If you’re reading this, you’re Chinese. Or so says a genre of online content, which delivers instructions to the newly initiated. You should wear slippers and practice qigong; lay a zhen jin on your pillow to sleep; and exclusively drink warm water, ideally steeped with apples, jujubes and goji berries. Since the phrase took off last year, many Westerners have claimed they are in “a very Chinese time” in their lives, taking to social media to evangelize about their newfound Sinophilia. They’re not only curious but also focused on the finer details: Should they peel their apples, for example, or even use pears instead?

如果你正在读这篇文章，那你就是中国人。或者说，至少有一类网络内容是这么说的，这些内容为新入门者提供各种指导。你应该在家穿拖鞋、要练八段锦；睡觉时枕头上要有枕巾；只喝热水，最好里面还泡上苹果、红枣和枸杞。自从这个说法去年流行起来后，许多西方人宣称自己进入了人生“非常中国的时刻”，并纷纷在社交媒体上热情分享他们新获得的中国热。他们不仅好奇，还开始钻研起各种细节：比如，吃苹果要不要削皮？甚至要不要改成吃梨？

References to “being Chinese” started as a mostly nonsensical joke, but they’ve become a trope that is loosely aspirational. Casual mimicry gradually emerged as creators “unlocked” their “Chinese uncle” personality (apparently: stoic; aloof; occasionally exposing midriff) or found themselves “damn close” to buying a floral quilted jacket, “the Chinese auntie drip” in one viewer’s words. Now whole swaths of the internet have “just found out” they’re Chinese or are declaring their complete transformation: “I don’t even call it Chinatown anymore, I just call it town,” states the text of one video. “That is how Chinese my mind has become.” The joke has become so common that “Chinamaxxing” has been applied to the most mundane activities — the American influencer Hasan Piker posted as much while standing before the Shanghai skyline, conspicuously pairing socks with slippers.

“成为中国人”的说法一开始只是个有点无厘头的玩笑，但后来演变成了一种带点向往意味的网络热梗。随意的模仿慢慢演变成创作者“解锁”自己的“中式大叔”人格（大概就是：面无表情、不太爱搭理人、偶尔露出肚皮），或者发现自己“差一点”就要买一件碎花棉袄——用一位观众的话说，就是“中式阿姨穿搭”。现在，有许多网友“突然发现”自己其实是中国人，或者宣称已经彻底转变：“我现在甚至不叫它‘唐人街’了，我就叫它‘街’，”一条视频的字幕这样写道，“这就是我的思维就是这么中国。”这个网络梗已经普及到连最日常的行为也被称为“极致中式生活”——美国网红哈桑·派克站在上海天际线前拍视频，还特意穿着袜子配拖鞋。

Several Chinese American influencers have happily taken up the role of cultural arbiter. Notable among them is Sherry Zhu, who often gives her audience lively Mandarin-English pep talks: Anyone staying in on a Friday night, for example, should instead eat hot pot and go to karaoke, because bed rotting is “not Chinese baddie of you.” That “baddie” persona has made its way into a range of wellness content, most of which appropriate traditional Chinese medicine. The content multiplied recently on the occasion of Lunar New Year, with one infographic illustrating the components of a “Chinease Baddie Morning Routine” — pun intended. It included photos of “morning herbs,” “meditation” and “gua sha” alongside a set of disembodied abs (labeled “lymph drain belly massage”) and a toilet (labeled, simply, “elimination”).

一些华裔美国网红欣然当起了文化仲裁者。其中较有代表性的是雪莉·朱（音），她常常用很有感染力的中英夹杂的方式给观众打气：比如周五晚上呆在家里的人应该去吃火锅、去唱K，因为整天躺着“并不符合中国辣妹的气质”。这种“辣妹”人设已经扩展到各种养生内容，其中很多都挪用了中医理念。最近借着农历新年的契机，这类内容激增，有一张信息图表展示了“中式舒缓辣妹晨间流程”（中式舒缓是故意把Chinese写成Chinease玩谐音梗）——包括“晨间草药”、“冥想”、“刮痧”，还有一些配图：一组腹肌（标注为“淋巴排毒腹部按摩”）和一个马桶（简单标注为“排泄”）。

Many Chinese people have of course objected to their culture’s being trivialized, even fetishized, by Western audiences — some have even likened the experience to the parasitic predation in Jordan Peele’s horror movie “Get Out.” In particular, the idea of being “diagnosed as Chinese” has stoked outrage for recalling stereotypes that were widely revived with the onset of the pandemic. “Where was this love for Chinese culture when they were getting attacked in the streets?” asks one user, recalling how anti-Asian hate crimes spiked in 2020, at a time when President Trump also called Covid-19 the “China virus.” His vitriol helped rekindle a long tradition of Sinophobia that casts China as irrevocably backward, even barbaric. In this “very Chinese time,” the same Orientalizing impulses have produced new variations on these themes: One “British guy showing you the real China,” for example, regularly telegraphs his immersion in the culture by toting a local beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

当然，也有不少中国人对此提出反对，认为他们的文化被西方受众过度简化，甚至被物化——有人把这种体验比作乔丹·皮尔的恐怖电影《逃出绝命镇》里的寄生式掠夺。尤其是“诊断为中国人”的说法引发了强烈不满，因为它让人联想到疫情之初遭重新激活的种族刻板印象。“当他们在街头遭到攻击的时候，这些对中国文化的‘热爱’在哪里？”一名社交媒体用户这样问到，同时回想起2020年反亚裔仇恨犯罪激增的时期，当时特朗普总统还把新冠病毒称为“中国病毒”。他的恶毒言论重新点燃了由来已久的恐华传统，把中国描绘成落后甚至野蛮的存在。在这个“非常中国的时刻”，类似的东方主义冲动又产生了新的变体：比如某个“英国小伙带你看真实中国”的博主，总是用一手拿着中国啤酒、一手夹着中国烟的形象来强调自己融入了中国文化。

What is unexpected about this trend — and certainly unthinkable just six years ago — is that these jokes are now inflected with reverence. As in the video that overlays scenes from Chinese pagodas, street markets and skylines with an admiring if enigmatic directive: “You have to get more locked in/You have to get more motion/You have to get more Chinese.” Or as one account articulates, parodying Confucius’ “Analects,” “The sinicization of a man’s mind comes not as an unbidden surprise, but is welcomed and greeted warmly like an old friend returning home.”

这个趋势出人意料的一点——当然在六年前几乎是不可想象的——是这些玩笑如今带有了敬意色彩。比如有一段视频，把中国的宝塔、街市和城市天际线画面配以既赞美又有点神秘的指令上：“你要更专注/你要更有行动力/你要更中国一点。”又或者有账号模仿《论语》写道：“归化于心也，非不期而至，乃悦而迎之，如故人归矣。”

Social media has long sustained cultural exchange between the United States and China, a relationship that seems to only strengthen when political tensions escalate. Anticipating Trump’s second presidency in early 2025 — and, more specifically, the proposed ban on TikTok — users in the United States pre-emptively sought out the app’s Chinese equivalent, Xiaohongshu, colloquially known as RedNote. It shot to the top of the U.S. Apple Store downloads list by mid-January. While many of these “TikTok refugees” simply wanted a new digital home, others took to the Chinese app to “troll” the American government. (Trump’s inauguration featured a coterie of tech elites whose net worth exceeded one trillion dollars.) “In short, we’re here to spite our government and to learn about China and hang out with you guys,” one such refugee posted on Xiaohongshu.

社交媒体长期以来一直维系着中美之间的文化交流，而这种关系似乎在政治紧张局势升级时反而会进一步加强。2025年初，随着人们预期特朗普将开启第二任期——更具体地说，预期TikTok会被禁——美国用户未雨绸缪，找到了另一款中国的应用程序小红书。到去年的1月中旬，它一跃登上美国苹果应用商店下载榜首。许多这样的“TikTok难民”只是想找一个新的数字家园，但也有许多人涌入这款中国应用，为的是“恶心”美国政府。（特朗普的就职典礼上聚集了一群科技巨头，他们的净资产总和超过一万亿美元。）其中一名“难民”在小红书上发帖说：“简而言之，我们来这里是为了恶心我们的政府，也是为了了解中国，和你们一起玩。”

When TikTok eventually announced its rescue by Trump, its refugees returned to the platform and business as usual — though something had palpably shifted in the course of their brief exile. Users began to find themselves in a “very Chinese time,” relaying visions of a foreign life: mass-market electric cars, socialized health care, high-speed rail. These only added to the impressions broadcast by tourists and professional vloggers over recent years, which steadily demystified life in China while also boosting it as a tourist destination for a new generation, an almost mythical place replete with otherworldly scenery and ultramodern technologies. Even Americans could see in these clips a vision of the future that hadn’t arrived at home.

当TikTok最终宣布被特朗普救下后，难民们回到了该平台，一切照旧——尽管在他们短暂的流亡过程中，某种东西显然已经发生了变化。用户们开始发现自己进入了“很中国的时刻”，分享着关于另一种生活的想象：普及型的电动车、社会化医疗、高铁。这些内容进一步印证了近年来游客和职业视频博主传递的印象——既持续不断地揭开了中国生活的神秘面纱，同时也将这个国家作为新一代旅游目的地加以推崇，一个拥有超现实美景和超现代科技的近乎神话般的地方。即使是美国人，也能在这些视频中看到自己国家尚未实现的未来图景。

As they observe the decline of their own country, American TikTokers continue to fantasize about “being Chinese”: In their minds, high-quality, low-cost living, with slippered feet and nourished spleens, is not for the privileged few but for all. If racist tropes once signaled Western dominance over “the Orient,” “Chinamaxxing” reveals how Americans now seem to surrender to certain kinds of Chinese influence. And if you aren’t already convinced, the algorithmic mechanics of social media will hold you captive to engage you directly. When one Chinese-born, Britain-based user tells his viewers, “If you’re watching this, you’re Chinese,” he means it materially: “Aren’t you scrolling on this Chinese app, probably on a Chinese-made phone, wearing clothes that are made in China, collecting dolls that are from China, wearing bags that are made in China, wearing perfumes that are made in China?”

在目睹自己国家衰落的同时，美国的TikTok用户继续幻想“成为中国人”：在他们心目中，高质量、低成本的生活——在家穿拖鞋、调养脾胃——并非少数特权阶级的专属，而是人人可得。如果说种族主义的刻板印象曾一度标志着西方对“东方”的支配，那么“极致中式生活”则揭示了美国人如今似乎在某种程度上臣服于中国的影响。如果你还没有被说服，社交媒体的算法会把你牢牢抓住，让你直接参与其中。当一位中国出生、生活在英国的用户告诉他的观众，“如果你正在看这个视频，你就是中国人，”他是从物质层面来说的。“你现在是不是在刷这款中国应用？可能你的手机也是中国制造的，穿的衣服是中国制造的，收藏的的玩偶来自中国，背的包是中国制造，喷的香水也是中国制造的吧？”

But just like other forms of aspirational content, many scenes of life in China are also edited to sustain a fantasy; fan-cam footage of high-speed rail highlights its delivery McDonald’s service but not the state’s use of surveillance to prevent “untrustworthy” citizens from boarding. Social media may have rendered life in China less mysterious, but by positioning it as aspirational, influencers have ensured that the “Orient” remains a receptacle for Western desires, especially on platforms that favor neat oppositions: right versus wrong, good versus evil, East versus West.

但就像其他类型的向往式内容一样，许多关于中国生活的场景同样经过了剪辑，以维持一种幻想；粉丝镜头下的高铁视频会突出车上可以点麦当劳外卖，却不会提及国家如何利用监控来阻止“失信”人员上车。社交媒体或许让中国生活不再那么神秘，但通过把它塑造成一种令人向往的对象，网红们确保了“东方”仍然是西方欲望的容器——尤其是在那些偏爱二元对立（对与错、善与恶、东方与西方）的平台上。

The grass is usually greener when viewed from the other side of the world and in curated, seconds-long clips. But pledging allegiance to a different country — or to your phone, or to a new wellness routine — rarely solves the root of the problem. Still, why would anyone stop now? Especially while feeling that life has improved since “becoming Chinese” — that is, since embracing explicit instruction on what to eat, wear and do. “Thank you, Congress,” beams one Western college student, having projected a Chinese flag on a television behind her while expressing her gratitude in Mandarin. “Without you none of this is possible, I love the People’s Republic of China!” The video is intended as a joke, though it evokes more earnest reactions. “I CAN’T LOSE THIS INTERNET,” says a top comment, liked by thousands whose fealty lies not with any country, per se, but with the state of being online.

当你从世界另一端、透过几秒钟的精修短视频来观看，别处的月亮总是更圆。但是向另一个国家（或者向你的手机，或者向一种新的养生方式）效忠很少能从根本上解决问题。不过，谁又会在此刻停下来呢？尤其是当你感觉到自从“成为中国人”以来——也就是说，自从接受了关于吃什么、穿什么、做什么的明确指导之后，感觉日子顺心了。“谢谢国会，”一位西方大学生笑容满面地用普通话表达感谢，她身后的电视上是一面中国国旗。“没有你们，这一切都不可能实现，我爱中华人民共和国！”这段视频本意是个玩笑，但它也唤起了一些更为真诚的回应。“我不能失去这个互联网，”一条热门评论写道，它获得了数千个赞，这些点赞者的效忠对象其实不是任何国家，而是在线这种状态本身。