Postcolonial In-Betweenness: Hong Kong and the United States in Xu Xi's Narrative of Diaspora

Postcolonial individuals often find themselves estranged in their own homeland because of the enduring sense of dislocation produced by the legacy of colonialism. In this context, the sense of belonging becomes not only difficult, but deeply fractured. This is especially true in Hong Kong, where individuals raised at the crossroads of British colonial rule and Chinese political control frequently experience a profound sense of in-betweenness, occupying a liminal space between East and West. Unable to reconcile the conflicting forces in their homeland, many feel the urge to escape wherever opportunity allows. Such is the case of Hong Kong author Xu Xi, who leaves Hong Kong for the United States. This paper situates itself at the intersection of postcolonial studies, Asian diaspora, and Asian American studies. It examines how anglophone writer Xu Xi articulates the fragmentation and dislocation of Hong Kong’s identity through her own transnational experience. In Evanescent Isles: From My City-Village (2008) and Dear Hong Kong: An Elegy for a City (2017), the urge to leave Hong Kong emerges not merely as a personal ambition, but as a psychological necessity, a refusal to remain within a space defined by overlapping cultural contradictions. By tracing Xu Xi’s transnational existence between Hong Kong and the United States, this paper investigates the complexities of postcolonial identity, migration, and belonging. The paper analyses to what extent the United States, as both an imagined refuge and a real geographical space, offer resolution or further complication to the sense of in-betweenness that defines the postcolonial condition. This paper examines conceptions of Americanness within transnational contexts, revealing how Hong Kong’s diaspora reframes ideas of identity, home, and belonging to challenge monolithic conceptions of national identity.