The deeper we go into this history topic, the more I am beginning to dislike the projects PLP gives. For this post, I will be making a Snap Shot Autobiography. I will take four memorable moments from my life and create a snapshot of it with a visual. One of these memories will be have an interview of someone who saw the moment from a different perspective. This will be used to show how historic thinking can affect what people think of their past memories. I will then apply the historical questions from my previous post to each scenario.

First Memory:

The first memory was decided by the teachers to be my birth which I find odd as no one remembers exactly what happened at their birth. I was only able to grab my mothers perspective on the matter. The doctor asked her if I was to be born on the 6th or 5th. My mother said the 6th because even numbers were lucky. When the doctor took me out of my mothers womb, I was apparently a bit long, had a really big head, and I was also born a bit late. She thinks maybe I was a bit too comfortable inside so I stayed longer. Reflecting upon the time of when this event happened, I wonder what I thought during that time and also if my thinking capacity was even functioning. After finding out about these facts, I find it very significant that to realize the details of my birth. The evidence is all there from the primary source of my mother. Has it changed me in some significant way? No. I do not see a point in changing myself, I would rather keep them as just interesting facts. I have no historical perspective on the matter because I do not remember that time. I do believe that my mother found it very life changing at the time and still feels its effects in the same way today.

Second Memory:

This memory is about the time I received my pay and spending it. I remembered working for a garage and all the while concentrating on learning about cars than expecting my paycheck to arrive. I had to be reminded by my mother to check my back account which is strange because I usually have high regards for money. Upon checking my account, I realized that this money was made by me and not given by my relatives out of good will or Chinese New Year. I could do what I want with it within reason and my parents would not be able to say that in reality, when I buy things it is actually them buying it for me. Being audiophile, I went out and bought a very expensive pair of earphones. Probably not the best use of my money and it was definitely frowned upon by my parents, but what can they do. I felt great when my parents could do nothing about the purchase. The proof of this happening is the headphones themselves, I have them and there’s picture below. Making money has changed me a lot because I am finally able to have the freedom to do things I want to do. When I first bought the headphones, I thought there would be nothing more expensive I could buy. Nowadays, the price I paid for those headphones seems quite insignificant to the money I have spent on my car. Was it ethical? Maybe. In the wise words of the group who presented ethical judgement of history to me, there is no right or wrong answer. In my opinion, I believe it was justified.

Below is a very accurate reenactment of how I was sold into buying the headphones.

Third Memory:

My first week of high school is a memory that I will always remember. I walked to my new school with a pretty good idea of how things would go. It was applying what I have learned to those expectations that was shockingly hard. I always forgot my locker combination and where it was which caused me to pull out that locker info sheet every hour. The order of the classes was also confusing as none of the grade really knew how to read the schedule which led me to walk to some classes that had the right subject but not the right teacher. I know look back at that time and kind of laugh at myself for panicking so much. I suppose that the older I got, the more used to I got to the system. I believe that my reaction back at that time was justified because everything was so new to me. There was no way that I could get used to all immediately.

Below is a pie chart of my confusion at school.

Fourth Memory:

My final memory that I would snapshot is the first time I drove unsupervised in a car that I owned. I have had my N for a while now and finally bought out a car from a family friend. I felt surprisingly free as I realized that there was no one to nag me about my skill and destinations. I was alone in a machine that could take me to wherever I wanted to go as long as I went home at an expected time. After the official purpose of the trip had been completed, I immediately took the car on a celebratory run to a destination. With the sense of happiness also came a sense of responsibility because I was now responsible for any danger that would happen to me and other people. Again, whether or not it was an ethical decision to drive and own a car is up in the air. I think its ethical because it has been an absolute treat. Below is what my mother thought of the situation. I think that we both shared the same concerns and thoughts regarding the matter. Even though her perspective is different it was a significant to her as it was to me, there was definitely evidence to show I did it, the changes of responsibility were agreed upon, and it was ethical for both of us.

After writing all these posts, I never thought that while writing them, I was kind of already answering some of the historical questions from my previous blog post that I had to answer. I suppose that people already do some of the same analysis we learned on the previous project.

After the Dystopia unit, we have finally moved towards history. With this new unit, we learned the concepts needed to think about history in a way that divides the thinking into 6 categories. Answering what these categories present to people analyzing history will give them a very clear and accurate understanding of an event in history. These categories were named,

Historical Significance: What and who should be remembered in history?

Evidence and Interpretation:Is the evidence adequate to support the conclusions reached?

Continuity and Change: How are lives and conditions alike over time and how have they changed?

Cause and Consequence : What are the range of factors that contributed to the event?

Historical Perspective: Are interpretations of the event different from the past and present day?

Ethical Judgement: Is what happened right and fair?

Our first project for this unit is to choose one of the 6 concepts and provide a presentation to the class on what the concept was and give to apply it to an historic event. Each of the groups were to provide some parameters and questions to ask when answering these questions to give a a good answer. This is something put together by me that summarizes what should be asked when answering the 6 concepts. I call it the Historic Poppy.

We were then instructed to apply all of these words of wisdom into interpreting an event of our choosing. I chose the event where Hong Kong was ceded back to China in 1997.

First, some background knowledge. Way back in in 1839, the British invaded China any opposition to their interference of Chinese economic, social, and political affairs. Hong Kong, an island with few people living on it was occupied by the British. After the Convention of Chuenpi was between the Chinese and the British, parts of Hong Kong was ceded over to the British. In 1898, all of the Hong Kong region was leased to the British, Ever since, it has become a major trading center from the Europeans to the East. As the treaty came to an end ion 1997, Hong Kong was returned to China but retained a majority of the British political and social structure.

Time to answer some questions.

Historical Significance: The event must have been very well known during the time because it directly involved the British Empire and China. Two powerful countries over a territorial dispute is something no one misses especially when the Chinese leader threatens to take Hong Kong by force when negotiations turn sour and Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of Britain says “there is nothing I could do to stop you, but the eyes of the world would now know what China is like”. This all implies that the handover was a closely observed topic because of who was involved. Although the world may have watched it from far away, the people of Hong Kong found the event very significant because some interpreted it as a symbol of reunification with their countrymen in China under one system. Some others interpreted it as a dismal event because some were happy with British rule and had a bad perception of the ruling of Communist China.

British PM Margaret Thatcher with Chinese Chairman Deng Xiaoping

Evidence and Interpretation: My example of evidence will be from The Guardian newspaper. The paper here provides perfectly relevant evidence and indirectly mentions the event in question. As for if the source can be trusted, that would be a yes. The Guardian is a long standing newspaper company in the United Kingdom that has roots back to the 1800’s. I am sure if their credibility was ever questioned badly, they would have shutdown by now. The evidence supports the topic through mentioning the downfall of the British Empire through the loss of Hong Kong. This definitely is relevant to Britain losing Hong Kong.

Continuity and Change: After Hong Kong was handed over to China, some changes were made but there were definitely continuities. An example of continuity was the decision by the Chinese leader to let Hong Kong’s economic and political systems stay the same. This was to last for 50 years from 1997 and it is definitely for the better because an overnight switch over to the socialism would not have gone down very well with a population that was content with capitalism. Among the many changes was how Hong Kong was directly represented by China. Some found it satisfying because they are represented by their original country while others found communism revolting and were rushing to immigrate away. In terms of this change, it negatively impacted the population of Hong Kong.

Cause and Effect: The people who were involved were China, Britain, and Hong Kong. Since Britain and China are the belligerents in this event, they were the ones providing the action for the event to happen. As mentioned in the background knowledge section, Britain had leased and taken the Hong Kong area in the 1800’s. Through the 99 year lease of the Hong Kong, the event came to be because the lease was about to expire in 1997. This event definitely would not have happened because if Britain had never taken Hong Kong, then China would have held onto it and never had to take it back from anyone. It was definitely intended for Hong Kong to be returned to China with several concessions from China but there were some unintended consequences. These consequences were mainly protests that grew in size and number every time the happened. An example would be the Umbrella Movement of 2014 This was also a significant turning point in history as it is often marked as the end of the British Empire.

The Umbrella Movement seized control of major intersections of Hong Kong in protest against the Chinese government’s interference with the Hong Kong election process.

Historical Perspective: From a present perspective, I do believe there is an equal amount of criticisms and applause for this act. On one hand, people like the handover because of Hong Kong returning to the people that owned it in the first place and also how Hong Kong is ruled by an Asian country again. Others feel that the action was misguided because of their hatred towards the Chinese government and how it is communist. I do believe peoples perspective on the matter is slightly guided by the fact that democracy is considered superior in many ways than communism which makes them question the handover.

Ethical Judgement: I strongly believe that the event happened in the most ethical way possible because of all the precautions taken that would prevent anything unethical from happening. Things like the decision to let Hong Kong stay unchanged for 50 years and many other continuities support this. These ethical decisions and continuities were all justified because the shock of removing these ethical things would have made the people of Hong Kong very unhappy which would be unethical. In the end, there is no way of saying that an event is right or wrong because peoples interpretations change.

The reason I chose this topic is because I am from Hong Kong myself. I felt confident I could answer all the questions of the 6 key historical thinking concepts because I had primary sources by my side in the form of my parents. Researching about this event also gave me a little lesson on the history of Hong Kong and an understanding as to where all the anti communistic feelings come from. This has definitely enriched how I will study history in the future.