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BEIJING — When Madison Chock looks outside here in the Chinese capital, the U.S. Olympic ice dancer sees glimpses of herself.
“Every time I’m on the bus, I’m just looking out and studying the city and just imagining my roots are here, my ancestors are here,” says Chock, whose father is Chinese-Hawaiian, with family ties to rural China. “And it’s a very cool sense of belonging in a way, to just be on the same soil that your ancestors grew up on and spent their lives on.”
She adds: “It’s really special, and China holds a really special place in my heart.”
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]
At the Beijing Winter Games, opening Friday, it’s a homecoming of sorts for one of the world’s most sprawling diasporas — often sweet and sometimes complicated, but always a reflection of who they are, where they come from and the Olympic spirit itself.
The modern Chinese diaspora dates to the 16th century, says Richard T. Chu, a history professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Its members have ranged from the drivers of the colonial economy and laborer workforces on land and sea, to the highly educated who moved away for a chance at greater prosperity, to the unwanted baby girls adopted internationally during the government’s one-child policy.
Read More: Your Complete Guide to Figure Skating at the Beijing Olympics
“The Chinese diaspora is really very diverse, to the extent to that they maintain their Chinese-ness,” Chu says. “There’s no one kind of Chinese identity because each country has a unique kind of history.”
The question of ethnic Chinese identity is an especially delicate one for athletes with roots in Hong Kong and Taiwan. U.S. women’s singles figure skater Karen Chen, whose parents immigrated from Taiwan, says she identifies as both Taiwanese and Chinese, and uses those labels loosely and interchangeably.
Taiwan, which split from the mainland after a 1949 civil war that propelled the current Chinese government into power, is an island of 24 million…
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Source : time
