Identities in transition

East Asia is witnessing a large-scale rural-to-urban migration. Cities act as magnets for both economic and existential mobility of young people in pursuit of job opportunities and cosmopolitan lifestyles. Women especially often seek relief from the constraints imposed by family expectations, including early marriage, childrearing and eldercare, or the responsibility associated with rural labour. Social media provide new city dwellers a platform through which showcasing their urban identity in the making. Often, in trying to offer an optimistic vision of one’s own achievement, young migrants conceal darker aspects of such displacement. The rural life is sometimes looked upon with nostalgia, whose very display simultaneously conveys distance from the past self. However, participation in the public activities allows the performance of one’s newly acquired status within the rural community. Images of such events, when circulated through social media, ultimately sanction this self- transformation, blurring the boundaries between virtual and physical space.