Chinese-ness: The Meanings of Identity and the Nature of Belonging
(2010 – 2018)

Is Chinese identity personal, cultural, national, political, imposed? Does it migrate, become malleable or transmuted? When is it authentic, exotic, kitsch, appropriated? 

Using documentary and conceptual photographic strategies, Wing explores the meaning of Chinese-ness in his home state of Minnesota, throughout the United States, and in China. How does Chinese-ness collide with American-ness? And who gets to define those hyphenated abstract nouns? Part meta-memoir and part actual memoir, Chinese-ness reframes today’s conversations about race and identity.

Diptych of two photos at Guangzhou Railroad Station in China: one of a migrant and the other of Wing Young Huie wearing the migrant's clothes. "I am you."
Photography framing shop in China.
Jarrelle Barton, guzheng player, in Prior Lake, Minnesota.
Original Chicken Wings storefront.
Diptych of two photographs: one of a guard standing in front of the Cheerful toy factory in Dongguan China; the other of Wing Young Huie wearing the guard's clothes.
Woman at the Cheerful toy factory in Dongguang, China holding a chalkboard: "I wanted to be a writer of romantic novels."
Man on the street holding a chalkboard with a statement about being a migrant in Guangdong, China.
Diptych of two photographs: one of a man getting his haircut on the street; the other of Wing Young Huie getting a haircut.
Diptych of two photographs: one of a photographer in China; the other of Wing Young Huie wearing the photographer's clothes.
Chinese woman in Philadelphia holding a chalkboard: "Stop asking me where I'm from!"
Diptych of two photographs: one of a woman in an Asian grocery store dressed casually; the other of the same woman wearing a peacock dress.
An older Chinese woman holding two Chinese dolls and a photograph of her father.
Image of Michael Jackson on a cell phone in a restaurant in Lianzhou, China.
Three children in the kitchen watching their father getting his hair braided in a Chinese style by their mother.
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