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?