A spit-and-send DNA test is an odd Christmas gift to receive, I'll admit. After more than two months of waiting for my results, I finally have my ethnic makeup drilled down by percentages. Yet rather than feeling a sense of security of who I am, all this did – at least initially – was confuse me.
My family has always been reasonably assured of our heritage. My father's side is as Pākehā as possible; they came to New Zealand on the First Four Ships and there's a recreation of the original family business shopfront (a cobbler) in the "old Christchurch street" at Canterbury Museum.
On my mother's side, alongside Pākehā, we're Chinese and Māori from the Otago region. The Chinese side of my heritage is something we take a lot of pride in: those ancestors have been here since the late 1800s and owned fruit and vegetable stores and tearooms in the lower South Island.
My mum raised us on respective of Kiwi-Chinese culture, food, and expectations, yet this is something I've always struggled to convey to others because their default is to squint as they look at my eyes and say, "I don't see it?" Our Māori heritage was also recognised culturally in the home through community participation and use of te reo.
A few weeks ago when my DNA results came in they confirmed my Chinese ancestry, albeit only 14 per cent (which was less than I'd been led to believe my entire life). Eighty-five per cent of my blood is British.