chinese in Hong Kong, as Mathews et al. (2008) state, the latter sense of identity largely vanished over the years following the triumph of the Communist Party in China in 1949.

Although the local populace was largely isolated from the social and cultural changes in the PRC due to barriers set up by the communist regime in 1949, waves of emigrants from the Chinese mainland established their homes in Hong Kong. These emigrants have risen to affluence since the 1960s. Meanwhile, Hong Kong established itself as a market-oriented capitalist economy reaching outwardly to the international arena, whilst China remained an inward-looking and closed socialist society. Coupled with the British government’s cautious approach to civic education, a distinct Hong Kong identity emerged. The prevalence of individualism existed among the Chinese people and they did not feel the need to belong to a national state as opposed to a global market economy (Lau, 2000; Mathews et al., 2008).

This post-colonial struggle is also evident in Macao. Having been under Portuguese rule for 400 years, Macao did not develop as rapidly as Hong Kong. Situated on a mere 27 square kilometres with a small population of approximately 470,000, Macao was subject to a less interventionist approach by the Portuguese colonial government. However, unlike Hong Kong, Macao did not experience a large outflow of migration prior to the resumption of Chinese rule primarily because persons born in Macao could obtain full Portuguese passports which gave them the right of abode in Portugal and within the European Union (Bray and Koo, 2004). Although their political environment was in stark contrast with that of Hong Kong, the question of national identity was to remain at the centre of contemporary debate within both of these predominantly Chinese communities.

Over the past decade, there has been a remarkable increase in the practical implementation of national education in Hong Kong and Macao which greatly emphasizes civic and national identity in response to the prolonged differences in political rule between the two regions and China. This is because civic education has traditionally been characterized by a strategy of ‘political depoliticisation’ (Chiu, 1996: 336; Morris, 1997: 112; Tse, 1997: 7) and was barely visible in Macao (Tse, 2004). The promotion of national identity in Hong Kong only began after reunification in 1997 (Commission on Strategic Development, 2008).

With regard to the eight future plans included in the 2008 Report on the Promotion of National Education in Hong Kong: Current Situation, Challenges, and Way Forward, the government recognizes the need to ‘grasp the opportunities of our country’s developments and achievements (e.g. the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games) to cultivate among students a sense of pride and belonging in our country through the process of deepened understanding’ (Commission on Strategic Development, 2008: 16). In his 2007–2008 Policy Address, the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong SAR, Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, reiterated, ‘We will highlight this important event as the main theme … so people will understand our country better and have the shared sense of national pride’. But the question was could the Beijing Olympics be effectively used for the purposes of national education?

Promoting the Beijing Olympics in Hong Kong and Macao: a paradox

We noted how the SAR governments strongly advocated the use of the Beijing Olympics to teach national identity. However, such a strategy in Hong Kong and Macao, although eloquently expressed, was paradoxical, especially given the principle of ‘One Country, Two Systems’. In May 1985, when the mainland Chinese national team was expected to defeat a supposedly weak British colony team in a soccer match, the Hong Kong team won. Many in China remembered this humiliation at the hands of Great Britain which resulted in a soccer fan riot (Xu, 2008). In fact, the ambivalent status of the sporting arena did not end after reunification with China, and continued into the Olympic movement.

In practice, according to Close et al. (2007), National Olympic Committees (NOCs) are identified as belonging to particular nations and, even more accurately, to particular countries and territories, depending on how the terms ‘nation’, ‘country’, and ‘territory’ are defined. Under the principle of ‘One Country, Two Systems’, Hong Kong had retained its separate and independent sporting existence within the IOC. At the Olympics, Hong Kong athletes would compete under the name ‘Hong Kong, China’ and stand on the medal podium with the flag of the Hong Kong SAR featuring the bauhinia flower aloft, even though the Chinese national anthem would be officially played.

Within the ‘one country’ part of the formula, the Chinese government appreciated the opportunity to promote a sense of national identity through the Beijing Olympics ‘around the flag, literally and figuratively on various occasions’ (Close et al., 2007: 70). This was evident when China proposed to transfer the torch relay from Taiwan to Hong Kong and Macao, emphasizing the ‘China Taipei’ to ‘Hong Kong China’ and ‘Macao China’ route before relaying the torch to the other Chinese domestic legs of China. The agreement to allow Hong Kong to co-host the equestrian event also ‘attests to the wisdom of promoting the Chinese national identity transcending the two systems in one nation’ (Xu, 2006: 100).

Intrinsically, the ‘two systems’ part of the formula reinforces the separate sporting identity of ‘China’ from that of ‘Hong Kong, China’, the name used for international sporting events because competitions usually involve sovereign states. Although suggesting a different perspective, Close et al. (2007: 71) aptly explain,

The use of the Olympics in this way is double-edged, and the tactic could backfire. Chinese people may identify more with athletes who belong to their own (sub-nation-state) nations than with athletes of other Chinese nations … the result being the further sharpening of China’s sub-nation-state national identities.

In fact, this is what occurred in Hong Kong. In a study conducted by Lee (1999: 327–328), an interviewee said, ‘Like the Olympic Games and the World Cup … I would identify myself as a Chinese, but when the China team is competing with Hong Kong team, I would side with Hong Kong … the choice between the two is becoming more difficult’.

The crucial paradox in the sporting arena also presents a conundrum in Macao. Although, like Hong Kong, it has a high degree of autonomy, the question of obtaining recognition by the Olympic Committee remains unanswered. According to Liang (2007), although a new article concerning the definition of country under the Olympic movement was passed in 1996 and enabled Hong Kong to maintain its own Olympic committee without provoking Taiwan to take advantage and call itself an independent state, the new article greatly increased the difficulty for Macao to achieve separate recognition.

In one of the conversations between He ZhenLiang, Honorary Chairman of the Chinese Olympic Committee, and Juan Antonio Samaranch, former President of the IOC, ‘Samaranch once made a promise to resolve the recognition of Macao, but he kept vacillating all along because he was worried that it would provoke a chain reaction in Spain’s Catalonia and Basque regions’ (Liang, 2007: 363). Furthermore, in trying to understand the Mandarin translation of the ‘Chinese Taipei’ descriptor, Samaranch asked, ‘What is the difference between China and Chinese? I really cannot understand you Chinese people. Why make such a big fuss because of one word?’ (Wu and Zeng, 2001). This suggests differing East-West philosophies with respect to national identity which have consistently troubled the Olympic movement.

While competitions encourage the formation of civic associations that can be the basis for regional integration into a nation state (Stevenson and Alaug, 1999), intra-competition within the Chinese community may not necessarily demand nationalism transcending the two systems in one nation. In such a situation, the Beijing Olympics might not be able to provide the means for the local populace to assert their own Chinese identity and also reclaim their Hong Kong or Macao identities. As Close et al. (2007: 55) write, ‘Instead of contributing to inter-national harmony, sporting mega-events can … accentuate inter-national dissonance’. MacClancy (1996: 5) further argues, ‘Sports and sporting events cannot be comprehended without reference to relations of power … it is important to look at how dominant groups in society use sporting events to execute their hidden political agenda’.

In Hong Kong and Macao, no formal school curriculum had been designed to promote Olympic education in schools. However, a series of activities was arranged by the government to promote the Beijing Olympics, as well as the quintessential dressing up of Hong Kong, on this occasion with Olympic mascots and symbols. This pervasive national acculturation using metaphor and symbol is similar to what Price and Dayan (2008) describe as a typical Chinese political discourse. Olympic educational materials were widely distributed to educate primary and secondary students about the equestrian events as well as Olympism in general. In addition, a financial subsidy of HK$5000 was provided to each school.

The cognition-affection-conation framework

To cultivate a concept of national identity among students in Hong Kong, a strategic tripartite of cognitive–affective–conative (behavioural) dimensions were elucidated as a framework for the development of national education (Cheung, 2005). The government recognized that the development of a sense of national identity in Hong Kong had to create a sense of ‘we-ness’ and a notion that ‘We are all Chinese’ (Commission on Strategic Development, 2008). According to Cheung (2005), the components of national identity in Hong Kong encompass awareness, recognition and commitment.

Within the framework constructed by the Hong Kong SAR government to promote national education (Commission on Strategic Development, 2008), the cognitive dimension involved enhancing public knowledge of China, including its culture, history, peoples, and current state of development, which would enable young people in Hong Kong to develop a better understanding of, and thus a greater affection for and sense of belonging to, the motherland. The government recognized that cognition only serves as the basis of sentiments and behaviour which themselves offer a starting point in the pursuit of national identity. The government clearly believed that these sentiments could play a pivotal role in helping students convert cognition into behaviour.

The affective dimension relates directly to one’s perceptions about the motherland and the sentiments to be triggered and cultivated through immersion in the build-up to acceptance. This affection then influences the conative dimension, which refers to behaviour and especially a willingness to take on more social responsibilities and contribute to the motherland. National education, as detailed in the Commission on Strategic Development (CSD) report, emphasizes the integration of cognition and behaviour (Commission on Strategic Development, 2008). The conative dimension saw behaviour as an expression of cognition and sentiments, including a sense of responsibility and a readiness to support and provide assistance to the country.

Methodology

To understand how secondary school students responded to the Beijing Olympics under this cognitive–affective–conative framework, a total of 1430 questionnaires containing 83 statements were distributed to nine participating schools in Hong Kong and Macao in October, 2008. The questionnaire assessed such items as awareness of the Beijing Olympics, recognition of the Beijing Olympics, positive and negative perceptions of Olympic athletes, impressions of the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies and students’ participation during the Beijing Olympics. A five-point Likert-type scale was adopted with scales from strongly agree/always = 1, agree/often = 2, neutral/sometimes = 3, disagree/seldom = 4, and strongly disagree/never = 5.

Social psychologists Bagozzi and Bunkrant (1979) describe cognitive and affective components as the twin pillars of the formation of attitude while Eagly and Chaiken (1993) conceive of attitudes as consisting of affective, cognitive, and behavioural components, in which cognition contains thoughts, ideas, knowledge, opinions, information, evaluations, and beliefs about a particular object. Affection consists of feelings, emotions, and moods people experience in relation to the object, whether positive or negative. Conation encompasses actions that people exhibit with respect to the object.

As Harding et al. (1969) write, the cognitive component of ethnic attitudes includes the perceptions, beliefs, and expectations of an individual. Hence, the cognitive dimension is concerned with an awareness of the Beijing Olympics during the Games and the internalized recognition of the Beijing Olympics based on the appraisal theory that emotions are the direct result of a subsequent interpretation (Madrigal, 2003). In the affective dimension, Madrigal (2003) highlights the importance of both positive and negative emotions that arise in response to an event and the team players (agents) who are responsible for particular actions. Similarly, Laverie (2000) argues that identity becomes more important to a person’s sense of self as he/she feels more attachment to a sports team.

The attractiveness and appeal of heroes and personalities, according to Harding et al. (1969), contribute to ‘identifications’, which are psychological relationships with one another in the context of depicted social events. Such identifications, argues Berger (1962), contain both positive and negative sentiments toward a person, echoing Ikhioya’s (2001) statement that athletes explain contributory influences, both strong and weak, on national identity. In addition, De Moragas et al. (2002) explains that Olympic symbolism makes citizens feel proud of ‘their’ ceremonies because the Olympics is organized around nation-state groupings and thrives on nationalism (Rivenburgh, 2002). As Ikhioya (2001) observes, ‘national identity involves vicarious involvement of a group or society to national causes’. The conative component, according to Harding et al. (1969), refers to the action orientations of the individual. Hence, the conative dimension refers in this instance to the respondents’ participation in the Beijing Olympics during the actual Games.

Data analysis

In total, 1391 questionnaires were returned, representing a 97.3% response rate. A total of 936 students from Hong Kong participated in this study, of whom 40.6% were male and 59.4% were female, 25.2% were aged between 11 and 13, and 74.2% were aged 14–16. Among six participating schools, 17.6% were categorized as pro-China, 15.9% were government, and 15.7% had a religious background. Of these schools, 15.7% were girls’ schools, 16.8% depended on direct subsidy and 18.3% were classified as independent. A majority of the students (76.8%) were born in Hong Kong, while 20.7% were born in China. Within Macao, a total of 448 students participated in this study of whom 47.1% were male and 52.9% were female, 17.8% were aged between11 and 13, and 70.9% were aged 14–16. Among three participating schools, 39.1% were categorized as pro-China, 25.9% were government and 34.9% had a religious background. In these schools, 84.5% of the students were born in Macao, while 11.0% were born in China.

The frequency of all items measured across the Hong Kong and Macao students were calculated with the aim of answering the first research question, ‘How do secondary schools students in Hong Kong and Macao respond to the Beijing Olympics?’ The higher the percentage for each item or statement corresponds to a more positive response from the students. The second research question, ‘Are there statistical differences in the responses to the Beijing Olympics between secondary school students of Hong Kong and Macao?’ was answered through the calculation of the effect size (d) to determine whether statistical differences exist between the mean scores for Hong Kong and Macao students. In the social sciences, according to Cohen (1988), the effect size is small when d = .2, medium when d = .5, and large when d = .8. The Cronbach’s Alpha was also assessed to measure the internal consistency of each construct. As George and Mallery (2003) define, ‘Cronbach’s Alpha ranges from >.9 – Excellent, >.8 – Good, > 7 – Acceptable, >.6 – Questionable, >.5 – Poor, and <.5 – Unacceptable’. The overall reliability satisfies between .72 and .86.

Awareness of the Beijing Olympics

Surprisingly, despite Hong Kong being a co-host city of the Olympic equestrian event, among six items which included the opening and closing ceremonies, summer sports, medal tally, athlete stories and performance, the Hong Kong equestrian event, and the visit of gold medallists to Hong Kong and Macao, 29.6% of the Hong Kong students claimed that they were never aware of the equestrian event while 42.8% reported little awareness. Similarly, over 70% of Macao respondents claimed that they had never or seldom been aware of the equestrian event. On the other hand, students in Hong Kong were relatively aware of the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies (32.8%) and 23.4% of the Macao students claimed that they were always aware of the Olympic medal tally.

The Olympic medal tally (HK: mean=2.16; Macao: mean=2.37) and the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies (HK: mean=2.18; Macao: mean=2.51) produced relatively low mean scores, reporting the highest levels of awareness among the Hong Kong and Macao students. The students were least aware of the Hong Kong equestrian event (HK: mean=3.92; Macao: mean=4.05) and the visit of the gold medallists (HK: mean=3.14; Macao: mean=3.36). Although the mean scores of the Hong Kong students for these two items were lower than for the Macao students, the Cohen’s d for both items was <.02 indicating that there was only a trivial difference between the two groups. Small differences were found between the groups of students in terms of their awareness of the opening and closing ceremonies, Olympic summer sports, Olympic medal tally, and athlete stories and performances.

Recognition of the Beijing Olympics

With regards to the philosophy of Olympism, over 70% of both Hong Kong and Macao students strongly agreed or at least agreed that the Olympics is a sports festival that transcends national barriers and provides a platform for cultural exchange. Over 50% believed that the Olympics symbolize world peace and present an opportunity to showcase power in sports. About 40% of the students agreed that the Olympics are a form of entertainment. In comparing the mean scores between the two groups of students, the effect size for all items was <0.2 except when describing the Olympics as an activity suffused with politics, indicating that only a minor difference was found between the two groups in terms of their overall recognition of the Olympic Games.

Olympics opening and closing ceremonies

Students were then asked to describe their feelings towards the Beijing Olympics’ opening and closing ceremonies in terms of their national and international role. Interestingly, 80% of both Hong Kong and Macao students overwhelmingly agreed that the Olympic ceremonies were able to display Chinese culture while over 70% agreed or strongly agreed that the ceremonies helped to showcase the power of Chineseness whilst simultaneously promoting world peace. Nearly 60% of the Hong Kong students thought that the ceremonies were able to boost nationalism, although this statement recorded the lowest percentage among all of the related answers. Half of the students agreed or strongly agreed that the ceremonies enhanced their knowledge of China, although one-third reported a neutral recognition of this statement.

Both Hong Kong and Macao students averaged the lowest mean score in agreeing that the ceremonies were able to display Chinese culture (HK: mean=1.80; Macao: mean=1.85). Both groups of students tended to rank lowly the effectiveness of the ceremonies to boost nationalism (HK: mean=2.26; Macao: mean=2.17) The Cohen’s d of <0.2 for all items indicated that only a minor difference was detected between Hong Kong and Macao students in their impression of the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies.

Impression of Olympic athletes

Olympic athletes can play a vital role in the construction of national identity. Students were asked to describe their favourable and unfavourable impressions of Olympic athletes. Over 60% felt that athletes were role models for teenagers and symbolize world peace; while over 50% agreed or strongly agreed that athletes help in constructing national identity as well as setting standards for sporting activities. Although students generally favoured a positive impression of Olympic athletes, it is worth noting that about one-third of the Hong Kong students reported a neutral impression in relation to all of these specific statements. Both Hong Kong (mean=2.19) and Macao students (mean=2.18) recorded the lowest mean in agreeing that the athletes are models for teenagers, while agreement that athletes help in constructing national identity recorded the highest mean (HK: mean=2.34; Macao: mean=2.35). The effect size of <0.2 indicated that both groups only slightly differ in their favourable impression of Olympic athletes.

Direct involvement in the Beijing Olympics

When asked about students’ direct involvement in preparing for the Beijing Olympics, the majority of the students in Hong Kong and Macao watched the Beijing Olympics (HK: 91.1% and Macao: 80.4%). The Macao students tended to participate more in community-based celebrations (23.2%), while Hong Kong students participated more in school-based celebrations (40.5%). During the visit of gold medallists, 25.4% of Macao students attended the event as compared to 17.6% of Hong Kong students. These findings were consistent with the respective national education approaches in the context of different cultural and social circumstances.

Discussion of findings

The analysis found that, on the cognitive level, students in both Hong Kong and Macao exhibited high levels of awareness of the Olympic medal tally during the Beijing Olympics, while they paid least attention to the Hong Kong equestrian event. In terms of their affective orientation, students were more impressed by the opening and closing ceremonies because these displayed Chinese culture. Students strongly believed that the Olympics athletes are good role models for teenagers. On the conative level, Macao students tended to participate more in community-based celebrations and Hong Kong students participated more in school-based celebrations. By integrating these survey results, we can suggest two distinct phenomena to explain Olympic nationalism in Hong Kong and Macao.

The Olympics as a platform to display Chinese culture

It was found that students were at first most aware of the Olympic ceremonies, whilst they recognized the Beijing Olympics as a sports festival which transcended national barriers and offered a platform for cultural exchange. This recognition of the value of the Beijing Olympics in promoting cultural exchange and transcending national barriers was consistent with an affective orientation toward the ceremonies as platforms from which to display Chinese culture, the power of Chineseness, and world peace. Thus, when promoting any mega-events for national education, it may be beneficial for educators and governments to focus on building an awareness and recognition that provide students with a means of maintaining their sense of pride in their national identity. This may be a straightforward conclusion but it is obviously difficult to conceive of other ceremonies as influential as those of the Olympics. Therefore, it is important to recognize that students appreciated the Chinese culture on show and wished that it could be better known beyond the national borders.

Olympics as an imagined community for international solidarity

With an overwhelming majority of students perceiving the Olympics as a sports festival that transcends national barriers and a platform for cultural exchange, we can also conclude that the understanding of Olympic ideals as a symbol of solidarity, cooperation, and physical fitness contributed considerably to the students’ passion for and expectations of the Beijing Olympics. Since students recognized the power of sports to build solidarity, they expected that the Olympic Games would serve as a basis upon which China could further this solidarity with their international counterparts. It was also evident in the study that, in preparation for any mega-events, educators and the government should not rely on or judge students’ actual involvement when the opportunities provided to all students are limited. The fact that students paid least attention to the Olympic equestrian event revealed that the neighbouring effect of the Beijing Olympics actually promoted a sense of imagined community in Hong Kong and Macao based on the desire to promote international solidarity, regardless of where the Games took place.

Conclusion: from global citizenship to national identity

Highlighting the significance of different constitutional contexts, these findings differ markedly from those produced by a similar study conducted in Taiwan during the same period. The study acknowledged that ‘the “psychological impact” of the successful Beijing Games … has stimulated a resurgence of Chinese identity amongst mainland and overseas Chinese’. In general, however, the majority of Taiwanese people were largely unaffected. Indeed, the study concludes, ‘despite the success of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the failure to reconcile political differences has been contrary to what Beijing intended – for example, in terms of promoting a common Chinese national identity across the Taiwan Strait’ (Lee et al., 2010: 142).

Fundamental to the present study is a new notion that is central to understanding Olympic nationalism among students in Hong Kong and Macao. The cultivation of nationalistic feelings through the Beijing Olympics arguably represented a mixture of Chinese culture and international solidarity constituting a cube with three dimensions – Beijing Olympics as a recognized sporting platform for China to promote international solidarity through the promotion of Chinese culture. This is similar to Axford’s (1997) assertion that globalization may serve as a function to ‘relativize’ national identity. The results of this study have indicated that students are committed to and expectant of the betterment of the human community in a global environment. This is not to suggest that we should advocate global citizenship to escape from the dilemma of ‘dual citizenship’ as Chong (1999) has proposed; instead, there is a need to educate students as global citizens in order for them to carry out their responsibilities in promoting Chinese culture effectively.

The nub of this analysis is that students are objectively embedded with a high sense of ‘market mentality’ (Mathews et al., 2008) even though they also welcome the opportunity to enhance the international status of the motherland. They often feel superior to the Chinese mainland and their visits to China are frequently marked with a sense of ‘otherness’, but they appreciate Chinese culture and recognized the Olympics as a sporting platform to promote cultural exchange and strengthen international solidarity.

As a consequence of the colonial history of Hong Kong and Macao, and the differences in the political systems, the ideologies and the sociocultural values that separate China from the two SARs pose a challenge for many people as they endeavour to integrate themselves and assimilate into the Chinese mainland. While the Hong Kong government recognized that national education cannot be ‘force-fed’, thereby echoing Ma’s (1999) idea of a bottom-up nationalization by bringing the imagination of the nation closer to the general public through everyday encounters, reinforcing the cognitive, affective, and conative framework in teaching national identity remains important because it is a form of subtle persuasion and gradual inculcation.

Therefore, if the promotion of national education should proceed in as orderly a fashion as it should, adopting a bottom-up approach as the Task Group on National Education has suggested (Commission on Strategic Development, 2008: 37), then emphasis should be placed on providing students with opportunities to carry their appreciation of Chinese culture abroad; the psychological benefits they experience will possibly bring an imagination of the nation even closer.

This study was exploratory in nature. Hence it did not explicitly consider the importance of global identity and/or world citizenship relative to national identity. Although the Olympic Games represent a type of nationalist sentiment, it is in accordance with the tradition of study of the modern Olympic Games to address its relationship to global identity and world citizenship echoing the philosophy of Olympism. It was apparent that the philosophy of cosmopolitanism as articulated in the Beijing Olympics slogan, ‘One World One Dream’, seeks to inspire the people in the world that, despite the obvious celebration of Chinese patriotism, the Beijing Games also promoted a sense of diversity with China as a member of the global village.

As the London 2012 Olympic Games approach, it is worth noting that yet again we will be faced with the example of a capital city hosting the event in a multinational state (Bairner and Molnar, 2010). Similar questions must inevitably arise. Are these to be the London Games, hosted by a global city more interested in celebrating its cosmopolitanism than in promoting a specific national identity? Or will be they be seen from Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales as distinctly English Games or, from the farthest corners of England, as Games belonging to London and the south east? There is of course another possibility, namely that these Games, following Beijing’s lead, will help to re-establish a transcendent sense of Britishness combined with a manifest belief in international solidarity. Time alone will tell.

Footnotes

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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