Abstract
Nightlife in China is slowly emerging as a legitimate topic in intellectual and media discourses in the 2000s. In global media discourses, Chinese nightlife is currently portrayed in terms of extravagant and cosmopolitan dance clubs in Shanghai and Beijing, even though these elite club scenes actually make up a tiny portion of nightlife in the country. A whole range of nightlife institutions, practices, and cultures – ones that complexly mix together local, Asian, and global elements – are hence hidden from view. These global media imaginaries practically reiterate a modernist, Eurocentric meta-narrative of China’s opening-up to the West. Besides the modernist meta-narrative, there are additional reasons that the hybrid complexities of Chinese nightlife are being ignored in global media discourses. Hybridity in Chinese nightlife is difficult to observe because much of Chinese nightlife is carried out in semi-legal, underground ways. In addition, localized parts
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Contemporary Asian Modernities: Transnationality, Interculturality, and Hybridity |
| Editors | Yiu-Wai CHU, Eva Kit-Wah MAN |
| Publisher | Peter Lang Publishing Group |
| Pages | 287-307 |
| Number of pages | 21 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9783035100358 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9783034300933 |
| Publication status | Published - 2010 |
| Externally published | Yes |