I have a few minutes to kill before heading off to pilates to adjust my aching back, so will write something on Sam's new hero - Yao Ming of the Houston Rockets.

It's not unusual for boys to have a sports figure as a hero but I am particularly pleased with Sam's choice.  Yao Ming is a Chinese NBA superstar (from Shanghai, no less) and is the tallest player in the NBA (so I'm told). 

You see, Sam was really starting to question his heritage - probably in a negative way. At one stage, he wondered why he wasn't born Italian. He noticed that he looks different than the other kids. He questioned his black hair, darker skin and dark eyes. He would refuse to speak Chinese to older family members like my mother and my aunties. He would also get quite irrate when I try to teach him a few Mandarin words. He used to say, "stop talking Chinese! I hate hearing it!"

Then something quite wonderful happened. He learnt to play NBA Jam on theX-box and the character that he picked was Yao Ming!! He started to talk about this character "Yao" a lot and one day, I sat up and really listened! (I only heard the bit about him liking basketball  - I signed him up for training immediately - but failed to hear the raves about Yao, the player) 

I rented "The year of the Yao" from the video store for Sam. It was a very inspirational documentary about a young man from China, who went to America not understanding or speaking much English and overcoming his cultural difference to ace it in the big league of basketball.

Sam was captivated!

Now all Sam wants to do is train at basketball and play in the Shanghai Sharks like Yao Ming. I suggested to him that he needs to study Mandarin so that he can stay in China, and he actually agreed!  Now I just need to enrol him in a Mandarin class.

I am much relieved. I don't want him to feel ashamed to be different. I want him to know that he may be different but he is special all the same. As a parent, I try to accentuate the positive in him. I tell him that he is tall, dark and handsome - and smart. And you can't do better than that!