Being Chinese | In China at a time of geopolitical flux, I feel right at home

“You could do with some international exposure. China, maybe,” a law firm partner said as we stood over the water cooler. His offhand comment was so blasé. I wasn’t sure what unsettled me more – the comment or my reaction to it.

Was it xenophobia or the inertia of assumption? He was perfectly pleasant, encouraging even, but beneath the civility was an implication I couldn’t ignore. I had never set foot in Asia, yet suddenly, it felt as though my credibility required a pilgrimage.

I wrestled with a familiar refrain: go back to where you came from. It threaded through my thoughts, persistent and uninvited. So I booked the flight. Three months at a law firm in China, I reasoned. International exposure. Professional development. Tick the box. Return to London.

A decade (and five cities) later, I am still in Shanghai, a city that has reinvented itself several times over in that time. The future I thought I was preparing for – stable and linear, shaped by hyper-independent eldest immigrant daughter syndrome – has dissipated along the way.

In the United Kingdom, I was a statistic no one read aloud. Less than 1 per cent of the population identified as Chinese. My British Vietnamese-Cantonese-Hakka third-generation diaspora heritage cast me as a minority of a minority.