Between National and Transnational: Mainland Chinese Students' Semi‐National Experience in Hong Kong

This study examines how Mainland Chinese students in Hong Kong reproduce, adjust and unsettle nationhood in everyday life. Drawing on discourse analysis of Xiaohongshu posts and interactions, it argues that nationhood can become unsettled even when individuals remain within formal national territory. This condition is conceptualised as semi‐national experience. The findings show that identity labels mark symbolic boundaries between Mainlanders and Hong Kongers; language choices and friendship circles reproduce familiar social worlds; digital platforms and foodways make Mainland routines materially available; and national holidays expose mismatches between national temporality and Hong Kong's institutional rhythms. The concept challenges the assumed correspondence between national territory and the everyday infrastructures of nationhood. It also refines debates on transnationalism and liminality and provides an analytical framework beyond the conventional domestic/international binary in studies of student mobility.