ABSTRACT
China has embarked on a program of infrastructure construction that has transformed its urban centers, especially over the last two or three decades. Based on observations made during a five-month teaching appointment in Tianjin—a sprawling port city of fifteen million people just southeast of Beijing—this chapter examines both “hard” infrastructural elements like housing (mainly ubiquitous south-facing walk-up apartments) and taxis (including the Uber-killing Didi Chuxing operation), as well as the “soft” infrastructure of maps (facilitating long walks around the city) and the Chinese educational system (examining, in particular, seminar instruction and linguistic instrumentalism).
