Hong Kong History

1950s in Hong Kong


Education

Those who were born in Hong Kong were provided education and housing by the government. The first group of refugees were only granted temporary asylums since the government believed they would return to the mainland. An estimated 9% of the government's expense were spent on education and healthcare. The curriculum made it crucial that students did not feel associated with Hong Kong or China in any national sense. It emphasized that they were the middleman for the Sino-British trade relationships.

An internal government paper in the period indicated about 34 schools in the urban area were actually classified as controlled by the communists including 24 in the New Territories. Another 32 schools by leftist elements such as staff and teachers. A new ordinance was passed in 1952 to allow any Director of education to shutdown a school believed to be controlled by political indoctrination. The refugees mostly sought their education and social services from Christian churches. Actions were taken at the Heung Tao Middle school and Nanfang College.


Entertainment

One of the main form of entertainment in the 1950s was cantonese opera. While the art remained relatively static, if not declining in China, it was still popular in Hong Kong. Mainland China was housing new programs to train new artists at the Guangdong opera house in the 1950s, many of the artists would flee to Hong Kong and bring more addition to the art. The traditional opera form would begin to overlap with big screen cinemas starting with the 50s. The Shaw Brothers would also produce some of the first groups of martial art films. Their notable sword fighting style would be emulated on many movies and TV dramas for years to come


Transportation

Hong Kong Taxi service was founded in 1947 with just a mere 329 cars. By the end of the decade in 1959, it would have expanded to 851 cars[11]. The service became more popular, since it does not require passengers to follow a particular bus route.