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 [起把哄]渴望父爱?美刊邓文迪章子怡为例评论亚裔嫁白人ZT |
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[起把哄]渴望父爱?美刊邓文迪章子怡为例评论亚裔嫁白人ZT -- 八袋长老 - (990 Byte) 2009-8-18 周二, 13:37 (2405 reads) |
八袋长老
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作者：八袋长老 在 海归酒吧 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
Rupert Murdoch has one. So do financiers Vivi Nevo and Bruce Wasserstein. Why are the West's most powerful men coupling up with younger Asian women?
By Ying Chu
Call it the Woody Allen Effect. When the venerable director scandalously left Mia Farrow for her adopted daughter, South Korean-born Soon-Yi Previn — 35 years his junior — he may as well have sent out a press release: Asian-girl fantasy trumps that of Hollywood royalty!
Not two years after they tied the knot, media baron Rupert Murdoch walked down the aisle with fresh-faced Wendi Deng — 17 days after finalizing his divorce from his second wife. Then, CBS head Leslie Moonves wed TV news anchor Julie Chen; Oscar winner Nicolas Cage married half-his-age third wife Alice Kim; billionaire George Soros coupled up with violinist Jennifer Chun; and producer Brian Grazer courted concert pianist Chau-Giang Thi Nguyen. Add the nuptials of investment magnate Bruce Wasserstein to fourth wife Angela Chao and the pending vows between venture capitalist Vivi Nevo and Chinese actress Ziyi Zhang, and we've got a curious cultural ripple.
Were these tycoons consciously courting Asian babes? Do any of them qualify for the unnerving "yellow fever" or "rice king" moniker? It's unsavory to think so. But after two or three failed attempts at domestic bliss with women of like background and age, these heavy hitters sought out something different. Something they had likely feetishized.
Enter the doll-faced Asian sylph on the arm of a silver-haired Western suit. (Hello, mail-order bride!) The excruciating colonial stereotypes — Asian women as submissive, domestic, hypersexual — are obviously nothing new. But decades after The World of Suzie Wong hit drive-ins and more than 20 years since David Bowie's "China Girl" topped the music charts, why are we still indulging them?
Because they're omnipresent — and often entertaining. Even now, how many cinematic greats, literary best sellers, or even cell-phone ads (see Motorola's latest) characterize Asian women as something other than geishas, ninjas, or dragon ladies? As the object of opening-line zingers like "Me love you long time" (the infamous line from Stanley Kubrick's Full metal Jacket), I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry at the cheeky blog stuffwhitepeoplelike.com, which ranks Asian girls at number 11 because "Asian women avoid key white women characteristics, such as having a midlife crisis, divorce, and hobbies that don't involve taking care of the children." Sure, I'm petite and was in fact born in Shanghai, but — to the shock of more than one guy I've gone out with — I'd rather down an icy beer and burger than nurse bubble tea and eat dumplings while massaging his back with my toes.
"This is a common experience among Asian-American women," says Bich Minh Nguyen, who broaches the stereotypes in her latest novel, Short Girls. "They're dating a white guy, and they may not know if it's a feetish thing."
"It's like a curse that Asian-American women can't avoid," says C.N. Le, director of Asian and Asian-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. "From an academic point of view, the perception still serves as a motivation for white men."
In researching his new book, The East, the West, and Sex, author Richard Bernstein found that the Orientalist illusion continues to influence. "Historically, Asia provided certain sexual opportunities that would be much more difficult for Western men to have at home. But it remains a happy hunting ground for them today," he says, citing one phenomenon in the northeastern region of Thailand called Issan, where 15 percent of marriages are between young Thai women and Western men well into their 60s.
But I suspect there's something else about the East that's seducing business bigwigs at this very moment: globalization. Consider that, stateside, Mandarin classes have spiked 200 percent over the past five years (apparently, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was an early adopter; he taught Mandarin classes in his Dartmouth days), and China has claimed status as the world's top export nation. In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell theorizes that Asian kids' intrinsic work ethic makes them outsmart American kids in math. (In the latest Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development international education survey, Taiwanese students were tops in math, while the U.S. placed 35th.) It's as though these Western men are hungry for a piece of that mystical Eastern formula. As such, Asians (in addition to African orphans) are hot commodities right about now — status symbols as prized as a private Gulfstream jet or a museum wing bearing your name (neither of which goes so well with a frumpy, aging first wife).
Tellingly, most current trophies of choice are far more than exotic arm candy. They are accomplished musicians and journalists, they have Ivy League MBAs and hail from prestigious political families (Mrs. Wasserstein's older sis is former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao). Why, then, are these women falling for rich white patriarchs? Why be a target for headline comparisons to concubines? When Wendi Deng was described as "The Yellow Peril" in a recent magazine profile, it only marginalized her achievement: As chief strategist for MySpace China, she has become central to News Corp.'s expansion into the elusive Chinese market — something Murdoch himself had attempted, and failed to do, before she came into the picture.
While I'm sure that real love and affection is sometimes the bond in these culture-crossing May-December romances, could it be that power divorcés of a certain ilk make the perfect renegade suitors for these overachieving Asian good girls — an ultimate (yet lame) attempt at rebellion? Maybe these outsized, world-class moguls are stand-ins for emotionally repressed Asian dads (one cliché that is predominantly true). Or...are these women just glorified opportunists? What's so perverse is that while Asians have always revered their elders, sleeping with a guy old enough to be your grandfather is just creepy — in any culture.
Skepticism aside, the new trophy trend does have its benefits. We're already seeing a positive impact on global politics, economics, and the arts: The Chinese became privy to online social networking in 2007 with the launch of MySpace China under the News Corp. umbrella; contemporary Chinese painters — including Xiaogang Zhang and Minjun Yue — have rung up nearly $400 million in sales on international art circuits since 2006, thanks to well-connected supporters like Ziyi Zhang; and almost 43 percent of international adoptions, which have more than tripled since 1990, now come out of Asian countries (more playdates for Pax and Maddox). What's more, perhaps a proliferation of gorgeous, mixed-race, multilingual offspring (assuming a classical Mandarin tutor is on the Chen-Moonves registry) is just good for our landscape. However you look at it, one thing's for sure: We're going to have to get used to this new international power family — aging mogul and foxy Asian wife flaunting a double-wide with newborn and adopted Malawian tot. What's next — the token trophy pet? I hear endangered Burmese rabbits are exceptionally cuddly.
"Asian women dating white men may never really know if it's a feetish thing."
Um, excuse me? Really? So Asian women are not only submissive Suzie Wongs and geishas, we're also fucking brain-dead, too?
What can I say about Ying Chu's recent Marie Claire piece "The New Trophy Wives: Asian Women" that hasn't already been said?
Our pals Joz at 8 Asians and Latoya Peterson, editor of Racialicious who's guest-blogging at Jezebel for the next two weeks, have both written terrific posts on Chu's story already, pointing out how, in an effort to dispel certain stereotypes, it only further reinforces them.
Not to mention the fact that "The New Trophy Wives: Asian Women" is just a hot mess of half-baked, garbled ideas: Asian women of different ages with incredibly diverse backgrounds and experiences are all lumped together as alike feetish objects; Chu quotes Richard Bernstein, author of the recent book The East, the West, and Sex, as an authority on the subject--"author Richard Bernstein found that the Orientalist illusion continues to influence"--even though Bernstein's book has been taken to task in multiple publications (here at Salon and here in the NY Times and here at Slate) for perpetuating that very "Orientalist illusion"; "globalization" is cited as an influencing factor in the feetishization of Asian women, but only some random collection of mumbo-jumbo about the popularity of Mandarin classes, Malcolm Gladwell's theory on why Asian kids are good at math, and China's dominance in world trade is provided to support that argument; oh, and how about the fact that this whole phenomenon is presented as something that's "new"?!
But, for me, the idea put forth in the Marie Claire piece that really chaps my ass is its closing line:
"Asian women dating white men may never really know if it's a feetish thing."
Um, excuse me? Really? So Asian women are not only submissive Suzie Wongs and geishas, we're also fucking brain-dead, too?
The complications of sexual politics notwithstanding, feetishists are easy to spot. They come at you with their prayer-bead bracelets and their suspiciously in-depth knowledge of your "culture." They come with transparent dating histories, and many of them are more than happy to offer up that their last eight girlfriends have been Asian and unabashedly expound--based on their dating experience alone--on the fundamental difference between, say, Korean women and Chinese women. Feetishists tend to talk about you like you're only a member of a larger group; e.g. instead of saying, "I really like your shiny hair," they'll say, "I really like Asian girls' hair." And, frankly, they're creepy, like noticeably-remarkably-right-off-the-bat-creepy, like konichiwa-ni hao ma-what are you?-as-an-opening-line creepy, and stalk-you-on-Facebook-where-they-have-381-friends-who-all-happen-to-be-Asian-women-creepy, and follow-you-to-your-car-in-a-parking-garage-after-you've-shared-two-minutes-riding-an-elevator-together-creepy. It's not rocket science, people.
And if we're going to traffic in stereotypes here, did Marie Claire forget that Asians are supposed to be smart, too?
47 Comments Post a comment Page12345
Soon Yi05:20:23 PMMonday, August 17, 2009
Posted by: otherguyReport Abuse
I think another issue that has bothered me over the years is Woody Allen's relationship to Soon-Yi. Didn't this relationship start when she was a pre-18 teenager? I don't think American society would have accepted this if Soon Yi Previn had been white. Maybe if she was Miley Cyrus Previn or something. Yuck - Young white girl with old white guy. Cute - Young Asian girl with old white guy.
so true, so true05:12:43 PMMonday, August 17, 2009
Posted by: otherguyReport Abuse
I don't understand the point of some of the people who criticize the article. I don't think this is a science mag. I don't think it's an investigative mag. I think it's more of an issues mag. The issue is something everyone here sees every time they go out. My contribution to this discussion is to add my observations from about 20 years worth of active dating life. Yes, there are tons of Asian women available if an Asian guy looks in the right place. But there are tons of Asian American women who are off limits to Asian guys, since they've decided that white men are what they want in their lives. And I'm sure from the white perspective, there are white men who have decided that Asian women are what they want in their lives. The one thing that bothers a lot of Asian guys when it comes to these couples is that as submissive and accommodating as these Asian women are to white guys, they are equally rude and hateful towards Asian men, and indirectly, towards Asians in general. They even go so far as to openly express their contempt for all of us, oftentimes to our faces. Where did all the hate come from? I don't blame the white guys. Let's be honest - Asian women are easier for them than white women. I have testament to that fact from numerous white males.
This article is disgusting04:33:11 PMMonday, August 17, 2009
Posted by: MarieClaireIsRacistReport Abuse
Marie Claire, This article is not edgy, it is not bold, and most importantly, it is not based on facts. This article is a racist tirade aimed at inter-racial relationships and loaded with ignorance. How could you publish this? What kind of editor would let this article enter the pages of your magazine? I've noticed there are many "high powered men" that have brunette wives, does that mean that men have a "feetish" for brunettes? Are you really stating that as a magazine you believe that people can only be attracted to members of another race if and only if they have a feetish for that race? Shame on you Marie Claire.
repulsive article03:47:14 PMMonday, August 17, 2009
Posted by: redpen11Report Abuse
First of all, to write about feetishism, you have to quote a self-acknowledged feetishizer and an expert on feetishes, not a filthy example like Woody Allen and his daughter/wife and several examples of healthy matches between power couples who happen to be of different races. And to reduce Asian women with brains and character to inanimate trophies is offensive. As a hapa woman (Asian dad, white mother), so much of this article is upsetting. Including the line at the end by the WRITER which feetishizes hapa (mixed) kids. Do you not see the glaring hypocrisy in that?? I won't be reading Marie Claire any more.
jasonchang6903:06:49 PMMonday, August 17, 2009
Posted by: jingtasticReport Abuse
Since when have "hollywood, HBO, cosmo" paid the slightest bit of attention to racial issues or immigration issues? I date Asian men, just not bitter ones like yourself.
Background on "jingtastic"02:40:56 PMMonday, August 17, 2009
Posted by: reminderdoodReport Abuse
Somehow, it doesn't surprise me that "jingtastic" would be so comfortable with the Suzy Wong/Me So Horny stereotype...Just do a bit of googling: https://encyclopediadramatica.com/Zoe_Yang https://www.xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=837948&mc=13&forum_id=2 I hope that helps 
(no subject)02:10:48 PMMonday, August 17, 2009
Posted by: jasonchang69Report Abuse
I'm sure that ALL of the Asian women hating on Ying Chu's article would turn around and say something like "I would never date an Asian man", or "dating an Asian man is like dating my brother", or "Asian and whites make such cute babies", or "I wish I were white"
(no subject)02:08:30 PMMonday, August 17, 2009
Posted by: jasonchang69Report Abuse
ying chu is not a racist. she is just an enlightened kind of asian girl who's risen above the hollywood, HBO, cosmo bullshit that has brainwashed the last 2 generations of immigrants into thinking that ethnicity and color are signs of poverty and low class. all the girls hating on ying chu just dont like to hear the ugly truth and are in denial.
To the Asian male commenters01:48:40 PMMonday, August 17, 2009
Posted by: jingtasticReport Abuse
I am immensely disappointed to see that all the comments left thus far by Asian males smack so strongly of "woe is me, the whiteys are stealing our women." Their vindictive tone, directed at the Asian women here for expressing just outrage over this article, is not only pathetic, but misses the point entirely. Obviously, Asian feetishes exist. I don't think any Asian woman here is debating that point, nor the fact that wm-af relationships happen much more than the reverse, and that the reasons for this are rooted in conquest and colonization. You're not adding anything new by saying all Asian women are self-hating just because you can't get laid. That, frankly, is insulting. As is Ying Chu's article. Guess what? Asian feetishes have only been written about 485402958 times. Of course they continue to bear examination, but what Ying Chu does with this article is not a coherent exploration behind the reality of racial feetishes but a condemnation of specific Asian women she knows nothing about. She's not "calling it as she sees it," she's using an old stereotype to extrapolate false conclusions on real people's lives. If that's not racism, I don't know what is.
to Tanman701:24:59 PMMonday, August 17, 2009
Posted by: saracee1Report Abuse
Dude, stating your own public experiences and b-tching about them is not the same thing as writing an "article" that does exactly what you so decry: Demonstrates a level of self-hate that paints an entire ethnic group with the same brush. Did you just assume that the writer only dates Asian men and is, therefore, on your "side"? The problem with the article is not so much about who dates whom. The problem with the article is that nothing makes sense and insultingly implies that the only reason these men would be interested in their wives is because her presence will somehow allow him to get a chunk of the Asian economy while avoiding the oh-so-terrifying prospect of a midlife crisis in a woman? People are not upset because the writer dared to say that some afs have wm feetishes and vice versa. People are upset because this piece just doesn't add up and is insulting in its peppy-yet-ignorant tone.
作者：八袋长老 在 海归酒吧 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
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