COMM320 Media , Culture and the City
traditions ,’ ( p . 77 ), but he also mentioned that cosmopolitans such as the Pakistani haji would not be considered as such in their environment , which was disagreed by Werbner ( 2006 ). Building upon the belief that the identity as cosmopolitan encompasses people from different classes , Werbner ( 2006 ; 2008 ) further developed the concept of vernacular cosmopolitanism , which initially was possibly coined by Bhabha ( 1996 , cited in Werner , 2006 ), combining ‘ local specificity and universal enlightenment ’ ( p . 496 ).
Therefore , a vernacular cosmopolitan city is a bottomup cosmopolitan city ( Werbner , 2006 ; Georgiou , 2013 ). In such a city , cosmopolitan lifestyles are ‘ necessities ’ imposed on the transnational people by globalisation , instead of rewards for social status or education ( Hall , 2008 , p . 347 ). This can be exemplified in Chinatown , New York City in a documentary film called ‘
Saving the Oldest Store in NYC ’ s Chinatown ’ ( Great Big Story , 2019 ). In the film , Mei Lum is a Chinese American person who owns Wing On Wo , a Chinese porcelain wares shop
SOTA Anthology 19 / 20
that her great-great-grandfather started in Chinatown , New York City in 1890 . She took over the shop after learning that her grandparents were going to sell it confronted with gentrification projects in the city . To both Mei ’ s ancestors who owned the shop and Mei , operating a Chinese porcelain shop in New York City is not a reward for wealth but a necessity for survival in the city ( Hall , 2008 , p . 347 ). To Mei , she chose to operate it as she wanted to reclaim her community ’ s social place in the city under the neoliberal projects initiated by hegemonic capitalist forces . To her diasporic ancestors , as it introduced in the film , they clustered around Chinatown under the urban social situation of marginalization and alienation ‘ to pass a safe space ’ ( Great Big Story , 2019 ). These can show an individual ’ s tactics for survival in daily life under the overarching urban strategies , which is a bottomup process ( De Certeu , 1995 ). Moreover , the film itself that portrays the bottom-up story of the placemaking of Chinatown contributes to the urban image of New York City as a bottom-up cosmopolitan city . Harvey ( 1989 ,