There's a little (or a lot of) Asian in all of us

I once knew a police cadet with an Italian last name. I won't mention his name here, but suffice it to say, it was a hard core Italian name because it rhymed with multiple strains of pastas: tortellini, linguini, fettucine. Anyway he was an American like myself, born and raised in the US. He related his ethnic background to be that of Northern Italian. I didn't know there was a difference between Northern Italians and Southern Italians, but when I looked at him I got a sense of what some of that difference might be. He was tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed and pink-skinned like a pig. He was far from the stereotypical dark-haired mobster guido image.

The funny thing was although his eyes were blue, they had a distinct Asiatic look to them. He related that he was teased in the past for having these Asian eyes and was called all sorts of derogatory names. But as far as he knew, he didn't have any Asian blood in him. He joked that if he did have some Asiatic blood, it was probably because the Mongols had invaded Eastern Europe and fucked the crap out of everybody.

But I had hung around enough Hapas (I dated a Hapa for many years) to sense that there might be some Asiatic blood in him. I'm no geneticist, but from what I can tell, Asian DNA is very dominant. You can usually tell from the eyes if someone has some Asian blood in them. And that trait is so dominant, that it will stay in your family tree for generations.

I mean look at the Gosselin kids. Jon Gosselin is hapa. His kids are a quarter Asian. I know, I know, you smartasses: you can't divide a person into halves or quarters by race. But I just want to illustrate a point: if you look at his kids, ALL OF THEM look Asian. Some of them don't even look Hapa, they just look 100% Asian.

I think everybody has got a little (or a lot) of Asian in them. I mean look at the celebrities below. I betcha someone in their family past had a bad case of yellow fever:


Leann Rimes




Leonardo DiCaprio




Captain Picard?




Colonel Sanders?!




And back to the lovely Leann Rimes




Anyway, back to dude with the last name that sounds like pasta. He could very well have Asiatic blood in him originating somewhere far back in his family tree. I read a book by Gavin Menzies called 1434:

"Two years ago, a Chinese Canadian scholar, Tai Peng Wang, discovered Chinese and Italian records showing beyond a doubt that Chinese delegations had reached Italy during the reigns of Zhu Di (1403 – 1425) and the Xuande Emperor (1426 – 1435)."

What's interesting is that Admiral Zheng He sailed a large fleet into the Mediterranean and met with the Italians and the Papacy. Zheng He served as ambassador for China, and he and his crew would exchange gifts and knowledge with the various Italian city-states. One of these unfortunate "gifts" were slaves. Hundreds of slaves were given as gifts to the Italian elite. I think there were enough of these slaves to have added some Asian DNA into the Northern Italian mix.

One other thing to mention is that sailors will be sailors. Once they're in port, they go out and explore the local "sights." Who knows? They might have infused a little bit of spice into the mix as well.