Yang Yang

Gordon Mathews

Linessa Dan Lin

Guangzhou today is like New York of an earlier era--a place where foreigners across the globe go in pursuit of their "Chinese dream," whether to find themselves or further their careers. Some of these foreigners are Japanese, American, or European; many more are African, Arab, Latin American, and Indian--small-scale traders who buy Chinese goods, typically knock-offs, to send back to their home countries. The World in Guangzhou explores how a city that was inhabited by only Chinese three decades ago became a center for this type of "low-end" globalization. This is a story of how informal globalization works to connect people that do not share a common language, culture, or religion. But it is also an intimate portrayal of diverse groups of people (entrepreneurs, writers, undocumented migrants fleeing the police, sex workers) who are trying to make their fortunes. Not all do, but, as the authors show in this unforgettable portrait of a city in transition, Guangzhou may well be a harbinger of the world's future as globalization continues to remake cities in both the developed and developing worlds.

Linessa Dan Lin

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