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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.
China’s Zheng Qinwen plays a match during the US Open at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Centre on September 7. Photo: CSM via Zuma Press Wire/dpa
US Open (tennis)

Being Chinese | What’s so Chinese about US Open tennis players like Zheng Qinwen?

From afar, Chinese tennis stars can appear as a cohort, their names accompanied by the same flag. Up close, they’re nothing like one another.

Chinese culture

Being Chinese | The unspoken reason my Chinese friends choose America

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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

The cheongsam I wore to my wedding tea ceremony wasn’t just another outfit. It was my way of celebrating my father and my heritage.

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The Hong Kong Wedding Fair at the Convention and Exhibition Centre in 2025. Photo: Dickson Lee
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 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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A wallpaper featuring Xavier, a male character in Love and Deepspace. The Chinese mobile romance game combines cinematic 3D graphics, combat and an ambitious science fiction story with in-game dating. Photo: Papergames
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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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.

A family carries on eating during a flood in Liling, Hunan province. Photo: AFP
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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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 traffic police officers walk by a US flag on an embassy car outside a hotel in Shanghai on July 30, 2019, as officials from both sides met for talks aimed at ending a tariff war. Photo: AP
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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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.

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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.

A daughter feeds her mother at a community elderly care centre in Suzhou, Jiangsu province in 2020. As families grow smaller in China, different generations face different decisions on elderly care. Photo: Xinhua
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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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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Door gods glower at Thian Hock Keng, Singapore’s oldest Hokkien temple, in 2022. Now a national monument, the temple was built and dedicated to Ma Zu, the protector of seafarers, in the 1840s, an era when long journeys could only be made by sea. Photo: Shutterstock
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.

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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Young women go through etiquette training at a vocational school in Beijing in 2007, ahead of the 2008 Olympics. Photo: Reuters
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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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.

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