ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses expressions of citizenship among single women in the cities of Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. It argues the despite differences in the ways that their society's structure gendered citizenship through state policies and social expectations, single women in metropolitan East Asian cities have much in common regarding the ways in which they imagine their life courses to be transnationally located and grounded in universalistic values of personal achievement and fulfillment. The single women I interviewed in metropolitan East Asian cities had high levels of education and were able to earn their own living. They were able to travel in their own country and overseas and gather ideas from a cosmopolitan 'cultural supermarket' made available through the internet, travel, books, and other media. Their consumer, travel, and online experiences generate imaginings of possibilities that transcend nation-specific contexts. The chapter follows Arjun Appadurai's argument that the imagination plays a critical role in transnational processes, not as mere fantasy or escape, but as a form of agency.
