To the white guy who tried to give me pointers on how to snag a white guy:
My professional obligation in the context at hand was to convince you to sign a contract that would fork over half a million dollars to my company and so I couldn’t say then any of what I am about to say now.
First, sit back, sailor, no even farther. Do you see what I am doing here with the gesturing? I am drawing a circle with a 10 foot radius around me. This is my personal space. Do not enter. We each have our own copies of the file. You do not need to crawl so close and peer over my shoulders. In fact, you probably shouldn’t. My hubby is a very big, brawny (Asian) man and you know those Asian men… they’ve got tempers… you wouldn’t want to incite his. Plus, he’s got youth on his side. You evidently do not. So don’t get zippy with me, old man.
No part of the conversation reasonably opened the course for your digression into how wonderful Asian women are, how wonderful white men are also, and how the two are perfect for each other. Adam and Ai-Ling, was your joke. I bet you were set out to bring it up. I could have said, “Pluto.” And you would have replied, “Yes, Pluto, you know that reminds me of Asian women and white men…”
You started in about Asian men first, yes, if I recall, that’s how it started. “Why are Asian women marrying out in staggering numbers? It’s because Asian men are so horrible to their women. They mistreat them. They neglect them. They don’t know how to make a woman happy.”
In the instant with no chance for aforethought, I didn’t know what else to say but a dull, contrived “now we’re just stereotyping.”
“That’s why every Asian woman I know is so desperate to snag a white guy, but for some reason they just can’t. They don’t know how. They’re shy, they’re more traditional, they don’t know how to talk to a white guy. Let me give you some pointers.”
Up to then, my strategy for dealing with you had been to be completely non-responsive to the shit you’d been saying.
Then you asked me, “Is your husband white or…”
I stopped you right there and said “he’s Asian” in the same tone one might say “fuck you.” But you didn’t have a clue. You said “oh.”
You paused before you went at it again, croaking on. Shall we summarize? Let’s see, you mentioned how high the divorce rate is in China, how easy divorces are to get over there, and you know why there are so many divorces in China? Because the Chinese men there don’t know how to take care of their women. And now these Chinese women divorcées. What are they to do? A Chinese man would never agree to marry a divorced woman! These Chinese women now have no choice but to marry a white guy. We white guys, we don’t care about things like that! We’re open-minded.
Oh, you mentioned something about Japanese men being short, so someone as tall as me (I’m not actually that tall, but you’re right, I’m taller than you) wouldn’t ever want a Japanese man. You asked whether my husband was tall. I said yes, a whole head taller than me. You said, “huh, that’s odd.” By the way, you urge, I really oughta visit Tokyo. Fascinating place. Lots of single Japanese women there, you said. You know why? You weren’t even really asking, you know. I didn’t say a thing and you jumped right on. Because they’re so intelligent and so beautiful that they can’t find any Japanese guys to match. My attention was on the wall clock. You realize this part of the conversation took 32 minutes, by itself, right?
Believe you me, I was on alert for any chance at all to reel the conversation back to business, but you kept yapping and yapping and yapping away. Every statement out of your mouth was even more incendiary than the one before. I bet you thought you were complimenting me, or at least the women from my race? We’re so intelligent. We’re so driven. We’re so beautiful. We’re so feminine. This segment of your drivel went on for about 15 minutes before you tied it back to white guys.
You: “So this Asian woman, she has a Ph.D., she’s stunning like a supermodel. She marries this white guy. A janitor! Can you believe it?”
Me: “How unfortunate for her.” Since unresponsiveness was failing miserably for me, I opted for a little subtle snark to your inane remarks. Oops. Too subtle. You missed it completely.
You: “No! You’re missing my point! He may be just a janitor, but he worships her! He treats her like a queen! He treats her better than any Asian guy ever could. It’s not about money. Asian women just want to be loved!”
Me: “No, we like the money.”
You forced a laugh, a big howl of a laugh. “You’re funny,” you said. Perhaps you don’t know Asian women as well as you think. Because, no, we really do like the money. I cast my eyes purposely down at the dotted line and slid the contract a little closer to you.
20 more minutes of rambling and then you told what you thought was a joke, I’ve already forgotten it now, but then you did one of those smiling sighs that people do after a laugh and before the last bit of air from that breath left you, I interjected. “Well then, shall we wrap up?”
I stormed out of there pissed off, but no, not at you, not directly. I was pissed at myself for not saying everything I wanted to say. I was pissed at my job, and at life for being put in that situation. I was pissed at the world and its injustices, because people like you will end up winning anyway. You will be the Adam to your Ai-Ling, not a clue in the world about the reality of interracial dynamics. You will be convinced until the day you die that you saved your Ai-Ling from a horrifying fate of being married to an Asian man. No one will ever be there to successfully refute you.
And to the 8A community, yeah, I know what I did here. I brought it up, IR. It was about time or something. The Asian Godwin strikes again. On a humorous note, one of the things that white guy said: “You know, people don’t talk about interracial dating between white men and Asian women enough.” To which I wanted to reply, “You obviously do not read 8A.”
