Between Two Names
Decolonization isn’t about rejecting one identity for another
By Xiaomeng Qiao
Illustration by Austin Hughes
Jin Yong’s classic 1960s wuxia novel Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils (“Tian Long Ba Bu”) is the story of Qiao Feng (or Xiao Feng, depending on whether he identifies as Khitan or Han). Qiao Feng’s tragedy begins when he discovers that his life, defined by loyalty to the Han people in 11th-century China, is built on a false premise. Born to parents from the nomadic Khitan ethnic group, he was orphaned as a child after his parents were killed by the Han. Raised by Han people, he grew up unaware of his true heritage and spent years fighting alongside them, even killing the Khitan in the name of loyalty and justice. His identity, deeply rooted in Han culture, was shattered upon learning of his Khitan origins. Facing relentless betrayal and rejection from both the Han and Khitan people, Qiao Feng ultimately finds himself caught between two worlds, belonging to neither. His life culminates in an ultimate act of sacrifice—taking his own life to prevent war between the two peoples he wished to unite. This final, heartbreaking decision reflects the profound loneliness and despair of a man who, despite his unparalleled strength and heroism, could not overcome the prejudice and hatred that surrounded him.
Qiao Feng’s story is harrowing. But what would it mean to survive being caught between two worlds, including all the ambivalence and contradictions this entails? And what is in a name?
Postcolonial Anger
Identity has always felt like a tug-of-war for me—a constant negotiation between who I am and who the world expects me to be. My two names tell this story. Xiaomeng is my Chinese name, rooted in my heritage, my family, my past. Jo is the name I took on later, a bridge into Western spaces where Xiaomeng often felt too foreign, too hard to pronounce. These names aren’t just labels; they’re symbols of a deeper conflict—the pull between holding onto my roots and adapting to a world shaped by histories I didn’t choose.
This tension isn’t unique to me. It’s the shadow of colonial legacies that linger in how we see ourselves and each other. For a long time, I didn’t realize how much anger and alienation I carried because of it. Frantz Fanon, a psychoanalyst and anticolonial militant who grew up a French colonial subject, describes anger as both a shield and a way to reclaim yourself. That idea hit home for me. Facing that anger, and the pain underneath it, has been a key part of my own healing and shapes how I approach my work in therapy today.
My childhood in China was steeped in stories of invasion and resilience. History classes painted vivid pictures of foreign humiliation—the Opium Wars, unequal treaties, and the devastation of Japanese aggression. These weren’t just facts to memorize; they felt like warnings, shaping a collective sense of grief and vigilance. By the time I reached adolescence, the West and Japan weren’t just countries; they were symbols of both threat and aspiration.
Language carried its own contradictions. English, a required subject, was treated as both a tool for modernization and a betrayal of cultural pride. We’d hear phrases like “Learning English disgraces our ancestors,” even as we spent hours perfecting it. For me, this wasn’t just academic. Writing in English often felt unnatural, like my thoughts were trapped between two worlds, never fully belonging to either. “Translation tone” is what I’d call it now—that strange, stilted quality that comes from trying to bridge languages while feeling authentic in neither.
This linguistic duality mirrors what Fanon analyzed in The Wretched of the Earth. He saw language as a tool of domination, a way colonizers imposed their worldview on the colonized. Speaking English—or writing in it, as I do now—often felt like an act of disloyalty to my heritage. Yet rejecting it outright wasn’t an option either. English was a gateway to global conversations, and it shaped much of my professional life. I was left in a constant state of tension, creating what I now see as a double bind: wanting to stay true to my roots but needing to adapt to a system that demanded something else.
At the time, I refused to adopt an English name, even as most of my classmates eagerly picked names like Jessica or Michael. To me it felt sycophantic, yet even as I clung to this resistance I couldn’t ignore the allure of the West. My admiration for Western technologies, ideas, and educational systems ran deep. When I eventually entered the gaming industry as a game designer, this admiration showed in the way I introduced Western-designed courses to my team and pursued partnerships abroad. Success, in my mind, was tied to Western validation. China, by comparison, seemed stuck, perpetually playing catch-up.
Ironically, while striving to emulate the West, I held tight to my Chinese name. I insisted Western colleagues use it, knowing the pronunciation was challenging for them. It was a small act of defiance, a way of reminding myself—and them—who I was. Yet, it was also isolating. Every mispronunciation felt like a reminder of the gap between us, a subtle but persistent dissonance.
I’ve often grappled with anger tied to the narratives I grew up with—anger that sometimes felt righteous but, at other times, misdirected. Fanon wrote about this kind of anger as a residue of oppression, a way colonized people hold onto the pain and humiliation of their history. In my case, this anger seeped into everyday encounters. It was the unease I felt in history lessons that turned the West into both a threat and a model, and the resentment I carried toward my Japanese instructor, who had done nothing to deserve it.
Fanon warns that this kind of anger can become a trap. While it can unite people against shared oppression, it can also create rigid divides, locking individuals into reactive cycles that block personal growth. That idea stayed with me when I looked back at my younger self—how easy it was to misplace blame, to focus on symbols of colonial aggression rather than questioning the deeper structures that created these tensions in the first place.
Becoming Jo
I never planned to adopt an English name. My name felt like a declaration: I am Chinese, and I won’t conform. But things changed when I entered the world of psychoanalysis.
At first, Jo was just a pen name. It felt playful, simple, and neutral. There was continuity too: the Chinese translation of Jo shared a connection with my surname. Over time, though, Jo became more than a convenience. As I explored psychoanalysis, a field steeped in Western intellectual traditions, Jo felt like a new self—one less tied to the cultural and emotional weight of Xiaomeng.
I appreciated how the name aligned with my nonbinary identity; its androgyny offering a kind of freedom. Operating as Jo in English-speaking professional spaces felt like stepping into another world. This wasn’t better or worse than being Xiaomeng, just different—more open, less confined by the expectations tied to my native language.
This duality echoes what critical theorist Homi Bhabha calls the “third space”—a space where identity isn’t about choosing one side or the other but about existing in the in-between, where new forms of self-expression can emerge. For me, Jo wasn’t just a name; it was a way to bridge my Chinese heritage and my professional life in Western contexts. This third space isn’t just a place of possibility; it’s also one of tension. Living in this space meant constantly negotiating who I was and how I presented myself.
But this duality wasn’t without its challenges. In therapy sessions and academic settings, I thrived as Jo, yet I sometimes felt I was leaving parts of myself behind. A pivotal moment came during an interview for a psychoanalytic consultation program targeting more experienced therapists. Though I’d mostly used Jo in the US, I inadvertently introduced myself as Xiaomeng. The interviewer fixated on my use of two names, questioning my consistency and even scheduling multiple follow-ups to “resolve” the issue. I felt scrutinized and reduced to a problem to be solved.
The experience forced me to confront how much I had internalized Western norms. I’d accepted that I needed to adapt, to “work harder” if I struggled with English or Western-centric systems. I’d encouraged others to embrace these norms too, while subconsciously devaluing my own language and cultural frameworks. Psychoanalysis helped me find healing, but it also blinded me to the ways I was being positioned as an outsider. It took incidents like that interview to make me see how I was navigating a system that required me to compromise parts of my identity.
As I look back on my journey, I realize my struggles with identity aren’t just personal—they’re shared by so many young Chinese people living in a globalized, postcolonial world. We’re caught in a tug-of-war between traditional Chinese values, which often feel distant from our modern realities, and the allure of Western ideals, shaped by histories of colonial dominance.
By the time I reached adolescence, the West and Japan weren’t just countries; they were symbols of both threat and aspiration.
Weaving Together Identities
For those shaped by colonial histories, identity is often a delicate balancing act between past and present, roots and transformation. Fanon’s insights into the “colonized intellectual” speak directly to this tension. He described how intellectuals often feel torn between preserving their cultural heritage and adapting to the frameworks of colonial powers. This duality creates a fractured sense of self, where belonging to either world feels incomplete.
Growing up, I admired the richness of Chinese culture but couldn’t ignore the scars it left. As a queer person, I felt those scars acutely—traditional norms often left little room for identities like mine. And yet, Western frameworks, while appearing more inclusive, weren’t the safe havens they seemed. They welcomed us conditionally, asking us to conform to their terms—whether by adopting Western labels for our identities or framing our experiences through Eurocentric narratives of queerness. In the Chinese context, where conformity and collective identity are deeply ingrained, cultural norms often reinforce a rigid sense of belonging, creating alienation for those who don’t fit traditional molds. As a queer person navigating a postcolonial identity, I’ve often felt this alienation—a sense of rootlessness that can be both painful and freeing.
This tension hit home during the COVID-19 pandemic. While many of my peers considered emigrating to escape the limitations of Chinese society, I felt an unshakable pull to stay. My work as a psychoanalyst felt tied to serving the Chinese community. Pursuing a foreign license or fully integrating into a Western professional system didn’t feel right. My frustration with colleagues who prioritized foreign credentials over serving local communities deepened my resolve to stay rooted in my cultural heritage.
This struggle between staying and leaving, between belonging and alienation, brought me back to literary critic Edward Said’s idea of displacement. Displacement isn’t just physical; it’s cultural and emotional, a feeling of never fully belonging anywhere. For me, this feeling has been a constant companion. I often feel the weight of living across multiple cultural and geographical spaces. My closest friends and mentors are in America, my family is in China, and my analyst is in England. These connections enrich my life but also complicate my sense of self. But rather than resisting it, I’ve come to see it as part of my story. Displacement doesn’t have to mean loss as it means to Qiao Feng; it can also mean expansion—a chance to redefine home and self on my own terms.
This sense of displacement has shaped my academic and professional path. Joining the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis wasn’t just an academic choice—it was a deliberate step toward deepening my engagement with Chinese contexts. My research, too, focuses on bridging psychoanalytic theory with Chinese experiences, creating work that honors both my training and my roots.
Over time, I’ve turned these complexities into strengths. Activism has become a way to integrate my identities—whether advocating for transgender rights at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis or pushing for greater inclusivity in psychoanalytic training at APsA. Moments like teaching my analyst to write my Chinese name or embracing Puppy Jo, a name that reflects my childlike and courageous parts, remind me that my identity doesn’t have to fit into neat categories. It’s messy, multifaceted, and entirely mine.
Decolonization, as I’ve come to understand it, isn’t about rejecting one identity for another. It’s about weaving them together, recognizing that the fractures and tensions are part of what make us whole. In many ways, this mirrors a fundamental psychoanalytic truth: The self is never fully coherent or unified. Instead, we are shaped by internal conflicts, competing desires, and unconscious forces that resist neat resolution. Accepting these tensions—rather than seeking to erase them—is what allows for growth. It’s about turning rootlessness into resilience, finding strength in the very things that once felt like weaknesses. For me, this journey has been both deeply personal and inherently political—a process of creating a self that honors every piece of who I am.
Xiaomeng Qiao, psychoanalytic candidate at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis (ICPLA) and doctoral student at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis (BGSP), explores mental health through cultural perspectives. Their Substack Chinese Psychoanalytic Scene examines psychoanalysis within Chinese culture.
Published May 2025