Do you love me, or the idea of me?
asserted
you → love → me
As an Asian woman, this question haunts me every time I enter a romantic relationship.
asserted
I → haunt → relationship
Who could blame me?
uncertain
Who → blame → me
I've been burnt too many times.
asserted
I → burn → ?
And it's all thanks to this thing called "yellow fever".
asserted
it → call → thing
As a self-professed recovered hopeless romantic, I would fall hard and fast, only to be left with a gnawing feeling that something was very wrong.
asserted
something → profess → feeling
Things like a predilection for Asian pornography pointed to something deeper and darker than a preference.
asserted
Things → point → preference
For a long time, it is something I ignored.
asserted
I → ignore → time
I thought I was ugly
I was born and raised in New Zealand to a Malaysian Chinese mother and New Zealand-European father.
asserted
I → think → mother
It was a time before K-pop and Wasian royalty — a time when bringing anything but a Vegemite sandwich to school was considered absurd.
asserted
bringing → bring → school
I was bullied.
asserted
I → bully → ?
I didn't have a lot of friends.
asserted
I → have → friends
And the ones I did have weren't white.
asserted
I → have → ?
A consummate over-achiever, people assumed I must have had a tiger mother, but quite the opposite was true.
asserted
opposite → assume → mother
My parents gave me an overabundance of love and never pushed me in the slightest.
asserted
parents → give → slightest
I pushed myself.
asserted
I → push → myself
It created a strange dissonance when I would visit family in Malaysia and Singapore with my mum.
asserted
I → create → mum
Every day I would have strangers tell me I was beautiful and my mum would respond, "it's because she's mixed".
My beauty was contingent on my proximity to whiteness.
asserted
beauty → have → whiteness
And back in New Zealand, I didn't have that.
asserted
I → have → that
I've since been able to educate my mum on how harmful her mindset was and I'm lucky she is so willing to learn and grow.
asserted
she → educate → mum
Together I'm proud of how we're untangling the knots of colonialism.
asserted
we → untangle → colonialism
For much of my life I thought I was ugly because I didn't fit Eurocentric beauty standards.
asserted
I → think → standards
And I wondered, who would want me?
asserted
who → wonder → me
An object of desire
When men started showing interest I was flattered by the attention, yet an unease followed me.
asserted
unease → start → me
A pattern emerged.
asserted
pattern → emerge → ?
They always seemed to have Asian ex-girlfriends, an interest in Asian culture, and a mindset that Asian women proved superior girlfriends, wives and mothers.
asserted
women → seem → girlfriends
In isolation these could all mean nothing, but together they pointed to that term, yellow fever.
uncertain
they → mean → term
How strange that the very thing I once thought deemed me undesirable, now turned me into an object of desire.
asserted
me → think → desire
Older men would ask me how much I was when I wore a cheongsam, a traditional Chinese dress.
asserted
I → ask → cheongsam
Younger men would joke about me being "slanted" down below.
asserted
me → joke → ?
I would be catcalled on the street that I looked like a geisha or told I looked like a little China doll.
asserted
I → catcall → doll
One boyfriend declared he liked me because I was "exotic but not too exotic".
asserted
I → declare → me
Others said they "just had a preference" for Asian girls.
asserted
they → say → girls
Why did I stay?
asserted
I → stay → ?
Part of me desperately wanted to believe that this attraction could turn to real love.
uncertain
attraction → want → love
I remember the night that changed.
asserted
that → remember → night
A man I was in a relationship with asked me to put on an accent.
asserted
I → ask → accent
I laughed it off, part horror, part shock.
asserted
I → laugh → it
But it broke me.
asserted
it → break → me
I realised that to these men I would never be more than a prop.
asserted
I → realise → prop
…and 18 more, not listed.
The Aporia