Allan is a historian of Hong Kong, Chinese overseas, and Southeast Asia. His research projects explore history education, popular music, and decolonisation from a transregional perspective across East and Southeast Asia. He received his BA and MPhil at the University of Hong Kong and completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge. 

Research

His current book project examines the transmission of historical knowledge in Hong Kong, Malaya/Malaysia, and Singapore from the 1950s to the 1990s. It analyses history education at schools and informal pedagogical platforms such as monuments, public campaigns, and children's magazines. This study analyses how the Cold War, decolonisation, and Chinese politics shaped the meanings of being 'Chinese' through curricula, textbooks, and public history campaigns. By bringing Chinese case studies into conversation with histories of British and American imperialism, his research shows how academics, officials, students, and teachers sought to shape the politics of the past and construct postcolonial futures. 

Allan is also working on a new project that focuses on transregional Chinese popular music across Hong Kong and Southeast Asia since the 1950s. It looks at the role of music in the global politics of migration and Chinese identities. The project examines the efforts of musicians, singers, entrepreneurs, and activists in exerting transregional agency through the popular music industry. Instead of merely looking at musical works, it examines the process of musical production in the contexts of the Cold War, Chinese migration, and political transitions. It also studies the global history of music from Asian perspectives, for instance, by exploring the transregional dissemination of works by composer Joseph Koo and lyricist James Wong from Hong Kong, Xinyao from Singapore, and campus folk songs from Taiwan.

Allan's former research investigated cultural policies in late colonial Hong Kong. It examined how colonial officials attempted to preserve, promote, and shape Chinese culture through language policies, entertainment, and postage stamps.

Publications

Journal articles

'Contesting Epistemological Territory: History Education and Decolonisation in Hong Kong’, Itinerario (2025), First View. 

'Entertainment, Chinese Culture, and Late Colonialism in Hong Kong’, Historical Journal 67, no. 1 (2024), 124-47. 

'Stamping “Imagination and Sensibility”: Objects, Culture, and Governance in Late Colonial Hong Kong', Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 50, no. 4 (2022), 789-816.

• Shortlisted for the Best Article on Global Hong Kong Studies 2023, ICAS (International Convention of Asia Scholars) Book Prize

Book chapters

‘Hong Kong in Cantopop: Constructing the “Pearl” in Southeast Asia and the Wider World’, in Hong Kong Arts: Historical Inquiry through Creative Lens, ed. Lee Cheng and Magdelena Ho-yan Tang (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025).

‘Education’, in A New Documentary History of Hong Kong, 1945–1997, ed. Florence Mok and Chi Keung Charles Fung (Hong Kong University Press, 2025), 198-220.

‘Cultural Policies’, in A New Documentary History of Hong Kong, 1945–1997, ed. Florence Mok and Chi Keung Charles Fung (Hong Kong University Press, 2025), 246-66. 

盛世前奏：六十年代香港流行曲的星馬跨國網絡 [A Prelude to Prosperity: Transnational Networks of Hong Kong’s Popular Music in Singapore and Malaysia, c. 1960s], in 粵語流行曲七十年 [Seventy Years of Cantopop], ed. Chu Yiu-Wai 朱耀偉 (Enlighten & Fish 亮光文化, 2024), 35-57 (in Chinese).

Public Writing

'Malaysia Unbound: A Public History Campaign', Historians at Bristol (4 December 2025).

'Radical Objects: Transregional Chinese-language Children’s Magazines', History Workshop (6 June 2024).

Teaching

Allan is an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. In 2025-26, he is contributing to second-year units 'Asia in Global Perspective' and 'Hong Kong and the World'. He is also coordinating the Hong Kong History Summer School Programme. Before arriving at Bristol, Allan had taught courses/modules on empires in maritime East Asia, twentieth-century world history, Hong Kong history, and historiography.

Public Outreach

In 2025, Allan is working with Imagined Malaysia, an NGO in Malaysia, and started a public education campaign titled 'Malaysia Unbound: Transregional Histories through Documents'. This campaign explores Malaysia's transregional connections in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to uncover an inclusive and interconnected Malaysian past. Through weekly infographics on social media, it introduces a rich variety of primary sources, such as magazines, songs, legal records, and archival documents, that help the public to understand Malaysia's past beyond geographical and temporal boundaries. The team is also developing a digital interactive map, where the public can find a collection of the campaign's outcomes (including links to the infographics). 

At the Hong Kong History Centre, Allan is also contributing to its public initiatives through public talks and the online lecture series 'Hong Kong History Academy'.