Humans continually strive for the higher aspects of their own potentialities; to be more compassionate, loving, and creative; to create more exquisite poetry and arts; to prefect themselves and the world around them. In Western psychology, such striving is variously called “self-actualization” (Maslow,1970; Rogers, 1951), “healthy personality”(Jourard & Landsman, 1980), “ideal personality” (Allport, 1961) or “optimal personality” (Coan, 1974). In the Chinese cultural heritage, Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism all have visions for the “ideal person” or a “perfect life”. Together the ideals of “benevolence” (jen) in Confucianism, “tao” in Taoism, and “enlightenment” in Buddhism constitute the core construct of self-actualization for the Chinese people. The present research started with a theoretical analysis of the discourses of self-actualization as embedded in the traditional Chinese and Western cultural contexts. Concepts of individual-oriented self-actualization based on an independent and self-contained self in the Western culture and those of social-oriented self-actualization based on an interdependent and ensembled self in the Chinese culture were elaborated. Subsequently, qualitative methods of focus group and essay writing were adopted to collect empirical data from Taiwanese college students. Analysis revealed three major constituents of views of self-actualization among the young Chinese generation. These were: to become oneself completely, to repay the family with personal accomplishments, and expanding personal well-being to serve the community. Finally, a tentative dialogue was attempted between the theoretical analysis and empirical interpretations, to reflect the lived reality of the East- West cultural fusion and integration for contemporary young Chinese regarding self-actualization.