DNA

Yesterday, I completed my speaking examination. The relief I feel - now that I have completed all of my HSC speaking examinations is immense! However, I must finish my major work for art by the end of today. I don't have much time, so I will try to start on it after I type up this blog post.

Hmm... Just recently found out something quite interesting through a random conversation with my mum; that my grandma's father was probably half Chinese and half-something else (I theorise that it was probably English or American, rather than Russian) making one of his parents Caucasian. Though apparently this great-grandfather of mine was adopted (?) and therefore did not know his real parents.

If this were true, I would perhaps be 1/16 something else. Nothing special, but I've always thought I was chinese-chinese.

I think this conversation started because I asked her, in humour, who I had inherited my eyes from and she replied saying it was probably her side because grandma has big eyes, double eyelids and when she was younger, light coloured eyes. Then she went on to say that it was probably because she was part, european/caucasian. And then, she mentioned the fact that her aunt had red hair and light (she said red?) eyes - I told her that it seemed more like this aunt was albino lol. (Though she did say that we'll visit this aunt if we went to China). I was a little surprised as I never heard of this before.

I then went on to question her and theroised who this mystery [foreign] man (we assume it was grandma's grandpa) was. It was quite interesting really...

This incident sparked my curiosity in genealogy and my family tree. And coincidentally, today on SBS there was a program called Who do you think you are? whiched explored the family history of the [British] celebrity that was the focus of the episode (there was 2 episodes back-to-back).

I would love to trace my family history - but unfortunately I doubt I would be able to find much, since our family in China (both present and past) were not particularly wealthy and I'm not sure how much documents are actually left to be used as clues (plus my Chinese is horrendous.)

This is probably a bit philosophical; but I think it's really fascinating how we, as humans and individuals are standing here - on earth - now, at this moment. This means we've had ancestors that have lived centuries ago, thousands of years ago. And we also may have relatives that we have never even heard of and will never hear of or meet.

And this leads to the title of my post - DNA. I want to get a blood or DNA test. I don't know my blood type and I'd like to know it. I would also like to discover the hidden data that could be discovered from DNA or blood - perhaps the components my ethnicity?