There's an unseemly cross-strait debate going on about who can claim new NBA sensation Jeremy Lin as their own - though the New York Knicks player is, when all's said and done, an American born and bred.Still, Lin's parents went to the United States from Taiwan, which is enough to have islanders rising to the hoops. His fans on Taiwan range from President Ma Ying-jeou to teenagers with a Lin haircut.
The sports lottery has seen record bets on matches featuring him.
"I'm really proud of being Chinese," Lin, 23, said recently. "I'm really proud of my parents being from Taiwan."
But mainlanders point out that Lin's maternal grandmother was from Zhejiang, which has led to calls for him to represent China in the London Olympics (though that would mean renouncing his US citizenship, as Xinhua News Agency noted).
On Taiwan, such an idea has Lin's paternal grandmother, Lin Chu A-muen, blowing for a foul. "He is Taiwanese, a true Taiwanese," she declares.
