Love Vibe-R-Asian

Online Dates, Mail-Order Mates, and Other Auspicious Arrangements

By Yayoi Lena Winfrey, AAV Contributing Editor

Looking for a date or mate can be a full-time job, I know. I speak from personals experience. In 1996, I began a quest for a partner while living in the funky, spunky cosmopolitan chic-dom called Los Angeles. After three and a half years of running paper ads, 371 telephone responses and 146 actual dates, I remained single. Although I'd enjoyed a variety of rich cultural adventures and formed several valuable friendships, I was disappointed that my ideal partner did not appear. When I moved to technology-obsessed Seattle in 1999, I switched from trying to net a mate through the personals to fishing for dates online.

The first night I surfed AOL's free mate-matching service, Love@aol, I nearly crashed my computer. Following six straight hours of displaying color photos and brief bios, my monitor froze. I had to ask a chuckling technician at AOL to unfreeze me. Like the proverbial kid in the candy store, I had scrolled through hundreds of ads. What made personals ads on AOL so special was the addition of pictures. I could view the prospective date or mate before reading his self-penned portrait. If a man had a serious case of the uglies, I wouldn't have to read further. If I found a man desirable, I could contact him through his posted email address. Compared to a newspaper ad that provided text only in a 25 word maximum description, the Internet was a much better deal. Instead of eating vanilla, I was sampling toasted almond French vanilla.

Following a weekend of browsing, I decided to post my own ad.

Jafro: psychic-delic Japanese/Afrikan metaphysician, filmmaker, writer and artist ISO tall, toned man of color. She b vegan, n2 World Beat and hip-hop Zen.

However, my online results were worse than my newspaper dates. Some men were into sending emails--period. Closet authors, they only wanted an audience for their writing. And, because the Internet has the capability of reaching people globally, not everyone was immediately available for dating. How often could I realistically see someone who lived in Aruba?

The invisibility factor of online dating was hazardous, too. A man could create a false identity and even hide an existing girlfriend or, worse, a wife. Although the same could be said for dating anyone through other methods, the Internet provided a built-in safety net by guaranteeing anonymity. With a prospect gleaned from a newspaper ad, the likelihood of getting addresses and telephone numbers for a live date discouraged such flagrant behavior.

Although I specified that my perfect match be a man of color, at least half the respondents to my ad were white. Whether they were so-called Asian-philes or not, I didn't know because I never answered them. I figured they must be illiterate.

Hazardous Byproduct: Asian-philes

An acquaintance who complains incessantly of "Asian-philes" on the Internet describes them as non-Asians seeking out only Asians, especially women, for the purpose of dating. The problem, she says, is not that they patronize dating services, but the annoying disruption they create when they cross over onto sites specifically created for Asians to dialogue with other Asians.

Cha'e Escol, 37, a Seattle-based mother, writer and community volunteer, has used the Internet to meet people with "the same passion and interests." Part Filipino, Spanish and Hawai'ian, she has also encountered Asian-philes online. "Once I got the inkling of what they may have been longing for, I confronted them," she says.

"It's all about dating whoever/whatever you want," says Dan Wu, 26, a Chinese-American "zinester," publisher of Oriental Whatever Magazine. "I have a problem with ethno-fetishism because it's usually based on f---ed-up presumptions and notions based on ignorance. I'm also against the notion of colorblindness--it usually equates to whitewashing, ignoring people's ethnicities. The trick is to acknowledge, respect and learn about one another's cultures."

Mail-Order Madness on the Internet

For Asians and Asian-philes alike, online matchmaking services extend well beyond just virtual singles bars. According to a New York Times article published in June, the fastest growing web sites promote international marriages -- that is, foreign brides for American men.

The tradeoff for these immigrant women, mostly hailing from impoverished countries, is a green card. If she's lucky, she may even be attracted to the man. For the prospective husband, scoring a wife who is grateful from the jump can be a real ego boost. Anxious to leave her destitute life behind, the new bride is eager to please and the bridegroom is assured she's willing to cater to his every whim.

INS reports that figures for such unions have doubled in the last decade, totaling nearly 6,000 such marriages a year. Capitalizing on this growth, Internet services have multiplied as well. There are now an estimated 200 sites in the U.S., some earning as much $2 million a year. It's a relatively easy business to run because of low overhead and startup costs and, most of all, an abundance of eligible foreign women--150,000 a year on the Internet.

In the past, most mail-order brides came from the Philippines which, in the early 1970's, was in an economic slump. Nowadays, more than half the online services that cater to men seeking brides provide them with women from Russia and the Ukraine.

Are foreign brides victims of a modern-day slave trade? Reportedly, there are high rates of divorce or abuse in such marriages.

Dan Wu, who has never used the Internet for dating, thinks that sites matching up immigrant women with American men are "atrocious". "Americans who can't seem to find mates normally can (find online) their stereotyped perceptions of the perfect (mate) read: docile, subservient and exotic as a bonus," he says. "You a see a lot of ads for Asian and Russian mail-order brides in gun magazines. What does that tell you?"

"I really hate to think of...these as...meat market(s)," says Cha'e Escol about Internet mating sites, "but it does happen. I think that any woman should be aware of herself and others...to be able to identify...someone (who) is targeting you for a scullery maid's position in his life...to tell him to take a hike. But there are those who feel that... is one way of gaining citizenship..."

Nineteen year-old Hung Nguyen, a Vietnamese student living in Seattle, thinks web sites that specialize in mail-order brides "should be banned because it's a way of prostitution."

And what about mail-order grooms? Curious about the type of men advertised on such web sites, I went surfing. Would I find desperate foreigners looking for easy U.S. citizenship? Out of the 79 Asian men posting ads on Cherry Blossoms, only one, in India, indicated a preference for an American or Canadian so that he "could resettle his business."

Most of the ads were from Filipino men living both in the islands and abroad. Unsurprisingly, younger men were searching for pen pals or girlfriends while older men in their 40's and 50's wanted marriage and families. One 49 year-old Japanese man working in "science research" specified "a white girl from the U.S. or European countries including those from former USSR countries." An East Indian living in the U.S. who spoke Russian also desired "someone from the former Soviet Union" because their "family values are usually high."

Auspicious Arrangements

A common variant of the mail-order bride service specifically targets its "Mrs. Right" message to Asian-American men through spam e-mails, in-language media ads, and newsgroups or bulletin boards on APA community sites (including Asian-American Village). Whether or not an Asian seeking Asians can be considered Asian-philia, some people object to today's online ethnic dating and mating services as thinly disguised offspring of yesterday's controversial arranged marriages.

While living in Hawai'i in 1994, I befriended a family from Mumbai. The oldest son, Raji, had just ended a long-time relationship with a French Canadian Caucasian and he was devastated. At the age of 25, he was considered too old to be a bachelor in his culture so he asked his parents to find him a suitable bride. Spreading out several photos on the family dining table, Raji hesitated only slightly before picking out a lovely young South Asian lady living in England.

Hung Nguyen, the Vietnamese student, doesn't believe in arranged marriages because "you don't know what you're really getting into."

But Raji and his wife, introduced through family friends and connections that transcended generations, were matched based on their ages, interests and future goals.

"People get married for the wrong reasons anyway," argues Wu, the 'zinester. "Not having a say in it just makes it worse."

Born to parents whose marriage was "prearranged", Escol disagrees. "They were happy and loved each other. It's not for everyone, but rather an attitude that accompanies this type of upbringing. I still prefer choice, but have (an) understanding (about)...where it comes from."

Raji and his wife seem satisfied. After five years together, they recently welcomed a baby daughter.

Mr(s). Right-Dot-Com?

With the high rate of divorce in this country, a return to arranged marriages could be a viable alternative. How well Internet introduction works as a vehicle for dating and mating is indeterminable, however.

Nguyen's experiences on the Internet have been varied and he says, "some girls are just bitches and some are pretty cool and fun to talk to."

Cha'e Escol says she once "met someone online...in an unhappy time of my marriage...briefly, but then [it] faded into the woodworks."

Dan Wu has never used the Internet for dating.

I am still patiently awaiting the latest technology that will bring me my Mr. Right.

Related Reading

• So Your Family Wants to Set You Up?
  By Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, AAV Contributing Editor
  With arranged marriages not so far in our past, many Asian families love to play matchmaker, much to the chagrin of the younger generation. Should you do it? How do you survive it? How do you get out of it?