Maybe Chinese festival involving English sailors (9)
I believe the answer is:
easterner
'maybe chinese' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both people as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps you can see a link between them that I don't see?
'festival involving english sailors' is the wordplay.
'festival' becomes 'easter' (I've seen this before).
'involving' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'english' becomes 'e' (abbreviation).
'sailors' becomes 'rn' (abbreviation for Royal Navy).
'e'+'rn'='ern'
'easter' placed around 'ern' is 'EASTERNER'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for easterner that I've seen before include "resident of New Jersey?" , "Resident of Connecticut, perhaps" , "New Englander, for instance" , "Asian" , "New Yorker perhaps" .)