The New Trophy Wives: Asian Women
Rupert Murdoch has one. So do financiers Vivi Nevo and Bruce Wasserstein. Why are the West's most powerful men coupling up with younger Asian women?
By Ying Chu
Call it the Woody Allen Effect. When the venerable director scandalously left Mia Farrow for her adopted daughter, South Korean-born Soon-Yi Previn — 35 years his junior — he may as well have sent out a press release: Asian-girl fantasy trumps that of Hollywood royalty!
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"Enter the doll-faced Asian sylph on the arm of a silver-haired Western suit. (Hello, mail-order bride!) The excruciating colonial stereotypes — Asian women as submissive, domestic, hypersexual — are obviously nothing new. But decades after The World of Suzie Wong hit drive-ins and more than 20 years since David Bowie's "China Girl" topped the music charts, why are we still indulging them?
"Because they're omnipresent — and often entertaining. Even now, how many cinematic greats, literary best sellers, or even cell-phone ads characterize Asian women as something other than geishas, ninjas, or dragon ladies? As the object of opening-line zingers like "Me love you long time" (the infamous line from Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket), I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry at the cheeky blog stuffwhitepeoplelike.com, which ranks Asian girls at number 11 because "Asian women avoid key white women characteristics, such as having a midlife crisis, divorce, and hobbies that don't involve taking care of the children."
"Sure, I'm petite and was in fact born in Shanghai, but — to the shock of more than one guy I've gone out with — I'd rather down an icy beer and burger than nurse bubble tea and eat dumplings while massaging his back with my toes.
"Tellingly, most current trophies of choice are far more than exotic arm candy. They are accomplished musicians and journalists, they have Ivy League MBAs and hail from prestigious political families. Why, then, are these women falling for rich white patriarchs? Why be a target for headline comparisons to concubines?"
Daniel Craig and his wife Satsuki Mitchell
Nicholas Cage and wife Alice Kim
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