A study of the effects of globalization on the living space in East Asian metropolises including Hong Kong, Tokyo and Shanghai. The author attempts to explain how walking in the global city reveals the contradiction between everyday life and globalization.

This book studies the effects of globalization on the living space in East Asian metropolises including Hong Kong, Tokyo and Shanghai. The author attempts to explain how walking in the global city reveals the contradiction between everyday life and globalization. It is through walking that one witnesses vividly the oscillation between the yearning evoked by the ideology of open space and the dejection caused by the compression of living space as a consequence of capital globalization. The book draws on films and literary works that address the politics of walking including Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai's film Chungking Express, Japanese director Shinya Tsukamoto's works Tetsuo, The Body Hammer and Tokyo Fist, and Chinese novelist Wang Anyi's "Meitou," "Looking for Shanghai" and The Song of Endless Sorrows.