On March 16, the Atlanta massage center shooting that killed four Koreans, two Chinese, one white woman, and one white man has continued to ferment in the past few days. (Poke here to review the event)
Countless Asians took to the streets, holding posters reading "Stop Asian Hate" to protest the escalating racial hatred against Asians in American society more than a year after the outbreak.
In addition to some Hollywood celebrities speaking out in unison, many Asians have also shared their anger and fear of the incident on their social media. An Asian-American writer named Christine Liwag Dixon wrote on his tweet:
"The media's high sexualization of Asian women is a huge reason why we face violence today. I've been stopped in the corner by men saying 'me love you long time I've loved you for a long time'; someone has given me money to give me a 'massage to the end'. I was also picked up because I was Asian and told it was a 'compliment'. ”
"Asian women are often treated like objects, like trophies. The issue is often referred to as a joke about the bride being mailed and Hollywood's portrayal of Asian women. And now, Asian women are murdered because of these. ”
The newspaper sister was a little puzzled by the writer Tui li's "me love you long time". After reading the relevant materials, I saw that as the writer said, it is not only Hollywood, but the repeated sexualization and shaping of Asian women in white society.
(Stills from the Broadway musical Miss Saigon)
The meaning behind this so-called 'stem' is worth discussing.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="21">me love you long time</h1>
This sentence, which is actually a movie line, comes from Stanley Kubrick's 1987 film Full Metal Jacket. The story takes place during the Vietnam War, when a large number of American recruits were recruited and sent to Vietnam.
The scene of this line is of a local Vietnamese prostitute, with a thick accent in English, "selling" herself to two American soldiers sitting on the side of the street, and she says: "Me so horny, me love you long time I have a high sex drive, I have loved you for a long time." ”
The robust American soldiers, who can provide sexual services for only $10, the active Vietnamese prostitutes, with such lines, immediately became one of the famous scenes in the movie, and there is no doubt that it became a memory point for the Asian female figure on the Hollywood screen. The portrayal of Asian women was successfully implanted into the minds of the audiences of that era.
So you can imagine how disgusted and uncomfortable the writer felt when he heard someone say 'me love you long time' to her. He walked on the road with good manners, and suddenly he was treated like a prostitute.
The claim of prostitutes dates back to the 19th century, when Chinese immigrants had just settled in the United States. It could even be said that it began a bad history of Asian women being sexualized by the West for more than two hundred years.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="21" > dirty genitalia</h1>
In 1875, in order to restrict Chinese female immigration, the United States introduced the first immigration restriction act Page Act of 1875, in the name of "ending the dangerous Chinese cheap labor and immoral Chinese women", not only directly defined all the women who went to China as oppressed labor, but also directly determined that they were all prostitutes from China.
Why is there a recognition of a prostitute? This is related to the structure of Chinese immigrants at that time.
After the gold rush began in 1848, a large number of Chinese men immigrated to California, and were forced to undergo forced labor, but also had to pay off the debts of the smugglers, unable to carry their wives with them. At the same time, early Chinese immigrant women, in addition to being able to immigrate normally with their husbands, were tricked into going to the United States and becoming prostitutes.
(Schematic)
Coolies and prostitutes became commentaries on Chinese workers in the United States. And discrimination, like a shadow. Not only does the U.S. government restrict Chinese female immigration, but it also does not allow cross-racial sex.
At that time, the American Medical Association even gave information that Chinese immigrants had unique bacteria on their bodies, and if they had sex with Chinese women, their genitals would make white men sick. The genitals of Chinese immigrant women are dirty and immoral.
(It is worth noting that after the Chinese female immigrants were taken, in 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was promulgated, and Chinese male immigrants were also removed.) ）
When a country issues a ban on all women in a group classified as prostitutes, the deep-seated prejudices that come with the first impressions of history are difficult to deconstruct and shake. But to deepen such an impression, it can withstand "a thousand hammers and a thousand tempers".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="21" > imperialism</h1>
In the West after the Chinese Exclusion Act, there are more materialized and sexualized portrayals of Asian women who are not limited to Chinese descent.
In 1887, the French writer Pierre Rodti wrote "Madame Juju", which tells the bitter love story of a French sailor who rented a Japanese wife while stationed in Japan, and finally the woman committed suicide because of love. A few years later, the American writer John Long wrote Madame Butterfly based on it, which was adapted into an opera in 1904.
The plot of the Japanese geisha committing suicide for love and handing over her son to the American lover to bring back to the original partner to raise deeply portrays the pure image of the White Lotus Blossom of Asian women paying for love and obeying.
By 1960, Susie, the prostitute in "Susie's Yellow World", had a rough life, but was loyal to her lover, could sing and dance beautifully, and became another Asian sexual symbol shaped by western perspectives.
"Wonderful" is, why did Asian women who had been called "genitals dirty and immoral" become sexual fantasies at this time? The romanticization of such an image satisfies the obscenity of Asian women?
(Liu Yuling's appearance as a masseuse and sexy teacher in "Thunderbolt Baby")
This has to be mentioned in the 20th century when the United States launched wars in Asian countries, such as the US-Philippines War, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.
After the United States stirred up chaos in these areas, it established military bases and sent a large number of troops to garrison them. A large number of the soldiers' sexual needs were transferred to local women who could not make a living because of the war and had to earn money by their bodies.
However, their misery has become the "me love you long time I love you for a long time" in the Hollywood movie among the white people who hold all the right to speak.
It can be said that the sex industry in the Philippines, Thailand and other countries today is based on the establishment and development of the United States after the war and aggression. "To have fun, you have to go to Southeast Asia to find it, to find it in a massage parlor", how many white men have fantasies about Asian women?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="21" > white men who are "not used to" rebelling</h1>
As a result of the war, new Asian female immigrants who have been "humanely taken in" by the United States because of war displacement outside the sex industry in Southeast Asia are in what position are they in the United States, which has a strong pop culture industry and shaping ability?
Reality is often disappointing. While Asian sex tourism has become the talk of countless people, the ever-evolving is radicalizing Asian women's sexuality time and time again. Dressed in traditional costumes, they smile in front of the camera and accept all kinds of sexual demands, never saying no, always okoy.
The sexual shaping of cultural images has involved Asian women in such a sexual mechanism, constantly being strengthened and deepened. To this day, Asian women are still firmly tied to the status of prostitutes, as they were a hundred years ago, and only by surrendering to white men, providing sexual services, and satisfying sexual fantasies can they.
At the same time, when Asian women finally began to protest, denouncing TV shows and talk shows that joked with the "memes" of Asian women being sexualized, they were instead labeled as "not joking, it's your problem" by the "unaccustomed" Asian women to resist.
(Tiktok white women sexualized in traditional Vietnamese costumes)
What is the end result of no longer obeying? Or even being shot.
Colonialism, imperialism, racism, misogynism, when all doctrines are aimed at groups of Asian women who have been oppressed for hundreds of years, it is not difficult to understand why the writer at the front would say, "The high sexualization of Asian women is the great reason why we face violence today." ”
Stop Asian Hate, stop Asian Hate. There is much more to be done.