The real reason family reunions during Chinese New Year feel so emotionally exhausting has nothing to do with your relatives and everything to do with the version of yourself you become the moment you walk through that door - Silicon Canals

"They look exhausted in a way that has nothing to do with travel or late nights. It's a deeper fatigue, the kind that comes from holding two versions of yourself simultaneously."

"My colleague Mei is a 32-year-old product manager at a fintech startup. At work, she's direct, often blunt in meetings, quick to challenge assumptions. She dresses sharp. She makes decisions fast. I've watched her shut down poor ideas without ceremony. Last year, I ran into her three days after she returned from CNY with her family in Penang. She looked different. Not just tired-compressed somehow. When I asked how it went, she said, "Fine," but then laughed. "I basically become a different person around my parents. Quieter. More obedient. I defer to my mother on everything, even things I wouldn't defer on to anyone else in my life.""

""I'm managing impressions with my parents, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles-each relationship requires a slightly different version of me. With my parents, I'm the successful son who's made the""

Every late January many people prepare for Chinese New Year, leaving cities and offices empty by early February. Returning family members often show deep fatigue unrelated to travel, resulting from sustained code-switching between work and family identities. Code-switching is cognitively demanding because brains manage competing identity frameworks, suppressing some behaviors while activating others. Family gatherings amplify impression management as individuals present slightly different personas for parents, grandparents, and extended relatives. Cultural expectations and repeated behavioral shifts during reunions generate compressed exhaustion and persistent emotional wear after the holiday period.

Read at Silicon Canals