By ANDREW KUECH, 7/16/2015. Heading off to Hong Kong in a week to begin my research trip. I’ll be spending almost four weeks at the Chinese University of Hong Kong where I can use the bountiful Universities Services Center (USC) that holds a giant trove of Chinese Communist era newspapers, magazines, books and collections. It might not sound exciting to most, but these libraries in Hong Kong should hold the magic key to a huge part of my dissertation research. I’m heading out looking for the different ways the US was portrayed and imagined visually and rhetorically during the Chinese Communist 1950s and 60s as part of my larger project that compares these images to similar ones found in Nationalist (Communist –foe) Taiwan during the same period. The USC is world renowned for its massive historical collections from Communist era China since many of the resources have been hidden or blocked from public view by the contemporary Chinese government. This will be my first chance to see lots of materials unavailable to see almost anywhere else.
Though I’ve been to Hong Kong a couple times for a quick few days, this is my first chance to spend an extended period of time there. I really don’t know too much about Hong Kong as a place of its own, so I’m really excited to get the time and chance to explore some of the lesser travelled Hong Kong spaces in my free-time away from the archives. It’s also a bit difficult to figure out how to plan for this trip. I’m going to an exciting new place, but also need to plan for serious hours of research in the library.