Asian Gal with White Guy: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

She is of Asian origin, he is of Western origin. This is a very common combination for interracial relationships in fiction (as well as in [[Real Life]]). A combination that is not only common, but also archetypal, for better or worse. Authors making this combination have a whole history of [[stereotype]]s and prejudices to use or avert.

 

{{examples}}

* In a strange version of this trope, the Japanese Konoka of ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' [http://www.mangareader.net/209-14848-14/mahou-sensei-negima/chapter-15.html once mentions] to the Welsh Negi that she has a thing for "foreigners" (i.e. [[Phenotype Stereotype|Caucasians]]). Of course, it turns out that she likes her half-demon best friend [[Schoolgirl Lesbians|even more]]... though really, can you ''get'' much more foreign than someone who is ethnically from another dimension on one parent's side without departing from one's own species entirely?

* ''[[Barefoot Gen]]'': A girl who has been raped by American soldiers decides to prostitute herself to them in order to support her younger sister.

** Even further subverted when you look at Shinobu and see that he has [[Hair of Gold]] ''and'' [[Blue Eyes]], having inherited [[Phenotype Stereotype|his German mother's looks.]] {{spoiler|Which were shared by Larissa's dead husband... his long-lost maternal half-brother Sasha, whose father was a Russian count.}}

* Lilly in ''[[Rainbow Nisha Rokubou no Shichinin]]''.

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

* In season 8 of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' the American Oz is in a steady relationship with the Tibetan Bayarmaa. Race is not shown to a be a factor at all; they have instead bonded over [[Our Werewolves Are Different|other things]].

 

 

* ''[[The Forbidden Kingdom]]'': The female lead falls for the only white man in [[Ancient China]].

* An early film example is ''The Wrath of the Gods'' made in 1914, starring Japanese-American silent film idol Sessue Hayakawa (as the dad; not the romantic lead this time, 'natch).

* In the film ''Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing'', set in Hong Kong, white journalist Mark Elliot (William Holden) and Eurasian doctor Han Suyin (Jennifer Jones) fall in love. Aside from the racial difference, he's married (though estranged from his wife). It is subtly implied that her career will be jeopardized if the relationship continues. They do so anyway, only for him to be killed while on assignment in Korea.

 

* ''Troublemaker and Other Saints'' has one of the daughters of a Chinese family married to a black man; another daughter has a preference for white men and not Asian men.

* ''Midnight Sunshine'' a book by Kelvin Reed, has a Filipina marrying a black man.

* In ''[[Around the World in Eighty Days]]'' by Jules Verne, the Englishman Phineas Fogg, marries a Parsi (Indian Zoroastrian) princess after rescuing her from a suttee (she was a widow of an [[Arranged Marriage]] with a Hindu noble which explains why someone would be enforcing suttee on a Parsi when it was mainly though not exclusively Hindu practice).

 

* ''[[Torchwood]]'' has Toshiko Sato, who has a thing for Owen Harper. Unfortunately, he's more or less blind to her feelings.

** Which is reversed in the episode "Adam". Owen's the one with the thing for Toshiko, which she doesn't notice because she's taken up with the title character. {{spoiler|The title character isn't even a real person, and has been manipulating their memories to stay alive.}}

** There's another episode where service men attempted to sneak five or six asian women overseas in a shipping container, the plan being that one of the men would on the ship to help them. However, known of them were, and all but one woman died in transfer, and she was taking her revenge on the men one by one.

 

* Inverted like ''whoa'' by US [[Visual Kei]] and [[J Rock]] fandoms. The majority of US fans are female, androgynous, or bisexual/gay male. Nevertheless, just ''try'' and find some who aren't interested in [[Yaoi Fangirl|imagining two or more Japanese rockstars together]] and/or actually [[Groupie Brigade|becoming sexually involved with one had they the chance.]]

* "China Girl" was penned by [[David Bowie]] and [[Iggy Pop]] for the latter's 1977 album ''The Idiot'', though it's Bowie's [[Cover Version]] in 1983 that's better-known. The inspiration for the song comes from Pop's confession of his love for Kuelan Nguyen, so take from that what you will.

* Weezer's "Pinkerton".

* "La Petite Tonkinoise" is a 1906 hit by French singer Vincent Scotto, about a soldier sent to Vietnam who picks up a local girlfriend.

* Parodied in the [[Vocaloid]] song [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKiPc-7uWtA "I Fell in Love With Geisha Girl"].

 

* Parodied in ''[[The World of Lily Wong]]'': The title character, a Hong Kong Chinese woman, is married to a wimpy American expatriate.

 

* Inverted when it came to Tajiri and Torrie Wilson, and four years later another inversion came when Kenzo Suzuki fell for Torrie.

* [[Daniel Bryan]] spurned the advances of the Bella Twins (Latinas) in favour of Asian-Canadian [[Gail Kim]].

** It's interesting to note that this doesn't pop up as much in WWE as you might think given that they love pairing Superstars and Divas as couples. The main reason is [[Gail Kim]] has been the only Asian diva on the roster for years. She was the only Asian diva in her first run back in 2003/2004 and is also again now since 2009.

 

 

* Played straight in the opera ''[[Madame Butterfly]]'' (one of the quintessential examples of the trope), but subverted in ''M Butterfly'', a play by David Henry Hwang later adapted onscreen by [[David Cronenberg]], in which the stereotypically doll-like Asian woman {{spoiler|[[Unsettling Gender Reveal|turns out to be a male spy]] that [[Invoked Trope|deliberately played]] into the white man's stereotyped expectations of Asian women to make him fall in love with him. Complete with a scathing commentary on the Western concept of the 'Submissive, Feminine Asia' that will fall for the 'Big Gun, and Big Money Masculine West'}}. And it was [[Inspired By]] a true event: look up [[wikipedia:Bernard Boursicot|Bernard Boursicot]] and [[wikipedia:Shi Pei Pu|Shi Peipu]] for details.

* Played painfully straight in ''[[Miss Saigon]]'' (which is ''[[Madame Butterfly]]'' [[Setting Update|IN THE]] [[The Vietnam War|VIETNAM WAR]]!). Sure, calling Chris a decent person would be wrong, but that still doesn't change the fact that he's a white person sweeping a Vietnamese girl off her feet pretty much the moment he meets her. Is it any ''wonder'' that Thuy's so upset? The producers apparently went to great pains to make him a [[Jerkass]],<ref>seriously, was the threatened infanticide really necessary? Declaring his intent to kill Tam also made him [[Too Dumb to Live]] in a sense - seriously, you do ''not'' [[Eats Babies|make death threats to a child]] [[Mama Bear|in the presence of his mother]] [[Berserk Button|if you value your life...]]</ref> and he ''still'' garners some sympathy for being on the wrong side of this trope.

* [[Gender-Inverted Trope]] in ''[[Thoroughly Modern Millie]]''.

 

* ''[[Super Robot Wars Original Generation]]'' has the blonde, blue-eyed American [[Kid Samurai|Brooklyn]] "[[Insistent Terminology|Bullet]]" [[Super Robot Wars Alpha|Luckfield]] with his Japanese partner/girlfriend [[Shy Blue-Haired Girl|Kusuha]] [[Damsel in Distress|Mizuha]], as well as the German [[Supreme Chef|Elzam von]] [[Memetic Badass|Branstein]] and his late Japanese wife Cattleya Fujiwara (though according to the backstory, Elzam's around 1/4 Japanese). Interestingly, most interracial couples in the series actually invert this, with the very Japanese [[The Stoic|Kyosuke]] [[Super Robot Wars Compact 2|Nanbu]], [[No Sense of Direction|Masaki]] [[Super Robot Wars 2|Andoh]] and [[Idiot Hero|Tasuku]] [[Super Robot Wars Alpha|Shinguji]] pairing up with [[Manic Pixie Dream Girl|Excellen]] [[Ms. Fanservice|Browning]], [[Spell My Name with an "S"|Lune]] [[Super Robot Wars 3|Zoldark]] and [[Blue Blood|Leona]] [[Lethal Chef|Garstein]], respectively ([[Mukokuseki|not that you can really tell, mind you...]])

** It's never stated if any of them prefer foreigners, though. Kusuha was even Ryuseii's [[Unlucky Childhood Friend]] before she moved on to Bullet.

* [[Gabriel Knight]] and Grace Nakimura - eventually subverted. Although Gabriel's (non-reciprocal) initial attraction to Grace follows the pattern of the same casual flirtation he has with just about every woman he meets, by the second instalment they obviously have a strong regard and affection for one another; {{spoiler|and by the end of the third game it's heavily implied that they're in love, although due to an unfortunate misunderstanding Grace leaves before they get the chance to tell one another.}}

 

* In V3 of ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]'', Adam Dodd ends up getting Izzy Cheung, though considering the [[There Can Only Be One|pre]][[Kill'Em All|mise]] and the [[Bolivian Army Ending|ending]], it's hard to say what really happened next.

 

* Lampshaded in ''[[Megatokyo]]'': both male protagonists develop relationships with local Japanese girls, but suffer pangs of guilt (well, one of them, anyway) at the idea of playing out such a cliché.

** Piro seemed more freaked out by his initial attraction to the high schooler Yuki, as she fulfilled his fantasies of Japanese high school girls. Luckily, his conscience managed to point out that just because anime and manga have conditioned that fetish into him, that doesn't make the 9-year age gap any smaller.

* Yuffie and Riku is a subversion of this trope in ''[[Ansem Retort]]'': Yuffie has a thing for weak emo boys that don't have the balls to defend themselves, and Riku's starved enough for attention that ''isn't'' abusive beatings that he jumps at the chance with Yuffie. However, the trope name itself is invoked by Red XIII:

{{quote|My water bowl is missing, and I know Little Miss Me-Love-You-Long-Time took it.}}

* In [[Kiwis by Beat|Ryan Armand's]] webcomic ''Great'', the [[White Male Lead]] Lyle marries Yukiko, the daughter of the owner of a Japanese ramen restaurant.

 

* ''[[American Dragon: Jake Long]]'', Jake (a Chinese American hapa) pursues Rose (Blonde-haired, blue-eyed white girl). With Jake bring a dragon and Rose a slayer, ethnicity wasn't much (if any) of a factor. Of course, Jake's father is a white dude married to a Chinese woman

(whose father's objections came from Jake's father's lack of magic)... His grandfather goes out with the high school principal who is white... and a mermaid.

* On ''[[Mission Hill]]'', Andy and Kevin both fall for Tina, George's older sister - Kevin because she's a fellow sci-fi geek, and Andy because, well, she's hot.

* ''[[Batman Beyond]]'': Terry McGinnis's steady girlfriend {{spoiler|and eventual fiancee}} Dana Tan is Asian American. He may have a thing for Asian girls; in one episode he flirts with [[Girl of the Week|Irene]], an an Asian [[Bubble Boy|Bubble Girl]]. Dana is not amused.

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

* Increasingly common in the United States. Asian-American women are by far the most likely group to marry outside their own ethnicity, with nearly 40% "marrying out" (compared to less than 20% of Asian-American men). The large majority of these interracial marriages are to caucasians.

* In England, there are many cases of men (white, obviously) going to Asian countries with great amounts of poverty, marrying an Asian girl, then coming back to England with them. However, the joke is on them; sometimes the "docile and obedient" wife will disappear with a citizenship through marriage.

** The same happens in Canada too, but most of the men choose Filipina women instead, forgetting that in the dominant Filipino culture men rule everything...''outside'' the house. The home is the woman's domain and the man forgets that at his peril. So he can decide who's going to be Prime Minister, which team's going to win the Stanley Cup, etc. but she decides where and how they live, what they eat, where he works, how the money is spent to the penny...

* Azrael (of [[Gaijin Smash]], now Gaijin Chronicles) discusses 'yellow fever' in the context of Japan. Part of the perception of this is that Japanese in general approach foreigners with fewer of the cultural constraints that come between them, and aggressively compared to how foreigners approach each other. So non-Japanese who don't necessarily have 'yellow fever' still find opportunities with Japanese far more prevalent than with other races living there.

** Az himself eventually married a Japanese woman and, as of the time of this writing, has fathered one child with her.

* The remarks made in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX0iRHYTCkg this video] are supposedly based off the experiences of real Asian American women.

* There's an interesting example related in William Dalrymple's "White Mughals", a chronicle of the British Raj. During the colonial period, there was a sort of Indian Romeo and Juliet tale about an English youth who fell in love with the beautiful daughter of a Hindu shopkeeper, and when he could not marry her, died of heartbreak. Interesting because in this scenario, instead of it being the colonial masters fantasizing about loving and leaving a Hindu girl, it's the Hindus casting an Englishman as the tragic romantic hero.