Alan Knight

Yoshiko Nakano

In the summer of 1997, thousands of foreign journalists converged on Hong Kong to record one of the last episodes in Western colonialism. How foreign journalists chose to report the handover, and what they decided to ignore about it, reveals much about foreign news agendas and how they are framed by ideological and cultural assumptions. This book uses the handover of Hong Kong to illustrate the process of media reporting as well as the product. The authors consider how a "reality" is constructed through press releases and visual spectacles. Also featured are interviews with thirteen Hong Kong-based journalists from seven countries who took part in this media jamboree and who discuss the restrictions they worked under, including the pressure for colorful stories and the inability to pose questions to the key players.

Foreign Media and the Handover

Reporting Hong Kong

This is the first English-language book to focus on the electric rice cooker and the impact it has had on the lives of Asian people. This account of the rice cooker's globalization aims to move away from Japan-centric perspectives on how "Made in Japan" products made it big in the global marketplace, instead choosing to emphasize the collaborative approach adopted by one Japanese manufacturing giant and a Hong Kong entrepreneur. The book also highlights the role Hong Kong, as a free port, played in the rice cooker's globalization and describes how the city facilitated the transnational flow of Japanese appliances to Southeast Asia, China, and North America. Based on over 40 interviews conducted with key figures at both National/Panasonic and Shun Hing Group, it provides a fascinating insight into the process by which the National rice cooker was first localized and then globalized. Interspersed throughout are personal accounts by individuals in Japan and Hong Kong for whom owning a rice cooker meant far more than just a convenient way of cooking rice. The book includes over 60 images, among them advertisements dating back to the 1950s that illustrate how Japanese appliances contributed to the advent of a modern lifestyle in Hong Kong. This account of the rice cooker's odyssey from Japan to Hong Kong and beyond is intended for a general audience as well as for readers with an interest in the empirical study of globalization, intercultural communication, Hong Kong social history, and Japanese business in Asia.

Yoshiko Nakano

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