In addition to race...

[YuheiCarreau]

In one of HH's posts in the "Are You Asian American?" topic, she mentions not understanding the 'White experience' and that she can never be sure that a White guy walking down the street doesn't have secret Asiaphile fantasies about her (sounds like somebody's pretty full of herself! :D ).

That got me thinking about how I've never been able to identify much with White men, even though they've been my friends and peers for most of my life. Even relating as 'just guys' can be difficult, because of their stereotypes of Asian masculinity and my occasional paranoia of White male colonialism (I'm not paranoid about ALL White guys, and I've made friends with some; I'm just speaking in general terms here). However, I don't find this to be nearly as much of a problem with White women - whether because women in general are marginalized, and I identify on that note, or because my mother is White, or simply because I have three sisters and get along well with women, I don't know (maybe it's 'cause I secretly think all White chicks are H-O-T :P). My father has been pretty much my only male role model, as well as the only other guy in the family, so that may have something to do with me not finding much in common with White men.

When dealing with Asians, I am about as comfortable with men as women, although sometimes I get a little nervous about behaving properly around older Japanese men (which probably comes from spending time with my father and his business colleagues). Interestingly, however, all my AA friends are guys; I have never been friends with or spend much time around an AA woman.

Has anyone else found that gender, not just race, plays a role in how you interact with people (as a biracial person; obviously as a guy I'm going to treat women different than men)? Are there any other factors besides those two? Or am I just thinking too much?

[BeTheReds]

The vast majority of my Asian friends are women... asian and asian american. Tho the closest asian friends I have are guys.

All of my white friends are guys, so perhaps I am the exact opposite as you.

Then again, a lot of white dudes forget that I am asian and talk about the asian dick thing, and then one of my friends was dating a korean chick and he talked about sexual stuff with her and said he bets all koreans are doing this and that or whatever. Anyway that dude isnt my friend anymore.. to make a long story short.

Funny. All the chicks that ever come after me are white. All the ones I go after are Asian. You'd think I'd be able to relate to white chicks more, since my mom is white, but for some reason I am socialy inept infront of white girls and usually they lose interest after talking to me, which i dont really mind since usually i never have interest.

It's rather strange here in Japan... I have not come in contact with a white person in months, other than an occasional guy on the train. It's not a complaint, but it feels strange.

[AliBabaIncorporated]

hmm, here in the US, pretty much all the female friends I have are Asian. I can count on one finger the number of white girls I'm friends with in my whole life. (then again I have kinda a restricted definition of "friend). Not all that interested in white girls anyway. I don't so much freeze up around them as get bored talking to them and end up wandering off in the middle of the conversation. Then again I don't really have too many female friends anyway. I actually made a concious effort to reverse this trend when I got to university. That got me one stalker, a few hookups, and a (now ex) girlfriend, but a grand total of one additional platonic female friend who I actually feel I can just hang out with. The others, I got bored of being around them too quickly, though I'll still talk to them around campus and go places with them in groups, I'm not gonna actively seek them out to just hang out or something ... I'd rather just chill with the guys.

In Hong Kong also, the vast majority of my local friends were guys. Almost all my female friends were ABCs (and almost all my ABC friends were girls). I just didn't click well with most local girls I met. Though the weird thing was, I had a far more balanced ratio of male friends to female friends than I did in the US, where most of my friends are guys. a lot of the time when I hung out with exchange students I ended up in groups where I was the only guy or one of two. Though this may have been because the exchange student guys for the most part had no Chinese language abilities to speak of and had just come to HK to recreate their American lifestyle in a place where they knew they'd find lots of ABCs. and they seemed reluctant relying on a guy like me to have to translate for them all the time in public.

In Japan every single local student from my university I met was a girl. similarly I really didn't click well with any of them. To be honest I think this was a big part of the reason my Japanese didn't get much better while I was actually in Japan, I was too suspicious that they were just hanging around me cuz I was American and they were going through some white guy phase, or just wanted the cachet of hanging around a white foreigner and speaking English. None of them were really interested in hearing about, say, my experiences in Malaysia or the fact that I speak Chinese, or if they did, they reduced it to me being an American tourist and having a thing for Chinese girls. Oh yeah and cuz one of them told me to be careful in going somewhere cuz "with all the Chinese immigrants around it can be dangerous." The only local guys i met were either through friends I already knew before coming, or at the school gym, playing volleyball. I guess I felt more comfortable around them cuz my relationship with them wasn't exclusively defined as "yeah, he's my foreigner friend" (though more like just "Yeah, he's the foreigner who plays volleyball with us"). Proving once again that sports is a better universal language than sex or English.

[kimpossible]

Originally posted by YuheiCarreau@Feb 18 2003, 12:19 AM
In one of HH's posts in the "Are You Asian American?" topic, she mentions not understanding the 'White experience' and that she can never be sure that a White guy walking down the street doesn't have secret Asiaphile fantasies about her (sounds like somebody's pretty full of herself! :D ).



Oh for goodness' sake. This is what I said.

Sure but when I look at the average white guy I see on the street how do I know he's not one of the many that... fetishes Asian women?

Asian women. Not 'me.' *spanks Yuhei* Next time you're grounded, young man!

[SunWuKong]

spank me too!

[YuheiCarreau]

Originally posted by Hello_Hapa@Feb 18 2003, 07:25 AM
Asian women. Not 'me.' *spanks Yuhei* Next time you're grounded, young man!
You leave me no recourse but to imagine you moderating in leather and high heels.

[kimpossible]

Originally posted by YuheiCarreau@Feb 18 2003, 07:44 PM
You leave me no recourse but to imagine you moderating in leather and high heels.
that's really entertaining because I'm in sweatpants with a runny nose.

[YuheiCarreau]

Originally posted by Hello_Hapa@Feb 18 2003, 09:48 PM
that's really entertaining because I'm in sweatpants with a runny nose.
That's still better than imagining you as a burly fratboy holding a notch-covered wooden paddle.

[thaite]

I really have to ponder the question as to whether I identify as Asian or White. I really don't know what either means. I was at a dinner the other night and found myself at a table of all-white people. Some of them I had met before and found agreeable, some I was meeting for the first time -- but even so, I didn't feel any kinship among them. I kept thinking to myself "I don't have anything in common with these people."

It would be absurd to think that I could never have anything in common with a White person, or that I would automatically have something in common with an Asian stranger, but I know who I feel more comfortable being around.

With that said, my circle of friends are small; my female friends are generally Asian, guy friends are White or Asian or neither.

As far as dating goes, for now, I'm off of White chicks and Asian chicks. It's Hapas and Latinas for me. :)

[tapestrybabe]

when it comes to trying to identify with others...
wanting to belong to a group is what i constantly feel...
but yet, i am never really able find that full connection/kindship...

[BeTheReds]

Originally posted by tapestrybabe@Feb 20 2003, 05:36 AM
when it comes to trying to identify with others...
wanting to belong to a group is what i constantly feel...
but yet, i am never really able find that full connection/kindship...
So do you feel like you don't belong anywhere?

Or do you feel frustrated with the way things (or people) are.

Do you have mad love for a group of people who don't reciprocate?

[contra_diction]

Originally posted by YuheiCarreau@Feb 18 2003, 12:19 AM
Or am I just thinking too much?
yes


i think so

[YuheiCarreau]

Originally posted by contra_diction@Feb 20 2003, 12:50 AM
yes


i think so
:huh:

Thanks for elaboratin'.

[tapestrybabe]

Originally posted by BeTheReds@Feb 20 2003, 01:44 AM
Originally posted by tapestrybabe@Feb 20 2003, 05:36 AM
when it comes to trying to identify with others...
wanting to belong to a group is what i constantly feel...
but yet, i am never really able find that full connection/kindship...
So do you feel like you don't belong anywhere?


thats right.. i feel a sense of not belonging anywhere...
and it doesnt have to due with the concept of asian ppl not accepting me... or white ppl not accepting me... it has NOTHING to do with that...

but it has to do with the fact of feeling like its only ME in this world... my parents whom adopted me... yes, they are my REAL parent.. in whom that raised me... but i feel i have no sense of REAL family tree tho.. no sense of family roots, history...

no real sense of really being able find that FULL connection/kindship with others...

[BeTheReds]

Originally posted by tapestrybabe@Feb 20 2003, 07:06 AM
but i feel i have no sense of REAL family tree tho.. no sense of family roots, history...

no real sense of really being able find that FULL connection/kindship with others...
I suppose that's the hugest difference between mixed people and adoptees. Mixed people wo get into all that mixed is cool crap will go out of thier way to trace their roots.

Have you ever tried to locate your biological parents?

[tapestrybabe]

Originally posted by BeTheReds@Feb 20 2003, 05:21 AM
Have you ever tried to locate your biological parents?
Nope...

[tapestrybabe]

Originally posted by BeTheReds@Feb 20 2003, 05:21 AM
I suppose that's the hugest difference between mixed people and adoptees. Mixed people wo get into all that mixed is cool crap will go out of thier way to trace their roots.

well... i wasnt trying to draw that type of conclusion...
i origionally was trying to draw a similar commonality... when it comes to the struggle of trying to fit in a group...

[BeTheReds]

Originally posted by tapestrybabe@Feb 20 2003, 10:27 AM
Originally posted by BeTheReds@Feb 20 2003, 05:21 AM
I suppose that's the hugest difference between mixed people and adoptees. Mixed people wo get into all that mixed is cool crap will go out of thier way to trace their roots.

well... i wasnt trying to draw that type of conclusion...
i origionally was trying to draw a similar commonality... when it comes to the struggle of trying to fit in a group...
Yea, no doubt, we have many similarities, but the two largest differences are looks and what I stated above. Besides that, our plights are the same.

[tapestrybabe]

Originally posted by BeTheReds@Feb 20 2003, 09:14 PM
Originally posted by tapestrybabe@Feb 20 2003, 10:27 AM
Originally posted by BeTheReds@Feb 20 2003, 05:21 AM
I suppose that's the hugest difference between mixed people and adoptees. Mixed people wo get into all that mixed is cool crap will go out of thier way to trace their roots.

well... i wasnt trying to draw that type of conclusion...
i origionally was trying to draw a similar commonality... when it comes to the struggle of trying to fit in a group...
Yea, no doubt, we have many similarities, but the two largest differences are looks and what I stated above. Besides that, our plights are the same.
yeah,
looks are important when it comes to how ppl percieve others... its just that when it comes to transracial adoptees... its not a visible trait... cuz when you meet someone like that... you cant tell if someone is adopted just by their mere looks alone... but that person has to actually say something about it... which i feel... when it comes to transracial adoptees.... makes them kinda invisible...

[teaz0r]

i'm a third culture kid. i grew up in thailand, went to a private international school, didn't have any thai friends till i hit sixth grade. before that i my friends were always expat kids, mostly caucasian americans. i left for the US after ninth grade went to an all white private boarding school, i knew some hapa people, and related to them better because they knew a bit about being "asian". funny thing is that i learnt about being "thai" when i left for college in England, cuz my campus had 700+ thai kids. iono. i'm not thai enough to be thai, nor am i western enough to be considered western. i'm international, i have an easier time relating to people that are "international" ie. lived abroad, multiple places for an extensive time.

so my circle of close friends consist of an eclectic mix, white people that have lived in Thailand for most of their life, kids from other international schools, the gender of my friends is really my personal peference. i just have a harder time relating to girls than i do with boys, because i grew up around boys, i didn't do toe nail painting slumber parties, i did coed video game playing slumber parties, and i giggled about boys with uh, my guy friends while they rolled their eyes. i simply just don't like girls for the most part. there are a rare few that i have comepletely fell in love with. but yah man, most girls are bitches. i like boys a whole lot better.

attraction wise, i think i attract about an equal amount of asian-fob-esque and caucasians-asianphile-esque, the thai boys like me cuz i seem a lot more daring than traditional thai girls, and the white boys like me because i don't fit in the asian stereotype i guess. i'm really attracted to worldly people, people that know the difference of going to the pacific islands during november and january. erm.. well i like people that are well traveled, doesn't matter what gender since i am bisexual or race, just as long as they have interesting stuff to teach me. yeah.