I’m Asian and married an Asian and I think my parents wished I married a white person…

[Anonymous]

I'm asian. My asian parents often make comments without any malice. You should give them the benefit of the doubt. And I personally agree halfy babies are cuter. Asian babies are not that cute. But you grow into your features! As my asian mom says: you were a really ugly baby but then at some point became pretty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm asian. My asian parents often make comments without any malice. You should give them the benefit of the doubt. And I personally agree halfy babies are cuter. Asian babies are not that cute. But you grow into your features! As my asian mom says: you were a really ugly baby but then at some point became pretty.

As a non-Asian, I assure you that Asian babies are the cutest. You may just have some self loathing of Asian features?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean half Asian babies are realllllly cute.

But it’s a shitty thing to say. I’m sorry OP.

They’re really cute…but I just think it’s because they look like Asian kids with white features and people think white features are more attractive so…

I’m white and I feel the opposite. I think a lot of people saying this are looking down on white people. Most white babies are not cute- they’re bald and bland looking. Asian babies have lots more hair and features with greater color distinction. I think white people start to look attractive in high school.

Op I would throw their words back to them “so you’re saying that instead of the grandchildren that you do have, you wish you had some others?”

Agree. Part of the mixed babies are cute thing is because there is some ‘color’, ‘spice’, ‘variety’ added to the white that has been ubiquitous on tv and media until recently. It is a fresh and more interesting look.

[Anonymous]

1. Your parents are just talking. They are not being serious.
2. There are plenty of mixed race kids who are not cute. They are just noticing the cute ones.
3. In my mid-40s, and of the small number of my Asian female friends who are divorced, most of them married non-Asians.
4. If you did marry a non-Asian, rest assured, you’d get a lot more salty comments than just ones about mixed kids being cuter…

I would be annoyed but I wouldn’t take their comment seriously.

[Anonymous]

I’m Chinese American married to white man and no, I don’t think it is a standard at all. I’m sorry your parents said those things to you. It sounds like the type of insensitive thing my mother would say. I’ve noticed throughout life that no matter what choices I make personally or professionally my mother always finds a way to criticize it and put me down. I think it is cultural and it sucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm Chinese and if parents are anything like mine, they'd complain you should have married someone Chinese if you married white or any other Asian
And if you did the right thing by marrying someone Chinese, well, that wasn't good enough either.

The best thing I ever did was realize they'll never be satisfied with anything I do, or don't do.

However since tallness is a virtue, maybe they're just complaining because they wish your kids were taller. I do happen to have a kid with a white father and my parents love to fawn over how tall he is. Every.time.he.visits.

Whatever, live your life and not theirs.

Because he's a boy.
I have a boy and a girl as does my sister. The difference in treatment based on gender is revolting.

not necessarily. my chinese MIL adores our daughter (9) and sort of likes our son (5). she just can't help it, she is all over the older one every time we hang out together, which pretty often. it was so obvious with the Christmas gifts they brought from their trip to Asia for both kids. so far kids haven't noticed, but my mom notices every time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not sure if posting about race related stuff is appropriate here but here goes. I’m Chinese and was raised in the US. DH is as well. I have a lot of Asian friends - nothing against anyone else but I’ve just tended to gravitate towards people with a similar backgrounds and have a certain comfort level with them. It never surprised me that I married someone Chinese. It would’ve seemed odd to me that I mostly hang out with Asians but then marry a non-Asian, if that makes sense?

Anyways, we have kids now and lately my parents have been commenting on how they have various Chinese friends whose kids married white people, and how their kids are so cute (yeah I get it, mixed race kids are cute). They made a comment about how it would’ve interesting if I married someone outside of our race. For some reason their comments really bothered me. Am I somehow inferior since I “settled” for someone of my own ethnicity? Is marrying a white person a gold standard for an Asian? What’s wrong with being proud of who I am and finding someone similar?

I just wanted to vent a little. Curious about others thoughts on this. Anyone have parents like this?

YES!!! It very much is the gold standard. Not just for Chinese but for most Asians. That's why eyelid, nose, and cheekbone surgery is so popular. South Koreans are worse actually. As long as you have the mixed look, but Asian drive for success and money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean half Asian babies are realllllly cute.

But it’s a shitty thing to say. I’m sorry OP.

They’re really cute…but I just think it’s because they look like Asian kids with white features and people think white features are more attractive so…

+1

ASIANS think white features are more attractive. Black people don't have the same racism/bias as asians.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Np, I find white/asian mixed kids to be funny looking generally. Of the mixed races that blend well, this one is the most ill-matched.

Try Indian and Jewish for odd blend.

Most of the Jews I know are just white people. I can't tell them apart from the WASPs unless they open their mouth or I see their name (which sometimes doest give anything away either).

[Anonymous]

I'm Korean married to a white guy. Our kids have the Asian nose for sure. Their nose looks nothing like their father's.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm Chinese and if parents are anything like mine, they'd complain you should have married someone Chinese if you married white or any other Asian
And if you did the right thing by marrying someone Chinese, well, that wasn't good enough either.

The best thing I ever did was realize they'll never be satisfied with anything I do, or don't do.

However since tallness is a virtue, maybe they're just complaining because they wish your kids were taller. I do happen to have a kid with a white father and my parents love to fawn over how tall he is. Every.time.he.visits.

Whatever, live your life and not theirs.

Lol this made me laugh because it is so true. Second gen Chinese here married to a white man. If your parents are like mine, the grass is always greener on the cherry-picked path not taken.

I have a lot of thoughts on the Asians marrying whites phenomenon but I will just say that I found it hard finding and dating Asians in a non Asian dominant environment because there was so much self-hatred (is a strong word but something akin to that) in the asian community. It does seem the older I get, the more I wish I had married someone Chinese.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm Chinese and if parents are anything like mine, they'd complain you should have married someone Chinese if you married white or any other Asian
And if you did the right thing by marrying someone Chinese, well, that wasn't good enough either.

The best thing I ever did was realize they'll never be satisfied with anything I do, or don't do.

However since tallness is a virtue, maybe they're just complaining because they wish your kids were taller. I do happen to have a kid with a white father and my parents love to fawn over how tall he is. Every.time.he.visits.

Whatever, live your life and not theirs.

Lol this made me laugh because it is so true. Second gen Chinese here married to a white man. If your parents are like mine, the grass is always greener on the cherry-picked path not taken.

I have a lot of thoughts on the Asians marrying whites phenomenon but I will just say that I found it hard finding and dating Asians in a non Asian dominant environment because there was so much self-hatred (is a strong word but something akin to that) in the asian community. It does seem the older I get, the more I wish I had married someone Chinese.

Can you elaborate more on your last comment about wishing you'd married someone Chinese? I'm an Asian who married an Asian and am really curious about what the Asian/non-Asian pairings are like (e.g. what are extended family dynamics like)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm Chinese and if parents are anything like mine, they'd complain you should have married someone Chinese if you married white or any other Asian
And if you did the right thing by marrying someone Chinese, well, that wasn't good enough either.

The best thing I ever did was realize they'll never be satisfied with anything I do, or don't do.

However since tallness is a virtue, maybe they're just complaining because they wish your kids were taller. I do happen to have a kid with a white father and my parents love to fawn over how tall he is. Every.time.he.visits.

Whatever, live your life and not theirs.

Lol this made me laugh because it is so true. Second gen Chinese here married to a white man. If your parents are like mine, the grass is always greener on the cherry-picked path not taken.

I have a lot of thoughts on the Asians marrying whites phenomenon but I will just say that I found it hard finding and dating Asians in a non Asian dominant environment because there was so much self-hatred (is a strong word but something akin to that) in the asian community. It does seem the older I get, the more I wish I had married someone Chinese.

Can you elaborate more on your last comment about wishing you'd married someone Chinese? I'm an Asian who married an Asian and am really curious about what the Asian/non-Asian pairings are like (e.g. what are extended family dynamics like)?

PP here, sure. For me, I realized how much I wished I could share/pass down the Chinese language to my kids and to share the second gen Chinese American immigrant experience with my spouse. On the first, sometimes it really pains me that my kids won't be able to speak the language of my childhood that I used to communicate with my grandparents, now long gone. And though my English far surpasses my Chinese, Chinese was technically my first language and there is an intimate feeling I cannot quite describe when I use my pathetic Chinese. That's an intimacy I likely will never share with my husband and probably not with my kids either. Yes I could enroll them in Chinese school or tutors or speak to them and I have tried but have concluded that I simply do not have the bandwidth or ability to do this on my own.

On the second point, I am convinced that as people get older or maybe come under more stress, they kind of revert to the way they are comfortable being, and closer to their upbringing. People can change in all sorts of ways but mostly the childhood things that bring them comfort stay consistent. I just wish my spouse and I shared that.

It is interesting that another PP mentioned rarely seeing second gen Asian couples. I thought about my high school friends and they pretty much all married non Asians. And this is in an area with plentiful (but not dominant) Asians. Sometime funny happened our generation I think. Maybe too much emphasis on assimilation. Maybe most of us had such stressful home lives with our Chinese mothers that we all wanted to escape and not add another Chinese MIL.

[Anonymous]

I grew up in a very white environment. It was so isolating, I could count on one hand the number of minorities in my grade. I was a minority in terms of religion as well compared to my peers. I didn't know a lot of Asian males my age.

I married a white man, and there have been some cultural misunderstandings. He grew up in a much poorer family that has been in the USA for hundreds of years, lots more drugs and sex, divorced parents. I have had issues with one side of his family being so closed-minded and doesn't interact with people who don't look like them at all.

The older I am, I see how it would have been much easier to marry someone who understood my immigrant background and having parents who were super religious and not into American norms of permissiveness and how it was to be the only one of your background much of the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm Chinese and if parents are anything like mine, they'd complain you should have married someone Chinese if you married white or any other Asian
And if you did the right thing by marrying someone Chinese, well, that wasn't good enough either.

The best thing I ever did was realize they'll never be satisfied with anything I do, or don't do.

However since tallness is a virtue, maybe they're just complaining because they wish your kids were taller. I do happen to have a kid with a white father and my parents love to fawn over how tall he is. Every.time.he.visits.

Whatever, live your life and not theirs.

Lol this made me laugh because it is so true. Second gen Chinese here married to a white man. If your parents are like mine, the grass is always greener on the cherry-picked path not taken.

I have a lot of thoughts on the Asians marrying whites phenomenon but I will just say that I found it hard finding and dating Asians in a non Asian dominant environment because there was so much self-hatred (is a strong word but something akin to that) in the asian community. It does seem the older I get, the more I wish I had married someone Chinese.

Can you elaborate more on your last comment about wishing you'd married someone Chinese? I'm an Asian who married an Asian and am really curious about what the Asian/non-Asian pairings are like (e.g. what are extended family dynamics like)?

PP here, sure. For me, I realized how much I wished I could share/pass down the Chinese language to my kids and to share the second gen Chinese American immigrant experience with my spouse. On the first, sometimes it really pains me that my kids won't be able to speak the language of my childhood that I used to communicate with my grandparents, now long gone. And though my English far surpasses my Chinese, Chinese was technically my first language and there is an intimate feeling I cannot quite describe when I use my pathetic Chinese. That's an intimacy I likely will never share with my husband and probably not with my kids either. Yes I could enroll them in Chinese school or tutors or speak to them and I have tried but have concluded that I simply do not have the bandwidth or ability to do this on my own.

On the second point, I am convinced that as people get older or maybe come under more stress, they kind of revert to the way they are comfortable being, and closer to their upbringing. People can change in all sorts of ways but mostly the childhood things that bring them comfort stay consistent. I just wish my spouse and I shared that.

It is interesting that another PP mentioned rarely seeing second gen Asian couples. I thought about my high school friends and they pretty much all married non Asians. And this is in an area with plentiful (but not dominant) Asians. Sometime funny happened our generation I think. Maybe too much emphasis on assimilation. Maybe most of us had such stressful home lives with our Chinese mothers that we all wanted to escape and not add another Chinese MIL.

+100. I could not agree with this more. At 47 and now with two deceased parents, I notice I am reverting to my roots more and more. My roots represent home, and home is where I am most comfortable with myself.