asian persuasianWhen East meets Israel
Boomsalon has a first person account of a young Korean-American’s woman’s experiences on JDate. How does she describe the dynamic?

… there are plenty of guys on jdate who are lying when they say they are looking for their Jewish princess. In fact, the stereotypical high-maintenance Jewish women seems to naturally drive these men to the opposite – the seemingly submissive and docile personas of Asian women. It’s a good arrangement – I am the non-Jappy girl for whom the Jewish guy only has to worry about buying drinks, dinner and/or breakfast. (No Louis Vuitton purses required until the one-year anniversary). For my part, I have quickly adapted to, as well as anticipated, being wined and dined by men who aren’t afraid to buy a woman a drink and to ask when he can take her out. And the sex has always been an amalgam of the “repressed carnal cravings” and the “overt sexual desires” that occurs when East meets Israel.

Wow. How’s an otherwise relatively unexotic and decidedly non-submissive Jewish woman to compete? No wonder Jews are so frustrated with JDate! The only silver lining in this otherwise post-modern story is that now, the author is dating a lapsed Modern Orthodox dude who still wears his kippah. As a result of her gettin’ jiggy with the Jews, she’s developed an interest in Judaism itself:

I recently ventured into an entirely new realm – one in which I began to take a deeper interest in Judaism beyond sex … My Protestant mother would balk if she ever learned that the topic of being a Korean Jew has crossed the threshold of my considerations.

She continues:

But perhaps it is the Asian submissive side of me that secretly enjoys the machismo of “God’s Chosen” men and continues to bring me to jdate.

The Machismo of “God’s Chosen” men? Holy cow. Is she talking about guys on JDate? Korean dudes must be really wimpy then! Uh… thanks to the anonymous person who called my attention to this story.

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About the author

ck

Founder and Publisher of Jewlicious, David Abitbol lives in Jerusalem with his wife, newborn daughter and toddler son. Blogging as "ck" he's been blocked on twitter by the right and the left, so he's doing something right.

69 Comments

  • How is this story post-modern? I find that word to be so overused I don’t know what it means anymore. And whose picture is that? Is it a “generic” Asian face or the author of the piece? Just curious, not trying to start an argument…

  • It’s a pic from the site. I have no idea what postmodern means either. It’s one of those words that both obfuscates and makes you look urbane. I fully admit it. I use writing and a limited vocabuary of pretentious sounding words to try to make myself seem smarter than I really am. I’m totally not being sarcastic either, I mean if that wasn’t already readily apparent. I mean between the zeitgeist and the schadenfreude I don’t know what’s up or what’s down anymore.

  • Post modern means different things in different contexts. It is usually referring to a deconstruction, tinged with self-awareness, of the movements in a particular field that have become the classic manner of considering the field. So, for example, Quentin Tarantino makes movies that would be considered post-modern because they deconstruct cinematic trends in a self-referential manner while also maintaining the posture of a work of cinema with a storyline and everything else we might find entertaining. Apply this to, I don’t know, architecture, where someone like Philip Johnson will take a skyscraper and top it with gothic elements and you can see how there’s a similarity to what Tarantino is doing in cinema.

    *The Middle runs away before people who really know what they’re talking about intervene*

  • ck – That’s funny.

    tm – My problem is that (for example) James Joyce, the archetypical modernist writer, did everything that postmodernists are said to do. By the definition you give, Ulysses was a postmodern work.

  • EV, hmmm, interesting comment. Let’s see: posture of a story/novel? Unusual, but check; self-aware/self-referential? Check; deconstruction of previous work? check.

    I guess his work does meet my criteria to a degree. You know whose really does, in my opinion? T.S. Eliot.

    But yes, I think their works represent, like, say, Picasso’s cubist period, pretty much many of the hallmarks of postmodernist art. I believe cinema and architecture are late to the game because they have been around for a far shorter period of history in a modern context. The painting, novel and poem had already achieved certain modern elements in the 1800s.

  • TM,

    That’s interesting, and it reflects why using the term “postmodern” in genres that already self-reflected and even imploded can be confusing. E.g., referring to new novels as “postmodern” when they’re doing the same thing that was done in the 1920s.

    But in the pop vernacular, it’s worse. There, “post modern” seems to refer to anything that references modern technology or Gilligan’s Island.

  • Yup. Of course, in History, the “revisionist” historians that cover Israel and come from Israel, people like Morris, Shlaim, et al, are an example of post-Zionism and represent pretty much the same type of movement.

    My sense is that most post-modernist work doesn’t work because it’s not authentic in the sense that rather than being something that organically grew from the “author,” it is more of an intellectual commentary on other work.

  • Am I totally idiotic or does anyone else feel it’s a bit strange that a story about a hot asian babe trolling for Jew boy booty on JDate has inspired this conversation?

  • Well, there was no evidence that she’s “hot” or a “babe” based on her story. Just Korean, which apparently is sufficiently alluring in and of itself for many. But anyway, jdate is such a royal pain that the word alone works as an anti-aphrodisiac…

  • Ya know, a while back we were bemoaning the fate of the women who are 30+ and still single.

    This obviously non-Jewlicious woman is dating an Orthodox guy.

    Am I the ony one here seeing a connection?

    There is a shortage of husbands because our men are marrying out at a very high rate, and the women are not doing so at the same rate. There has to be some way to keep our men from straying from the flock.

  • How about ankle bracelets? Or little microchips; every time they’re interested in or intrigued by women of different cultural backgrounds, they can get a shock.

  • OK, I understand now. “Postmodern” is just another word for “pretentious and self-important bullshit”.

    Why is the “broad” messed up, D? Because she likes Jewish men? If you’re Jewish and you think it’s messed up that a woman (of whatever persuasion) can be attracted to Jewish men because they are, well, Jewish, then you’re the one who should see a shrink, not her.

    Bring it on, I say. If women like her actually want to marry Jews and live a life of Torah and mitzvot, I say fire up the mikveh and let’s rock and roll. We can use as many of her as we can get.

    However, I should warn you: the myth of the submissiveness of the Asian woman is just that, a myth.

  • Korean women have a tendency to “bulk up” through the years–Confucius say, “stick with Jap or Chink for long-term nookie pleasure!”

  • Grace —

    I woner if your comment is, in fact, correct. ARE more men marrying out than women? Does anyone here actually have stats on that?

    J

  • the asian and texan behind heebster would now like to formally apologize for our post-modern flair and unabashed jewboy loving. we try not to offend but perhaps can still collect their photos if not actually them…..

    anyways, this article made the evening.

  • As a guy who once had a Chinese girlfriend, I say, let’s promote Judaism in Asia! I agree with Ephraim. China is the oldest still existing continuous civilization, and Judaism is the oldest still existing religion, so let’s promote Judaism ! Chinese Hassidic Jews! Chinese Sephardic Jews ! Chinese Ashkenazic Jews !
    We could even have a “Minhag China”!

  • Hrm…so I have secular friends who go crazy over Orthodox girls and have developed complex theories for themselves to back that, too, and Orthodox girl friends with crushes on their not-quite-Jewish professors and classmates. C’mon…totally normal.

  • Dave, if we try to convert the Chinese, people will think we’re trying to take over the world.

    Hmmmmm….

  • Well, T_M, I don’t think people pay that much attention to us. Maybe western Europeans do, but there are a few billion people out there in the 3rd world that have never heard of Judaism, so they have no prejudices against it. Why bother with promoting Judaism in places where its not welcome (ie. in Europe) I don’t care if future generations of Jews is 10 percent white, 60 percent Chinese, 20 percent African, and 10 percent Brazilian. In fact I’d be sincerely delighted!
    We’d be promoting Judaism in places where Christianity was imposed in the past through colonialism, but basically most Europeans and north Americans couldn’t care less about the religion of people in the 3rd world. More Chinese women for me to date, just kidding ha ha! Judaism is not about, or should not be about culture, it’s about faith, beliefs and good action and ethics, and that’s why it can have widespread appeal . If it’s about culture, cultures change and die out, and change again, but ethics do last. If Judaism is a culture, it’s not any better than French culture or Italian culture or maybe worse. But if it’s a system of belief and good actions, then it has enduring value.

  • Gosh, if only there were actual Jewish girls with an obsession with Orthodox Jewish boys, instead of crazy Asian girls. We’d all be totally set.

    Come on…like…there has to, uh…something alluring about lots of uh…laws…and…uh…minimal physical contact…and…uh…heavy religious baggage…

    You know, I had this girlfriend once. She wasn’t Asian, but she still wasn’t Jewish. And anyway, she was kind of obsessed with Jews. Not with Orthodox Jews per se, but with the Holocaust. Always watched Holocaust movies. It was pretty weird, I gotta say. She would also get really mad at me if I said “goyim.” I think she was upset that her real live Jew was pretty much just shiftless and not the noble suffering hero Jew of the Holocaust world.

    Oh well. It’s a wide and crazy world of gentile women out there.

  • “Gosh, if only there were actual Jewish girls with an obsession with Orthodox Jewish boys”
    I can name a few including myself
    one of my rly secular friend told me that a guy in a kippa turned her on- so their you go!

  • Can we get back to post-modernism for a second? I was enjoying the commentary. (Yes, ck, I find it extremely odd that this article has sparked a pretentious self-involved conversation on post-modernism… to quote an ex-professor of mine from our class, “History of Visual Communications,” “visual juxtaposition, artistic metaphor, blah blah blah”)

  • You misunderstand! I like the pseudo-pretentiousness! …and I was actually really interested in the discussion! I’m fascinated by post-modernism in my studies of history. Like, the backlash to modernism.

    : ( No hard feelings. What could be more post-modern than appreciating our own intellectualism? (Discuss.)

  • Actually, during WW2, a large number of jews immigrated to China to escape the brutality. The Chinese government was actually very sympathetic to the Jews,not because of the religion, but because of the very similar cultural value held by both people. The chinese actually tried to protect the jews, especially when the japanese invaded. If you go to Shanghai, and some other large chinese cities, you will find old jewish neighborhoods. there are actually 2 or 3 temples in Shanghai, of which one was visited by president clinton during one of his trips to China. historians also have artifacts and chinese scrolls that have sephardic jews being welcomed and integrated in chinese society for the past 1000 years or so( i might be a little off with the date, tho safe to say that it goes way way way back).

  • Look. I’m Asian and female. I am not submissive. Aren’t you guys tired of the myth of the submissive Asian woman and the wimpy Asian man already? I just stumbled across this page almost five months after it was first posted, but I’ve got to comment. The reality is that people like Rachel Factor exist, so you can’t just stereotype about Asians, even those educated their whole lives in the U.S., about their ignorance of Judaism.

    Admittedly, yours truly knew nothing about Jewish culture until the onset of college. But that’s only to be expected, isn’t it, especially if I went to a public school where informed discourse about religions isn’t exactly encouraged. If you grew up in a rather a-religious household and attended a run-of-the-mill American school, it is very possible to be raised thinking that the Jews are part of just another taboo branch of Christianity, like the Jehovah’s Witnesses. People, have you ever tried asking public middle school teachers what Jewish actually means? A race? A religion? I guarantee you’re in for a blast. Usually they turn different colors and suggest that you look it up for yourself.

    For that matter, how much world history is taught in public schools anyway? For my school system, the answer was 1 year of world history to 12 of American history. So how many public-school-educated students, Jews or not, can claim to know the cultures of Asian countries or the various schools of Buddhism without extra study? The same applies to the different movements of Judaism. Unless you’re a freak Christian researching to figure out how to evangelize, or just a regular American looking to marry whoever the said Jewish partner is, who is anyone to blame the person for not knowing about Jewish culture. How many cultures are there in America anyway? Thousands? Can we know all of them?

    Everyone knows that you can get into places like Curtis, the Iowa Writer’s Workship, and MIT without giving a rat’s ass about religious sensitivity. Entrance into the latter types of schools is all that too many of the current generation of Asian parents care about. Is that something to be upset over? How many first-generation Jewish families at the turn of the 20th century gave a hoot about teaching their children the subtle complexities of Asian marriage rites? Yeah, I thought so.

    What makes you think Asian parents are any different about teaching their children Jewish culture? Of course, Jewish history is kinda pivotal to understanding much of Western Civilization, but it’s not like something Asian parents know or care about. When the Holocaust was going on in Europe, a lot of Asian countries had their own problems and are still quite busy editing and re-editing history textbooks over that.. The Swastika? It’s a lucky symbol in Buddhism, isn’t it? My grandmother had a solid gold swastika necklace but she wasn’t an antisemitic. She didn’t care at all about Jews. Her sister happened to be a Buddhist nun is all. So it goes. My point is that the world isn’t exactly set up for every educated person to be sensitive about Jewish issues and tabbos and all that. Why can’t we remember that every time we meet someone who isn’t quite aware and kindly nudge them toward more learning instead of pointing fingers and ridiculing them?

    As for the obsession that Judaism seems to inspire in people who are newly introduced to it… I know that right now I can walk outside and find within an hour a dozen people who start to freak out when you start to seriously talk to them about the ethnic identity of the God whom they worship. To be fair here, especially if you didn’t learn about Judaism in childhood, there’s a whole lot to catch up on, don’t you think? Over 3500 years’ worth of stuff? Do you want to talk about all the freaks obsessed about Japanese anime and see where this conversation flows?

    Now, the ignorance and lack of grace displayed by the writer on boomsalon aside, is anyone honestly surprised that the Jews and the Asians are getting it on? Their communities are both full of nerdy kids who grow up to be professionals, with the only difference being that “Mr. Cohen” is probably like 8th generation American and “Ms. Park” is 2nd at most. The smartest kids in school were invariably Jews and Asians, regardless of which religions they followed. I mean.. smart people in the same tax bracket (independent of parents) attracted to eachother.. it would be wierd if it didn’t happen.

    So GET OVER IT. Please. And spend your time on making money or something, so that you can donate it toward increasing the proportion of world history in public education, so that you don’t keep having these problems with 2nd generation immigrant, Jewishly ignorant children all grown up and supposedly draining your community of viable men. Please.
    I’m glad to see that there are some voices of reason on this page.. But I’d like to see more sensitivity regarding the root of the kinds of prejudices you are harboring,

  • To be fair, the author of this post has a point, although I have to disagree with her equally unsavory reaction to an article that is, quite frankly, an embarrassment to Asian females everywhere.

    As an Asian female (albeit ‘white’ inside, due to adoption by a caucasian family), I found the article degrading to all parties mentioned. This woman does nothing more than perpetuate irritating stereotypes of Asian and Jewish women and men. Thanks a lot – Just what we all needed.

    This woman confirms every damaging and hurtful stereotype for why people choose to date outside their race/ethnicity. Thanks to women like her, now every Asian woman like me who just happens to fall for a Jewish guy can be sure to be spurned even more for purportedly plotting to ‘steal’ away all the men from their ‘Jewish Princesses’.

    I was with Jewish guys because I fell in love in them and no, I didn’t go seeking them out. I don’t see it being much different from the fact that I have Jewish friends because we hit it off and had a lot in common. No ploys or fetishism involved. End stop.

    All of what has been said above, both in the article and the post regarding it, is an insult to my Jewish and Asian friends and I.

  • you could be but a dream but if so, what a dream. shalom….ducky

  • I’m Asian and I don’t care for Jewish men. I prefer tall, Nordic-looking guys. After all, I’m a pureblood of northern Asian ancestry and it would be nice to have a pureblood of northern European ancestry – sort of Far East meets Far West.

    Jews, on the other hand, are very much mixed and that’s why you have Ethiopian Jews and Egyptian Jews, etc. Jews tend to have dark, frizzy, curly, kinky hair which reveals their North African heritage. Even the Hebrew language is classified with Arabic and Ethiopian and is not at all related to anything European or Asian.

    I ended up on this website while looking for something else. I had no idea that this was some personals site for African Jews.

  • Jews prefer to be seen as white and only white. Jews want white partners and the more white, the more they like it. That’s why black meat jews are not desired.

  • I just stumbled on this article while looking for something else. I’m a Jewish guy who has dated a few Asian girls. Even one I met one Jdate! I can promise you that, for me at least, it isn’t about trying to escape from JAPs, or because of some Asian subervience myth or fetish. I just think Asian girls are attractive. Sue me! I can honestly say that a subeservient Geisha-fantasy would be awful. I like a girl with some fire in her belly!

  • randomfella, i was wondering what about them is attractive? Is it because they have no breasts or body fat? or the straight hair? just curious, thanks

  • I don’t want to perpetuate any stereotypes. Asian women come in all shapes and sizes, some have body fat,some are thin and some are in between. Some have larger breasts and some have smaller breasts. I can only speak from my experience, having dated both Asian women and Jewish women, what the salient differences are. Remember, this is my experience and should not be considered applicable to all.

    The last Jewish girl I “interacted” with had a boyfriend and more issues than I could possibly even begin to address. My instincts told me to run! The last Asian girl I was with happened to be thin and small breasted but was refreshingly devoid of the “issues” I became accustomed to with the Jewish women I dated. All we focused on was trying to get to know each other as well as possible and it seemed more playful and fun. Sex was almost innocent, whereas with the Jewish woman, her issues crept into our physical interaction as well.

    On a physical level, the Jewish woman was larger breasted but I could see the beginnings of cellulite despite her youth. I don’t know if this helps any, and despite everything I still want to marry someone Jewish but first I have to find someone who is mentally healthy, secure in her identity, pleasant to be with and not a complete mess. It’s not too much to ask for, right? So then please tell me where to look.

  • To the writer above me, please explain why you treat a religion (Judaism) as an ethnicity. You compare Jewish to Asian. One is not geography based.
    Thanks.

  • Touché! You are absolutely right and I was wrong. There is no comparison as one can easily be both Asian and Jewish. My apologies. I should have known better.

  • “…that “Mr. Cohen” is probably like 8th generation American and “Ms. Park” is 2nd at most.”

    Actually, though there are some Sephardic and German Jews whose families have been in the States for several generations, most American Jews are, at most, third or fourth generation.

    On another point, Jews are an ethnicity; even if they didn’t live in one country for several centuries, they remained a tight-knit community. And they have their own religion as well. In their case, the boundaries of religion and ethnicity coincide.

  • The issue isn’t so much that Jewish women prefer Asian women, but rather, if a guy of any persuasion can’t seem to find a woman, they know that Asian women are always a sure thing. It’s no secret that many Asian women are hell-bent on marrying a white guy…securing a “trophy” for themselves…making all their friends “jealous” …and they also truly believe that half-white (hapa) babies will be more attractive than if they were to have a full-asian baby.

    So for white guys, it’s a no brainer to approach an Asian women. If a white guy had two women in front of him, all other things being equal, the white guy will have a better chance with the asian womand than the white woman. For many asian women, all they care is that the guy is WHITE.

  • ???

    Excuse me but is there some scientific evidence for your claims or is this some sort of collective accusation that we’re supposed to accept at face value. Aside from the bigotry involved in defining an entire race as prone to seeking to marry another race to improve their circumstances, there is the simple question of how you come to this conclusion because I see plenty of Asian/Asian couples in my universe of friends and acquaintances.

  • themiddle- you’re being intellectually dishonest. Have you ever been to New York City? Asian/Asian couples are rare indeed. I question if Asian Americans will exist in a century. What Lis wrote was harsh and cruel, but the truth of the matter is, Asian people need to come together before we go extinct.

    “Asian fetishes” are vastly overstated, and Asian female “white fetishes” are vastly understated. I do believe in the submissiveness of Asian women, simply because a woman who will speak to you is more submissive than a woman who will not. A woman who will date you is more submissive than a woman who will not. White men know this. If you’re short, shy, and boring, you might want to go after Asian women.

    Didn’t anybody notice that Stonehenge boasts of being pureblooded Asian and wants a “nordic” man? Not Jews, but it’s as if Asian men do not exist to her. what a caveman. Asian women have become a new dish at the white man’s buffet. There’s blonde, brunette, redhead, and Asian.

    A lot of Jewish men might have more experience than Asian men. And it’s disturbing, we Asians need to come together before we go extinct in the US. No, I don’t have any scientific data to support me, but I do have 25 years of experience living in a family, city, state, nation, and world of Asian women who marry white men.

  • I’m Asian and I date Jewish girls because they are mostly brunette, and have better figures than Asian women. Plus a lot of them have $ to boot. What’s not to like?

  • im half chinese and half irish. i live in ireland but i am incredibly proud of my asian culture and it sickens me to read some of the racist comments on here. i am incredibly saddened to learn that racism is still alive and well in the world.

  • damn proud,

    Are you male or female? that would really make a difference in understanding where you are coming from. And what comments exactly disappoint you? I can’t really interpret much from your post at all.

    I suspect that every white person in the U.S. feel superior to Asians. This annoys me, but I cannot blame them.

    Every Asian woman I know, see, or hear about has a white boyfriend or husband. White people surely must see the same things I am seeing. How can I expect white people to not feel superior, when clearly, we see them as superior?

  • I see decent looking Asian women with nerdy unattractive white guys all the time. I have a female Asian friend who says that she will only date white men. Asian women do see white men as trophies and bagging one is like winning a prize for them.

  • The phenomena is not new or surprising or even a reason for discourse. Throughout history humans have been excited and aroused by the idea of encounters with whom they consider to be exotic. Take for example the octoroon balls which were commonplace in New Orleans even during slavery.
    I jokingly call myself a Jew magnet. It’s not so much how we allegedly act (submissive, traditional, etc.) that is attractive. But rather a pure preference based on appearance and maybe proustian or Freudian associations with the exotic Asian. Educated men (with whom I date) don’t expect or assume I will be like the suzie wongs or

  • (continued) or Lucy Lius. It’s just a preference. Just like I have a predilection for blue eyes– on dark haired men in particular. Theyre definitely not my trophies or vice versa. Why is this such a “hot topic?”. The discourse is perpetuated by people who just don’t get it– it’s just a preference. Like lesbians prefer women etc etc. This much attention if given to any other interracial coupling would be considered racists. Imagine the discourse if there was still discourse over black/white or Hispanic/ white relationships. The NAACP would be all over it like white on rice. Anywho get over it peeps. Whatever floats your boat, to each their own.

  • themiddle: what would you like a picture of– an octoroon, the blue-eyed Jew boy I like or a picture of me in a tickle and pillow fight with Mongolian midgets? Be specific.

  • Something post-modernist, preferably with a bikini involved. And no, please, no Jew boys, whatever those may be. I’m not as prejudiced when it comes to Mongolian midgets, however.

  • I meant to put Jewish boy– even though I shouldn’t call a man who just graduated from med school a boy. Mongolian octoroon in bikini picture forthcoming.

  • Idk how to post pics. . . I guess I’m not as smart as I look. I’m disappointing as a model minority.

  • why can’t I find the Boomsalon article that this post is referring to?

  • If anybody knows korean women in general it’s like this. Any girl that would date outside their race will be shunned by their family for the most part. So you have this crazy korean woman who probably isnt very good looking with no family will date a Jew. So a douchebag or a crazy person or loser will end up with an Asian girl for the most part that hates herself. Sounds like a good recipe for a relationship or just fucking a non jew( human) and be discarded like everybody else.

    I mean for the most part I think asian/ are treated very poorly by jews. More so koreans since they are more social awkward/retarded generally speaking.

    Take kelly choi for example shes a whore. Same with michelle rhee.

    I’m korean and I had my choice of pretty much any girl in manhattan. It’s called location, location, location. That’s why all the playboys live in ny, it’s like a candy store. I’m not like that though. I don’t party but I picked up the most ridiculously hot girls walking down the street, I didn’t even have to go to a bar or club.

    Sometimes you are lucky or unlucky if you meet most asian women that would date outside their race with a monkey especially. I mean how many koreans look like monkeys?

    I think generally jewish girls are better looking but a clean korean girl smells better than any jewish girl I can remember. Koreans are like retarded compared to jews why would you date a korean girl unless you could control and manipulate them? Since they are so loney and desperate with their lack of korean men? Please, I hope you never find out what you are in for, although jewish girls can be difficult, I can’t imagine how it could be worse

  • I mean koreans are misy Christian/Buddhist but yeah if you think. That jewish woman suck and find a cool asian girl have fun but after you get married most of the time ur fuckd royally.

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