[Her] parents have worked in Beijing for many years. She is eager to live with her parents. But they lead a laborious life and they have to take care of her younger brother at the same time. Her parents had to leave her with her grandmother. Her father took her to Beijing once, but she could not be enrolled by Beijing schools because the tuition fee was as high as several thousands Yuan, which is an astronomical figure to their family. She had to be sent back… (China Agricultural University, 2005, p.23)

As the city gains diversity but loses its own national identity, its individuals lose their own sense of identity. As the market economy influences the city to adopt the impersonal exchange model, the individuals become increasingly alienated from their fellow citizens.

Beijing had hoped that the 2008 Summer Olympics would draw worldwide attention to China’s sweltering economy and ambitious development projects. Now, less than three months removed from its grand prize, the nation hosting the world’s largest population faces [...]

The current Western analysis of Sino-Japanese relations can be likened to a badly tailored suit—at best, it clumsily covers main aspects of the relationship and anticipates movement in crises; at worst, it is ill-fitted to address the past peculiarities and future growing pains of such a relationship. The unsuitability of such an analysis should not [...]