Cosmopatriot contamination

This article explores how Beijing Hip Hop collective Yin Tsang, visual artist Xu Bing and filmmaker Stephen Chow employ different tactics to negotiate between cosmopolitanism and patriotism. All are involved in a translation of a wide range of cultural forms, a translation that involves a betrayal and pollution of culture - be it music, language or cinema. It is argued that by reading globalization as a moment of cultural pollution, one may subvert any longing for cultural essentialism and nationalism. The strange bastard Cosmopatriotism provides an entry point to explore the possibilities of impurity.