In the last 30 years, China has seen the most extraordinary economic growth, fuelled by a rapid urban development whose scale and speed are unprecedented in human history for both the increase of construction projects and urban population (Friedmann 2005; Wu 2007; Hsing 2010; Zhang 2011), a point also emphasized by Minna Valjakka and Meiqin Wang in the introduction to this anthology. Understandably, Chinese urbanization has become a heated topic of broad academic interest and scholars worldwide have produced works as they observe and discuss the urban transformation of this former socialist and largely rural country (see e.g. Wu 2007; Campanella 2008; Hsing 2010). However, most existing scholarship on the topic concerns the tangible and quantifiable aspects of this transformation, such as policy changes, the physical expansion of the cities, the migration of massive populations, the construction boom, and the widening social inequality. While these are all very important aspects to research, I argue that more attention should be given to the intangible processes of the transformation, such as how individual urban residents experience and perceive their changing cities through cultural means for a more holistic and multifaceted understanding of China's urban aspiration and its consequences. After all, as stressed by historian Yuval Noah Harari (2008, 2015), cultural expressions of human experiences and perceptions of the tangible reality in various forms such as literature, visual arts, and films are as important, if not more, for the evolution of humankind and the development of human society.