Banyan tree and migrant cities: Some provisional thoughts for a strategic postcolonial cosmopolitanism

China is experiencing the largest mass migration in human history, Chinese urbanites today amount to twice the total US population. This chapter explores the changing cultural values, worldviews and built environments in the transcultural network of migrant cities. Most of us are now migrants to a certain degree. It is a common fate for all. In this increasingly diasporic intercultural and interracial life-world, there is an urgency in contemplating a form of rooted cosmopolitanism. The diverse societies resulting from the influx of migrants, who belong to a variety of ethnic groups, intensify the need for recognition for these minority migrant communities. This chapter provides an analogy that every banyan tree individually forms a mongrel 'banyan-place' - a combination of tree, human and building; a hybrid of Britain, Hong Kong, China and others; a mixed memory of modern, postmodern, colonial and postcolonial eras.