A few days ago I was messaging an old friend from high school on Facebook. We were catching up on how life was going, but then I realized his short responses suggested something was wrong.
When I asked him what was the matter, he responded with “Haven’t been able to get a girlfriend in a while...‟ (Poor guy!) When I asked him why, his next answer baffled me. “Well I only date Asians and there aren’t many around where I live.” If only there was an emoticon for “rolling your eyes”.
First. World. Problems... sigh.
The reason I brought up this conversation is simple. It gets on my nerves when men reject certain races. Especially if they become obsessed with one race.
Being rejected because of how you “act” or how you “treat” others is more understandable because it’s something you can CHANGE. On the other hand, someone’s ethnicity can’t be FIXED to your preferences.
On the bright side, if you’re not the race a man is attracted to, that’s one less racist you’ll have to deal with. (Yay!)
As an Asian woman, there’s a lot of strange things I’ve encountered. I’ve had an unwelcoming number of men (mostly Caucasian) ask me if I’m single or where my other “little Asian” friends are. I’ve heard plenty of racial pickup lines from “I love sushi, can you make me some!” to “I know karate”. Those pickup lines are pretty lame right? But somehow adding in a cliche reference to Asian culture is supposed to “woo” us Asian women.
Those types of pickup lines are frustrating because no matter if you’re Chinese, Japanese or Korean... your cultural heritage is simplified under one title, “Asian”.
I’ve also encountered men who spoke to me v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y as if I had just come to Canada for the first time. I’ve been here my whole life, but the first assumption they make is that I probably spoke “broken english” or “Chinglish”. This assumption became a concern to me because it’s degrading to all Asian women.
On the other hand, a popular term I’ve come across an uncomfortable amount of times is “yellow fever”. Yellow fever is an infectious tropical disease carried by mosquitos. Is it simply coincidental that a term with such strong connotations of illness and infection also refers to those with fervent attractions to Asians? Using the word “yellow” represents the stereotypical skin color of Asians and using the word “fever” represents the “uncontrollable” attraction. I guess we can give them some credit for coming up with a clever name right?
Back to my old friend from high school, I asked him why he was only attracted Asians...
His answer? Asian women are “beautiful, intelligent, small, submissive and they’re born to please”.
He basically named out all the stereotypes of Asian women are portrayed in society. Most Asian women I know aren’t fragile little girls waiting to be ordered around. It’s shocking that some men think “submissiveness” is attractive. I think asserting your strength as a woman is a beautiful thing.
These stereotypes are so common that when you search up “Asian women are” in the google search bar, this shows up:
Pretty crazy right?
My closest friends tell me I should be flattered that so many men are fond of Asians. They even tell me that they’d be “glad” to have men obsessing over them. “Glad” is the last word I think of when being a target to a racial fetish.
My friends insisted that I use “yellow fever” to my advantage and just act as “Asian” as I can to attract more men. Throw in a couple of beginner Asian words such as “Ni-hao” and I’m set. But if I act stereotypically Asian, they won’t actually know who I am!
This is the disadvantage with being Asian. Men who have “yellow-fever” are only attracted to “Asian-ness”. Everything else about you becomes irrelevant.
Racial fetishes weren’t just created randomly, we’ve been building them for years. It all started with advertisements and television programs where Asian women were shown as quiet and nerdy or as dragon-ladies and ninjas.
As proud as I am for being Chinese, I’m insulted by the hypersexualisation of Asians and of all the Asian stereotypes. Being Asian became less of a race and instead it’s become something the society can tweak for their own amusement.
The most recent racial stereotype I’ve seen in the media was in the blockbuster movie “Pitch Perfect”. The character “Lilly” in the movie is an Asian girl who auditioned to be in the Bella’s “Glee club”.
As a Asian girl, she is the cliche “shy, quiet and awkward” one among all the other Caucasian females. She speaks so quietly in the movie they had to zoom in on her face to see and hear what she was saying. Here’s the link to a clip of the movie so you can get a taste of what I’m talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTFt2yV-WB0
It’s no surprise why so many men see Asian women as “submissive” when in movies and television programs, they show no sign of dominance and power. Being the shy and quiet ones in the media, Asian women often become the easy targets. It’s no suspicion that describing Asian women as submissive emerged from the stereotypes shown in the media.
Although Pitch Perfect was many of my friends favorite movie of the year, and they found Lily funny, it’s just one of the examples of how humour is used to make stereotypes seem less bad.
This is my life as an Asian woman. Can you relate?
