The Materializing China series examines social and economic developments as well as cultural and theoretical developments in contemporary China. Manifestations, opportunities, and contradictions of modernity are analyzed as China moves towards globalization. The efforts to create an internal as well as internationally acceptable infrastructure are also examined, outlining the cultural and social experiences of China and the Chinese as well as the various efforts to represent these changes. The aim is to provide well-researched information to the reader interested in developments in the key areas of China and the Chinese, including society, culture, education, ideological systems, ethnicity, consumerism, and philosophical outlook. This book, the first volume in the series, deals chiefly with the phenomenon of globalization as a cultural and critical concept and theoretical discourse, in an attempt to make a new construction of it from the Chinese perspective. It also deals with the effe