Yellow Fever
They got it bad, and that ain’t good
By VICKIE CHANG
Thursday, November 2, 2006 - 3:00 pm

Whatcha drinking? Photo by Jennie Warren. Makeup by Bill Child
Born and raised in La Habra, Dan* didn’t see many Asian Americans before college. Now 22, he attributes his Asiaphilia to UC Irvine, where he’s a studio art major and an astounding 58 percent of students claim Asian descent.

But his Asian fetish actually originated in high school, in trig class, where he met a Vietnamese American girl named Ann. Although born in the United States, Ann was raised in Indonesia until about a year before Dan met her. She spoke English well, but not perfectly. They shared the standard high school dating experience: dinner-and-movie dates, study dates, boba dates, kung fu lessons, meditation with the girlfriend’s Buddhist monk uncle. The relationship ended in a pretty standard way, too: Dan suggested sex, Ann resisted, things spiraled. There was an ultimatum and then a breakup, and then—classic—threats of suicide.

Later, Dan sought answers on Ann’s blog, where she labeled him a “standard American boy” and called him out for pressuring her into sex. She ended the entry with a note of disgust: “Get over yourself.”

Perhaps it was the pain of that rejection and the desire to overcome it, but Dan says Ann’s rejection changed him. When he began dating again, he found himself looking for Asian girls. He went through a string of them—one-night stands, flings and friends-with-benefits. He frequented places like Club Bang in Hollywood, which attracts a number of Asian patrons—and Asiaphiles like Dan.

Although there was one detour on the road to full-blown Asiaphilia—Desiree, whom he describes as a “white feminist with armpit hair”—Dan openly professed his preference for Asian women by his third year at UCI.

His friends back in La Habra eventually got the idea he had a fetish.

“Date a nice white girl,” they urged him.

“White girls,” he’d reply, “are sluts.”


* * *


My friend Christina has been fending off Asiaphiles since her teens, when she was a waitress at her aunt’s Thai restaurant. Much older men would often leave her a tip and their business cards scrawled with numbers and notes that were always a variation on the same theme: “You’re such a cute little Asian girl.”

It’s the same today wherever she goes, including one recent weeknight at Detroit Bar in Costa Mesa. A group of us went to catch somebody’s boyfriend’s band. A hip bar with an interior ripped out of an IKEA catalogue, Detroit would seem safe from Asiaphiles. But as Christina, who’s Filipino American, stood listening to the music, a full Amstel Light in one hand, she was approached by a thirtysomething white man in a collared shirt, the top tactically unbuttoned to show off a gold chain that made him look like something out of South Beach. He put another full Amstel in Tina’s other hand. She smiled and thanked him.

Then he looked at the rest of us, all Asian.

“You’re by far the most attractive women in here,” he said. He pulled out his wallet and asked if we’d like drinks. “I really shouldn’t be doing this,” he said. “I just bought a house on the golf course.”

We declined.

“You know, I just got back from Bangkok,” he went on. “The women in Thailand are all gorgeous. You’re all gorgeous! It’s just that whole area.”

That whole area? Bangkok? Thailand in general? Southeast Asia? The greater Asian continent?

It’s funny: Asia is about 17,212,000 square miles—nearly five times the size of the U.S. About 60 percent of the world’s population lives there. Yet these guys seem to lump all Asians together, not to mention the teeny tiny fact that people such as Christina are Americans.

But he wasn’t finished. He inquired about Christina’s nationality and complimented her on her good breeding, background and “blood,” the last of which left her thoroughly creeped out. By the end of the night, the guy had even doted on her “delicate” fingers, and grabbed her arm when she tried to escape to the smoking patio.

Less than a month later, again at Detroit, another forgettable guy with crusty hands sauntered over to our table and said breathily, “I love this table! I just love it!” He stared at Christina, gesturing toward her with one of those crusty hands. “Especially you!”


* * *


By the time we’ve reached adulthood, most Asian American women have experienced so many episodes of Asiaphilia that it becomes something we laugh about over dinner. There was the time that one smooth-talking (and way too short—I hope you’re reading this) guy from LA Weekly’s marketing department asked me where I was from.

“Los Angeles,” I said.

“No, really, where are you really from?”

There was the 20-year-old UCI economics major who swears that Asian women’s vaginas “feel different somehow—very smooth and naturally lubricated.” Or the guy who sauntered up to me and asked, “You must be great with a chopstick, huh?”

Wink, wink.

It pisses us off—no, I don’t want to see your killer Chinese-character tat; it probably doesn’t mean what you think it means—but we’re not sure what we can do but laugh.

“It’s been happening so long I just let it roll off my back,” Christina says. “I used to have a mouthful for every guy, but they’d just laugh at me and say, ‘Oh, she’s a feisty one!’”


* * *


I was the 10-year-old girl swooning and singing along with Rivers Cuomo over the three-chord riffs of Weezer’s “El Scorcho,” that song about half-Japanese girls that do it to him every time. Oblivious to its implications, I was pleased that the man in the Buddy Holly glasses had a penchant for Asian girls because, you know, that way I actually had a chance. It was better than being invisible. After all, how many times did I come across references to Asians on television or radio? Let’s see, there was professional tennis player Michael Chang, who provoked squeals of delighted pride from my parents, the unsportiest people you’ll ever meet, whenever his matches were on television. And there was Margaret Cho and her hopelessly unfunny, short-lived ABC comedy series, American Girl. And that just about wraps it up.

I was a year into college, still listening to Cuomo as he referenced Madama Butterfly, when a friend pointed out that Cuomo was merely exoticizing and objectifying Asian women, the social phenomenon that is Asiaphilia.

And just like that, my favorite Weezer album, Pinkerton, suggested a disturbing question: Was Cuomo, the god of cutesy, simple-but-not rock—the guy I’d been so thrilled at merely standing near at the Roxy a few years before—was he actually a quasi-racist, ignorant Asiaphile?

And even if he was, would he ever call?


* * *


Asian fetishism has a long history of being brushed off as a compliment, rather than offensive or bigoted. I’ve been told I ought to be flattered that so many non-Asian men “prefer” Asians and Asian American women. But the coalescing of an ethnicity into a whole, whether exotic, erotic, oversexed or virginal, is a real issue, collectively and individually. (I guess when it comes to stereotypes, Asian women have it better than Asian men do. There are two main themes when it comes to Asian male stereotypes: virginal and emasculated. Not to mention that super-fun myth that goes something like this: small stature equals small penis equals small chance of pleasure.)

Asiaphilia brings with it a set of more intimate considerations. I get to wonder if the man chatting me up is genuinely interested in me or interested in the idea of what he supposes me to be: demure and submissive, the forever-faithful geisha girl/bedroom toy.

The overwhelming ratio of males with Asiaphilic attraction to females suggests that this fetishization isn’t based on looks alone. Asiaphiles are looking for authority in their romantic relationships, premeditated or not.

This issue moved out of the theoretical and into the personal when I dated a white boy I met in college.

“Do you like boba,” he asked me.

“I don’t.”

“Ever visited the Japanese Garden at Huntington Library?”

“I have, but I prefer the Shakespeare Garden.”

“Ever read The Art of War?”

I was devastated. Couldn’t he see I was into the same things he was—Dostoevsky, early ’90s shoegazer music and Indian food?

It hurt. When someone homogenizes an entire race of people—even if that homogenization tends toward desirable—that someone is creating a wall between himself and the person in question. No one likes to be treated as an outsider, especially in the only country she’s ever known as home.

Things got worse when I heard the story of my friend Lydia, whose boyfriend’s Asiaphilic tendencies didn’t reveal themselves for months. By the end of the relationship, the guy had become an East Asian Studies/Chinese language double major, and never missed a chance to converse with her family in their native Mandarin. When she wasn’t around, he’d call her father to go out for Chinese food.

He’s gone, but his impact on Lydia remains.

“It always crosses my mind,” she says, “that I’m replaceable.”


* * *


As all good Asian-American Studies minors know, the roots of Asiaphilia are planted in the soil of colonialism. Our European forefathers, viewing any foreign culture as backward, erased what they could of indigenous custom and inscribed upon the people their own authority. Thus did bloom the stereotype of Asian docility, submissiveness and lotus blossom beauty.

It’s arguable that Asiaphilia, ironically, stems from legal attempts to exclude Asian Americans from the United States. The criteria by which many Asian women were permitted to enter the U.S. were not exactly morally sound: prostitutes, picture brides, war brides, mail-order brides. Sexuality was a prerequisite for refuge in the United States.

On the other hand, Asiaphilia flourishes in California, where Asians make up 12 percent of the population. If you doubt me, go to the clubs to see it—whether an average dance club or the booking clubs traditionally haunted by Asian men and women looking for significant others.

At booking clubs, women—normal, everyday girls, not paid professionals—gather in the center of the room while men in surrounding booths literally take their pick. Waiters drag girls from the dance floor to their tables. They even drag them from the restroom. But the women are there of their own accord, just as desperate as the guys “booking” them. The thinking goes that if the men can afford the tables they’ve purchased for the night—from $200 to $500—they’re likely a prosperous match.

With that kind of calculation, it’s little wonder that booking clubs welcome an increasing number of Anglo male patrons. Nicolas Cage once frequented Los Angeles’ largest such club, Le Prive; it was widely reported in Korean American newspapers—and with absolutely no disdain—that Nicolas met his Korean American wife at a booking club.


* * *


We’ve become the latest accessories; Asians are the new pink.

Gwen Stefani used Asians to underscore and dress up her solo career. While promoting her Love, Angel, Music, Baby album, she was attended constantly by four mute Japanese schoolgirls she re-named “Love,” “Angel,” “Music” and “Baby.” Stefani called them her Harajuku girls, taking that name from a particularly hip and fashionable Tokyo district.

Think if she had done the same with other ethnic groups—four African American girls barefoot and dressed in dashikis. Or four Latinas in sombreros and mariachi outfits. Jesse Jackson, the NAACP and the world in general, I’d like to think, would have gone out of their heads. Any other ethnicity and a hit would have been taken out on Stefani, or at least her recording career. But for some reason, if it’s Asians—cute, little Asians—we let it slide. Which explains why Stefani’s use of human accessories has been barely criticized, objections limited to the occasional irate blogger.

The Harajuku girls were a component of nearly all of Stefani’s publicity stops and showed up in her videos, too, portraying swashbuckling pirates in “Rich Girl” and ghetto cheerleaders in “Hollaback Girl.” While Stefani clunked around in high heels, the Harajuku girls padded around diminutively barefoot behind her. To top it off, it’s heavily rumored that the four were prohibited from speaking English in public.


* * *


Asiaphilia is not limited to women, but it takes on a different form when it’s applied to men. Gay Asian men have their own genre of racial obsessives known as rice queens.

Jayson has resisted revealing his homosexuality to friends and family, not because he is Japanese American, but because he is the son of a Seventh-Day Adventist minister and fears the scorn of eternal-damnation-and-hellfire-preaching peers. Only Jayson’s closest friends know the truth.

So it was that he met Julian, a Chinese American, in April of last year while cruising DowneLink.com, a website patronized by bisexuals, the bi-curious, trannies, lesbians, gays and their hags. They chatted for a month before Jayson decided to visit Julian in New York. He scored a standby ticket for a redeye to JFK and arrived in Manhattan on a Thursday night. Both men nervously anticipated their face-to-face meeting, but Jayson completed the 2,700-mile trip to Julian’s apartment in Queens so late that they barely exchanged words. He crashed on the downstairs couch.

They got acquainted late the next day, going to Koreatown for barbecued spare ribs and awkward conversation, then took a train to a karaoke place in Flushing, where they got completely trashed on imported beer and sake. They headed back to Manhattan and a bar called The Web, so well-known as the destination for gay Asians that NewYorkMetro.com recommends the place if “you have a fetish for the Far East.”

Jayson and Julian paid the remarkably affordable $10 cover, ambled down a stairwell and headed for the bar. Two Irish Car Bombs and a shot of tequila later, they hit the dance floor. Things heated up fast, and as a Basement Jaxx remix thumped, Jayson soon found himself against the sticky club wall with Julian rhythmically thrusting, humping and grinding against him. It was Jayson’s first same-sex public display of affection, but even drunk, he was worried that someone was watching and would tell his conservative Christian parents.

Someone was watching: a white guy in his 50s stood no more than five feet away in one of those designer vintage tees you buy at Barney’s. He was staring at them, mouth slightly agape. He ran his hands through his thinning hair and smoothed out his shirt before jamming his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

“Wow. That was really hot,” he shouted over the music, edging closer. And then, putting one arm against the wall and leaning in, he confidently asked, “Can I join in?”

Jayson blinked at the intruder, assessing his age, his beer belly and his disturbing resemblance to Steve Buscemi. After an uncomfortable moment, Julian finally replied, “Uh, no, we’re good.”

The rice queen shrugged.

“He was strangely chill about it,” says Jayson now, still unnerved. “Like he’d done it before.”

Their mood broken, Jayson and Julian moved to a nearby worn, crushed-velvet couch and looked around the now-packed club. While The Web was mostly filled with young Asians and Asian Americans, there was also the noticeable presence of a handful of balding, mostly overweight white men. They stood along the outskirts of the dance floor, drinks in hand, trying to look nonchalant.

Rice queens are apt to approach any Asian man, but Jayson and Julian noticed that some tended to target the younger-looking males in the crowd, and usually those who were Southeast Asian.

“I think it’s because the Southeast is even more exotic to them,” Jayson says. “They figure, ‘Those countries is pooooooooo, so the boys must be enamored by this glorious western lifestyle.’”

But to be honest, that’s not always a stereotype. Cameron, a gay Vietnamese American in his mid-20s who used to work for USC’s influential Asian Pacific American Student Assembly, acknowledges that the goal of upward mobility can make white rice queens seem attractive to Asians.

“It’s the history of colonialism. The colonizers are attractive because they’re the ones with power,” he says. “If you want to move up in the world, you want to date white.”


* * *


Dan says his last girlfriend before undergoing what he calls “The Change” was another Ann. Annie, actually. She was Chinese American, a UCI student and a born-again Christian who claimed a “secondary virginity.”

By the conclusion of their five-month relationship, the secondary virginity had disappeared just as the first one had. Soon afterward, she made Dan disappear, too. Not long after that, Dan went through a tumultuous quarter-life crisis.

He’s now dating Frida, a fourth-year film major of mixed Mexican and European descent he met while working at a local movie theater. He’s glad to have renounced his narrow-minded ways.

“I was going through a lot of changes in my life and rethinking things,” he recalls. “My obsession with Asian women was one of the aspects of myself I found to be not healthy.”

He’s a new man, he says, living by a new philosophy: “Asian women tend to be mean, stingy abusers.”



*All names have been changed.

http://www.ocweekly.com/news/news/yellow-fever/26126/

Wow, this is kinda long, but still a good article. I've had a lot of guys come up to me while I was growing up and start speaking in Mandarin and I'm thinking, "I'm Cantonese, dumbass." Can't fault them for trying though. I had this really weird experience recently too, at a job interview of all places. One of my interviewers (a Caucasian male) looked at my resume (which states that I'm a fluent Cantonese speaker) and started telling me how he tried to learn Mandarin in college and how the culture is "just great!" - all while staring at my chest. I steered the conversation back to what we were actually supposed to be talking about (me and my amazing awesomeness) but it was still very hard to keep his eye contact since his eyes were constantly wandering down to my chest. I wasn't even wearing anything low cut! I was so happy that my next two interviewers were women.

Interesting article, yet it begs a few questions. How is a white male, finding value in a person's asian descent, any different than an asian person finding value in their own ancestry? If you think more highly of yourself becuase you are asian, why cant someone else? This is obviously my qualm with people who are 'proud of their race' because it is as equally bad as being dissapointed or thinking less of someone because of their race. Something no one has any control over ought to hold no moral value whatsoever.

Many people think first of their own ethnicity as a primary defining point and second of their nationality. This comes from confusing ehtnicity and nationality, and the fact that America is the only country where an ethnicity is not directly associated with a nationality. While the majority are caucasian, nobody looks at a black person, indian person, or asian person funny when they say "I am an American" But if I, as a caucasian, were to go to China and claim I was a Chinese, even after adopting the culture and language and living there for decades, well that wouldnt go over so well. If you make your own ethnicity a primary point of identification for yourself, then dont be surprised if other people make it one as well. Thats not to say its right, it's pretty shitty.

I have found myself often inclined to not hit on a girl that was asian whom I was attracted to for other reasons for fear that I might be interpreted as someone with merely an 'asian' fetish, something I fully recognize as insulting because it demotes that person to nothing more than a bag of flesh that happens to have some ancestry in some particular area. You ought to like people for who they are and what they make of themselves and choose to be, just as you ought to like yourself for those same things.

But this article was short sighted, I think, in other ways. Many Asians seek to date only other asians (Caroline has expressed a fondness for only Hapa's) also I dont think it's fair that this article attributes asian fetishes to some sort of post colonialism power trip, that is an idiotic oversimplification of a very complex issue. For starters, Asian women are 'new' to america as far as cultures go and are seen as exotic and interesting by many people. In reality they are just as diverse, some annoying and dumb, some interesting, as any particular ethnic group, but I could understand why people would have an attraction to something largely new (in a historical context) and different. I don't think the allure that they are passive and submissive plays a role in any persons asian fetish. What are they basing that on? Of the people I have known or interacted with that had asian fetishes they couldnt give a shit whether the person was outgoing and strong willed or shy and submissive, as long as they were asian.

And as the excerpt about weezer demonstrates, some asian girls like that they get extra attention *because* they are asian, even if they explicitly know it is racist.

This article also paints pretty much all white males as disgusting pigs, and is particularly disgusted at older white males. Why is that kind of stereotyping in less disgusting? Are older white males not supposed to be sexual? Do these authors seriously think they will not be a sexual person when they are older?

Q wrote:
Wow, this is kinda long, but still a good article. I've had a lot of guys come up to me while I was growing up and start speaking in Mandarin and I'm thinking, "I'm Cantonese, dumbass." Can't fault them for trying though. I had this really weird experience recently too, at a job interview of all places. One of my interviewers (a Caucasian male) looked at my resume (which states that I'm a fluent Cantonese speaker) and started telling me how he tried to learn Mandarin in college and how the culture is "just great!" - all while staring at my chest. I steered the conversation back to what we were actually supposed to be talking about (me and my amazing awesomeness) but it was still very hard to keep his eye contact since his eyes were constantly wandering down to my chest. I wasn't even wearing anything low cut! I was so happy that my next two interviewers were women.

I have been learning a little Mandarin and tried it for the first time on a good friend of mine who is from Tawain at our company's christmas party. I said "Excuse me, do you speak Mandarin?" and she got so damn excited that she dragged me over to the nearest chinese looking guy and said "Oh, Tell it to him tel it to him, He LOOKS chinese!!" Lol, I was like, isnt that kind of racist? Maybe he is korean, or vietnamese? Then she dragged me over to her table and made me tell her husband and everyone at the table, who were all Asian. Your experience is the same reason why i dont try to use it on just anyone who 'looks' asian, I feel like that is rather presumptious of me to assume they speak mandarin.

Incidently, I am interested in learning mandarin because China is going to be the biggest damn economic powerhouse in the world pretty soon, everybody who cant speak one of the major chinese languages better damn well start learning, and soon!

Sounds like your interviewer was a scumbag.

Matus1976 wrote:
"Oh, Tell it to him tel it to him, He LOOKS chinese!!" Lol, I was like, isnt that kind of racist? Maybe he is korean, or vietnamese?

Quite a few of the asians I have known are able to 'look' at another asian and tell you, with pretty good accuracy, where that person's particular ethnicity is from, myself included. It's not too hard when you know what to look for.

I had a yellow fever experience on New Years Eve .A drunk friend of mine comes up to me and tells me I have to meet this girl.So my friend is Korean and she leads me up to talk to this lovely Asian girl.I am hammered at this point.So my friend says Marc this is
(insert name), she's Korean too.So I'm thinking this looks like I got my Asian friend to scout one out for me and aproach her or something weird like that.So I blurt out "just so you know I'm not one of those yellow fever guys".My best friend is a gorgeous Hapa girl
so I am acutely aware of the yellow predator.So my friend goes " no I wanted you to meet her because we're all adopted ".Then the girl says " your more than a white guy what else you got going on Indian or Eurasian or something? You got mixed looking eyes" .So I explained I was an Irish Mestizo.She actually earned points from me for that though.Because people never ask me if I'm Latino.I was too drunk to think to ask for her digits.I just wandered off.Good times.

Q wrote:


His friends back in La Habra eventually got the idea he had a fetish.

“Date a nice white girl, ” they urged him.

“White girls, ” he’d reply, “are sluts.”

That is TOOOOO FUNNY!! Although, I prefer to say it this way:

Girls raised on American culture are sluts.

Give the Asian-American girls a few more generations of moral-sucking MTV (et al) and they'll be just as slutty as well.

That's why I'm looking for a guy who can help me raise our kids with mostly Asian culture. American-culture raised kids also tend to have this STUPID FUCKING NOTION of ENTITLEMENT.

I definitely don't want my kids to grow up being lazy stupid douchebags thinking that they're entitled to everything automatically on the planet.

If I can't find my guy when I move to Cali, then I'm seriously going to move to Asia.

There's nothing that a modern US city has over a modern Asian city.

I'm going to Vietnam w/some friends this summer...anyone wanna join?

Hip Hop Tweety wrote:

Matus1976 wrote:
"Oh, Tell it to him tel it to him, He LOOKS chinese!!" Lol, I was like, isnt that kind of racist? Maybe he is korean, or vietnamese?

Quite a few of the asians I have known are able to 'look' at another asian and tell you, with pretty good accuracy, where that person's particular ethnicity is from, myself included. It's not too hard when you know what to look for.

This doesn't bother me so much because it's not like we can tell the difference between a Brit, German, French or Italian?

Although, I can tell an Eastern European from the rest...they tend to look more scruffy and down-trodden.

Matus1976 wrote:
Interesting article, yet it begs a few questions. How is a white male, finding value in a person's asian descent, any different than an asian person finding value in their own ancestry? If you think more highly of yourself becuase you are asian, why cant someone else? This is obviously my qualm with people who are 'proud of their race' because it is as equally bad as being dissapointed or thinking less of someone because of their race. Something no one has any control over ought to hold no moral value whatsoever.

You're right Michael, there is no fault in that and in fact, I love it because it contributes to the "browning of America."

However, the problems arises because most White males are NOT into our culture and simply are out to "bang an Asian girl" because he's heard that we're "really tight."

Everybody's thinking it, let's just get it out on the table.

Whenever I date a white guy, I make him prove himself to me that he's just not out to "bang an Asian girl" and if he doesn't like it then I tell him, "dude, go fuck off and date someone else!"

"I'm the one who is Asian and in limited supply here. I live in a city that is 85-90% white...I could have you replaced before you walk out of the restaurant."

Caroline Nguyen wrote:

Q wrote:


His friends back in La Habra eventually got the idea he had a fetish.

..Date a nice white girl, .. they urged him.

..White girls, .. he..d reply, ..are sluts...

That is TOOOOO FUNNY!! Although, I prefer to say it this way:

Girls raised on American culture are sluts.

Very true , and usually stupid, superficial, and annoying. I am dating a beautiful and very intelligent brazilian girl currently =)

I'm going to Vietnam w/some friends this summer...anyone wanna join?

I've wanted to travel to vietnam for a long time, if I can afford it I'd be up for it. I'd get to practice my vietnamese as well!

Caroline Nguyen wrote:



I'm going to Vietnam w/some friends this summer...anyone wanna join?

I'm down! What month during the summer? Ive always wondered what Pho is like from the 'motherland' of Pho...heh :P

Well how about Blondes; all the racial stereotypes based on appearance. I hate the dumb blonde jokes. We are not all the same dammit!

Yeah sure I'm hot, sure I'm bitchen, sure I get more attention than any person can reasonably handle. But don't put me in a box. I am not an animal. I am not an object. Leave me alone unless of course I find you attractive. And don't be a hater.

Caroline Nguyen wrote:

You're right Michael, there is no fault in that and in fact, I love it because it contributes to the "browning of America."

However, the problems arises because most White males are NOT into our culture and simply are out to "bang an Asian girl" because he's heard that we're "really tight."

Everybody's thinking it, let's just get it out on the table.

Whenever I date a white guy, I make him prove himself to me that he's just not out to "bang an Asian girl" and if he doesn't like it then I tell him, "dude, go fuck off and date someone else!"

"I'm the one who is Asian and in limited supply here. I live in a city that is 85-90% white...I could have you replaced before you walk out of the restaurant."

I actually have similiar sentiments, I think the more mixing, the better, as it will eventually make racial divisions and strife more difficult.

However I don't think most white males are interested in asian women because they have heard asian women are really tight, personally this is the first time I have ever heard that. I think some people just legitimately find 'asian looking' females attractive, unique, exotic, different, (whatever) There is no disputing that particular ethnicities tend to have particular looks, and obviously as humans we find a lot of value in the way people look (though this is not at all healthy as a foundation for a relationship) I just have a hard time thinking that every guy who has ever looked at an asian girl calender is thinking only about the diameter of her love canal. There are some spectacularly beautiful asian women, and some spectacular beautiful caucasian, african, middle eastern, nordic, and BRAZILIAN! women, etc. I could see some men having preferences for women of a particular look without it being rooted only in that particular anatomical feature, and the rumor of it to boot. Don't you tend to find Hapa men more attractive on a purely physical level? Is it because you think something particular of their anatomy?

Hmm, out of curiousity, how does said white guys prove that to you?

Vietnam is actually quite amazing....and Caroline, if you go to Asia and hang with the privileged class, you will find them just as superficial and slutty as they are here in America (probably much worse actually)...I doubt you are going to hang with the humble villagers that might not be that way...although, those humble villagers would probably be that way if they were to come into money. Social class will play a far more pivotal role in third world countries...and that is something a superficiality hater would not enjoy....that is one good thing about the US - as much as you feel the class divisions, it is far less of a barrier here than in other places.

Also, the pho in America is better than in Vietnam. There is a better quality meat when you have FDA inspectors.

Vietnam would be a fanstastic trip - for one, it is not yet overrun by tourists, but that will change. Laos, I unfortuantely did not get to go to because I ran out of time, but I heard amazing things about Luang Prabang from my friend - and that is even less sullied by tourists. Cambodia and Angkor Wat is also not to be missed - the tourists are really picking up on that big time now that the Khmer Rouge is dead - go before they have a McDonalds - please....

Summer is the hottest and most humid season in VN (especially July & August). Be prepare to take 3+ cold showers a day, bottle water and baby powder are your best friends, forget the jeans, bring loose fitting cotton clothes, taxi cabs are the best way to get around town. For the ladies, minimal makeup if possible, I remember standing next to this gal after I walked out of the airport and I could see the cream literally melting off her face. For the brave ones, you can rent one of those scooters/motorcycles (costs about $5 or $10 a day) but you're gonna be riding very close to other people, sometimes inches away from each other (it amazes me how the streets are packed with commuters and yet I've never seen an accident). "Xich Lo" are really fun to ride in but I've heard they're prohibited on most streets now. Don't be surprised if you see people urinating on the streets.

If you wanna hit the beach, it's about a 5 hour ride, but the drive is worth it. Beautiful scenery and the water temperature is in the upper 80s. For those who want to get a way from the city and heat for a bit, you should visit Da Lat. The temperature is a lot cooler (comparable to a CA winter) and they have beautiful monasteries and Buddhist temples.

Pho lovers, I'd recommend Pho Pasteur. The restaurant is located near a shopping center called Diamond Plaza. DON'T eat at Pho 2000, it's nice and clean and they'll even advertise that Bill and Hilary ate there but the food is horrible. For buffet style restaurant, you may want to visit the New World Hotel. The menu changes everyday and it costs only $20 per person. Don't know any good clubs, but if you're looking for a nice place to hang out and have a few drinks after dinner or a hard day of shopping, the "Q Bar" is it. Please, eat all the exotic fruits you can. The only place I know that will have fruits like Vietnam is Vancouver.

I think I've said this before but be very careful of beggars. If you're walking on the street most likely they'll rush you and during the confusion some will try to pick your pocket. Finally, it's OK to bribe (mainly cops and custom agents). $10-$20 will do. They'll make your life much easier.


Have a safe and happy vacation!!