“Yellow Fever” : Asians dating westerners

After watching this funny video :

Any “white” person spending over than a few days in Asia wonders about the badly-named “Yellow Fever” phenomenon at some point. It doesn’t take a big anthropologist to see what’s happening, even when eliminating all the prostitution and the nasty cases of exploitation. You see many cases of “white guys” hanging around with “Asian girls” (though it’s true there aren’t that many cases of “white girls” with “Asian guys”). I think I must have had dozens of very long conversations about the subject with various nationalities, both of western and Asian origin, and there’s no simple conclusion as to what exactly is happening, yet I will try and write a few of my thoughts on the matter, even though I might get myself into little trouble.In my personal view, I’m very attracted to the “something” that’s different from what I am. There was a point in my life when I mainly wanted to get closer to someone who’s exactly like me so it will be easier for me to do what-ever-it-is that I liked doing. It was more comfortable and made it very easy to get closer as I thought the ‘connection’ was better and it’s all safe and cozy.
That changed, slowly, during the years, but still – coming into Asia, I couldn’t really see how it would be possible to bridge differences between somebody coming from Israel and someone living in Asia.

Back in Israel, romantically, I was becoming aware of the challenge in dating an Israeli girl of eastern culture backgrounds (ancestors from Morocco, Yemen, Egypt, Iraq, Iran), even though we were both 3-5rd generation in Israel. At first it made me think it’s too challenging, but with time I found it to be very exciting and meaningful. My brother ended up marrying a girl with a very different background than ours and it was wonderful to experience the differences between my family and her family at the wedding and the “Hina” ceremony. But with a completely different language and a completely different culture? I just couldn’t see how that might work out.

It didn’t take too long, maybe 3 months, for me to realize that not only that the differences didn’t bother me, it’s what attracted me, not only in the romantic sense. In Vietnam, somewhere in HoiAn, I no longer needed to have my “western” group to go and hangout with so I could “speak English” and act on all my “western” stereotypes. I had my Vietnamese friends, boys and girls, that I had a great time with every day.

I remember posting photos on my blog one day in HoiAn and sending a link to one of my friends in Israel, who started talking to me in Messenger, saying “look at all those beautiful Vietnamese people, aren’t they gorgeous?”, to which he replied with a “I guess you really have to be in Asia for a few months to appreciate Asian beauty”. I thought that was weird. With regards to some of the girls he even went on further to say that he couldn’t ever see himself dating a Vietnamese/Asian girl. That just made me feel sad.

In HoiAn I also got to meet a very nice Aussie girl that was having a very hard time in Vietnam. She was overwhelmed by how difficult everything was and that has affected her perception in that she found it all to be unattractive. We had the pleasure of meeting each other in one of the restaurants I was helping my Vietnamese female friend, Ly, to do some waitering. So she got to meet the pure-hearted Ly and hear about my loving perspective of things in HoiAn and I do believe that has contributed in changing her perception of Vietnam. I recently got some email from her informing me that she’s still living happily ever after in Vietnam’s NhaTrang with her very handsome Vietnamese boyfriend, letting go of all previous plans she had. She now loves the country she was once miserable in, embracing all the difficulties instead of trying to avoid and fight them. And, mind you, she’s a “white girl” with an “Asian guy”.

Attraction is a weird thing, something that could be discussed endlessly. I hope and believe that an open-minded Asian guy coming into Israel would find himself an Israeli girlfriend in no time, due to “attraction to the different” phenomenon, and I don’t think anybody would think of calling it “Israeli fever”. As long as there is no exploitation, or feelings of inferiority, differences within friends and couples is, in my view, magical. I wish for everybody to experience that magic at some point in his/her life.