No stereotypes please, overseas Chinese students are a wonderful mix

In the late 1990s, I came to the United Kingdom as one of those overseas Chinese students with delusions of grandeur, thinking I would become a concert pianist with a career in Europe.

I was one of four young women with “yellow skin” in the class – two from Singapore, one from Hong Kong, a fourth from Taiwan holding an Australian passport. The Hongkonger was called Cindy, and for some of my classmates who could not figure out our names, we were all “The Cindys”. I found this funny – even laughed along and considered starting a band – before I was socialised into reckoning with the racist undertones of such behaviour.

Decades on – after a few wake-up calls and a detour into journalism – I am an academic myself, teaching people from all over the world at an elite UK university, and especially working with students who might rally to the label of “yellow” with both pride and nonchalance.

Some things haven’t changed. A year ago I called out a piano teacher at a posh UK school for quipping on social media about the single-syllable names of her students from East Asia. She bragged that she wouldn’t bother to distinguish between individuals, and would call everyone “darling” instead.

Yet, things have moved on in other directions. Today, East Asian students are subject to aggressive recruitment campaigns by universities in the UK, Europe and the United States looking to expand their revenue source – high fee-paying international students. In fact, I’ve been sent by my institution on trips for this purpose.

Do I feel ambivalent about this? Yes, not least as a member of the Chinese diaspora who wonders about the neoliberal politics of prioritising any kind of growth in precariously underfunded higher education – or relying on Chinese students who face challenges writing essays in English as a second language, with or without help from artificial intelligence.