Asian Girls and Their "Playing Cute": Expectations or Inequality?
While Seoul and the northern half of South Korea drench in the leftover of yet another storm (after a previous one flooded half of the Metropolis and caused deadly mudslides in Chuncheon), over here in Busan, the skies are clear and the beaches are packed. The only three-day weekend of the Korean summer seems to have brought the entire youth population of Seoul down here, to the point that the characteristic Gyeongsang accent is getting drowned out by the more "standard" stuff spoken up north.
Youth and sunshine in the premier beach town in Korea means quite much...and honestly, it is exactly why I am drawn back here for the seocnd time (going against my standard principle of not traveling to the same place more than once). Unlike my trip here back in 2008 when the city was rained out for an entire weekend, this time around the crowded beaches of Gwangalli and Haeundae were perfect for photos...and crowd-watching.
Yes, crowd-watching, to the single male seeking a mate, can only have one possible meaning. Clad in bikinis, they walk the streets nearby the beaches. Yes, they, like girls anywhere else in Asia, tend to be cold to strangers and unwilling to talk to anyone who would come off even just a little "dangerous" to them. But just looking at them, going about their vacations with their female friends, boyfriends, or families would be a feast to the eyes.
And after a drunken night of walking around the beachfront and gawking at them on the beach and in open-air bars, I have all the more noticed the tendency of the girls to play cute to their friends, both male and female, even in normal conversations. Usually used exclusively to beg boyfriends to buy them expensive gifts (and more shadily, used by prostitutes to beg customers to enter their "stores"), the behavior seems much more common and casually used by more girls in this particular vacation spot.
To the foreigner growing up in Western societies, the behavior is just as weird as it is cute. In the States at least, guys admire girls that are "hard to get": those who give off that air of unapproachable grandeur, self-reliance, and independence. The more that the girls show that they "do not need the guys," the more the guys seem to fall for them. In Asia, the opposite is definitely true. The girls must show that they are weak and need to be protected by a "strong man" for them to seem attractive.
One can only wonder what sort of socio-cultural factors that led to such a huge divergence in romantic desirability. Traditionalists can of course point to Asia's Confucian hierarchy. In societies where women are for centuries lower than men in social status, women need to behave like they can still fit those "lower social roles" if they want to be liked by the guys who still tend to have those traditional male-centered beliefs deeply stamped in their mental psyches.
But, come to think of it, the lack of gender equality in the West is just as deeply rooted as in Asia. While feminism certainly has advanced more in the West, underneath all the ruckus, it cannot be said that women, in actuality, have significantly higher status in the West as they do in Asia (as far as stats on income, life expectancy, or education are concerned). Social reality alone cannot be pushing Asian women to behave so differently.
What about male expectations then? Without the social reality to buttress, I cannot see how the male expectation for females to lower themselves can continue (and more obvious version of feminism in Asia to not blossom). Sure, there are the continued media portrayal of obedient women as something close to the ideal (Korean dramas, with their emphasis on filial piety, are filled with such examples). But as Western culture, spearheaded by Hollywood stereotypes, continue to seep into Asia, will the expectations change?
Youth and sunshine in the premier beach town in Korea means quite much...and honestly, it is exactly why I am drawn back here for the seocnd time (going against my standard principle of not traveling to the same place more than once). Unlike my trip here back in 2008 when the city was rained out for an entire weekend, this time around the crowded beaches of Gwangalli and Haeundae were perfect for photos...and crowd-watching.
Yes, crowd-watching, to the single male seeking a mate, can only have one possible meaning. Clad in bikinis, they walk the streets nearby the beaches. Yes, they, like girls anywhere else in Asia, tend to be cold to strangers and unwilling to talk to anyone who would come off even just a little "dangerous" to them. But just looking at them, going about their vacations with their female friends, boyfriends, or families would be a feast to the eyes.
And after a drunken night of walking around the beachfront and gawking at them on the beach and in open-air bars, I have all the more noticed the tendency of the girls to play cute to their friends, both male and female, even in normal conversations. Usually used exclusively to beg boyfriends to buy them expensive gifts (and more shadily, used by prostitutes to beg customers to enter their "stores"), the behavior seems much more common and casually used by more girls in this particular vacation spot.
To the foreigner growing up in Western societies, the behavior is just as weird as it is cute. In the States at least, guys admire girls that are "hard to get": those who give off that air of unapproachable grandeur, self-reliance, and independence. The more that the girls show that they "do not need the guys," the more the guys seem to fall for them. In Asia, the opposite is definitely true. The girls must show that they are weak and need to be protected by a "strong man" for them to seem attractive.
One can only wonder what sort of socio-cultural factors that led to such a huge divergence in romantic desirability. Traditionalists can of course point to Asia's Confucian hierarchy. In societies where women are for centuries lower than men in social status, women need to behave like they can still fit those "lower social roles" if they want to be liked by the guys who still tend to have those traditional male-centered beliefs deeply stamped in their mental psyches.
But, come to think of it, the lack of gender equality in the West is just as deeply rooted as in Asia. While feminism certainly has advanced more in the West, underneath all the ruckus, it cannot be said that women, in actuality, have significantly higher status in the West as they do in Asia (as far as stats on income, life expectancy, or education are concerned). Social reality alone cannot be pushing Asian women to behave so differently.
What about male expectations then? Without the social reality to buttress, I cannot see how the male expectation for females to lower themselves can continue (and more obvious version of feminism in Asia to not blossom). Sure, there are the continued media portrayal of obedient women as something close to the ideal (Korean dramas, with their emphasis on filial piety, are filled with such examples). But as Western culture, spearheaded by Hollywood stereotypes, continue to seep into Asia, will the expectations change?
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