This book offers a close-up view of American university life based on the author's intimate, firsthand experience across various institutions. Through "American Campus Observation," the author investigates the characteristics of Western cultural attributes by utilizing sociological methods, including field observation and comparative analysis. The book elucidates the underlying reasons behind specific cases and common phenomena, particularly the distinctions rooted in Western and Eastern c...

This book examines the explicit effects of global connectivity on local culture and society in post-reform mainland China. It focuses on individual level globalization in China and how global socialization impacts local residents’ behaviors, lifestyle, value orientation and the consequence of local transformation. Asking questions such as:What types of individual global connections have emerged and developed in China over the last three decades?What aspects of local...

Based on data collected for the Generation Gap Survey in Shanghai and updated to take into account contemporary trends, this book uses an empirical approach to study the generation gap in China. It covers various aspects of life from professional and family life to political participation and belief systems, analysing and comparing the values held by four different generations. Encompassing more than 2000 case studies and drawing on a wealth of fieldwork interviews, in particular ...

Increasing overseas traveling, booming Internet and electronic communication, and expanding global social ties are primary features of intensifying global connectivity and integration. Global Connectivity and Local Transformation conceptualizes global connectivity as a powerful but varied mechanism that links local people to the global society. Professor Jiaming Sun explores the massive global connectivity that has been woven in two decades in Shanghai. People with stronger and mo...

The East Asian economic miracle of the twentieth century is now a fond memory. What does it mean to be living in post-miracle times? For the youth of China, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea, the opportunities and challenges of the neoliberal age, deeply shaped by global forces in labor markets, powerfully frame their life prospects in ways that are barely recognizable to their parents.Global Futures in East Asia gathers together ethnographic explorations of what its contribu...

"[John Naisbitt's] vision of the world's economy has the mark of genius." — Minneapolis Star TribuneInternationally-renowned futurist and bestselling author John Naisbitt is back with China's Megatrends, the most comprehensive look at the present and future of China and the transformation that is reshaping its economic, political, and social systems. Since publishing the enormously popular Megatrends—a New York Times bestseller for two years that...

A PDF version of this book is available for free in open access via www.tandfebooks.com as well as the OAPEN Library platform, www.oapen.org. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license and is part of the OAPEN-UK research project.This book presents a comprehensive examination of Chinese consumer behaviour and challenges the previously dichotomous interpretation of the consumption of Western and non-Western brands in Chi...

A new revolution in homeownership and living has been sweeping the booming cities of China. This time the main actors on the social stage are not peasants, migrants, or working-class proletariats but middle-class professionals and entrepreneurs in search of a private paradise in a society now dominated by consumerism. No longer seeking happiness and fulfillment through collective sacrifice and socialist ideals, they hope to find material comfort and social distinction in n...

"A classic must-read for everyone coming to work or live in China." - Shelley Warner and Tony Voutas, cross-cultural trainers and founders of Asia Pacific Access Ltd, ChinaChina is in the midst of unprecedented economic and cultural growth. In the last decade alone, China joined the World Trade Organization, hosted the 2008 Olympics and experienced a remarkable, record-high increase in its foreign currency reserves. As these changes unfold, frequency of contact bet...

Since the mid-1990s, the Internet has revolutionized popular expression in China, enabling users to organize, protest, and influence public opinion in unprecedented ways. Guobin Yang's pioneering study maps an innovative range of contentious forms and practices linked to Chinese cyberspace, delineating a nuanced and dynamic image of the Chinese Internet as an arena for creativity, community, conflict, and control. Like many other contemporary protest forms in China and the world, Yang argu...

Creative industries in China provides a fresh account of China’s emerging commercial cultural sector. The author shows how developments in Chinese art, design and media industries are reflected in policy, in market activity, and grassroots participation.Never has the attraction of being a media producer, an artist, or a designer in China been so enticing. National and regional governments offer financial incentives; consumption of cultural goods and services have increased...

Fengshu Liu situates the lives of Chinese youth and the growth of the Internet against the backdrop of rapid and profound social transformation in China. In 2008, the total of Internet users in China had reached 253 million (in comparison with 22.5 million in 2001). Yet, despite rapid growth, the Internet in China is so far a predominantly urban-youth phenomenon, with young people under thirty (especially those under twenty-four), mostly members of the only-child generation, as the main gr...