Critical cosmopolitanism in the emergence of cultural modernity: reflections on discursive imagination in Hong Kong and Shanghai

One might ask, what are the colors of cosmopolitan hybridity, and to what extent does or can the totality of representation that frames cultural discourse take on a life of its own? This paper examines the pictorial history of City Magazine (haowai) and the underlying mentalite that made it a successful voice in the emergence of 1980s pop culture in Hong Kong. But was this success the product of its distinctive eclectic, critical ethos that underscored its content or the systematic end point of a sophisticated commoditization of its extrinsic social values?.