***
Alphabectical Ambivalence

My girlfriend pointed out to me that Sarong Party Girls and their white men are OUT, according to thhe most authoritative source on all that's fashionable - the local paper. The article can be read here.

First off, I'm not a big fan of white men hailing for the US. (With no insult to them - or to Mr. Big. Whom I suppose I like and did get something for while I was in Shanghai: a painting to replace the one I really hate in his apartment. I told him it looked like something my grandmother would hang in her house only during Chinese New Year.) But most of the American people I know are really quite like Singaporeans. They're money obsessed, and live to work (as opposed to working to live), among other things. The only thing that makes them different from the local boys is that 1) They live in nice apartments 2) They're non-comittal. Isn't it ironic then that this turns out to be a word to the wise in the article, instead of an attraction. I like the idea that the guy might just leave before the relationship sours. Romeo and Juliet is a remembered for so long because it ends even before it really starts; or would you rather Hamlet marry Ophelia and settle down in a lovely condo by a Scandinavian beach? (I don't know if there really are condo's by Scandinavian beaches. Shush.)

But this is not about the American americans. It's about well, ABCs. You Know. The American Born Chinese men with that funky spiky haircut even past thirty you sometimes catch a glimpse of on Channel 5. -I don't know if anyone else notices it, but white guys in Singapore rarely bother to funkify their hair, unless they're studying at the United World College-.

The last encounter with an ABC left me vaguely annoyed.
He was obviously looking for a lay, which is fine by me, because all men are always looking for a lay. But what really irked me was how he went about it. He kept on going on and on about all these cool people he had met in clubs (oh this Swedish lingerie model, the guy who conceptualized I'm Lovin It for McDonald's - one wonders how is That supposed to impress anyone-, George Bush, Miss Universe... blahblah).
Well, that's allright. Some people can't help being star chasers, but it gets weird when you start trying to get into my pants by telling me that you're really an American.
Well, I Know you're an American. I can hear it -and somehow I'm not charmed; So What if you have a green card, an apartment 10 minutes away from the Esplanade, and a thousand dollars worth of US dollars in your Helmut Lang wallet.(Unless you're going to give me that money) I think it's rather bizzare. He knows I'm into white guys, but trying to sell of as White just because you have a green card is... well. Quite incredible to say in the least.

It is precisely because they are Chinese, but not like the locals -having the advantage of a more 'worldy' personality (yeah whatever. Being on a two month attachment in Paris doesn't count as actually living there for a time.)- that makes them oh so cocky.
Because they can compare themselves so easily to the local men (because their grandmothers might have shared husbands back in 1920) and know that they are more eloquent, more fashionable and more charming, that they end up with egos that are exceedingly over-bearing. Even more so then the real thing (referring to the white American.) And I do believe that their ethnic identification with the country futhur fuels their already over flowing self-assurity.

ABCs have the advantage of blending it, yet standing out. The benifits of being special without that akwardness of being different.

Heh. What kind of girls do these ABCs like? Girls who like them despite their accents. What kind of girls do they not like? Girls who like them because of their accent. Well, don't Lie. You know the ladies like you because you're more worldly, and guess what's one big contributing factor? Your lovely yank twang.

(BTW, this has got nothing to do with a personal dislike for individual ABCs -aside from the aforementioned subject-, so if you're one, don't start sending me hate mail before you know this -I am so sick of getting hate mail from Chinese men overseas- I'm writing this based on what I read in The Straits Times's LifeStyle. Which is, after all, the doctrine of all human characteristics and behaviours. Aiyah. I just don't particularly like the way the Article presented certain things. Ok.)

You guys need to chill.

(to those who are going to send the hate mail anyway)

...Or are you're egos too big for that?

Yes, fine, you're superior because you're American and I'm just a slutty Asian girl with a blind adoration for the west.
There.
You're mail is_So_predictable.

xoxox