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Will China have its own Barack Obama? | Gordon Mathews | TEDxXiguan

1,781 views · Published 21 December 2018 · 15:55 · Indexed 21 September 2026

Channel: TEDx Talks · 2018 · Nonprofits & Activism

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There are two kinds of belongings to a country, base on ethnic identity or civic identity. In this thought-provoking talk, anthropologist Gordon Mathews explains the difference and asks this fanciful question: Will China have its own Barack Obama? Is China for the world, or for Chinese only? Gordon Mathews is Professor and Chair in the Dept. of Anthropology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has written, most recently, The World in Guangzhou: Africans and Other Foreigners in South China's Global Marketplace (2017, with Lin Dan and Yang Yang, and Ghetto at the Center of the World: Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong (2011), He has in his career written or edited books about what makes life worth living in Japan and the United States, about the global cultural supermarket and the meanings of culture today, about the Japanese generation gap, about what it means to "belong to a nation" in Hong Kong and elsewhere, about how different societies conceive of happiness, and about low-end globalization around the world. His current research explores senses of life after death in the United States, Japan, and China. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

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