…n, adoption and interest towards other cultures, but ignorance, ostracisation and othering of them. Telling me that only I can openly and without challenge celebrate Chinese New Year or wear qipao or teach Chinese cookery (haha, me and cooking!) can only serve to promote the idea of me as an exotic other, or Chinese stereotype, as things deemed to be culturally ‘mine’ become off-limits to anyone not Chinese, or at least East Asian. I have experienced attempts at policing cultural appropriation on my behalf that, while well-intentioned, feel like the (similarly well-intentioned) patronising over-respect I sometimes received in the ‘90s/early-2000s from people who’d bow, carefully compliment my English and offer to make me a bowl of rice (because surely that’s what all Chinese-looking people want!), without knowing anything about me, out of some misguided sense that that was the culturally respectful thing to do.