Exploring the tree

“Dad, what time are we going to Ye-Ye and Nai-Nai’s?”

My oldest squints at me over his Multi-Grain Cheerios, chewing with a curious expression.

This was never a question that I could ask my parents at his age because it was a dumb one.

My paternal grandparents were a halfway across the world when I was seven.

For him, it’s a twenty-minute drive. One of the privileges that I promised myself I would do everything in my power to provide for my children someday; my own way of repaying my parents for all the time and care they gave in raising me.

It’s also nice to have them out of the house every now and then as I scrub it clean from the latest antics before anything dangerous grows from all the residues they leave behind.

I’m a little more old-school than most Millennial Asian Americans I suppose.

• I like to do dishes by hand before putting them in the dishwasher.

• I like to do most of the family laundry and have a particular sequence to it.

• I like to drill my kids on things like math, science, and Mandarin when I spend time with them.

All topical, I know…but I also like to have three generations in close proximity to each other.

That’s why I came back to the Deep South.

My parents had a different set of reasons for settling here in the 80s.

• land values were incredibly cheap

• opportunities for employment in the engineering field were easier

• there was actually a small, tight-knit group of Taiwanese immigrants to meet

I was raised, along with my younger brother, in that community.

“The village” was the term that we used (and we didn’t know about the musical band until much later).

Whether it was at piano competitions, the monthly potlucks, or the larger Chinese community events and classes, we would always end up congregating and comparing notes about our upbringing and progress in our respective journeys.

My brother and I are pretty much the only ones who came back when we grew up. The rest of the collective scattered across the world to…bluer…regions.

Back to the point I was trying to make: ya gotta start somewhere if you’re going to trace back the family tree.

For my children, it’s much easier since both sides of the immediate family are within a few hour’s drive.

My wife’s family is scattered across the Carolinas and West Virginia, with one relative in Germany (the roots of her heritage).

My family is concentrated in Taiwan with one cousin settled with his new family in Japan.

Beyond that, my paternal side is rooted in China.

The best way to start finding out about the tree is to ask.

Who is your daddy, and what does he do?

You’d be surprised how much of your family history is actually accessible to you nowadays.

Yes, you can use genetic tracing services that are all over the place and were all the rage at the turn of the century. It’s rather cheap now to get a complete DNA sequence done now relative to twenty years ago.

But that’s just data. Oral traditions and storytelling are always going to be king.

I’ve shared mine here and there, and I can tell you that there have been plenty of instances where one different choice could’ve completely altered my fate.

If you’re a fan of the “Back to the Future” series, then you know exactly what I’m talking about.

My family history in the past century was largely guided by the outcome of WWII for the Democratic Party of China.

My wife’s family history during that time was largely guided by the energy sector of the US, and its effect on the coal industry in West Virginia.

It’s funny that the question (so hilariously presented by Arnold in “Kindergarten Cop”) for this section is the easiest way to start mapping out your family tree.

For me, I can only ask my dad about my grandparents since they passed years ago.

Once you get this framework up, though, the best way to get it into your head is to craft the story around each generation and what motivated them.

In Asia, there are entire communities of thousands of individuals who all come together to celebrate their ancestors. With the power of the internet now, there are endless possibilities in maintaining and building these connections.

If you think about it, “Coco”, “Mulan”, “Lilo & Stitch”…there are a lot of Disney movies that directly explore cultural identity, heritage, and family and use them to incredible effect for storytelling.

Why not take a page from their book?

The tree is huge

Start with you.

Just you.

At the very tippy top of your tree.

One generation down are your parents.

The second one down, your grandparents.

Three deep, and you are at your great grandparents.

That’s already yearly two centuries of history that may span the world.

Consider the state of the world at each generation and reflect on how major events affected their choices.

Ask your parents about their occupations, their parent’s occupations, their stories from their childhood.

Poke around for resources on the internet.

As you look at the pyramid of your immediate family tree, you can expand it to aunts, uncles, cousins…

At this point, the tree blows up and becomes more like a bush.

Just doing this exercise is enough to humble you and put everything into perspective.

You are you and you are here because of a myriad of circumstances that were largely beyond your control. You were dealt a hand, and you played it to the best of your ability.

So what?

I share this to get you to realize that luck of the draw also has a lot to do with your identity.

Yes, you are in charge of your digital heirloom, but the truth is that its individual starting material and what it’s composed of is due in no small part to your ancestors and their choices and actions far before you came along.

Keep perspective and stay humble in this process as you explore it further.

One day soon, your children may be asking about their origins and where they come from.

Having this all ready to go by then is going to make it that much more special.

Let me know in the comments if you decide to go climbing around your tree!