Photo: Stéfan
“Where in the Orient did you meet your wife?” asked the man in his sixties sitting beside me on the boat. We were heading to a small island off the coast of Borneo and had reached a lull in our conversation in which he had given me, in one more or less grammatically coherent sentence, his entire personal history from boyhood in Missouri, to his Mormon missionary work in Malaysia, to his current semi-retirement in Idaho.
There is a lot of subtext crammed into the nine-word question “Where in the Orient did you meet your wife?” even when you exclude the geographical relic of the term “the Orient.” As I explained that even though Aileen’s parents are from Taiwan, she has lived in New York City all her life and that, subtextually, I didn’t rescue her from a pimp in Shanghai, the light in his eyes dimmed. After I finished he sat for a moment, staring at the waves, and then looked up and said, “Huh. Well isn’t that nice.”
Now maybe it’s unfair to expect a sixty-something former missionary in tube socks and sandals to be one-hundred percent politically correct when he phrases a sentence, but I was annoyed – not at the man but at the question. Very nearly every other tourist Aileen and I meet west of the International Date Line asks us us some variation of that question. No one has ever interrogated a family of fat, fanny-pack wearing Europeans about their origin story, but if you travel as part of a Asian/Caucasian pair, you can expect the third degree throughout your trip.
Photo: Desmond Kavanagh
Interracial couples are common enough in the United States (except apparently in Idaho) that even the term “interracial” has a kind of quaint, backwards tinge to it. You’re really only only likely to hear the word used nowadays by racists, pornographers or statisticians.
Head over to South East Asia, where the confluence of economic inequality, cheap airfares, and high divorce rates has made the region the go-to destination for the recently dumped gentleman to find a woman for companionship, and the sight of a mixed couple tends to have less than positive connotations. Tourists in the region seem to be hard-wired to react to any heterogeneous racial pairing with leers, snickers, and loaded questions about where you met your wife.
These reactions do vary somewhat by country but they never completely disappear. In Singapore and Kuala Lumpur other tourists hardly seem to notice us, while Thailand – where the vision of local women giddily weaving their fingers through the ample chest-hair of Western men several decades their senior has ingrained itself into the tourist landscape along with the Grand Palace and gut-shattering spicy food – is pretty much a poisoned well as far as being able to walk around without getting the stink-eye from other travelers goes.
(Not that Aileen and I are entirely above this kind of cattiness. We once walked down a busy street in Phuket yelling out “midlife” every time we passed a mixed couple in an attempt to get a statistically valid frequency measurement).
There are two groups of people who don’t seem to be put off by us. The first is locals. People generally know whether or not someone is from their homeland, and so it’s not surprising that most natives of our host countries don’t immediately leap to the conclusion that my life partner was purchased in the seedy bar around the corner.
This is not to say that they have never made any incorrect assumptions about Aileen and I. They just make the wrong ones. We have had many recursive, Abbot-and-Costello style conversations with people who have vapor-locked when confronted with a woman which they had presupposed to be a Chinese National speaking in perfect American English.
“Excuse me, Peter, where is Aileen from?”
“New York.”
“But she looks … Chinese?”
“Her parents are from Taiwan.”
“But she speaks English…”
“Well she’s from New York.”
“But she looks…Chinese?”
“Her parents are from…look, can I just have a coffee?”
Photo: hulivili
Or, as one Indonesian woman put it, “I was confused because…she looks like…us, only more,” before pulling her eyelids back.
The second group is the men in the mixed couples. They do seem to make the same assumptions that other tourists do, but instead of acting superior, they exhibit gestures of kinship. They nod at us, the way two guys in Yankees caps might nod at each other on the streets of New York. They mark us as the people in the crowd that they can come and talk to.
In the departure lounge in the domestic terminal Bangkok, a couple – a 50-ish German man and a 30-ish Thai woman – were arguing a few seats down from us, alternating snippy comments back and forth in a mixture of Thai and German until the man stood up with a gesture that translates – in any language – to “Oh yeah, well I’ll prove it then.”
He strode over to Aileen and asked her a barrage of questions, each increasing in intensity, about where the bars are in Phuket. After several minutes of what the UN would categorize as a “minor international incident” the man stopped and said, “Oh, you’re not from this country” before wandering back to his companion who was attempting to bore small holes in his head with her eyes.
Many people travel to challenge their assumptions. Aileen and I seem to have ended up challenging other people’s assumptions through the act of travel.
So one last time, yes, she speaks English. No she wasn’t purchased down the street.
And no one has called it the Orient for fifty years.
About the Author
Related Posts
27 Comments... join the discussion!
-
-
its a good thing she wasn’t purchased at the bar down the street. the galway hooker’s an irish pub. people would start asking if she speaks gaelic.
↵ -
“…except apparently in Idaho”… where did that come from?
Good article.
↵ -
How frustrating. I’m glad you and your wife have a solid relationship and are able to navigate the waters of ignorance.
↵ -
Great article, Pete.
Do you get a similar response back home?
↵ -
The ex-missionary in tube socks was from Idaho.
I found this interesting and would love to hear Aileen’s take, too!
↵ -
Thanks, Juliane
Aileen has family in Taiwan and we’ll be visiting there sometime within the next year or so. We’ll find out then.
-peter
↵ -
Nice article. I traveled in Cambodia once with a Japanese girlfriend, and definitely got “the look” a few times. It especially annoyed Rika to be mistaken for a Thai.
↵ -
Peter,
Do you encounter the same insinuations when you come back home(MS)? or have you even encountered anything similar here?↵ -
good question
↵ -
Great read, important points. Enjoyed it!
↵ -
There is no shortage of screwed up preconceptions first time visitors to Asia possess and the one you describe above in one of them. As you say, among residents and expats I’d hardly expect a raised eyebrow.
↵ -
thanks, interesting read.
Living in Singapore and travelling in the region, I see some realities of the stereotypes more often than not. But I know people who are in ‘mixed’ relationships or marriages, and know how conscious, unfortunately, they are about it…↵ -
Ian and I are each frequently asked where we met each other. For some reason no one here in California assumes that both of us are Canadian and moved here together (which we did). I have no idea why not.
We have also been complimented on our English…several times…by educated people… Still haven’t worked out how to handle that one…
I’m glad you’re able to keep a sense of humor about the whole thing!
Happy Travels!
↵ -
Similar situation happened to me when my boyfriend and I traveled to SE Asia, I am a Taiwanese and he is a French.
↵ -
Good read. I still get stares here in Thailand with my Thai girlfriend, especially if we happen to be walking by some of the seedier areas. What really makes her want to thump skulls is when we get into a taxi and the driver assumes she’s a bargirl and says “Which hotel?” She has to take a deep breath to stop from going Hulk.
↵ -
Pretty darn hilarious because my husband and I are currently experiencing the same thing. I am of Indian descent though I was born and brought up in the U.S. and Patrick . . . . well, he looks exactly like everyone’s expectations of an American – brown hair, blue eyes, white skin.
People get very confused in India because I tend to wear salwar kameez there and I look pretty North Indian (though my family is from South India). They always charge me the “local” Indian citizen rates and charge Patrick the foreigner rates, or they pester him when they want to sell stuff. When we walk into a bank or hotel or anywhere with a very long line, they won’t do anything to help us until they notice Patrick’s white skin and then they are more than happy to send us up to the front of the line.
In Thailand, we both look so foreign that people don’t bat an eye but now we are in Mae Sot, near Burma, where there are many Indians so it will be interesting to see how we are treated here.↵ -
Excellent article Pete! I’ve heard some of these anecdotes during Shabu shabu nights, and it’s great to read them as one cohesive piece.
↵ -
Anson/Tori -
Haven’t noticed it when we’ve been in Mississippi or in NYC.
It’s a different situation in South East Asia because there are so many people walking around and living the stereotype. I think it would be different if we were in another region, but without experiencing it firsthand, who knows.
-peter
↵ -
A similar thing happens when my boyfriend and I travel to the smaller towns in Europe. Plenty of stares (not the good kind). If I’m alone, plenty of weird/ semi sexual stares too (I’m quite average looking back home).. like there’s this weird almost notion of the exotic “geisha” lady that arrived from the “orient”. I actually come from the US.
Believe it or not, I got looked at that way when I was 13 years old too — mostly by older men (dad or grandpa’s age) who asked me to spend the weekend with them. Creepy.
↵ -
Man .. the nerve of some people. Like it’s any of his business whatsoever !
↵ -
Your description of the Mormon ex-missionary is great. I can totally picture him with those ‘tube sock and sandals.’
↵ -
Totally had to deal with that attitude when I was travelling with a British boyfriend (I’m Indian). I also get that when seen with a white guy who I’m not necessarily seeing. It’s annoying.
↵ -
My boyfriend and I know are experiencing exactly the same annoying thing when we go around Manila. Most are friendly locals, don’t get me wrong, but the others are really offensive.
↵ -
Pete,
I’m actually considering doing my master’s thesis on why certain interracial couples are more frequently matched than others. For example, the Caucasian man and the Asian woman set is pretty common, but definitely not the other way around (same thing for black guy/white girl). The statistical disparity is extremely large.
Perhaps Asian males and black females are the most marginalized people in the U.S. – various media and political factors contribute (i.e. how many lead roles have Asian men had in Hollywood [not as a geek/nerd/stoner/etc.]?)
I once read a traveler’s memoir that wrote anytime you see an Asian man with a Caucasian woman (esp. if blond) – he is most likely hiring her as an escort…ouch!- Mike
↵ -
Hi Pete,
I have noticed alot of mixed couples that include an asian, the asian tends to be female.
Do you think its recist that asian guys are not on tv or movies, only asian girls?Just wondering what an asian guy’s chance is with a non-asian girl
↵ -
When you and Aileen go to Taiwan you may well find that other Caucasian- Asian mixed race couples will actively avoid you, they may even cross the road to avoid the embarrassment of coming into contact with you !
↵
