With its traditional Chinese roots, British colonial impact, local Cantonese culture, and cultural import from other East Asian countries, Hong Kong has great hybridity and diversity in the sphere of beauty. As such a “peripheral hub” (Kuipers, 2022), this city shows how beauty standards are shaped by many social and cultural influences. Hong Kong also is a very diverse cities, with many kinds of inequalities.

In her PhD project, Wanying Zhou will investigate how beauty is related to processes of self-presentation and self-transformation. This project combines Q-sort interviews with three case studies:  a K-pop cover group, beauty counters in malls, and self-presentation on dating apps.