What Is With... the internet’s urge to ‘become Chinese’?
Trends come and go, but why do some stick more than others? What Is With is a new series digging into fashion and pop culture fads that you cannot stop seeing but won’t start researching. Nothing is too big, small, amusing or annoying – if everyone is talking about it, we are listening.
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Sherry Zhu (left) is credited with launching the "becoming Chinese" trend. Non-Chinese TikTokers (right) were enthusiastic about coaching viewers on Chinese New Year superstitions.
PHOTOS: SHERRYXIIRUII/TIKTOK, EMILYASCARI/TIKTOK, AUNTIE.BOY/INSTAGRAM
SINGAPORE – This Chinese New Year has felt extra Chinese, as in it was observed by some extra “Chinese” people – new additions to the more than 1.4 billion-strong race.
American supermodel Kendall Jenner declared her affinity with the year’s zodiac animal, the fire horse, in an Instagram caption on Feb 18 (“so me”); California-based YouTuber Trisha Paytas donned a qipao, gave her family hongbao and ate dim sum; and white influencers warned their followers not to wash their hair or sweep the floors on the first day of Chinese New Year.
What? Or should I say, shen me? The expanded celebration feels like the acme of January’s “becoming Chinese” trend,
The boiled apple water is also known as Chinese baddie tea, or hot Chinese woman tea, and frequently paired with the taiji body waves and lymphatic hops that the “first-time Chinese” have also glommed on to, suddenly conscious of activating their qi.
On Instagram, users brag about how their minds have become so Chinese, they no longer speak Chinese, they simply speak, and Chinese food is just food.
The long-running punchline is, “You met me at a very Chinese time in my life” – a spoof of the line, “You met me at a very strange time in my life”, from the movie Fight Club (1999).
The internet calls its newfound Sinophilia “Chinamaxxing”.
As with all online phenomena, it is a many-headed beast: part wellness movement, absurdist meme and, as reported by The New York Times, political protest – a droll expression of disillusion with American politics.
Which is to say, only notionally about China.
Building familiarity
One might trace events back to US President Donald Trump’s threat to ban TikTok – formerly controlled by Beijing-based ByteDance – in early 2025 in America if it could not be divested from Chinese ownership.
Piqued Americans rebelled by fleeing to Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu (RedNote), which logged 1.2 million downloads in the same period. These “TikTok refugees” received a warm Chinese welcome and, for a time, reports of cultural exchange usually hindered by the Chinese firewall spread.
As with most fits, this did not seem to last. But since then, pages dedicated to giving English translations of trending topics on RedNote have taken off on Instagram, alongside creators who teach viewers how to swear and “troll” in Chinese.
Then in March 2025, one of the world’s biggest YouTube streamers IShowSpeed went on a chaotic China tour, broadcast to his then near 40 million subscribers.
A wave of Chinese aesthetics had also primed the base. For example, adidas’ Chinese-style track jacket, with frog buttons, became a viral fashion item in early 2025 and, in February 2026, hit European shelves – even though it started as a China exclusive.
And don’t forget Labubu – those sharp-toothed grinning monsters made by Chinese company Pop Mart. These paved the way for TikTok personality Sherry Zhu’s viral video on Jan 5 that opens with the words: “Tomorrow, you are turning Chinese.” It has been viewed more than three million times.
That China and the US are on the outs is the missing piece to the puzzle.
Says National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Professor Audrey Yue, who researches Sinophone media cultures: “Curiosity often grows precisely when a country feels politically distant.”
If America is looking... well, unwell, China is the most obvious counterweight. Shorn of this context, reactions in Singapore have mostly been amused but not interested.
Power gains
Major publications have framed Chinamaxxing as a soft power boost for the country, but Prof Yue is sceptical.
The Provost’s Chair Professor of NUS’ department of communications and new media says the trend is proof of China’s visibility – its ambient cultural presence – rather than its soft power influence.
She adds: “Chinamaxxing reframes ‘Chineseness’ as an aesthetic or optimisation strategy – health routines, discipline, frugality, productivity – rather than as a complex history or identity.
“In that sense, it’s less about China as a nation and more about China as a symbolic resource people use to signal self-improvement, irony or countercultural positioning.”
Consider that, according to a New York Times report, polls show that opinions of China in the West are still mostly negative. And the American public has booed Chinese-American Olympian Eileen Gu – the most decorated freestyle skier in history – for playing for China over the US, where she was born and raised.
The Chinese trend, with its layer of irony, also feels like a different creature from the Hallyu wave or the great rehabilitation of anime. The former started as a meme; the latter two’s fans are earnest.
It is not uncommon to see K-pop and anime fans learn the language and make pilgrimages to South Korea and Japan. Conversely, few Chinamaxxers consume Chinese media.
Gripes about cultural appropriation have emerged, with diasporic ethnic Chinese creators leading the pushback, often bringing up the whiplash of Covid-19-era Sinophobia.
Chinese New Year content has borne the brunt of the flak so far. In Australia, TikTokers Emily Davies and Jacquie Alexander have been called out for likening New Year superstitions they adopted to “woo woo crazy girl energy” and astrology.
Another Australian TikTok user’s “Chinese New Year” banquet, where the table is laid with paper lanterns and fortune cookies, but curiously absent of Chinese dishes, has racked up some 2,000 critical comments.
So, is Chinamaxxing mockery or flattery? The answer is case by case. It is often both, and intentionally ambiguous, says Prof Yue.
She adds: “Meme culture thrives on irony. Some expressions reflect curiosity or admiration, others flatten identity into aesthetic quirks.
“The politics lies in who gets to perform ‘Chineseness’ playfully, and who gets racialised for it.”
Correction note: The name of Australian influencer Emily Davies has been updated in this version of the story.
