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 later 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…
Tag: Australian lifestyle
The sweet story of how a chance meeting led to Australia’s ‘old baby cake’ going viral on Chinese social media
When Paul Adam sees a long queue forming in front of his patisserie in the northern suburbs of Sydney, “That’s when I know I’m going to start working hard,” he says. In the weeks since one of his cakes went viral across several Chinese social media platforms, that has been nearly every day. The gluten-free hazelnut, meringue and chocolate mousse cake, with lorikeets stencilled in icing sugar on top, is, by Adam’s estimation, “only a cake” but it seems to mean much more to the customers queuing for it, some…
‘Lunch of suffering’: plain ‘white people food’ goes viral in China
Under a photo of processed cheese, ham and crackers packed neatly in plastic, a Weibo user writes that to eat this for lunch is to “learn what it feels like to be dead”. The post is part of a trend among Chinese social media users who are recreating “báirén fàn” or “white people food” to better understand – or poke fun at – western packed lunches made up of plain ingredients such as raw vegetables and sliced meats. The social media platforms Weibo and Xiaohongshu have been inundated with photos…
When my family was reunited in Australia, I had to learn to be a dad to a son I’d never met | Sadam Abdusalam
In December 2020, I finally got what I fought so hard for: my family back. I was over the moon when I was reunited with my wife Nadila and son Lutfi after being forced apart for three and a half years. I could finally hold my baby boy in my arms – every father’s dream. I was able to go on dates with my love; watch TV and eat dinner together as a family. They may sound like simple things, but not for us. Like many Uyghurs, we had been…