ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned principally with the emotional contours of the new Chinese migrants performing cosmopolitan sociability to negotiate difference, conduct intercultural encounters and rebuild a sense of home. It engages with others demands investment of significant 'emotional labour' in order to overcome feelings of distance, discomfort, awkwardness, anxiety and fear, generated from intercultural interactions. The chapter explores the emotional dimensions of performing cosmopolitan sociability in a way that draws attention to the manner in which emotions can both promote and encourage but also undermine and limit the capacity to build intercultural relations. It draws attention in particular to the following three perspectives: first, emotional difficulties emerging from early settlement; second, emotions and home-making in a transnational context; and third, emotional dissonance generated in everyday intercultural encounters.
