Like many, I didn’t know about my own heritage and where my name originated from, because the tradition of carrying on the last name had become much less important in my father’s generation. I just didn’t know why. 

From a young age I knew that my brother and I were somehow different from all the other cousins on my father’s side. We didn’t share a last name with them, carrying the name Pan instead of the name Chen. 

I knew some of the reasons behind this while growing up, but I never thought it was a big deal and never really got the story straight either — I didn’t even know if what I “knew” about it was true. My immediate family had always been Christian; my dad was called to be a pastor before I was born. The tradition of carrying on the family line and the inevitable different treatment of boys versus girls were not really big issues in my home, but were more subtle influences if anything. 

I knew that in many families around me, there was constant pressure on the mothers to produce boys, to carry on the name. In my family though, there was never any conflict about this that I can remember. My faith and my heritage of inheriting my grandmother’s and not my grandfather’s last name was never a problem for me. I thought there wasn’t much of a story there. 

This was not strictly true. What I found out was more than I had expected:

My father’s mother was born to a family named Lin, but was given away at a young age to be adopted by a childless couple, the Pans. When she was married, her suitor married into the Pan family. 

The agreement was that their first son would carry the Pan last name, to carry on the family line. The Chinese word for this agreement over the first son is 豬母稅, or “pig mother’s tax” — not exactly a pretty name. 

What this essentially meant is that in the perspective of the Taiwanese, my dad was not considered the son of his father of origin (his biological father), but was considered the direct son and heir of his maternal grandfather’s. My dad alone carried on the Pan family name. In the family tree of the Pan clan, he was at the time, the last remaining male member. 

This meant some specific things that would set my father apart for his whole childhood. For as long as he could remember, my father slept not with his parents, but with his maternal grandparents. He would eat with the rest of his immediate family at the home of his parents, then sleep at his grandparents’ in town. He was in most ways considered their child and they loved him deeply and cared for him in every way they knew how and could do. 

This became a complex issue for my dad in adulthood too, especially when his maternal grandfather passed away. 

My father’s family follows a local mishmash of religious traditions, including the Taoist rites of death. In that tradition, when a person dies, before he could be buried, a seance of sorts had to be performed to call the spirit of the dead back to the body so that the spirit can be buried with the body, and not be wandering about. The direct heir — the direct male heir — must be the candidate to perform this seance.

Coming from a tradition of ancestor worship, but later dedicating his life to Christ, my father deeply believed that ancestor worship and this sort of seance was not permitted according to the Bible. Even though my father was present for this ceremony and the rest of the funeral events, he refused to participate in this communing with the spirits. 

Because of my dad’s refusal, his brothers (both with the last name Chen) became his replacements in the ceremony, but according to the Taoist monk, the ceremony failed. His mother too, tried to complete the seance, and still it did not “work”. 

My dad was the only heir. 

Finally, a cousin, a distant nephew of my dad’s grandpa (also with the last name Pan) tried, and finally the ceremony “worked” to the Taoist monk’s satisfaction. 

This was not the first nor the last time my dad’s faith and his role as the only heir in the family tree was in conflict. Throughout the years, when his mother would go and worship her ancestors, my father would help her carry the offerings and walk with her, but refused to participate in ancestor worship. 

This aspect of trying to balance the role of a filial son with an adopted identity as a child of God is something many Asian Americans struggle with, and for my family, I don’t believe this is something that can be easily reconciled for my grandmother. To us here in the United States, a Christian context and structure of morality and Christian thought are considered the norm for so many, even to non-believers. To my grandmother, ancestor worship is the norm and how it’s always been. For my father, the only heir, to refuse to participate, must be a source of pain for her. 

And as for my grandfather, with his last name being Chen, he has his regrets too — after all, he had separated one of his sons out from the others to belong to another family. The fact that his firstborn son is carrying someone else’s last name must be a source of difficulty. He has asked my father to change his name back to Chen, but my father declined because those who loved and cared for him most were the Pans. For the love and respect my father has for his grandparents, he and his children — my brother and I — still carry the last name Pan. 

After hearing this story from my father for the first time in my 26 years of life, I asked him how he felt about my upcoming marriage. Being engaged, the question of whether I should keep my last name, Pan, has been on my mind often. 

His response: “The name is not important to me. Our names are recorded in a book in heaven (Luke 10:20), and it is known to Jesus, whatever form the name takes (John 10:14).” 

In the days following this talk, I came to realize that I am free to make whatever choice I want to make. Whether I keep my last name Pan, or change it to my future husband’s name, it is my choice alone. Because my dad fought the fight, and had to make all the difficult decisions while trying to reconcile his heritage and his faith, I have the easy choice. The bondage of ancestor worship ended with my father’s generation for me. My heritage is already the choice of freedom, because my dad’s faith, passed down to me, gives me freedom in Christ. I am free to be who I choose to be, and I have the freedom to choose my grandparents’ religion or my father’s religion, or maybe even neither. 

My dad was the first in the family line to break the chains of the bondage of sin, but he won’t be the last. He was, in a way, the pioneer that enabled him and his family to live in freedom forever in the love of Christ. There are absolutely other aspects of our culture as Asian Americans that my family and I wrestle with, but this is one aspect where I’m freed from making the hard choices. My name is one aspect where my father chose freedom from earthly recognition, and chose to depend on God instead. It’s one space in my life where I can be free to belong to God, and belong to myself, and make my own choices.