Abstract: This paper points out that the concept of “marginal man”,derived from Simmel's concept of “stranger”,embodies a fusion of formal sociology and American pragmatism in the early Chicago School theory. This kind of theoretical fusion gave birth to the research method focusing on life history,and at the same time,the investigation of the objective new and old life stage of the individual and the individual's subjective grasp of the conflict between the new and the old life served as the predecessor of the later “career approach” of the Chicago School. In the early 20^th century,some Chicago School ethnographers studied three types of urban “strangers” of taxi-dancers,Chinese laundrymen in America and Peking prisoners. These studies showed profoundly different images of old to new life conflicts. Taxi-dancers were able to “move on” from their old life,while Chinese laundrymen firmly held on to tradition and family of their home country in order to cope with the new challenges and Peking prisoners were those who failed to adapt and turned to crimes after being uprooted from their old life. This paper concludes that neither Chinese laundrymen nor Peking prisoners were able to adapt to the new urban life by “moving on” from their previous family and village life. Thus,their paths to modernity is fundamentally different from that of the “marginal man”. Finally,the paper applies Park's views on “civilization” to explain these different Chinese and Western individuals' paths to urban life.

Key words: stranger, marginal man, taxi-dancers, Chinese laundrymen, Peking prisoners