I was born between 2000 and 2005. If anyone asked me about my first impression when I first heard about the US, I would say: the Houston Rockets (because of Yao Ming) and Barack Obama (because he was always the US president from my childhood until my junior high school years). In 2016, I entered junior high school, and it was my first time hearing about the US election. It was the first time that Barack Obama was not going to be president, so my classmates and I were especially curious about the election process and the results. People were also focused on how the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would unfold.

From two of my classmates, who often role-played as WWII dictators (it may sound horrible if you're from the Western world, but that’s what happened), I first heard two names: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. It was the first time I learned about the US presidential election.

People around me joked, saying those were the two worst choices ever in any US election. Though, compared to the two later elections, the one in 2016 was probably not the worst.

Many Chinese observers were concerned about the election results in 2016. People were afraid that if Hillary Clinton was elected, the TPP, seen as a potential threat to China, would proceed. On the other hand, if Donald Trump was elected... he didn’t seem reliable, since Chinese people—and even other East Asians—prefer a more humble tone in speech.

I remember at the time, the Chinese were joking about Trump’s exaggerated language and body gestures, but there wasn’t much criticism about the debates other than that. A debate is a debate, and we Chinese enjoy that. At that moment, no LGBTQ+ issues or the "Zero-dollar Shopping" controversy (which didn’t happen until 2017) were on the stage. The only controversy was the immigration issue between Mexico and the United States. Tax policy, tariffs, the economy, safety, China’s policies, and immigration policy—those were the main topics.

My classmates and I were following the updates like we were eating popcorn. Then the Hillary Clinton email controversy occurred.

In November, we heard that Trump had won the 2016 election. One of my classmates sighed, saying: "Despite the voting policy that refers to each state, Hillary actually got more votes!"

I was still young at the time and couldn’t recall many details. But at that time, at least two of the candidates had policies that were grounded in reality, rather than just categorizing everything by race and identity. This is a valuable lesson for the 2024 election.