A man who spent $100 on a DNA test after being told he looked like he had ancestors from Japan or Korea instead got a totally different result than he was expecting.
Frank Liang, 25, lives in Delaware, and both his parents are from China—or more specifically, Shandong province.
When friends repeatedly told him he looked as though he had ancestry from Japan or Korea, and were "genuinely shocked" he was Chinese, he assumed some Korean DNA was likely, as Shandong "has some of the largest Korean population, genetically speaking, in China".
So, Liang, a chemist, told Newsweek he made and a decision and said to himself: "Let me take a DNA test to see if I have any other Asian genes."
But when the 23andMe result came back, he learned his DNA was 100% Chinese, or northern Chinese to be exact.
"I didn't expect to get 100% from specifically northern China, but I wasn't too surprised since both my parents' sides were pretty conservative people and they probably never dated others outside of their home region," he explained.
He added: "I thought it was hilarious that I went viral for this, and I didn't realize how rare it was for people to get 100% from a very specific region, even among other East Asian people."
Liang's video has proved massively popular, racking up close to 4 million views and 659,000 likes since being shared to his account @frankiiang on June 24.
One of almost 5000 comments joked: "Your family always stayed true to themselves," another calling the result, "Actually impressive".
"You're a pure breed, I'm dead haha," another laughed, and one asked: "Genuinely how is this possible?"
Liang admitted he "didn't realize how rare it was for people to get 100% from a very specific region, even among other East Asian people," but suggested it was probably worth doing the test if you're not of East Asian descent, as "you're likely to get a very diverse result".
"If you are of East Asian descent like me, I think you could still do it, even though you may not get a very diversified result, but from what I've read I think that's because 23andMe doesn't have that much data from East Asian people," he added.
"I think if more Asians like me send in data they will have more to work with and will be able to provide much more accurate and specific results."
Consumer genetic testing outside a medical setting from companies such as 23andMe has become hugely popular in recent years, and the market is expected to grow to almost $1.2 billion a year by 2028, according to a 2021 report from Statista.
Liang's story came after a woman recently went viral for sharing a similar test result, having found she was 100 percent Chinese, from one specific area: Guangdong province.
Shirley Huang told Newsweek she took the test to learn more about her background, having been born and raised in the U.S. and without many older family members to share their history.
"It turns out my ancestors were from [Guangdong] and never left, making my parents the first generation to move away from South China," she said.
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About the writer
Rachael O'Connor is a Newsweek Life & Trends reporter based in Leeds, U.K. Her focus is on reporting trends from ... Read more
