Equivocality

Sometimes the real world bites you and makes you cynical. For instance, I now believe that any Southeast Asian girl who gets involved with a Western man is doing so mainly in the hope that he’ll marry her and take her back to his country. No matter what she says.

Sometimes it’s completely transparent. As in the case where a traveller eating in a restaurant was apporached by the owner and asked if he’d like to marry the owner’s daugther, standing shyly by the kitchen. At least this is honest. Almost as reasonable is a first date at the parents’ house. A young Canadian man with a cleft chin (”hugely popular here,” he says) was approached in the bar by a woman working in his guesthouse, a woman he’d previously exchanged maybe ten words with. “We go now,” was all she would say. A short motorbike ride brought him to the family house, where he had a lovely conversation with the father.

I’ve talked to a pretty good number of young men who’ve gotten involved with the locals. Certainly it’s common. Most of these stories ended with melodramatic teary goodbyes, the woman begging and pleading for the man to stay, or at least give a definite return date. Quite often nagging and guilting too. Guilt and manipulation seemed to be a preferred tactic, playing on emotions and honour and “face” in that insidious Asian way. It’s the same way that they hustle the tourists here. You enter a shop just for a peek, and a friendly proprietor says “sit down” with a smile, so you sit out of politeness as they make smalltalk (where are you from/what is your name/how long are you staying?) Then they offer you a drink or a snack and start showing off their wares as you shake your head at one item after another (I’m sorry that’s too expensive for me/it won’t fit into my pack/it’s very nice but no thank you.) Finally, just to get out of there, you buy something, anything, because it just seems so impolite not to after the cold drinks and the hospitality and all the time they spent with you. Or the man on the street who begins leading you around and before you know it you’re taking a paid tour you didn’t really want, price negotiated after the fact, all because you were just too polite to stop him at some point and say, “hey, you seem really helpful, but is this going to cost me?” It’s all your damn politeness, that and the fervent wish that these people are good people, that you are a good person and you aren’t actually jaded enough to be wonder how much it’s going to cost you every time someone helps you out.

So now you’ve spent three weeks sleeping with a lovely little Indonesian girl, you’ve travelled together, you’ve watched beautiful sunsets together, etc. but it’s time for you to go home. Marriage is not in the cards for you, because, well, you don’t really want to get married to anyone at all at this point, and besides, she’s really nice and everything but you’re going home to finish your degree or whatever, you’re a cosmopolitan citizen of the world, what do you really have in common with a woman who’s only ever worked in a rice field and at a backpacker’s hostel? Besides, your friends aren’t snobs or anything but she just wouldn’t fit in.

And she looks at you in that shabby hotel room — they’re all shabby in this part of the world — and pouts and says “don’t you love me?” God, what a question! It’s bad news at the best of times. If you have to ask, there’s definitely a problem. “I thought you loved me!” she says again, and you hate yourself but that sterotypically Southeast Asian accent can’t help but remind you of too many bad movies about the War In ‘Nam. It’s a sad whiny question in this moment of apparent vulnerability and desparation in between all the shrill tirades and hysterical crying. And you know you’re going to break her heart — she’s made damn sure you know that — but you have to tell her anyway: No. This is how all the stories seem to go. Maybe there are stories where the hero says “yes” instead, and the scene ends with tears of relief and happiness, and he sweeps her away to his distant land. Do they live happily ever? I don’t know. I have seen a few inter-racial couples living here (”inter-racial” couples! It’s like we’re back in the bad old days all over again!) but I never really got up the nerve to ask any of them how it all worked out in the end.

It’s always the same. It doesn’t matter what you say at the start, if you say anything at the start, even if you can manage to get concepts like “casual relationship” across the barriers of language and culture. No disclaimer will work, even if they understood, even if they nodded their head in the infuriating Asian way that they do when they don’t know or don’t understand but want to agree with you anyway. That’s face again. It will always end up that they thought you were going to marry them anyway. When you’re feeling burned at the end (or not, if you’re enough of a bastard) you wonder if they planned it all along. How much was pre-conceived manipulation and how much was self-deception? Did she really believe that you were going to take her home just because she slept with you?

I know. I’m being unfair. I’m angry. It sounds like I’m angry at these women, these girls. But I’m not, not really. I might do the same thing in their position. I’m angry that our money and their culture should intersect so unfortunately. I’m angry that men just want sex and women just want money. I feel like I’ve lost something of myself by learning that this really is how it works out here. I’m in the middle of an awkward adolescence, and I’m angry at the way things have turned out to be.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 21st, 2004 at 11:23 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.