Success of Chinese American skier should have been a positive story but geopolitics got in the way
Until recently, the US-born freestyle skier Eileen Gu – or Gu Ailing as she is known in China – was one of the rising numbers of Chinese Americans straddling the two countries. Many are comfortable operating between the two cultures and systems, taking pride in their heritage as well as their upbringing.
Gu, now 18, was born in San Francisco to an American father and a Chinese mother. She’s a big fan of Chinese dumplings and, every summer, she flew back to Beijing to attend cram school for mathematics. “When I’m in China, I’m Chinese and when I go to America, I’m American,” the she once said.
