I Am Not a Tourist

’An important new voice’ DAVID YIP, actor

’A vital resource’ PEYVAND SADEGHIAN, actor and writer

’Important and poignant...A brilliant read’ HELEN TSE MBE, author of Sweet Mandarin

What does it mean to exist at the intersection of cultures?

Though a citizen of the UK, Daisy J. Hung is regularly mistaken for a tourist, asked where she’s really from or greeted with Ni hao on the assumption she speaks Mandarin. These experiences serve as a reminder that, no matter how she moves through the world, she is often seen as an outsider.

In I Am Not a Tourist, Daisy explores what it means to be British Chinese today, and the social, historical and political factors that have got us here. Fighting narrow and dehumanising stereotypes, of Chinese people excelling at school, or being devoid of original thought or leadership, or having authoritarian parents, she encourages readers to interrogate their assumptions and interpretations of ’Chinese’ identity.

In the wake of the upsurge of anti-Asian racism, triggered by the racialisation of the COVID-19 pandemic as the ’China virus’, ’China plague’ and ’Kung flu’, I Am Not a Tourist exposes the ongoing racism and inequalities that British Chinese communities face, and forms an urgent call for change.

’If you’re looking to expand your understanding of the community, this book is an essential addition to your reading list’ LORD SONNY LEONG CBE

*Audiobook narrated by Katie Leung (Harry Potter)

Daisy J. Hung is a diversity practitioner, writer, and artist, advocating for social justice across personal and professional spheres. She is the Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in the Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division at the University of Oxford.

Daisy has a unique, international perspective on race, identity, and belonging, informed by a 20-year career across legal, non-profit and education sectors working to support marginalised communities. As a person of Chinese descent, born in Canada with family from Hong Kong, raised in the US, and now settled in the UK, her sense of identity has shifted among many different contexts.

Daisy was longlisted for the Penguin Random House WriteNow 2020 competition, and was selected for the inaugural HarperCollins Author Academy programme in 2021 and The Greene Door Project’s mentoring scheme in November 2021.