Family Culture War on the Diamond

Sarah and I woke up at 4:30am last morning to catch to catch the showdown between Korea and Chinese Taipei (puh-leeze, it's Taiwan, people!) in the World Baseball Classic. Settling in front of our television with bowls of kimchee (Korean) or ba-hu (Taiwanese) with rice, We couldn't resist the opportunity to talk trash as a mediocre Korean team (without Chan Ho Park) faced off against an awful Taiwanese team (without Chien-Ming Wang). As the game kicked off on ESPN2, we decided to wake the kids up and force them to watch such an important moment in their shared heritage. Sarah mercilessly heckled me as Korea romped to a 9-0 victory.

Of course this is all completely fiction, as Sarah probably wouldn't stay up past 10pm to watch Game 7 of the World Series, but it does capture some of the intruiging overlaps around my favorite sport and the tri-heritage of my family. I do wonder what it's going to be like for Daniel as he grows up. Where will his rooting interests lie when it comes to the Olympics and other international competitions? I assume, like me, he'll root for the USA first and foremost, but he'll also support the teams of his ethnicity, as well.

Daniel's actually a little confused about this. First of all, my parents and I have simply told Daniel that he's half-Chinese, as opposed to half-Taiwanese (which is true, that he's ethnically Chinese; those of you who are militantly Taiwanese probably want to stab me in the heart right now), and we'll clarify the whole Chinese vs. Taiwanese thing when he grows older. Depending on how he's feeling, or perhaps in an attempt to irritate Sarah or me, he'll respond to questions about his ethnicity in the following way. When asked, for example, "Daniel, are you Korean?" Daniel will respond:

• "No, Korean and Chinese."
• "No, I'm Chinese."
• "No, Korean and Chinese and English."
• "No, I'm English."

The first answer is accurate, the second answer (possibly purposely) just irritates Sarah, and the third one is almost the most accurate, but is also a confused answer for which we've tried to explain the difference between language and heritage - maybe "American" is just too hard for him to pronounce, or maybe he strongly believes based on his reading of some prominent sociologists that there is no such thing as an American ethnicity. For the fourth one, Daniel is simply ahead of schedule in terms of being a self-hating Asian.