A New Cultural Ecology?

Romantic Consumption and Heritage Performance in China

“…While enjoying freedom, romance, and an exotic atmosphere in their escape from the urban life, these guests do not leave behind their materialistic, capitalistic, and consumerist privileges. As in the case of the artists and educators who moved their family from Beijing to Yi County in Anhui Province to open a café and an avant-garde bookshop (Krischer 2015), the social and cultural capital of migrants in Lijiang allows them to consume a romantic heritage without being exposed to the reality. Despite their powerful desire to pursue a new and authentic self or spiritual home, they have never left their original self behind.…”

Lifestyle mobility: shifting conception of home in modern China

“…In contrast to well-known rural-urban migration that aimed at obtaining better social welfare, these new practices allow the urban middle class to travel or reside in the rural areas to pursue their imagined ideal lifestyle away from the cities. As in the case of the artists and educators who moved their family from Beijing to Yi County in Anhui province to open a café and an Avant-Garde bookshop (Krischer, 2015), the urban middle class individuals who are part of this study have developed ideas about their living environment in the countryside. Similar to the emerging form of lifestyle migration in northern America and Europe studied by Benson and O'Reilly (2016) and Fleischer (2007), these individuals yearn for a place to reside with greener spaces, better air quality and privacy.…”