Clearance of the Tai Ping Shan District after the plague of 1894, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong Island, c.1898. Courtesy Hong Kong Museum of History
The city has a subjectively internalised history of epidemics and of representations in the colonial era as an infected land that needed to be conquered from nature, disease and oriental habits in order to be made healthy, modern and profitable. These narratives culminated with the identification of the bacillus causing the plague during an epidemic in Hong Kong in 1894, in Para Site’s current neighbourhood. This discovery contributed to a dubious association of the disease with Asia and heightened the “yellow peril” scares in Europe and America at the time. In Hong Kong, the fear of infecting agents has always resonated with a fear of other people, quarantine has mirrored exclusion, whilst epidemiological, racial and cultural contamination have shared the same language. 香港有著一段疫病的主觀內在歷史，在殖民時代作為「疫埠」的種種再現 ── 被自然、疾病和東方生活習慣所沾染的土地需被征服， 從而變得更健康、更現 代和更有利可圖。1894年，就在Para Site藝術空間現址附近，香港爆發鼠疫， 這些敘述角度就隨著確認鼠疫桿菌而進入高潮。是次發現產生一種對鼠疫和亞 洲的曖昧聯想，並加劇當時歐美的「黃禍」反華恐慌。在香港，對病原體的 恐懼一直跟對他者的恐懼互相呼應，檢疫隔離反映著排斥，而流行病學上的污 染、種族污染和文化污染都使用同一種語言。
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