POV
Xiren's writing explores identity, language, power, and modern global life through an intercultural lens.
Born in China, raised in the UK and Canada, and now based between Europe and North America, she has traveled to nearly 50 countries and writes about the invisible systems that shape how we move, connect, communicate, and belong.
Her writing spans cultural identity, migration, emotional resilience, relationships, power dynamics, creativity, wellness, and modern belonging. She has written over 100 columns for Elephant Journal and is the longtime host and producer of the Mandarin-language radio and podcast program “Xiren Let’s Talk,” with over 600 episodes exploring cultural blindspots in diaspora communities, third-culture psychology, migration, and cross-cultural communication.
Featured Essay
Every female student at the acting conservatory starts her journey into acting with Chekhov’s Seagull...And that hunger tunes our scripts, so they end up sounding the same. Nina lives in all of us. Every time we are fed a script, our boundaries of intimacy shift. Our world changes.
But just as we were trained to unlearn and become, we can, too, learn and unbecome. Except for this time, we get to decide who we are. No more assigned identities. No more “helping hands.” We get to decide.
Featured Essay
What becomes the language of worship after we have been uprooted from home?
The Chinese culture conditions us to become detached to emotions as we pursue success, ranking, and recognition. Only until much later, do we realize that we detached from the core things that give us a sense of home. In its place, there is a Western shaped house, outlining our emptiness and void. I can say this for myself, but I now understand it must be true for my parents as well.
What shape are their hearts that they failed to tend? What shapes are their dreams beyond what we see in the mirror?
Featured Essay
While I cherish the heritage I carry, beneath this pride is a more complex feeling. A sharp disappointment. Every time I get too close to certain Chinese American circles, something in me recoils.
The very people who could be cultural champions have become instead the puppeteers of a cultural crisis, moving at a momentum and scale that is unhinged. I am reminded of this Chinese proverb:
“天下乌鸦一般黑 tiān xià wū yā yī bān hēi” — All crows on earth are equally dark.
In this case, the con artists look like us. And that’s what makes it so hard to see them coming.
Turbulent 20s in 100 Columns
Tracing a decade of personal evolution through essays on identity, migration, relationships, creativity, emotional resilience, and modern belonging. Written across countries, transitions, heartbreaks, reinventions, and artistic awakenings, these columns capture the inner architecture of becoming — one story, rupture, and realization at a time.