‘I may not yet feel fully British, but my family and I have made Britain our home. This book is for my daughters, so they can see themselves reflected in this country.'
It was during a trip to a museum in 2014 that Daisy Hung first recalls being incorrectly labelled as a tourist – a trend that has continued since she settled in the UK, regardless of the documents she has gathered. From assumptions that she speaks Mandarin or that she’s from China, to hearing the continued use of offensive and culturally insensitive terms, such as ‘Oriental’ and ‘Chinese whispers’, she has consistently felt othered, despite being a British citizen and having only once visited Hong Kong and China.
In I Am Not a Tourist, Daisy explores what it means to be British Chinese today, and the social, historical and political factors that have got us here. Fighting narrow and dehumanising stereotypes, of Chinese people excelling at school, or being devoid of original thought or leadership, or having authoritarian parents, she encourages readers to interrogate their assumptions and interpretations of ‘Chinese’ identity.
In the wake of the upsurge of anti-Asian racism, triggered by the racialisation of the COVID-19 pandemic as the ‘China virus’, ‘China plague’ and ‘Kung flu’, I Am Not a Tourist exposes the ongoing racism and inequalities that British Chinese communities face, and forms an urgent call for change.
