Hello! I stumbled upon your article and wanted to leave some thoughts. While some of the other commenters have pointed out ideas I wanted to point out, they did so in quite an aggressive and brash way, and seeing that you're a high school student (at least when you wrote this), I think that's pretty unfair.

I think you bring up good points. Nationalism (not just Chinese nationalism but any nationalism) is a concept I am personally very uncomfortable with. It purports a "we are the best" narrative and an "us vs. them" mentality.

However, I would still proudly wear hanfu (if I had some!).

But this really depends on context. I have never lived in China; instead, I am an ethnic minority in a White country. Expressing pride in my culture is, in some ways, more impactful for someone of my situation than a Han person in China. If I was in China, I wouldn't be "the weird one out" for being an ethnic minority. I would be part of the privileged class.

Growing up I felt like the Japanese had their kimonos and the Koreans had their hanboks but us Chinese people didn't have anything similar. Sure there are qipaos and cheungsams but I found those aesthetically displeasing (lol) and they didn't hold as central of a part to Chinese identity as kimonos and hanboks did for my Japanese and Korean friends. Plus like you said, they aren't Han in origin.