Tag Archives: ethnicity

Brokenness, Changing, Discovery, Greatness, Mental Health, Reflections

Line of Delineation

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I would like to start this post with a disclaimer. If you get to the end of this and feel that it’s incomplete, that’s because it is. I don’t quite know how to describe it, but I know a post is done when it’s done. There’s no set word count or guideline that I follow. But in everything that I post, I stop writing when I feel a sense of completeness. I guess the perfectionist in me has an inherent feeling for when that is. I may meander in my posts, but they generally come full circle, connecting the beginning with the end. 

However, that won’t be the case here. What started out as a single premise has quickly ballooned into something that will not fit in one post. The more I write, the more I understand that sometimes your writing has a mind of its own. This monster here is no different. This post will be the first part of three or four. I’m not quite sure yet how many times I will split this. I’ve been trying to lower my word count (not trying very hard evidently), but it hasn’t really been working. But since I am preemptively splitting it, hopefully I won’t make your eyes bleed too much. That being said, let’s begin.

I’ve always been different. Always thought differently, always acted differently. As a kid it came to me naturally. Simply put, I just wasn’t wired the same. I zigged when others zagged. In my teenage years it became somewhat intentional and exaggerated. I wanted to be known. I wanted to be unique. I wanted to be remembered. One of my biggest fears was being forgotten. So I did whatever I could to stand out. I wanted so much to make a name for myself. But I didn’t need to try so hard. I didn’t need to stress as much as I did. When you do great things, your actions speak for themselves. It’s not necessary to embarrass yourself for the sake of name recognition. Not all press is good press despite what they say. Fame and popularity are not even things that you can catalyze or manifest (frankly they’re overrated anyway). They don’t come as a result of your actions or your behavior. They are rather, people’s reactions to things you have done or created. Excel at what you do and be confident in who you are, and all things will fall in place. 

Trying too hard is honestly an easy mistake to make. As we grow up we slowly discover who we are. We find what we’re capable of, we learn about ourselves, and we discover what motivates us. But oftentimes in doing so, we don’t remain true to ourselves. We try to be someone that we’re not. We attempt to live lives that aren’t the ones that are meant for us. We don’t make the best use of our gifts, and we try to pursue paths that we aren’t optimized for. It comes with the territory. Growing up and finding who you are also includes discovering who you are not. Finding who you are involves trial and error. We don’t start pursuing greatness from Day 1. We’re not capable of it. That’s why we go to school for 13+ years. Our rudimentary tools need to be developed and honed. They tell us from the start to dream big. The motivational posters and banners hanging up in classrooms may be corny, but they generally hold some semblance of real truth. Dream big. Always. But make sure that it’s your dream that you’re pursuing and not someone else’s. Life is more satisfying that way. 

I can attest to that. We can all agree on that can’t we? If you’ve been reading along with me, you know by now that I like to distinguish between pre-therapy Justin and post-therapy Justin. What can I say? It was a definite turning point in my life. We are ever-changing, so each year we show a different version of ourselves to the world. But I like to break up my life so far into three phases. No it’s not childhood, pre-teen/adolescence, and adulthood. That seems like a reasonable line of delineation, but it doesn’t quite work for me. The main crossroads in my life didn’t line up that way. For me it’s childhood, pre-therapy (disheartened youth), and post-therapy (mended human). We all know that I am quite open about my struggles with mental health. After all, that’s been my thing ever since I started posting more regularly on this blog. It’s been the drum that I’ve been beating and will continue to beat. I do not hesitate to talk about it. It may be taboo for others but it’s not for me. It’s a necessary discussion and relevant to us all. 

I don’t find myself meeting new people that often—I don’t go out much after all. And although I don’t generally take initiative in starting conversations, I am open to conversing with people I don’t know. I don’t have a problem talking. I can carry a conversation just fine; I’m just not much of a conversation starter. When I do find myself partaking, the conversation generally flows in much the same direction. They ask me what I do for work—no surprise there. I rehash recent history: this is what I used to do, but I quit in January, and now I spend my time writing. The conversation usually continues in much the same way. I don’t go out of my way to talk about myself (I’m not that conceited), but if someone is asking me questions about myself, you’d best believe I’ll answer them all as thoroughly as possible. That being said, I routinely find myself being asked something along the lines of, “what spurred you to quit your job and start writing?” I’m glad you asked! The short answer is that I went through dark times, I sought out help, and I worked on my mental health. We’ll get to the long answer later on.

Mental health might seem like a heavy subject to discuss during a first-time conversation, and I have to admit that I agree with you! But if we sidestep the discussion in order to stay within our comfort zone, won’t it become easier to just sidestep it every time? If we don’t talk about it when it comes up naturally, then when will we ever talk about it? There won’t be a better time!

Willfully ignoring a prime opportunity like that wouldn’t sit right with me. Are we ready to jilt ourselves out of a genuine conversation with life-changing potential? I don’t know about you, but that’s not a risk that I’m willing to take. I don’t want that blood on my hands. There’s already enough artificiality in this world as is, we don’t need to doctor our conversations. Of course there are some things that should be kept to yourself when meeting new acquaintances, but in my opinion this is not one of them. If profound subject matter makes you uncomfortable, then great! It means that it’s working. It made you think. It was thought-provoking. I’d rather have that than go through the motions with small-talk. Get to know people truly. You’ll be better for it.

As much as we like to think that we’re empathetic and observant, we simply do not know everything that others are going through. That’s part of being human. And although we regularly engage in nuanced communication such as body language, tone of voice, and facial expression/non-verbal cues, nothing beats communicating through conversing. We can only imply so much, we can only hint at so much. Some people are better at reading non-verbal language than others. Some people are utterly clueless. That’s just how it is. The best way to understand another person has been and always will be talking to them. Listening to them. Discussing consequential subject matter. Having a back and forth. The preeminent method of characterizing how you’re feeling is verbalizing it. Bring your thoughts to life in the form of word or action. I know us males don’t like to talk about our feelings. It’s seen as weak, feminine, vulnerable. But if we don’t communicate, then how will we foster healthy relationships with other people? So let’s start a conversation. Let’s talk. Let’s facilitate a safe space. Let’s come to an understanding. Let’s discover what it means to be mentally healthy. I can and will talk to anybody and everybody about mental health. I think it’s that important. It bears thinking about. Think deeply and profoundly. Reflect on your life. Be proactive in addressing your issues. Discover who you are through active contemplation.

A fruitful life calls for introspection, so be sure to make time for it. If you don’t understand yourself how can you expect others to understand you? Be one with yourself. Ensure that your mind, body, and soul are in sync. You need to discover who you are. It’s imperative. As I said, discovering who you are includes discovering who you are not. This encompasses but is not limited to the following: finding your strengths and weaknesses; discovering your interests, passions, likes/dislikes; figuring out how you think; making honest assessments about your good or bad habits; recognizing areas that need improvement. 

Of course, each person’s mind works differently, so I can only speak to what goes on in mine. That being said, for a long time, I had been conditioned towards passivity. It was in my nature. As you know, I was an extremely shy kid, which resulted in lack of confidence and eventual anxiety. I never really told anyone what I liked or what I wanted for fear of reprisal or rejection. I never really pursued what I wanted to pursue for fear of tipping the boat. From a young age, I was afraid to tell even my parents how I truly felt about certain things. I was afraid of liking things too much. Whether it was due to fear of it being taken away or being told that I couldn’t like it or have it, I don’t really know. I remember when I was 6 or 7 my mom had bought me a beautiful Philadelphia Eagles winter jacket. It was puffy, reversible, and oh so warm. I loved it. But I rarely wore it. I spent more time looking at it in my closet than I spent wearing it, but it was still my favorite thing that I owned up til that point. I never told my mom how I truly felt about it. I was too afraid. Of what you ask? I’m not even sure if I knew back then, I certainly don’t know now. Regardless, even as a young tyke, I just didn’t think I was allowed to have nice things. I don’t know where this misconception stemmed from, but it stuck with me far into my adult years. Sometimes it was overt, other times it remained suppressed.

Of course it became a hindrance for me as the years went by. It played a huge impact on my life, but at the time I was incapable of identifying it let alone quantifying its effect. I never would’ve known it. Reflection and introspection weren’t really a part of my vocabulary back then. I’ll admit, I was delusional in some things, and misguided in others. I just didn’t know myself all that well. My self-awareness was nearly non-existent. Which came in conflict with my self-image in an odd sort of way. I worried so much about my self-image when I was younger, but I likely did more harm to it than good. I certainly didn’t help it with some of my outlandish behavior as a teenager. In trying so hard to stand out, to be unique, to be memorable, I only brought attention to the less than desirable aspects of my persona. But I didn’t know that. I did what I wanted to do, I said what I wanted to say in the moment, without a second thought. I didn’t care about others. I didn’t even care about myself. But even so, I was still too self-absorbed. Focusing on what I was doing at the moment rather than looking ahead to my future; or looking within at who I was; or improving my image and reputation to who I wanted to be. 

So where would I be without introspection? Where would I be without therapy? That’s where we see the three phases of my life come into play. I had a fairly decent childhood. Like most, I had good times and I had bad. I went on playdates with friends, I hung out with kids at recess, I talked to kids at church. I was just a regular kid for all intents and purposes. But even so, I still spent a lot of my time alone. Being the only boy and the middle child will do that. I don’t know if I would call it a double triple life, but there were three versions of myself that I showed the world. There was who I was when I was at church, there was who I was with friends at school, and there was who I was when addressing adults and authority figures. There was also who I was at home, which was also somewhat different.

I was most comfortable at church. I was a goody-two-shoes. I always tried my best in Sunday School and during the youth programs. I read the Bible regularly and I was a pretty consistent participant. Oddly enough, the adults that helped out with these programs didn’t scare me all that much. If there were ever a shell-less version of me in elementary school this was it. But at the same time, this version of me may not have been the real me. Like many other church kids, I put up a facade. I was a holier than thou type so my church image was sacrosanct. It was cleaned up and immaculate. I cared a whole lot about my reputation before the word even became part of my vocabulary. Of course there were certain kids that I did “rebel stuff” with, like swearing or gossiping, but who hasn’t done that? I did that stuff in secret, only my compatriots knew about it. I didn’t do it in a way that allowed for the general public to see. I had always selfishly seen myself as the kid that parents brought up as an example to follow.

Who I was at school with classmates was quite similar but without the religious overtones. This was another relatively opened up version of me. I didn’t really try to hide who I was. I didn’t talk about my faith at school because I didn’t know how and because it never came up, so that aspect of my life remained separate. Due to the lack of a facade, this was likely the most genuine version of me. I didn’t try to clean up my image. I was who I was, and I had no issues with it. That is until 4th grade. That year I had started needing glasses. At the time, wearing glasses in public felt like a death sentence to me. I was embarrassed and scared. I decided I would rather squint and have trouble reading than wear them. Of course, that only made my vision worse, but the thought had never crossed my mind. I didn’t know it at the time, but that year was the start of a major downturn in my life. That was the first critical event that caused my self-confidence to steadily wane. And in my pre-therapy years it never fully recovered.

The face I showed adults and authority figures like teachers, store workers, or restaurant staff was completely closed and guarded. I was afraid. I couldn’t talk to them and I wouldn’t. I couldn’t even look them in the eye. I didn’t participate in school. I didn’t raise my hand. I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t ask for help. At times it felt like it was physically impossible. There was too much pressure. I did my best to follow along with the lessons, but I was too shy to speak up. Talking to someone who was more than a few years older than me was too daunting a task. I couldn’t even order a cheeseburger at McDonald’s. It gave me too much anxiety. Getting up even the slightest sliver of courage to say a simple sentence was too demanding. My pint-sized brain couldn’t handle it. I didn’t like being this way, but I couldn’t exactly help it. Certain triggers shut off my communication skills. Unfortunately, over time it just got worse. Being a recluse went from being my alternate mode to my default mode.

As my confidence ebbed, I found it easier and easier to clam up. To build up walls. Puberty pushed me in that direction. Throughout my elementary school years there were a number of traumatic experiences that stuck with me and replayed in my head over and over. I won’t rehash all of them here. There are way too many for me to describe in detail (not all at once anyway). I never could get over them. Not for the next 10-15 years. I struggled immensely with letting things go. There were two monumental events in 6th grade that catalyzed the direction that my life was headed. Although not the most damaging experiences ever, they were the precursor to something dark. The first incident was maybe not a huge deal when it came down to it, but in the moment it was devastating. 

I don’t remember when exactly it had happened, it may have been in the spring. I had gotten a 75 on one of my math tests (the first of many sadly), mostly due to careless mistakes. And of course I freaked out. That had never happened to me before. I was a good student, a kid who had always thought that he was on the right track. Who took school somewhat seriously and enjoyed it. This result was the first time in my life I had started to doubt my abilities. Before this exam I had total faith in myself. I had never before felt any insecurity about my academic capability. Unfortunately this was only the start of a troubling trend. 

In 5th grade we had transferred schools within the district. From 2nd grade to midway through 5th I had attended what my siblings and I refer to as a “hippie” school. We called our teachers by their first names, our assignments weren’t graded (I’m not sure if they were even pass/fail), and we took sloyd instead of art class. Instead of learning drawing, painting, and sculpture we basically had a woodworking class. I remember making a rainstick, a güiro, and a mbira amongst other things. My parents hated it. They didn’t think that alternative education would prepare us well for junior high let alone high school. But we were new to the town, and the wait list for the “better” (read that as more traditional) schools was long. Victoria and I had been put on the wait list as soon as we had arrived in town. As you can see, it had taken three and a half years to get off of the wait list. 

Back then, there weren’t as many east Asians in our town. They didn’t start moving in en masse until I had gotten to 8th or 9th grade. All of my friends at my first school were white. At my second school, I was one of four Asians in my class, which unsurprisingly changed my school dynamic. My priorities shifted, as did my identity. This was when I first started coming to grips with my Asian-American heritage. Sure, the majority of people at my church were Asian, but that was different. I didn’t see those kids everyday, I only saw them on Fridays and Sundays. So for me to finally have classmates that looked like me, that was life-changing. But regrettably it was beneficial for me in some ways, but detrimental in many others. 

I became more focused on doing things that fit into Asian stereotypes. As a preteen I thought that it was the proper way to show pride in my culture. I didn’t know how to identify as Asian-American without being a cliche. Of course some traditions were rooted in my cultural upbringing—it’s hard for the offspring of immigrants to be completely whitewashed unless it was done so intentionally. It does happens, but it didn’t happen to me. My parents had tried their best to instill Chinese culture into our upbringing. We went to Chinese school, we took piano lessons, they preferred to speak to us in Cantonese and Mandarin, and we had homework to do outside of school (both Kumon and extracurricular workbooks from Costco). The things that they say about “tiger parenting” are true for the most part. All traditional Chinese parents use this technique to some extent. It’s just a matter of how much emphasis and how strict. That being said, I rejected this approach somewhat. It just didn’t work on me all that effectively. In any event, I grew up rather whitewashed—if I were to put a percentage on it I would put it at 70-75%. So it wasn’t for lack of effort on my parents’ part. That falls on me, not them.

In Cantonese they have a term for it: jook sing. It refers to a Chinese person who was born in a Western environment who identifies more with Western culture than they do Chinese culture. It is a somewhat derogatory term that our parents’ generation uses to refer to us. The opposite of this would be FOB (fresh off the boat). Ideally we want to be somewhere in the middle. Acknowledging your heritage from both angles. But while it may be easy to bond over things such as the cuisine, filial piety, and academic excellence, it doesn’t quite hold the same meaning if you’re unfamiliar with the language. And unfortunately Chinese is a difficult language to learn. It’s not intuitive. There are thousands of characters, and five or six different intonations. It doesn’t have a traditional alphabet. It’s easy to fall behind in class. Especially if you’re a Cantonese kid trying to learn Mandarin for the first time. I dreaded Chinese School. I had never really been interested in it to begin with, because I had been forced into it. But it was also easy to get discouraged by its difficulty.

Unlike English there are multiple aspects of the language that you need to learn. It’s possible to excel at one aspect but be mediocre in another. In English we have verbal and written forms. If you know how to speak English then you’ll have no problem understanding it and vice versa. If you know how to read it, then you’ll also have a basic understanding of writing it at a minimum. In Chinese it’s not the same thing. All four things are separate. Generally when speaking to your elders they’ll ask you if you know Chinese. And depending on what you know, you’ll tell them you can read, write, speak, and/or understand Chinese. I will usually say that I can understand a bit, but I can’t speak it. My vocabulary is poor and my accent is off. Due to the nature of the language, it’s imperative to be able to nail down the correct intonation, otherwise you risk saying the wrong thing and/or embarrassing yourself. My grasp of the written form is even more atrocious. The characters are hard to remember, and even if you do recognize a character it doesn’t mean you know what sound it makes. Not unless the pinyin or jyutpin is written above the character. Pinyin and jyutpin are romanizations of the sounds that each character makes. But just because you know what the character sounds like doesn’t mean that you know what it means necessarily. Are you thoroughly lost yet? So am I! So do you see why I had so little interest in learning Chinese? It was difficult, so I rejected it. And instead, embraced what I knew. I knew how to act white. It was easy for me because all of my friends were white. Up until 6th grade, I hadn’t necessarily adhered to traditional Chinese principles. But then things changed, simply because I had made some Asian friends.

I suppressed who I was on a personal level in exchange for emphasizing who I was on a socioeconomic level. Which in theory may sound great. Especially for Asian-Americans. As a culture we don’t like to rock the boat. We’d rather conform than show individuality. It’s safer that way. If you don’t draw attention to yourself there’s less of a chance for disappointment or failure. And boy, let me tell you, failure is the last word that Asian immigrant parents want to hear or say. If you fail, you bring dishonor to your people, to your family, and to yourself. I didn’t necessarily feel that much pressure from my parents. They were much less strict than many others. You know the mom from Turning Red? That wasn’t my parents, but I knew parents that were like that. It has a transcendent effect on their kids, and in turn on us—their classmates. I certainly felt a whole lot of pressure from church aunties, my parent’s friends, and most of all my peers. It’s draining. Mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. 

Discovery, people, Questions, Small Talk

Where Are You From?

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Where are you from? What are you? Those are questions that the white man or the passing white loves to ask the person of color. Those are questions that I hate. Do you know where all your ancestors are from? …I thought so. I am Chinese, but I’m not from China. My mom isn’t even from China. She considers herself Chinese, but she’s never lived there. She’s only gone there on vacation once or twice. She was born in Cambodia, she spent most of her youth there. So you can miss me with that, “nah, where are you really from” shit. I’m from the US of A bitch! Born & raised. I can’t go back to my country. This is my country!

I used to facetiously tell people that, “I’m from Massachusetts, but I was born in Pennsylvania.” It’s not like I was lying. That is where I’m from. That is how I see myself. That is how I got to New York initially. I came here for college but I never left. I still answer in that manner sometimes. All this time spent in New York, and I still don’t quite see myself as a New Yorker. If that hasn’t happened by now, it probably never will. That’s fine. Where I’m from is not the same as where I live (it’s also not the same as my country of origin by the way). I still see myself as a New England boy. That’s not going to change. Ironically enough, whenever I meet new people in Massachusetts, they’ll ask me where I’m from. I tell them I’m from my parent’s town (which frankly doesn’t make sense seeing as I’ve never spent more than a few months there at a time). They’ll be like, “why haven’t I seen/met you before?” And I will sheepishly say, “oh right. I live on Long Island.” It’s never seemed to quite settle in, being from New York. Those words just don’t seem to roll off my tongue very easily. I guess that means I’m forever destined to be a transplant wherever I go. I don’t mind. But don’t ask me where I’m from. I know what you’re getting at, but I don’t like the question. And you probably won’t like the answer!

Truth is, I don’t really even know what my country of origin is exactly. My dad is pure Chinese, no question about that. And my mom is mostly Chinese, but we’d be naive to believe that that side of our family is full-blooded. Half of our family on that side has naturally curly hair—my mom included. It looks like she has a perm, but it’s not a perm! In case you didn’t know, that’s not a normal occurrence in Chinese people. And my facial features don’t scream Chinese exactly. At least I don’t feel like they do. My facial hair may be sparse, but when it grows in, you are guaranteed to find a number of red hairs. When the hair on the side of my head gets too long, it grows in thick and somewhat curly and can easily become a tangled mop. It doesn’t grow in straight like the hair on the top of my head. It’s actually a little bit coarse. When I was younger, I used to think that my eyes were black, that was how dark the irises were. They have since lightened over time, whether due to age or other factors I’m not quite sure. My irises are shaded somewhere between milk chocolate and coffee grounds these days. Are my eyes a lighter shade of brown, or are they a standard shade of brown? I likely haven’t paid enough attention to know. Although I do know that the color of my eyes is significantly lighter than that of both my sisters.

My facial hair has led me to speculate that I have Mongolian blood. I know that there is talk that Genghis Khan had red hair and green eyes. There likely isn’t any solid evidence but even such a rumor has implications. Is that where my red chin hair came from? The curliness of my hair has made me wonder if I’m part Korean. I sure as hell don’t quite look like my Chinese friends. Not quite. Like a clone that veered off somewhere down the production line. I appear to be ethnically ambiguous to some. I had a friend whose dad was a missionary in Thailand. He thought I looked Vietnamese. I had a Japanese teacher in college who swore up and down that I was Korean. I’ve been told that I look Filipino or Japanese or half-white. Sometimes people are unsure of what they think I am, but are still surprised when I say Chinese. I’m not really sure how accurate some of these assumptions are. Some of them do seem quite off-base to me. So what am I? It’s been a life-long mystery.

When I was younger I didn’t question it. There were certain trains of thought that never really crossed my mind. It never occurred to me that Victoria and I having curly hair was odd. That it was an abnormality. The dialogue always went, “you and your younger sister look so much like your mom. Your older sister looks like your dad.” That’s what I left it at. I didn’t think down that line any further. There was never a thought of, “how come I don’t look like all the other Chinese people I know?” The truth is Chinese people do come in all shapes and sizes. People are people, and so that makes us all uniquely different. No two people are identical, not even twins. DNA is extremely complicated, and I won’t even pretend that I know how exactly it works. When I was younger, I was just me. I didn’t think about where my country of origin was. My parents said we were Chinese, we acted Chinese, so we were Chinese. Where my ancestors came from was not really a question that I needed to find the answer to, because that was never a question that I asked myself.

Until recently. I’m not really sure what sparked my interest. But I finally decided that I was going to get to the root of it. Find out the answers once and for all. It was kind of an oddball path, getting to that decision. It was rather spur of the moment, at least for my standards. I was visiting my parents for Thanksgiving. I had been displaced from my own bedroom. My room is the only one with a queen-sized bed, and is also more accessible than the other bedrooms (being on the second floor versus the third floor helps). So for a long weekend I had been relegated to a floor of the house that I usually don’t spend much time on, aside from when I’m doing laundry. My dad has a pseudo work station in the hallway on that floor. On his desk, I saw that there was an Ancestry DNA box. I thought to myself, “huh. I wonder if this thing works.” So I asked my mom about it. She told me that, “dad bought one. Sort of like as a joke.” I didn’t believe her but I should’ve.

There have been instances in time when my mom has said or done things that make it evident that she doesn’t believe the validity of certain sciences. Which is made even odder by the fact that she is a licensed pharmacist. If a scientist doesn’t trust science, then what hope do non-scientists have? The most prominent of these statements has been her view on organic products. She used to tell me every so often that organic food wasn’t worth buying. Her reasoning being that you don’t know how legitimate the company’s claims are. She’d say things like, “they might call it organic but you don’t know if it really is.” The thought process does make sense logically, in a certain type of way. In an extremely cynical don’t-trust-the-government type of way. I get that, and I agree with it to a certain extent. We shouldn’t believe everything that we see. We shouldn’t believe everything that we hear. Fact checking is still necessary and important. But I’m way more inclined to believe the government than my mom is. I understand that politicians can and will lie to us, but I just don’t buy into all these conspiracies about the government trying to get one over on us. I think if anything they’re more self-absorbed than they are malicious. Regardless, my main internal counter-argument that I never voice has always been, “they have the FDA for a reason. They can’t just make stuff up.” Who is right and who is wrong? The answer probably lies somewhere in between. 

Unfortunately, when it comes to the authenticity of the Ancestry DNA test, there’s not much grey area. I was wrong, and my mom was right. The Ancestry test told me that I’m 100% Southern Chinese. Somehow I was more Chinese than my dad (98%) according to the results. I knew there was no possible way. I didn’t want to believe it, so I looked into it further. And you know what I found out? Ancestry claims to test more than 1500 regions when conducting their tests. But their tests are heavily Eurocentric. Out of the 1500+ regions, 1361 are located in Europe. Asia being the largest continent in the world has a grand total of 91 tested regions. They have 34 regions in West Asia and 57 in East Asia. 57! Looking into it further, they broke Japan up into three regions; South Korea into one; and Northern China, Mongolia and the Russian Far East aren’t even tested at all! 

So they didn’t even look at the people groups that I was wondering about. I was disappointed and infuriated to say the least. This test told me nothing. The test parameters and the company are both highly flawed. Their system is not accurate, it does not work. But just so it doesn’t seem like I’m only crying about anti-Asian bias, I also took a look at the number of regions tested in all the other continents. Africa has 112, the Americas have 136, and Oceania has 12. So if you add up all the other regions, they combine for just over 25% of the amount of regions tested in Europe alone. You’re telling me that there are four times more ethnic groups in Europe than the rest of the world combined?! I find that very hard to believe.

I should’ve done my research. I should’ve listened to my mom. In the past, when I’ve done things spur of the moment, I’ve been burned for it. This time was no different. If I had looked into it closely, I would’ve found out that this was not what I was looking for. That this test was not going to tell me anything that I didn’t already know. That this test is not necessarily informative for people of color. But I saw a Black Friday sale for half off, and I was duped by it. What’s worse was that it took 6-8 weeks for them to process my sample. I spent all this time waiting for my results, only to find out that it wasn’t going to be able to answer my questions. Unsatisfied with what the test told me (or didn’t rather), I decided to then take the 23andme test. 

I know it’s May now, and I had originally embarked on this journey of discovery in November. Gratification may have been delayed, but I did finally find out what I had wanted to know. Of course what I should’ve done was purchase both tests at the same time, that way I wouldn’t have had to wait five months for both sets of results. But between the time that I had purchased the first test and when I had received the first batch of results, I had already quit my job. I had expected much more information from the Ancestry test. I had expected my questions to be answered right then and there, so it hadn’t crossed my mind to get more than one test. Being on a tighter budget, I wasn’t able to justify purchasing the second test right away. But as luck would have it, I came across another sale. The wait was long, but it was worth it.

23andme told me everything that I wanted to know and more. The way they conduct their test is different. How exactly? I don’t think I’m qualified to explain. But what I can say is that their test regions are much more balanced (I don’t remember the exact numbers but it was something like 850 regions in Europe, and between 400-500 for each of the other continents), and they do provide you with a hell of a lot more information than the Ancestry test does. Their system provided me with two different reports: a traits report, and my ancestry report. Their scientists were able to look into my DNA and find out how genetics played into my physical appearance. Based on their research it told me my probability of having dark hair, what color my eyes likely were, what my skin tone was. They also had some weird and wacky tidbits such as if I preferred chocolate or vanilla, sweet or salty, if I was likely to have a fear of heights, or if I had photic sneeze reflex (sneezing if the sun is too bright is a real thing! I didn’t make it up). Apparently all of this is information that is encoded into your DNA! I had no idea. Without even looking at my ancestry report, 23andme already provided me with ten times more information than Ancestry did. 

The information that 23andme had on eye color was quite interesting. Although genetics determines eye color, it does not necessarily determine the shade. Light brown versus dark brown was not written into the DNA. Both my parents had passed on the dominant allele for eye color. That meant that my eyes would most likely be brown or hazel. Although their research gave a percentage for light brown, dark brown, light hazel, and dark hazel it did not distinguish between the two. In their summary they had genotypes AA, AG, and GG. AA being both dominant alleles, GG being both recessive alleles, and AG being one of each. The fascinating thing was that both AA and AG had the following text, “likely brown or hazel eyes.” 

So, while technically there was a possibility of me having hazel eyes, it wasn’t extremely likely (only 13% chance). Which if I’m being honest is more than what I had expected. My girlfriend, who is Latina, also took the test. Her parents had passed on one dominant and one recessive allele, giving her nearly an even chance of having brown eyes (45%) versus hazel eyes (42%). However, her irises are just about the same shade as mine. If her AG genotype produced the same shade as my AA genotype then that tells me that while eye color is determined by genetics, there are still other factors at play. So although genetics are science, it’s not an “exact science” so to speak. 

And I would say that this statement doesn’t only apply to eye color. Is genetics in general just an elaborate guessing game? I’d like to think so. According to the data, I have a 67% chance of having dark brown hair, 16% of having black, and 15% of having light brown. It also says that I have a 62% chance of having straight hair, 31% chance of slightly wavy, and 5% of wavy. As for skin tone it says that I have a 36% chance of having light brown skin, 27% of light beige, 15% of dark brown, and 11% of moderately fair. These were the percentages that were given according to the DNA but I don’t think I would necessarily agree with these assessments. Although some of my hair does lighten slightly to an extremely dark reddish brown in the summer months, the majority of it stays black. So there is no argument to be made for me having hair that isn’t black. My hair is black as can be. As for the texture I guess that would depend on which part of my head you’re looking at. It seems to vary from straight to wavy and everything in between. My skin tone I would say is somewhere between moderately fair and light beige. I certainly wouldn’t consider myself brown in the slightest. So while genetics does help determine appearance, I think it is only a part of the equation, not the sum of it.

I dunno about you, but that stuff is incredibly fascinating to me. Genetics tells me that I should look one way, but something else factors in and alters my appearance. If it’s not exact, then how big of an impact does genetics actually make? But then again science in general seems to be somewhat fluid. In constant flux. It seems that facts change over time as more information is discovered. What we “knew” in elementary school was not exactly the same as what we knew in high school. Pluto was a planet when I was in sixth grade, but by the time I got to high school they said, “hold on. That’s actually not true.” Likewise, when I was taking biology in tenth grade, I was told that Punnett tables were 100% accurate. I was told that two blue-eyed parents could not produce a brown-eyed child, but apparently they no longer believe that it’s so cut & dry anymore. Now they’re saying that there’s a non-zero chance. Which likely doesn’t change the probability by much, but is a significant divergence in the research. 

But I digress. I am not a scientist, so maybe my understanding of genetics is inaccurate. Maybe the conclusions I’ve jumped to are erroneous. I’m not educated enough to speak on science. I can only speak on what is laid out in front of me. So what was laid out in front of me? What I am was laid out in front of me. So, what am I you ask? I know the suspense is killing you! Am I part Mongolian, Korean, or Vietnamese? Well, it turns out that I’m none of those things. Nor am I 100% Chinese. The results say that I am 94.7% Chinese and 5.3% Dai. Now I’m not going to pretend like I knew what that was before I looked it up. I was just as in the dark about it as you. 

But this much tracks. My mom has told me several times in the past that if her features were abnormal then her father’s were even more so. She said that looking at him it was clear that he wasn’t fully Chinese. His skin was dark and his hair was curly. Although genetics does not actually work this way, if you did some simple math, my mom is likely somewhere around 10% Dai, while my grandfather would’ve been around 20%. However, genetics is not that simplistic. Multiplying or dividing by two doesn’t give you an exact answer—it is only a very rough approximate. At most, half of someone’s DNA can be passed down to their child, but at the same time the DNA that is passed down is random—both in terms of what is passed down and what percentage. Your parent could have ethnicities that they didn’t pass down to you at all or ones that they passed down significantly less of. Again, it’s an inexact science.

According to my ancestry timeline on 23andme, I likely had an ancestor who was 100% Dai who was born somewhere between 1750 and 1840. This ancestor would’ve been my third-, fourth-, fifth-, or sixth-great-grandparent. My mom was the youngest child out of eight (seven natural siblings and one adopted—her oldest brother was actually her cousin). Her father was already in his fifties or sixties by the time he died in the 70’s. This would’ve placed his birthdate somewhere between 1910 and 1920. Assuming that each generation reproduced by age 25 this would’ve meant that one of his great-great-grandparents or great-great-great-grandparents would’ve been 100% Dai. What does that mean exactly?

Well, from what I found out, the Dai are a people group of about 8 million (so rather small) especially when compared to the larger ethnic groups in Asia. The Dai, however, are a multinational group that originated in the Yunnan province of China, but eventually spread to Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand due to political turmoil in the 10th century. They are the wealthiest minority group in Yunnan. The culture is more similar to that of the Lao and Thai people than it is to Han Chinese. 

Like nearly every Asian ethnic group, the main food staple is rice. The dominant flavors of their cuisine are sour and spicy. Sour is believed to help with digestion, and spicy to increase appetite. Like the culture, the cuisine is similar to Thai food in terms of flavor and the herbs/spices that are used. However, where it differs is what they eat (aside from meat and fish). The cuisine is largely nature-based, meaning that you are likely to find ingredients such as mushrooms, insects, algae, flowers, or ferns.

Their cultural traditions are based on Dai folk religion and Buddhism. The Dai culture is known for its many songs and dances including the Peacock Dance and the Lion Dance. They celebrate the Water-Sprinkling Festival (also called Songkran in Thailand), which is a three-day event that occurs in the middle of April—their new year. The festival symbolizes the renewal that comes with each new year. You wash off the bad luck from last year in preparation to receive the blessings that abound in the upcoming year. Similar to many Southeast Asian nations, they mostly live in houses and huts that are built on stilts to counteract flooding. Unique to Yunnan province but not the Dai, is a variety of tea called pu’er or pu-erh. It is fermented and I think it is dried and pressed differently than traditional tea. However, I admittedly do not know much about tea. 

Unfortunately, since the Dai people are a relatively small group, this was all the information I was able to find easily and readily. If I want to know more, I will likely need to travel to the Yunnan region. It sure does give me a lot of things to think about though. But wait! There’s more! As you likely know, most people when they say Chinese, distinguish between Mandarin and Cantonese. But again, that’s oversimplifying things a bit. Although they are the most well-known “dialects” of Chinese, they are not the only ones. In fact, there are hundreds of different languages spoken in China—broken up into seven groups. Although we call them dialects, they are in fact distinct language groups. Many of them are mutually unintelligible. It isn’t like British English versus American English. There’s Mandarin, Wu (Shanghainese), Min (Fujian, Taiwanese, Teochew—my mom’s dialect), Xiang (Hunanese), Gan, Hakka, and Yue (Cantonese). So although each language group and people fits under Chinese heritage, they are not the same. Each group is different culturally. Each cuisine is different. Some may be quite similar, but none of them are identical. Someone from Beijing will not eat the same things as someone from Hong Kong. Someone from Sichuan will not eat the same things as someone from Taiwan. The flavors vary immensely. But many non-Asians likely don’t know that.

They never really wanted to know about things in such depth. They ask you where you’re from or what are you to assuage their curiosities. But beyond that they don’t really want to know. They don’t really care. I could tell someone that according to 23andme I likely have ancestry from the following regions in China: Guangdong, Fujian, Shandong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and five other regions in China as well as seven regions in Taiwan. But that wouldn’t mean anything to them. “Isn’t Chinese just Chinese?” is a question I would expect to be asked. No, it’s actually not. Is a Texan the same as a New Englander? So when someone tells me that they like Chinese food, I really don’t know what that actually means. If they’re referring to takeout, that is not authentic Chinese food. If they’re talking about an authentic Chinese restaurant, which cuisine do they mean? So ask me where I’m from again. Ask me what am I. I’d like to enlighten you. But you’d better be prepared for a more elaborate answer than what you’re expecting. I have time to talk, do you have time to listen?