Negotiating Han-Chinese legal culture: post-colonial gender political discourse on Hong Kong's small house policy

Abstract

The (male) indigenous inhabitants of New Territories, Hong Kong, always claim that small house policy is the illustration of Han-Chinese culture, and hence must be entrenched by the colonial common law system, even though it discriminates against women and violates Sex Discrimination Ordinance. The article argues that customary laws, including small house policy, in fact fail to resist the legal colonialism and preserve the 'authentic' Han-Chinese culture. On the contrary, spaces of resistance could be explored within customary law from a postcolonial philosophical perspective where foreign ideology (like Buddhism) can be accommodated and gender equality can be fulfilled and realised.