‘Chinese’ or ‘Any other Asian’. The boxes that people of vastly varied East and South East Asian heritage have to tick when declaring their ethnicity on many forms in the UK.
This represents a shameful sweeping together of a diverse heritage and experience. East and South East Asian people have lived and worked in the UK for centuries, fought for the British Army in both world wars, have influenced British culture through food, writing, music and art in a multitude of ways. And yet this influence is often overlooked.
People of ESEA heritage experience unique forms of racism. Asian food is mocked as unhealthy and Asian restaurants as dirty. ESEA women are exoticised and sexualised, and assumed to be the nanny of their mixed-race children. The community was scapegoated for the Covid-19 pandemic.
Anna Sulan Masing addresses these issues in a comprehensive way. She explores what it means to be East and South East Asian in Britain today, and celebrates the varied experiences that make up ESEA identity. Powerful, moving and illuminating, this will be a must-read for anyone interested in the make-up of our multicultural society.
‘Vital reading, but also vital in the truest sense – real, alive, full of humanity, interrogatory, empathetic, energising’ Claire Kohda, author of WOMAN, EATING
This represents a shameful sweeping together of a diverse heritage and experience. East and South East Asian people have lived and worked in the UK for centuries, fought for the British Army in both world wars, have influenced British culture through food, writing, music and art in a multitude of ways. And yet this influence is often overlooked.
People of ESEA heritage experience unique forms of racism. Asian food is mocked as unhealthy and Asian restaurants as dirty. ESEA women are exoticised and sexualised, and assumed to be the nanny of their mixed-race children. The community was scapegoated for the Covid-19 pandemic.
Anna Sulan Masing addresses these issues in a comprehensive way. She explores what it means to be East and South East Asian in Britain today, and celebrates the varied experiences that make up ESEA identity. Powerful, moving and illuminating, this will be a must-read for anyone interested in the make-up of our multicultural society.
‘Vital reading, but also vital in the truest sense – real, alive, full of humanity, interrogatory, empathetic, energising’ Claire Kohda, author of WOMAN, EATING
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Reviews
A complex, nuanced, and absorbing portrait of what it means to be mixed - with food, gender, and labor concerns as throughlines - whose ideas and critiques can be applied well beyond the shores of Britain
Rigorous, revelatory and radical, Chinese and Any Other Asian is both a fascinating social history and a timely invitation to have better conversations about culture and ethnicity. Bold and necessary
Writing with both sincerity and scepticism, Masing offers an essential deconstruction of East and Southeast Asian identity in a society that so easily collapses all nuance. As a person of Southeast Asian heritage, I've always wanted to read a book like this - simultaneously illuminating and affirming.
A resonant and enjoyable read for all of us, no matter our cultural identity . . . elucidating, entertaining and approachable
An essential look at ESEA identity through the lens of resisting British colonialism... skillfully interrogates the concepts of race, class, gender and language within pop culture with refreshing aplomb. A crucial volume in the Asian diasporic repertoire
An important, vital, and illuminating read . . . An incredibly well-researched, personal, and direct exploration of society, racism, culture, food, the hypersexualisation of ESEA women, and gendered violence
Vital reading, but also vital in the truest sense - real, alive, full of humanity, interrogatory, empathetic, energising