“‘Wake up, we’re here,’ says my father. And I awake with my heart pounding in my throat. I look out the window and we’re already on the runway. And now I’m walking down the steps of the plane, onto the tarmac and toward the building … “And now I also see what part of me is Chinese. It is so obvious. It is my family. It is in our blood. After all these years, it can finally be let go.” – Joy Luck Club , Amy Tan This passage, taken from the very end of the novel, actually recalls Amy Tan’s own experience upon visiting China from the United States for the first time. The only difference was that while she travelled by train from Hong Kong to Shenzhen, the narrator of the novel flew by plane. A Chinese-American, Tan once told an interviewer: “I felt a sense of completeness, like having a mother and a father. It was instant bonding. There was something about this country (China) that I belonged to. I found something about myself that I never knew was there.” It has been argued by some literary critics and psychologists that the decline of the novel and shrinking readership may have had an impact on people’s ability to sympathise with others, that is by putting themselves in someone else’s shoes. Maybe I am being naive or even absurd, but I think if more people had read and understood Tan’s popular novel, they might appreciate more easily why Olympians such as embattled figure skater Zhu Yi and free-skiing golden girl Eileen Gu might choose to represent China, though they were born, raised and trained in the US. Gu, understandably, has drawn the most flak from US critics because she has just won a gold for China. Zhu has been unfairly targeted by some Chinese netizens, though the official Chinese media have been supportive and respectful; the retired chief editor of Global Times has even come to her defence after her disappointing performances. Back in the US, though, Fox News host Will Cain said it was “ungrateful” for Gu to “betray the country that not just raised her, but turned her into a world-class skier”. It was “shameful” for Gu to “turn her back” on America “in exchange for money … It’s ungrateful like a child that says, ‘I’m out of here, I’m moving somewhere else’ after being raised in a warm home … riches that you have earned through betraying America … You have definitely sold out … “She will soon, I suspect, come to regret it.” Oh, never mind that Gu’s mother graduated from Peking University, has an MBA from Stanford and used to work on Wall Street. The family already has plenty of money. And Eileen is going to Stanford on the strength of her almost perfect SAT scores. Fellow Fox News host Tucker Carlson joined Cain by calling her “dumb”, adding that Americans must feel “revulsion”. So she’s dumb! Compared to whom, Carlson and Cain? According to a Bloomberg report, “some commenters called Gu ignorant and said she’d be a puppet of the Chinese Communist Party. They said she was choosing to support genocide in exchange for fat cheques from brand sponsorships. ‘Your mother should have known better,’ one wrote”. This is just too much. Not too long ago, black athletes in the US faced intense criticism after speaking out in protest against racism, and police killings and brutality against minorities, especially blacks and Hispanics. They were told to shut up by the same critics such as star journalist Laura Ingraham for “talking politics”, which ought to be out of bounds for an athlete. China’s Eileen Gu ‘so honoured’ to win gold, hails unifying power of sport “It’s always unwise to seek political advice from someone who gets paid US$100 million a year to bounce a ball”, she once said, adding that basketball stars should “shut up and dribble”. Is Gu supposed to speak up now against the host country? Generally speaking, her critics don’t seem to know anything about international sports. There is nothing unusual for Americans to represent other countries in elite sports. Team Israel from the 2017 World Baseball Classic was made up, almost entirely, of American players. Alpine skier Jeffrey Webb, an American-Malaysian, represented Malaysia at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. Ice dancer Chris Reed, an American-Japanese, represented Japan at the 2010, 2014 and 2018 Winter Olympics. In 2010 and 2014, he paired with his sister Cathy, who was also US-born. The Reeds’ younger sister, Allison, also an ice dancer, has represented Georgia, Israel and Lithuania. Another ice dancer Yura Min, an American-Korean, partnered with Alex Gamelin – who was US-born but a naturalised South Korean citizen – to represent South Korea at the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympic Games. California-born gymnast Alaina Kwan – whose father Andy was an Olympic diver for Hong Kong in 1984 – competed for Belarus at the 2015 World Championships. Japanese-American surfer Kanoa Igarashi, who has also been called “a traitor”, represented Japan rather than the US on the 2018 World Surf League Men’s Championship Tour. He once told an interviewer: “I’m just following my Japanese heritage. I still live in America. I’m still American. I’m always going to have that side of course, but I’m of 100 per cent Japanese blood.” Compare that with what Gu told ESPN: “When I’m in the US, I’m American, but when I’m in China, I’m Chinese.” If you still can’t understand people like Igarashi and Gu, try reading Amy Tan.