Saturday, August 28, 2004

The Attraction of The Occident

I've grown up a little in the past few months. With all the blooging I've been doing; it's helped me understand bits of myself I didn't previously. And I thought I would re-write the Why White Men essay. But with a different, less bigoted, more compassionate slant this time.


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It’s been a good few months since the time I wrote the initial reasoning for this phenomena; I say phenomena because I am clearly not the only Singaporean female attracted to white men. And I will plainly admit that my focus of the reason has changed over the course of these few months. The basis is still similar, but the heart is not where the dick is at. The tag-line stays though, because it’s cute and rude.

When I put all logic aside, I am simply attracted romantically to the Caucasian male, period. It goes back to the extremely basic system of effort, punishment and reward. In order for an Asian man to be attractive to me in that sort of amorous, quasi-romantic manner, he has to be extremely good looking. And since my ideal version of beauty has been defined by a western standard, these Asian men had too look occident. Obviously there were very few of them, and they were all in high demand. So since I look nothing like Lum May Yee, it was hopeless. A case in point of effort and no reward.

Why do lesbians want to make love to women who look like boys? If I had a girlfriend, I’d want her to look fully female. When I thought about that, the answer was clearly obvious. If I wanted a man that looked white, what would evidently prove to be the best solution was to find a white one. And since the fact that he was white was an appeal in itself, being exceptionally gorgeous was unnecessary for me to feel attracted. But I must stress that the ones I’ve dated have been more then just pleasant looking, contrary to popular belief, SPGs can tell the difference between a fat balding old ang-mo and a cute young one.

Another problem I always had with Asian men was how I simply wasn’t slim enough. I am now, as of this morning, I weigh an emancipating 41 kilos. But previously, I wasn’t, and they all wanted skinny girlfriends. Mr. B had always said I’d a fabulous figure. In fact, he said he couldn’t see how I could possibly loose any more. Go local, and he’d say I could do with an inch of my gut. My apologies for being so anal about my weight, but it’s always been an issue for me, blame it on how everyone else around is just oh-so-skinny.

That aside, there will always be something about the Other that makes it more appealing. The country is still not completely cosmopolitan yet, and anything foreign will always be more appealing. After all, it reaches out to our sense of curiosity and the need for novelty. That, combined with the fact that I simply feel far more rewarded in terms of romance, affection and sexual favour in the scant few relationships I’ve had with ang-mos when compared to my local relationships make up the reason for a near blind disinterest for local boys and a heightened sense of magnetism towards whites.

Do not infer that I dislike local boys. I hate the ones with that god-awful sense of self-righteousness that stems from being raised with terribly conservative values when it comes to sex. But the accommodating ones, I have absolutely nothing against. In fact, they make fantastic friends, because it never gets sexual.

I’ve asked nearly all the white guys I know why they suppose the local lasses seem to throw themselves at them. 1) They want a ticket out of the country. 2) They find them (the Mr. Whites) more interesting company; and almost as an after thought, but knowing full well it plays a big part, 3) Bigger dicks.

Some local journalist (might have been Neil Humphreys) wrote that a lot of Singaporean women didn’t eventually end up in the Uber cool cities along the likes of New York, Paris, London; Instead they’ll probably end up in a suburban sort of town along the likes of Glasgow, Perth, New Jersey. Frankly, if I were to raise a couple of kids, I simply wouldn’t want to do that in the claustrophobia of a city. That would be the precise reason why I would want to leave the country to raise a my kids. And that would be the only reason why I would want to marry someone non-local (note I did not say expat) in order to get a foreign citizenship. Singaporean women do not need to marry to leave the country. We have one of the most educated female populations in the world, for crying out loud. How hard can it be to get a work permit outside the country? Sensibly, that would be a logical course of action for our labour, the domestic market is 4 million, how much money do you plan to make out of 4 million people?

That ang-mos are necessarily always more interesting is extremely debatable (and subjective to the individual). But that I was raised on their values and therefore their interests are what engage me, is a fact. The unrestraint, indulgent, individualistic culture of the west has always been a deep source of fascination and engagement. They coincided with my purpose in life; or they could have been the result of my definition for the purpose of my life. Either way, they are the methods to which I live by now. And I do not see a problem with it. Enjoyment in transient, pleasure is ephemeral, agreed. But life itself is of a transitory nature. If you don’t live for pleasure, what should you live for? Absolute values? Where shall that take you. You are beholden to no one but yourself, honestly. If I died tomorrow, I would do so with the knowledge that I’ve lived all the life I had been given to it’s fullest.

And individualism is something that so many local people do not seem to have enough of. It’s always being touted as a negative export of occidental culture. I beg to differ. Individualism is about finding yourself, and it’s about being independent. If you never find yourself, how can you ever be secure enough to be able to take care of someone else. If you never understand yourself, how can you understand someone else? And without individualism, you can never be confident. And that’s something I hate deeply in a lot of local men. Insecure people are annoying and I can never respect them. But the worst are the sort that hide their lack of self-confidence under a veneer of arrogance. Local women don’t show it (the arrogance) because it’s a fact that females are simply more accommodating to correction.

Why are local people always complaining about the accents of DJs? Is our society that insecure that something like how a person chooses to speak, simply because she thinks that’s the way her voice sounds the most delightful should be a cause for contention. Do non-English speaking European countries bitch when their people speak English with a British accent? Should Americans in China speak Mandarin ‘the American way’? When I speak the way I wish to (I don’t care if it’s a cacophony of British/American/Australian intonations) I usually either intimidate the local flavour or incite such disgust in them (Why can’t you be yourself? Well dumb-ass, this IS me being myself).

Some ang-mos I’ve met have asked me what’s up with the accent. Their usually more polite about it, but basically, that’s what they mean, and they never have a problem when I give them an answer as simple as, 'because I want to'. Sometimes I admit their accents rub off on me. That most certainly does not mean I have a weak personality, I am simply extremely adaptable. Besides, what has an accent got to do with your personality.

Am I sold off to the culture of the west? Who isn’t. It’s about unrestraint, it idolizes personal uniqueness, it’s human. Using the concept of individualism: It’s often taken out of context. To me, it means realizing individual worth, and there is a HUGE difference between that and just plain selfishness. If you’ve truly understood your worth, you’ll be able to understand the worth of another human being, and that’s why the most cruel societies are the ones in which the human spirit is suppressed (Why George Bush can lead the US into such extreme cruelty while 50% of his nation stand up for the true meaning of freedom is still a puzzle to me).

Finally, point number three. Dick size. As I have previously mentioned, greater reward in sexual satisfaction contribute to the reason why I find white guys attractive. How big is big enough? Well, enough that the act is worth the hassle of cleaning up after of course. But more importantly, enough such that every time I do it, I’m happy and not disgruntled.
Big tits might be preferable, but nice small ones can serve the same function.

At the end of the day, it’s the notion that I will be better rewarded in a relationship with an ang-mo then with any other race, for reasons of similar value-systems, and a familiarity with their culture.

I grew up reading British novels, American Magazines and watching Hollywood movies. And from the time I was 13, (and that is the stage where so much of a person’s value system is fashioned) I corresponded with people on international online forums, because the people around me simply didn’t feel like they would teach me anything. They lived in an environment similar to mine, attended the same school and read the same text-books. I read other books; they spent all their time cramming for examinations. And those that weren’t, were too busy fussing over boyfriends and bitching about other girls.

It is extreme wrong-headedness to compartmentalize racially mixed couples as propagators of immoral relationships based on sex and money. In this day and age, it’s extreme insanity. And in Singapore is just perfect lunacy. We’re a small, open country, a nation whose identity is precisely defined by it’s varied nature. We’re Singapore because we’re a concoction of so many races, and values. I have chosen mine, and am living the way I wish. And I make up part of the infinite variety of the nation, to judge my choice, or any other girl that so chooses would be to undermine your very only nationalistic beliefs.

xoxox

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