Not long ago, I ran into an ex-boyfriend’s brother. This particular boyfriend — let’s call him Marvin — had moved to Japan five years ago, midway into our relationship. Things were never quite resolved between us, and I’d bitterly cut off all friendly relations after he backed way out after leading me very deeply in. Now I wanted to know what had become of him.

I panicked, but smiled. I managed to ask about the brother’s job, his music, his wife, their dog. Finally, heart pounding, I got up the nerve to ask him about Marvin. "Oh," he said brightly, as though he’d just remembered. "Marvin actually got married last week!"

I leaned against the counter, knees gooey, trying to keep the conversation politely rolling. I don’t remember what I asked next or how he answered — I was too busy fielding the bile that had started flowing. I also felt something like relief: Bitter though this news was, it was actually a many-years-wished-for resolution. It had been years since Marvin and I split, and I’m now in a happy, satisfying relationship. But the fact and the geography of his marriage confirmed something I’d always feared about our relationship — something, in fact, that I fear about all my relationships. Namely, that what men who are attracted to me really want is a Japanese woman.¹

Before you tag me paranoid, digest this fact: Three of my previous boyfriends (the guy I lost my virginity with, my first out-of-college long-term relationship, and a fairly recent lover) had already married Japanese women — from Japan — by the time I heard the news about Marvin.² The first was the one who instilled the curse in me, the only one nervy enough to actually say, during the course of our relationship: "You’re just not…Asian enough. I actually like Japanese features more." (Which just goes to show that visualization works — he now lives in Japan with his Japanese wife and kids.)

I believe that stereotypes of Asian women in general stem largely (and wrongly) from stereotypes of Japanese women. The fantasy Asian is intelligent yet pliable, mysterious yet ornamental. She’s also perpetually prepubescent — ageless and petite, hairless, high-pitched, girly — while simultaneously being exotic and wise beyond her years. Her breasts are small and round (the large-breasted Asian woman is a semifreakish commodity), and, as I once overheard someone saying, she’s "tuckable" under the arm. She comes from a culture where women traditionally serve men for a living one way or another, as a wife or geisha (I’ve often wondered who would have the better deal). Ads in the personals sections of alternative weeklies brim with this fantasy, as well as its counterpart, the Dragon Lady archetype: the ironic, iconic, bossy Asian dominatrix.

Why focus on the characteristics ascribed to Japanese women by lusty and ignorant white guys? After all, it’s not as though Vietnamese, Thai, Chinese, and Korean women aren’t targets of the same fantasies. But the Japanese thing seems prevalent, at least here in the States — the Asian stereotype in general seems to stem from it — and it’s the one that’s affected me most. (This may have something to do with the fact that even to most native Asians, I look Japanese; even men into Chinese culture aren’t attracted to me in the same numbers.) I think it’s because the first American mass-media exposure to any Asian culture was post—World War II, during the occupation, which coincided with the golden age of television. Our boys were over there sampling the wares of "comfort women" — mostly Japanese women forced into the sex trade to accommodate American GIs — and they brought their experiences home with them in the form of a caricature.

Whatever the origins of the fantasy, I’m Chinese-American, and the idea of Japanese-woman-as-Asian-ideal has been a source of letdown and neurosis all my adult life, mainly because I don’t think men who are magnetically attracted only to Asian women are usually conscious of their desires or motives.³ The "men are visually stimulated" theory would apply well to my experiences with the fellows afflicted with what I call Yellow Fever. I’ve found that if they’re Asian-inclined — no matter how latent/unacknowledged their desire — they pursue first and let who I actually am sink in later. Usually it’s too late: Then they’re vaguely disappointed in who I’m not, my ego is bruised because it wasn’t really me they wanted, and bad feelings set in all around.

I used to think my heightened sensitivity to Yellow Fever was born of too many viewings of M*A*S*H, Twin Peaks, Platoon — movies and shows in which female Asian characters are either easily exploitable by white men or in need of rescue by them, or both. Think Josie Packard on Twin Peaks, who flees the arms of her (white) sugar daddy for her (white) knight in shining armor: Actor Joan Chen is made to seem most glamorous in her most weepy, wishy-washy, and pliable states; worse, she bases her actions in reaction to how she might be victimized next.

But it’s not all celluloid: I’ve definitely seen one too many dorky white-guy musicians who play "Oriental fusion" music, wear their hair in a samurai bun, and have Chinese characters tattooed on their pecs — all in the interest of aligning themselves with "ethnicity" in some way. I’ve seen China-doll blindness that affects men to the point where no matter how many burritos you eat, no matter how many Young Ones videos you watch, no matter how many combinations of combat boots, 501s, and ratty Goodwill coats you wear, they still see a little Oriental flower. ("How come you never wear a kimono? You’d look really nice in one. Will you wear one so I can at least take a picture…?")

In my experience, the converse is that when the Asian woman in question doesn’t live up to one or the other of these specific clichés, it can be used as a defense or justification, as in, "Well, she’s Asian, but she’s a real ballbreaker" — which is sort of the intellectual equivalent of saying, "Well, she’s blond, but she’s really smart." That sort of reasoning feeds right into other, equally ridiculous stereotypes — like Ally McBeal’s Ling, an exotic-bitch cliché lauded by culture watchers as a breakthrough for Asian tv characters because she doesn’t conform to the "docile Asian" stereotype.⁴

But Yellow Fever is a phenomenon with symptoms and causes that, though they’re fueled by pop culture, run much deeper. The trouble isn’t so much that men with Yellow Fever are attracted to a physical type per se, but that they associate the type with behaviors or attitudes that may not exist in the object of pursuit. Typically blind romanticism becomes doubly problematic (not to mention unnecessary) when that idealization is deeply attached to perceived racial or cultural attributes. The thing is, it’s hard to discern because there’s a lot of gray area between sincere, personal attraction and superficial, prepackaged desire — and also between wanting to learn more about a culture and wanting to co-opt it, especially when it’s all mixed in with sex.

Until I had some experience, it was hard to tell whether someone was interested in me or in a culture I may or may not come from. Often it was a combination of both, but I wasn’t always equipped to size up the proportions of each. In my late teens, all I knew was that older men seemed intently interested in me in a way that high school boys weren’t. Their questions about my family background and what sorts of philosophies I subscribed to made me feel, for the first time, that I might be attractive, despite the fact that I didn’t fit into my Orange County surroundings in quite the way the bikini babes did. I finally accepted that I might possibly be a little cool, even though I was an awkward, breastless Asian girl. My ego responded — I blossomed with possibilities.

And then, very gradually, I began feeling icky. Out in the world, I started seeing patterns. Sometimes it would be someone wearing a t-shirt with an Asian motif or kanji. Sometimes it was some guy trying too hard to sound knowledgeable about what he imagined was an obscure Asian topic, such as how "the Japanese" really feel about "the Koreans." Often these men were skinny; lots of times they were middle-aged. Sometimes they were military — when I was 17, I once went to a movie with a Marine. Once. Almost always they were goofy-looking, middle-class, educated white guys.⁵ Usually the conversation would start out, "So where are you from?" When I’d answer, "New Jersey" (my birthplace), they’d persist and ask me where I was really from, sometimes smiling smugly as if to say, "I know better," or informing me that they’d "spent some time" in such and such an Asian country. In my early 20s, I worked at a bookstore dedicated to world religions and founded by a Tibetan Buddhist; it was a magnet for Westerners seeking Eastern answers, and they all wanted to talk about it — to me.⁶

My first accomplishment in quantitative defense was cutting off my nearly waist-length hair. It worked, immediately weeding out all those who would see Hair and make a beeline for me. Only the most hard-core would feel the pull without the visual stimulation of a curtain of hair. And if, with my now well-developed intuition, I sensed one coming, I’d just veer away — or strike up a conversation with the nearest person, cultivate an interest in a piece of lint, have to pee, whatever. If I got caught in a conversation with a victim of Yellow Fever, I’d just pretend not to know anything about what he was talking about. ("Oh, I don’t watch anime…") Over time, I also learned to recognize who had a genuine interest in me — but even then, I was occasionally fooled. I developed an admittedly crude test to determine to what degree the genuine-seeming person had ever been involved with Asian culture or an Asian woman. Into anime? Fine. Into kung fu flicks and Wong Kar-Wai movies? Cool. Taking an immersion course in an Asian language, plays two or more traditional Asian instruments, and hoping to go to Asia? Uh, maybe…. Last three girlfriends Japanese-from-Japan? See ya.⁷

In other words, I learned to cope. But there came a time a few years ago when I couldn’t take any more. A friend and I were on our way into a Lester Bowie show, and we ran into another old friend who’d worked at that bookstore with us back in the day. He was a gangly white boy who suffered from too nice/too romantic syndrome, which dulled any potential sexual edge, and he often cited this as the reason he could never find a girlfriend. When I would compliment him on his sweet and kind nature, he’d blush and make self-effacing remarks. I remember thinking, at the time, that what he really wanted was a nice Asian girl — by culture, not by race — who might appreciate such qualities in a man because they were so rare in her own patriarchal family (like mine). I also remember thanking goodness he recognized I wasn’t that girl.

Anyway, I hadn’t seen him for years, and tonight he had in tow a moon-faced Asian woman with yards of hair.⁸ As soon as he was out of eyeshot, my friend and I looked at each other and half smiled, half — I hate to say it — sneered. Then, looking around at the audience minutes later, we realized that we’d entered Yellow Fever country — it seemed that almost every other table was occupied by a gangly white guy accompanied by a pale, moon-faced Asian lady with yards of hair.⁹

The next day, as my eye wandered through the personals in the weekly paper, I noticed a trend in the Men Seeking Women section:

"Maganda Ka! Are you petite, full-breasted Asian sweetheart seeking life-long love? Passionate, marriage- minded blue-eyed guy, marvelously sensual lover will cherish you forever."

"Are you looking for me? If you’re an unattached, childless, intelligent, single Asian female, 35 to 40, you may be. I’m a heavy-set divorced white male, 49."

"Desire Asian woman, very attractive, playful, monogamous, spontaneous, sexy, trim, tomboy, prefer under 35."

"Dynamic single male seeking attractive, flexible, curious Asian female with heart. I’m 45, well-traveled, multilingual, interested in Buddhism, like to cook, play tennis, and ‘hang out.’ More interested in questions than answers."

There were 10 ads from white men seeking Asian women. Inspired by fury, I whipped out a pen; I circled all 10 of them, copied down all the adjectives, and strung them together to make an ad of my own.

"Petite, beautiful, tomboy Asian sweetheart (with heart), intelligent, and particularly loathes white men who hanker only after Asian babes. All need not apply."

I sent it in and waited for the dead silence or angry voicemails I was about to receive. The first person to contact me was the editor of the personals section. Before she even spoke, I could hear the glee in her breathing: "I just want to tell you that your ad is great!" she said. "It’s about time somebody did something like this. I hate those ads too. In fact, the ones you see aren’t even the worst of them. I refuse to print a lot of the ones that come in."

"They get worse?"

"Oh, much. But, listen, you’re going to get a ton of calls anyway. They’re not even going to get to the end of the sentence."

She was right. On the first day the ad ran, I checked my mailbox and had 20 messages waiting for me. Some of them were from Asian-American guys who either didn’t read the whole thing or didn’t get the joke at all, interpreting the message as simply a preference for nonwhite men. One black man left a message too, thinking the same. Perfectly understandable. Then there were the Asian guys who did get it, but not as a joke. Actually, they took it quite seriously, saying things to the effect of, "I like your ad and what it says. I’m Asian, let’s go out." But the biggest percentage of the callers were white guys who — as the editor had predicted — either didn’t read the whole ad, or didn’t get it. They sounded excited, clueless, and like everything I hated. In the two-week period the ad ran, there must have been 200 responses. I checked messages obsessively for the first few days, but the joke wore o¤ and it soon started to feel like hitting a bruise. The concept of people so lonely that they couldn’t get a joke weighed on me, and I felt almost guilty for getting their hopes up.¹⁰ I told myself I wasn’t obligated to listen, and let the messages sit there ’til they were automatically erased.

My conscience had taken a small beating during what I thought of as a crusade. Not only did I stop listening to the messages, I stopped talking about it with my friends.¹¹ Turning on the tap of all those lonely people chastened me enough to trigger a little compassion, and in the face of it, my gripe seemed trivial. In the end, what did I prove? Just that I was right; the personals editor was right. It proved something we all already know: that many white guys have Asian-woman fantasies. But it didn’t show me whose fault it was, and it didn’t make the curse go away.

The unsurprising results of this experiment, as well as the unexpected ones, ended up helping me come to new terms with the YF phenomenon. It’s not an outward change but an inner one: Once my sympathy was activated, it worried me less at a personal level where people’s motives lay. Who am I to say how we should nurse our loneliness? Misguided the Asian fetish may be, and ultimately insidious: I don’t want to be regarded as a Josie Packard, and no one in the media’s out there telling my story in any way. Nevertheless, I find myself feeling less defensive and getting less hopping mad. Instead, I try to take opportunities to state in strong, simple terms how it feels from my end. If I can’t, I just smirk and think "I feel sorry for you" thoughts.

I still wish it didn’t exist, but at the same time I’m not about to leave this culture behind because of it. My ego still has to bear the brunt of what is: Hearing about Marvin’s marriage didn’t help; meeting my ex’s half-Japanese kids was a wistful reminder even as it was a delight, and so on.

Just last week an otherwise lovely Italian man in my t’ai chi class — apropos of nothing — bowed, smiled, and said, "Arigato." I ignored him; he did it again. My blood didn’t boil, and I didn’t automatically conjure up the ghosts of every Japanophile boyfriend from the past. I just smiled a tolerant smile and started up a conversation with the guy next to me — who I hope wasn’t mentally casting me as the lead in one of his Jet Li T’ai Chi Master fantasies. 

Notes

1 Not Japanese-American, though. For reasons I’ve struggled to understand for years, it seems that men who want Japanese women are purists — only women from the old country will do. I’ve always suspected that part of John Lennon’s charm is that only he could be sweetly eccentric enough to adore the most obnoxious Japanese-American woman of all time. (For the record, I love Yoko, especially as she bore beautiful Sean.)

2 To tell the truth, Marvin’s brother didn’t say the new wife was Japanese. It’s an educated guess. He’s been living in the same place in Japan for five years, a tiny provincial town with a population that’s overwhelmingly Japanese. I know because I went there for the most visually stunning, expensive breakup of my life. Even before he moved to Japan, I had my suspicions: When I asked whether he was sure I was the person he wanted to be with (as the serenity and mystery he eventually sought from Japan would never be found within the Mongol horde that is my extended family), he paused an uncomfortably long time before meekly reassuring me.

3 What about me? A fair question. Except for a girlhood fling with a Mexican-American man and one tryst with an Asian (a half-Indian British male who’d convinced himself he was black), I’ve mostly dated white men of one persuasion or another. Some would say I’ve been with more than my fair share of ginger-haired men of Scottish descent. But you can stop wagging that finger at me now, because as far as I know my people don’t have any kind of history of trying to drug or nuke the Scots, and Asian women haven’t generally held up Scottish men as iconic sex-objects for hire. Furthermore, my fantasies don’t involve my taking a dominant/worshipful position over a red-haired laddie…or do they?

4 From my one viewing, I’d have to admit Ling is the first Asian woman on tv I could even possibly begin to relate to. I’d be more convinced if she were shorter, fatter, more neurotic and less invulnerable, didn’t know how to speak Chinese, and dared to wear short hair. But for now I’m just happy she’s not a drip.

7 This is not a foolproof method. Recently I befriended a reporter in the office adjacent to mine. He had that intellectual, skinny, alternative geek-hip look, and whenever we met at the water cooler we’d talk about music. He was white. He liked Japanese pop. He was studying Chinese. When he asked me out to coffee, I warned myself that all the red flags were there, but he didn’t look at me in the way that gives me the Fear. Over coffee, he mentioned that he planned to go to China to study Chinese intensively — and then mentioned his boyfriend, who is Chinese.

8 I ran into these two a few weeks ago. He proudly introduced her as his wife.

9 In the context of the San Francisco Bay Area, where interracial relationships happily abound, this probably doesn’t seem extravagant. On the other hand, there was no other interracial relationship in the room that night: no white chick—yellow guy, black guy—yellow chick, black chick—white guy—nothing. What that means I don’t know, but obviously it bugs me.

10 One man sounded like he was talking through a hole in his throat, saying he was very lonely and a good companion. It got my compassion worked up, but that soon dissolved when I realized he’d been calling again and again. At that point, I started to feel scared and stalked. But the best call was the one white guy who loved the joke so much he spent the $1.69 per minute just to laugh and laugh into my voicemail box.