Using ingenious research methods, the contributors to this book explore the search for meaning among ordinary people in China today. The subjects of these vivid essays span the social spectrum from hip young entrepreneurs to sweatshop workers and homeless beggars. The issues are equally diverse, ranging from domestic violence to homosexuality to political corruption. The culture of popular China emerges as a mixture of exhilarating new aspirations--as seen in the basketball fans who dream of 'flying' like Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant; rueful cynicism--as bitingly conveyed in the many satirical jingles that circulate by word of mouth; and painful ambivalence. The people depicted here have built their popular culture out of ideas and symbolic practices drawn from old cultural traditions, from concepts about modernity debated during the early twentieth-century republican era, from the legacies of Maoist socialism, and from contemporary global culture. Throughout, the book shows how economic and social changes caused by globalization, in combination with the continuing Party dictatorship, have presented ordinary Chinese with a new array of moral and cultural challenges that they have met in ways that have changed the face of China.
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Every chapter is well-written and accessible to a wide range of readers, providing a complex and multifaceted view of how social and economic changes have affected the lives of ordinary Chinese. Highly recommended for all levels. (Choice )
This is a well-written, informative, and inspirational volume, highly recommended to students of contemporary Chinese history, politics, and cultural studies. (Journal Of Asian Studies )
Suitable for the graduate student but is also written in a style that would interest anyone with a serious interest in China. (Asian Affairs )
Ought to be read by anyone interested in the evolution of Chinese society, and it is indispensable for students who want to understand the social changes wrought by the economic reforms. (The China Journal )
It is creative, valuable scholarship that debunks stereotype and opens the way for further inquiry, which is precisely what we have come to expect from the editors. (The China Quarterly )
This is one of those rare books that will be of value both to beginning undergraduates and specialists on China. It provides an excellent corrective for those whose image of China remains fixated on the 'Beijing Spring' of 1989 or whose knowledge of China is limited to elite politics or the highly visible modernization of the largest coastal cities. In demonstrating how the impact of globalization has contributed to momentous cultural changes, the authors have given us a living, breathing China of real people, fashioning strategies to survive and prosper in a society that has become enormously diverse. (Rosen, Stanley )
This is a well-written, informative, and inspirational volume, highly recommended to students of contemporary Chinese history, politics, and cultural studies. (Journal Of Asian Studies )
Suitable for the graduate student but is also written in a style that would interest anyone with a serious interest in China. (Asian Affairs )
Ought to be read by anyone interested in the evolution of Chinese society, and it is indispensable for students who want to understand the social changes wrought by the economic reforms. (The China Journal )
It is creative, valuable scholarship that debunks stereotype and opens the way for further inquiry, which is precisely what we have come to expect from the editors. (The China Quarterly )
This is one of those rare books that will be of value both to beginning undergraduates and specialists on China. It provides an excellent corrective for those whose image of China remains fixated on the 'Beijing Spring' of 1989 or whose knowledge of China is limited to elite politics or the highly visible modernization of the largest coastal cities. In demonstrating how the impact of globalization has contributed to momentous cultural changes, the authors have given us a living, breathing China of real people, fashioning strategies to survive and prosper in a society that has become enormously diverse. (Rosen, Stanley )
About the Author
Perry Link is professor of East Asian studies at Princeton University.
Richard P. Madsen is professor of sociology at the University of California, San Diego.
Paul G. Pickowicz is professor of history at the University of California, San Diego.
Richard P. Madsen is professor of sociology at the University of California, San Diego.
Paul G. Pickowicz is professor of history at the University of California, San Diego.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Daily life in China,
By Shoshanna B. (Portland, OR, USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Popular China: Unofficial Culture in a Globalizing Society (Paperback)
Popular China is one of those rare academic books that you can read on trains, on the beach or by your office desk. All the chapters offer interesting, well-researched and well-written material whether it's about basketball fandom, gay experience, factory work, the epidemic of corruption or the laws regulating women's inheritance. The researchers combine an on-the-ground, intimate knowledge of their topic with the ability to place all of it in the broader context of Chinese history and culture. The editors, too, did a great job creating the framework in which these diverse issues and topics cohere into a meaningful whole.
While China is a moving target for researchers, due to its fast-paced social changes, and the data collected for this book must be at least 6 or 7 years old, it remains a valuable guide for all of those who seek a better understanding of a country that many see as a superpower in the making.
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