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AbstractHigher education can play a crucial role in shaping one's social identity, and a diploma from a prestigious institution has a positive effect on a person's social status. However, the expansion of college enrollment in 1999 in China weakened the capacity of a college diploma to confer on graduates a distinct identity as someone of high standing. For youth from rural backgrounds, higher education was once the most important channel for upward social mobility. As the social value of a college diploma has declined, most college graduates from rural backgrounds have been assigned a new identity: the "new urban poor" (NUP). This article discusses the construction and characteristics of the NUP identity in China, using evidence from television series.

This book represents a unique collection of European and Asian perspectives on the production, trade and consumption of high quality food.The rapidly growing demand for organic and quality food in Europe imposes new challenges on competing food value chains. Europe, as the biggest worldwide food importer, attracts many developing and developed countries in Asia. Prospering Chinese and Thai food markets offer new opportunities for European operators. Wealthy and informed consumers on both continents search for trustworthy high quality food products. Farmers, operators and retailers from distant cultures are coping with different standards, facing the ever increasing necessity for mutual understanding.This publication is the output of Bean-Quorum, a European funded Asia-Link project. Bean-Quorum represents a consolidated network of researchers working together with the business sector and NGOs to enhance European Asian understanding about organic and quality food.This book describes global trends in organic and quality food trade and connects them with recent developments in Asian and European market structures. Selected case studies illustrate the impact of organic and quality food production on topics ranging from sustainable rural development, to the potential of exotic new plant varieties to purchase decisions of European or Asian retail managers. Selected European markets are mirrored by the situation in Chinese and Thai markets. Finally, environmental issues concerning global trade of quality food are addressed

AbstractThis study aims to explain a commonly overlooked risk phenomenon where a community living around a hazardous facility adapts itself to the dangers posed by the facility. A survey of 434 residents was administered in the community around the Botian chemical plant in Tianjin, China. Hierarchical regression analyses indicate that place attachment negatively predicts intention to move away and positively predicts intention to protest. Moreover, it negatively moderates the relationship between risk perception and intention to move away. Employment relationship negatively affects intention to move and protest, and it negatively (positively) moderates the relationship between risk perception and intention to move (intention to protest). The total effects of place attachment and employment relationship weaken the positive effect of risk perception on protective responses.