Today in Soc 101 we watched a film called “Who is Albert Woo?” It’s about Asian men living in North American and the challenges they face. The filmed talked about how Asian men are stereotypically portrayed as strong, hard working, and not romantic. How a lot of Asian women in North America tend to date and marry white men because they grew up with the notion that only non-Asian men can be romantic. A lot of Asian women here want to move away from tradition, whereas men tend to want to keep traditions. As well, many Asian men are seen as mamma’s boy — and some even profess to be one.
On top of that, Asian women are seen by non-Asians as exotic and more feminine than non-Asian women. Many non-Asian males have fantasies about how Asian women are, even though they’re not really true. However, in the case of Asian men, we are not as desired by non-Asian women as Asian women are desired by non-Asian men. I don’t really see this in society today, and it appears the film was made a while ago so perhaps we are already passed that whole “Chinamen” are not attractive thing.
I do think that when Asians come to North America, they will have to consciously make the decision between choosing Asian or non-Asians to date and marry. At least from what I’ve observed, it’s always the case that someone will solely look for an Asian or they will solely look for a non-Asian. If this is true then it would be pretty interesting, and might be worth doing some research into. Alas, I think i will forgo the essay option for Soc 101 and write another M/C test instead. If you haven’t guessed yet, I got a perfect 30/30 on the M/C part of my Soc test. (I got 9/10 for the essay part)
February 9th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
That does seem very interesting. I’m actually doing a paper on interethnic marriages by Asian Canadians which fits right into what you talked about. But I’m focusing on the Indo-Canadian community. As far as East Asians go, I do see more non-Asian men being attracted to East Asian women than non-Asian women being attracted to East Asian men. I don’t know if it has to do with romance though. I think there is a stereotype that East Asian men are more traditional and are brought up with stronger patriarchal views than most Asian women would like in a spouse. A lot of Asian cultures raise their sons to be that way and it’s harder in North American society to raise daughters to be passive. But I think for the most part, people do stick with what they know. Parental pressure is always there, along with the preservation of language, religion and culture. So yeah…very complex issue. =P