[pic from randplaty, attributed to dasasaki. randplaty looks like a church blog (and you know my views on that), but it also looks like he has some very interesting views on church and culture. I actually had some similar questions, which maybe we can discuss in the future. The religious/political web we weave...]
I’ve been meaning to post this for a while now. Thanks to everyone who is still coming here, even though I post less frequently. If it gets annoying with the slow, disconnected entries, feel free to add me to your RSS reader. And don’t worry, I will eventually be back full swing with the fighting dialogue.
David Brooks had an excellent article last week: The Power of Posterity. In the Op-Ed, he waxes poetic about a hypothetical question brought up on the blog Marginal Revolution, which is: “What would happen if a freak solar event sterilized the people on the half of the earth that happened to be facing the sun?“ (The original post mentioned that the solar flare sterilizes everything–animals too–but I think Brooks’s interpretation is much more interesting.) Brooks talks about possible ramifications, eventually coming to the conclusion that society progresses for posterity, and that “when a society doesn’t reproduce there is nothing left to contribute to.” Even with immigration, Brooks concedes, a society is hopeless without children. Brooks ends with the acknowledgment that our unborn children guide our actions, even though they have yet to exist. It reminded me a bit of that American Indian saying that we don’t inherit the land from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.
The minute I read Brooks’s column, I immediately started thinking about Asian American society. The irony of Brooks’s post is that he focuses heavily on what theoretically would happen with a sterilized people, when in fact there exists a real life example right before his eyes–Asian Americans. The stereotypes of emasculation ring true for us, and many of us, as the situation exists right now, might not last more than a generation or two. If you’re an Asian American male, you’re likely to be single and childless; if you’re an Asian American female, you’re unlikely to marry anything other than a White male. In either case, over generations, the general trend is Whiteness.
Now before anyone jumps all over me, let me put things in perspective. I won’t love my great-grandchildren any less if they’re White. If I have a blonde haired, blue eyed great-grandchild, I will cherish their accomplishments as much as if my grandchild were physically Asian. That being said, we’re not talking about me; we’re talking about all of Asian American society. And when there exists such a strong trend towards becoming and admiring and looking like the majority, there’s a problem that extends beyond just the usual complaints about eyelid surgery and suicide rates.
The fact is that as an emasculated group, we are the very sterilized group that Brooks is trying to imagine. We are the eunuchs of society, and almost about half of what Brooks postulates is already true of us. Because I live it, I know it.
1. Religion: Brooks says that the religious world would be shattered by sterilization. He may be correct in the case of some religions, but if we’re talking about fundamentalist Christianity, he’s dead wrong. When fundies face trials and tribulations, they cling even harder to their religion, and because Asian Americans have been emasculated, we’re among the hardest clingers. I don’t have a scientific study to prove this, but I think the story can be summed up in one sentence: the less sex you’re getting, the more likely you are to be a fundamentalist thumper.
2. “Anything worth doing is the work of generations–ending racism, promoting freedom or building a nation.” I think Brooks is correct on this account. Why do we see so few Asian Americans involved in politics? In civil rights? It’s because we don’t see people who look like us in the future of this country. Seriously, if you talk to the most entrepreneurial Asian Americans, they will almost ALWAYS talk about going back to China where they are respected. Those who set their roots here often tend to be less active, probably because they don’t see a future in the path they’ve chosen. Most expect to be phased out.
And regarding Brooks’s comment about “hunger for immortal fame,” who among Asian people is going to hunger for fame from rice chasahs of the future?
3. “If people knew that their nation, group and family were doomed to perish…they wouldn’t concern themselves with the preservation of the environment. They wouldn’t save or invest.”
When people are afraid, they hold onto their dollars and investments because they are afraid to move. So I don’t think the hypothetical eunuchs would spend freely on themselves, and likewise, Asian Americans are among the most conservative spenders out there.
However, Brooks is correct when it comes to charity and building institutions for the future. If you don’t see a future, you don’t invest in it. Asian Americans are the least likely to vote, give money to Asian American charities, etc.
4. Immigration: This is a game theory question. If people knew that the other half of the world was dying out, they would move here, unless there were legal restrictions preventing them from doing so. After all, if there’s already a strong infrastructure and no one to inherit it, why wouldn’t anyone want to inherit it?
For Asian Americans, as many have noted before, immigration is currently the only way we survive as a minority group. Cut off immigration, and within a few generations, we’d be a society of Lisa Sees writing orientalist fantasies about our grandfathers. Which should scare every single Asian American living in the United States today–as the Chinese economy surpasses the American economy and the financial incentives of immigration become less attractive, we could be in trouble as a community.
I know there are a bunch of Kingstonians and House Asians waiting to jump on me in order to accuse me of being some kind of nativist, but the numbers are clearly in my favor here. In one study, an Asian American male needed to make $24k more than a White male to be viewed as equally attractive. If that’s not a disadvantage, then I don’t know what is. We already know about the eyelid surgery. The fact is that this trend towards Whiteness creates some very real problems in Asian American culture itself, one in which Brooks might say that there is no “disciplining power of our posterity.”
For those reading this, I want you all to date and marry whomever you want to date, for whatever reason you see fit. Love should know no bounds. Follow the path you need to take. But think about posterity and the hopelessness that pervades our culture, and realize that there is an explanation that addresses why this hopelessness exists. If you’re a lonely Asian American bachelor, don’t just take a PUA class and let your ego get to your head. PUAs rarely marry or set a foundation for life because they don’t think about anything other than themselves. Realize that there is a lot more out there that we have to encourage Asian Americans to do. If you’re an Asian American female married to a White guy, love that White guy with all your heart, but continue to support your Asian American brothers and sisters in finding each other. We need to fix this community in order to forge a bond between ourselves and a posterity that will understand us and promote resistance against racial stratification rather than acquiescence. Live strong.
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I agree with everything you said. About #1…I think...
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“When fundies face trials and tribulations, they cling even harder to their religion, and because Asian Americans have been emasculated, we’re among the hardest clingers. I don’t have a scientific study to prove this, but I think the story can be summed up in one sentence: the less sex you’re getting, the more likely you are to be a fundamentalist thumper.”
Generally these people have more kids than the average urban dweller of whatever race. Maybe less sexual partners but more kids.
Good luck with that.
It’s impossible to fix a problem unless you acknowledge it first which one has yet to do.
Whoops.
Also, I disagree with the PUA comment. I fully support the mentality of “the ends justify the means.”
Great post
“…For Asian Americans, as many have noted before, immigration is currently the only way we survive as a minority group. Cut off immigration, and within a few generations, we’d be a society of Lisa Sees writing orientalist fantasies about our grandfathers…”
I think for AZNS cultural assimilation is inevitable, but racial/ethnic assimilation is not.
If AZNS concentrate on financial and career success then use the capital earned to support expressions of AZN arts and culture, then this problem can be addressed…
Supporting culture=supporting ideology, AZN role models, heroes, hopes and dreams, and ultimately the empowerment of AZN communities in the “West”…
Anna,
Thanks! I agree with what you say, especially the part about those who concentrate on financial success.
Lingyai,
I probably should’ve modified my statement–I was thinking about young fundies. Married fundies get it on.
URB4N:
I really need to see what you’re like when I head to the East Coast…
“Ends justifies the means?” You mean being like the PUAs in their early 30′s bragging about how they get women to buy them drinks? That’s not my kind of ending. I don’t think it’s yours either. Is it?
Acknowledge the problem? Anna says that financially successful people need to support the arts and that the IR issue could be addressed through their actions. Maybe we should acknowledge that some of these guys on Wall Street aren’t giving the help they should be giving, or maybe they aren’t looking for beneficiaries who are doing the right thing. This isn’t saying that they should be making movies; it’s saying that they aren’t looking for the right people or groups to receive their contributions.
I also acknowledge that you want to put the blame on Asian women, and I think that that may be justified for some women, such as Ms. Kingston or Ms. Tan. But is it really about blame? Wouldn’t we all be happy if the problem just went away?
Think sales, man. Concentrate and build up the positive. There are 101 reasons not to buy that stock, but the one reason to buy it may outweigh the others.
interesting scenario! If a solar flare sterilized everything on the Western hemisphere, what would happen?
in a sense it may already happening. I read the book “The Next 100 Years” by George Friedman, and it asserts that the population is on the decline worldwide, and that countries will competing for immigrants to sustain their economies.
If immigration from Asia to the US were to stop, then would the Asian American disappear? Big WoWo’s right. The Asian American would disappear. We only need to look at the Japanese American community for a real life example. That community has amalgamated with the white community and Chinese American community, and there is no significant influx of Japanese immigrants to sustain it.
Now are there droves of loser Asian dudes who can’t hook up and get laid? I doubt it. Whether you call it the sex drive or the desire to true love, that drive is damn strong. Everybody finds somebody.
If anything, Asian men will contribute just as much to the assimilation of the Asian American community, because they will outmarry too.
everyone asian outside of asia will become a casualty of some war on the social sphere, and now even asians in asia are smoking all they can. who should win this?
smoking asians, didnt something like that happen 150 years ago?
I should check out that book, Alpha. By the way, tangentially related to this topic (but related to your blog, which focuses on motivation and becoming successful), I’ve been checking out coaching/motivation materials recently. Maogirl once said that building confidence is a good start. I believe it. I’m wondering if it would work to come up with some great thing to be happy about on a large scale. haha…maybe that’s what you’re already doing.
By the way, we should podcast again after you have your child. I realize how much the focus changes with children (maybe this is related to the blog post), and I’d like to see how it affects your own psychology and goals.
A podcast after my baby’s born will be great. However, I’ll probably rename my blog “Tired Zombie Rice Daddy.”
Yeah, confidence is the key to success in a lot of things. Question is: how do you build it?
1) Get good parenting (the ultimate life coaches)
2) Get a lot of life experiences
3) Get a good attitude that can interpret those life experiences
Asian parents are notorious for crapping on their kids egos and we all developed low self esteem as a result. So the only way to overcome that is to develop a lot of life experiences and teach yourself to be more confident and positive. Thinking positive requires effort at first, but it is simply changing your mental frame of reference.
That’s what PUA’s do to a certain extent, which is to artificially put the trainee through experiences in a short period of time and to rewire his way of thinking about those experiences. It’s a false sense of confidence, however, because the experiences are rather superficial.
Hey Alpha,
You definitely should join Rice Daddies once your baby comes! You can teach the daddies how to raise your baby with confidence.
Assuming that we don’t get bogged down with other news stories, I think I’m going to declare an “Alpha” week, where I just post stuff on confidence, coaching, and growing. Let me see what I can find. If so, I can announce later.
Somehow I stumbled upon this under related posts and agree with you completely here. I thought of similar points on my own blog a long time ago, such as AA men being emasculated and not seeing a future in this country for themselves, and also the reliance on immigration for the sustenance of the so-called Asian American “community.” I’d guess that at least half of Asian Americans were born in Asian countries. I added that the official statistic of AA growth is misleading due to a large proportion of AA women marrying outside their race, and AA men not marrying. As much as 2/3 of Japanese, Korean, and Filipino women born in the US marry a non-Asian, and their children tend to identify with being primarily white, and secondly Asian.
Your blog probably gets more traffic by writing about controversial topics such as IR, PUA, HBD, etc. but I’d be far more interested in posts like these. I think we can agree to disagree on HBD. Keep it up.
Thanks, Dali!
FYI for everyone: I don’t know if traffic necessarily goes up with the controversial topics. Usually it’s just the comments that go up. I think people hit the site more often, but the “unique” visitor count seems to be just going up at a regular rate, regardless of what I post. (Although uniques do spike up when it’s super-news stuff like the Tiger Mother.)
Anyway, spread the word. It is nice to see traffic go up.
i missed this post earlier too. I really agree with the sentiment but seriously, if you bring this up with any other AAs you’d be quickly branded as a racist/supremacist.
spot on about Lisa See as well. To me, she embodies what asian americans strive to be.
I wish people would stop framing asians as assimilating into america. They really dont. They just get absorbed.
“If you’re an Asian American male, you’re likely to be single and childless; if you’re an Asian American female, you’re unlikely to marry anything other than a White male.”
Statistics do not support this.
The best reason to marry within your ethnic group is to preserve your culture and identity besides finding the right person. Arguing for some pan-Asian cohesiveness is not really effective as Asians are not as united as a race as whites/blacks are. Parents just need to do their job and raise their children to be proud of their identity. Individuals need to be self-aware of what it means to them and only then, will they be able to approach the idea of marriage in a meaningful way. Uniting Asians as political group makes sense, but the argument becomes more dodgy when you are talking about it in cultural terms. What is the common culture of Koreans and Chinese and Japanese and other Asian ethnicities? That we eat rice, that we respect our elders, that we value education? Those are some important commonalities, but not enough to really bind us as a culture. I suppose the commonality we have is being Asian in America and dealing with the racialized identity imposed upon us. I think it will be much easier to emphasize a particular ethnic identity/culture rather than “Asianness” because that is such a vague concept in comparison. If you marry an Asian not of your ethnic group, there is still the explaining you have to do about your own culture plus the difficulties of a mixed relationship. “Marrying Asian” seems like a very superficial concept to me as there is no defined “Asian” culture.
For the 1st time, I agree with you on something. Never really cared much about Koreans, Japanese, and even other Chinese who speak a different dialect other than my own. It’s not because I don’t really like them, it is because of my idealogies and perspectives which are different. I’m proud to be Chinese, and currently investing a lot of my money into my parent’s hometown. The “trying to be” Pan Asian American identity reeks confusion and stagnation.
“I think it will be much easier to emphasize a particular ethnic identity/culture rather than “Asianness” because that is such a vague concept in comparison. If you marry an Asian not of your ethnic group, there is still the explaining you have to do about your own culture plus the difficulties of a mixed relationship. “Marrying Asian” seems like a very superficial concept to me as there is no defined “Asian” culture”.
@jstele and Chr..
I guess it depends, for my group that I’m closest to, they are all asians, but from a range of different ethnic groups.
Southern Chinese, Taiwanese, South Korean, Vietnamese, Laotian, Singaporean. And within the group, we have a singaporean guy dating a Korean girl, a Korean guy dating a Taiwanese girl. A Korean guy dating a Laotian girl.
And we all speak a second language fairly fluently.
coming from a mixed chinese heritage i dont have a problem marrying within asian, as long as my spouses parents wont. but keeping the cultural identity in a western world becomes more of a challenge so it does make sense to marry someone to practice the same language as well as express cultural pride. also raising children in the west will be easier if the children know their own culture. then they can grow up and leave comments on this blog and complain about the lack of asian representation haha
I was going to say something really silly, then thought better of it lol
“Never really cared much about Koreans, Japanese, and even other Chinese who speak a different dialect other than my own.”
You sure care a lot about Korean men, how they look and their penis size. LOL. You really don’t have any valid claim to authentic Chinese pride as you are too busy idolizing whites and co-opting Koreans to argue for the beauty of your fellow ethnics. You’re no Chinese nationalist, but a white and Koreanwashed Asian. So, no, we really don’t agree. If you really had pride in your own group, you wouldn’t work so hard to use Korean actors as examples of “Chinese” good looks.
“You sure care a lot about Korean men, how they look and their penis size”.
Just for your record, I never mentioned anything about Korean guys and the size of their gadgets. Some other poster did, not me.
“If you really had pride in your own group, you wouldn’t work so hard to use Korean actors as examples of “Chinese” good looks”.
Most Koreans, whether celebrities or the average folk, do not look Chinese at all. For example, a guy like Hyun Bin wouldn’t pass as Chinese.
Chr..,
Yes, another poster named “Chr.. ” said those things. rolls eyes.
@Jstele – “If you really had pride in your own group, you wouldn’t work so hard to use Korean actors as examples of “Chinese” good looks”.
Well, in this youtube video Daniel Henney turns into a Chinese guy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ni78gpFYU0
Obviously a true phenotype Korean chump like Hyun Bin would never blend well with any of our good looking Chinese celebrities.
Watchoo talkin’ bout, Chr? I’m totally straight, but there are tons of good-looking Korean dudes out there.
Sexiyama is Korean.
https://www.google.com/search?q=yoshihiro+akiyama&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=EJy&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1491&bih=752&prmd=imvnsfdo&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=V2-3TsilG4uPigLT1_Br&sqi=2&ved=0CDsQsAQ
I fell over clutching my belly and laughing uncontrollably at this new beginning of a Korean-Chinese looks phenotype war. XD
Hey Byron,
It’s too bad you don’t find a good looking Korean dude as a Power Ranger to rile up little girls on a Saturday morning. Maybe it’s good thing, and maybe it’s a bad thing for Archie Kao.
This being said, I HAVE heard stories from Korean guys telling me that Chinese guys are way more popular, because in general they are better looking.
Chr wrote: “This being said, I HAVE heard stories from Korean guys telling me that Chinese guys are way more popular, because in general they are better looking.”
And I’ve heard from Chinese GIRLS saying that Korean guys are more popular because in general they are better looking (and I’ve heard Japanese girls saying they aren’t). It’s all a matter of taste, first of all. Second of all, I don’t know how you can say that one type represents Korean men while another type doesn’t. There’s variety in every ethnicity.
Byron, I don’t think we should argue about this Chinese guy vs Korean guy anymore. Yes, it’s a matter of taste as people would say. So why do many WFs do not like AMs? And why should we even debate/talk about the interracial dating disparity topic when it really all comes down to a matter of taste?
There’s no problematic disparity between Korean guys and Chinese guys, except for the same AFCC issue that all Asian guys run into. So yeah, let’s move on.
“There’s no problematic disparity between Korean guys and Chinese guys, except for the same AFCC issue that all Asian guys run into. So yeah, let’s move on”.
We know women are the ultimate choosers when it comes to a mate. Can we safely say that most women in America have the same taste when it comes to AMs, hence the interracial dating disparity, and the popularity of the AFCC?
“Byron, I don’t think we should argue about this Chinese guy vs Korean guy anymore.”
Then, you shouldn’t have started it. We all know how some Chinese guys love to brag about being popular with Korean women at the same time saying how plastic they are, etc. You really have an inferiority complex toward Koreans, probably because you aren’t as good looking as us. You, personally, Chr.
“This being said, I HAVE heard stories from Korean guys telling me that Chinese guys are way more popular, because in general they are better looking.”
Sure you did and that’s you feel the need to keep saying how Daniel Henney looks SO Chinese. I have never heard that. And have to bring up Hyun Bin, one of the “worst” looking Korean actors to show the “real” Korean phenotype. If you had so much pride in Chinese looks, you would brag about Chinese actors. But isn’t it funny how you never mention any of that? All you have done is brag about how some Korean actors look Chinese. Funny how you can’t even use real Chinese actors to show the beauty of your own people. Pathetic. You have to take a half-WHITE, half-KOREAN actor to use as an example of how Chinese people are SO MUCH better looking. What a riot. You really are a self-hating, white washed Chinese who secretly wishes he looked Korean. Can’t even name a Chinese actor because you are so busy looking up to whites. Constantly putting Koreans down so that you can feel better about other Asians. Pathetic.
“feel better THAN other Asians”. Correction
I think the whole “who is hotter – Chinese or Koreans” argument may just be number 1 with a bullet on the Top 10 list of Dumbest Shit Ever Argued About On BigWowo’s blog.
Nothing to see here, people. Move on.
Anyway, Indonesians are way hotter than both. (I kid, I kid).
I agree, ES. And that’s a pretty scary achievement, given that we’ve had HBD proponents saying that similar visio-spatial abilities was a source of attraction between one race of men and another race of women!
“I agree, ES. And that’s a pretty scary achievement, given that we’ve had HBD proponents saying that similar visio-spatial abilities was a source of attraction between one race of men and another race of women!”
Is that a typo? Sounds more likely to be the source of attraction between one race of men towards the other. Race. Of men.
Haha! But why is it that the love seems to go one way?