For Just One Guy, She Needed To Be Pretty And Asian

For the California man called Steven, a great girl must be pretty, submissive — and Asian. A 30-year-old woman from China, on a fiancee visa in the documentary Seeking Asian Female, filmmaker Debbie Lum followed Steven as he sought out, found, and brought over Sandy. Then reality hit. Lum speaks about host Michel Martin to her film.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

We intend to simply just take a large u-turn now and now have the thing I’m planning to phone some grown people’ discussion about one thing that i will be certain, if you’re in certain elements of the nation or ever take a look at dating web sites, you’ll have seen.

Have actually you ever pointed out that some guys appear to have a plain thing for Asian females? We’re demonstrably speaking about non-Asian guys right here. Chinese-American filmmaker Debbie Lum did, partly because she by by herself happens to be the thing – one might say the target even – of the fascination. So she chose to make an effort to discover what it is exactly about.

She interviewed males whom posted online individual advertisements solely looking for women that are asian. This is certainly simply an example of just exactly what she discovered.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, «SEEKING ASIAN FEMALE»)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN number 1: It is their locks. It is the long, black colored locks that is really attractive.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN number 2: oahu is the whole kind that is mysterious of, dark eyes.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: i do believe they provide more consideration to how a man seems than, often, on their own.

UNIDENTIFIED guy #4: Yeah. They truly are types of subdued and form of quiet.

STEVEN: This small thing appropriate beneath the attention.

DEBBIE LUM: this is the way we came across Steven.

STEVEN: simply, you understand, the eyelid cut – it is simply like – knocks me away.

MARTIN: sooner or later, Debbie Lum settled using one man to adhere to. You merely heard him. Their title is Steven and she accompanied him while he sought after and found a Chinese friend and brought her to reside with him in the usa on a three thirty days fiance visa. The end result could be the documentary, » Seeking Asian feminine. » Its showcased only at that week’s Silverdocs movie Festival in Silver Spring, Maryland and filmmaker Debbie Lum has been us now.

Welcome. Many Many Thanks a great deal for joining us.

LUM: Thanks for having me personally.

MARTIN: can you mind telling us just some of the pickup lines which you have actually endured through the years?

LUM: Guess What Happens? Individuals usually show up to me personally and they’re going to state three terms in Chinese and it is, you understand, (foreign language talked). They – it is therefore typical.

MARTIN: It Is therefore common? Where do you turn? The base massage treatments ended up being the only i obtained disgusted by, asking in the event that you give base massage treatments. I became like, what’s that about, anyhow? Therefore, presumably, this might be one of many items that sparked your curiosity about causeing the documentary.

LUM: Yeah. You understand, growing up as a woman that is asian-american you cannot live without encountering many guys just like the primary character of my movie. Yeah.

MARTIN: What is up with Steven? After all, once you met him – and something associated with the things you are extremely candid about is you kind of – when you first met him, you really had the urge to kind of turn around and run away that you said. Therefore did I. However you found his apartment covered with photos of Asian females. He chatted to hundreds during the period of after some duration. The thing that was that about with him?

LUM: Well, Steven has that which we call yellowish temperature. He’ has totally, complete obsession with Asian females and, once I came across him, he’d been searching on the internet for five years trying to find a wife from Asia and in the end decided that she must be Chinese, not merely Asian. And then he really – he felt – he previously been hitched once or twice in which he felt that their genuine only potential for finding a spouse is to find someone in Asia.

MARTIN: Why did he feel their only possibility at joy will be somebody that is finding Asia?

LUM: You know, he had been.

MARTIN: simply get there. Just state it.

LUM: Most – the label is the fact that males like Steven, that have an obsession for Asian ladies, this thing called Asian fetish, desire somebody submissive, old-fashioned, docile, you realize, the most perfect spouse that is not likely to talk straight straight straight back.

MARTIN: And what exactly is fascinating is, whenever Steven finally fulfills Sandy(ph) on the web, a couple is taken by him of trips to Asia to satisfy her. They choose to get hitched pretty quickly. She visits Ca. She comes when you look at the U.S. On a three-month fiance visa. Let us simply say that there is a rude awakening and Sandy isn’t the submissive, you realize, servant which he possibly have been anticipating. Why don’t we play a quick clip.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, «SEEKING ASIAN FEMALE»)

STEVEN: a culture that is minor taking place. I am alone for twenty years and, all of a sudden, i am wanting to adjust. There is likely to be an modification on both of our components. This isn’t China and I also have always been perhaps maybe not Chinese.

MARTIN: Well, one of the items that precipitated this, just to fast ahead a bit, is the fact that Sandy discovered that he have been corresponding with a fairly large numbers of other females and she place her foot straight down. Did this shock you?

LUM: Sandy, through the brief minute she stepped from the plane, amazed me over repeatedly and over once again when I had been making the film. She wasn’t after all the things I expected and, in the beginning, i truly did – I happened to be simply surprised that she ended up being the kind of – she was the standard girl which he ended up being interested in after which, instantly, she became an extremely effective individual in their life.

MARTIN: Well, I don’t like to provide, type of, the entire tale away right right here, but i recently wonder if you think that their relationship ended up being typical associated with males that have this obsession or specific interest or yen for Asian ladies – is they operating down a label. But the stereotype is certainly not true. After all, that ladies – you realize, these ladies – a number of who are extremely effective within their very own right and also have their agency and are usually never as deferential as they believe. Do you consider that which is typical, centered on all of the reporting which you did for the movie?

LUM: Well, I would personally say that everyone has their story that is own and’s really just exactly just what the film is actually getting at. But, when you’re away in search of a female predicated on a label or perhaps an expectation, state you are dating online and this expectation is had by you projection of the individual that you are to locate. Once you meet with the person that is real it doesn’t matter what your expectation is, it will be defied by the truth.

This woman is a living, breathing individual who really does talk and certainly will talk right right straight back effectively.

MARTIN: i wish to ask you about something, however. You understand, there is a current study by the Pew Research Center that actually dug in on types of the Asian-American populace regarding the united states of america in an extremely profound and type of significant method. And something associated with the plain items that they discovered had been that, this year, almost a 3rd of Asian-American newlyweds hitched a non-Asian plus the price of intermarriage among Asian-Americans had been greater. Well, Asian-Americans are far more prone to marry outside of their competition than whites, blacks or Hispanic. And i recently wonder if you’ve got any understanding into why that could be?

LUM: Well, you realize, that is a thing that has, i believe, troubled the Asian-American community for years and lots of generations along with to prevent and wonder, could it be – does Asian fetish have part to try out for the reason that? Because, additionally, whenever you glance at that quantity, it is skewed in one single way. It is often just as much as double the wide range of white guys with Asian females as it’s Asian – white ladies with Asian guys. Therefore, yes. It is extremely inquisitive.