SEMINAR: Asian Studies Seminar Series

In the early twenty-first century, the People's Republic of China continues its remarkable transformation that encompasses all facets of social life. One of the most significant, visible forms of such change is urbanization. Chinese cities are rapidly expanding and, according to some reports, will grow by a staggering 400 million people over the next several decades. In just under forty years China will have transformed from a predominantly rural to urban society, a pace of urbanization not matched in previous human experience.

Yet while migration in China has in recent decades been overwhelmingly of people moving from the countryside to the city, and to a lesser extent migration of more well educated urbanites and professionals between cities, there has been a small flow of people in the other direction, that is, of those leaving the metropolises of the eastern seaboard to seek out alternative lifestyles in the mountains of western China, and in particular to places like Yunnan in the southwest. These are akin to the "sea changers" and "tree changers" found in more affluent Western societies and can be included in the relatively new phenomenon of "lifestyle migration." This paper provides a preliminary overview of this phenomenon in the context of Dali, a prefectural city in Yunnan Province.