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Read other letters about this article
1. Let's stop stereotyping and trotting out the old 'yellowface' archetype of the Asian man with no balls and tiny dick.
Paul made an excellent post on how this is not an Asian-man issue, but a "man without principle" issue. Any man from any culture can jerk you around, if you let him.
The parent-excuse is handy. While it's true the parents hate you, it is still an excuse. And it sounds a lot better to you than "hey babe, i like only paying half the rent and having on-call pussy because it's convenient, but if push comes to shove, I don't love you enough to fight for you."
2. Now, as for the parents...domini had some wonderful points that bear repeating. Bullying is not acceptable, and the parents trying to hide it under culture is a smokescreen, and very manipulative.
To the poster who says that the parents are only doing this because they want to have grandchildren who speak the same language-- I call BULLSHIT.
Imagine for a moment the sentence "As a Chinese grandfather, I don't want my son to marry a White Woman, because the grandchildren won't speak Chinese."
Why are we cutting ethnic minorities so much slack for such blatant racism?
Imagine if I changed the race descriptors to this "As a WHITE grandfather, I don't want my son to marry a CHINESE woman, because the grandchildren won't speak ENGLISH." That white grandfather will find the ACLU, NAACP, and a whole slew of other groups camped out on his lawn, decrying him for his racism.
It's really no different no matter who's saying that. And that poster, as well as any parents who espouse this idea, are missing the fact that if someone cares enough, they can learn another language, whatever that language is.
As for the ancestor worship/reverence-- I'm an Asian-American woman, the first generation to be born here, and my parents and I have discussed this. The conclusion we've come to is-- when you're dead, you're dead. You can have 100 sons all praying for you, you're still dead.
We have no patience for superstitions (in organized religion or otherwise) being used as justification for bullying, or as justification for not making the most of your life here on earth. Even if you want to follow a silly ritual, it's unfair to use religion to try to control others, who may not share the same beliefs.
