Colours of Money, Shades of Pride: Historicities and Moral Politics in Industrial Conflicts in Hong Kong

Appendix: Selected Reports from the Press —the Journalistic Construction of Reality- as Discursive Practice

] Appendix: Selected Reports from the Press — the Journalistic Construction of Reality - a s Discursive Practice Prologue: A Users' Manual This appendi x represent s a reality constructed b y multiple subjectivities , all i n th e sam e mode : tha t o f journalisti c inquiry . I will kee p m y re-presentation as close as possible to the journalistic texts. But to do so is by no means as easy as it sounds. The sheer quantity and repetition of the press accounts , togethe r wit h curren t limitation s o f space , cal l fo r considerable selection and editing. In the process of selecting and editing, an T exists , alon g wit h processe s o f both 'teading-in ' an d 'reading-out' . The text s do not talk but talk through me, and for that matter , my reader sees nothing except as he sees through me. And this T who plays the role of a transmitter actually operates not only as a receiver but also as a rectifier; the sensitivity of its tuner is neither unlimited nor unbiased. In this prologue, no attempt is made to claim that I have a marvellous or innovative 'technology' which has enabled my reproduction to approach anything close to live performance. Reproductions cannot but be things represented . In this sense they cannot be taken as original. Yet, in this appendix the decision whether or not to re-present them at all is based purely upon formal considerations, and does not imply any judgement about the substance of information carrie d therein . 386 Colours of Money, Shades of Pride In the original chapter on Journalistic Narratives, seventeen Chineselanguage newspapers covered th e industria l dispute . Two of them — Sing Tao Man Pao (STM) an d The New Evening Post (NEP) — wer e evenin g papers whic h wer e release d a t noo n o n thei r issuin g date. I quoted an d translated almos t every single entry. Some seemingly repetitive entries are meant to show subtle nuances between and among different constructions . Even so , identica l informatio n ha s bee n eliminated . Th e conten t o f th e evening paper s wer e als o re-presented, a s they usuall y hav e informatio n more up to date, by at least eight hours, than that of the morning papers. In effect, 'th e date' of the evening paper is quite different from 'the date' of the morning paper. Two English-language newspapers (SCMP and HKS) also covered th e dispute. They aimed at a readership different from that of the Chinese papers. Day 1 to Day 13 indicates the period of the sit-in. Days after the sit-in have similarly been prefixed with the plus sign (+); i.e., Day +1 means one day after th e sit-in, etc. However, these voluminous press narratives, for reasons of space, cannot constitute a separate chaptet i n the book. Instead, only a sampling of the most crucial social discourses from the journalistic world explicitly referred to in other genres of narrative are presented here. Day 10: 9 June 1986 (Monday) SCMP TOUGHER UNIONS MAY EMERGE FROM BIG RIFT by Peter Cha n Hong Kong's labour movement, whic h suffered a severe blow after a split nine month s ag o between 'left-wing ' union s an d influentia l independen t unionists, may soon emerge stronger than ever . Both sides, each enjoyin g strong support, have recently floated the idea of renewed co-operation. The question now i s who will take the first ste p to start a dialogue. The spli t Appendix 387฀ occurred in October when the Joint Conference o f Labour Groups on th e Basic Law held a n electio n t o retur n labou r representative s t o th e Basi c Law Consultativ e Committee . M r L o Man-sa , directo r o f th e Christia n Labour Association, wa s one of the nominees but was rejected a t the las t minute by 'leftwingers' who held most of the votes. Independent unionist s then claimed Mr Lo was being discriminated against by the 170,000-membe r Federation o f Labou r Union s (FLU ) whic h wa s influentia l amon g 'leftwingers'. M r Lo walked ou t o f the election...