Asian women, Asia, etc.

I think at some point we're going to have to discuss this. Can we discuss it here? Folks, I've made it no secret that my wife is Korean. Even though I was 20 the first time I arrived in Korea, I have now lived a double digit percentage of my life there. I speak Korea as my second langauge and speak it probably more than half the time when I'm home. My wife speaks to me in Korean probably 75% of the time when I'm home and most of our sentences to each other have some element of Korean in it. We're currently living in China, and I made a return to TAM because I just wanted a little more interaction in English - my days don't include much English right now. That sets it from my side, now why do I want to talk about this? ... In the threads I've seen where someone brings up the subject of Asian women, there seems to be a reaction from a number of men who want to ascribe everything from personality to aging characteristics to Asian women. When I've jumped in on these discussions, I've spent most of my time swatting at these guys. From the women's side, there seems to be the same amount of stereotyping, and most of it is negative. Just like from the men's side, it seems that most of it is based in stereotypes and what the person has heard, but almost none of it seems to be based in any knowledge. Let me put it another way, if you were me, or my wife, reading the way the women on here post about Asian women, can you tell me you wouldn't be PISSED THE **** OFF????? (I think it goes without saying, you'd be equally PISSEED about some of the posts some of the men make.) I think several people have come here with legitimate questions and have been run off because of the insults that have been dealt by both men and women in this area. I'll be clear, I don't like people ascribing personality traits based on race or stereotypes. However; I have no problem with genuine questions even if they're not politically correct or not perfectly worded to not raise someone's hackles, nor do I have a problem with people expressing a preference in things (we all have preferences). So let's set the emotion aside a bit. Let's put all this behind us, and let's have a mature discussion. Can we do that? I said I like questions, and I mean it. If you have real, legitimate questions (Not rhetoric, and not attempts to ridicule into submission with skillful, lawyerly questions, please), then let's ask them. If it is on one of the Asian cultures I actually know about, then I'll give as good of an answer as I can, and I'll stay engaged to be sure it's clarified if you need to ask a clarifying question. I won't be mad here - I'm inviting it. When I came here before, there were several other ladies, and probably men, too, from other Asian cultures. If they haven't been run off in the BS I've been reading on threads in the forums here, I invite them to join in as well and give their explanations. I'd like to bring a little clarity so that when the word "Asian" or any country from Asia gets used in a thread, it stops sounding like something you'd expect to read on a porn site, or in a 1920's Black and White movie. It'd be super great if we can actually move to a point where people stop the political statements to actually answer legitimate questions that someone may have, even when it has the word "Asian" in it. Can we have this discussion in this spirit? (NTamph, please, if you want to post on this thread, please elevate it from what you've been posting elsewhere. If you post like i've read elsewhere, you won't add anything constructive here.)

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