Are You In a Very Chinese Time of Your Life?
After a long day of Chinese New Year activities–messily tossing yu sheng around, receiving hong baos, and enjoying lion dance performances–I sprawled out on my bed, halfway into a food coma, and instinctively opened TikTok. Not even a minute into my daily bedtime doomscroll, I came across a video captioned, “just a 20 year old doing "woo woo crazy girl" lunar new year rituals because a new 9-year cycle isn't gonna align itself.” The rituals in the video felt very familiar to me. It included not washing your hair on the first day of the year lest you rinse your good fortune away with your shampoo; cleaning your home the day before to “sweep” away all of the bad luck; and wearing red to manifest luck and positivity. I’m used to hearing my mother nag all of these things at me, but this time it felt uncanny. Here was a person from a different race doing those things with no mention of my culture as well as reducing it to “woo woo” which is an internet-speak catch-all term used to describe things of a vaguely spiritual nature. It felt like a gut punch, as if my culture was being exoticised by people who see it as nothing more than internet fodder. In the comment section, many users echoed her excitement with quips like, “these traditions have me in a chokehold” or “I’m also in a very Chinese time of my life right now.” I wish I could say I was shocked. Instead, I was fatigued.
This video did not stand alone. It was part of a larger internet trend known as “Chinamaxxing.” Chinamaxxing is defined as“learning to be Chinese” by adopting Chinese wellness practices, typically accompanied by the caption, “you met me at a very Chinese time of my life.” A domain once reserved for Chinese aunties has now turned into a global phenomenon. On the surface, it seems like a harmless and even endearing cultural exchange. Upon closer inspection, however, the reality appears much murkier. At its core, the trend of Chinamaxxing leverages on flattening thousands of years of history and culture into yet another consumable internet fad. Take TikTok user Jacquie Alexander, for example, who recently posted a similar video captioned, “POV: you listened to the girls who told you to wash your hair before the lunar new year so 2026 will be a year of wealth and prosperity” over a popular sound associated with new-age Western spiritualism and manifestation practices. This time, the comments challenged her a little bit. A user asked, “Since when did you celebrate Chinese New Year?” to which she responded, “Is there a problem celebrating cultures other than your own now?” The comment feels valid, but the problem is not about the celebration per se. Is she really celebrating it or mocking it?
The answer to this question is a lot less straightforward than it may appear, and the root of it lies in that it’s not insensitivity, but instead ignorance. We’ve seen this before with matcha and ube where symbols of sanctity and struggle get diluted into the flavor of the month, ready to be easily commodified for a primarily Western audience. In other words, these cultural elements lose their meaning and significance.
In a now deleted video, TikTok user @gymwithell made the assertion that these individuals are “cherry picking parts of Asian culture which you’re happy to post about.” When it comes to Chinese New Year traditions, they view it as a set of aesthetically rich imagery and practices involving vibrant colors and mythical creatures. But when they are asked to engage with the culture in a way that’s less optimized for a hypercurated social media feed, they hesitate. This phenomenon is not exclusive to the internet. I’ve even experienced it within my own circle of friends. I saw a post from a non-Chinese classmate bragging about all the rituals they were going to take part in, but all I could think about was how they had once turned their nose up at a plate of Mapo Tofu because it “smelled weird.” These individuals have the power to pick and choose facets of my culture to co-opt when it’s cool or beneficial to them.
In today’s media landscape, Western media ultimately has a lot of influence in dictating what is on trend or in vogue. It’s reductive that outsiders get to decide when my culture is given the spotlight. And even then, control how those stories are told or whose voices are amplified. The same media outlets excitedly posting about these traditions were the same channels publishing headlines such as the “China virus” during the COVID-19 pandemic. It seems awfully convenient that nobody’s “Chinese time of their life” coincided with the period where Asian hate crimes spiked 3200% in New York City in 2020, or that no one around me appeared to be Chinamaxxing when I was called a “dog eater” at the ripe age of 11. Being part-Chinese is not something I can delete on a whim or wash off when it becomes inconvenient.
Nothing makes me happier than sharing my culture with my non-Chinese friends like having them over for a traditional feast or inviting them to experience a lion dance. However, I believe that we should be mindful of how we want to embrace other cultures. If we don’t, we risk normalizing the gentrification of cultural practices into anemic caricatures that erase the history behind them. Instead, we must acknowledge the history and cultural richness from which these traditions originate; participate in them without reducing them into mysticism; and respect their significance to a whole group of people whose everyday lives are defined by these practices.