What’s it like being born-and-raised Chinese Pakistani?

Abbottabad, Pakistan

If you guys remember my good old friend Paloma Chen, I met her in Ohio in November 2024 and she asked me what’s up with Far From China. I told her, I was too tired after work to continue writing.

I lied. I recently interviewed Sharon Chen, who spoke from me from Islamabad in Pakistan. As a third-generation Chinese person in South Asia, it was a particularly interesting conversation because my interviews have mostly centred around the Americas and Europe, and this is the first foray into having conversations in Asia.

Pakistan is a particularly interesting case. It represents the first Muslim country where I am encountering a Chinese interviewee. What’s the implications of that? Well, you can’t find pork, meaning no pork buns… well, unless you’re Chinese and pass the “facial verification” test.

Here’s my interview with Sharon.

Overview of Chinese in Pakistan

Q: Do you know how your family ended up in Pakistan?

That’s a good question. I think back to the time when my grandfather migrated from China to India. After that, my father migrated to Pakistan. This move was not easy at all. He had to face several challenges before finally settling in Pakistan and staying with my aunt, who was like a mother to him.

If you ask me for more detailed aspects of this, I won’t delve into it as it’s quite sensitive for me. But I will say, it was not an easy journey. It had its ups and downs.

When you move to another country—a new place—you have to start from scratch. You need to find your way, work hard to stand on your own, and figure out where you can achieve stability.

Q: Did you grow up with a Chinese community around you?

I’ve lived in different cities at different times. At one point, I lived in Abbottabad with my uncle. During that time, it was just me, my father’s family, and my uncle’s family as the only Chinese there. Later, my father moved us to Nowshera, which was next to Peshawar.

We were the only Chinese in Nowshera, although there was another family in Peshawar, which was about a half-hour or 45-minute drive away. But in our immediate area, we had no connection with any other Chinese or foreign children. Nowshera, at that time, was not a place where you would meet many foreigners.

The only times we interacted with the Chinese community were when we went to Islamabad for festivals, like the New Year or other gatherings. That’s when we would connect with the ethnic Chinese Hakka group. 

Q: So would you say the Chinese community is flourishing in Pakistan? Are they dwindling?

Now, there are two things. One is the Hakka community. The old Chinese community’s numbers have drastically gone down. Most of them have left this country for good. If you look at it now, most of the Chinese community is from the mainland, not the Hakka.

The Chinese people in Pakistan now are mostly here for business. They come to Pakistan seeking better business opportunities and maybe a better life. There are periods when many Chinese come to Pakistan to invest, but then there are times when they all leave if they find the situation unstable or insecure. So, it’s not a stable number; when they leave, some might never come back.

Hakka, Mandarin, Urdu and English as a Chinese Pakistani

Q: At home, what language do you speak to your family members?

You are only allowed to speak Hakka, and it’s a good thing, actually.

Q: Why do you say it’s a good thing?

It’s truly a blessing to know different languages, especially your mother tongue. It’s not just about preserving tradition, but knowing where you come from and understanding your roots.

When I go to certain places with Hakka people, I feel more closeness when I speak Hakka and they do too.

In 2008, I went to China with my cousins and we went to our ancestral home. We agreed among our cousins that we would speak Hakka normally, but when negotiating, we would speak Urdu.

So what happened was when we were at a shop and negotiating, we started speaking Urdu and a shopkeeper was like,

“What the heck was that? Where did they come from? You guys are not from here.”

And we said “We are from Pakistan.”

“You guys accent is exactly the same as locals, you know!”

It’s a charming and valuable thing, really, and something worth holding on to.

Q: What were the primary languages you used in your life? Did you mostly speak Hakka at home and then Urdu outside?

I would say there are different timelines. During my school and college years, I primarily spoke Hakka. When I began working, my languages expanded to include Mandarin, Urdu, and English.

Q: Where does Mandarin come into your life? Why has it come into your life even though you’ve never spoken it?

This is a question I often get from the Chinese community, outside of the Hakka group. As a child, we watched Hong Kong channels like Phoenix TV, where we enjoyed cartoons and dramas. When you’re good, you’re more open to learning new things, so language came naturally to me.

During my childhood and teenage years, I’ve learned some of the vocabulary and I somehow understand what other people are talking about in Mandarin. Later, when I started working and lived with my cousin’s wife, who only spoke Mandarin. So from there, I learned some Mandarin.

During my career, I started interacting more with the broader Chinese community, including people from mainland China. Through these interactions, I learned more and improved my vocabulary and spoken accent.

How’s life like as a Chinese Pakistani?

Q: When you grew up, you didn’t have a big, Chinese community around you. So can you describe what what that was like being the only Chinese family in the city?

The only thing I will say is that, consciously, I never felt anything. I was just always in my own zone, so nothing special. But yes, I did get a lot of attention from the locals. Since we were the only Chinese in that city, people had never met a Chinese person who spoke Urdu. They would ask, “How can you speak it?”

The next question would be, “Are your parents Pakistani? One of them must be Pakistani.” But no, I’m 100% Chinese—my blood is 100% Chinese. Even now, people ask, “Your mother must be Pakistani. Your father must be.” And I have to say, “No, no, no, it’s 100% Chinese”

Yes, there was a lot of curiosity. People would ask multiple questions, and it felt like an interrogation. I used to get fed up having to repeat the same thing to everyone and would think, “Yeah, leave me alone.” At times, it was overwhelming.

Q: So would you say the treatment towards Chinese people in Pakistan is positive or negative?

There’s a timeline. Back then, they treated you with a lot of respect and love. This timeline, I would say, was from our childhood to maybe around 2004 or 2005. But gradually, more Chinese people started coming in from mainland China, and things began to change slowly.

Especially during President Musharraf’s time, certain events happened that impacted this shift. You can look it up online—there was an incident involving a conservative religious group that had some issues. They kidnapped some Chinese women who were not conducting proper business in Pakistan. That’s when things started to change. Suddenly, all Chinese people were viewed differently, as if they weren’t from respectable families and were very approachable, particularly the women, but not in a positive way.

Pork in a Muslim country?

Q: I’m curious to know about this part because Pakistan is one of the non-Western countries that I am interviewing. I think this is the first one actually. So we as Chinese people like to eat pork, for example. First of all, can you buy pork? Like siew mai or pork buns. I mean these are…

No, no no, pork will never happen. And hard drinks will never happen in the public place. Forget about that as you may get into big trouble.

When you say buy pork—you cannot buy it in most places. We buy only in the Chinese store. And Chinese stores do not expose that we are selling this.

Even the beers and hard drinks, okay? They are scared. In Pakistan, selling hard drink is prohibited against the law. But Chinese people do sell it. The beers or whatever, but it’s in their safe area.

And it’s pretty expensive, all these things.

Q: If you can’t use pork, what do you put in the pork buns? Do you put chicken in it? What do you put in the siew mai?

Pork will never be used in any of the cuisine in Pakistan. So I would think it is replaced with chicken, beef, mutton, fish or prawns.

Q: So if you really need something really Chinese, you can go to the Chinese store to buy it. How do they verify if you’re for real or if you’re the secret police or something?

[Sharon points at face]

Haha. And I also speak Mandarin, you know, so…

Border control needs proof of Chinese heritage

Q: Thanks for the interview. Usually if you have any photos to offer of the Chinese community, of yourself, of your upbringing, it will be very helpful. And if you have any, if you know how to write your Chinese name will be very useful. Because I on all my blogs, I write your your actual name and then your Chinese name next to it. I personally think that, having a Chinese name is quite important. It makes you more Chinese.

I’ll tell you a story about my name. You know, when we went to China in 2008, in the airport and we were like 11 people. So two, three people were Canadian citizens. So the rest of us cousins were Pakistani passport holders.

First the Canadian passport holders were going for the immigration check, and everything was okay. Then my cousin’s passport started getting checked and they were like, confused.

They cannot comprehend what’s going on in front of them because “you couldn’t be a Chinese Pakistani”, you know, it was a shock to them.

And then they said, “Why don’t you write your Chinese name, on the paper? Then we let you go.”

You know, luckily, my parents, taught me how to write my Chinese name.