What am I?

Published on by Yinglan

So far I’ve read quite a few responses to today’s daily prompt and learned a lot about my fellow bloggers’ detailed family lineages and quite frankly, I know almost nothing of my own.

I barely know my grandparents let alone my great-grandparents even though mom managed to divulge a little now and then. So far, all I’ve learn is my mom’s grandparents used to own a soy sauce factory in my town. Still, I don’t know anything about my dad’s side of the family and sadly, mom barely got along with her in-laws and my dad’s parents were always so incredibly stubborn.

This is how I feel at times.
This is how I feel at times but it’s not possible.

I’ve been meaning to go to Family Research Center in downtown Salt Lake to find out more about my family lineage because I’ve tried ancestry.com and landed on a dead end. I’ve heard the Family Research Center have unimaginable resources that can help me even if I am the first generation immigrant. But with mom watching like a hawk and constantly delegating tasks for me to do at home while she’s away, I haven’t had the chance.

Early last year, I got a shock when mom told me I might have Japanese DNA. She seemed to believe I am the descendant of Zheng He, the famous Chinese explorer. Zheng He’s mother is Japanese and his father’s Chinese or so I’ve been told. I was like “and I’ve been telling people I’m Chinese all this time?” But it’s only a theory but Japanese? It feels somewhat off. I’ve been mistaken for a Korean before but never Japanese. So you can see why this is a surprise and shock. I also wonder if I do a DNA test, I can find out just which part of Asia I was originated because I’ve also been told I don’t look Chinese due to my semi-pale skin.

From everything I’ve ever read on genealogy, the first thing is to trace using one’s surname. That does not work in my case or maybe it does, I don’t know. My surname was ranked 22 in the top 100 most common surname in China. It makes up 10% of Chinese population (that’s a lot) and it can be traced back to the B.C. era. That is a mighty long time and back then, it was the emperor who assigned the last name or so I’ve heard. So you can sort of see my dilemma.

I did a Wikipedia search on Zheng He and he’s all over the place. It said he was Muslim, his great-great-great-grandfather was Persian who served under the Mongol Empire, and that his original surname wasn’t even Zheng but Ma and was later changed by the emperor. So what am I, really, if Zheng He is really my ancestor? A mixture of Asian and European?

Maybe I am just different. I’ve always seen myself as different, as a mixture of Caucasian and Asian. Also I don’t look like either one of my parents nor any of my relatives. My mom’s told me many times the doctors might have swapped me at the hospital. So the only person I can really see coming to dinner is my dad and the first thing I would ask him, “What am I?” and he better have a good answer for me.

You can read more:

Daily Prompt: Modern Families

13 thoughts on “What am I?”

      1. Ethnicity or race is just an imaginary boundary created by men. We are all of this world… Regardless of where you came from. I have spanish-chinese blood in my veins but I’m an earthling living in the third planet of this solar system.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. Still, I am curious to see which countries or continent’s DNA is contained in me and maybe it will help explain why I am the only one in both of my families with an active imagination or why I have such pale skin.

        Liked by 1 person

  3. Genealogy through genetics is a dead end but an interesting one. For example, most of the French population has a percentage, how ever small, of mongoloid genes, which is a result of invasions although Attila and Gengis Khan hords never went further in Europe than actual hungary. That goes to show the extent of killing and raping of the times. One of the most common name in France is Morin (or Moreau) wich comes straight from the Maures’ invasion in the 8th century. And many French bearing that name would be surprised of its origin. All that to say that we’re all a result of many influences (mostly through invasion and violence) and that is not what defines us nor ‘where we come from’. For all purposes you appear to me as an American of chinese descent and chances are if you do a DNA test that you’ll find some Chinese, Japanese, Persian, Mongol and probably some occidental genes and it will at the end link us all to the fish. You’re not a fish are you? 🙂 Last but not least, most people on earth cannot date back their origins past their grand parents so relax. 🙂

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    Reply

    1. She tells me that often whether it be a joke or when she’s angry. Personally, I don’t want to know if it’s true because it’s not I’m going to turn the world upside down to search for my birth parents but on the other hand, I am curious.

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