When I read Nirad Chaudhuri's dedication I remembered this, sent to me by Professor Frank Dikotter and published in The New York Times.

VERNA YU
December 13, 2012
Hong Kong

THE other day I went into a family-run noodle shop and when I paid, I handed over a colonial-era one-dollar coin with the British queen’s head. I instantly felt a pang of regret.

“Sorry, could I swap it? I want to save the one with the queen’s head,” I explained, popping another dollar coin with a Bauhinia flower into the money pot and retrieving my old coin. The owner frowned and gave me a funny look.

I was puzzled by my own action. It’s not like I loved living under the colonial government. I vividly remember the sense of humiliation we endured: as a child in the 1970s, I remember kids from the nearby British school habitually jumping the public bus line. As late as 1997, I was shocked at the blatantly racist attitude of white colleagues: one even told me to “go home and eat chicken feet” and laughed when I looked offended.

So despite the fact that I spent my formative years in Britain, I was looking forward to the handover of sovereignty to China in 1997. I returned to Hong Kong only months before the event that July, worrying my friends in England who couldn’t understand why I was going “the opposite way” from those who tried to get out. Since the 1980s, many Hong Kong people who feared Communist rule had emigrated. But I told my British friends: it was time we proudly called ourselves Chinese.

So 15 years later, why was I hanging on to a coin with the queen’s head?

Perhaps, it was just nostalgia. But more likely I was trying to hold on to something that linked me to the pre-handover way of life. Under the “one country, two systems” arrangement, we were told our freedoms would be preserved for 50 years after the handover, but many locals now feel under threat as mainland China takes an increasingly active role in Hong Kong affairs.
...
Even though [the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress] later ruled that the election of Hong Kong’s political leader and the legislative council, or parliament, “may be” elected by universal suffrage in 2017, many fear that Beijing will not honor its commitment, given a political system that is designed to favor pro-Beijing policies.

And sadly, those fears have been realized. Hong Kongers wll be permitted to vote--for candidates approved by Zhongnanhai.

Image: Hong Kong protest, 2012; Hong Kong protest 2014.