Hollywood images of exotic, silk-clad Asian women and glasses-clad, mathematically gifted Asian men color Westerners' perceptions of Asia. According to Sheridan Prasso, a longtime Asia correspondent and recent author of The Asian Mystique, these stereotypes do more than make people uncomfortable, they complicate everything from major business deals to U.S. foreign policy. The American entertainment industry didn't invent these caricatures-Marco Polo sent lurid reports back to Europe that claimed submissive Chinese women would swarm over European men-but it has spread the image of the delicate, feminine Asian male and "Dragon Lady" Asian female farther and wider than ever before. As a result, Americans have consistently patronized and underestimated Asians, sometimes with disastrous consequences. U.S. automakers GM and Ford believed their Asian competitors couldn't make a full-sized pickup truck, Prasso contended, because on some level they felt it required more masculinity than Asian men had. Now they're losing sales to the Nissan Titan and Toyota Tundra. Similarly, CIA and State Department reports of the era described Vietnam's communist leader, Ho Chi Minh, as weak and passive. Had his American assessors been able to see through their cultural filters, Vietnam might not have been as scarring an experience as it was. As Asian countries become more important players on the world scene, seeing past stereotypes will become all the more important. "There are a number of areas where diplomacy and compromise, and the recognition of real differences, would help so much," Passo said in closing.

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

About the speaker
 The Asian Mystique

with

Sheridan Prasso
Author, The Asian Mystique