swimming pool vs Taiwan

When I was 11 years old, my parents in a surprising act of democracy gave me, my older sister and my younger brother a choice. We could choose between taking the whole family to Taipei, Taiwan (which would have been my first time) to meet our grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins OR getting a swimming pool. As the tie-breaker, I voted for the pool. I think (now with shame) I even jumped up and down as I shrieked “a pool! a pool!”

Well, what can I say? I was eleven and not really interested in exploring my roots. Later, when I was a university student doing the backpacking thing, I still wasn't that interested. Instead, I traveled the other direction to Europe, tried living in Scotland for three years and later in Italy, for another three. My parents went to Taiwan fairly regularly (about every five years), my brother went there a couple of times and my sister, after graduation, spent a month touring with our mother in Taiwan and China.

I have never met any of my grandparents. My maternal grandparents died early on. But, my 99 year-old grandfather, my aunts, uncles, and cousins are still bopping around over there. Over there. Taiwan was always a place both familiar and foreign. So too are the relatives living there – familiar faces in photos and yet foreign at the same time. My mandarin is pretty limited although I can understand a fair bit. In my head, I have this picture of sitting in a room with my relatives and not really connecting in any way. I can also see them thinking Wendy is more waigoren (foreigner) than Chinese- which is true.

I am a Canadian. I was born in Ottawa and grew up in small towns in Quebec; I was often one of only two Chinese kids in the whole school (my sister was the other one). I don`t speak much Mandarin, I`ve never been to Asia and I don`t know much about Chinese culture except what it`s like to grow up with Chinese parents and their expectations.


When I was young, my father used to tell me that if he took me to Taiwan, I wouldn’t even have to say a word, people there would see right away that I wasn’t a local. It was the way I moved and laughed - like a North American. That was fine by me. Even if it bugged my mother to no end. She was always nagging me to act sweeter and be more gentle and smile prettily. That only made me more determined to be a Canadian tomboy, joining in WWF matches with neighbourhood boys in the front yard.

Of course, there was a lot of other stuff that kept me from wanting to go East and meet some relatives and embrace my heritage. But, sometime last year, I started looking at all this stuff and I found it was a lot like looking at my early, badly drawn pictures; why the heck am I holding onto them? When my father told me he was planning to go back to Taiwan to celebrate my grandfather's 100th birthday, he never imagined that I would be quietly thinking over the idea. When I told my father that I wanted to go to Taiwan with him, he was shocked and then he laughed.

Am I excited? Yes. Nervous? Oh yeah.

Although I’ve never asked my sister or brother if they remember the pool vs Taiwan decision, I'm pretty sure it doesn't weigh on them as much. They probably don’t remember. And then, I wonder if my parents ever told the folks in Taiwan that one summer, we chose to get a pool over going to Taiwan. It makes me cringe just to think about it. I really hope they don’t remember.