August 4, 2002

4:26 AM

I want a lotus blossom bride.I've had enough of these pushy American girls; I'm going to send for Chinese take-out. These folks promise me that I can have "whatever you had imagined in your patriarchal, colonialist longings." Allreet - M. Butterfly, here I come!
posted by Perigee (46 comments total)

Somebody has issues.
I want Fog. She has spirit.
posted by Su at 4:32 AM on August 4, 2002

Sure, but an hour later you're horny again
posted by ElvisJesus at 4:37 AM on August 4, 2002

All kidding aside, there is a grain of truth in what you say, or is there?
posted by hama7 at 4:50 AM on August 4, 2002

I sent this up as an amusement, but once I started to bend my brain to it, there were a few more interesting aspects to the topic; I offer 'em up if someone wants to go past the chuckles:

Mail Order Brides and the Abuse of Immigrant Women

Russian Mail Order Brides

A report on the subject from ABC News

An interesting message board on the subject on Russia.com
posted by Perigee at 5:27 AM on August 4, 2002

Oh, the site does have real points. But I've never known an Asian girl that's been molded into the lotus flower pose, so I just looked around for the humor. If I wore t-shirts, I would own every one of those. Think I want the stickers, though.
posted by Su at 5:49 AM on August 4, 2002

Well, Chinese brides are pretty common. But this practice seems to span the millenia.
posted by hama7 at 5:53 AM on August 4, 2002

If you want a spouse that's out of this world, you've gotta get yourself a delightfully delectable babe from planet Skaro.
posted by Smart Dalek at 6:48 AM on August 4, 2002

What a kickass site. Angry with a sense of humor. The memoir of growing up Chinese with huge feet is great: "Through my youth, my mother always screamed with disappointment when my feet grew to a new size."

Oh, and ElvisJesus, here's one person who cringed at your "joke." Wrong thread for it, methinks.
posted by mediareport at 7:33 AM on August 4, 2002

Smart Dalek , I'd prefer the E-type Jaguar myself. Much more practical.
posted by DBAPaul at 7:51 AM on August 4, 2002

Oh, and ElvisJesus, here's one person who cringed at your "joke."

Make that two.
posted by lia at 8:50 AM on August 4, 2002

Well, starting with such a lofty and refined subject as the BigBadAsianMama site, it was certainly jarring.

Now, where are the "Type R" Asian mamas?
posted by dhartung at 9:22 AM on August 4, 2002

Is it ever possible to not offend someone? I suppose sitting quietly with my hands folded will offend the anarchist librarian contingent. At least I got my quota in early
posted by ElvisJesus at 9:50 AM on August 4, 2002

Is it ever possible to not offend someone?

I'm sorry, did someone say they were "offended?" I missed that part.
posted by mediareport at 10:01 AM on August 4, 2002

EJ... umm.. maybe if you check lia's point-of-origin, you'll see the smoking hole-in-the-foot...
posted by Perigee at 10:02 AM on August 4, 2002

I saw this like 2 years ago.

*pats myself on back for being so far ahead of the curve*

I find it even more funny because I have a debilitating Asian fetish.
posted by delmoi at 10:55 AM on August 4, 2002

Can't we all just get a Wong?
posted by BitterOldPunk at 10:57 AM on August 4, 2002

Has anyone else read the graphic novel Mail-Order Bride by Mark Kalesniko? It's a fantastic exploration of this stuff, beautifully drawn and perfectly paced. Geeky guy orders bride, bride arrives and discovers her own sexuality and power, conflict ensues. Great stuff.
posted by mediareport at 12:34 PM on August 4, 2002

Haven't yet, media; but having found a sudden fascination in the actual mechanics of this strange phenomenon, you just found my companion for a Long flight I have to live through in a couple of weeks.

Fantagraphics? As in the comic book company? Well... one of 'em, anyway. ~smile~ At least I have a real good idea where I can dig up a copy locally.

Thanks for the heads up, mediareport!
posted by Perigee at 12:59 PM on August 4, 2002

Ooh, Mail-Order Bride. Great comic!

perigee: Fantagraphics Retailer Directory.
posted by soundofsuburbia at 1:46 PM on August 4, 2002

My original post was not intended as an insult towards Asians. It was actually a reference to the common notion(with some truth in my experience) that eating Chinese food leaves one hungry an hour later (I'm going to send for Chinese take-out.) In the context of the original thread, I assumed this would be obvious....
posted by ElvisJesus at 2:24 PM on August 4, 2002

i thought it was funny...
posted by Satapher at 2:41 PM on August 4, 2002

yes , we really must fight this terrible oppression

by evil white men of the poor , delicate creatures

who have been coerced into joining this thing.

i would do it myself but i dont think theres much of

a market for mail order scotsmen.......(sound of cogs whirring)................
posted by sgt.serenity at 3:33 PM on August 4, 2002

I thought it was very funny. People like to bitch, don't let it get to you.
posted by skallas at 3:55 PM on August 4, 2002

If you like "Mail Order Bride", Perigee, you'll also love "Why Did Pete Duel Kill Himself?" Kalesniko also put out my all-time favorite one-shot comic, "SOS," a stunningly beautiful b&w allegory about a woman alone on an ocean raft. Somehow, he manages to work in sophisticated takes on family, freedom, strength and fashion (!) in one almost completely wordless comic book. Don't know if Fantagraphics still has copies around the warehouse, but it'll be the best $3 you ever spend on art, believe me. The outcome of the woman's ongoing battle with a shark is priceless.

p.s. I simply said I cringed, skallas, and suggested as gently as I could that this might have been the wrong thread for tired Borscht Belt humor about sex with Asian people. No "bitching" involved.
posted by mediareport at 4:10 PM on August 4, 2002

Skallas... I take it you retract this former statement, in light of the current one?

Fantagraphics has always been a high quality product, media; weren't they the ones who originally did the 'Maus' thing? They were the comics I grew into when I grew out of Marvel. For the last 8 years or so, I haven't walked into any of the old shops. It would be kinda neat to go back and see what I missed.
posted by Perigee at 4:21 PM on August 4, 2002

Perigee, naww. I see a difference between appropriate humor and inappropriate humor.
posted by skallas at 5:10 PM on August 4, 2002

I simply said I cringed, skallas, and suggested as gently as I could that this might have been the wrong thread

As opposed to the right thread? This is a thread about www.bigbadchinesemama.com. I can't imagine a more appropriate thread.
posted by skallas at 5:13 PM on August 4, 2002

Or perhaps your moral compass is dictated by your own particular quirks of humor.
posted by Perigee at 5:16 PM on August 4, 2002

(Yeah- this is getting to be a burr in my saddle. I'd best just evacuate the building for a while. Sorry to sound off, Skallas.. but this really does bother me.)
posted by Perigee at 5:19 PM on August 4, 2002

ElvisJesus: wild thing. i think i love you.
posted by quonsar at 5:53 PM on August 4, 2002

I can't imagine a more appropriate thread.

There's not much else to say then, is there? The presence of a scathing -- even scatalogical -- sense of humor at the site doesn't change the fact that it's obvously designed to put a boot in the ass of Asian stereotyping. An ancient joke about how unsatisfying Chinese sex must be fits that discussion? If you say so. Felt like an embarrassing lead balloon to me.
posted by mediareport at 6:10 PM on August 4, 2002

well excuse the world for not taking you as seriously as you do.
posted by quonsar at 6:19 PM on August 4, 2002

I laugh when the jokes are funny, dear.
posted by mediareport at 6:23 PM on August 4, 2002

Dammit. Perigee had the right idea. Sorry about that last crack. I'm out.
posted by mediareport at 6:33 PM on August 4, 2002

i for one have never heard any kind of stereotype about how "unsatisfying Chinese sex must be", nor any jokes... care to back that up? maybe i'm just sheltered. i took it as the chinese food-still hungry thang.
posted by pikachulolita at 6:35 PM on August 4, 2002

pik:i took it as the chinese food-still hungry thang.

Me too. Oh well. To each his own, everyone loves to bitch, its only a website, and so forth.
posted by skallas at 7:08 PM on August 4, 2002

ha ha ... Still horny after an hour... Good one.
posted by MaddCutty at 7:23 PM on August 4, 2002

[sarcasm] ROFL LOL [/sarcasm]

Whatever. Even if EJ's little sally were amusing, which is clearly endlessly debatable, it has pretty much derailed this thread, hasn't it? Ah well : train wreck comma another.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:39 PM on August 4, 2002

stav: it has pretty much derailed this thread

No, the reaction to it from a couple vocal critics has. All the more reason to do your bitching in email or just start the metatalk thread BEFORE you derail the thread with said bitching.
posted by skallas at 7:41 PM on August 4, 2002

True : that is indeed what MeTa's for (uh, not the bitching so much as the taking of metachatter about a thread away from that thread (uh, like we're doing now (oops))).
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:54 PM on August 4, 2002

Perigee: The 'Maus thing' wasn't originally published by Fantagraphics, it was done by Spiegelman's own RAW imprint as a supplement to the much-missed RAW magazine. It was then collected and published by Pantheon (in the US). Fantagraphics are the publishers of Chris Ware's Acme Novelty Library, Joe Sacco's Safe Area Gorazde and Dan Clowes' Ghost World among other great books. They also publish The Comics Journal, the best magazine about comics in the English Language.

Um, I now return you to your regularly scheduled bitchfest...
posted by ninthart at 2:39 AM on August 5, 2002

'It was done'? Oof, talk about shamed by you english...
posted by ninthart at 6:00 AM on August 5, 2002

Joe Sacco's Safe Area Gorazde

...and his highly reccomended "Palestine".
posted by inpHilltr8r at 11:55 AM on August 5, 2002

this is a disturbing and revealing thread.

Not necessarily dire and grandiose, terrible consequences for the world disturbing, but..

let us see.

Skallas, and ElvisJesus, consider that the idea of Chinese takeout leaving you hungry an hour later is *NOT* well known. Consider the vastly different backgrounds everyone comes from. Consider that there is a world outside your own,

a place where many people think wholly differently from whatever your experience and life has produced, sheltered or not.

I cannot surmise really, what kind of background you have, but it connects to one of my pet peeves, that of fake poser intellectuals who might embrace the liberal ideas of diversity, blah blah, ad nauseum, yet in fact have never experienced something outside of their little world..

claim individuality and "free thinking" yet do not realize the inescapable influences of their environment, their conformity to their peers..

y am I pissed? It is a light hearted post, but there *is* racism in American society. That you would make light of such a possibility is telling, that you would assume everybody "knows" something is weird or wrong about Chinese food reveals limits in your background.
posted by firestorm at 12:32 PM on August 5, 2002

I am not accusing you of racism, just insensitivity, lol.

Just echoed enemies of mine, and also your handling of yourself leaves something to be desired.

that racism stems out of unthinking, however innocuous. Usually perpetrated by guys, as girls are generally not racist, I find in my experience, unless they are followers or are immersed in a culture with racist tendencies allowing unthinking lapses. (media propagation and brainwashing)

Of course, I am Asian, yet I have lived in totally unracist places. It's just that there is a lot of racism out there, apathy, uninterest, which is forgivable, but annoys to no end.

These more recent experiences have allowed me to see the truth of certain feminist contentions; although I am a chauvinist, have lived in places with gender equality, can hardly care about women's issues, the common point of truth and realization is that white men really *do* run and dominate society. (it seems obvious but I had not experienced truly the impact until recently)

end rant, sorry for so many words. =p
posted by firestorm at 12:38 PM on August 5, 2002

Can I try to redeem myself for posting the initial derailing comment? I loved this, linked on Kristina's press page:

"Rather than wait for perverts to accidentally stumble onto her page, Wong decided to rope them in intentionally. She began by copying porn sites' Meta tags--the invisible descriptions some search engines use to produce results--and pasting them into her own site...Wong has promoted her site surreptitiously in chat rooms for white men looking for Asian women, in online porn-swapping clubs, and in the adult classified listings of New Times L.A....Wong says her guest book is 'clogged with angry perverts now' and she wouldn't have it any other way."

Again: kickass site. A personal memoir, a prank, a political statement and a hoot, all rolled into one.
posted by mediareport at 1:14 PM on August 5, 2002