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Being Chinese

Being Chinese
Being Chinese is an occasional column that contemplates and explores the cultural, existential and related aspects of Chinese experience, whether the writers are Chinese by birth, descent or osmosis.
A noodle restaurant along a largely deserted pavement in Arcadia, California. Outside the Confucian system, there is no perpetual appraisal of your earning power, your waistline or your marital status. Photo: Getty Images via AFP
Chinese culture

Being Chinese | The unspoken reason my Chinese friends choose America

When friends say they can just ‘exist’ in the US, they mean they can stop performing to the Confucian expectations that define Chinese life.

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Chinese overseas

Being Chinese | A Singaporean in Guangzhou wonders: why do I feel so at home here?

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Chinese culture

Being Chinese | A Chinese-American bride says yes to a lucky red dress

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Chinese culture

Being Chinese | If your elders stop organising Chinese New Year, will you know how to?

For most of my life, festive gatherings seemed to happen automatically. What happens when those quietly maintaining family traditions stop?

Chinese New Year decorations in a shop in Singapore’s Chinatown in January 2021. Photo: EPA-EFE
Chinese culture

Being Chinese | Rice has a place in Chinese hearts, whether we eat it or not

The importance of rice is reflected in our language and assumptions. As abundance becomes the norm, will we forget what hunger taught us?

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China society

Being Chinese | Don’t you dare come between Chinese women and our virtual boyfriends

An unexpected game character inspired a revolt by disappointed female fans. To understand why, we need to look at Chinese digital culture.

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China society

Being Chinese | The self-sacrificing Chinese mother I never wanted to become

By always stepping in, I enabled my husband to step back. But the consequences of years of unequal parenting became impossible to ignore.

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Anxious parents wave as their children emerge from the National Higher Education Entrance Examination at a high school in Beijing in 1998. In Chinese society in the 1980s and 1990s, the self-sacrificing mother could be seen and heard everywhere. Photo: AP
Chinese culture

Being Chinese | In China, I found pieces of history waiting to be carried forward

My family’s history had travelled across the Pacific, leaving gaps that descendants on both sides are still working to fill in.

Chinese culture

Being Chinese | Talking when you eat is bad for you, and other Chinese beliefs

Beyond Confucian restraint and traditional medicine, my family has urgent rules for eating bony fish and steaming hot food.

Chinese overseas

Being Chinese | When a Chinese auntie met the right uncle

We work well together because we enjoy discovering a version of ourselves in each other, and new things and new ways of being.

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Mixed-race couples often adapt to each other’s culinary traditions and cultural habits. Photo: Shutterstock
Shenzhen

Being Chinese | Once, I was proud of the Shenzhen miracle. Now I’m not so sure

The Taiwanese-influenced accent my voice carries is a relic of the 2000s and hints at how differently my generation understands modernity.

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A food delivery drone takes off from a site near Shenzhen Bay Park in Shenzhen on January 17. Photo: VCG via Getty Images
Mainland China

Being Chinese | How to deal with this ‘very Chinese time’ in Western lives

The question is not whether outsiders are getting China or Chinese culture right, but what we choose to do with their attention.

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Asian diaspora

Being Chinese | 3 months in China became 10 years. Here’s why I stayed

My three-month China stint grew to 10 years, as predictability disappeared from my work around UK-China, EU-China and US-China relations.

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Chinese culture

Being Chinese | Growing up Hakka, around a language that few dared to speak publicly

My relatives spoke Hakka, but behind closed doors. Imagine my surprise when I finally found myself in a public Hakka-speaking environment.

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Lai Chi Wo, a Hakka walled village, in the northeastern New Territories of Hong Kong in 2019. The settlement has a history of more than 300 years. Photo: Roy Issa
Chinese overseas

Being Chinese | Chinese overseas need not keep to ourselves. I certainly don’t

Half of my close friends in London are Chinese; the other half are not. This balance did not happen by accident.

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People take selfies in front of the archway of Chinatown in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2025. Photo: Xinhua
Chinese culture

Being Chinese | In New York, ‘Chinese’ doesn’t begin to capture our many tastes

In a somewhat unexpected way, moving to New York broadened my perspective on China’s vast linguistic and culinary differences.

China society

Being Chinese | In China, some of us are keeping elderly care in the family – for now

My extended family has taken time to reach a decision about my grandma’s daily care. As the rest of us age, I’m also preparing options.

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Lunar New Year

Being Chinese | The great Chinese New Year divide and how I bridged it

After sitting through the Spring Festival Gala with mainland Chinese friends, I had to introduce them to a delightful ritual from Singapore.

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Children hold up calligraphy banners they have just received for Chinese New Year in Singapore on January 29, ahead of the holiday. Photo: Xinhua
Hong Kong society

Being Chinese | I feel for young Hongkongers who say they are ‘from the UK’

Instead of mocking those who adopt a superficial Western identity, we might pause and ask: what pressure made them feel this was necessary?

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Chinese overseas

Being Chinese | A Chinese Singaporean’s dilemma: should I change my surname?

My grandparents lost their original surnames by force of circumstance. Now that I have the luxury of choice, do I restore my family name?

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China society

Being Chinese | Where do lonely hearts in China go now? Late-night live streams

I was swiping past the noise on Douyin when a calm, warm voice stopped me. So began my evenings in the world of companionship live streams.

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A woman walks in the nearly deserted shopping area of Sanlitun in Beijing in 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE
Chinese overseas

Being Chinese | In both China and the West, the art of parenting involves letting go

Grandpa, very much in the traditional mould, believed in toughening children up for the world. Mum, raising her only child, was not impressed.

A child rides a bicycle towards the Hong Kong skyline in 2011. Photo: AFP
Chinese overseas

Being Chinese | The 30-word identity pitch of an overseas Chinese

To some, “Are you Chinese?” is a question about nationality. To others, it’s about ethnicity. To cover all bases, I’ve crafted a 30-word answer.

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Women and gender

Being Chinese | Why Chinese women like me are done being quiet and ‘appropriate’

Chinese women are praised for gentleness. Our tone must please; our anger must be graceful. But a new generation is speaking out.

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Chinese culture

Being Chinese | A very Chinese funeral and all the things my family didn’t say

The Chinese have dizzyingly precise words for various family members, but families like mine express emotions through stoic suffering.

Ghost money and incense sticks are burnt in front of a gravestone during the Ching Ming Festival at a cemetery in Shanghai in 2017. Photo: AFP
Chinese overseas

Being Chinese | Looking for love in Shanghai, Chinese auntie-style

People’s Square is a ruthlessly efficient analogue of Tinder, run by elderly Chinese parents. I quickly learned about my own limits.

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Elderly parents display information about their children in the marriage market in People’s Square in Shanghai in 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE
Food and Drinks

Being Chinese | My food obsession has deep Chinese roots

The rationing era imprinted something on me – not just a craving for food, but a reverence. In Chinese culture, food is never just food.

China education

Being Chinese | How education in China has evolved, before my very eyes

Amid falling births and policy adjustments, education for one of my children is a more joyous experience than it has been for the other.

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