This article investigates how pupils and teachers in two Chinese community schools in the UK understand Chinese culture as regards the classroom teaching and other activities offered by the schools such as the celebration of festivals. Working from a social constructionist perspective and building on the work of Adrian Holliday, the study explores both how participants understand and negotiate culture, and what processes inform their constructions. Overall, this study demonstrates complexity in pupils' and teachers' understandings of Chinese culture and how such complexity lies in participants' personal trajectories and on the significance they attribute to Chinese culture in their lives.