Asians, is it a preference or a fetish? I'd actually been contemplating
this matter for awhile when I came across a similar question & a
video discussing this exact question in one of my AMBW (Asian men, Black Women) groups on fb. The
incident that made me question myself was maybe a month ago when my
brother first informed me about Jeremy Lin (not surprising right?). My
sis pulled up a pic of him in which I thought he didn't look too shabby.
Following that I made the statement, "now I have a reason to watch
basketball" which was slightly true b/c I don't really watch basketball
like that. But, now that I think back on it, I honestly didn't pay him too
much mind afterwards. About a week later I was scrolling through the
posts in the AMBW group yet again and I stumbled across one of his
interviews. I was interested in what he had to say so I decided to check
it out. During the interview he seemed very humble and that was a plus
but it was when he started talking about God & he made the
statement "I want to glorify God in everything that I do" that I was
sold. *screams inside head "YESSSSSS"*. Now, all of a sudden I'm watching
basketball more than usual, I've watched plenty of his interviews &
all his nerdy videos on YouTube etc. One day I had to ask myself "why
do I like him?" is it because he's Asian? or maybe because he's a
Christian? What if/when I finally do date an Asian guy and he asks me
the same question? is it just a fetish for me? I really needed to do
some self-reflection. Feeling a bit shallow and superficial, for the
moment, I needed someone else's perspective so I asked my sis to give
me her honest opinion. My sister stated that she believes I am genuinely
attracted to Asian men but that it has become a bit fetish-ish on the other hand she recalls me not being just attracted to their men but also their music, their fashion, the fact that I think their women are pretty etc. Lastly she mentioned that me being attracted to
J. Lin for the reasons I stated is just a matter of preference and
the same principle can be applied to any person." .... she was right. My
liking for Asian guys & Asian Culture in general didn't begin when I
came onto the K-pop scene and noticed how nice looking the men were, it
began when I was a child. After much thinking I figured it was time I revisit the days when this
love affair first started. (Lmbo that sounds so dramatic ... *ahem*
anywho)
I've always had an ear for music so naturally that's the 1st thing I'd
be attracted to. Though, I'm not quite sure exactly where I heard it, I
remember as a child hearing traditional Chinese music. It was the unique
and beautiful way that the women sang & the exotic sound of the
instruments (esp the erhu and pipa) that really caught my attention. From that
day forward I was hooked and that only proved to be the very beginning
of a life long love affair ;). I remember trying to emulate the sound of
those instruments when I would hum my own songs. My Uncle & Auntie told me
that one day I asked them if I could sing a song for them and I ended up
singing in Chinese, well, atleast my own 4 yr old version of Chinese
lol. The sound of the oriental instruments still influences my taste in
music today, one of my favorite producers Tim & Bob always
incorporated those sounds in their music which is why I like them &
their music so much.
Anyway, another influence was my uncle, the one
I mentioned above, he was/still is heavy into martial arts which is
apart of the reason it's grown to be one of my favorite genres of movies
& videogames, I also took a Ninjutsu class when I was 12. Speaking
of videogames, by kindergarten I was playing Tekken 2 (which is one of my fave vg
franchises btw) at my cousin's house everyday after school. I played that
game so much I memorized the ending credits theme "Landscape Under the Ghost (Kaminano)". I had no idea what they were saying but hey, *shrugs*
it sounded good and yes I still know it to this day & I sing it
from time to time when I'm alone ... don't judge me. Eventually after
listening to the Tekken soundtrack umpteen times, seeing them played in the movie "The Hunted", and I'm sure a few other movies I
became familiar with the Japanese drums. In third grade, on a school
field trip I got to see a live Japanese drums performance. Oh my
goodness I was so excited!
Somewhere in between that time is when I took
to the garments; I thought the elaborate manner in which the women
adorned their hair & the intricate, detailed design of their
clothing was beautiful, and the fans, who didn't like those fans or the
nice Chinese silk pj's? btw mine were black :). Perhaps a couple years
later is when Mulan hit the theaters, not only did I go see the movie
but I had not one but two Mulan dolls.
Around 2nd grade is when Toonami
made its debut on Cartoon Network and following a few years after was
Adult Swim. To say I watched both faithfully is an understatement.
Watching Anime for so many years introduced me to the more modernized
Japanese music such as J-rock & J-pop. Soon, I began listening to
various artists and composers i.e Yoko Kanno, Mika Nakashima, L'Arc En
Ciel, Nujabes, Kanon Wakashima etc. By this time I also started to
become interested in learning the Japanese language and a many other
aspects of their culture.
1998 is the year Lethal Weapon 4 came out
and we had it on VHS. I would always hear my Mama talk about how
"fiiiiine" Jet Li was with his long braid so, one day I finally decided
to watch it and I must say, I agreed. Almost immediately I developed a
crush and I followed all of his movies. Now let me clarify something, I
thought Jet-Li was a good-looking man but not because he was Asian. I
don't recall growing up around many Asians but nonetheless I was brought
up to be very open-minded especially when it came to cultural
diversity. At that age "race" wasn't even a factor, if I thought someone
was handsome it was b/c I genuinely believed that person to be
handsome. Heck, a couple of my celeb crushes included George Clooney
& Al Pacino for Pete's sake and my kindergarten crush was a white
boy named Anthony ... I wasn't attracted to them because they were white
but because of the simple fact that they were attractive. Anyway, as I
watched Martial Arts movies & Asian cinmema my interests starting branching off. Fastfoward to my junior and senior year in high school, that's when I started reading manga and I was introduced to
the k-pop scene, sequentially Thai-pop, Viet-pop so on and so forth.
I honestly can go on and on about my Asian escapades but I think I've illustrated pretty well that my love for Asian culture didn't happen overnight and that it isn't subjective to just the men. Ultimately, my goal was to demonstrate that I enjoy many aspects of Asian culture from their histories to their languages, cinema, architecture, fashion and anything else you can think of. Honestly, I liked Ninjas and Harajuku before Nicki Minaj and her platoon of "Barbies" even knew what a Harajuku was!
Now I will admit that at a certain point, and I agree with my Sis on this, that it did become fetishy but I'll go into further detail in part 2.
P.S I know this was pretty long but I hope you enjoyed reading it anyway :)
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