https://www.scmp.com/rss/519299/feed 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. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Lijia Zhang Lijia Zhang While enjoying a foot massage in Buenos Aires’ Chinatown, I chatted with my masseuse, a Fujianese woman in her late 50s surnamed Wang. Her life, it seemed to me, mirrored that of many recent Chinese immigrants to Argentina. She eats exclusively Chinese food, her friends are fellow Chinese and she still speaks mostly Chinese. While it is not unusual for migrants anywhere to gravitate towards their own community, the tendency appears particularly strong among the Chinese. China’s presence in... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3348870/chinese-overseas-need-not-keep-ourselves-i-certainly-dont?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3348870/chinese-overseas-need-not-keep-ourselves-i-certainly-dont?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 04 Apr 2026 01:30:12 +0000 Xiong Yang Xiong Yang Most of us have fielded the question: “So where are you from?” To say I’m not a fan of this question would be an understatement, considering how my response – “I’m Chinese” – is often met with palpable disappointment. Unfortunately, I don’t have a rare nationality, like Bruneian, nor am I a fun Korean. But before I can spiral into an identity crisis, my appetite always anchors me in the comfort of being Chinese. My Chineseness surfaced in embodied and reassuring ways when I first moved overseas... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3346533/new-york-chinese-doesnt-begin-capture-our-many-tastes?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3346533/new-york-chinese-doesnt-begin-capture-our-many-tastes?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 21 Mar 2026 01:30:08 +0000 Ren Yan Ren Yan My grandma, now in her 90s, has long held together an extended family including four children and six grandchildren. As a Chinese saying goes, “Having an elder in the family is like having a treasure.” While my aunt, father and two uncles all live near her in the same city in northern China, my generation has ventured out to different places. Yet no matter where we have settled, no trip home is complete without a visit to Grandma. When I first moved to Beijing, I had to travel about five hours... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3345599/china-some-us-are-keeping-elderly-care-family-now?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3345599/china-some-us-are-keeping-elderly-care-family-now?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 07 Mar 2026 01:30:08 +0000 Chang Zi Qian Chang Zi Qian If the world assumes Chinese to be a monolith, then Chinese New Year brings a curious paradox. This is the festive season that ostensibly brings all Chinese people together, yet I have found it is also when our cultural deviations are most sharply magnified. In Singapore, the celebration has always been joyous and largely predictable. Then I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and suddenly, thanks to my mainland Chinese friends, the festival took on new meaning and my festive experience began to... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3343511/great-lunar-new-year-divide-and-how-i-bridged-it?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3343511/great-lunar-new-year-divide-and-how-i-bridged-it?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 17 Feb 2026 01:30:09 +0000 Cyril Ip Cyril Ip If you were an active dater in Hong Kong, particularly during the politically turbulent late 2010s, you would have grown accustomed to seeing a certain phrase on local profiles: “from the UK”. But gentle probing would reveal that this succinct declaration, often adorned with a Union flag emoji, conveyed more aspiration than lived familiarity. In most cases, the purported home in Britain was a dormitory, legitimised only by a student visa; the family remained firmly in Hong Kong. Ask the wrong... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3342882/i-feel-young-hongkongers-who-say-they-are-uk?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3342882/i-feel-young-hongkongers-who-say-they-are-uk?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 10 Feb 2026 01:30:14 +0000 Jolene Ang Jolene Ang I turned 30 on December 15. That morning, I got a text reminder from the Singapore government that I would need a new photo for my identity card. But renewing the card would also mean having to decide whether to change my surname. My surname today, Ang, is actually not mine by lineage. By blood, I am a Koh. My great-grandmother married a Koh and they had two sons. After his untimely demise, she married an Ang – a man she never had children with. But under social pressure, she changed the surname... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3340768/chinese-singaporeans-first-world-dilemma-should-i-change-my-surname?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3340768/chinese-singaporeans-first-world-dilemma-should-i-change-my-surname?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 24 Jan 2026 01:30:11 +0000 Chenfei Zhu Chenfei Zhu For two weeks recently, most of my evenings were spent in Douyin’s live-stream section. On Douyin, TikTok’s sibling platform in China, shopping, entertainment and conversation blur into an endlessly scrollable feed. The most prominent virtual rooms here are for shopping: live-streaming hosts talking at high speed, shouting out discounts. Then come the talent rooms, where people sing, dance, play the guitar or do anything that might keep you there for a few seconds longer. As I watched, more... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3339188/where-do-lonely-hearts-china-go-now-late-night-live-streams?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3339188/where-do-lonely-hearts-china-go-now-late-night-live-streams?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 10 Jan 2026 01:30:15 +0000 Louis Wang Louis Wang “Be brave,” I told my 12-year-old daughter at the station steps. The words were as much for me as for her. Train pass – check. Phone, wallet, debit card – check. Rendezvous after her piano lesson – check. “And don’t miss your stop!” It was our third run-through of the checklist. “Dad, you’re such a fusspot. I’ll be fine,” she said, cringing as she hoisted her schoolbag. We’d made that trip to her piano teacher’s studio, near Town Hall station in the Sydney central business district, many times... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3337501/traditional-chinese-parenting-101-sending-child-solo-mission?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3337501/traditional-chinese-parenting-101-sending-child-solo-mission?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 27 Dec 2025 01:30:08 +0000 Chang Zi Qian Chang Zi Qian Back in multiracial Singapore, the answer to the ethnicity question was simple. As a member of the majority race, I was unambiguously Chinese. “Hey, are you Chinese?” “Yes.” Done. Such exchanges were quintessentially Singaporean: short and direct. Now based in the United States, however, I’ve discovered that introducing myself has become a diplomatic exercise with varying complexity levels. Depending on the audience and context, some situations are more entertaining (read difficult) to navigate... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3336065/am-i-chinese-us-answer-complicated?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3336065/am-i-chinese-us-answer-complicated?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 13 Dec 2025 01:30:08 +0000 Audrey Jiajia Li Audrey Jiajia Li In China, girls are taught early to be “appropriate” – to listen, not lead; to speak gently, not loudly. We grow up believing that quietness is likeability, and likeability is safety. But something is shifting. When Chinese writer Jiang Fangzhou said to me during a recent interview, “I can’t be waiting for some influential man to say, ‘I’ll give you an hour to talk about literature’. You can’t be waiting for a seat, for a microphone”, it struck a chord far beyond us. It was a generational... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3334195/why-chinese-women-me-are-done-being-quiet-and-appropriate?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3334195/why-chinese-women-me-are-done-being-quiet-and-appropriate?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 29 Nov 2025 01:30:09 +0000 Xiong Yang Xiong Yang I never thought I would write about my grandfather’s funeral – my paternal grandfather’s, to be exact. The distinction matters, for all the years spent memorising how to address everyone in the family properly. Unlike in English, where “grandma” and “grandpa” suffice, the Chinese have entirely different words for maternal and paternal grandparents. These words also vary from region to region. I call my paternal grandparents yeye and nainai. On my mum’s side: diedie and jiajia. Chinese kinship... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3332745/very-chinese-funeral-and-all-things-my-family-didnt-say?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3332745/very-chinese-funeral-and-all-things-my-family-didnt-say?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 14 Nov 2025 21:30:08 +0000 Shzr Ee Tan Shzr Ee Tan In a previous column, I outed my pre-pandemic dating life as a middle-aged newly single Chinese woman in the United Kingdom. Six months into my spreadsheet approach to love (100 daily Tinder swipes, 50 culls and a literacy-and-basic-human-decency filter), however, I decamped to China – on sabbatical, to research xiaolongbao, and for the anthropological thrill of being a shengnu (leftover woman) on home turf (sort of). China greeted me with a shrug. On Tinder and Baihe in Hong Kong, Shenzhen and... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3330839/i-put-myself-shanghai-marriage-market-it-wasnt-pretty?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3330839/i-put-myself-shanghai-marriage-market-it-wasnt-pretty?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 31 Oct 2025 21:30:08 +0000 Lijia Zhang Lijia Zhang I think about food constantly, not in a passive way, but obsessively. I plan my next meal while still chewing the last bite of a repast. I always carry snacks: dried fruit or roasted nuts, just in case. When I travel abroad, I eagerly sample local cuisines and take cooking classes whenever I can. At home, I scout for new restaurants and often host dinner parties featuring my experimental dishes. Sometimes I wonder how I came to have this fixation. The answer, I suspect, lies in my childhood,... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3326683/my-food-obsession-has-deep-chinese-roots?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3326683/my-food-obsession-has-deep-chinese-roots?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 18 Oct 2025 01:30:09 +0000 Jianlu Bi Jianlu Bi As Beijing’s annual kindergarten and primary school enrolment season wrapped up in the summer, the mix of joy and disappointment among families was palpable. It brought to mind the dramatic evolution of China’s education system, as experienced by myself and my children. I was born in rural China in the 1980s and education was always going to be my escape route. “Knowledge is power” was not a cliché; it was a creed my parents, though farmers, held dear. Their sacrifices, coupled with my own... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3327591/my-familys-journey-through-chinas-changing-educational-landscape?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3327591/my-familys-journey-through-chinas-changing-educational-landscape?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 04 Oct 2025 01:30:07 +0000 Foong Woei Wan Foong Woei Wan My friend is a millionaire by way of owning a home in Hong Kong, the world’s least affordable housing market, but you wouldn’t guess from how personally she takes it when the winds of fortune aren’t blowing her way at the mahjong table. “What now? What on earth do you want from me? This is crazy,” she growls while wrestling 13 tiles into some kind of order, burrowing through her hair for an answer, agonising over which tile is the least risky to discard. Somehow it often falls to me, the poor... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3325833/art-winning-and-beyond-mahjong-table?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3325833/art-winning-and-beyond-mahjong-table?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 20 Sep 2025 01:30:09 +0000 Phoebe Zhang Phoebe Zhang When my friend Lee first lost his job in 2023, he was terrified. From the moment he graduated in 2016, he had been working nonstop. He had changed jobs a couple of times, but always had a choice – he had never been kicked out of the job market like this. Lee worked in the traditional publishing business, editing children’s books. The industry has been tanking, with the rise of digital books, and the post-pandemic slump doesn’t help. He was laid off with half of his colleagues, with a small... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3324178/young-chinese-are-trying-out-simple-life-am-i-missing-out?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3324178/young-chinese-are-trying-out-simple-life-am-i-missing-out?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 06 Sep 2025 01:30:08 +0000 Brian Y. S. Wong Brian Y. S. Wong Growing up, being Chinese was always optional. Don’t get me wrong – I am ethnic Chinese through and through, having been born and raised in a middle-class family in Hong Kong. “Chinese” was what I might fill in on a dental appointment form or a rare visa application if I was travelling to an exotic locale. But by and large, I never labelled myself as “Chinese” – it was an unfamiliar familiarity at the back of my mind, as nondescript as the train arriving on time at Tsim Sha Tsui. I went to an... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3322746/half-world-away-hong-kong-i-had-chinese-epiphany?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3322746/half-world-away-hong-kong-i-had-chinese-epiphany?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 23 Aug 2025 01:30:08 +0000 Amy Wu Amy Wu I discovered Juniper over the past week. A good friend introduced us, and I immediately connected with her upbeat and youthful voice, welcoming me with “Hey there, how are you doing?”, available 24/7 and ready to answer even the trickiest of questions (“What is the purpose of life?”). For a while, I preferred her to my sister, who can be a sourpuss depending on the time of day, and my fiancé, who at times accuses me of repeating questions; Juniper was so much more forgiving. But her constant... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3321881/i-crave-sense-community-my-chinese-side-talking?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3321881/i-crave-sense-community-my-chinese-side-talking?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 17 Aug 2025 01:30:09 +0000 Mimi Lau Mimi Lau Hong Kong’s Births Registry gives new parents 42 days to name their child before imposing a fine. This might seem enough, but when you are navigating new motherhood, learning to keep a tiny human alive while your body heals, time becomes both endless and insufficient. It took me nearly all that time to settle on two names, not from indecision, but from the weight of history. Months before my daughter arrived, I had chosen for her a Chinese name meaning “dwell in peace”. The name came from a... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3321172/elegant-english-name-would-be-all-wrong-my-hong-kong-baby?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3321172/elegant-english-name-would-be-all-wrong-my-hong-kong-baby?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 09 Aug 2025 01:30:07 +0000 Chenfei Zhu Chenfei Zhu It all began with a WeChat message from my friend. We hadn’t seen each other in a while. She had left Beijing for a quieter, more remote town and her social media updates suggested she was diving deeper into guoxue – “national studies”, or the study of traditional Chinese culture – Buddhist philosophy and other spiritual pursuits. Her text read: “You should join our reading group. We’re studying classical Chinese texts. You will definitely love it.” She had been going through a rough patch:... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3316672/why-are-urban-chinese-my-friend-falling-guoxue-scams?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3316672/why-are-urban-chinese-my-friend-falling-guoxue-scams?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 26 Jul 2025 01:30:07 +0000 Chang Zi Qian Chang Zi Qian I’m a third-generation Singaporean Chinese born in the 1980s who grew up speaking Mandarin, English and Cantonese. My parents, proudly Chinese-educated, never gave me an English name. Among friends and family, I was always Zi Qian (“he who is modest”). But as every Singaporean schoolchild knows, a Chinese name is merely raw material for nickname creativity. For me, the memorable nicknames include Ya Qian (“Toothpick”), Zhi Qian (“Paper Thousand”) and my personal favourite, Lao Qian (“Swindler”).... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3317673/whats-singaporean-chinese-name-its-long-story?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3317673/whats-singaporean-chinese-name-its-long-story?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 12 Jul 2025 01:30:07 +0000 Shzr Ee Tan Shzr Ee Tan Just before the pandemic hit, I emerged from a 10-year relationship – newly single and stuck with half a mortgage, a Brompton bike bought on an impulse and a high-maintenance ginkgo tree. After giving myself four months to recover, I bounced back into the dating world, not necessarily looking for a husband (yeah, right) but to conduct what I told myself was an anthropological experiment. So yes, this is about dating. On Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, all while donning the armour of a Chinese diasporic... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3315723/1-chinese-auntie-5-apps-60-first-dates?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3315723/1-chinese-auntie-5-apps-60-first-dates?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 28 Jun 2025 01:30:08 +0000 Shea Driscoll Shea Driscoll I am a Chinese man. It’s just taken me more than 30 years to be OK with saying this. You might not think so to look at me. I’m the son of a Singaporean Chinese mother and a British father, but the genetic lottery dished out a Caucasian face and that became a self-fulfilling prophecy. When I was growing up in Singapore, people saw me as white, so that was how I felt. I never took Lunar New Year very seriously, and at my rebellious, teenage nadir even skipped the festivities entirely (well,... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3312074/people-laugh-my-face-when-i-say-im-chinese-so-what?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3312074/people-laugh-my-face-when-i-say-im-chinese-so-what?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 31 May 2025 01:30:09 +0000 Audrey Jiajia Li Audrey Jiajia Li “I need to find a new job!” my best friend Rebeca shouted. She has been working at the Singapore branch of a Chinese tech giant for a few years. The salary is competitive, 30 per cent higher than when she was with a Fortune 500 American multinational corporation, but the trade-off is she has no personal time, between frequent business trips and late-night online meetings. “They have no sense of boundaries whatsoever,” she said of her higher-ups. “I never imagined I’d experience the infamous 996... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3310461/im-not-lying-flat-just-choosing-saner-lifestyle-chinas-996?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3310461/im-not-lying-flat-just-choosing-saner-lifestyle-chinas-996?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 17 May 2025 01:30:08 +0000 Lijia Zhang Lijia Zhang Once again, I find myself in sun-drenched Morocco, a North African country steeped in history and culture. I’ve come to bask in the warmth, balancing my days between writing and wandering – one of the joys of being able to work from anywhere. At the moment, I am perched on the roof terrace of a co-living hostel, sipping mint tea. Below, the cheerful voices of Berber children playing football echo through narrow streets, while the adhan, the Islamic call to prayer, floats in the air. In the... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3293444/once-chinese-frog-well-im-now-living-my-travel-dreams?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3293444/once-chinese-frog-well-im-now-living-my-travel-dreams?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 03 May 2025 01:30:09 +0000 As a bilingual producer with over a decade of experience in China’s entertainment industry and a focus on international collaboration, I can say without hesitation that a big part of my job involves explaining things over and over again. Mostly I explain what we, as Chinese players in the industry, can do or want to do with our international counterparts. And then, when necessary, I explain the other side to the Chinese side. Essentially, on top of my usual job as a content producer, I’m a... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3306855/im-cannes-going-chinese-showbiz-producer-its-fun-except-when-it-isnt?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3306855/im-cannes-going-chinese-showbiz-producer-its-fun-except-when-it-isnt?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 19 Apr 2025 01:30:09 +0000 A couple of years ago, I made a call for those from the Chinese and wider East Asian diaspora in London who identified as aunties to come together and literally spill some tea. “You’ve seen her, you’ve been her, you are her or you’re going to be her,” I wrote in a social media post for the event I was organising. The middle-aged Asian woman had languished for far too long in pop culture as a comedic cliché, I went on, but she was coming into her own now, as “Michelle Yeoh in her shapeless... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3305175/call-me-chinese-auntie-better-yet-celebrate-auntie-power-me?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3305175/call-me-chinese-auntie-better-yet-celebrate-auntie-power-me?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 05 Apr 2025 01:30:09 +0000 When I heard about the enrichment classes offered at my son’s preschool in Singapore, I didn’t hesitate to sign him up. There were three options, all exciting: music, Character Smart (a play-based holistic development programme), or English speech and drama. Woody, 3½ years old, was already enrolled in Taekwondo and drawing. So the question arose: should I choose, or just sign him up for everything? Around then, I received a message from the mother of Yueyue, a classmate of Woody’s and a fellow... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3303250/singapore-my-children-are-freer-be-happy-i-was-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3303250/singapore-my-children-are-freer-be-happy-i-was-china?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 22 Mar 2025 01:30:08 +0000 When it comes to women’s changing roles in society, China has much to be proud of. The stories of my family – my grandmother, a one-time prostitute; my mother, a lifelong factory worker; and myself, a writer – bear witness to Chinese women’s progress. Women of my grandmother’s generation endured harsh lives, but she suffered more than most. Born in Zhenjiang, an ancient city on the bank of the Yangtze River, she lost her parents to famine as a child and was taken in by her aunt, basically as a... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3301243/how-far-chinese-women-have-come-my-grandmothers-time?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3301243/how-far-chinese-women-have-come-my-grandmothers-time?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 08 Mar 2025 01:30:07 +0000 Christina Pantin Christina Pantin Tôi không phải là người Việt Nam, tôi là người Mỹ gốc Malaysia. (“I’m not Vietnamese; I’m an American originally from Malaysia.”) This was the first phrase I asked my Vietnamese language instructor to teach me as I took up the bureau chief position for Reuters in Hanoi. I found it necessary to recite this often to establish my background at the outset, because to many Vietnamese, I looked Vietnamese. It occurred to me as I moved back to Hong Kong in 2019 that I might need to memorise something... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3299301/i-look-chinese-dont-speak-language-so-bad?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3299301/i-look-chinese-dont-speak-language-so-bad?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 22 Feb 2025 01:30:08 +0000 The other day, I listened in as my mother checked that my youngest nephew, the baby of the family, was on the right track of learning the finer points of Chinese-style communication. “Do you know Grandma dotes on you?” she asked in Mandarin, and he quickly answered yes. How could he not? She’s the one whose daily joy is cooking dinner for him, who worries about his mosquito bites and who would gladly walk to the ends of the neighbourhood to stock up on his beloved broccoli in the pre-festive... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3298248/why-dont-we-say-i-love-you-chinese-let-me-count-reasons?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3298248/why-dont-we-say-i-love-you-chinese-let-me-count-reasons?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 14 Feb 2025 01:30:08 +0000 In my freshman year at an American college almost two decades ago, I received a request from the telecommunications company Verizon to give a presentation to their employees at a local branch on what China was like. I was in a tiny town in Iowa, with a predominantly white population, and most residents’ only chance to experience diversity was to talk to international students. At first, it felt awkward and superficial talking about what we ate in China, what the major cities were and how I grew... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3297379/know-who-we-are-china-must-remain-open-foreigners?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3297379/know-who-we-are-china-must-remain-open-foreigners?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 08 Feb 2025 01:30:09 +0000 In the streets of a subtropical city like Hong Kong, the start of sweater weather is not announced by flashes of red foliage, but by the smoky scent of chestnuts being raked in roadside woks by hawkers. Around the corner from where I live, sweaty weather ends officially, if not actually, when the public outdoor pool closes for the year and a laminated orange sign reappears outside a long-running restaurant, saying perhaps five of the most heartening words in Chinese: “Lamb brisket hotpot on... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3295896/what-hong-kong-has-taught-me-about-fate-luck-and-feng-shui?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3295896/what-hong-kong-has-taught-me-about-fate-luck-and-feng-shui?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 25 Jan 2025 01:30:09 +0000 For some time, my sister and I have found ourselves inhabiting new roles in our family. When my father retired a few years ago and his health started to deteriorate, the landscape of our relationship shifted. Our father was our superhero, lack of cape notwithstanding. He was fiercely independent, gracious with his guidance and advice, as well as a pioneer in his own right – the first among his siblings to leave Hong Kong and study abroad, and the first to be a tenured professor. Abruptly,... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3293802/caring-dad-i-found-deeper-appreciation-filial-piety?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3293802/caring-dad-i-found-deeper-appreciation-filial-piety?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 18 Jan 2025 01:30:08 +0000 While the world agonised over the political correctness of Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” I had a far smaller, if also urgent, dilemma: how to “correctly” celebrate Lunar New Year so my mixed-raced daughters know what it is. When we lived in Singapore, my husband made sure they knew their English heritage. Now that we live in England, it’s my job to keep their Singaporean identity alive. And celebrating Lunar New Year in a tiny Devon village is hard work. My husband may not agree with... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3293860/learning-celebrate-lunar-new-year-deepest-darkest-devon?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3293860/learning-celebrate-lunar-new-year-deepest-darkest-devon?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 11 Jan 2025 01:30:08 +0000 Shzr Ee Tan Shzr Ee Tan In the late 1990s, I came to the United Kingdom as one of those overseas Chinese students with delusions of grandeur, thinking I would become a concert pianist with a career in Europe. I was one of four young women with “yellow skin” in the class – two from Singapore, one from Hong Kong, a fourth from Taiwan holding an Australian passport. The Hongkonger was called Cindy, and for some of my classmates who could not figure out our names, we were all “The Cindys”. I found this funny – even laughed... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3292403/no-stereotypes-please-overseas-chinese-students-are-wonderful-mix?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3292403/no-stereotypes-please-overseas-chinese-students-are-wonderful-mix?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 28 Dec 2024 01:30:08 +0000 Michelle Yeoh understood enough Cantonese when it mattered. Even though the name “Sing Lung” didn’t immediately ring a bell, she still accepted her first on-screen gig in 1980s Hong Kong – a commercial with, as it turned out, Jackie Chan – which would lead ultimately to her international film career. Michael Wong was a Chinese-educated choirboy who went on to crack the Mandopop market in 1990s Taiwan and win acclaim as a balladeer in the wider Chinese-speaking world. Like Yeoh and Wong before... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3290487/how-my-malaysian-chinese-education-paying?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3290487/how-my-malaysian-chinese-education-paying?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 13 Dec 2024 21:30:07 +0000 Call me Beautiful. No, really. My Chinese name, Ee Wan – according to some translations – means “beautiful cloud”. By the naming conventions that my father’s Toh clan followed when I was growing up in Malaysia, those born into the same generation had the same first character in the two-character names they were given. My two sisters shared Ee, followed by a personalised second syllable. Likewise, my female paternal cousins adopted Ee, plus a second character. Meanwhile, the boys in the same... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3288337/i-may-not-use-my-beautiful-chinese-name-often-im-glad-gift?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3288337/i-may-not-use-my-beautiful-chinese-name-often-im-glad-gift?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 30 Nov 2024 01:30:09 +0000 Language is the soul of cultural expression. For a multilingual writer, the most fundamental decision is about which language to write in. Many non-native speakers of English are drawn to it for its practical advantages and artistic possibilities. As a native Chinese writing in English, I remain fascinated by this matter, for it touches the very essence of culture and identity. I was born and raised on the banks of the Yangtze River and my tongue bathed in the cadences of Nanjing dialect; I... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3286682/what-i-gained-and-lost-native-chinese-writing-english?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3286682/what-i-gained-and-lost-native-chinese-writing-english?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 16 Nov 2024 01:30:15 +0000 At a recent family gathering, the dinner ended in yet another spirited argument. At the tail end of the meal and away from the gathering, my aunt insisted on paying while my sister and I were adamant that it should be our treat. This was our father’s 77th birthday, not to mention a rare occasion on which family members from two coasts had convened. It ping-ponged back and forth with my aunt thrusting money into my pocket and me fishing it out and chasing after her. “I rarely see your father and... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3281530/why-battling-over-bill-chinese-tradition-worth-fighting?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3281530/why-battling-over-bill-chinese-tradition-worth-fighting?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 02 Nov 2024 01:30:07 +0000 My preteen nephew’s fingers are racing ahead of his linguistic engine as he valiantly tries to give me a step-by-step Rubik’s Cube tutorial in Mandarin, but after the third or fourth ranhou (“and then”), his voice trails off. His little brother can’t bear listening any more and blurts out, “Why can’t you tell her in English?” He can’t, he gently explains as I bite back laughter, because the aunt “doesn’t really understand English”. That would be poor old me, the self-appointed guardian of... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3281354/us-vs-chinese-soft-power-guess-how-children-are-voting?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3281354/us-vs-chinese-soft-power-guess-how-children-are-voting?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 19 Oct 2024 01:30:08 +0000 I may have been nine or 10 years old when I first heard Australian singer Helen Reddy’s I Am Woman. I didn’t know it would become an anthem for the women’s movement, but the words stirred me. Even decades later, a tingle goes up my spine when the lyrics float through my mind: “I am strong, I am invincible, I am woman...” The boldness of proclaiming the superpowers of my gender had never occurred to me as a girl growing up in Malaysia. But as if on cue, there came a dose of reality around this... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3280806/hard-truths-about-growing-chinese-and-female-malaysia?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3280806/hard-truths-about-growing-chinese-and-female-malaysia?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 05 Oct 2024 01:30:07 +0000 International luxury brands are feeling the pain and lamenting cutbacks in Chinese consumer spending. Big-picture explanations for why Chinese shoppers have cooled towards brand-name goods include China’s wobbly economic recovery, the troubled housing market and even a crackdown on social media braggarts who showed off their stuff. That could all be true. But might there be a small possibility that some Chinese people are also simply growing out of their obsession with Western luxury brands,... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3278107/if-chinas-love-western-luxury-fading-i-think-i-know-why?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3278107/if-chinas-love-western-luxury-fading-i-think-i-know-why?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 21 Sep 2024 01:30:07 +0000 https://www.scmp.com/opinion/series/3278667/what-does-it-mean-be-chinese-views-scmp-opinion?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/series/3278667/what-does-it-mean-be-chinese-views-scmp-opinion?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 16 Sep 2024 04:54:52 +0000 My son is 29 months old and, already, I am anxious about his education. Recently, I have been thinking about moving from Beijing’s east to its west, where high-quality schools and learning resources are more abundant, as some of my friends with children have done. As Chinese, we seem to be saddled with that sort of legacy. We all know the story of how the widowed mother of Chinese philosopher Mencius moved house three times to ensure her boy grew up in the right environment. The story goes that... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3273609/i-am-chinese-mother-hear-me-worry?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3273609/i-am-chinese-mother-hear-me-worry?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 07 Sep 2024 01:30:09 +0000 Born and raised in colonial Hong Kong, I was used to our currency featuring the queen’s face, school holidays on the queen’s birthday and Commonwealth Day, and having white men with phonetically translated Chinese names as our governors. I would proudly don my Manchester United “home-team” jersey while my brother, in his Liverpool gear, played football in the living room, blissfully unaware that both cities are 10,000km away. Only when I came of age did I understand that Hong Kong had been ceded... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3276434/how-i-transcended-my-hong-kong-identity-crisis?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3276434/how-i-transcended-my-hong-kong-identity-crisis?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 31 Aug 2024 01:30:10 +0000 After I turned 20, Nai, my maternal grandma, started to read me the matrimonial advertisements in our local newspapers. One typical ad would go: “So-and-so, male, 27-year-old teacher, 1.73m, university degree with a monthly income of almost 1,000 yuan, looking for an attractive girl, medium height, between 21 and 25.” For her, my single status was a rash, getting itchier with every year as she fretted that I would miss the marriage boat. My mother, subtler, would urge me to try harder in... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3273449/put-ring-it-chinese-women-dont-need-marriage-any-more?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3273449/put-ring-it-chinese-women-dont-need-marriage-any-more?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 24 Aug 2024 01:15:09 +0000 When fencer Vivian Kong Man-wai returned to Hong Kong with an Olympic gold medal, I was struck by one of her comments at the airport. She thanked her parents for allowing her to become an athlete even though they did not agree with her choice. Swimmer Siobhan Haughey, who has two Olympic silvers and two bronzes, has spoken about how she struggled to balance school and training, waking up at 3am to study. Fencer Cheung Ka-long, who successfully defended his gold medal at the Paris Olympics,... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3274465/could-olympic-inspired-hong-kong-dare-fail?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3274465/could-olympic-inspired-hong-kong-dare-fail?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 17 Aug 2024 01:30:14 +0000 When I was five, my parents bought me a piano. It was a very East Asian thing to do. East Asian parents tend to buy their children either a piano or violin and sign them up for lessons, and for me it was the piano. It was a dark mahogany Baldwin, and a novelty for me to sit on the bench and swing my legs, my feet just grazing the floor. An ingrained memory: my piano teacher looking at me sternly as I started playing a tune I had heard. I could listen to songs such as “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3271748/joyless-club-why-make-generations-chinese-children-dread-piano?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3271748/joyless-club-why-make-generations-chinese-children-dread-piano?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 10 Aug 2024 01:30:10 +0000 I still remember what I was wearing that day in the 1990s, when I flounced up the escalator leading to a high-end mall in Hong Kong, a young woman excited to be shopping alone during a family trip to the Chinese-speaking world’s capital of cool then. Looking back, I wonder if the black floral dress I was wearing would have seemed more frumpy than timelessly romantic to a fashion-conscious Hongkonger. Was my insufficiently brushed hair to blame? Perhaps my excitement somehow looked like the... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3272873/what-i-know-chinese-looking-person-travelling-world?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3272873/what-i-know-chinese-looking-person-travelling-world?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 03 Aug 2024 01:30:11 +0000