Ming-Cheau Lin - Yellow and Confused: Born in Taiwan, raised in South Africa and making sense of it all

Keevak, M. Becoming Yellow: A Short History of Racial Thinking . 2011: Princeton University Press. http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/753623.html

Included were Japanese (South Africa: Honorary Whites, in Time magazine, 19 January 1962), Taiwanese (Premier Sun visits four African countries in Taiwan Review , 5 January 1980, archived from the original on 7 February 2012), South Koreans, and people who came from Hong Kong.

https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/south-africa-and-united-nations-1946-1990. Retrieved 18 December 2018.

BBC News (18 June 2008). S Africa Chinese become black. Retrieved 28 April 2010.

Leonard, Andrew (20 June 2008). What color are Chinese South Africans?. Salon.com. Retrieved 16 March 2017.

https://mg.co.za/article/2018-07-24-a-tale-of-two-chinas-the-story-of-south-africas-switch-from-taipei-to-beijing

https://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/p0302/p03022017.pdf or 2018 its 2.6% http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/south-africa-population/

Pettersen, William (9 January 1966). Success Story, Japanese-American Style ( PDF ), in New York Times . Retrieved 9 January 2016.

http://theasiadialogue.com/2019/02/08/declining-taiwanese-identity/

World Review Poluation: worldpopulationreview.com. Retrieved 14 May 2019.

Yap, Melanie; Leong Man, Dainne ( 1996 ). Colour, Confusion and Concessions: The History of the Chinese in South Africa. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. p.. isbn 962-209-423-6

http://africachinareporting.co.za/ 2017 //chinesemigrantssa/ https://qz.com/africa/ 940619 /chinese-traders-changed-south-africa-now-theyre-leaving/ https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/living-between-chinese-south-africa. Retrieved December

https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/patric-tariq-mellet. Retrieved December 2018 .

http://www.dirco.gov.za/foreign/bilateral/myanmar.html. Retrieved 18 December 2018.

Adapted from my article originally posted on W24 , https://www.w24.co.za/Wellness/Mind/has-the-rainbow-nation-forgotten-about-us-20170110

Please note that Google says there are 2 259 km between Thailand and Taiwan almost the distance between South Africa and Madagascar. Also: ones part of Southeast Asia; the other is East Asia.

https://w24.co.za/Wellness/Mind/when-you-mispronounce-someones-name-you-do-more-than-butcher-it-20180118

Crenshaw, Kimberl (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: a Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, special issue: Feminism in the Law: Theory, Practice and Criticism . University of Chicago Law School: 139168.

http://braai.com/national-braai-day-mission/. Retrieved 8 January 2019.

https://www.sport24.co.za/Rugby/breaking-willemse-wont-be-back-on-supersport-20180906. Retrieved 8 January 2019

Not her real name.

Not his real name.

This little light of mine

On what was then Childrens Day in Taiwan, the Republic of China, on 4 April 1988, I was born in Tainan. I had a mop of black hair which, once dried, stood upwards and fierce. The adults nicknamed me fireworks.

Mama told me her favourite food while she was pregnant with me was hot pot. A hot broth sitting in a pot over portable heat (sometimes gas, sometimes convection), filled with delicious things like mung bean noodles, corn on the cob, pork and seafood balls, Chinese cabbage and other vegetables, a variety of mushrooms and tofu, as well as thinly sliced meat that you would poach in the soup right before eating, adding more and more flavour as everyone ate.

My mama went against Taiwanese naming tradition. Instead of giving my sister and I names where the first of the two words would match for a same-sex child, she decided to be creative. The interesting thing about having matching words with your same-sex siblings is that, in our culture, you are able to track which generation you were part of in the family tree. My mamas name is Chen Hui-li, her sister is Chen Hui-jao, and their brothers are Chen Chih-chao and Chen Chih-jong. My generation in my household didnt carry this tradition forward. My sister was named Lin Jye, and I was Lin Cheau. Cheau is rad. I like it. They called me Cheau Cheau. Why? For no real reason other than it was cute. Its like adding a y or ie to a name here in South Africa. Cheau has many definitions depending on the context its used in but my mama liked it for serendipity and creativity.

Around my first birthday, I had bad diarrhoea. My nanny, who was rather superstitious in folk culture, took me to an interpreter at the local temple. Ji Gong spoke through.

Ji Gong is a pretty cool guy in Chinese folk culture. He was training to be a monk but got kicked out of the temple he was training at for his lack of commitment to the Buddhist monk lifestyle, which is a meat- and alcohol-free one. He did, however, live kindly and helped those in need, so he was known as a rebel with a kind heart. Later he would be recognised by Taoist and Buddhist religions as a deity for his compassionate efforts, and he is often depicted with a bottle of wine, tattered clothes and a hat adorned by the word , which means Buddha.

The interpreter said Ji Gong said my name wasnt balanced. Ji Gong chose Ming to be added, as the first word. And so that was how I came to be named Ming-Cheau.

Not only did mama have to balance my name she was also crapped out for going against tradition and, embarrassingly, was told off for this transgression while everyone around the temple was watching.

In Taiwan, changing a name is quite a process. Papa told me my maternal grandfather was not happy about what had happened, but because he (and my parents) didnt want to disrespect Ji Gong after the advice had already been given, he used his connections to balance my name. Ming, in the context of my name, means light. Its a combination of the two words day () and moon (). Being an infant at the time, I dont remember anything a name was just a name but about two decades later it became the very foundation of what I (this very confused Taiwanese immigrant) needed in order to make sense of myself.

My name showed me the light in my journey to reclaim a lost identity.

To me, this combination of two words forming one represents a concept balance. The balance of being both Taiwanese and South African, but also the balance between conditioned ignorance and a thirst to unlearn and learn. Ming () has many definitions, including light, bright, clear, apparent and next, and all of them feel relevant to the way I am and want to be, and I feel the connection.