ABSTRACT
Although globalization is inevitably a process of the global meeting the local, resulting in the simultaneity-the co-presence-of both universalizing and particularizing tendencies, the process and its effects on social identities have been subject to different interpretations. The Chinese-heritage learners, however, are not passive in this dual process. The case of de-territorialization is exemplified by the Chinese international students in New Zealand who were eager to throw away their educational baggage from the Chinese education system to embrace the more liberal education offered in the host country. For the local-born second or third generation such as those in South Africa and in Hungary, de-territorialization took the path of de-association from the Chinese language and/or culture. The Chinese-heritage learners also engaged in an active re-territorialization process to realign different social relationships. Intuitively one would agree that multilingualism should be an important part of Chinese-heritage learners' linguistic capital in the transnational social fields that must be maximized.
