Anisha Thai on What It Means to be Blasian, a Dancer, and Global Influencer
Anisha Thai vividly remembers when she first arrived in Hong Kong in 2016 for an internship at a construction company and was racially discriminated. As the youngest and only non-local, female, and Black-Asian engineer on site, she was markedly different as compared to her senior colleagues, double her age at just 22.
“One manager would come up to me [and] say, ‘what’s up Bob Marley?’” said Anisha.
“I was the youngest engineer on site, and I had a big helmet that did not really fit my dreadlocks because I have so much hair. I was struggling in my job with the big boots, dirty and sweaty, and looking and being different.”
Being Black and Asian, navigating her place as a Paris-born and raised, Vietnamese- Comorian young woman in her engineering career in Hong Kong, Anisha wanted to do more to champion her mixed identity as a blend of Africa, Europe, and Asia in the workplace and online, in the face of racial discrimination.
Five years after stepping onto the Hong Kong tarmac, Anisha has found her footing as a dancer and content creator, specialising in spreading the love and passion of African music and dance.
Her goal? Become the world’s largest Blasian influencer online.
When Anisha first arrived in Hong Kong in 2016, social media was not a stable space for beginning an influencer or dancing career.
“With the growth of the digital world, there was more opportunity for content creators and myself, as a dancer, to do more than teaching and shows, but conveying a message to everybody on [the] social media platform.”
After being exposed to African culture and learning how to dance to Afrobeat music during her studies at the University of Pretoria in South Africa in 2017, Anisha was resolute to sustain her Black identity in Hong Kong.
“I asked myself how I can stay connected with my African identity and the Black community here. Dance was the route I took to stay connected whilst also embracing my Asian side at the same time.”
Dance was the conveyor and direction for embracing her African side in a city with an estimated 6,000 Africans and only six Comorian people, according to Anisha’s count.
“When we grow up, we always look up to a model or celebrity that looks like you. Because I did not have that I thought why not I create that model that is not existing and wasn’t there for me?”
In Hong Kong, representation of Black models and influencers was poor, Anisha said. “How about I pave the way for the representation amongst Blasians here?”
Venturing into dance and branding herself as a Blasian content creator represented a void filled as Anisha created something that had not existed before:, a merging of Asian and African cultures with dance and pushing content on a global scale.
“When I came [to Hong Kong] as an intern, I fell in love. Hong Kong was a place I targeted to live in for the energy of the city and people. The speed of the city gave me an adrenaline that made my brain run mad and inspired me so much,” Anisha told The Beat Asia.
“I felt like I have accomplished more than I have here than in Paris. There is the whole environment that pushes you to do more and keeps pushing every time. The city has a very good positive impact on me”
A promising civil engineer, Anisha had always harboured an admiration for high-rise buildings, how they were built, and how tall you could build them.
Originally, a switch from a stable income in the construction industry in Hong Kong to an understandable risk becoming a dancer and a creative was not an idea she floated with. Hong Kong is a city not traditionally associated with arts and culture, as compared to its cousins in Paris, New York, and London.
After her internship, Anisha found her way back to Hong Kong, joining French-Swiss construction company VSL in 2018 as a tendering engineer with a goal to climb the corporate ladder and become CEO, with no career deviations in mind.
Working in an older, white, and male-dominated industry, as a young mixed-race female engineer, Anisha was consistently determined to prove her critics wrong.
“My path to a career engineer was difficult. Since I was young, I have studied civil engineering, went to an elitist school in France and was surrounded by white French people who believed I didn’t belong with them.”
Anisha was stricken to fight for her place and prove that she deserved the same recognition as her peers and seniors. “I know what I’m talking about, I’m young, but I studied for this.”
“As a civil engineer, I felt like I had put on [a] mask – a helmet. I had to talk and prove to others that I am an engineer; I am a professional. As a content creator and dancer, I have no limit of freedom of expression.”
“Why should I hide a side of myself at work” Anisha questioned herself during her switch from corporate engineer to becoming a multi-faceted creative. ”Why can’t I be proud about being Black at work? I was forced to show more of my French side and excellence of my studies, rather than my African identity.”
Whilst being an engineer brought Anisha a sense of self-confidence that helped break stereotypes and cliches in a city where people would ask what your job is first, then your name second, her corporate career ultimately exhausted her personal time to keep up her passion for dance.
In early 2019, she came to a bout of inspiration with her first attempt to dive into the deep end and begin her dancing and content journey online.
Anisha had only 1,500 followers on her Instagram account when she posted her first dancing video in April 2019, a “crash test” to see how her dancing would be received with her personal followers in Hong Kong, Paris, London, and South Africa.
“I lacked a creative outlet in my engineering job and dancing was a calling for me. I stopped dancing in 2018 when my mission was to prove to my seniors that I was right for the job,” she said. “Something felt missing and I wanted to begin dancing again and reconnect with my creative side, roots, identity, and cultural side.”
Overnight, Anisha saw over 80,000 views on her video, an Afrodance freestyle shot in Causeway Bay at night-time, with tourists and locals passing in the background. The video caught the attention of Nigerian Afropop singer, Yemi Alade, the artist used for the dance, who featured her story on her page.
“People were very receptive to it; they could sense the freedom in my dancing. After I realised that my videos could go viral, I produced more and more and pushed internationally.”
“You see somebody dance and you just want to dance with that person. You feel so much joy coming out of that person grooving and vibing,” she said. “When I play the music, I get into my bubble and I just forget about what’s happening, isolate from the world.”
Anisha does not like to box herself in. From her static life as an engineer for a large construction company, her move to becoming a creative allowed her to free herself of restraints, with her cultural identity and career.
“I do not like labels in general. I am a dancer, but I cannot deny more than that. I feel like. I want to provide more than my dancing; I want to inspire. I am a motivator.”
“It comes from the face that people always ask me to choose if I feel more Black or Asian, civil engineer or a dancer. We are not 50 percent this or 50 percent that. I'm going to do both and be both and I'm going to prove [to] you that I'm doing both,” she said.
Anisha’s dance style is a form new to Hong Kong. Her Instagram account – part-online CV, part-creative journal and space for expression – is coloured with a variety of dance videos shot on the streets of Hong Kong, with Anisha grooving and contorting to Afrobeats dance music and Western pop songs.
A career switch to dancing and content influencing represented a powerful avenue for Anisha to embrace her Black and Asian identity and expose herself freely to her audiences globally.
“The Black community [in Hong Kong] is not represented well and is associated with a lot of bad cliches. I wanted to stop that and bring a positive image of Black people through my movement in Afrodance, highlighting the Black community in a positive way,” she shared.
Born and raised in Paris’ 20th arrondissement, Anisha was accustomed to exposure of culture and race. “My best friends were Colombian, Italian, Chinese, Arabic, Caribbean, and Moroccan. I felt connected with the local minorities of Paris and their childhoods.”
Her mother is from Comoros, a small island nation of the east African coast, and her father a Vietnamese living in France. “I am Vietnamese-African."
“When I was younger, people saw me as African, but denied my Asian identity,” Anisha spoke of her childhood, stating that people would constantly refer to her as an alien or weird, forcing her to question her identity as a Blasian woman in Paris.
“However, the more I grew up, I was okay looking different. But it is special, so I need to embrace that.”
“Instead of rejecting my Asian and African side, why don’t I just merge them together, create something, and be proud of these two aspects of mine?”
With Afrodance, Anisha found her calling to gyrate her body and express what being Black meant to her, living in Hong Kong and dancing on the rushed streets in her free time, recording videos for her personal Instagram.
Being Blasian is a unique mix, Anisha stated proudly. “There’s few people like me, but we do exist. There’s beauty in being mixed.”
Beyond generating tens of thousands of views on Instagram, Anisha’s popping dancing style and embrace of Black identity in her gyrating movements have received accolades and critical success from the French population of the city and the larger population.
In August 2021, Anisha won TVB’s competition show, Dance for Life, as a champion and choreography MVP winner. Her individual performance, flanked by local Hong Kong dancers, saw her dance to the rhythm of African bongos in the background, a celebration of Afrodance and pop in what she called “one of the best days I’ve ever had.”
“I felt so proud and so emotional when onstage when Hong Kong dancers were dancing to African drummers and French music with me. I would have never thought of having the opportunity to do this on a stage with 2 million people watching me.”
In mid-November, Anisha’s dance, social media, and modelling career caught the attention of the city’s French community, winning the Culture and Francophonie trophy at the 2021 French Hong Kong Trophy ceremony, hosted by the French consulate.
Being awarded the trophy, an accolade celebrating her “passion for dance” was a “massive surprise” to the dancer, who does not typically announce herself to be French, but Blasian.
“I didn't expect that considering I don’t publicly show myself as Parisian or French in Hong Kong. So, to me, it was a recognition from [the French community here],” she said. “It was like, we acknowledge you, your talents, you represent excellence and diversity, we want to recompensate you, and we're proud of you.”
“I’m proud of being awarded the trophy, proud to be Parisian French. I cannot deny that the French culture really shaped me the way I am right now.”
Anisha understands her audience and position as a prominent voice of Black-Asians in the world.
Her message to her fans? To be proud about being Black and Asian.
“At the end of the day, my message is more impactful online, creating a space where I can grow my community and audience. I can build bridges in the real world, but I want more.”
“I am an engineer, but I am also a dancer. I have not given up on my dreams. I am still pursuing them, but at the same time also embracing my roots. We are young, take risks, because you’ve got nothing to [lose],” Anisha said. .
Determined to become the world’s largest Blasian influencer, her career and job as a tendering engineer in Hong Kong is now behind her. Her pursuit of a creative outlet has ballooned into an inspiring and promising career that has the potential to reach global views.
Anisha told The Beat Asia that this revelation has come recently, finally deciding to devote her time and passion full-time to her journey as a dancer, trainer, and influencer when she quit her engineering job in August 2021.
Anisha continues to drive a discussion online about her Asian and African cultural identities through her Instagram videos, dance tutorials and classes, and advocacy for Black and Asian voices.
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