Today we’d like to introduce you to Xin “Zinc” Tong.
Hi Xin “Zinc”, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I’m Zinc. My legal name is Xin Tong (童心), meaning a child’s heart. It was my Mom’s pen name. After she divorced my dad, she decided that it’d be funny to name me after herself. But I never feel owning this name. Growing up, I had so many name changes, legal name or nickname otherwise. So what matters the most to other people doesn’t really matter as much to me. Until one day in chemistry class, when we were learning about Cooper Zinc battery, we realized that Chinese translation for Cooper Zinc sounds exactly like Tong Xin.
My friend shouted, “Hey! You’re just like a Cooper Zinc battery!”
I’ve adopted that name since.
As a Non-Binary queer kid in China, the name Zinc is the only thing in my identity that I chose for myself. Therefore, it became the only thing that truly matters to me.
Growing up, I was always a bit of nerdy, introverted, head in the cloud, quiet, but also loudest and most stubborn when I have the most uncommon and innovative things to say. I was obsessed with Hollywood movies and BBC dramas before they became a popular thing in China. I read and wrote fanfictions about those shows I watched. But more importantly, I day-dreamt about them. A lot. It doesn’t matter if I were in class, walking towards cafeteria, showering in my dorm, my head was always filled with stories. In my head, I saw the pictures moving; characters speak as the way I like them to; even camera angles and their matching soundtrack.
One time when I was riding a bus with my mom on the way to downtown, we saw a mother reading a storybook to her daughter. My mom turns to me and said
“I never understood this parent telling stories to their child thing.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Because it’s You who always tell me stories. I never did.”
I’ve always been the storyteller for as long as I remember.
I think looking back at my childhood and adolescent years, my younger self would not surprise this is where I’m going right now – a theater maker, a director, and producer, but overall a lifelong student of human behavior. I had double degree in psychology and theater. I don’t regret any choices I’ve made. My life couldn’t be further from smooth and being handed over, but I know that every step I’ve taken I took it with careful consideration and determination. I’m a storyteller, an imaginer, a creative thinker.
I study human behavior so that I dare to imagine a world where things are better. By doing that, I write my own stories.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I’m always curious about the question of nature vs nurture. If the person we are today and the journey we’re taking is naturally determined or based on the choices we make along the way.
I think it’s both.
I cut my hair short since I was 9 years old. Ever since then, the first impression anybody has had about me is about how cool I am as a tomboy.
“You must be really good at sports? Do you play basketball?”
“It’s great to be as tough as boys.”
“Do you still like pink?”
“Why don’t you grow your hair back? Girls with short hair…ummm…”
What is a tomboy? I never liked the term. I never feel like I’m a girl who acts like a boy. I am me, who rejects any gendered stereotype on any category.
The first time I experienced gender dysphoria was when I was 6. I remember too clearly that in our Chinese class, the teacher asked the boy to read a part of the article, and then girl read a part of the article. I tried to follow instructions to read with girls, but I realized my voice is not as high as the rest of girls. No matter how hard I try, my voice is not matched with theirs whatsoever. It annoyed me so much so I gave up on it. I started to read along with the boys.
Ever since that moment, I started to pay more attention on gender differences – or how differently boys act from girls, as a 6-year-old would understand. I realized there are so many. Girls wear dresses and play dolls. I don’t like that. But boys act recklessly and fight all the time. I don’t do that either. I realized I don’t belong to either group.
That scared me. For a 6-year-old who realized they don’t belong, the consequence was serious. Growing up, I never had big social circle, even though I value friendships a lot. When I do make connections, I pour my heart and soul. But I was never the popular child. During those days when girls play along easily with girls, and boys the same, I was left behind, and I seem to never really catch upon, until when I started to get to know queer communities in my early 20s.
But Not-Belong didn’t just bring me solitude, it becomes my greatest strength. Because I realized I’m different from everyone else, it’s become a habit of me to not conform as well.
Since I’m different from y’all, let me as well not think like you too.
That is a huge thing for anyone living in China, where the biggest requirement is for everyone to conform to the same standard, especially thoughts.
Whenever anyone asks me what my greatest influence growing up, I always answer it’s my short hair and my grandpa. My grandpa worked as an investigative journalist and a high school teacher in his early days. He’s the one who always tells me to never believe in anything in the news. Never trust anything before I process it with my own critical thinking. During my adolescent days in China, I know for sure I was the only one in my class who don’t believe a thing in our politics textbook. I refused to memorize any Party motto. I have no genuine admiration towards Party or its leaders. I did what’s necessary for survival, but I was loud with people I trust. I know even these days I still try the hardest to get what’s necessary to be heard out there regarding the dictatorship.
But challenges always exist. The greatest challenges in my life are who I am. I am a queer gender-nonbinary Chinese. Even now as a Chinese person living in America, the challenges are more than I can list here. The political tension between two countries seems to be endless. Worrying about status and limitations seems to be my everyday activity. I seem to always live in a liminal space.
That’s the greatest challenge. But it’s also my greatest strength. The challenges imposed on my gender, sexuality and ethnic identity are what drives me forward. I know it is my lifelong mission to work with other people who are marginalized or oppressed just like me to strive for a better reality that is at its fuller potential of how life can be.
I know obstacles and challenges are not what stop me or put me in a weaker position. It’s the reason for my existence. It’s the reason for me to keep moving forward.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m a creative entrepreneur and multidisciplinary storyteller specializing in theater directing, stage management, sound and projection design. As a theater artist, my focus is on developing original new work that’s created by QTBIPOC+ (Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous and Other Peoples of Color, etc.) and/or neurodivergent artists. I believe in community empowerment through not just shining light on under-representative creative practitioners, but create work for under-representative audiences as well. I make theater that not only tells stories that are less heard and less seen before but revolutionizes the relationship between art-making and its heteronormative white-centered capitalist consumption in the current environment.
I’m proud of every single under-representative artist I collaborated with, and every single under-representative community-centered work I helped develop. Credits include: Sorry, Wrong Number (UCSD), Dress in Code (The New School), Playing the Other (The Wild Project), Shhh… Do You Remember (Found Space Theater Company), Enkidu (Lime Arts Production).
Outside of theater, I’m also a multimedia creator who likes to use sound, photography, film editing to celebrate life, honor people around me and indulge my childhood obsession.
What matters most to you?
Who gets to tell what stories matter to me.
I think growing up the biggest question that always bothers me is why is there always one static standard that controlling all aspects of life. Why is there always one type of norm that everyone has to follow? Aesthetically there’s a norm dictating what’s beautiful for everyone. Behaviorally, there’s a norm dictating how should you act, what should you dress if you’re certain class, race, or gender. People are always put in the boxes, and everyone has to behave the way your box tells you to. That bothers me, especially in a capitalist society.
As a storyteller and a theater maker, the biggest reason for me to get into this industry is because I see hope in this industry to change that trend. Some might argue that entertainment industry, film and television especially, are the original source that creates the social norm: what’s cool, what’s acceptable, what’s beautiful, etc. But from what I see, especially in theater industry, this is also the place that has the most potential to change that.
For the longest time, theater is always about upper-class cisheterosexual white men. These are the people who create the stories, and these are the people who consume them. But in contemporary world, things are changing fast. Many people before me have already asked the question of is this ok? More and more QTBIPOC+ folks are joining the creative team in the theaters, and more stories that highlight and celebrate communities underserved are overflowing. I’m living in the best of the time to join this team. and it is my mission to stand on the shoulders of those who came before me, and continue speaking out, always criticizing, always questioning.
Who gets to tell what story? This is always what matters the most to me. This is why, as a theater maker, I focus on creating new works devised by communities underserved. I do this not that for those with power, but for people like me, like us. I came into theater because I see myself through these stories that highlight the lives of the “odd ones” like me. I want to continue contributing back to these communities. Continue highlighting and celebrating lives of the marginalized, the underpowered, the odd ones.
Never conform before critically thinking through. Always question. Always speaking out loud. Keep creating. Speak the unspoken. Highlight the unseen. These are what matter to me.
Contact Info:
- Website: XinZincTong.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cuprum_zinc/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/xin.tong.10441/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@zinctong744
- Other: Photography: https://sites.google.com/view/xintongportfolio/menu?authuser=1
Image Credits
Nathaniel Johnston Photography, Christian Johnson, Zif Ye
