Q&A: Asian men + White women = ????

I have received this question which I thought I'd share with my readers and offer my thoughts:

LEO YS25 November 2012 13:47

Hey LIFT, with regards to your entry on "Mixed Race Relationship" it has made me ponder on this. I've seen more of european men dating asian women as oppose to the other-way round. I wonder if it's certain cultural barriers that sets aside the mix race relationship of asian men and european women(speaking on a general scale) Do asian men(Singaporeans, Malaysians, Indonesians, Japanese, Mainland Chinese, Koreans) shy away from european women or european women consider asian men as "not highly dateable" ? Would like to hear your views and perspectives on this :) Cheers.

Thank you for that question Leo. Yes I agree that it tends to be European men dating women but not the other way around. Not only that, but there tends to be an age gap between the white husband and the Asian wife of at least ten years. Boy I'd like to see an fat, unattractive 40-something Chinese 太太 with her younger, blonde super cute European toy boy walk down the street together! How do you think people would react?

What is it like to find true love? 

It would be so convenient for me to say, oh times are changing this is 2012 those stereotypes no longer apply (and one would like to believe that is true) - but allow me to analyze why those stereotypes existed in the first place. Firstly, such a pattern exists because of the expectations on both Europeans and Asians. Many (not all, but many) Asian men expect their wives to take a subservient role in the marriage, they expect to be the master of the family: "一家之主". Now the perception is that European women are far more liberated, outspoken and confident - they are less likely to be the kind of wife who would say, "It's up to you dear husband, you're the master of the family 一家之主, whatever you decide is fine by me. You're the man. I love and trust you"

I know we're dealing in stereotypes here but when you are on the hunt for a partner, your judgement can be clouded by such perceptions. Even Asian men in the west who were educated with white people and work with white people all the time somehow end up marrying Asian wives. Whilst this is a calculated guess, I think this perception of wanting a subservient, obedient wife is an overwhelming motivation.

The Japanese Geisha - a stereotype but an idea that exists. 

Within the British South-Asian community, many British South-Asian men get their wives from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh through arranged marriages because they know that if they get some uneducated village girl who doesn't speak a word of English, this bride would be completely dependent on the husband and his parents for everything in Britain. So by that token, she would be more obedient, less demanding - she would not even have many friends given that she is a stranger in a strange country. The husband will get a wife who will be content to stay at home and play the role of the wife and the mother, being totally devoted to him and the children.

In fact, British-born South-Asian women are often deemed to westernized, too highly educated, too confident and too demanding for British South-Asian men - that is why so many British South-Asian men often prefer to get a bride from a village in the countryside in Asia, rather than marry someone they may have much more in common with, who may be a graduate and a professional like them. They're not interested in that. This kind of attitude sounds crazy to me, but such is the attitude towards marriage in the South-Asian community here in Britain. Any notions of love or happiness are sacrificed for stability and creating the perfect environment to raise children.

If British Asian men are reluctant to even date British Asian women who were born and bred here in Britain, how do you think they may feel about dating a white woman? Groan. To be fair, it is not a uniquely Asian situation. I had exactly the same situation with a Romanian friend a while ago. He invited me around to his place to watch a video, have some Romanian food and his girlfriend was bringing him food, beer... He knocked over his drink and immediately, she jumped up, picked up the beer bottle and proceeded to clean the floor but not before giving him another beer. He didn't even have to move a muscle nor would she let him.

He later told me that his ex-girlfriend who was British would've yelled at him to clean up that mess, but this new girlfriend is from some small village in Romania and barely speaks English. Her entire mindset when it comes to her role in the relationship is very different and she is happy to play the subservient, obedient woman. She was after all, from a poor village in rural Romania and now she is living in a very nice house in North London. She has plenty of money to go shopping, buy nice clothes, eat in nice restaurants and in return, she has to fit her boyfriend's idea of the perfect woman. She is very happy doing exactly what she is doing- so whom am I to judge her choices?

My friend treated his Romanian girlfriend like a maid.

It just so happens that there are certain aspects of Asian culture that does perpetuate the stereotype of the demure, submissive, subservient and obedient Asian woman who is seen and not heard. She will smile, be agreeable, cook delicious meals and be a domestic goddess but she will never argue with you or raise her voice. Of course, I know enough Asian enough in Singapore to know that this is quite untrue in the case of Singapore - but such stereotypes do exist: the 'geisha girl' wife stereotype is what does drive a lot of white men who do what that kind of wife to look for one from the East. By the same token, if an Asian woman wants to date a white man, she knows that if she fits into that kind of stereotype, she will be able to attract a certain kind of white guy looking specifically for that kind of Asian woman. This represents just one kind of white-Asian relationships. There isn't one kind of Asian or white woman and we shouldn't make any assumptions of Asian women, or white women for that matter.

Are all British women like Margaret Thatcher, Karen Brady and Annie Lennox? The saying in Chinese "女强人" (Superwoman or Strong Woman) comes to mind. Are Asian men able and willing to be in a relationship with a "女强人" regardless of her nationality? After all, quite a number of my female peers from VJC have gone on to have super successful careers and are career superwomen. I have changed their names to protect their identity and I will summarize their stories in a nutshell to help you understand their  "女强人" challenges.

Are all British women like her?

Case 1 "Maria": Maria who is Peranakan (half Malay half Chinese) is a super high flier in the world of media, having joined MediaCorp upon graduation and having worked her way up the food chain. She left MediaCorp a few years ago to go freelance and work for various projects around the world. She has dated some local men before but she said that she was regarded as a fun person to hang out with but not "wife/mother material" because of her work and the fact that she travelled a lot and worked long hours turned many local men off. Maria has recently married a British man who also works in her industry. Her husband doesn't feel challenged by the fact that Maria has a successful career. He is fully supportive of her career and doesn't expect her to give up her work just because they are married and trying for a child. They are now based in Bangkok, Thailand.

Case 2 "May Ling" May Ling is a Chinese-Malaysian woman who has worked for a range of few international charities as well as organizations like the UN Food Programme. Her work took her to various places around the world like Gabon, Cameroon, Sudan, France, Italy, Philippines, East Timor and she knew that with this kind of work, she could go back to Kuala Lumpur (her home town), marry a nice local guy and raise a family. Her work is just too important to give up - so she married a Portuguese man from one of the organizations she worked with and he is very supportive of her work. Because they are in the same line of work, they are able to stay together and currently work in Manila.

May Ling is working with the slum dwellers in Manila with the UN World Food Programme.

Case 3 "Valerie" Valerie who is Chinese-Singaporean was a government scholar. She worked for the government as a civil servant until she served her bond and has since set up her own consultancy for small start ups in Singapore. Her business has grown from strength to strength and she is has been helping many foreign businesses gain a foothold in the Singaporean market. She works hard, travels a lot and has told me that, "Singaporean men call me 女强人 - they are intimidated by me, they worry that I earn more than them. I swear the only Singaporean men I can get along well with are gay men who don't look at women like me in that light. Some even joke that I am a lesbian because I am not married yet - but no, I am not. I am pushing 40 I know but I am not prepared to compromise. If a local man thinks I'm too old for him, tough - that's his loss. If I don't meet the right man, then I don't want to settle for second best. I'd rather be single and happy than trapped in a second-rate marriage with a guy I don't really love. Besides, my business is my priority." Valerie is currently single and happy to date any man - local or foreign - who isn't intimidated by her.

So in the case of Maria, May Ling and Valerie - we can see a pattern emerging here. If you present yourself as a 女强人, then you risk scaring off local men. That's why they end up marrying white guys - now that's a huge difference between a 女强人 getting a white husband and say a British man getting a bridge from a village in India or Romania, but it boils down to the same thing: if you cannot find what you're looking for in your country, then you look abroad. For them, it is no different from shopping online and ordering something from a website based in another country - this is 2012, welcome to the 21st century. Such is the role internet plays in our quest for love today.

Yes many of us do find love on the internet today.

Would someone like Maria be able to find a local Singaporean man who is comfortable with her 女强人 status? Sure, but he would be in the minority. Would my Romanian friend be able to find a girlfriend who was willing to fit his idea of the ideal obedient girlfriend? Sure, but again, she would be in the minority. In both cases, they found love with a person from another country and the prevailing cultural factors did play a major factor.

In terms of cultural barriers, I think the greatest barriers are those in our heads. Just because you're from the same culture as someone doesn't mean you will automatically get along with them - I think about my old classmates in Singapore from my VJC days. Some of them are still good friends with me today because we have so much in common - whilst there were others I have not seen since 1994 and can't even remember their names today.We all had more or less the same Singaporean cultural background, having grown up in Singapore - but why am I automatically drawn to form strong friendships with some of them but not others? There is so much more than having a common culture when it comes to forming a strong friendship - there must be an element of chemistry even amongst friends, you know how you can just sit down and chat with some people and not others?

Why do we get along with some people but not others?

I spent last weekend at a gymnastics competition at Birmingham and I went up with a group of gymnastics friends. The 2 hour train journey allowed me to get to know one of them a lot better - her name is Aisling, she is from Ireland and she has been doing gymnastics all her life. I barely knew her before last weekend but by the time we got back from Birmingham  oh yeah, I felt like we were old friends. It was the common interest of having done gymnastics all our lives that bonded us and since we both speak English as a first language, the conversation flowed from London Euston to Birmingham New Street with ease. And there was this other English gymnast Alice, I sat next to her on the trip back from Birmingham to London - again, we chatted for hours. Not only was she a gymnast, she is a linguist too - we had so much in common to talk about in a variety of languages.

But actually, I didn't click with everyone on the trip, why? Is it a question of culture? No, I don't think I can give you an answer, such is the nature of human interaction - you get along with some people, you don't with others. However, I have seen people make presumptions that they won't get along with others for some reason, such as their nationality. I remember how my mother was pleasantly surprised on a trip to New Zealand where she met some locals whom she had the pleasure of chatting to and now whilst my mother's English is pretty good - she wasn't the kind of person who would make friends easily. She is actually quite shy - so she was pleasantly surprised at how she could easily chat with the locals when given the opportunity.

That's me making friends whilst on holiday in Morocco 

By the same token, Europeans make the same assumption about what Asian men want. I did talk about this with an Brenda, English friend of mine and she told me, "I had always assumed that most Asian men, even those who grew up in Britain, would want to marry someone of the same culture - maybe it's to please their parents, maybe it's to do with their religion or culture but it seems like that is clearly what they want.  Sure there are exceptions to the rule, but I don't question them - it's up to you to love whom you want, marry whom you want. So I never really considered dating Asian men because I thought, they won't be interested in me, I'm not Asian, they want to date Asian women. I mean, if an Asian guy asked me out and he was a nice bloke, why not? But that's never happened before. My parents are divorced, my dad wasn't a good husband - and I guess for me... the priority is to find a man who will be good to me, rather than try to find a man that will make my parents happy. That's what my mum did and it didn't work out. So as long as this future husband of mine will always be good to me, I don't care if he's African, European or Asian."

Likewise, Brenda's attitude has been echoed by Asian men as well. I remember at university when a Malaysian-Chinese guy (let's call him Frank) admitted having a crush on a beautiful English classmate and I was like, "why don't you just ask her out?" Frank replied, "Naaah... she won't be interested in me. Look at the guys she hangs out with, I'm not tall and good looking like them, I'd rather spare myself the disappointment of rejection." And I was like, "what kinda talk is that? If you don't ask, you don't get. If you don't even ask her out, how do you know if she will say no? Let her decide, don't just assume." But no, Frank had already made up his mind and wasn't even prepared to take a chance. It wasn't that the white woman rejected him - Frank simply made an assumption that she wouldn't be interested.

Frank wasn't willing to take a chance and even ask her out. 

The issue of cultural and language barriers was far more important in the past - for example, if you had say a Japanese person who grew up in Japan speaking Japanese as a first language, even if he had a decent grasp of English, you're looking to fall in love and communicate at a deepest level rather than simply present a project proposal at a business meeting with an English speaking client or write an essay in English for a university exam. I'm not saying that it's impossible - some of us are capable of being fluent in a few languages; but it does take quite a lot of effort, approximately 3,000 hours of study, before you become properly fluent in a foreign language. Certainly, with second and third generation descendants of Asian immigrants in the West who grow up with a European language as their first language, this is not an issue. Heck, I grew up in Singapore with English as a first language and many of my Malaysian friends are in the same situation as well.

In any case, my parents don't have the same mother tongue! My dad's mother tongue is Hakka and my mother's mother tongue is Hokkien and the two languages are not mutually intelligible. I am fluent in Hokkien but can't understand even the most basic phrases in Hakka. I remember when I was a kid, we would go visit my dad's family for Chinese new year and my mother would try to remember a few sentences in Hakka she would have memorized, but she would always resort to Mandarin or Hokkien (which displeased my dad's mother to no end). My dad on the other hand, is totally fluent in Hokkien, Cantonese, Hakka and Mandarin (pretty impressive IMHO - since I only manage Hokkien and Mandarin). In such a situation, as long as one party is able to bridge the linguistic divide, as long as that gap is closed, is really doesn't matter which party has made the effort.

Does it matter if you don't speak the same language?

Maybe twenty, thirty years ago - the trend tended to be for Asians to learn English, so it was always the Asian partner who would bridge the linguistic divide; but increasingly, in the last ten years, there has been a small increase in the number of people in the West learning languages like Chinese, Korean and Japanese. Unfortunately, that number isn't big and let's get realistic here. Many people in Asia who learn English do achieve fluency after many years - but the vast majority in the West who try to learn Chinese (even with the best of intentions) usually don't get very far and only a tiny minority achieve fluency.

Why? Because Chinese is the hardest language in the world to learn, even Korean and Japanese are easier. Unless they do something radical like romanize Chinese altogether - ie. no more characters, only Hanyupinyin - few people are going to become fluent in Chinese as a second language. The few who actually do achieve fluency in Mandarin have spent some years living in somewhere like Taiwan or China. Heck, just look at Chinese-Singaporeans - how many of them are properly fluent in Chinese eh?

I know Leo didn't use the word 'racist' but I am going to use it and I am going to ask the question that he didn't ask, "are white women not dating Asian men because they are 'racist'?" I don't think so, especially given recent trends. Certainly, if you were to go back to the 1950s, mixed-race marriages were very rare but in 2012, they are far more common. Back in 1950s, most young people would hesitate to even date someone from a different ethnicity/religion/nationality because they were afraid of what their parents would think. But in 2012, most parents are far more enlightened and open minded about such issues and young adults today are far less constrained by that token in their quest for true love. Thank goodness for that!!

Heck, when my Hakka dad married my Hokkien mother in 1967, his mother kicked up such a big fuss because he didn't pick a Hakka wife. That's just freaking unreal - but that was the 1960s for you. In the 1990s, my sister had sparks fly with an Indian colleague but didn't even allow herself to contemplate dating him because she was so afraid of displeasing and upsetting my parents (especially my dad). But in 2012, I'd like to think that we've seen enough Chinese people stuck in unhappy, unsuccessful marriages to think, heck, as long as you are happy with your spouse, I don't care who you marry as long as s/he is very good to you.

As long as you're happy together... 

You know, one area where I thought these stereotypes would not apply would be the gay community - after all, when both partners are of the same gender, the role of each partner would be less obvious, right? Wrong. Cue palm to forehead. On the gay scene in London, even in 2012, you would still see a young, slim Thai gay guy with a white man old enough to be his father or grandfather. Of course, this doesn't represent all gay relationships between white and Asians, but it does seem that if the Asian partner isn't well educated, doesn't speak English well, then he would usually end up with an old white guy. If the Asian partner is well educated, speaks English as a first language and earns good money as a professional, then it will be highly unlikely for him to end up in that kind of relationship. This does mirror the situation with heterosexuals - where both subservient 'geisha girl' type Asian women and  女强人 both end up with white husbands, albeit for very different reasons and of course, they have very different kind of white husbands. Let's not treat white men as a monolithic entity either, please.

At the end of the day, love is such a strange, difficult game. Not only do you have to find that one person you truly love, who is your soul mate - that person needs to feel the same way about you. It is this mutual coincidence that is so hard to find - is it any wonder that many people settle for the best they can get, compromising on their standards simply because they believe, "I'm not going to get a better offer so I may as well say yes, lest I end up alone and unloved." This is why they settle for the path of least resistance, they pick what they perceive to be the easiest option. They imagine that trying to overcome any kind of cultural or language barrier would be too difficult and they do not have the kind of self-confidence to deal with a challenge like that - so they decide to date and settle down with someone from the same culture/country, imagining that it would be the easier path to happiness. That's often not the case.

In life, you reap what you sow. 

I am going to refer you back to some articles I did last year with one of my readers Peixian who was a student trying to decide what path to choose for her further education. She came across as a very intelligent, eloquent young lady who simply lacked the self-confidence to believe in herself. It was frustrating as she seemed to be looking for the easiest path to get a degree and was afraid to do the more rigorous, challenging options despite the fact that these more difficult options would bring with them much greater reward. Quite simply, she was contemplating going for a degree at NUS (of excellent world ranking & reputation) vs one ranked much lower down the league tables and her main concern was that she would have to work a lot harder at NUS as opposed the other university. I had to point out to her that yes whilst you would have to work much harder at NUS, you leave NUS with a degree that commands so much respect vs a degree that is not worth the paper it is printed on.

You reap what you sow and in life, sometimes, we do have to take a chance and choose the more difficult option which will mean a lot more hard work - but along with that comes the pay off and we reap the rewards at the end of the day. The easier path will never lead to greater reward - be it in education, work or love. So there you go, I hope I have done the subject justice. What are you experiences in terms of dating someone from another country/culture? Share you thoughts, please leave a comment below. Many thanks.

Are you willing and able to embrace a different culture for love?