Identity Negotiation of Hong Kong Women in Sergeant Tabloid

Lui Fei-hap was a rational, independent cosmopolitan police woman in her 30s. She was born in a middle-class family which her father was a tailor and her mother was a police woman. She was full of passion of her work but she used to lie about her occupation because she thought it connoted with crude manner women that scared away men. Although Fei-hap being very tough during her worked period, she preserved her tender side in leisure. She learned Chinese style drawing and often donated them to temple for charity. She loved her parent and made a lot of friends. Like her name, Lui fei-hap, meaning heroine in Cantonese, she tried to help friends and colleagues whenever they were in need.

Despite her good personality, she was being stereotyped as ‘Hong Kong Girl’ by A1, a journalist from ‘Boom Daily’ who saw her arrested her ex-boyfriend, solely based on her love life and later the news was known by her family, colleagues and friends. Fei-hap was even one of the ‘Ten crazy Hong Kong women file’ A1 wanted to published. It reflected that the media had a great influence in defining the cultural identity, especially the stereotyped ‘Hong Kong Girl’ term. No matter how good one woman was, it seems to be a ‘sin’ for not getting married in her 20s/30s. A point to note was that once Fei-hap found her ‘true love’-A1, the file had been deleted; meaning that she no longer was a ‘Hong Kong Girl’.

Actually A1 was not the only one in the drama that having a relationship with Fei-hap. Wong Tze-tsuen, Fei-hap’s colleague, also became Fei-hap’s boyfriend for a while. Wong-Tze, which was his nickname and referred to ‘prince’ in Cantonese, symbolized a handsome, rich, perfect man in the drama. Even though Fei-hap got a ‘prince’, she was the one to decide to break up with him once she knew they do not match. She was willing to give up a ‘secure’ social status in order to search for her true happiness, or true love.

The cosmopolitan working women’s identity had formed a ‘route’: from the traditional working women who work to share family burden to cosmopolitan working women who look for individual happiness. The character, Madam Kiu, could be illustrated for such changes. Madam Kiu used to be a serious, boyish police woman. She did whatever her father liked her to do, such as doing exercises and watching football matches. However, after she made friends with Fei-hap and her friends, she started to learn how to make up and dress up, became more feminine. She even got a boyfriend and braved enough to find her own happiness under Fei-hap’s, Fei-hap’s friends and her boyfriend’s encouragement. The traditional identity was fading out and changed into the cosmopolitan ones.

All in all, Lui Fei-hap in Sergeant Tabloid had tried to reflecting most Hong Kong women in society who are in middle class that negotiating their identity between narrative of themselves and narrative of society/media. The society still presented a traditional value on women have to be married in the 20s or 30s. They might be stereotyped as ‘old spinster’, but they were using their agency to redefine their happiness, like what Fei-hap and Madam Kiu did.

by So Yee Lam, Mieko (2105 9202)