People Online Are 'Turning Chinese' – And It's Not As Racist As It Sounds

What's going on with all the “Chinamaxxing” on social media?

Lifestyle Reporter, HuffPost

You’ve probably noticed that a whole lot of people are in “a very Chinese time in their lives” lately.

On TikTok and in memes across the internet, people, especially Gen Zers, are boasting of becoming Chinese, “Chinamaxxing” or becoming “Chinese baddies,” all of which essentially involves indulging in traditional Chinese wellness habits: drinking apple herbal tea, leaning into acupuncture, slipping on house slippers as soon as they enter the front door, or having congee or bone broth for breakfast.

The internet’s embrace of Chinese culture has been building for some time, but this particular meme took off at the end of the year, when content creator Sherry Zhu began doling out tongue-in-cheek tips on how to tap into your inner Chinese person.

“Now that you’re Chinese you need to stop walking around your house barefoot, OK? ’Cause Chinese people, we don’t do that, we wear 拖鞋 (tuō xié) around the house,” Zhu says in one clip that has over 6.2 million views. (Culturally, taking your shoes off shows a sense of deference to other people’s homes, but it’s obviously just a good hygienic practice beside that.)

@sherryxiiruii another lesson to get you to embrace your inner chinese baddie #chineseamerican #中文 #chineseculture #asianamerican #americanbornchinese asian girl, chinese time in your life, chinese point in my life, china tiktok, chinese tiktok ♬ original sound - sherry

another lesson to get you to embrace your inner chinese baddie #chineseamerican #中文 #chineseculture #asianamerican #americanbornchinese asian girl, chinese time in your life, chinese point in my life, china tiktok, chinese tiktok

Soon, content creators and celebrities like comedian Jimmy O. Yang and podcaster Hasan Piker got in on the action. In Yang’s video, the Crazy Rich Asians star wears the viral “Chinese” Adidas jacket and croons the 1983 Mandopop song “Yi Jian Mei” by Fei Yu-ching. (You may have heard it in 2024, when someone turned debate footage of Joe Biden and Donald Trump into a romantic “duet” of the tune.)

Now Chinamaxxing is everywhere. Sara Jane Ho, the Hong-Kong-born etiquette expert and star of Netflix’s Mind Your Manners, is especially happy to see........

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