The Solitary Life of Intellectuals During the Fall of Hong Kong

Abstract

On September 15, 1931, Chan Kwan-po, after a decade of overseas Chinese education in Southeast Asia, returned to China, aiming to revitalize Chinese education. Just three days later, the September 18th Incident erupted. As the situation at home and abroad worsened, his educational inspection plan in northern China was terminated, and he returned to Hong Kong, starting his journey of "national salvation". In 1937, following the outbreak of the full - scale War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression on July 7, Chen shifted his efforts from "national salvation" to "resisting the war". But the fall of Hong Kong on December 25, 1941, changed everything. The Japanese occupation dampened his patriotic enthusiasm, turning him into a solitary literatus in a war - torn Hong Kong. This paper uses Chan Kwan-po's diary as the core source, complemented by other relevant historical materials. It focuses on exploring how the lives of Hong Kong literati changed from the early days of the War of Resistance to the occupation period. By analyzing these changes, it exposes the lonely and miserable lives of Hong Kong literati, which were the result of "home - coming policy" by Japan, a tool used by the invaders to manipulate and suppress the local population.