ABSTRACT
This concluding chapter integrates and interprets the main themes dealt with in this book in the light of the modernization theory and global trends reviewed in Chapter 2. It concludes that much of what has happened over the generations is in keeping with the global modernization trends. However, the Chinese youths’ modernization experiences meanwhile also feature a ‘maximization desire’, denoting a strong wish and serious efforts to maximize life and the self. Such a desire invokes century-old cultural ideals and tendencies – exemplary norms, traditional dialectics, and long-term/future orientation – as much as it is shaped by the specific post-Mao circumstances, giving their narratives a Chinese twist. Co-constructed by their families and the young people themselves, it is a defining feature of ‘the aspiring individual’ of the young generation. The older generations lacked the cognitive resources or the environmental affordances to maximize. The maximization desire addresses the present as well as the past and the future of the only child family. Maximization can also be seen as a cultural competence required of modern people within a tradition that emphasizes exemplary norms, balance and harmony, education and long-term/future orientation. It entails personal and familial costs.
