On Asian 'manhood'

Discussion Open Forum
#1

an excerpt from an article on Slate.com about a trip to Mongolia by a Taiwanese-American writer:

Since we’re talking about cowboys, I can’t close this entry without tackling a somewhat sensitive topic: Asian manhood. There is a widely held stereotype that, samurais and Bruce Lee aside, East Asian men are not particularly masculine. I hate to admit it, but as with many stereotypes, there’s some truth to this. Take my native Taiwan: Good food? Yes. Friendly? Yes. Macho? Not at all. Many Taiwanese men consider it perfectly normal to fill their cars with stuffed animals. More broadly, male pop stars across East Asia have a disturbing tendency to look exactly like the teenage girls who are their biggest fans.

Please don’t get angry about this. It’s true that Western popular culture tends to emasculate Asian men. I am also aware that cultural ideals of manhood vary, and that Taiwanese men are more likely to express their masculinity in other ways, like collecting tea pots or chewing on betel nuts. But rough and tough they aren’t. And some of this gives Asian men outside Asia something of a complex.

The antidote to any idea that this might be a racial, as opposed to cultural, trait is a trip to Mongolia. Mongolian men in the countryside spend their time riding horses, killing animals, and breaking firewood. They tend to hold their face in a fixed grimace. At times, it is like a country of Daniel Craig impersonators. Along with parts of Latin America, it’s probably the most macho place I’ve ever been. And so, my Asian brothers, if you ever want to know what the extremes of Eastern manhood look like, forget about Jet Li or even Bruce Lee. It’s Mongolia where Asia gets tough.

#2

Taught some Mongolian guys, last term. VERY ‘masculine’…

Pop stars aren’t a fair example. They are designed and manufactured to appeal to pre-pubescent girls and so are deliberately slightly feminised and non-threatening. I remember a Simpsons episode where Lisa is reading a music magazine called ‘Non-Threatening Boys!’. Their target market doesn’t want huntin’, shootin’, fishin’, pheromones and stubble guys.

#3

fair or not i think the pop star example was merely cited as a prevalent example of the male image projected around south east asia. as in “this is what young men are supposed to look like”

#4

“a country of Daniel Craig impersonators”. Classic!

#5

Sure, but if you looked a teenage magazine of pop stars in the US, or Britain, you’d see similar, baby-faced stars. They aren’t indicative of the wider ideal.

#6

I have yet to see it.

#7

they are here. just look at the young men walking around town

#8

@Tempo: seen it first-hand dozens of times. 9 out of 10 times the car stereo is also playing some celine-dion type sappy pop

#9

Yea how true. Don’t get me wrong, I love Taiwan, but I’m considered medium in the states and in Taiwan, I was considered to be extra extra extra large. Maybe its the diet?

#10

Say, whatever happened to Boy George?

Okay, studies show “Asians” (read: self-identified East Asians living in North America) have lower testosterone levels than whites or blacks. No similar studies have compared the nomadic and sedentary populations of Central Asia (to the extent that these can be distinguished nowadays). This would effect traits like aggression and outgoingness.

Culture of course teaches us various things about what is appropriate male or female behavior. I’ve heard Arab men called effeminate because they (being largely separated from females who are unrelated to them) often affect an interest in things like the decorative arts, fashion and perfumery, and romantic pop songs.

Which are entirely different from the beer, rock-n-roll, hunting, sports, and automotive repair which a white American would consider suitably masculine interests. Of course we can be persuaded to turn our attention to flowers and love poetry when certain holidays roll around, though most of us view such things as a chore.

Physical size is partly genetic and partly nutrition-based. (Surprise.) I’ve heard the theory that Northeast or Central Asians tend to be shorter and squatter because this helps preserves body heat (and remember, their ancestors migrated here during the last ice age). Eye-folds apparently have a similar origin.

#11

I hung out with a the Hmong and Dai tribes in the mountains bordering Vietnam and China for about six weeks.

They were the toughest people I’ve ever met. Hunting, hacking things, walking miles up or down hill everyday, smoking opium-the women and the children were tougher than most men I’ve met from any country.

#12

[quote=“Bubba 2 Guns”]I hung out with a the Hmong and Dai tribes in the mountains bordering Vietnam and China for about six weeks.

They were the toughest people I’ve ever met. Hunting, hacking things, walking miles up or down hill everyday, smoking opium-the women and the children were tougher than most men I’ve met from any country.[/quote]

I think there’s a huge difference between the kind of genuine toughness you are describing and the pretension of toughness that many Western countries subscribe to, i.e., things that make you seem “tough” but actually have no bearing on the matter.

#13

It emasculates anyone who isn’t like this: :laughing:

#14

[quote=“Bubba 2 Guns”]I hung out with a the Hmong and Dai tribes in the mountains bordering Vietnam and China for about six weeks.

They were the toughest people I’ve ever met. Hunting, hacking things, walking miles up or down hill everyday, smoking opium-the women and the children were tougher than most men I’ve met from any country.[/quote]

Yeah, I drank a shitload of whiskey with some minority tribes in Yunnan Province and near Namtha in Laos. Hard core drinkers but not too many people over 50 years of age.

#15

It emasculates anyone who isn’t like this: :laughing:[/quote]
What are you talking about? I OFTEN sport a pink neckerchief and I’m not a real man – I’m a metro sexual…

#16

[quote=“Bubba 2 Guns”]I hung out with a the Hmong and Dai tribes in the mountains bordering Vietnam and China for about six weeks.

They were the toughest people I’ve ever met. Hunting, hacking things, walking miles up or down hill everyday, smoking opium-the women and the children were tougher than most men I’ve met from any country.[/quote]

Very true. Rural ‘Asians’ in, general. It takes physical endurance to dear with the day to day. Also, you see it in the cities, as well. Those immigrants from which ever country they can pay lower wages to, who work on building roads, and underground systems. Hard as nails; whinging about yer buxiban contract? Try being a Cambodian construction worker in Bangkok…

Sherpas?

Maybe the middle class, urban elite are ‘soft’ as status symbol? In the same way the girls use parasols to keep lily white?

#17

I find it interesting that these days, when children are so overprotected and adults do just about everything online, that the trappings of masculinity and “toughness” in US society are becoming correspondingly more and more blatant, e.g. the popularity of the SUV, enormous fast-food meals, etc. Does anyone remember back in the 70’s, when you actually had to go out and do things yourself? Yet today many people seem to view people from that era as “soft” somehow, as they point and snicker at the Hello Kitty sticker on the side of a little blue truck as some kind of indication of how “soft and girly” the tattooed Taiwanese construction worker who drives it is.

#18

Hey, you gotta be tough when you grow up with the name “Marion” :laughing:

#19

Taiwanese guys need to drop their obsession with pink, there’s a start.

#20

Is it relevant that the Duke played Genghis Khan in “The Conquerer”? No? Oh well, never mind. (Clips on You-Tube.)