Cheng Yan Yan Wendy (born Cheng Yan Yan; 28 April 1984), better known by her pseudonym Xiaxue, is a Singaporean blogger and online television personality who writes about her life, fashion and local issues in a provocative style. Her main blog, which attracts about 50,000 readers daily, has won prestigious

blog awards A blog award is an award for the best blog in a given category. Some blog awards are based on a public vote and others are based on a fixed set of criteria applied by a panel of judges. Blog awards are a descendant phenomenon from awards given by ...

and earned her sponsorship deals, as well as stints as a columnist and TV show host, but some of her posts have sparked national controversies.

Personal life

Born in Singapore on 28 April 1984,FAQs
, xiaxue.blogspot.com, Retrieved 9 July 2012. Wendy Cheng studied at River Valley High School and graduated from

Singapore Polytechnic Singapore Polytechnic (SP) is a post-secondary education institution and statutory board under the purview of the Ministry of Education in Singapore. Established in 1954, SP is the first and oldest polytechnic in Singapore, and is renowned for ...

with a diploma in mass media,Serene Luo, "Hard-hitting blogger flushed with success", ''

The Straits Times ''The Straits Times'' (also known informally by its abbreviation ''ST'') is a Singaporean daily English-language newspaper owned by the SPH Media Trust. Established on 15 July 1845, it is the most-widely circulated newspaper in the country and ...

'', 31 December 2005. then briefly worked as a project coordinator.Wong Kim Hoh, "Who says I have a foul mouth?", ''

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...

'', 15 August 2004. Her father, an antique dealer, and her mother, a property agent, are divorced; she also has a younger brother. For a year, she maintained a paper diary, which her ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend threw away during a

Chinese New Year Chinese New Year, or the Spring Festival (see also #Names, § Names), is a festival that celebrates the beginning of a New Year, new year on the traditional lunisolar calendar, lunisolar Chinese calendar. It is one of the most important holi ...

spring cleaning. Wanting to air her thoughts in a space that nobody could throw away,"The life of Wendy", ''Go Digital'', August–September 2005 she started blogging in April 2003.Jack Schofield,
Blogger Xiaxue brings Girl Power to strait-laced Singapore
, ''

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'', 21 July 2008. She underwent plastic surgery, sponsored by

MediaCorp TV Mediacorp Pte. Ltd. is the state media, state-owned media conglomerate of Singapore. Owned by Temasek Holdings—the investment arm of the Government of Singapore—it owns and operates television channels, radio, and digital media properties. ...

, to "correct her bulbous nose" in 2006.Grace Yap, "Smells like team spirit", ''

TODAY Today (archaically to-day) may refer to: * The current day and calendar date ** Today is between and , subject to the local time zone * Now, the time that is perceived directly, present * The current, present era Arts, entertainment and m ...

'', 23 December 2006. In 2010, she married American engineer Mike Sayre, whom she met online and had dated for three years, and in March 2013, she gave birth to a boy named Dashiel.Cheow Sue Ann, "People even curse me with miscarriage", ''The New Paper'', 31 March 2013. In 2023, she announced that she and Mike Sayre had split up.

Blogging

Wendy Cheng has several blogs, including her untitled main blog (usually known as xiaxue.blogspot.com), and several private blogs. Although she writes in the English language, she selected her pseudonym Xiaxue (下雪, pronounced something like ), which means " snowing" in

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...

, because it "had that tinge of mysterious, beautiful girl thing about it". On her main blog, which attracts about 50,000 readers daily,"157 seek Orchard Road ban for Xiaxue", ''

'', 18 January 2006.Debbie Yong, "Xiaxue won't say sorry to Dawn", ''

'', 23 July 2008. she provides updates about her personal life, posts photographs, writes about topics such as fashion, discusses local issues such as "nasty taxi drivers", and posts paid

advertorial An advertorial is an advertisement in the form of editorial content. The term "advertorial" is a blend word, blend (see portmanteau) of the words "advertisement" and "editorial". Merriam-Webster dates the origin of the word to 1946. In printed pub ...

s. She often uses

profanity Profanity, also known as swearing, cursing, or cussing, is the usage of notionally word taboo, offensive words for a variety of purposes, including to demonstrate disrespect or negativity, to relieve pain, to express a strong emotion (such a ...

in her posts and her success has been attributed to her provocative writing style. According to a survey she conducted, which attracted 6000 responses, her readers are mainly Singaporean, female, young adults interested in fashion and "looking for an alternative voice". Awards that her main blog has won include the 2004 and 2005 Wizbang Weblog Awards Best Asian Blog and the 2005

Bloggies The Weblog Awards, nicknamed the Bloggies, was an annual non-profit blog awards that began in 2001. Until its end in 2015, it was the longest running and one of the largest blog awards, with winners determined through internet voting by the pub ...

Best Asian Weblog.Wendy Cheng
", Munky Superstar Pictures. Retrieved 17 June 2012. In July 2005, a hacker defaced the blog, but she managed to restore its contents. Her main blog, the first from Singapore to enter the Technorati Global Top 100 Blogs List, was selected for the National Library Board archive in 2008.

Other media

Due to the popularity of her main blog, Xiaxue has earned jobs in mainstream media, notably as a columnist for national newspapers ''

'' and ''

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'', ''

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'' magazine and ''Snag'' magazine. In addition, she has served as an editor for blog aggregator Tomorrow.sg, a Star Blogger for the STOMP portal and a presenter at the 2005 Singapore Writer's Festival. She has struck sponsorship deals with many companies, including online eyewear store HoneyColor, childcare merchandise retailer

Mothercare Mothercare plc is a global brand for products for parents and young children. The company's shares are listed on AIM in London. Mothercare was founded in the United Kingdom in 1961, and specialized in products for expectant mothers and in ge ...

, T-shirt maker LocalBrand, hair salon Kimage and nail studio Voxy. In 2006, she and DJ

Rosalyn Lee Rosalyn and the similar name Rosalynn are feminine given names. Notable people and characters with the names include: People named Rosalyn *Rosalyn Baker (born 1946), American politician * Rosalyn Barton (born 1938), Australian diver *Rosalyn Bax ...

co-hosted ''Girls Out Loud'', a reality TV series on MediaCorp Channel 5, where they engage in "outrageous antics and no-holds-barred banter". She has a fortnightly series, called ''Xiaxue's Guide to Life'', on the

web television Streaming television is the digital distribution of television content, such as films and television series, streamed over the Internet. Standing in contrast to dedicated terrestrial television delivered by over-the-air aerial systems, cable te ...

channel clicknetwork.tv; its highest-rated episode had more than a million views. The

Health Promotion Board The Health Promotion Board (HPB) is a statutory board under the Ministry of Health of the Government of Singapore. It was established in 2001 to act as the main driver for national health promotion and disease prevention programmes. School H ...

selected her as an ambassador for their Get Fresh campaign to discourage women from smoking and help female smokers quit. In 2024, Xiaxue announced a new podcast with fellow Singaporean celebrity

JianHao Tan JianHao Tan (born 14 June 1993) is a Singaporean YouTuber and the chief executive officer of Titan Digital Media. As of 17 February 2025, he has more than 7,720,000 subscribers on YouTube and 729,000 followers on Instagram. Early life and ed ...

Controversy

In October 2005, Xiaxue wrote an entry condemning a

disabled Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be cognitive, developmental, intellectual, mental, physica ...

man, who scolded a non-disabled man for using the toilet for the disabled, leading to an online backlash that prompted two sponsors to cancel their deals. Two months later, she suggested that

foreign worker Foreign workers or guest workers are people who work in a country other than one of which they are a citizen. Some foreign workers use a guest worker program in a country with more preferred job prospects than in their home country. Guest worke ...

s be banned from

Orchard Road Orchard Road, often known colloquially as simply Orchard, is a major -long road in the Central Area, Singapore, Central Area of Singapore. A famous tourist attraction, it is an upscale shopping area, with numerous internationally renowned de ...

, as they were molesting Singaporean girls; many

netizen The term ''netizen'' is a portmanteau of the English words ''internet'' and ''citizen'', as in a "citizen of the net" or "net citizen". It describes a person actively involved in online communities or the Internet in general.

s condemned her posts as "racist rants" and signed an

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to ban her from Orchard Road. She was accused of impersonating another blogger and abusing her position as a ''Tomorrow.sg'' editor to remove comments critical of her in January 2006. In July 2007, she made a post about the "seven most disgusting bloggers" in Singapore, sparking

flame war Flaming, also known as roasting, is the act of posting insults, often including profanity or other offensive language, on the internet. Flaming is distinct from trolling, which is the act of someone causing discord online or in person. Flaming eme ...

s that were extensively covered by local media. In April 2008, she made a video about the

iPhone The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...

, which she insists "was meant to be funny", but was dubbed "the worst iPhone review" by American technology writer

Daniel Lyons Daniel Lyons (born 1960) is an American writer. He was a senior editor at ''Forbes'' magazine and a writer at ''Newsweek'' before becoming editor of ReadWrite. In March 2013 he left ReadWrite to accept a position at HubSpot. Lyons began his care ...

and ridiculed on other technology websites, including

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. Xiaxue also has a heated rivalry with blogger Dawn Yang, who threatened to sue her for an allegedly defamatory post in June 2008. In February 2020, Xiaxue was accused of “ fatphobia” on social media after she called morbidly obese people “disgusting” and that they “don’t live past” the age of 40. Xiaxue claimed in an Instagram story that “they gorge themselves with 30 burgers a day and when they inevitably get a clogged artery or diabetes, taxpayers have to help foot their medical bills when their health conditions are entirely caused by their irresponsible behaviour”. Xiaxue's posts were deleted by Instagram after users reported her for harassment. In July 2020, Xiaxue lost brand sponsorships following police reports over

racist Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also me ...

tweets, including tweets that were targeted at foreign workers, alleging “they molest people and fuck our maids and leer at girls and flood Little India” and the attempt to use the

N-word In the English language, ''nigger'' is a racial slur directed at black people. Starting in the 1990s, references to ''nigger'' have been increasingly replaced by the euphemistic contraction , notably in cases where ''nigger'' is Use–menti ...

in certain context. Beauty brand Fresh and Swedish timepiece company Daniel Wellington have publicly confirmed that they have ended their partnerships with Xiaxue following this incident. Reality and lifestyle channel Clicknetwork, with whom Xiaxue has worked with since 2011, dropped Xiaxue as a host.

References

{{reflist

External links

Xiaxue's main blog
Singaporean people of Chinese descent Singaporean bloggers Singaporean columnists Singaporean women columnists Singaporean television presenters Singaporean women television presenters Singapore Polytechnic alumni Living people 1984 births Singaporean women bloggers