Why don

Title is taken from Sam de Brito’s post on his SMH blog “All Men Are Liars“

With such a provocative title, his post was bound to get a load of comments. At last count, there were 425, mostly from Asian males and Anglo females as expected. It took me an hour to wade through the first 300 or so. If you want to go and read the post and the comments first, go ahead. We’ll wait for you.

To answer the question in the title, I will explain it from my point of view. To me, there are two big aspects as to why you wouldn’t see that many Asian male and Aussie female pairings: cultural, and physical.

Cultural

As a Chinese person, I am very family-centric. My family will always come first before anyone else. This thinking guides a lot of my behaviour which some Aussies probably wouldn’t understand. And when there’s no cultural connection, it’s that much harder to make an emotional connection.

However being family-centric is also a reason why I get along with Italians and Greeks, and to a certain extent, the Irish famously. In a way, our families behave very much the same. Unfortunately, all the nice Italian/Greek/Irish girls that I’ve met were never available.

In some of the comments, Anglo girls bemoan that they would like to date an Asian guy but they never get approached by them. Again, this is a cultural thing. Aussie men are more gung-ho and more willing to stick their neck out in a bar or club situation. Make a fool of yourself? Who cares!? However, Asian men don’t want to “lose face”.

Most times I don’t approach a strange girl (any girl, not just Aussies) unless I already know her and there’s a spark. This commenter echoed my sentiments.

Back in August I posted a column titled "How do you say 'Yobbo' in Vietnamese?" in which I speculated that a lot of knee-jerk racism towards Asians seemed to be dissolving as the new generation of Asian-Aussie kids developed thick local accents. Many of the people who posted expressed joy someone had written a positive article about integration, citing the profusion of mixed-race relationships in Australia as further proof of our growing tolerance. However, a number of readers highlighted an anomaly when it came to Asians dating 'white' Australians. While it's fairly commonplace to see white guys with Asian girls, the opposite — a white girl dating an Asian man — is still something of a rarity ...

In my original post, I talked about my mate, Pete, a full-blood Korean who I'd grown up with, watching him rip in the surf and struggle in the pub with Aussie girls.

There wasn't a harder gig in the 80s than being Asian and trying your luck with surfer girls — even some of the most polite, well-brought up chicks I knew back then ruled out the possibility of a relationship with an Asian man, based solely on race.

On the other hand, almost every guy I know has at some stage dated an Asian girl or is at least open to the possibility.

I don't want to confuse my own experience for the wider world's but the number of e-mails I received back in August from Asian guys suggests this difference between the sexes is something they're genuinely bemused by.

Back in August, blogger Brunette suggested it "may be because Caucasian men are seen as more 'masculine' so it's a bit of a status symbol for Asian girls to date or marry them."

"Conversely, I think Caucasian men tend to see Asian women as more 'feminine', petite and even more compliant and submissive than their Caucasian counterparts."

Blogger Lady Lips chimed in saying it may be because Asian men are generally more diminutive and "it's just not sexy for a chick to go out with someone who is smaller than her."

"We like to feel all petite next to our big, broad boyfriends, not like an elephant next to our teeny tiny boyfriends."

Poster Qwerty also suggested media stereotyping had a role to play saying "white guys are 'cool', Asian guys are 'nerdy' and Asian girls are 'exotic'. When people hear/see that enough times, they start to believe it."

Which sounds fairly reasonable, but doesn't explain why Pete, who's 5'11", 85kg, could easily kick most guys arses and tore it up in the surf still got nought in the pub.

I asked Peter why he thought this was and he said "it's probably because Aussie chicks aren't used to talking to Asian guys. It's just what you're brought up with."

"Guys usually do the cracking on to girls, so Asian girls get approached a lot more by Aussie guys," he says.

"Also a lot of Asian guys, when they're growing up, they get hassled by their parents to marry an Asian girl, and because there's so many Asian chicks around, it's just an easier option."

Having married a Caucasian girl and since had a child with her, Peter is well aware of the consequences of bucking tradition; his mother refused to come to his wedding.

"Especially with Koreans, there's a lot of national pride involved, it's like losing face if you don't marry a girl of your own nationality."

So is that the answer? Are Asian guys just not approaching Aussie girls because their families may not eventually accept them marrying a Caucasian girl?

No doubt there'll be many posters who consider this topic racist and inflammatory, and to anybody who is offended, rest assured I'm writing this out of genuine curiosity and apologise if any of my generalisations or assumptions come off as crass.

If you're going to post today, try to be constructive, because if there's even a hint of vilification, you won't be published.

Why don't Aussie girls date Asian men?

Cultural

Physical

Conclusion