UCLA Asia Pacific Center Hong Kong Studies Program Speaker Series
Kwai Ng is a professor of sociology at the University of California, San Diego. His research interests include legal institution, legal language, and culture.
He received his doctorate from the University of Chicago. Ng joined the faculty at the University of California, San Diego in 2004. His first book, The Common Law in Two Voices – Language, Law, and the Postcolonial Predicament in Hong Kong (Stanford University Press 2009), explores how the introduction of Chinese into the common law system has reshaped the social and moral character of the law in Hong Kong. In recent years, he turned his attention to studying the grassroots courts of China, addressing topics including courtroom discourse, mediation, criminal reconciliation, domestic violence, and divorce petitions. His second book (with Xin He), Embedded Courts – Judicial Decision Making in China (Cambridge University Press, 2017), analyzes how Chinese grassroots courts operate in a precarious environment where the use of law is often negotiated.
A native of Hong Kong, Ng worked as a journalist (Hong Kong Standard, South China Morning Post, Hong Kong Economic Journal) before pursuing an academic career.
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From a British colony incorporating the cultural and institutional practices of East and West to an international business center maintaining its own political and judicial systems under Chinese sovereignty, Hong Kong has played a considerable role in the global nexus of capital, cultural, and information exchange. The Asia Pacific Center Hong Kong Studies Program Speaker Series explores the uniqueness of the city from the politico-legal, economic, and cultural perspectives, and its current position in US-China relations. This series is a collaborative effort of the Asia Pacific Center at UCLA and the 21st Century China Center at UC San Diego.