The “Global China, Local Cultures” research team at the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences assesses the nature and dynamics of localized cultural interactions on the BRI, by using ethnographic methods to identify how, in local contexts, “Chinese modernity” entangles with local socio-political conditions, networks, values and beliefs. Our ethnographic and qualitative methodology shifts the focus of research away from the abstract and general tenor of most studies on Chinese soft power, to the lived experience, perceptions and transformations of people in specific local communities.