Wang Jia, who blogs about culture, race and relationships at WhyAMWF.wordpress.com, has just uploaded his TEDx Erasmus talk titled “Western Women, Eastern Men” online and asked me to share it with you. Here’s the scoop:
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Originally from Beijing, Wang Jia has lived in The Netherlands and Germany for 15 years. He always wondered why it is rare to see AMWF couples. Only a year ago, he started to look into this topic seriously. He holds a Ph.D in chemical engineering from TU Delft, the Netherlands. (That probably helped him in structuring his thoughts and research.) As he has a passion for public speaking and communicating ideas that will influence people’s lives, becoming a TEDx speaker became one of his dreams. [FYI for people new to TEDx:]
What is TEDx?
The TEDx Program is designed to help communities, organizations and individuals to spark conversation and connection through local TED-like experiences.
At TEDx events, a screening of TED Talks videos — or a combination of live presenters and TED Talks videos — sparks deep conversation and connections at the local level. TEDx events are planned and coordinated independently, under a free license granted by TED.
He wanted more people be aware of the AMWF topic through the TEDx speech. On 24th Oct 2015 he realized this dream, delivering a speech titled “Western Women, Eastern Men” for TEDx Erasmus University (you can also view the talk on Youku). Do you think this speech can make a high impact?
Those 11 minutes were a fantastic experience for Wang Jia. He never felt so good under the spotlight.
In the speech, Wang Jia drew on his personal experience to explain the reasons behind the West-East relationship imbalance. It’s a lighthearted speech that will leave you with a smile. For anyone who is struggling with the West-East relationship barriers, don’t miss it.
So what happened with Wang‘s dating life? It’s a surprise and not a disappointment.
Wang Jia finally formed his own AMWF relationship and still lives in the Netherlands. If you’d like to learn more about his insights into culture, race and relationships, visit his blog: whyamwf.wordpress.com
I’m not sure about high impact, but I felt his speech was humorous, cute, personal, and easy to listen to. “I think I should have photoshopped my picture even more..”–hehe. I’ve never heard of “TEDx” or “TED” before, so that was a bit interesting. For some reason, the word “TEDx” makes my mind visualize a scientific calculator.
High impact here is about culture differences. And the stronger countries often affect other countries on every fields, including culture. His speech may sound personal and humorous, but it’s quite true because it depends on his experience and his research. And “I think I should have photo shopped my picture even more..” is just the way for him to make fun and get more interact with audience, also emphasize more third reason ” don’t hesitate”.
If you think AMWF couples are uncommon, try AMWF couples over 50 like my husband and I! We have been stared at and commented on by people from Chinatown in Seattle to small towns in Idaho and everywhere in between. Somehow interracial relationships are more acceptable in the under 35 crowd.
What do you expect among the Donald Trump backers in small town Idaho. I am pretty sure they will have the same contempt for younger WMAF couples let alone the other way around. A white immigration officer with his Asian wife got caught among the Trump crowd in Richmond, VA and they had to run away, just last month. Trump meanwhile probably fixed the Miss America contest in 2013 with two Asian finalists….Lee and Davuluri. He knew exactly what was going to happen with racist tweets. He was testing the waters to enter the race. Most racists are dumb but there are very smart ones, including Trump and the Afrikaaners of South Africa as well as the very smart white people inhabiting Littleton and Bergen Park, Colorado.
I forgot to tell you what I witnessed in Boise, Idaho on July 22, 2002. I was walking from the library to my hotel when I walked behind a WMAF couple with their probably two year old daughter. A car pulled up with a bunch of blonde white women who yelled racist slurs at them for race mixing and abused their two year old and they sped away. A half an hour later I saw the three women enjoying a feast of all the places in a Thai restaurant in downtown Boise! Go figure!
@ David.
What!!!!! I cannot believe that folks in Idaho would do such things. I thought that the North was better than the South.
@ Susan.
Well, I must highly praise you for your courage, because folks of your generation are less accepting of interracial relationships than folks of my generation. You deserve high praises just like Ms. Nikki Chen a regular commentator on this blog.
I laughed over his discovery of Salsa! He discovered my husband’s secret weapon in meeting women. Learn to dance, gentlemen, and you will always be in high demand.
In the dance world, women always outnumber the men. It’s an immediate advantage for any guy.
I’ve done swing and salsa before, I’l have to agree with that
I love the lightheartedness of his speech. Although I have to say I had a very different experience to him in that my wife and I talked about chemistry, qquantum mechanics and maths (and of course all these sciency jokes) before we went out together. Then again. we both read science together. at university… We still do that now sometimes…
Wang was able to keep us entertained through his ability to be honest about the reasons why AMWF couples are as rare as they are. He was truly an inspiration to watch, well-done Wang!
For those of you interested in whether there will be an AMWF couple on TV watch the Hawaii Five 0 episode on CBS on December 11, 2015!
@ David. Why? Is there something special on Hawaii 5 O on 12/11/15?
Great speech. I did not know that Dutch women were also the same as American women in the sense that they too are less accepting of dating Asian men. I thought that Europe did not have the history of racial segregation and discrimination unlike in U.S. history.
great point. It’s still not completely clear to me. But statistically here in Holland the AMWF couples are extremely rare. I think it’s probably 20:1 (AWWM:AMWF). I do hear in some European countries (especially in the former communist block) the situation is better.
I bet a lot of the AWWM has to do with economics. By that, I mean the males are from developed countries (various Western European countries, Australia, US, Canada, etc) and the females mostly from developing ones (Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, etc).
By the same argument, Chinese and Japanese executives should be landing all the poor white women in the US. Definitely not the case.
Which means, white men in America are more sexist, and more controlling, than their counterparts in Asia. We are THE superpower, and we dominate Asia militarily, that’s why.
I do not totally agree with you “PT”. Because your example is just one case of AWWM. Mostly, true love leads two persons from different cultures in marriage. They have the same hobbies, same characteristics, even though with different skin but they still have a happy family. we can take the couple owning Facebook: Priscilla Chan – Mark Zuckerberg as an example.
It doesn’t matter. Any white women who starts to watch western media and the sterotypes and racial ideas it perpetuates will start to be against Asian men.
Most white women at least here in the US never date outside their race. So it is nothing particular about Asian men but all non-white men.
They mostly date other Dutch. Many don’t even date Germans or French..although probably more than those that date other non-whites.
@Fred. First, please go back and read my comments on the Korean-German stories posted earlier. I have replied to your comments as to why many white women do not date or marry Asian or for that matter any non-white men. Secondly, I have always said that with the exception of the three west coast states and the island, AMWF couples are generally frowned upon. Here in the east coast, they definitely do not accept them but just tolerate. South is the worst where they do not tolerate interracial couples. And remember he found his German wife in China. I think that white women meet their Asians husbands in Asia where it is probably more accepted and tolerated. Hawaii five 0 is at present thinking of whether it will antagonize the racist Trump audience by putting on an AMWF couple…They have already shot the Daewoo-Benz story….
http://www.ooyuz.com/geturl?aid=8101384
If the racism in the campaign becomes really intense and the scene is likely to provoke more bigotry from the Trump people, the producers and the writer plan to edit out any romance…this is the inside information I have.
Thanks all for the comments and appreciation!! I hope people will pass on the video and be open to discuss this topic. Still feel many of my white friends are not interested or not aware of the issue at all.
Thanks for sharing, I really enjoyed his speech – he’s not only funny but makes a lot of good points. My Chinese fiance can dance and I find that very sexy 🙂 I think all men would benefit from learning to dance!
An interesting take on the topic for sure! I have spent many years in Korea and I’ve certainly seen many more couples of white men and Korean women, but the numbers are slowly changing. I married a Korean man and am part of a Facebook group dedicated to Western women married to Korean men. There are almost 500 members and we are located all over the world (though I suspect more than half live in Korea). With the advent of K-pop and K-dramas, I’m sure that Asian men are gaining in popularity…. Not to mention Asian actors now in popular american TV programmes.
The better question will be why are white women-non white men couples rare? The answer to that is Oscars.
http://www.thefrisky.com/2016-02-05/white-oscar-nominees-please-use-your-words-for-good-or-not-at-all/
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/why-actress-hollywood-reporter-roundtable-841850
If you want your daughter to be on Hollywood cover or receive Oscars, you better marry white.
I love his speech. I’m often shamed for preferring Asian men. He doesn’t seem to have an issue with it though 🙂