Why don't more Asian men date white women?

OK dear readers,  I have been given a challenging topic to tackle by my reader Formula, but I never shy away from a controversial topic and it has given me a lot of food for thought. Why don't Asian men date white women? Admittedly, there are far more Asian women who date Asian men than Asian men who date white women, so why is this the case? To kick us off, let's look at what Formula had to say on the issue:

Formula2 November 2013 14:09

It's often the debate on Asian women with foreign man, seldom the opposite. Asian men marrying foreign women - Yes, Vietnamese and Thai brides. But why seldom see Asian men (including Singaporean men) dating the whites? Media perhaps? American biases. The Asian stereotype in America is of hyperfeminism. This serves the role of emasculating Asian men, us (reducing them to a non-threat to white masculinity) and hypersexualizing Asian women. The imagery of submissive geishas is pervasive in post-WWII America. Try Googling for "Asian women" and see what comes up.

Increasingly, Asian women are allowed to fill the role of white women in media - that is, of the potential sexual conquests, the sidekicks, etc. This isn't due to some grand sense of inclusiveness on the part of men. It doesn't demonstrate a post-racial America. Rather, it shows the rigidness of gender roles in popular culture, and is consistent with a long pattern of colonialism that denigrates men of color and prizes women of color as exotic sexual prizes. Being able to marry a white person is seen as a step up, socially. For good reasons, even if we all hate those reasons and wish they would change. The bottom-line is that the dating patterns in the U.S. are powerfully driven by these biases. Statistics back up what we could probably guess instinctively, based on who gets cast for romantic roles in the media. White men are strongly preferred by white women. But white men are even more strongly preferred by non-white women. Meanwhile, black women and Asian men are the least desirable.

What are your thoughts on dating a white guy?

Well, there are a number of reasons why Asian men have not been dating white women, allow me to examine those for you as an Asian man who is living in the UK. I don't believe that Formula has summarized the situation well - it's not that I fundamentally disagree with him/her, but there are many more factors at play in this issue and I would like to talk about those other factors in this post as this is a very complex issue.

Now, firstly I think the key issue is the cultural gap. I have seen a huge difference between second and third generation British-born Asian males and those who were born in East Asia (Hong Kong, Singapore, China, Taiwan, Malaysia etc). The Asians who were born and raised in the UK are (for want of a better word) yellow bananas - they may be yellow on the outside but practically white when it comes to their cultural identity. They speak English as a first language and often do not speak much (if any) of their Asian mother tongue. Let's contrast them with your Asian immigrant who is unfamiliar with British culture and struggle with English as a second/foreign language. By that token, Singaporeans (and some Malaysians) are an exception to the rule because we tend to be very confident in English - compare that with Asians from countries like South Korea, Japan and China who struggle with English as a foreign language, there are indeed Asians who face quite a big barrier to communication.

The percentage of British-born Asian males who date white women in the UK is actually significantly higher than the Asian-born Asian males -  it is clear that the cultural barrier is probably playing a big part in terms of holding Asian men back from asking white women out on dates and pursuing them romantically. Thus I am suggesting to my readers that it is not so much a question of white women rejecting Asian men (which is what my reader Formula implied) but more an issue of some Asian men making a conscious decision not to date white women. It's not a matter of sexual attraction, but rather, the issue is that of the cultural differences causing a big barrier to communication.

You see, this isn't an issue of racism as much as an issue of language and communication. I have spent time in a very special part of the world, Liege in Belgium which is in Wallonia (ie. French-speaking Belgium), but also very close to the Dutch city of Maastricht as well as the German city of Aachen. So you have a confluence of three countries, three languages and three cultures within a very small area - you might expect that people in that part of the world are multi-lingual and comfortable with their neighbours, but you'll be amazed how that isn't the case. I had made such an effort to study Dutch prior to going to Liege (I am already fluent in French but Liege is a stone's throw from Flemish-Dutch speaking Belgium) and I was amazed at how many French-speaking Belgians don't speak more than a few words in Dutch. I asked my French-speaking colleagues in Liege, "so what do you speak when you go to Flanders (Dutch-speaking Belgian) or Holland?" The answer was, "Usually English. Maybe French sometimes." By that token, French speaking Belgians are far more likely to date someone who is French speaking and those who do not speak Dutch are unlikely to date a Dutch-speaking person. We're talking about French and Dutch speakers who are all white and all from the same part of Europe - so it's not a question of racism at all. Indeed, the fact that this current generation all speak English very competently as a second language has permitted them to reach across the linguistic divide in a way that wasn't possible a generation ago.

Do you share the same first language as your spouse?

In a recent post, I've talked about how just more highly educated and worldly wise our current generation is compared to our parents. Perhaps this is something we take for granted and if so, I recommend that you have a chat with your parents and ask them what it was like for them when they were students at school all those years ago! This leaves us in a situation whereby even if an Asian man is fully capable of communicating with a white woman (in terms of having a common language and being able to understand her culture), they may still face parental objection if their Asian parents would freak out if they married a white woman. That's another reason why Asian men may back off from dating white women, out of fear that they may upset their parents.

So even if you had a white expatriate woman working in somewhere like Singapore, Shanghai or Hong Kong, chances are, many of the local bachelors will not be interested in dating her even if she is perfectly happy to date (and marry) a Chinese man for the two reasons explained above. So it's not like it is white women turning down Asian men all the time, there are a number of Asian men who are not interested in white women in the first place. This will change and evolve over time as better education and the internet removes the barriers to communication, but it will take a generation at least for the current patterns to change.

Would Asian men date white women in Asia?

And in any case, the number of Asian men dating white women is so low for another far more straight forward reason - there are very few Asian men in the West and very few white women in Asia. Let's take a look at the situation in London where I live. You would expect there to be a sizable Chinese community in London - there are strong links to former colonies of Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong. Furthermore, the large number of universities in London also attracts a sizable number of students from these country and China. However, the percentage of Chinese people resident in London numbers at just 1.5% (according to the 2011 census) - despite the fact that this figure has grown a lot in the last twenty years, it still means that Chinese people are still a tiny minority even in a big city like London. And if you were to look at the figure nationally for the whole of the UK, Chinese people number just 0.7%. That's 1 in 142.86 persons in the UK - we are indeed a tiny minority here in the UK!

What is the statistic significance of this then? (This is when I go into maths geek mode, I'm Asian and I love numbers.) It means that your average white woman in the UK is highly unlikely to have a Chinese classmate whilst at school/university, have a Chinese neighbour where she lives or have a Chinese colleague at work. Meet Jane Smith, she is your average white English woman who actually is quite open to the idea of dating and marrying a Chinese man if the chemistry is right. Jane is single, 25 and on the hunt for Mr Right. What are the odds of Jane Smith meeting a Chinese Mr Right in the UK then? Let's do the sums, get your calculators ready.

Limpeh in London - I'm an ethnic minority here.

If we suppose that half the Chinese population is male and half the Chinese population is female, then Jane Smith has a 1 in 285.72 chance of getting to know a male Chinese friend in her everyday life. But wait, this 1 in 285.72 includes Chinese baby boys who are a few months old and Chinese grandfathers who are very old! So we have to marrow it down to Chinese men who are within a few years of Jane Smith's age since she is unlikely to want to date someone significantly older or younger than her. Now that would easily narrow the field down to at least 1 in 3000 once you eliminate the Chinese men who are not near her age range. I refer you to the diagram below (damn this really feels like a geography assignment now - here comes the diagram to illustrate my point).

Now from within that 1 in 3000 Chinese men of about Jane's age, we have got to eliminate Chinese men who are already in relationships and married as well as those who are gay. We have also got to eliminate the straight Chinese men who are simply looking for a relationship at the moment (eg. maybe they are focusing on their studies at university and don't have time/inclination/desire to date anyone) - so let's just say that eliminates the number remaining by half, so currently Jane Smith stands a 1 in 6000 chance of getting to know an eligible Chinese bachelor if we were to solely leave it to chance. How do you fancy her chances? I say she's better of buying a lottery ticket.

If Jane is determined to date and marry a Chinese man, she can improve her chances by actively looking for Chinese friends and there are ways she can do so - she can partake in various cultural activities and makes sure she moves in the right social circles. For example, she can attend the Chinese Church In London which is open to anyone, not just Chinese people. The London Chinatown Chinese Association also has a whole range of activities throughout the year. She can also of course learn Mandarin to improve her communication with Chinese people, heck she can even go work in China. All that is possible of course and such Sinophiles (non-Chinese people who love all things Chinese) do exist.

Would Jane Smith ever find true love?

But if Jane was not a Sinophile, it's not that she is racist per se, it is just that there are so many cultures around the world she cannot possibly take an active interest in every single one. It's the same way I don't know much about Iranian culture - it's not that I have anything against the Iranians, it's just that there are limits to my knowledge. Nonetheless, the chances of her actually meeting an eligible Chinese bachelor is still around 1 in 6000 in the UK. And even if she does overcome these odds and does meet a handsome Chinese bachelor whom she likes, it is still dependent on him actually feeling the same way about her before they can even start dating. What if he takes one look at Jane and thinks, "no way, I don't like her, she's too _________________ (fill in the blank)."

So for someone like Jane who is simply keeping an open mind about making friends, widening her social circle and dating guys, chances are, she will end up dating someone who is white not because she is some kind of nasty racist white supremacist, but simply because it is a statistical probability. The bulk of the eligible bachelors she will meet in the UK will be white because the UK is mostly white (92%). So before you get carried away with your qualitative analysis about post-colonial attitudes towards the Asian male, let's have a healthy dose of hardcore quantitative analysis and look at the statistics please.  I am not dismissing any of the things that Formula has raised in his/her post, but I feel that the statistics (1 in 6000 for Jane Smith!) play a far bigger role than any of the factors pertaining to racism.

What are the odds of Jane Smith meeting and falling in love with a Chinese man?

And hey, Jane's British, there's still a minority of 0.7% of Chinese people here. What if Jane was in a country like Finland, Poland or Greece where the Chinese minority is a lot smaller? Let's take the Czech Republic for example. There are 4986 Chinese people in the Czech Republic - thus in a country of 10.5 million, they number just 0.0466% (let's round that up to 0.05%). In the UK, Jane's chances of meeting a Chinese bachelor she could date is 1 in 6000. In the Czech Republic where there are far fewer Chinese people, Jane's chances plummets to 1 in 84,000. That's right, 1 in 84,000. Even if Jane wanted to find herself a Chinese man to date, she could be struggling a bit in Prague!

Lastly, as discussed in one of my recent posts - there is this old fashioned notion that men will always marry down and women will always marry up: the husband is still expected to earn more than his wife. Thus you can talk about cultural biases and deconstruct all manners of post-modern sexual identities till the cows come home, but aren't you forgetting one vital factor? There are rich Asians guys and there are poor Asian guys: naturally, rich Asian guys are seen as far more desirable than poor Asian guys. Money can play a big part in the equation!

Some Asian men are far more desirable than others.

That's my problem with Formula's hypothesis - s/he treats Asian men as if we are a monolithic entity when clearly, we're not. There are so many factors that determine just how attractive a man is: his looks, his wealth, his intellect, his career, his education, his sense of humour, his body etc - some men just ooze charm whilst others have the social skills of a gnat. Some Asian men have great success on the dating scene whilst others remain totally clueless. So much of this depends on the individual investing time, energy, effort and money into turning himself into a desirable person: some of this are factors that one is just blessed with (good looks, natural intellect) whilst others involve a certain amount of grooming (working out, taking care of one's hair and skin) and then there are some things which just involves money (buying a nice car, owning your own flat/house, wearing nice clothes).

In a city like Hong Kong, Seoul or Singapore where the vast majority of men are Asian, there is still clearly a pecking order or hierarchy amongst the local Asian men when it comes to their desirability. I'm not saying that racism doesn't exist in the West, but Formula is being racist in a different kind of way by removing any notion of individual credibility or merit from Asian men and treating them as a monolithic entity. This also assumes the very worst of white women, that they will ignore all elements of merit (good looks, wealth, intellect, character etc) when it comes to Asian men and reject them out of sheer racism. That is simply not the case with the vast majority of white women like Jane Smith. Jane Smith will judge Asian men just as harshly as she judges all other men and if an Asian man does not meet her high standards, she will reject him because he is not rich enough, not smart enough, not good looking enough etc, rather than because she is an Asian-hating white racist. Let's not assume the worst of Jane Smith, please.

Korean superstar Lee Min Ho

So that's my take on the situation - I feel that we should not jump to any kind of conclusions on this issue as we need to re-evaluate old stereotypes that may be have been applicable a generation ago but are woefully out of date in 2013. Let's treat each and every Asian men as a unique individual rather than try to make any kind of theories on them as if they're all the same. And lastly, a bit of quantitative analysis goes a long way when you look at the figures predicting the probability of Jane Smith dating a Chinese man in the UK.

As usual, I am keen to know your thoughts. Please feel free to leave a comment below, thank you! :)

Some Asian men are rich, others are not - we're not a monolithic entity!