NE ZHA AND CHINESE ANTI-ESSENTIALISM Jiaozi’s Ne Zha (2019) burns with philosophical intent. It takes the line “我命由我不由天” (wǒ mìng yóu wǒ bù yóu tiān: “my fate is mine, not Heaven’s”) and turns an ancient myth into a reflection on how selves are shaped in a changing world. The film becomes a parable about transformation and a meditation on how one defies the identities imposed by others, turning what society calls fate into the work of self-creation. In Western philosophy, essentialism teaches th