The term jook-sing evolved from zuk-gong (竹杠; zhugang in Mandarin) which means a "bamboo pole" or "rod".
Since gong (杠) is a Cantonese homophone of the inauspicious word 降 which means "descend" or "downward", it is replaced with sing (升), which means "ascend" or "upward".
[1] In the United States and Canada, the term refers to fully Westernized American-born or Canadian-born Chinese.
Jook-sing persons are categorized as having Western-centric identities, values and culture.
The term also refers to similar Chinese individuals in Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, and New Zealand.