In October 2002, a conference on Pearl S.Buck was held in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, China, to celebrete her 110th anniversary, the second such conference on Pearl S.Buck.which has been sponsored by Znenjiang municipal government—the frist one was held in 1991.I appreciate from deep of my heart the contributions made by the Zhenjiang people. And I am particularly excited to learn that the papers of the 2002 conference have been compiled into an anthology and would be published soon.

In the past several decades,Pearl S.Buck and her works have enjoyed a large audience in the West .Nobody could deny that she was a public figure at her time,even though she received some negative criticisms when she was awarded the Noble Prize for literature in 1938. It is her works,and The Good Earth in particular,that have aroused the interest of Western people in China and its culture and provoked their desire for learning about the Chinese. In this sense, Pearl S.Buck has made great contributions to the exchanges of culture between China and West,and more so betweem China and America.

With the development of cultural studies since 1980s,Peral S.Buck has begun to obtain increasingly significance in academia. As a famous writer, her double cultural identity (of both Chinese and American) and its representation in her works has become an important theme in cultural studies. For in the present situation of globalization, cultural exchanges,assimilations and hybridizations of different countries are necessarily expanding rapidly with the implementation of high—tech innovations and the opening of information highways,and consequently,Pearl S.Buck and her works are viewed as an exemplary of such cultural phenomena. Therefore, it would certainly be of great significance in both China and West to reinforce the studies of Pearl S.Buck and her works.

Now the processes of globalization are irresistibly sucking every nation and community into their hegemonic orbit. Previously held as a communicational concept, globalization now claims to be reconsidered as the logic and strategy of global capitailism, which, sweeping the entire world off its feet under its deterritorializing impact, assimilates nation—states’ markets and production spheres into a single sphere. The desire of global capitalism challenges and undermines all traditional forms of human interaction and representation. Multinational capital with its hegemonic ideology and technology seems to be globally erasing difference, imposing sameness and standardization on consciousness, feeling, imagination, motivation, desire, and taste. In exchange for multinational capital investment and for access to American lifestyles, fashions, values, and conveniences glorified and romanticized by Hollywood films, the underdeveloped and pro—modernized of the earth are unabashedly and unhesitantly surrendering their landscapes, resources, traditions, and cultural heritages to cultural capitalism.

The questions that arise from such emerging processes of globalization confronting us are: Will economic globalization lead to cultural homogenization or diversification? Is if possible to separate economic production from cultural production? If, as critics have argued, economy and cultural are two constitutive sides of social (im)material production in the day of global capitalism,then how can local and regional cultures remain unchanged when local and regional economies are undergoing radical restructuring and reconfiguration? If globalization means standardization or Americanization,then how to account for the fact that post—Fordist informatization of economy seeks to satisfy ethnic/cultural needs and preferences, does it mean that late capitalism will restrict its cultural logic only to the already modernized West? If postmodernism is the cultural logic of late capitalism and capitalism is victoriously penetrating every corner of the world,then why are there various nativist and nationalist resistances to postmodern culture everywhere,and how should one evaluate such resistances? It hybridization is the most definitive term for cultural happenings in the decentered,deterritorializad world,then is hybridization a strategic form of Westernization or indigenization? Or, does hybridization tend to cancel or cover up Western or American hegemonic sway in culture? All these are questions that we must think seriously. And Pearl S.Buck and her works no doubt can provide valuable references in our consideration.

However,some people in China still have prejudice against Pearl S.Buck up to now, resulted in their non—dialectic way of thinking and lack of historical analysis. True, different people can have different views on a writer and his/her works and it is not necessary to reach consensus. But one must free him/herself from the trammels of old conceptions and look at Pearl S.Buck and her works with a new cognitive methodology on the basis of changed social and cultural conditions. The 2002 Zhenjiang conference on Pearl S.Buck has made a successful attempt and I believe that the publication of the conference papers would promote the study of Pearl S.Buck to a new higher stage and thus contribute to the reconstruction of Chinese culture in the new historical situation.

Writer       ：Fengzhen Wang
Writefrom：June 12,2003 Beijing

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