Friday, December 12, 2008

Holler at Chu


The Associated Press reports that Barack Obama has chosen Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu to be his energy secretary. Dr. Chu is a strong advocate of alternative and renewable energy research and is one of three scientists who shared the Nobel Prize for physics in 1997 for work in cooling and trapping atoms with laser light. He will be the first Asian American to lead the department.

As the son of Chinese immigrants, Prof Chu said in his autobiography that he was once considered the 'academic black sheep' of the family because he only performed adequately at high school while almost all his aunts and uncles had PhDs in science or engineering. Ha.

So here’s the crazy thing -- the Associated Press reports that China's media has been going wild over the fact that Obama has selected a Chinese American for the post of U.S. energy secretary. The state-owned China Daily cited Chinese academics as saying that Chu's ethnic background will help ease future cooperation between China and the United States. Apparently, Chu’s picture has been printed all over the front pages of China’s major newspapers.

I’m so fascinated by China’s excitement over Chu. I guess I’ve never really thought about how, as the AP phrases it, China takes pride in the achievements of the “vast Chinese diaspora.” I’ve thought a lot about how Americans are so connected to the idea of “the homeland,” but not so much about how the descendents of a diaspora exist in the imaginaries of the "homeland’s" people. Why is the Chinese media is so eager to assume a connection to Chu because of his Chinese ethnicity? Does the Chinese media believe that because Chu is Chinese American, he necessarily has a dual connection to China and the United States?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

haha that's funny.

"he's one of ours!"

that doesn't seem so strange to me though. just funny.

Anonymous said...

okay, I know the title isn't that original, but I still found it hilarious.