Aihwa Ong: “Fengshui and the Limits to Cultural Accumulation”
Hong Kong money elite - million dollar homes
fengshui
account for 15% of Peninsula Peak's population
youth in modeling classes to learn how to present themselves acceptably to Americans
"propitious location, the trappings of wealth, and appropriate body language are the cultural forms that immigrants must gain mastery over if they are to convert mere economic power into social prestige, as determined by the host society"
flexible strategy of accumulation in both economic and cultural senses
symbolic capital
when the world is the arena of strategies of accumulation, subjects coming from less privileged sites must be flexible in terms of the cultural symbols they wish to acquire
Euroamerican cultural hegemony determines and judges the signs and forms of metropolitan status and glamour
transnational areas
business environments
competing hierarchies of cultural distinction asses the symbolic status of locals and more critically, that of newcomers
Virtual Migration
cultural structuring of distinction and taste in the metropolitan countries and their global hegemonies that makes the snob value of a harvard MBA, a mercedes benz, etc effective in Beijing, Boston, Buenos Aires
global mobility for Chinese americans symbolized by an American university degree
time-space compression
economic capital converted into other forms of capital, not the other way around
reproduction of social power never guaranteed esp w factors such as accent...etc
cultural capital that is difficult to translate into social capital bc there is a mismatch btwn the distinction of symbolic capital and racial identity
location & philanthropy
fengshui - importance of location, intertwined economic and cultural capital
like potlatch philanthropy depends on giving away one's economic resources
strategies of accumulation and mobility
Hong Kong = transit point for refugees and commercial flows(1842), since then - metropolis, hub of transnational corps in Asia, 3rd largest financial center in the world
obsessively engaged in accumulating capital and real estate as ways of making a living and building a nest egg against unexpected contigencies
contemporary reemigration of Hong Kongers to wthe West is a process whereby Chinese transnational strategies have become integrated w the "flexible accumulation" systems of late capitalism
most successful hong kong emigrants had thie reducation in British prep schools
quality of education is often second to the location of the school
for hong kong investors buying commercial and residential property is a means to diversify portfolios as well as a type of health insurance for capital and family
Chinese students and professionals entering the U.S. lack the appropriate racial and cultural origins that are the stereotypicla markers of racial prestige in Western democracies
politics of location: restructuring the ethnic landscape
American locations = relatively inexpensive property and the sites of moral/political security
fengshui practices of HK imms reveal a deep concern for securing not only their own economic fortune but also the fortune of the family
cultural logic and practices to transform the design of american homes
400,000 ethnic chinese live in southern california, 87% of whom are foreign born, "an extension of Asia"
Japanese colonization of downtown, "offshore" capital have the capacity in LA's wide open economy to transform any scenario through huge buy outs or injections of new investments
resentment against changing ethnic control (RCA)
NIMBY resistance
locating themselves in white suburbs instead of Chinatown, working as executives instead of restaurant workers - breach the spatial and symbolic borders that have disciplinde asian americans
out of placeness of new asian immigrants reinforces public anxiety over the "thirdworldization of the american city"
even w family fortunes, american degrees, and can-do business attitudes, Hong Kong investors can not erase coolie stigma
need to maintain overseas investment coming balanced w neighborhood groups demand for cultural standards
social barriers to their acecptance into top-drawer society "glass ceiling"
the state's future is linked more closely w the Pacific Rim countries than to Europe
cultural investment in Asian art in order to win the social approval of the city's white leaders
overseas Chinese donors show a preference for hardware (grand buildings w their names) over software (scholarships etc);
Asian imprint on prestigious "white" public space
conclusion
Westward migration of Pacific Rim capital and professionals also entails the fabrication of cultural people who operate in transnational fields
in CA - Chinese investors use wealth, political alliance, and the patronage of high culture to deflect some of the persistent racial bias against them
limits to cultural accumulation for gaining prestige in the polyethnic american city
1980s Japanese corporate investment in CA was disembodied Pacific Rim symbolic value bc the investment was not accompanied by the relocation of people
"China wave: brought both alien capital and alien bodies
middle class americans - unease over being displaced in their neighborhoods/in their native social order, + anxiety over the American city as being "too open" to foreign capital and influence are linked with a wider uncurrent panic over "losing out" in jobs, wages, home ownership, wealth to the economic dynamism of the Asia Pacific countries as embodeid in the Asian newcomers
the presence of Pacific Rim investors, perhaps more than any other wealthy immigrant group, makes ordinary Americans question thier assumption of an insular North America that is exempt from the disruptions of globalization that are happening "elsewhere"
citizenship benefits have become more precarious in a world of circulating multinational subjects - new Asian rich make whiteness a more problematic concept in the era of globalization