Asians in Wrangell

Asians are few and far between in Wrangell. There’s me. There are Jing, Sophie, and Elizabeth, three adopted Chinese girls all under the age of six. Daniel is the newest Chinese resident of Wrangell, adopted from the same agency as Elizabeth. There’s a Japanese family in town by the name of Urata, and there’s some girl in high school whose name escapes me now but I’m positive she must be of some Asia descent from the sound of it.

Next week, some delegates from an unknown Asian country is visiting Wrangell in hopes of possibly strengthening seafood ties, as well as others, with Wrangell. I say unknown because I keep hearing different things.

I first got a call earlier this week from Elaine, who is an alternate on the Chamber of Commerce board. She had just come back from a meeting where the chair of the Chamber kept referring to “Thai delegates,” so Elaine presumed the people who were coming were Thai, from Thailand. I would presume the same thing.

But then Elaine received an email from the Chamber, which she forwarded to the paper with the subject heading, “Taiwan Visit to Wrangell.” Ok, so the Chamber got confused and meant Taiwanese but instead said, “Thai.” That’s forgivable, maybe.

But then just now, the paper got a call directly from the Chamber with the message being “delegates from Korea” are coming to town.

It’s one thing to confuse Thai and Taiwanese, which is already pretty bad, but it’s quite another to mix Korean in that also. This is so not okay