Being Australian born and Asian you just become desensitized to all the racist advertising and media that surrounds you. On television you see the usual Ken Jeong archetypes, delving to the lowest stereotypes for money and laughs. Media rarely featured Asian men and if it it’d be one of those Ken Jeong/William Hung types selling themselves and their communities out. You just eventually accept it, that as an Asian guy, you can only ever be the joke. If you speak out against it, well then you’re going to get the sensitive tag applied on you instantly, for not being able to ‘take a joke’. Hell, even when I went to eat some Vietnamese food once in Australia, I still had to see some stupid logos depicting a slit eyed Asian man with a strawhat.

Anyway enough about what happens in the West, what happened in the East is what struck more deeply with me. I mean there’s more advertising featuring Asians in general within Asian countries, but there’s still a large glut of Asian media and advertising that feature predominantly White models. It goes with that whole colonised mentality that White products are superior and it’s a pretty sad sight to see but most people are generally too busy to do anything except make a passing disgruntled comment.

One night when I was walking down the streets of Nanjing in China, I was struck with a weird sight of an advertisement for engagement rings, featuring a White male with an Asian women.

At first, I was just a bit shocked but I did not give it much thought. However, due to my daily plans, I had to walk past that advertisement nearly daily and eventually one night I just took a picture. Thinking it was just an one off advertisment. A month later, I was in Taipei and just walking down the street with a mate and lo and behold…another similar advertisement.

Like, I don’t get it why engagement rings? Are these marketers saying that the local men just aren’t good enough to buy their products for their partners? Or that Asian men are just not good enough for Asian women? I don’t know but I left Asia and went back to Australia to experience racist media that I was used to.

Perhaps there are even more advertisements related to weddings in Asia, with the missing Asian male. I’m not saying interracial marriage is a bad thing, but it is really odd, really really odd, that such advertisements exist in countries where White people are such a small minority. I mean, I have yet to see an engagement ring/marriage ad featuring an Asian men with a White women in the West, perhaps it exists and if it does, I’d love to see it.