NBN Book of the Day Jenny Banh, "Fantasies of Hong Kong Disneyland: Attempted Indigenizations of Space, Labor, and Consumption" (Rutgers UP, 2025)
Jan 25, 2026
Jenny Banh, professor of Asian American Studies and Anthropology and author of Fantasies of Hong Kong Disneyland (2025). She traces Disney’s attempt to localize in Hong Kong. Short takes on unequal contracts, feng shui hires, food controversies, queue tensions between mainland and Hong Kong visitors, and how Ocean Park’s local roots contrast with Disneyland’s struggles.
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From Restaurant Kid To Fieldwork
- Jenny Banh traced her interest in labor to growing up as a "Chinese restaurant kid" and earlier fieldwork on sweatshops in El Monte, California.
- That background led her to pivot from risky mainland China labor research to studying Hong Kong Disneyland as a transnational labor, space, and consumption case.
Long-Term Fieldwork Validates Findings
- Banh used classic anthropological fieldwork across many years, returning repeatedly and rechecking findings after peer review demands.
- That long-term immersion validated her conclusions despite Hong Kong's political flux and Disney's changing operations.
An Unequal Deal Shaped The Park
- Hong Kong Disneyland's development was pushed by elites amid deindustrialization and negotiated via an unequal contract favoring Disney.
- The park functioned like a modern "unequal treaty," promising jobs while transferring cost and risk to Hong Kong.
