Mixed Company of Yale: Single Asians

In light of all the interest my Yellow Fever posts have generated - this is too funny! I first saw this on Margaret Cho's blog.

Keep sending me your Yellow Fever stories! :D

RIP, Grasshopper

Grasshopper
Beloved Car
1994-2009

I used to talk a lot of sh!t about you. I know that. I used to complain all the time about how inefficient and old you were, how beat up you looked, and I used to refer to you as a ___teen year old piece of crap. Whenever someone saw you for the first time, I’d preface it with an explanation about how it’s not my fault that you looked as awful as you did.

But I want you to know that I actually really cared about you. I used to feed you instead of feeding myself, even if I were down to my last $20; if that’s not an act of love, I don’t know what is. If/Until I have kids, there probably will not be anyone in the world that I’d feed before myself if we were both starving. And face it - you were very expensive to feed...not to mention high-maintenance. But I loved you, so it didn’t matter.

I still remember how I thrilled I was the day you came to me. I was breathlessly happy, and as I looked at you, I thought, Here is my freedom. You were my legs!

I’ll always remember the numerous secret shopping trips you and I took together. Whenever I really, really wanted a new book, or a killer outfit, or some gorgeous shoes, or a manicure before I really needed one, we’d just go. Whenever I needed to escape, you whisked me away and effectively saved my sanity many times over.

And when I came home from France, I was so antsy when I couldn’t go out with you right away. It wasn’t until I took that long-awaited first spin with you that I fully understood just how much I missed you; I was beaming the whole way.

Thank you for being such a loyal friend. Thank you for always being there for me. And most of all, thank you for doing your best to protect me even in the last moment; you did spectacularly, and no one got seriously hurt. You did good, kid. I miss you.

Yellow Fever cont'd

So my last post started a lot of discourse. I love discourse! Who knew so many people had so much to say about Yellow Fever? (By the way, this post won't make much sense if you haven't read the post previous to this one, so scroll down if you need to!) I got a lot of great comments and stories, so I thought I’d address some of them:

What? Who wouldn't want to talk about anime? lol, j/k But I don't think all expats go because they have yellow fever and it could be nice that they have experienced your culture and might have a better understanding of you in some ways? I don't know... Obviously no one's ever come up to me and claimed to be super into me because of my ambiguous Western European origin, but I support that these people are missing out on getting to know a person by reducing them to a stereotype

True, not all expats have Yellow Fever. Some people are just really high up in their organizations and get sent places all over the world. Some have an honest interest in other cultures. My grandpa’s a romantic. :) The person who wrote this particular comment is my really good friend Sabrina, who’s teaching in Korea this year. Actually, girl, now that you’re living where you’re a minority, you might get one of these experiences – not that I wish it for you! But I know definitely that in Japan, a lot of people love your kind of look, so maybe in a nearby country...? Hee. Just teasing!

So I noticed you had a blog. I just read your Yellow Fever post. Really interesting. Although I'm obviously not Asian, I have definitely noticed this. When I went to China to teach English a good number (not all) of the *MALE* volunteers seemed to fetishize Chinese women. They would then degrade white women as being bad for relationships. We were rude and shallow, etc while Chinese women are cute and so soft-spoken and so on. They didn't seem to get that they were being just as offensive to the Chinese women as they were to the white women.

I have never thought that foreign teaching gigs can be breeding grounds for Yellow Fever Creepers! Ew, ew, ew. The guys you worked with are asswipes and don’t ever deserve to get laid.

I got another comment from a Chinese friend defending guys who exclusively date Asians saying that it’s because white girls are rude to them, that they cruelly reject them...but I think that’s an unfair stereotype, too. I get it that some people are once burned and twice shy, but they might be totally setting themselves up if they go for Asian girls strictly because they’re supposedly “gentler.” I’m Chinese, and trust me, I can cut a jerk down just as scathingly as a girl of any other colour can – and I’m not unique in this respect. :P

As for the yellow fever thing.. hmm i looked at it from a different perspective. Naturally raised on the outskirts of scarborough I was immersed in a culture that was not my own. Growing up,interacting, and socializing in an east asian community has created this comfort level. I mean Id rather eat at pho's than go to montanas. So maybe these ... Read moreindividuals you run into may be products of diaspora? Familiarity with a culture shouldn't be mistaken for obsessive creepers.. which is why its hard separating the diasporic individuals from the other kind; however when people fail to justify their connection/intrigue (and booty aint justification!) they're usually the ones to avoid. You will always find these pretenders in every cultural/religious aspect of society. Ignore them and burn any connective bridge they establish..In the end you are an multi-layered individual and that will probably shatter the "yellow fever individuals" 2 dimensional take on a culture and its people.

I totally agree; familiarity with a culture shouldn’t be mistaken for obsessive creepiness. But there’s preferring pho over Montana’s...and then there’s going up to random women with golden skin and dark eyes and saying the few words you know in “their language.” And shopping nearly exclusively in Asian supermarkets in the hopes of picking up. And getting Chinese or Japanese tattoos so that you have a conversation-starter with hot girls that you assume can read it...but I digress.

I think you hit the nail squarely on the head, my friend. The main issue I have with Yellow Fever is that we get stereotyped and clumped into a group instead of being valued as individuals. It’s just unfair and gross and wrong.

The other issue I have with this is that we’re stripped of our cultural identities. We’re all shoved under the umbrella of “Asians,” whereas usually, people from other parts of the world get their own identity – French, British, Italian, Greek, etc., instead of just “Occidental” or “Caucasian.” Every country has its own unique identity, but it doesn’t apply to us because we’re all Asian so we’re all supposedly the same, and we all supposedly look the same too, and have no personalities because we’re all a certain way. So wrong.


Now! I want to hear your Yellow Fever stories! I got sent some really fun ones, and I’m compiling them into a post sometime next week for your enjoyment. My life has been endless rounds of homework and projects and studying for the past month – do a girl a favour? It can have happened to you or you could’ve just been a witness, but it has to be real.

As always, I'm always here for you 24/7 at thesoapheiress(at)gmail.com

Get’em in! :D

For my initial post on Yellow Fever, click here

The Yellow Fever Debate

Sh!t, I thought to myself, another Yellow Fever Creeper. I totally asked for it.

Class was out for the day, and I asked a classmate if I could see his tattoo, which was just peeking out from under his t-shirt sleeve; my curiosity had been grating at me for a while now. He bared his shoulder to me and proudly proclaimed that it was a dragon, although it's not done yet.

I asked why he got a dragon on his shoulder and what his tattoo means to him, and his first response was a rather curt, "Just personal reasons." Then after maybe a second, he seemed to be a little sheepish, and he added, "I've just always been really interested in Asian culture and stuff. You Japanese?"

Ugh. I got asked "Êtes-vous japonaise ou chinoise?" (Are you Japanese or Chinese?) nearly daily in France by the ickiest of guys, who were even creepier than their North American counterparts, and I was always tempted to snap, "Connard! Chuis cambodgienne!" (Idiot! I'm Cambodian!) to mess with them a little.

I'd never get a tattoo myself because I'm too chicken sh!t (why subject yourself to unnecessary pain?) and I don't think they're very classy, which is also why I've threatened to beat my best friend if she really gets one (she wants a snowflake for Snow Patrol and supposedly because winter is her favourite weather). However, I always like to ask people about their body art because it says a lot about them, there's often a very interesting story involved and also because I'm nosy like that.

In my experience, people's tatts either are very personal and mean something profound...or they just got it for some silly reason (like it looks cool or they were going to the parlour to accompany a friend, etc.) so when someone nosy like me asks such a question, they scrabble to find an excuse. As it turned out, my classmate wasn't really a Yellow Fever Creeper, but just another boy who got a tattoo for reasons he had to make up to me on the spot. Phew!

Those of you who know me know that I have a lot to say about Yellow Fever. I think it's gross and weird and actually, it's a form of racism. Getting fetishized and harrassed and disturbed by awkward, strange men is almost as bad as getting beaten up or discriminated against in more conventional ways by bigots. The effects of obsessive adulation and hatred are both bad. Sure, there are women out there who exploit Yellow Fever to their advantage (see Bai Ling, Tila Tequila and Zhang Ziyi) but I'd much rather have to work to make my own living than to work on a man to support me.

So imagine my surprise when one day, my grandpa said to me, "Yan, if you want to marry a white man, you should find a husband in Asia - an expat. That way, you can be sure that he truly appreciates and loves your culture!"

First of all, I don't necessarily, as my boy Ramir puts it, prefer "white meat." Hotties come in every colour; why limit yourself? Secondly, that pretty much means that my grandpa thinks I should marry the big granddaddies of Yellow Fever Creepers! Guys who are so obsessed that they physically move themselves to a whole different continent to be surrounded by little lotus flowers! Ew, ew, ew.

Then my mom promptly told me that I'm a jerk. What's wrong with a guy who appreciates my culture? Some people prefer blondes over brunettes, tans over pastiness; what's wrong with having a preference for golden skin and dark eyes?

Cosmos help me, but I couldn't think of a retort. I couldn't think of a reasonable argument. But to even consider dating people who "Konichiwa/Ni hau!" me on the streets, who follow me around parties telling me how much they love dim sum, who change into red shirts when they hear I'm Chinese because "Chinese people LOVE red, right?", who want to talk to me about anime and manga and want to take me to Cosplay parties, who want to drink sake and smoke opium in my pagoda...

...I just...I just can't!

For my follow up post on Yellow Fever, click here

Single Parenthood & Procreating with My Main Gay

Remember the deafening thud heard around the world nearly a year ago, while a violent storm raged globally? It was pathetic fallacy - the heavens crying in sympathy of broken-hearted Claymates, as they collectively collapsed into grief-stricken heaps after Clay Aiken came out via People Magazine, because he just had a child and "cannot raise a child to lie or hide things."

Obviously, no one was surprised except for a vast number of Minivan Majority Housewives, those whose ovaries he shook, but the one thing that really struck me about the whole event was his baby mama’s choice to have kids with her main gay.

To quote Lainey at LaineyGossip.com: Je suis fag hag long time. I have a group of gay boy friends who I absolutely adore and have known for a long time now. But as much as I love them, I can't see myself having kids with them, because honestly, I would be so, so sad if I couldn't manage to find someone who was sexually interested enough in me and loved me enough as a person to want to have and raise kids with me within my baby-makeable years.

I once read an interview of Marcia Cross where she said that she was so elated to be suddenly married and pregnant because she'd thought that life had passed her by, at...44, I think? I can relate because I'd feel the same way. In fact, I'd be pretty bummed if I didn't find someone who wanted to be in a committed relationship and raise a family with me by the time I'm 35, and I'd probably be downright depressed if there were no takers at 38 - *knock on wood!*

I know - how ridiculous, right? What happened to girl power? What happened to being an independent woman?

I believe that these things aren't mutually exclusive. Getting married isn't my Holy Grail of happiness, but having kids is something I definitely want to do, and I want to be sharing the adventure with someone I'd be in love with (and who could do all the heavy-lifting and bug-squashing in the house).

Jaymes Foster, Clay's baby mama, brought to my attention a group of very forward-thinking women who are creating their own trend of getting themselves pregnant and starting a family without a partner because they are getting to a certain age and a suitable person hasn't shown up. In this case, Foster made the decision with her main gay, and in some others, women have employed the help of anonymous donors, exes, friends, surrogates...

I wouldn't be able to do this because I'd be resigning myself to single parenthood and my child(ren) to growing up in a single-parent family. Don't get me wrong; my mom did a great job and I'm always thankful that I grew up in my situation instead of in a family where there should have been a divorce. But I witnessed firsthand all the hardships my mom had to face with no partner, and I will always have a Daddy Void in my life. Maybe this wouldn't have been the case if the two-parent status quo were different when I was growing up, but while I do think that it's changing, I don't think it will be drastically different by the time I have to decide whether or not to have kids.

So Ramir, honey? Your little soldiers are safe from me. ;P

By the way, did you know that I'm on Facebook? Because I'm on Facebook! Was going to start a page for this blog, but it felt a little unsettling to have people join it as "Fans" - so I made an old-fashioned group instead. Please join; it would make my month! Also, will be holding a giveaway soon exclusively for group members, so make sure you check that out!

High-Low Fashion/Multiwear Garments

In my August 2009 edition of Fashion magazine, there’s this naughty photo in one of the spreads of a blond-bobbed siren in her underwear, this pretty concoction of wisps of lace, standing over a man sitting in a chair. According to the corner of the page, the sexy, little bra is $170(CAD), from Agent P (that’s Agent Provocateur, of course) and the lacy, black tanga is a $10 H&M original.

My first reaction was – Genius! They look like they could be part of a set, and this is a classic example of mixing high with low. Wearing high-low fashion is so Kate Moss, right? She famously wears Hanes tees and tanks with couture blazers and trendy jeans.

However, when I really thought about it, I wondered about the practicality of the whole concept. If I could afford Agent P lingerie, would I really buy cheapie H&M undies that everyone’s sifted over? Would you? It applies from the other end of the spectrum as well. Being a poor student and used to of living in glamorous poverty as I am, I rarely spend $10 on a single pair of underwear; I’m a fan of the 5 for $25 deals at La Senza and AE. If I were to be really frugal and save up money for something, would I spend it on clothes? Flimsy lingerie doesn’t last very long unless you take super meticulous care of it, and pieces of high-end “outer clothes” cost way more than a high-end bra does.

Besides all that, I'd rather buy a ton of cheap but cute lingerie pieces instead of a single pretty item that costs a lot because then there'd be more of a surprise every time. It's not like guys can tell the difference when you're nearly naked, anyway. They like just about anything; they're on our side, I promise. If I had $170 to spare that I was going to splurge on something, I’d more likely spend it on shoes, which last longer, books, which last even longer, electronics or some other kind of accessory.

So really, wearing high-low fashion is a nice idea, but it doesn’t hold up well as a principle to be executed


Another nice fashion idea that doesn’t work all that well in real life is multiwear garments. You know, the Le Sac Dress and Cotton Spandex Jersey Bandeau Dress from American Apparel, the 4-in-1 dresses and skirts from Tristan & America, the Infinite Dress from the 90s... I found out the hard way when I bought one of those “Magic Wrap Skirts” from an outdoor festival last weekend.

First of all, the material is really low-quality (I saw several varieties and I can assure you that none of them would last past a few washes) and the handiwork is shoddy at best, so it’s really not worth the price you pay. Secondly, it’s really annoying to have to think about how to wear it after you buy it, even if it seems fun at the time of purchase; I don’t think anyone should ever pay for a garment that they don’t know for sure will make them look drop-dead-gorgeous. Lastly, they typically only look nice in maybe one or two styles. The other styles look nice in the brochure, but they often look odd from the back or the side, and I think an effective outfit should look stunning from every perspective.

It’s really attractive to think that you’re sort of getting multiple pieces for the price of one because you can wear it several ways, but don’t bother! Save your money for pieces that are already cut and designed to be hot on you as it is.