2025 – ASIX 315 (FMR ASIX 300A) student submissions

August 10, 2025August 10, 2025

Cantonese Through TikTok

“Proud of you girly. Cantonese is hard!”

Creator:
Deborah Wong (She/her)

Anyone who learns Cantonese as an adult will tell you how difficult it Cantonese is to learn. Just figuring out the different tones is enough to confuse even the most motivated of learners. This can get even more frustrating for heritage diasporic learners because they may feel the pressure to learn it, some shame in not knowing it, and numerous other feelings. Traditionally, learners have had to learn Cantonese either formally through classes (which have historically been difficult to come by due to the lack of offerings), or informally through friends and family. As Deborah details in this piece, TikTok has emerged as a key platform to provide relatable resources to help diasporic individuals learn and improve on Cantonese, replete with a comments section that, for better or for worse, connects millions of users together. In what ways do you think TikTok content differs from other types of content to help learners pick up Cantonese?

August 10, 2025August 10, 2025

Food is Life

Food physically represents beliefs and values that would otherwise be intangible and difficult to maintain morale with.

Creator:
Mandie Leung (She/her)

When one thinks of a diasporic community, it takes very little for us to get to the question of “What foods do they eat?” Afterall, food is one of humanity’s basic needs, and food varies dramatically across different cultural groups. This variation indexes the different geographical, geological, and climatic conditions from which these cultures emerged; the interplay with other political entities; and individual ingenuity. In this piece, Mandie traces how foodways for Hong Kong diaspora persist, and help Hong Kong diaspora preserve and maintain their connections to a distant home – real and imagined – whether it’s through Hong Kong style cafés, or dim sum restaurants. When you think of Hong Kong food, what other offerings can you think of?

August 10, 2025August 10, 2025

Hong Kong Diaspora in a Post-Unrest Era

“We cannot be prosecuted due to our lifestyle or expression of thoughts in other places…”

Creator:
Adrian Chan (He/him)

Migration is an immense undertaking because it entails that one is uprooting their entire life and existence, stepping away from an ecosystem within which they have become accustomed, to join an ecosystem in which they are strangers and novices. Such an immense undertaking must be predicated on an equally immense motivation; but that motivation varies drastically between individuals. Some do it for employment opportunities, others do it to avoid political persecution, among innumerable other reasons. Through interviews, Adrian uncovers the motivation behind two Hong Kongers’ migration to Canada, and how they relate to the current political situation in Hong Kong. What other kinds of motivations have you observed from Hong Kong diaspora migrating to Canada, or other destinations?