This is The Easternmost North, where truths come forth. I’m your host, Will. Today, in the episode 2, I cannot be more delightful to have Cristina as our co-host. Cristina is a first-generation East Asian Canadian, and she’s now working in a start-up AI consulting company as an executive. Cristina used to study in France and has travelled to many countries on business trips. So, I would say she has plenty of thoughts and ideas on the topic we are going to delve into today.
Will: Welcome to join me, Cristina.
Cristina: Thanks for having me. Hi everyone, this is Cristina. It’s nice to be here.
Part 1: The Root of ‘Undateable’
Will: OK, in retrospect, we shared many data, research conclusions and stories in the episode 1. Today we want to go deeper, bring up a question: why do East Asian Canadians have such different dating behavior?
Because recently I’ve gone through so many researches in the field of East Asian Canadian study. And I’ve learned three major findings, or as we called insights, from those studies and articles: 1. Many East Asian Canadians are more likely to date the same racial or even same ethnic people, especially for the first-generation East Asian Canadians, no matter they or their ancestors came from Japan, China, Korea, Hong Kong or Taiwan. 2. The first-generation East Asian Canadians have less dating experience than their peers of other racial background in similar age groups. 3. East Asian Canadians have been found to have less sexual knowledge, more conservative attitudes toward sexuality, later onset of sexual intercourse, less sexual experience, and fewer sexual responses compared with all other ethnic groups.
They’re so interesting and may be the most significant differences from other races in Canada. In short, I want to call it ‘Undateable”, it’s actually the name of a comedy[1]. Do you agree on that? What’s your thoughts?
Cristina: Yeah, it’s definitely a very interesting finding and an interesting cultural phenomenon, I would say. I think from my perspective or from where I stand, I think it actually depends on the individual’s cultural upbringing. For example, some people, when they are growing up, Although they are from East Asian background and they’re raised in East Asian families, but they may have more exposure to the so-called Western or the more open like dating or sexual culture, either via like reading novels or via TV series. For example, Gossip Girl, that was so popular a few years back and many Hollywood movies for these people, even though they are rooted in East Asian cultural background, they would have more dating experience and much more sexually open than the others from the same background. However, there might be another group of people who are from the same background, but when they’re growing up, they have less exposure to those kind of pop culture products. From their perspective, they would be prone to have less dating experience, they have more conservative views in terms of dating and sexuality.
So, I think it really depends on the individual’s cultural upbringing. And what I think are the main drivers or the reasons behind these kind of cultural phenomenon,there are different aspects that you can interpret it. And mainly I want to elaborate on two different aspects. One is a geographical and somewhat anthropological perspective. Another one is the cultural perspective that people are so familiar with.
The first one is actually we all know that the Eastern Asian culture is primarily based on agriculture. We thrive in agriculture for much longer time than the Western culture. And which the Western culture normally thrives In the past few hundreds of years via navigation, traveling outside the sea to meet other people through trade, expansion and invasion in some aspects, more and more communication with the other cultures as well as technological innovation.
So that sets some fundamental like roots or differences in the two different cultures because agriculture is, it requires really mass labor. It needs a lot of manpower. And in that aspect, the male is inarguably physically stronger than females. And back in that era, females are less likely to survive on their own. They would have to be more prone to having a very steady family. They have to get married young, they have to have their offspring to be able to support themselves to earn a living in the family format.
Back for thousands of years, contraception has been very difficult. So that’s why based on all these kind of facts, the sexual fidelity has been very key to make sure paternal certainty, especially for the agricultural culture, especially for the East Asian cultural background.
Sexual behavior, other than reproduction purposes, is not encouraged in this culture. So that’s from a geographical and anthropological perspective. Which leads to the cultural perspective.
In Eastern Asian culture, everything is very practical and purpose driven. Every social behavior, even every act a human conducts in this society has to have a specific purpose. Especially, like dating or marriage. It has to be for reproduction purposes.
In Eastern Asian culture or mindset, the individual is actually relatively much less important than the collective or than the mass, than the idea of a greater power that rules us all.
In that sense, dating and sexual experiences actually only benefit the individual. It doesn’t benefit the mass like the collective or the idea of a greater power. Because no matter who you date and how many people you date, whoever is running the regime or the cultural community just want their citizens or the individuals that they rule to get married young to reproduce, to have an offspring to produce more labor, basically for their economical purposes. That’s why it has not been encouraged culturally.
And last but not least, dating and to have more sexual experience, actually requires more charisma. It requires very comprehensive charms of your personality. This is something the Eastern Asian culture does not encourage, which is dynamic personality.
Will: It’s even a stigma in society.
Cristina: Right. Coming back to the earlier topic, it’s more difficult for whoever’s running the country to have more individuals with very dynamic personalities, therefore less likely to be able to predict their behavior, what they might do in their social life to each other or for the society. So that’s why the dynamic personality is not encouraged, from when we are growing up to when we have grown up, when we have our own social life.
That’s another reason: because people are not so confident in showing who they are and they’re not so confident in displaying the full of themselves. It’s very hard in the dating pool because when you’re dating someone, you’re meeting someone new, you have to show who you are. You have to show your own personality, be able to attract each other.
That’s something that as Eastern Asians, we are collectively having an upbringing in this culture is definitely not encouraged.
Will: Yeah. The western society included Canada, has completed the transition from agricultural civilization to the industrial civilization around nineteen hundred (1900), they spent over a hundred years finishing it. Since then, the old hierarchy has gone, women have gained the right to vote, egalitarianism and individuliasm have undergone over a hundred years of evolution, which implanted in the minds of every Westerner.
Conversely, in East Asia, the richest country Japan didn’t become a developed industrial country with democracy until 1960, and until 1980 Taiwan, Korea and Hong Kong achieved this step. Not to mention that, it wasn’t until after 2000 that China truly began its rapid development. What I’m trying to say is, the whole East Asia region is still undergoing a transition of social civilization, including family and intimate relationships. We have only just run ten meters in the 100 meter race.
In my opinion, dating or relationship or intimacy whatever you can name, is the most delicate and complicate interpersonal relationship practice, compared with kinship, friendship, colleague relationship. You may play your role well in your family, your friend groups, your company, but those are just a part of you. Only when you are with your other half, you are the whole of yourself, both the good and the bad parts. So, carrying out an intimate relationship may be the best way to know yourself. We will bring all the advantages and disadvantages we got into a relationship. Many East Asian Canadian underperform in dating, I guess it’s definitely not a coincidence, it’s based on their upbringing.
Just imagine a boy or a girl born in an East Asian family, they carry heavy expectations from their parents, since maybe the day one they went to kindergarten. Their parents will tell them, the only one important thing is their study, then is your job, besides, they have no time to play, to social, to explore all the possibilities they may have. Because these things are useless, they will be a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer eventually. Then one day, all of a sudden, they are told to find someone to get married as soon as possible. I would say, how would that be possible? They have forever missed the critical part to complete self-identity, to figure out a way to establish relationship with others.
So, I think there’s a part being missing in the traditional East Asian culture, lead to their unique dating behavior. It’s basically about how to know yourself and communicate with others. Being a studying and working machine probably get you much money, but a stable relationship? Come on, not a chance.
Cristina: Yeah, I think I resonate very strongly with what you’ve just said. I think another part where Another mindset that leads to this kind of cultural phenomenon is that in the East Asian society, there’s normally only one storyline to success or to a good life that has been accepted, widely accepted by the society. The society is very practical, because everything is the so-called success driven. There’s only one narrative to what a good life looks like.
Will: It’s a one-way drive.
Cristina: In every parent’s point of view, they only accept or they only want their children to follow the proven way to the so-called success that they’ve known for a long time. They face very large or mass uncertainty in terms of the other dynamic ways to what a good life might look like. They cannot accept that or they cannot understand and that’s partly rooted in the economical or how things are developing in the society right now. Because in East Asian, the parents cannot accept that: when their children grow up and they just want to be a carpenter that they could still lead a very happy and fulfilling life, but that’s not the case in East Asian society. Because a lot of the aspects that contributes to this result, which I won’t bore the audience with right now. The result is that there’s only one narrative of success that the whole society accepts and therefore Parents are raising their children in that way. They’re pushing their children in that way. And everybody’s raised that way. They are not encouraged to look outside the window or look outside the train that they’re on, to explore other possibilities.
Part 2: Floating in ‘Acculturation’
Cristina: If we look into the East Asian Canadian community, we can realize how the cultural issue generates the nuance between the 1st and 2nd generation in the same age group. I’d like to share research called ‘Acculturation and Sexual Function in Canadian East Asian Men’. The term ‘Acculturation’ means the process when an individual moves to another culture and attempts to integrate into the new culture, by incorporating characteristics and values of the new culture into one’s personality and self‐identity.
The research points out, East Asian men have significantly lower liberal sexual attitudes and experiences, and a significantly lower proportion of had sex compared with the Euro‐Canadian sample. More importantly, focusing on East Asian men alone, mainstream acculturation, but not length of residency in Canada, was significantly related to sexual attitudes, experiences, and responses.
In a few words, I guess the 2nd generations who were born in Canada are doing better than the 1st generations in terms of dating, because of a better acculturation.
Will: I agree on that. Speaking of which, I have an old but interesting news here to share. It was like 4 years ago, during the pandemic. It’s CBC TV news, they interviewed a Toronto man called Hanmin Yang, a Korean-Canadian. Back then, he created a new dating app called ‘Alike’, celebrating Asian culture and identity. Let’s check out what he said during the interview.
Toronto man creates dating app that celebrates Asian culture and identity[2]
Will: You know what, the part that he stressing Asian men are rated least desirable male ethnic group in the dating scene made me want to give him a high fives, even though he didn’t admit that. I won’t say it is someone’s fault, or it’s a kind of discrimination. No, it’s true and it’s a natural selection. People will not date you if you are not the authentic yourself. I have seen so many East Asian men act like an empty shell. They tried hard to be funny and sexy but they failed, because they are actually not. Yang is right, as an East Asian Canadian, don’t try to be whiter or be someone you are not, explore yourself and be yourself.
Cristina: Yeah, that is so important and also so interesting and so true.
I just thought of another reason that in generally, why is Asian men rated on the floor level of the entire dating rank, because in the dating culture, it’s also very important:
Actually many Eastern Asian men, they spend very less time in their appearances because they find it very shallow, quote unquote. That is also something that the Eastern Asian culture have been enforced on them. In their upbringing, men are supposed to be very manly, supposed to be very butcher. They are not supposed to pay attention to their appearances. They don’t pay any attention to looking clean, to look good and to spend some time in the gym to exercise their body.
Will: That’s the bottom line.
Cristina: Yeah, that’s definitely not something that are very high in their personal priorities. But that is something very important in the dating culture, because although people are saying ‘do not judge a book by the cover’, but even that, you need to have at least somewhat clean cover, the cover is still important, right? Most Eastern Asian men, because they don’t exercise, they don’t spend much time in their appearances, even though they are in a normal dating app or this kind of app, if they don’t pay attention to those kind of details, nothing’s going to save them, basically.
Another thing is I find this app or this concept very interesting. And I did some more research because I understand this was like four years old news. I want to understand what they’re doing right now. And I found out that sadly and unfortunately, the app has failed. But I think all in all, good effort, right? Because anyways, raising awareness in any way or acting in any way, action in any way is very helpful.
Cristina: Yeah, I think the reason the app failed is not because the concept doesn’t work. It’s actually because the CEO of this company who had this idea, it’s a brilliant idea, but he doesn’t know how to commercialize it, how to really run it like a company.It’s actually that part that doesn’t work.
I actually checked out their Instagram page. They have over 200 followers and they have 44 posts. So at least it means that 44 people who are selected on Instagram, at least they are the ones who made the videos, who did introduction, who embraced this concept. And they are the ones who might also mention this concept to the people around them. At least 44 plus people are impacted by this brilliant idea.
Especially I find what’s interesting with this idea is that as opposed to the traditional dating app that people are so familiar with, like swipe right or left, only judging by a few pictures and some handwritten profiles, this app is actually encouraging people to make a short video of yourself. They’re providing some very good prompts in terms of how you can introduce yourself, some interesting facts. They are in some way helping the Eastern Asian Canadians, no matter they’re men or women, to help them find some inspirations in regards to how to introduce themselves, how to better represent themselves in the eyes of others.
I think that’s already a very big step. And I think it’s entirely a great effort and I hope there could be more actions, there could be more ideas that can be executed.
Will: Yeah, me too. I really appreciate that.
Will: Okay, let’s call it a day. Thanks, Christina, again for joining this meaningful conversation today.
Cristina: No, thanks for having me. I find it’s actually a very interesting conversation, a very interesting topic that are very underrepresented in the entire community. I’m really happy to be a part of any effort that can make this topic more visible to the greater public.
Will: In the next episode, I’m going to talk about AI, artificial intelligence, the AI. I want to know, is AI making East Asian Canadians dating better or worse? Since Christina you are working in an AI consulting company, you may have plenty of experience to share with us.
Cristina: sure, I would be happy to share more because AI is constantly evolving and the technology is constantly changing. It’s a very new area, and I would be happy to discuss and explore more in terms of how AI are helping Eastern Canadian staying better or worse, because it’s such a big topic, so much to talk about.
Will: Yeah, no problem. Okay, I will see you guys in the next episodes. Bye.
[1]Source: Science Direct(January, 2007)ORIGINAL RESEARCH—PSYCHOLOGY: Acculturation and Sexual Function in Canadian East Asian Men
[2] Source: CBC News(May 31, 2021). “Toronto man creates dating app that celebrates Asian culture and identity.”
