<
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/mar/23/chinamaxxing-chinese-culture-becomes-a-meme>
"I have been Chinese my whole life. Lately, many online have also found their
Chinese roots, but not through traditional ancestry tests.
Creators are drinking hot water, wearing slippers around the house, using
chopsticks, eating Chinese food and wearing red. Taking off in popularity from
mid-2025, these videos have racked up hundreds of thousands of views, finding
virality first on TikTok, then Instagram and X. Put simply, “People are trying
to be more Chinese regardless of what their heritage is,” says Michelle She, a
London-based fashion label owner.
Chinamaxxing has variations too: one may be in their “Chinese era”, or might
say: “You met me at a very Chinese time of my life.”
It might seem odd to distill a millennia-old culture into a seconds-long TikTok
video. But digital trends aren’t just an aesthetic, says Jamie Cohen, an
associate professor of media studies at Queens College in New York. He says
they’re a response to cultural changes – and a lot has been happening.
Disillusionment with the west, an obsession with wellness and historic
exoticisation of the east all laid the foundations for the trend to emerge from
behind the great firewall. In true internet fashion, it is equal parts
nonsensical and reductive.
“What’s spreading globally is not China in its full complexity, but fragments
of everyday life,” says Tingting Liu, a research fellow at the University of
Technology Sydney specialising in Chinese digital media.
China is not a new concept. So what does it feel like for your culture to
become a trend? From North America to Australia, those from the Chinese
diaspora who I spoke to all used the same word to describe Chinamaxxing:
jarring – though with varying levels of indignation."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
