This is The Easternmost North, where truths come forth. Today, I invite Cristina joining me to discuss a new topic. Cristina is a first-generation East Asian Canadian, and she’s now working in a start-up AI consulting company as an executive. She used to study in France and has travelled to many countries on business trips. So, I would say she has plenty of thoughts and ideas on the topic we are going to delve into today.
The Root of ‘Undateable’
In retrospect, we shared many data, research conclusions and stories in the previous post. Today we want to go deeper, bring up a question: why do East Asian Canadians have such different dating behavior?
Because recently I’ve gone through so many researches in the field of East Asian Canadian study. And I’ve learned three major findings, or as we called insights, from those studies and articles: 1. Many East Asian Canadians are more likely to date the same racial or even same ethnic people, especially for the first-generation East Asian Canadians, no matter they or their ancestors came from Japan, China, Korea, Hong Kong or Taiwan. 2. The first-generation East Asian Canadians have less dating experience than their peers of other racial background in similar age groups. 3. East Asian Canadians have been found to have less sexual knowledge, more conservative attitudes toward sexuality, later onset of sexual intercourse, less sexual experience, and fewer sexual responses compared with all other ethnic groups. They’re so interesting and may be the most significant differences from other races in Canada. In short, I want to call it ‘Undateable”, it’s actually the name of a comedy.
“from my perspective or from where I stand, I think it actually depends on the individual’s cultural upbringing. For example, some people, when they are growing up, Although they are from East Asian background and they’re raised in East Asian families, but they may have more exposure to the so-called Western or the more open like dating or sexual culture, either via like reading novels or via TV series. For example, Gossip Girl, that was so popular a few years back and many Hollywood movies for these people, even though they are rooted in East Asian cultural background, they would have more dating experience and much more sexually open than the others from the same background.” Cristina said, “However, there might be another group of people who are from the same background, but when they’re growing up, they have less exposure to those kind of pop culture products. From their perspective, they would be prone to have less dating experience, they have more conservative views in terms of dating and sexuality.“
More importantly, Cristina brought up a fresh point of view about the reason behind that. “One is a geographical and somewhat anthropological perspective. Another one is the cultural perspective that people are so familiar with. We thrive in agriculture for much longer time than the Western culture. And which the Western culture normally thrives In the past few hundreds of years via navigation, traveling outside the sea to meet other people through trade, expansion and invasion in some aspects, more and more communication with the other cultures as well as technological innovation. So that sets some fundamental like roots or differences in the two different cultures because agriculture is, it requires really mass labor. It needs a lot of manpower. And in that aspect, the male is inarguably physically stronger than females. And back in that era, females are less likely to survive on their own. They would have to be more prone to having a very steady family. They have to get married young, they have to have their offspring to be able to support themselves to earn a living in the family format. Sexual behavior, other than reproduction purposes, is not encouraged in this culture.” She went on, “So that’s from a geographical and anthropological perspective, which leads to the cultural perspective. In Eastern Asian culture, everything is very practical and purpose driven. Every social behavior, even every act a human conducts in this society has to have a specific purpose. Especially, like dating or marriage. It has to be for reproduction purposes. In Eastern Asian culture or mindset, the individual is actually relatively much less important than the collective or than the mass, than the idea of a greater power that rules us all.“
And we also hold an opinion in common: dating and to have more sexual experience, actually requires very comprehensive charms of your personality. This is something the Eastern Asian culture does not encourage, which is dynamic personality. Not to mention that, it’s even a stigma in society. “That’s another reason: because people are not so confident in showing who they are and they’re not so confident in displaying the full of themselves. It’s very hard in the dating pool because when you’re dating someone, you’re meeting someone new, you have to show who you are. You have to show your own personality, be able to attract each other.” Cristina stressed.
From my perspective, the western society included Canada, has completed the transition from agricultural civilization to the industrial civilization around nineteen hundred (1900), they spent over a hundred years finishing it. Since then, the old hierarchy has gone, women have gained the right to vote, egalitarianism and individuliasm have undergone over a hundred years of evolution, which implanted in the minds of every Westerner.
Conversely, in East Asia, the richest country Japan didn’t become a developed industrial country with democracy until 1960, and until 1980 Taiwan, Korea and Hong Kong achieved this step. Not to mention that, it wasn’t until after 2000 that China truly began its rapid development. What I’m trying to say is, the whole East Asia region is still undergoing a transition of social civilization, including family and intimate relationships. We have only just run ten meters in the 100 meter race.
I always have an idea in my mind: dating or relationship or intimacy, is the most delicate and complicate interpersonal relationship practice, compared with kinship, friendship, colleague relationship. You may play your role well in your family, your friend groups, your company, but those are just a part of you. Only when you are with your other half, you are the whole of yourself, both the good and the bad parts. So, carrying out an intimate relationship may be the best way to know yourself. We will bring all the advantages and disadvantages we got into a relationship. Many East Asian Canadian underperform in dating, I guess it’s definitely not a coincidence, it’s based on their upbringing.
Just imagine a boy or a girl born in an East Asian family, they carry heavy expectations from their parents, since maybe the day one they went to kindergarten. Their parents will tell them, the only one important thing is their study, then is your job, besides, they have no time to play, to social, to explore all the possibilities they may have. Because these things are useless, they will be a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer eventually. Then one day, all of a sudden, they are told to find someone to get married as soon as possible. I would say, how would that be possible? They have forever missed the critical part to complete self-identity, to figure out a way to establish relationship with others.
So, I think there’s a part being missing in the traditional East Asian culture, lead to their unique dating behavior. It’s basically about how to know yourself and communicate with others. Being a studying and working machine probably get you much money, but a stable relationship? Come on, not a chance.
Floating in ‘Acculturation’
In another sub-topic, Cristina shared with me an interesting study that how the cultural issue generates the nuance between the 1st and 2nd generation in the same age group: ‘Acculturation and Sexual Function in Canadian East Asian Men‘. The term ‘Acculturation’ means the process when an individual moves to another culture and attempts to integrate into the new culture, by incorporating characteristics and values of the new culture into one’s personality and self‐identity.
The research points out, East Asian men have significantly lower liberal sexual attitudes and experiences, and a significantly lower proportion of had sex compared with the Euro‐Canadian sample. More importantly, focusing on East Asian men alone, mainstream acculturation, but not length of residency in Canada, was significantly related to sexual attitudes, experiences, and responses.
“In a few words, I guess the 2nd generations who were born in Canada are doing better than the 1st generations in terms of dating, because of a better acculturation.” Cristina concluded.
We also went through an old but meaningful TV news which was published four years ago. It is called “Toronto man creates dating app that celebrates Asian culture and identity“. CBC TV news interviewed a Toronto man called Hanmin Yang, a Korean-Canadian. Back then, he created a new dating app called ‘Alike’, celebrating Asian culture and identity. The part that Yang mentioning Asian men are rated least desirable male ethnic group in the dating scene, really made me want to give him a high fives, even though he didn’t admit that. It’s true and it’s a natural selection. People will not date you if you are not the authentic yourself. I have seen so many East Asian men act like an empty shell. They tried hard to be funny and sexy but they failed, because they are actually not. Yang is right, as an East Asian Canadian, don’t try to be whiter or be someone you are not, explore yourself and be yourself.
Talking about the reason behind it, Cristina thought it’s because of the mindset of presenting oneself in the dating scene. “Actually many Eastern Asian men, they spend very less time in their appearances because they find it very shallow, quote unquote. That is also something that the Eastern Asian culture have been enforced on them. In their upbringing, men are supposed to be very manly, supposed to be very butcher. They are not supposed to pay attention to their appearances. They don’t pay any attention to looking clean, to look good and to spend some time in the gym to exercise their body. That is something very important in the dating culture, because although people are saying ‘do not judge a book by the cover’, but even that, you need to have at least somewhat clean cover, the cover is still important, right?“
Also, by searching the recent status of the Asian dating APP mentioned in the CBC news, we sadly found it was shut down for some business reasons. “I actually checked out their Instagram page. They have over 200 followers and they have 44 posts. So at least it means that 44 people who are selected on Instagram, at least they are the ones who made the videos, who did introduction, who embraced this concept. And they are the ones who might also mention this concept to the people around them. At least 44 plus people are impacted by this brilliant idea.” Cristina said, “Especially I find what’s interesting with this idea is that as opposed to the traditional dating app that people are so familiar with, like swipe right or left, only judging by a few pictures and some handwritten profiles, this app is actually encouraging people to make a short video of yourself. They’re providing some very good prompts in terms of how you can introduce yourself, some interesting facts. They are in some way helping the Eastern Asian Canadians, no matter they’re men or women, to help them find some inspirations in regards to how to introduce themselves, how to better represent themselves in the eyes of others.“
In conclusion, it was a meaningful and profound discussion between us. The more we tried to explain the traits of East Asian Canadians’ dating behavior, the more complicated and interesting we found the topic is. And I really look forward to knowing what’s your thoughts on it!
THE EASTERNMOST NORTH 