Ryan Choi
Thesis title: Collaborationism in Wartime Hong Kong: The Cultural Production of Hanjian (Traitors) under Japanese Occupation, 1941–1945
PhD supervisors:
Background
Ryan Choi is a PhD candidate in Chinese Studies at the University of Edinburgh. He previously completed a master’s degree in Chinese Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and holds two bachelor's degrees from the University of Hong Kong, where he was awarded the Ho Chuk Ping Prize and the Poon Siu Poon Prize in Chinese Literature. During his undergraduate studies, he was an exchange student at Fudan University in 2016 and, the following year, at Harvard College through the Harvard Undergraduates in Asia Program (HUAP).
In 2024, Ryan was a visiting PhD student at the Hong Kong History Centre, University of Bristol (https://www.hkhistory.net). He is currently a research affiliate with the project TRAMEVIC: Transnational Wartime Memories in East Asian Visual Culture, led by Dr Marcos Centeno at the University of Valencia and funded by the Generalitat Valenciana, Conselleria de Educación, Cultura, Universidades y Empleo (Reference CIGE/2023/066; https://www.uv.es/tramevic).
Qualifications
MA, Chinese Studies, SOAS University of London, 2020 (Distinction).
BA and BEd, Chinese and Language Education, University of Hong Kong, 2019.
Responsibilities & affiliations
Member of the British Association for Chinese Studies (BACS)
Member of the European Association for Chinese Studies (EACS)
Member of the Spanish Association of East Asian Studies (Asociación Española de Estudios de Asia Oriental, AEEAO)
Member of the European Association for Japanese Studies (EAJS)
Undergraduate teaching
Tutor in Modern East Asian History B
Tutor in Modern China in Literature and Film B
Guest Lecturer 'Hong Kong in Modern Chinese History', Modern East Asian History B
Current research interests
Ryan Choi’s research explores the notion of hanjian (漢奸) under Japanese occupation in East Asia, particularly Hong Kong, and its afterlife in the post-war period. He is currently working on the texts and images produced by Hong Kong’s cultural collaborators, among them Ye Lingfeng and Lu Mengshu, who edited major publications during the occupation years. His primary source research draws on materials in Chinese, Japanese and English.Past research interests
Ryan Choi’s earlier research centred on Sinophone literature, with particular attention to modern and contemporary writings from Hong Kong and Taiwan.Current project grants
2026–2027 Doctoral Fellowships, Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange
Past project grants
2024 Visiting Scholar Scheme, Hong Kong History Centre at University of Bristol
Organiser
Co-organiser, Spooky Encounters: Classic Hong Kong Ghost Films with Introductory Lectures, Faculty of Philology, Translation and Communication, University of Valencia, 2–30 October 2026.
Organiser, East Asian Studies Doctoral Research Seminar, Faculty of Philology, Translation and Communication, University of Valencia, 8 July 2026.
Organising Committee Member, TRADIASIA (Transculturality and Diversity in East Asia) Lecture Series, Faculty of Philology, Translation and Communication, University of Valencia, 13 March–19 June 2026.
Papers delivered
‘Rethinking the Man-Eaters of Twentieth-Century East Asia: Literary Cannibalism as a Decolonisation Strategy’, IV Congress of the Spanish Association of East Asian Studies, University of Granada, 4–6 June 2025.
‘Remembering the Japanese Occupation of Hong Kong: Hero(in)es, Hanjian, and Perpetrators in Postwar Chinese-Language Cinema’, TRAMEVIC (Transnational Wartime Memories in East Asian Visual Culture) Symposium, University of Valencia, 23 May 2025.
‘From Sakura to Crap: Lu Mengshu’s Kuso Realism and the Unmasking of Occupied Hong Kong’, British Postgraduate Network for Chinese Studies Annual Conference, University of York, 5 June 2024.
〈「合作通敵」的日占香港文學：論葉靈鳳《書淫艷異錄》〉，第三十屆「金聲研討會」，台灣：國立中央大學，2023 年10 月21 日。(‘Collaboration and Collusion: A Study of Ye Lingfeng’s Bibliophile’s Records of the Erotic and the Strange’, National Central University, Taiwan, 21 October 2023.)
‘Collaborationist Literature in Wartime Hong Kong: Ye Lingfeng’s Role as a Literary Producer under Japanese Occupation (1941–1945)’, British Association for Chinese Studies Annual Conference, King’s College London, 8 September 2023.
Ryan Choi contributed an entry to The Selective Guide to Chinese Literature, 1900–2000, edited by Rossella Ferrari, Christopher Rosenmeier, David Der-wei Wang, Charles Laughlin, Mingwei Song, Victor Vuilleumier, Fan-Ting Cheng, and Kuei-fen Chiu (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming). He has also served as a manuscript reviewer for Complicity in the Second World War: Literature and the Memory of Axis Occupations, edited by Guido Bartolini and Stefano Serafini (New York: Fordham University Press, forthcoming).
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
Choi, Ryan. ‘The Man-Eater Writes Back: (Anti-)Colonial Discourses of Chinese Cannibalism in the Empire of Japan (1868–1947)’. Modern Asian Studies 59, no. 5 (2025): 1375–1405. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X26101796.
Book Reviews
Choi, Ryan. ‘Review of Meiji Graves in Happy Valley: Stories of Early Japanese Residents in Hong Kong, by Yoshiko Nakano and Georgina Challen’. Journal of Asian Studies 85, no. 1 (November 2025): 273–74. https://doi.org/10.1215/00219118-12040630
Translations
Ma Jun. ‘The First World War and Shanghai (第一次世界大戰與上海)’. Translated by Ryan Choi. In At the Periphery of a World War? Urban Experiences of the First World War in Africa, East Asia, Latin America and South Europe, edited by María Inés Tato, Ana Paula Pires, and Jan Schmidt. Frankfurt: Campus; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2025. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/A/bo245009247.html
In Submission
Choi, Ryan. ‘Sexploitation and Collaboration: Transgressive Memory of the Japanese Occupation in 1941 Hong Kong on Fire (1994)’. In Transnational Wartime Memories in East Asian Visual Culture, edited by Marcos Centeno, Bruce Grant, Aaron Moore, Edward Vickers, and Markéta Bajgerová. Oxford: Peter Lang. (Book chapter)