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(Redirected from Jook sing)
Term for person of Chinese descent who adopts Western cultural norms
This article needs attention from an expert in China. The specific problem is: need Cantonese and Mandarin cultural fluency.WikiProject China may be able to help recruit an expert. (July 2015)
The term jook-sing evolved from zuk-gong (竹杠; zhugang in Mandarin) which means a "bamboo pole" or "rod". Since gong (杠) is a Cantonese homophone of the inauspicious word 降 which means "descend" or "downward", it is replaced with sing (升), which means "ascend" or "upward".
The stem of the bamboo plant is hollow and compartmentalized; thus water poured in one end does not flow out of the other end. The metaphor is that jook-sings are not part of either culture; water within the jook-sing does not flow and connect to either end. The term may or may not be derogatory. Use of the term predates World War II.
Modern term
North American usage
In the United States and Canada, the term refers to fully Westernized American-born or Canadian-born Chinese. The term originates from Cantonese slang in the United States. Jook-sing persons are categorized as having Western-centric identities, values and culture. The term also refers to similar Chinese individuals in Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, and New Zealand.
Related colloquialisms
Banana (Chinese: 香蕉人/香蕉仔; pinyin: xiāngjiāo rén / xiāngjiāo zi; Jyutping: hoeng1 ziu1 jan4/hoeng1 ziu1 zi2) (referencing the yellow skin and white insides of the fruit when fully matured) and Twinkie (based on the snack produced by American company Hostess - again, it denotes something that is "yellow" on the outside and "white" on the inside); may be used as a pejorative term or as a non-pejorative term.
FOB (Fresh Off the Boat): antonym of jook-sing. Typically meant to indicate a Chinese-born person who propagates excessively Chinese stereotypes while living in the West.
Louie, Emma Woo (1998). Chinese American Names; Tradition and Transition. Foreword by Him Mark Lai. Jefferson: McFarland and Company. ISBN978-0-7864-0418-6. OCLC37705342.
Lee, Douglas W. (1980). Chinese American History and Historiography: The Musings of a Jook-Sing. OCLC80582576.
