Abstract
“Where there is the sea, there are Chinese people.”1 Desire for mobility seems to stand out conspicuously as a characteristic of the Chinese character today. Faced with the waves of globalization, we are undergoing startling changes and transformations. Advances in science, technology and mass transportation appear to have diminished the physical distance between peoples, societies and countries, casting us adrift in a state of unprecedented mobility that is at once frequent and geographically diverse. Social resources move backwards and forwards between the global and the local, bound together in a dynamic set of cross-boundary, circular relationships. 2 This is, in the words of John Urry, a world of “typical mobile, roaming hybrids”,3 where every day we consume foreign goods and services and meet people from all around the globe.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
This idea derives from Chan Kwok-bun, Smoke and Fire: The Chinese in Montreal (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1991). The original sentence reads, “Where there are smoke and fire, there is a Chinese”. Historically, the Chinese diaspora has been a story of sea-faring Chinese migrants, who found themselves wherever the sea had carried them. The sea’s mobility speaks vividly to the “ever-in-flux” status of our immigrant entrepreneurs’ lives.
- 2.
John Urry, “Mobile Sociology”. The British Journal of Sociology, 51, No. 1 (January/March 2000), p. 199.
- 3.
Ibid., 196.
- 4.
Chou Ying-hsiung, “Shenfen zhi rentong: cong Lu Xun de liang ge xiaoshuo tuilun” [“Identity Formation: From Two Stories by Lu Xun”] in Shenfen rentong yu gonggong wenhua: wenhua yanjiu lunwenji [Identity and Public Culture: Critical Essays in Cultural Studies], ed., Chan Ching-kiu (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 321. Chou’s original words are a portrayal of the mind’s complexities and changes in self-consciousness that accompanied the native-narrator’s return in Lu Xun’s novella “My Old Home”.
- 5.
Peter Berger, Invitation to Sociology: A Humanistic Perspective (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1963), p. 101.
- 6.
The Census and Statistics Department, “Hong Kong Residents Working in the Mainland of China, 1995–2005”, Hong Kong Monthly Digest of Statistics (January 2006). Here, “Hong Kong residents working in the Mainland” does not include those who went to the mainland only for conducting business negotiations and inspection of business, and/or attending trade fairs, meetings and business-related entertainment. In addition, transport workers commuting between Hong Kong and the Mainland, and fishermen or seaman working within the waters of the Mainland were also excluded.
- 7.
The Census and Statistics Department, Social Data Collected via the General Household Survey: Special Topics Report – Report No.38 (Hong Kong: The Census and Statistics Department, 2004).
- 8.
Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000), p. 3.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kwok-bun, C., Wai-wan, C. (2011). Shuttling Nomads in Mobile Times. In: Mobile Chinese Entrepreneurs. International Series on Consumer Science. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9643-5_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9643-5_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-9642-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-9643-5
eBook Packages: Behavioral ScienceBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)