BANGKOK — Young adults across the world have spent recent months flooding social media with videos proclaiming they are “becoming Chinese” — embracing habits like drinking hot water steeped with goji berries, eating dumplings, and wearing slippers indoors — in a viral trend that has drawn the attention of Chinese diplomats, the Associated Press reported.
Xie Feng, China’s ambassador to the United States, cited the social media wave while promoting a new visa-free transit policy and urging Americans to “experience for yourselves a real, dynamic and panoramic China,” Xie said.
The meme illustrates how China’s cultural exports are achieving soft-power reach that decades of government-directed programs never produced — and how that success is raising complicated questions for Chinese Americans who have long faced discrimination in the West.
A cultural moment built from the ground up
The trend grew partly from videos posted by Sherry Zhu, 23, of New Jersey, who last year joked that anyone who liked noodles and hotpot and wore slippers at home was Chinese. One of Zhu’s videos was shared nearly a million times in December, and the format spread quickly across TikTok under hashtags including “Chinamaxxing” and “in a very Chinese time of their lives.”
Shaoyu Yuan, a professor at the New York University School of Professional Studies’ Center for Global Affairs, said the shift reflects something more durable than a passing social media fad.
“China is gaining real soft power, and you can see it most clearly in how Chinese culture and ‘Chineseness’ are becoming familiar, repeatable, and globally consumable in everyday life,” Yuan said. “That legitimacy is earned through taste, utility, and entertainment.”
A broader wave of Chinese cultural exports
The “becoming Chinese” meme rides a wider embrace of Chinese cultural exports that has built over several years.
“Ne Zha 2,” the animated blockbuster drawn from a Chinese children’s tale about a young god, became the highest-grossing animated film of all time before its North American release. The video game “Black Myth: Wukong,” based on Chinese folklore about an adventurous monkey hero, set a record for the most-played single-player game on Steam when 2.4 million people played it simultaneously at launch.
Cantonese rapper Skaii isyourgod, also known as “Lanlao,” saw his single “Blueprint Supreme” accumulate billions of views on TikTok globally — even though the track is in Cantonese, a dialect many people in mainland China itself would not understand.
Labubu, the fuzzy collectible doll made by Chinese company PopMart that has been carried by Rihanna and other celebrities, drove a 300% rise in annual profit for the company at the peak of its popularity.
Yuan attributed the soft-power gains in part to the breadth of China’s industrial reach — from a manufacturing sector that has generated a $1.2 trillion trade surplus with the rest of the world, to the social media algorithms that made TikTok, to a domestic consumer culture where homegrown brands now compete directly with global names.
Mixed feelings among Chinese Americans
For many Chinese Americans, the internet’s embrace of their heritage carries a complicated edge.
Elise Zeng, 28, of Brooklyn, posted a video critiquing the phenomenon that received more than 36,000 likes. Zeng recalled how, during the COVID-19 pandemic, she was afraid for her parents stepping outside after reports of anti-Asian assaults, at a time when many Asian Americans reported being attacked or verbally abused by people who blamed East Asians for spreading the virus.
“Those experiences don’t just disappear because Chinese culture is suddenly cool and trendy,” Zeng said.
Zhu said she acknowledged experiencing bullying tied to her identity but remained positive about the trend’s wider meaning. “I believe that visibility and cultural sharing can reduce misunderstanding over time,” she said.
Government efforts have lagged organic success
China’s government has long pursued soft power through official channels. Xi Jinping has called on officials to “tell China’s story well” since 2013, directing funding toward the multibillion-dollar Belt and Road infrastructure initiative and hundreds of Confucius Institutes abroad.
Many Confucius Institutes in the West have since closed, amid concerns they served as fronts for surveillance and propaganda. The Belt and Road Initiative has drawn criticism from Western governments as a debt trap.
Global Times, a state-owned tabloid, claimed that the “becoming Chinese” meme’s popularity is linked to “China’s social development.” But Yuan cautioned that official attempts to claim credit for organic cultural moments may undercut the very appeal they seek to amplify.
“Cultural influence travels farther when it is chosen rather than announced,” Yuan said.