A Very Chinese Time in People's Lives

Jellycat's red plush horse with a golden mane 

Everyone's getting into the Year of the Horse -- Snoopy, Mr. Men, Sesame Street's Elmo, Miffy, Paddington Bear, even Jellycat issuing a red plush horse with a golden mane.

Are they all in a "very Chinese time in their lives", or Chinamaxxing? 

Or is it all a marketing ploy to appeal to Chinese fans that they are wishing them all the best in the Lunar New Year?

In some ways it's amusing to see non-Chinese recently discovering the benefits of drinking hot water, or demonstrating that they know to take off their shoes once they enter a home, and these days posting on social media, "Kung Hei Faat Choy"!

Snoopy celebrating the new year

It's great people are more accustomed or accepting of Chinese habits, but it doesn't make them experts on Chinese culture overnight.

It was brought to my attention that a guy from San Francisco on Facebook was explaining or maybe "mansplaining" that people should say "Lunar New Year" instead of "Chinese New Year" to make it more inclusive, as people from Korea, Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia also celebrate. 

He even talks about how this year is the "Fire Horse", elucidating about the five elements of water, wood, metal, fire and earth, and that a "Fire Horse" only comes around every 60 years...

Hence Chinamaxxing or being in a "very Chinese time in my life" is so bizarre. The latter assumes that one is Chinese for a period of time, unlike say ethnic Chinese who are Chinese their whole lives.

The former are those who look at all the cool things about China -- electric cars, high-speed rail, online payments, AI and Shein, without taking into account or even knowing about, say, the lopsided ratio of men to women, the high unemployment rate for fresh grads, and the restrictions of living in an authoritarian environment.

Elmo with his Korean and Chinese friends

All this just only a few years after China finally lifted its draconian lockdown measures to control the Covid-19 virus from spreading. People were literally sealed in their own apartment units, while everyone else got bags of food delivered to them, and people queuing up and opening their mouths to have their saliva swabbed.

And now China is super cool?

Quite the transformation, but now that Canadian and UK passport holders can travel to China visa-free until the end of the year, it would be great for people to see the country for themselves and then figure out of they really are Chinamaxxing.

If anything, they would be able to legitimately say their visit was a "very Chinese time in their life."