Abstract

The Po Leung Kuk (PLK) was a rescue institution in Hong Kong, founded by local Chinese middle and upper class men, devoted to providing shelter for destitute women and children. By producing categories of disempowered and dangerous women, the PLK actually functioned as an institutional tool for the colonial state in dealing with the contradictions between emancipation and morality. The first part of this article examines how the PLK incorporated both Chinese and western forms of charity, each of which sought to confine and reform women who deviated from social norms. The second part of this article reconsiders the nature of charity by examining the operations of the PLK. The expansion of the PLK’s functions from protection of the destitute to classifying women in society reflects an early twentieth-century shift in the discourse of sexuality from a taboo topic contained within marriage to a social problem tied to public hygiene and public order.

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