ABSTRACT
This chapter sociologically unearths the dynamics and politics around looking Chinese while being (un)able to speak Chinese. The chapter discusses the interview accounts of five Chinese Australian young people and analyses the responses of 230 Chinese Australian young adults to an online questionnaire. Chinese looks are construed not only as a set of bodily attributes but also as a system of habitual dispositions that may orient Chinese Australian participants to learn Chinese Heritage Language. In this vein, the body-language link becomes a form of ‘seen but unnoticed’ social order, to which participants conform, either consciously or unconsciously. When Chinese Australians breach the socially anticipated norm that looking Chinese necessarily means being able to speak Chinese, they reflexively make meaning out of their Chinese looks. Interestingly, such inadvertent breaches of the habitual social order establish the everyday basis for the reproduction of the social order. This is a sociological accomplishment that is termed as ‘habitus realisation’.
