I'm a forum troll, I admit... usually when I'm at work or lacking something to do I look around the local chat forums to see what's up with people. In a recent exploration into the dating forums, I've come across what seems to be a significant enough presence to be considered a phenomenon: Asian guy/white girl.
I myself have developed an automatic reaction to the Asian girl/white guy couple. If the guy seems to have nothing to offer to the girl, I'm filled with skepticism. However if the white guy is hot (smart, goodlooking, whatever) than well... hey a hot guy is a hot guy, right? In honesty, on the few occasions I've had with white women who seemed to be interested or at least open to dating an Asian guy, I was quite shocked.
Looking back on my life, I see now that I might have had a shot with several non-asian girls (if I liked the vag), but the first time it really hit me was quite late into my college years. I was working a restaurant in Oakland and my co-worker, a really cute, nice, caucasian girl found out I was gay... she then said something along the lines of "Too bad, when I first met you, I thought you were cute". I responded "really?"... she confirmed... I turned around and thought to myself, "freak".
One of my friends in Shanghai, an ABC, has recently been the victim of an ABC fetishizer. Blogger is clear to remind me that "fetishizer" is indeed, not a word. Anyway, this girl has a thing for specifically ABCs. Several girls on the sites are hunting down local boys (steering clear away from overseas chinese) for dating and maybe a relationship. They cite similar features that I myself would... and I am generalizing... smooth skin, cute faces, nice (I'm a total bitch now, btw), slender and toned.
On one hand I want to say, "go Asian men!" and on the other I just want to step back and wonder if this is the fetish of the 21st century. With the rise of China, is it possible that Chinese men (and people that look like them) will become the new "it" thing? In 30 years, will my kids see half-Asian/half-white kids and think, not another product of white girls fetishizing Asian guys?
And then I twist it around to another angle: the gender angle. And I realize that even the creepiest white girl would never reach the level of creepy I get from a wrinkly old potato sack of a white man trying to get with little 24 year old me. Does the glass ceiling extend from women's offices and limit their potential fetishizing creepiness? After all, isn't it always about power and how you use it?
Maybe it's not a fetish at all. Maybe they're just trying something different. Maybe they're getting away from the stereotype of the overly masculine American male and running into the arms of the gentler, softer skinned stereotype. Maybe this means I have more friends to hunt down helpless little Asian boys with... I have no answers for you. Only questions.
8.14.2007
Revolutionary.
I am not a prophet, but sometimes I have prophetic dreams. - Huey Freeman
I'm sitting here in my apartment with Maro curled up next to my feet wondering about the world again, and how my life has taken so many strange strides to bring me where I am. Since I was little I believed that I would be a force of change... though I didn't really understand what exactly needed changing.
In college I began to understand a little more about what was wrong with the world, largely because I was incredibly guilty of this sin.
Now, I find myself stuck in the real world, where the people who have power to make a change do very little if anything at all to make a difference... and the people with the great ideas, the revolutionaries, fall flat because the revolution hasn't figured out how to lift the shackles of the 9 to 5.
And I'm finding why everyone talks about how college was the best time of their lives. 95% of the population is struggling through their daily toils to make it through the weekend. Everyone wants a better job, more money, someone to settle down with, a new house... security. And the search lasts your entire lifetime and in many cases never really produces any satisfying results.
To my fellow university graduates, we will all end the same. We will afford a house and own it by our mid to late 30's. We will find someone we either love or like a lot and settle down with them. Some of us will divorce, but only after we have kids. Our kids will go to good colleges because we went to good colleges. And we will die at a hopefully old age in the little homes that we built for ourselves.
I will die this way as well. Not only do I know it, I also hope for it. What I hope to do along the way is get over myself and my troubles. To feel the need to write less about men and why/how they suck because they've been doing it for several millennia. To not only identify things that need to change around me, but to actually change them.
And when I'm done, maybe a few less people will feel lonely. People will listen more to the topics that need to be listened to. The world will open its eyes just a little bit wider to the plight of the gay, the lesbian and everything in between (but mostly the latter two). Small business won't come to underdeveloped countries to take advantage of low wage standards and charge the same goddamn prices - popping up like a bunch of boutique Nike sweatshops.
It may happen or it may not. And if it does happen, it may not be enough. If you want change, maybe it just needs to happen in yourself or your house or your town. You don't need to end segregation. You don't need to stop the War... but you do need to do something.
I'm sitting here in my apartment with Maro curled up next to my feet wondering about the world again, and how my life has taken so many strange strides to bring me where I am. Since I was little I believed that I would be a force of change... though I didn't really understand what exactly needed changing.
In college I began to understand a little more about what was wrong with the world, largely because I was incredibly guilty of this sin.
Now, I find myself stuck in the real world, where the people who have power to make a change do very little if anything at all to make a difference... and the people with the great ideas, the revolutionaries, fall flat because the revolution hasn't figured out how to lift the shackles of the 9 to 5.
And I'm finding why everyone talks about how college was the best time of their lives. 95% of the population is struggling through their daily toils to make it through the weekend. Everyone wants a better job, more money, someone to settle down with, a new house... security. And the search lasts your entire lifetime and in many cases never really produces any satisfying results.
To my fellow university graduates, we will all end the same. We will afford a house and own it by our mid to late 30's. We will find someone we either love or like a lot and settle down with them. Some of us will divorce, but only after we have kids. Our kids will go to good colleges because we went to good colleges. And we will die at a hopefully old age in the little homes that we built for ourselves.
I will die this way as well. Not only do I know it, I also hope for it. What I hope to do along the way is get over myself and my troubles. To feel the need to write less about men and why/how they suck because they've been doing it for several millennia. To not only identify things that need to change around me, but to actually change them.
And when I'm done, maybe a few less people will feel lonely. People will listen more to the topics that need to be listened to. The world will open its eyes just a little bit wider to the plight of the gay, the lesbian and everything in between (but mostly the latter two). Small business won't come to underdeveloped countries to take advantage of low wage standards and charge the same goddamn prices - popping up like a bunch of boutique Nike sweatshops.
It may happen or it may not. And if it does happen, it may not be enough. If you want change, maybe it just needs to happen in yourself or your house or your town. You don't need to end segregation. You don't need to stop the War... but you do need to do something.
8.10.2007
Some kind of habit.
I took a pack of cigarettes out to store with me today when I started to feel a bit lonely. I bought a bottle of Heineken and waited on the corner as a street vendor cooked me some chicken wings. Earlier this week I had ordered a pile of crayfish cooked in a way that reminded me of southeast Asia. Chinese food really does start to open up once you get past Canton.
Anyway, I bought this pack back in March on a drunken walk home from a club. I flipped a cigarette upside down and put it back in to save it for luck, as Sam had taught me, since the Marlboros reminded me of him. It's still there and it comforts me that I haven't had to use it since then.
See, I'm not really a smoker. Perhaps for this reason, the act of smoking brings up a lot of vivid memories. The smell reminds me of lonely summers in Berkeley. I had really bad luck in my love life during the summers. To be honest the semesters only got slightly better. I was reminded of my crushes on Brian and Antony, who so easily dismissed me... and then also of the beginning of my relationship with Arthur.
I used cigarettes to comfort me in my loneliest of times. They didn't actually do anything, but I'd always smoke with someone who I considered to be equally messed up. It became ritual... sitting on the windowsill overlooking Haste, standing out near the bushes just barely acknowledging people walking up to the party overhead... Smoking for me and certain friends was the formal acknowledgment that we were damaged.
Misery loves company and I guess we did really love each other, but for me it's kind of weird to not have those people around anymore, and it's even stranger that I haven't found them here. Where are all the cynics? The jaded lovers? The disenfranchised would-be revolutionaries? My friends here are either happy or focused... what the fuck is up with that? I want someone here who I can call in the middle of the night and cry to, but I don't need to cry right now.
I'm sad that the sadness is gone for some reason. What a strange kid I've turned into. The cigarette has a little bit less than half left over, but I flick it onto the floor anyway and smother it with my chewed up sandal. Smoking is bad for you.
Anyway, I bought this pack back in March on a drunken walk home from a club. I flipped a cigarette upside down and put it back in to save it for luck, as Sam had taught me, since the Marlboros reminded me of him. It's still there and it comforts me that I haven't had to use it since then.
See, I'm not really a smoker. Perhaps for this reason, the act of smoking brings up a lot of vivid memories. The smell reminds me of lonely summers in Berkeley. I had really bad luck in my love life during the summers. To be honest the semesters only got slightly better. I was reminded of my crushes on Brian and Antony, who so easily dismissed me... and then also of the beginning of my relationship with Arthur.
I used cigarettes to comfort me in my loneliest of times. They didn't actually do anything, but I'd always smoke with someone who I considered to be equally messed up. It became ritual... sitting on the windowsill overlooking Haste, standing out near the bushes just barely acknowledging people walking up to the party overhead... Smoking for me and certain friends was the formal acknowledgment that we were damaged.
Misery loves company and I guess we did really love each other, but for me it's kind of weird to not have those people around anymore, and it's even stranger that I haven't found them here. Where are all the cynics? The jaded lovers? The disenfranchised would-be revolutionaries? My friends here are either happy or focused... what the fuck is up with that? I want someone here who I can call in the middle of the night and cry to, but I don't need to cry right now.
I'm sad that the sadness is gone for some reason. What a strange kid I've turned into. The cigarette has a little bit less than half left over, but I flick it onto the floor anyway and smother it with my chewed up sandal. Smoking is bad for you.
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