you met me at a very chinese time in my life.

In 1999, Fight Club was released in cinemas worldwide. A film based on the novel of the same name, the cast was stacked: Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, Helena Bonham Carter, and the real star of the show, Meat Loaf.

I’ll now break the first and second rules of Fight Club and talk about Fight Club.

In the final scene, The Narrator (Edward Norton) says to Marla (Helena Bonham Carter): “you met me at a very strange time in my life”.

Still from Fight Club, 1999

Like many other moments in the movie, the internet took this scene and ran with it. Over 20 years later, it had become something else entirely.

you met me at a very chinese time in my life.

According to online meme encyclopaedia Know Your Meme, this key phrase is “shared alongside videos or images related to visiting China, being a Chinese person or doing something stereotypically Chinese. “The phrase is ultimately meaningless and purposefully absurd.” This “you met me at a very chinese time in my life” trend emerged in mid-2025, popularised on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram.

To get a better idea of the trend, I typed the phrase into TikTok and saw: a white man dressed in traditional Chinese clothing, eloquently reciting Chinese proverbs.

@hepsimayt on TikTok

A few scrolls down, and a Shanghainese-American girl is showing off her new Adidas Chinese Track Top, a jacket styled after Chinese Tang fashion, with the Chinese Communist revolutionary song Red Sun In The Sky playing in the background. Scrolling past that, an edit beginning with a clip of China’s prime minister Xi Jinping saying “我在北京” (I’m in Beijing) followed by a collage of miscellaneous, “Chinese” photos, like a Chinese wedding, a Chinese street, and Chinese embroidery. One of the comments on this last video reads “to me, chinese food is now just regular food. a small peak (sic) into how chinese i’ve become.” - @/Finbo_06 Influencers who are “in a very chinese time in (their) life” post videos of themselves cooking and consuming snow fungus soup, steamed Cantonese style chicken and apple tea. But hasn’t Chinese food always been regular food? Is it some kind of fascinating alien gloop?

To me, a Singaporean-Chinese person who (happily) eats Chinese food almost every day, it’s definitely “regular food”. But to non-Chinese people, or people who haven’t grown up immersed in Chinese culture, Chinese food, art and clothing have always been “fascinating” and “alien”.

I’ve been binge-watching Seinfeld lately. It’s not exactly the paragon of cultural diversity — Asian characters are often featured once or twice as side characters before disappearing into obscurity.

There was definitely at least one character who was having a very Chinese time in her life, though.

In an episode titled “The Truth”, one of the main characters, George, decides to break up with his girlfriend over lunch. His girlfriend, Patrice, a white woman, was wearing a garish, silky blue Qipao with two chopsticks sticking out of her ginger hair.

Still from Seinfeld, 1991

When George tries to break up with her, one of the first questions she asks, is “Is it the chopsticks?”

George reveals that it is, indeed, partly the chopsticks.

Patrice reminded me of the many videos I’ve seen from the current “very chinese time” trend. Though there are plenty of Chinese people embracing the trend as a vehicle to better understand their culture, there are also plenty of non-Chinese, usually white people, donning traditional garments, translating English pop songs to Mandarin and dancing in front of the flag of China.

But this Seinfeld episode aired in 1991. It made me wonder:

has it always been a very chinese time?

It turns out Chinese culture has always captured the Western imagination. In the 90s, Claire Danes and Kate Moss wore qipaos.

Kate Moss in a very Chinese time in her life

In the 18th century, Chinoiserie became popular as an art and decorating style based on European interpretations of Chinese art. In the 1920s, Americans began playing mahjong after it was introduced from abroad. So,

why are we putting a label on it now?

Zeyi Yang and Louise Matsakis wrote for WIRED that the trend could have possibly emerged in America as its people are looking for “an alternative role model” after the issues arising from the Trump administration. The technologically advanced Chinese cities seen online and China’s investments into clean energy could represent what Americans disappointed by Trump’s leadership desire.

On top of that, Koh Ewe, writing for the BBC, posits that the trend could be due to China’s soft power.

“Over the past year we’ve seen the world clamour for Labubu dolls, wait in line at brand new stores to buy Mixue bubble tea and Luckin coffee, and scroll through their friends’ holiday feeds in the “cyberpunk city” of Chongqing.”

People waiting in line to buy Labubus in Sydney, @GrouchyFlatworm1 on Reddit

China may have captured the Western world’s imagination in the past, but now it really has it in a chokehold.

This soft power is plain to see in Singapore, as well. Chinese brands like Chagee, Mollytea and Haidilao have opened locations all around the island, with droves of customers flocking to these stores.

the pros and cons of being in a chinese time in your life

On one hand, the deluge of Chinese culture we’re experiencing is a good thing. For Chinese people, it gives them an opportunity to celebrate their culture publicly, which could be especially beneficial to people who were unable to do so before without facing racism and ridicule. For non-Chinese Chinamaxxers, it allows them to appreciate another culture, which could lead to more tolerance and understanding.

However, this may also lead to harmful stereotypes being perpetuated. As mentioned earlier, the trend involves doing things that are “stereotypically Chinese”, which on a global stage, could create the idea that Chinese people are a monolith — to be Chinese is to wear a qipao, recite proverbs and only eat Chinese food.

When I came up with the idea for this article, my friend mentioned the concept of “Eating The Other” by bell hooks. She suggests the West commodifies marginalised racial groups to essentially spice up Western culture. Asian culture is “offered up as new dishes to enhance the white palate… the Other will be eaten, consumed and forgotten.”

So, does this trend leave a bitter taste in your mouth? Or are you in a “very chinese time in your life?”