JASON JOHNSON
FATHER FIGURES
jjohnson@sph.com.sg

SKYLER'S THE LIMIT: He gets more compliments than his dad. PICTURE: JASON JOHNSON

MY KIDS are half breeds.

Now, some may say this isn't a polite term, but I rather like it.

Cher sang a song called Half Breed a few decades back about her mixed Caucasian and Cherokee heritage, and it always rather moved me.

If it's good enough for Cher, it's good enough for my kids.

My older boy, Jet, has quite white features, with fair hair, a long face, wide eyes and gangly limbs.

My younger boy, Skyler, looks much more Chinese. He's got black hair like his mother, an almost perfectly round head, and a sturdy little body.

The strange thing is, even though they look as if they could belong to different races, in other ways they look very much the same. Almost like twins.

I'm fascinated by it.

One of my favourite actors growing up was always Keanu Reeves.

Like Cher, Reeves is of mixed-race parentage, with his dad being Hawaiian Chinese, and his mum being of European descent.

I always admired this streamlined quality Reeves had, this smoothness. There was something almost futuristic about him, as if he'd been designed on a computer by benevolent eugenicists, and then grown in a vat.

One of my favourite Reeves movies is Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure, with Reeves playing the handsome, dim-witted Ted, and Alex Winter playing the homely, affable Bill.

I remember this one time, one of my sister's friends said to me: 'You've got a body like Ted's, and a face like Bill's.'

Better looking than dad

I took it as a backhanded compliment, but perhaps it was a forehanded insult.

Whatever the case, I wanted a face like Ted's.

Whether or not my children will achieve Reeves' level of loveliness is hard to say, but it is pretty obvious that they are indeed a good deal handsomer than I've ever been.

Friends, family and even strangers are always commenting on how good looking my boys are.

And while I realise that many such compliments are apt to come from simple courtesy, the frequency with which people express admiration for their appearance makes me think that, yes, they're pretty rad.

'Pan Asians' tend to do very well in the media in this part of the world, and it seems that there's just something about the melding of occidental and oriental genes that makes for physically beautiful offspring.

Not always, but often.

This past Wednesday, my wife informed me that a Primary 2 girl who takes the school bus with Jet asked him if he would be her Facebook friend.

He's only in Primary 1, so I thought this was quite a coup for him.

Skyler, still in kindergarten, also does well with the ladies - he already has a future wife lined up, though apparently he's going to have to share her with one of his chums.

Kids these days, I tell you.

I sometimes worry that while their somewhat unique appearance might be an advantage in some ways, it could be a disadvantage in others.

When I was a white trash, small-town boy back in Canada, I occasionally resented my more exotic classmates.

There were a few Japanese kids in our school, and a couple of them were very popular. They seemed like smart, ambitious, energetic guys. They had cool names. They were tough, because they had to be.

Me? I was just another member of the herd.

I know there will be children who are going to hate my children because they're different. This is just the way children are.

Heck, sad as it is to say, this is the way a lot of adults are.

I try not to think of this sort of stuff very much.

Overall, I feel as if my wife and I have given our boys a precious gift.

It's not just that their looks make them stand out, which can be a blessing or a curse, it's more that we've offered them a big, big world.

Asia belongs to them. America belongs to them. Europe belongs to them.

Next stop Africa? That's for them to decide.

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