Yidan Gao
Figure 1 : Mei and her grandmother at Wing On Wo ( Great Big Story , 2019 ).
p . 14 ) argues that ‘ If anyone […] can participate in the production of an urban image through their production of social space , then all can at least feel some sense of belonging to that space .’ Georgiou ( 2010 ) also argues that space of belonging can be symbolic . Hence , the media exposure of the film can help residents in Chinatown enhance a sense of belonging to the city .
In addition to being bottomup , a vernacular cosmopolitan city is also practice-oriented ( Christensen & Jansson , 2015 , p . 13 ; Georgiou , 2013 ). Reflected on the symbolic vernacular cosmopolitan city , it means
71 the representations of the city are from the street level ( De Certeu , 1995 ), focusing on individual experience and the grounded realities . For instance , in the film , New York City is a lived place , rather than a rationally formulated place or an imagined place made for consumption . Moreover , the quality of being grounded to the realities gives rise to the complexity of historical and social issues and intern tension in a vernacular cosmopolitan city ’ s representations , and thus the city is not harmonious but multivocal ( Georgiou , 2013 ). Vernacular cosmopolitanism tends to be ‘ reflexive , wounded