Bonnie Chau Chau is a second-year
English student who likes collarbones, scars and making nonfat
cappuccinos. If you want her to make you a friendship bracelet,
e-mail her at bchau@media.ucla.edu.
So I’m eating with my two friends at the Cheesecake
Factory over winter break and conversation, for some reason, veers
to the new *NSYNC music video. Then one of my friends says,
“Yeah, I don’t like how JC is with an Asian girl in
that video.”
At this point, I am somewhat confused since I’ve never
even seen this music video before. But before I can ask about it,
she continues, “And yeah, I think this whole white guy-Asian
girl thing has to stop. They should reverse it and make it a white
girl-Asian guy thing for a while just to balance it out.” And
before I can say otherwise, my other friend interrupts with,
“Yeah it’s so trendy it’s out of control. Why is
it like this?”
Why? Well, the traditional view seems to portray the Asian
female as a submissive, servile, docile (I’m just gonna pile
on the synonyms here), silent, pale, thin and long-haired,
subservient massage girl ““ and, according to the common
belief, non-Asian guys find this attractive. Not only is this
stereotype not really applicable to how many Asian girls look or
act like, it’s also a stereotype most guys I know don’t
find attractive.
So instead, it might be interesting to consider the reason from
an Asian female’s perspective.
 Illustration by JARRETT QUON/Daily Bruin What is the
supposed attraction of an Asian female to a non-Asian male? One of
my friends once referred to size as the mutual attraction, that
Asian girls and guys are generally of smaller stature, thus her
non-Asian brother and his Asian girlfriend make sense because she
prefers someone bigger ““ and then she gestures obscenely, and
I nod. Friction is what she means.
But as sex-obsessed as our culture is, I don’t think this
is the real reason. My other friend, however, insists that size
does matter. According to her, it simply boils down to society
promoting the image of the larger dominant male and the smaller
female. Thus, in interracial dating, we usually see a black male
and white female, white male and Asian female and not vice
versa.
I sit for a bit and think of all the “halfies” I
know. And for most of the half Asian-half white kids, over 95
percent (of the ones I know at least), have white fathers and Asian
mothers.
And then I sit and think of all the interracial relationships I
have encountered. And most of those are similarly imbalanced. But
all of this is still not a very satisfying answer to the question
of interracial dating preferences.
A few days after the Cheesecake conversation, my sister brings
up something rather interesting. She has concluded that it’s
Asian guys who are not attracted to her. And so at an Asian bar,
she asked two Asian guys why. They told her their first impression
was that she was not dressed up nicely enough, her short-ish
bleached hair and tattoo were not ideal, that she wasn’t
wearing enough make-up, etc.
But when they got to talk to her and know her, everything was
cool and they tried to convince her that she must try going out
with an Asian guy. “Give an Asian guy a chance! Once you go
Asian, you’ll never go back!” (This is actually just
what I imagine them saying).
Then she asked them why she should fall for the Asian persuasion
and why it matters. Well, they thought for a really long time and
couldn’t come up with anything legitimate except that an
Asian couple could harmoniously enjoy watching “Rush
Hour” together which as a reason, seems more cryptic than
legitimate.
Personally, I didn’t even really enjoy “Rush
Hour” in the first place. My reasons would involve things
more like dancing skill ““ ahem, style, I mean ““ and
terrible pickup lines. But really, there isn’t any legitimate
reason why anyone shouldn’t give every kind of person a
chance.
Unfortunately, people are inherently stupid and since people of
all races are equally irrational, the earth would end up a better
place if human beings and all their racial biases and prejudices
and complications and baggage just ceased to exist.
However, since I am, for the most part, a supporter of the human
race, I propose that we date whoever we want to date, and not be so
close-minded.
Give everyone a chance. Skin weighs an average of about eight
pounds. That’s nothing compared to how much most people
weigh. What we should do is shed those extraneous eight pounds and
we’ll automatically become a thinner, more loving and
peaceful world.