Focus 580; THE ASIAN MYSTIQUE: DRAGON LADIES, GEISHA GIRLS, & OUR FANTASIES OF THE EXOTIC ORIENT

In this hour of the program we'll be talking about looking at examining thinking about the images that Westerners have long had about East Asia. And it is true for a long time that the West has viewed Asia as exotic as erotic to the point of decadence with an undercurrent of danger running through it. And you can see it in the writings of westerners about Asia going all the way back to Marco Polo and running all the way through the popular culture of today movies and television. In this hour of the show we'll be talking with Sheridan Prosit She's a journalist and she's been writing about Asia for quite a while now more than 15 years and she's authored a book that explores these images what they are where they come from how they fail to square with reality and what that means for the relationship between the east in the West. The book is titled The Asian mystique and. It is out now just recently published by Public Affairs. The subtitle of the book is dragon ladies geisha girls and our fantasies of the exotic Orient.

And should be available now if you'd like to head out to the bookstore and take a look at the book. Let me tell you just a little bit more about Sharon process. She has been Asia editor and senior news editor for BusinessWeek magazine. Also her articles have appeared in Time the New Yorker The New Republic The New York Times The L.A. Times and other publications. She's an advisor to the Asia society's social issues programs and also member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the national committee on the U.S.-China relations. She makes her home in New York City she's talking us with us by telephone this morning. And as we talk questions as always are welcome. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 is the number for people here in Champaign Urbana. We do also have a toll free line if it's a long distance call for you. You're listening around Illinois Indiana could even be listening on the internet as long as you're in the United States. Use the toll free line that's 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 3 3 3 W I L L and toll free 800 1:58 WY.

Miss Pross Oh hello. Oh it's a pleasure to be here. Well thanks very much for talking with us we certainly do appreciate it. I think in the book you talk about having gone to Asia as a journalist for the first time and admit that like many other Westerners many many that you came to Asia with a set of preconceptions that you fairly quickly discovered did not square with reality. That's right I think you know when we read travel writing about it or sort of some of the novels that were set over the past century you know we get the idea of Asia being sort of a an exotic inclusive and shrouded place of silk and decadence and and sexuality. And in reality you know most Asian cities are in fact a lot like American cities when you actually go and spend time in places like Hong Kong and Singapore and Shanghai and Tokyo. That's the sort of mystical Orient is really more or less a figment of western fantasy and imagination.

I think you also make the point. And it's I think it's well-taken point that in as much as we have we have tried we have certainly make made an effort here in the United States and I'm sure in Europe to be sensitive to racial stereotypes. It also seems that we have a very difficult time letting go of those. And you've mentioned some of those applying to Asians especially to Asian women. Yeah in part. It's because our stereotypes are in our view and to be positive ones at least concerning in women anyway with Asian males it's quite different. But with Asian women you know we we grew up watching shows like The Courtship of Eddie's Father with you know living with them and saying yes that's right his father you know and all of the images that we we have in the West are are are kind of a lovely and beautiful and often sort of cast Asians in a in a more submissive role which you know is a very

comfortable one for Westerners to be in when dealing with the region. And as I as I talk about in the book that has a real impact on not only Asian Americans but Asians in terms of dealing with east west relations and business relationships and even affects our foreign policy I would argue. Well as I mentioned in as you've touched on for a long long time the West has viewed Asia through this lens the exotic The Erotic the dangerous very feminised view of Asian culture. And as I said you see it as far back as the first travel writings about Asia we have a good all the way back to Marco Polo and you can see that it runs all the way through popular culture today even today's Asia. Action heroines still embodies those classic sort of characteristics I mean maybe that maybe Lucy Lu is a step from forward from Anna Mae Wang but

you know a lot of ways not much. So it's the big question that you devote this large section of the book to what you're citing examples of this seems to be why why is it that in the Western image of East Asia sex is so prominent a feature Why is it so much about sex. It's it's quite interesting how historically that has been a focus of our interaction with Asia. In part it has to do because the first travelers to Asia of course were men who had been on boats for a very long time and a lot of their first interaction with Asia had to do with sex and and that's what happens with explorers and you know traders and exotic ports and so this very much became characteristic of the West first. Contact with Asia and also how our relations proceeded from there when you had you know men going and living in trading

ports in Asia and living there for a very long time. There was a phenomenon of for example in in Japan in socky of traders taking temporary wives and one of these temporary wives actually has become our story of Madame Butterfly which actually is quite interesting to note that the transmutation of this story over over the years in fact it started out as a story where this was a woman who was quite calculating and. You know when her man returned to her to find you know to say goodbye or something he had forgotten in the original story the woman was found counting her change and waiting for her next quote unquote husband. But but. Time we ended up with an opera out of it the way Pertwee wrote it was even Katrina's version of it has gone through a couple incarnations. The first time the woman was viewed as too calculating and not adoring enough of her man.

But by the time we got to the version that we know today we have a woman who is completely adoring and willing to die for the man that she loves and yet become you know something that has formed and shaped our Western images of Asia and continues to this day. One of the things that I guess occurred to me and as you talked about what happened when Westerners Europeans I guess primarily but also Americans were trying to get to know the culture of the east that and and and perhaps finding it difficult in understandably maybe finding it difficult that. It occurred to me that in in some ways perhaps sexual intercourse is easier is less problematic than social intercourse and so maybe it's not surprising that that is the thing that is the easiest to do. Well certainly that was the case and Shanghai in the early part of the country and

in fact what was the case and in that time there were all these British traders setting up and in the port of Shanghai. And it was forbidden for any of these. It was forbidden in British culture to actually marry a local woman. But in fact what really happened was there was quite a bit of social. Well not social in a an open sense but a lot of interaction between Asian women are Chinese women and the British men. But it kind of got because it wasn't allowed in the social scenes in British culture nor in Chinese culture. It kind of became you know the dine in that and that sort sort of added a certain beacon a certain art to it. And in fact because it was also those mores were a product of the Victorian era in Britain. Victorian era women English women had certain restrictions on whether they could enjoy sex for example whether that was permitted. You know there's a line from an old book that I read that you know said

you know proper Victorian women never move and you know the idea is that that that's what this is the sort of functional rather than something to be enjoyed. And and that's sort of Victorian sexual mores sort of opened up an entire sort of is indeed of a founding part of the peak of the sexuality of Asian women because in fact when these English men encountered Asian women they were encountering them in terms that you would encounter sexuality today without those Victorian restrictions. So that's it seems that that that kind of Victorian sensibility in a way of thinking about sex is important although as we've said it the kinds of images that we have a nation they go back further than that they started where I started back for their rooted back further and that just perhaps that kind of attitude about sex just strengthen images that already existed certainly and there's there's that.

There's also a rule in this that I haven't mentioned which is that the missionaries who went to Asia from Europe and and those were that that contact with happening very early on the Portuguese and the Spanish. But even before the British got to East Asia there was an aspect of missionaries going in to sort of tame the savages and and the idea in that sense that you know sexuality was something to to be tamed that Europeans had to kind of impose their you know sexual mores on Asians who actually at that time had quite different ones from the Europeans. And so the idea that these Asians were sort of you know not exactly free love oriented but had looser kind of social mores involving sexuality was certainly a factor in how they were perceived back home when the missionaries brought back the reports. How was that why you said that. Think of Asian culture in a general sort of way as feminine.

It in part has to do with the idea of Western dominance of the world and for a long time you know first it was the Spanish and Portuguese who dominated the world in terms of trade and then later we had of course the British and the British Empire and the Americans are certainly inheritors of that tradition of that extending American dominance in that into the Pacific and sort of taking over where the British left off at the end of the British Empire. And so in that sense when you are viewing the regions of the world as being sort of under that that the top edge of of Western power there's kind of a. Dominant and submissive role that comes into that which very much plays into a lot of the sort of feminine exotic silk images of of Asia. But apart from that also the experiences that Westerners have encountered with Asian men in part play to a larger role in that too because in fact in

Shanghai in the period that I was talking about with the British they encountered Asian men who were there comprador for go betweens for trade and those comprador were dressed in ways that to the British look very feminine in styles in those days and Chinamen wore long silk denim and gown and they grew their fingernails long and they wore their hair long and braided cues and they looked quite feminine. These are styles that now we we look at it as being feminine ones. When those when those Chinese first came to the United States they came during that period in the first Chinese immigrants to the US. Males have long hair or so gallons and grew their fingernails long and so these men of course came for the gold rush. Raid in San Francisco and took up what was regarded as women's work after the end of the Gold Rush because there weren't very many women on the frontier and in fact the men who came and stayed in San Francisco the Chinese men. They found jobs in

areas such as childcare being nannies or you know laundry. They were open longer shop. And we still have that legacy today. And they became coke. And so these three dogs were where the opportunities were for the early Chinese immigrants. At the same time they also kind of cut is in men in these roles of of looking feminine and doing feminine kind of work on the frontier. I think you know you touch on another point that I think is is really important to reinforce and and that is that to the to what extent to a great extent that is the Western attitudes toward Asia were paternal and perhaps that has something to do with the colonial impulse. And you see that other places too with Europeans going to Africa to South America to Asia. Europeans who thought they were the high point of human evolution. And that that these people that they encountered where

we're relatively in a sense but also that they were like children. They were children they were little brothers and sisters they were people they would be knighted savages and that we that Europeans were going to were going to bring them all of the marvels of life as we have made it and and that kind of thinking that kind of posture for a long long time maybe not so much anymore but for a long long time that characterized that the way that westerners Europeans and Americans thought about Asians. That's right. And it's interesting when you look at some of the historical statements even though there are our political leaders have made you know former President we made stuff up called the The Filipinos are our little brown brothers. And you know Lyndon Johnson you know referred to go to him as as as our boy you know in Vietnam and through. History of these statements have been very pretty hard on ones and it does reflect how we have historically viewed the

region as a kind of a we are the patron of this kind of dependent and in fact submissive of the region of the world which in fact is when Asians have come to challenge us economically for example the case of Japan in the 1980s. You know that was something that very much rattled us in the United States. We were afraid that you know Japan was going to come and buy up all of America and we couldn't quite believe that this nation that we had conquered in World War Two and occupied for seven years was suddenly roaring back. And we see the same kind of dichotomy is it's either we tend to view Asia as either a submissive or a submissive region or a threat to us. But but not something in between which is what it really is. And we see this the same dichotomy in terms of women when we talk about the Dragon Lady or the geisha girl. And it's either submissive or thought one or the other and it's what I'm asking for it through this book is that we start seeing the region much more clearly and in some ways it is a partnership in some ways.

There are some economic challenges that we need to respond to but it is neither submissive nor a threat nor neither one of the other. Our guest in this hour focused 580 shared in process. She's been writing about Asia for more than 15 years most recently as Asia editor and a senior news editor for BusinessWeek. She's also contributed articles. Two other publications. If you're interested in exploring this subject you can look for her new book it's titled The Asian mystique. The subtitle is Dragon lady's geisha girls and our fantasies of the exotic Orient. It's published by Public Affairs Books. And as I explained it it examines the kind of stereotypes that Westerners have had about Asia particularly about Asian women for a long time. And then also the other major half of the book is look trying to look at reality which is what she did was she spent time talking with various Asian women about their lives and about some of these perceptions and to set the stereotype alongside reality.

And that's kind of the idea of the book. So it's out in bookstores if you like to look at it questions are also welcome here on the program 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. That's the champagne Urbana number we do also have a toll free line. Anywhere that you can hear us that is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. We do have caller here to bring into the conversation someone listening in Urbana line number one. Hello. Yes. Thank you for taking my call. I have a couple of comments. One is that you take a place like Hong Kong hum Kong is not a passive area in terms of constructing images about itself. Not the Hong Kong tourist association is just smart and very active organization. That and that is that tries to develop the images of Hong Kong that will appeal to foreign travelers. And and I think most Asian cultures respond Unseld

to construct somewhat different kinds of images. That's that is one. The one comment the second comment is that while I agree with with what the author has said about the Orient I mean the Far East. It's also true that we have different kinds of images as well that occur in different discourses. Certainly what is a technology of Japan and the Moderna TV or the raging economic bull in china. So we have had lots of different kinds of contradictory images and it hasn't been quite as Nonna logic I think as the author has suggested thus far although I'm sure the book is more complex than that. That's the end of my comment.

OK well two fine points. Talk about that. Yeah. Yes of course I mean obviously I'm trying to some of things quite concisely for a for a radio format. But yeah you know it's it's clear that you know some of the manufacturing is a very interesting example of how again it's it's a different image of Asia but it still fits the kind of paradigm that we have where you know we view ourselves in the West as as a sort of innovators of technology and the designers of things and we actually take those ideas to Asia and have the Asians sort of produce them for us so in a way they're kind of you know still servants in a way where they're manufacturing our designs and what we want and we talk about Chinese theft of intellectual property whether they're stealing our property but in fact you know these are these are ideas concepts innovations that that we have originated in the West and we and we view Asians as the ones who are either copying them or producing them for us. And so that I guess still fits this dichotomy there. Very

complex but when you sort of look at it down the line in terms of technology you know innovations come from the United States but are carried out by our you know our traditional manufacturers in the Asia could be that and sort of us in the same sort of ancient sort of trading paradigm these are people who produce for us and we consume the images that Asians construct for us in part have to do with trying to capitalize on the kind of fantasies and stereotypes that we have. And it's quite fascinating when you go to Bangkok for example. You know you go into the Emerald Buddha and you go to the to the to the palace and see all of the sights on the Chopra River for example one of the sites that is actually part of the tourist Eisner in Bangkok is the red light district. And the idea this is the red light district that flourished during the Vietnam war started more or less for catering for the American G.I. on our own are from Vietnam. It's still there today still very vibrant and

in Norman an enormous revenue creator for the for the Thai government and something they you know tend to want to try to minimize but at the same time are quite dependent on economically. And you see also these images of kind of come to Asia come be seduced by Asia even in things such as the Singapore Airlines ads for example which depict a host kind of inviting you to the exotic allure of the Orient. And so a lot of what Asian tourism images are constructing are kind of capitalizing on what they know Westerners want. Yes I got some very good response I have can I fall and I'm never going to show up. What do you think happens when travelers business travelers tourists or whatever actually go to Singapore Hong Kong and to these Asian countries work. What do you think the actually being there does to these sort of

premature pre-trip. You know a generalized understanding that we have. What about the experience of being there what do you think about that. I think that anyone who who is going in fully with open eyes will will realize that you know these these cultures really aren't a whole lot different from our own at their at their very root. But at the same time I think people are we sort of are hoping for a sort of that exotic undercurrent somewhere to spring up or pop up and and are in fact looking for it. You know I I tell one of my own stories in the book which I you know I'm slightly embarrassed about now but it did happen to me when I was 23 years old which is when I had moved to Hong Kong I every day there was a. A concrete wall out in front of my apartment and I knew that the Cantonese people of Hong Kong believe their sort of spirits in everything and in the trees and in the mountains and in the rivers and things like that and so I thought well you know it's this this concrete mall must be a terrible affront to the to the mountain gods in the eyes of the Cantonese and this is something I

had just imagined in my head. And every day or every couple of days someone would come by chanting quite loudly in the neighborhood it was a man and he would come by and sing his sing song chant. And I would get very excited about this and think wow I wonder if he's appeasing the mountain God because this concrete wall is such an affront to nature. And it was quite a silly thing and I'm not sure I really believed it but I wanted to believe it because I wanted to believe that even in a modern built up city like Hong Kong that there was still this remnant of sort of some sort of undercurrent of exoticism. And one day I went and got my roommate who spoke fluent Mandarin and Cantonese and said Come listen the chanting man is here again. And she came over to the balcony and heard what he said and. Turn to me and said you know he's collecting scrap metal. And at that moment at age 23 living in Hong Kong I really it really changed my thinking and my focus I really could never see it quite in the same way again.

Right so the sort of the reason people have experiences in those other countries but that the change the stereotypes. You know I it's my hope that that is the case but I don't think it's always the case I think people see what they they want to see in a lot of cases people look for what they want to look for and even people I know who have you know so much experience in Asia who work there of the years don't quite realize the subconscious effect of the images that we have in Western culture. And so for example when Charlie's Angels 2 came out last year there is a promotional picture if you go into the video store now and rent Charlie's Angels 2 you will see on the cover of that movie there's the three angels right. Two of them are Caucasian and one of them is Asian Lucy Lou and Lucy Lu is the only one wearing spaghetti straps. The kit is great striped shirt and has cleavage and she's the one obviously looking the most sexy and alluring out of the three. Now I

challenge people even if they have many many years of experience working in Asia and feel that they don't have any sort of preconceptions or stereotypes at all. If if if they didn't notice when that poster came out that was the promotional poster all over the United States if they didn't notice that the only person with cleavage in that photo was Asian. Then they really need to read the book I think because we really need to open our eyes and realize how much our perceptions really shape what we think in very subconscious ways. I mean to be a mother I was looking at this issue because I was because I was writing this book. I might not have noticed that myself. I think I think I think that's excellent Well I'm taking too much time so I'll get off. Well thanks to the CO thank you we appreciate we have somebody else who will get right to you. And I think I should introduce Again our guest Sheridan process. She's a journalist and has been writing about Asia for more than 15 years. She has been Asia editor and senior news editor for BusinessWeek. She's contributed articles to other publications. As well including

time the New Yorker The New Republic The New York Times The L.A. Times. She's an advisor to the Asia society's social issues programs. She's member of the Council on Foreign Relations and also the national committee on U.S. China relations now she's making her home in New York City. The book if you would like to read it book we've talked about here it's titled The Asian mystique and it's published by Public Affairs Books and questions are certainly welcome from people who are listening 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 who plan we have someone here in Rantoul nearby community. Line number four will go there. Hello. Yes I have a question as to the author as far as what she feels that the role of women in females are in the Asian society. And I know that's a very broad and general question. I know that I've had I had in the counter

with a lady from mainland China two years ago that still expressed to me that tiny and she used her hands as a Chinese man here Chinese woman. And she put it way low. And from what I had seeing as far as pictures and the news that they were able to watch her on time and that I still saw reference and I saw a women as used very high voices like they were young girls talking. And as far as they are commonly within homes of pictures of women on the wall of adult men but also Barbie doll. You know I mean even Barbie doll as a picture is a poster on the wall of some of the homes and I was told that. Sometimes they put pictures up when

they want to try to. Work to obtain lookin like that person or if they want to have a child they put up pictures of what they want the child to look like. But it seems predominantly. I didn't see any pictures of men up and then I guess that they expressed that this was a common thing and I wonder. I have also seen that the family run that on the weekend the families seem to separate quite a bit and any of their socialisation were with their colleagues their business etc.. And I wondered if the if the entertainment for businessmen still include. I'm not saying prostitutes. Women may be from the company or another company that is expected to be there and entertain bands

and singing and whatnot because I've been told that they have quite a dream. Sure and I'm not saying that I know this other than this is what they've been told to me recently and I'm just open to share information as to how the culture is and how women are viewed and are they still in it in TV and media. I've heard that they have a very popular and I guess it's like MTV and they actually call it three point meaning prefer furring to the woman's body show. And I'm not sure that that is what the TV calls it or if it's just the common terminology that everybody refers to this TV show. And it seems to be that more than MTV just for teenagers so here it seems to be a cultural show that many many families of all ages watch this for entertainment etc. so I wondered about

feminism. I wondered about discussion and wondered about how the role of women is changed and if maybe Asia is somewhat simple for some of the negative. I thought about their own culture. Thank you. That's a lot that could keep us going for a while here. Like it's Brasil our economy. Yes easily easily we could take another whole hour well I can give you about 20 minutes because this really this indeed is the other as I said as I mentioned that part of the book has to do with images stereotypes that Westerners have of Asia and have had a long time. The other part of the book is just what the caller is asking about because you did indeed try to travel around try to spend some time and talk with with Japanese women Chinese women Filipino women in Thailand and ask them some of these very questions and try to find out about their lives. Something about relation between men and women how

they perhaps thought of the very stereotypes that we've been talking about. There's the. Big piece of the book and that's what it's about. That's right. Yeah it's it's important to keep in mind that you know age is not a monolithic culture. And and quite clearly I mean the experience of say communism in China in which the dong told the Chinese people that women have to hold up half the sky. And in fact put women in senior manager real positions and running companies in China has had a real impact on how the role of women in Chinese society has changed and in fact in China today essentially if you look at some of the statistics about women in management or professional women or things like that you'll find some real similarities to the case in the United States. You know women there grapple with issues of working full time and trying to find health care and same as childcare is the same as we do in the United States. And in that sense Chinese society and American society is is is quite similar to penne and it's quite different. A lot of the issues that you talk about are quite prevalent a

very strict division and socialization between women and men and women tend to want to socialize together they don't want to go out with men. So men are kind of boring they talk about boring stuff and they drink and stuff like that. So so that the idea that women have about their place in society and their role is actually one where they feel that American women. Don't don't get it. They think American women try to have it all and they can't have it all. And that's why they're unhappy. And a lot of Japanese women think look you know I worked until I was 25. I quit. I got married I had a child and now in sort of you know as the child goes to school like it's gotten with my friends and we you know pursue our own activities and hobbies and and this is this is fine for us we enjoy our lives of course on every Japanese woman is happy without a lot of women do try to continue to have careers in the workforce. But in fact it's really quite a complicated issue of women there have been sort of a different idea of what what it really means to be a woman in society and the idea which is quite profound is that you

know you American women want too much and you can't do it all. And in fact some of the discussions that we have with feminism in America certainly center around that point Ken. Can we do everything can we have careers and a satisfying family life and everything we want in life at the same time. The Japanese certainly have a different take on it and it's quite interesting to explore. As to the idea that you know Asian cultures are responsible for a lot of what we do think of them well that's it. That's partially true. I mean you know Japanese society has its own problems. Chinese society certainly has its own problems. One of the big issues that sort of drives a lot of Asian women too. One thing we haven't talked about is is the issue of Western men partnering with Asian women which is a very common phenomenon that the highest numbers of interracial marriage in the United States are between American cook Asian men and Asian women. And part of that reason is not just the phenomenon of war brides which we saw

happen in huge numbers after World War 2 and other conflicts the Korean War as well. The idea that you said that this is some sort of you know ideal marriage is is really quite a big part of our mistake and what we think about Asia and it's one of the things that you know I was exploring when I was in Israel was you know there's this old joke we have because heaven is an American flowery a Chinese cook an English house and a Japanese wife and Hell is a Chinese very an English cook a Japanese and an American wife. And you know if you tell this joke in Japan people think that's very strange. You know we've never heard of such a thing. And they'll tell you would a Japanese joke which goes you know a Japanese man bowed slightly to his colleagues 15 degrees to his boss and 45 degrees to his wife. And so the perceptions are really quite different on both sides of the ocean. And so that's one thing that I really tried to illuminate in this book. Well what particularly though to the extent that you've had the opportunity to talk with various

Asian were about I guess I'm wondering particularly what they think of this this western stereotype of Asian women as. Being hyper sexual. A lot of it's particular the issue of servility that they find very strange. You know a lot of the women I've talked to have encountered Western men have had ask me questions like well why does he expect that I serve his food or you know scrub his back in the bath tub I mean is he. Did he see something in a movie somewhere he thinks that's what these women are like. And this is something that also quite a fact Asian-American women in a very big way you know there's there's you know I have a an Asian-American friend who writes a column for Time magazine and she wrote about this when she said you know look apparently my black hair and all of complection scream out I'm great and better I'll pour your tea and massage your feet. And she wondered you know why is it that it is because of all of the images that we have seen historically in Hollywood and on TV.

We have about 15 minutes left in this. Focus 580 again I just want to mention our guest Sheridan process. She's journalist she's written for a number of years now about Asia. She's been Asia editor and senior news editor for BusinessWeek magazine and she's the author of a newly published book which explores this territory that we're talking about her book is titled The Asian mystique and it is published by Public Affairs Books and is out in bookstores now it just came out officially I guess a couple weeks ago. So you can seek it out and questions are welcome to the number here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We do also have a toll free line and that is good anywhere that you can hear us and that's 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. I wonder and perhaps I'm thinking back to some of the issues that the first caller raised Nell that we are seeing a lot more popular culture items Asian popular culture items produced in Asia

often initially for an Asian audience. And I'm thinking about I guess primarily film but also things like Annie Mae and Monga and all Japanese animated films and comics graphic art that primarily may start out being for an Asian audience but also is starting to be exploited in a lot of people here in in. United States are fascinated by these things and I'll admit some fascination myself whether those with the kinds of images that there that are contained there do they do they challenge at all. The received image we have of Asia do they reinforce the image that we have. Well it's it's it's it's it's kind of interesting to look at Quentin Tarantino's work in this regard you know his his movies Kill Bill borrowed a lot of that imagery and sort of broadcast it widely across America. But but when you look at what he actually took he took the images that fit in quite well

with our stereotype which is that the idea of these sort of Asian male being weak in these sort of silences of karate chopping incompetent males and being easily beaten by him with Thurman you know by a kind of a a tough bigger white woman is is sort of an image that you know you could argue is taken from the Asian culture in America and sort of broad but it fits in quite well. The idea of again of the Japanese schoolgirls but also kind of the dragon lady in in that same film. It's it's interesting that the images that resonate here are the ones that sort of already fit into the images that we already have. But I think that as more and more people sort of experience the real the rest of those images the whole the entire reality of it actually read the original long and receive the original anyway. It's quite fascinating how that may start to change our

perceptions and I and I do hope that happens. You know I happen to have you know been in county recently and you know I met some 12 year old girls who actually are learning little words of bits of little bits of Japanese here and there because they're they're reading the monkey colored folks. So it's quite fascinating that there is this interest and particularly in Japanese culture. But I but again I would caution that you know it's just because we learn about one culture it doesn't mean we can understand the totality of Asia. And it really is a very very diverse and complex place. You know with you know hundreds of languages spoken and and you know. Two billion people in the region as a whole and so trying to understand its totality is something that we we can't really do what we need to do is sort of look at cultures individually and people as individuals rather than oh Asians are all like this. You know Asians are all you know smart or nice or you know good at math or something like that which is the way that we kind of view Asians through this sort of model

minority stereotype in the West which you know in one sense it's people think that good in a way but it's also patronizing because it doesn't really allow the people who are on the receiving end to be fit to be individuals to to not be good at math and they're not. Or you know to not have to be nice if they're actually not or whatever they are as individuals by kind of grouping people into categories I think it's sort of a it's a subliminal kind of racism that's very destructive. Let's talk some other people who are listening. In the order they came in here will go first to a caller in Indiana. Whine for a while. I'm trying to decide which of the questions again my mind asked but I think I'll go with something that does reason you talked about was that. Since it seems that all communes were use role in a quasar terms your old cultures when they write about other cultures usually do just what we did with the Japanese and the Chinese brought in the brothel thing and that just goes back and forth like and I just wonder if

you've ever thought about you know the sense that almost the impossibility of writing a great novel or doing a good upper good movie without those stereotypes. Well what do you think you know I think one of the reasons that we that we is in praise a lot of the stereotypes we have is is because they resonate deep within us you know we we love the idea kind of you know the undying love of a of a woman right and that when placed in the Japanese contacts and the idea that invited fly of course it's going to resonate with us is that the actual reality. Well no you know one of the things I want to do in my book when I went to my gun. Now called human city but many people still call it Saigon and I met a woman who had a baby with an American G.I. and this is exactly the story of Miss Saigon which was in fact a remake of the story of Madame Butterfly and she had never heard the story before and I told her that you know this the woman is pining

away for the love of this man an American man who's gone away and she's got the child and you know he comes back to see her with his new wife and she kills herself and and gives the man and his American wife the child to raise and you know I told her the story and she looked at me kind of quizzically and said well why would you kill yourself. What a ridiculous thing. And she couldn't you know what no woman would do that. And I thought I explained that this story Miss Saigon was in fact a remake of a Japanese story and she said Oh well maybe it's because they were Japanese and I don't know but Vietnamese women would never do so. It's quite interesting to see what the realities are when you sort of bring over. And that's how I set up the second half of the book is that I I took the images that we've constructed the city wank and then a modified and if I got on the Dragon lady's dominatrixes and and all of those and tried to to say well what is the real what's the real situation here and you know maybe it doesn't quite make for the you know the great novels in the in the moving opera but because that's reality

it's not fiction. Apply. All right let's talk with someone in oak forest lie number one a lot thank you for taking my call. My question is about the difficulties it seems like the Japanese or the Japanese government is having in in giving apologies because of the war trustees. First it was Korea and now we're hearing about Chinese the fun thing to do with the culture is that all other other things. It certainly does have to do with the culture and in fact it is yet another example of how you know we in America can't just talk about Asian people right. You know I mean certainly the animosity between the Chinese and the Japanese is historical and exacerbated by the atrocities that the Japanese committed in China and sort of kind of lump everybody in the same category of Asian and say oh well Japanese Chinese they must feel the same well. In fact the kind of antipathy between even the Koreans and the Chinese or the Koreans and the Japanese and the Japanese and the Chinese you know all of those

groups are you know as as big rivals as as you know say the Germans and the French and even more so and so that I think kind of drives home the point and allows us to see a little bit more clearly that that there really are these tremendous significant cultural differences within Asia itself. Thank you. Then you would equate it to what went on in Europe between like you said the Germans and French and the Germans and all the other groups it is equal. This is not purely an Asian phenomenon. Oh not at all in fact you know one of the interesting things that we're able to do in American culture is say oh well you know in our minds we understand the difference between oh this is this is a French person and this is a German person and that's an Italian person and we kind of have an idea of the cultural differences between those three groups of people or an English person or whatever right we understand because we have more familiar familiarity with Europe in ages exactly the same thing. Korean culture is different from you know Thai culture as as Italian culture is from

British culture and we certainly need to kind of learn more and probe more deeply to understand those kind of cultural differences. Thank you very very much. Let's go to. The caller this is someone on a cell phone line too. Hello. Hi thanks for taking taking my call. Actually I have two comments to make actually for the previous caller just brought out a very good point and also the the author put brought up very good point. The diversity we mean Asian culture and just like the older mission there is a big difference between Chinese culture and Japanese culture and Korean Kocher me myself. I actually think Chinese I grew up in China so the cost of there is very different from that from Japan and Korea. Another comment I like to make is the role of women in China and growing up in the communist China back in the 70s and 80s. I know that there is a big difference between

women of different generations. For example my mom she is a very traditional Chinese lady and I took care of my mom. My father takes the House spends the next generation. People like ladies and girls who grew up under the communist China. They actually have their perspective of the world and their perspective their marriage. I think that very told it different from that of the previous generation. And he see a lot of girls in the profession know in the professional world they prefer pursuing career and. So that's another one I like. Do you buy a third comment I like to make is the feminine it's busy. The Chinese man no Asian man. I want one thing I want to point out is in the traditional historically if you look at the Chinese like her Chinese novel you know it is a lot of the

male characters characters the leading characters they're portrayed as very feminine male. So there's I just remember when I was little kids when I go to the opera the traditional Chinese opera you see all of the leading male character and they look very feminine. They know according to the western standard. So I think there is if you're starkly a traditionally male and there is no lack of Maskil Larry in the Chinese culture. So that's just my on my comment. Thank you for taking my call. Well I appreciate the comments of the caller and I'm afraid we're going have to give the caller the last word because we're here at the end of the time and and as we said little bit earlier we could I'm sure talk about the subject for another hour and and find enough things to talk about but we've exhausted our time so let me just say the book is available on Amazon Dot com as well. Yes you certainly may because I certainly would encourage if people are interested in reading

and reading more they can look for the book the Asian mistake. It is published by Public Affairs Books by our guest Sheridan process and I'm sure that online or at a bookstore near you people can find the book Miss Prosser thanks very much. Thank you.