ABSTRACT

This book is an exploration of how Chinese communites in the United States and Germany create and disseminate a sense of diasporic Chinese identity. It not only compares the local conditions of the Chinese communities in the two locations, but also moves to a global dimension to track the Chinese transnational imaginary. Van Ziegert analyzes three strategies that overseas Chinese use to articulate their identities as diasporic subjects:

  • being more American/German
  • being more Chinese
  • hybridizing and commodifying Chinese culture through trans-cultural performances.

These three strategies are not mutually exclusive and they often intersect and supplement each other in unexpected ways. The author also analyzes how the everyday lives of overseas Chinese connect with global and local factors, and how these experiences contribute to the formation of a global Chinese identity.

chapter |20 pages

Introduction

Rethinking the Chinese Transnational Imaginary

chapter |38 pages

Re-Appropriating the Model Minority Stereotype

Reflections on the 2000 Organization of Chinese Americans Convention

chapter |34 pages

Between Being More American and Being More Chinese

An Ethnography of the Lowell Chinese School

chapter |35 pages

Tang Poetry

The Paradox of Impossible Return

chapter |39 pages

Between Fragmentation and Commodification

Performing Chineseness for Self and Other in Lowell and Tilburg

chapter |10 pages

Conclusion

Global Spaces of Chinese Culture—From Cui Jian to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon