I recently made the mistake of attending an “international party.” At this point in my overextended travels, gatherings of this sort are ones I typically avoid, because as someone who is not here for a hookup, that’s pretty much all they boil down to. However, there was money to be made at this particular event so I did my best to feign interest in the rounds predictable conversation I was forced into throughout the night. I guess I didn’t expect it to be as much of a wakeup call as it actually was. Going into it, I expected the same tired topics from the ESL attendees, but that’s why I was there, that was my job, to help people learn English, no matter how many times I had to repeat myself. What I did not expect was to be swept up into conversations with overly enthusiastic, very young, very confident, mostly white, western women.

I guess now is the time that I should explain that I’ve been living in Asia for longer than I usually like to admit. When you’ve been living as an expat for as long as I have, you tend to start to see things a lot differently than you did when you were a fresh-faced, wide-eyed wanderer. All the wonder and excitement of exploring a new place has long since faded and your life becomes *almost* as routine as it would have been if say, you never left your hometown. Experienced is the way we’d like to be seen, though jaded is probably a more accurate description.

Although white, western women are hardly the only ones who have been flocking East in recent years, I am going to focus on them because they represent the biggest change in the sexpat dynamic. Now before anyone gets around to calling me a hypocrite, I’ll say it myself, because yes; I am (called) white, and yes I married an Asian man, and yes I was at one time a lot like many of the girls who come to Asia seeking adventure. However, when I first started traveling it was under very different pretenses than many women do today, and this was roughly 10 years ago when things were still very different. I am not saying this is a bad thing, quite the opposite actually.

Photo by Luke Paris on Unsplash

The New and Improved Sexpat:

What I noticed when I was sitting across from a 21-year-old from middle America who was nearly fluent in Korean, after having only been here for a few months, was that there were no white men in the group. Not one. All around me were handfuls of young, attractive, motivated, and well-educated women who had just jumped feet-first into a culture they knew very little about, alone, on the complete opposite side of the world from their friends and family. This is not what these gatherings used to look like. This my friends, is a win for humanity.

Asia used to be crawling with men who were smarmy, often stinky, usually overweight and well over 30. Even the younger crowds back then boasted a lot of ignorant and entitled guys on the prowl for their “ideal mate” — a woman who was seen as submissive, feminine, and obviously, Asian. Over the past 10 years, it had become a running joke; the guys who couldn’t get laid in West would head East and find someone gullible enough to marry or at least sleep with them. But things aren’t looking like that much anymore. Yes these people do still exist, and no, girls don’t get a pass just because they are girls, some are equally as guilty of being creepy as the old sexpats were. But there are some major differences between a guy who is looking for the human equivalent of a sex doll, and a girl who is looking for the idealized version of a K-pop star in every man she meets. One is a lot less dangerous, physically, to other people.

When I first started traveling to Asia in 2007, I would get into fights with men on a regular basis. And yes, I mean physical altercations as well as verbal. Any time I was spotted walking down the street in the company of an Asian man and happened to be spotted by men of non (East) Asian descent, some calamity was likely to ensue. Even back in the US at the time, I was subject to non-stop ridicule for my choice of companions, which often varied, but only seemed to be a problem for my friends when they were of Asian descent. Luckily for everyone, this craze has begun to change the taboo.

What used to drive Western men to seek Eastern women was often just sexual in nature, and what made the women comply often just monetary. It should also come as no surprise that the physical trade for these women wasn’t usually fair, aka, being stuck with a partner who would not be considered attractive by Western standards. But with the new wave of sexpats, things have more or less evened out. The women who travel to Asia seeking their ideal physical partner are a lot easier on the eyes, a lot less drunk, and much more highly educated than their predecessors. Furthermore, most are seeking more than just a physical relationship, they are seeking to form a bond and understand a new culture, but this is where the good news ends.

Photo by Daniel H. Tong on Unsplash

Sadly, even though the caliber of sexpats has vastly improved over the years and we are all happy to have fewer creeps on the prowl, things are not all sunshine and rainbows for this new generation either, but chances are, they haven’t figured that out yet. On one hand, while I am happy to see a growing acceptance of interracial couples, particularly ones where the male is Asian, being the experienced (jaded) traveler I am now, I can’t help but find the naivety of the new generation extremely frustrating. While these women may be better educated and have a slightly better grasp of what they are getting themselves into, life in Asia is hardly a Korean drama and the average guy is nothing like a K-pop song would make them seem.

So in order to help, I’ve compiled a small list of things I wish these women knew before hopping on a plane and heading to Asia:

Fetishism sucks no matter how much the other party may seem to enjoy your company. This is a tricky one to address with the new generation because it really goes both ways. Though both parties might momentarily benefit from a mutual attraction now, which wasn’t always the case in the past, no one should ever seek a partner based on physical or cultural fetishes alone. Be attracted to the person, not their race or where they are from. Oppa probably doesn’t really love you back. (Oppa: The Korean term for “older brother,” used as an endearing term, not a literal one) Speaking of fetishism, keep in mind that you are also one. A lot of Eastern guys will appear interested or even invested in non-Asian women, that does not mean they have any intention of actually sticking it out and being your partner. Worse yet, there is a chance they will not respect you as an equal or consider it cheating to be dating someone of their own race simultaneously. Communication is very, very different. In the West, we like clarity. In the East, people like assumption. It can be seen as rude to talk about certain things, like your feelings, and as you can imagine, this is bound to cause way more complications in young relationships. The rules of dating and consent are very, very different. The idea of consent hasn’t really caught up as much here as it has in the West, post-MeToo movement. Asia still struggles with women’s rights and there is a very good chance you will be treated a lot differently in this regard. (Keep in mind, literally almost anything is seen as consent in Asia and guys still have “expectations” when they “hang out” with women) Double standards apply. Boobs are secret. Butts are public. After all these years, this one still troubles me. Any exposure of the chest (like at-fricken-all) will be seen as “slutty” or inappropriate, but feel free to show everyone your underwear. It’s strange because Asia also has a massive issue with hidden cameras and “up-skirt” fetishes, yet I cannot even count the panties I have seen in public. That said, don’t be surprised if you are judged totally differently (more harshly) by literally everyone. You will often see locals getting away with all the things people will tell you not to do in Asia. Life abroad is just like life back home, except that it’s entirely different. There are positives and negatives to every place no matter where you live. Some things might be easier, some things are harder, but in the end, it’s all just life. Things won’t magically be better, you will still need to work, it’s not one giant vacation. You will never be fully accepted or feel comfortable. You will never be seen as a local. This one can be harder than it sounds. In culturally and racially diverse places, it can be easy to assume that someone of another race was born in the same place as you. This does not apply to non-Asians living in Asia. Even people who are born here or are half Asian themselves are rarely regarded as the same. You will be stared at no matter what, you will be judged constantly and simultaneously be expected to speak and act on behalf of everyone else from your hometown. And there is a high likelihood that all of your friends will leave when they get to the marrying and baby-making stages. You are not special. People have been doing this for generations. You are not the first person to move across the world, learn a new language, and have a big adventure. Please, don’t act like you are, the rest of us will judge you. You know nothing about the culture you have studied in books and watched on TV. The reality of living in a different country with a different culture can not be learned from studies alone. I imagine this is a similar experience to having a child. You can read about it all you want, but you will not understand the pain of childbirth until you have done it yourself. Living abroad is that pain. (Or that joy). Men are still dangerous. While the K-pop group BTS may look like a bag of Skittles, don’t forget that Big Bang seemed just as harmless once. No, I’m not really referring to the actual group members, get off my dick BTS army, I am talking about men in general. One of the most important things I have learned from being a foreign woman abroad is that you become a target. Let me put it into perspective: I lived in Philadelphia, the ex-murder capital of the US and never had a problem going out alone. Same in NYC, same in LA, same in Seattle. But after living in Asia for many years, I rarely, rarely do things alone. Sadly, people like to take advantage of people who are out of their element, even other foreigners are not to be trusted. People who you think are your friends are often not and places you think are safe, are also probably not. More people will be looking to take advantage of you or will see you as a threat so please, keep your guard up. Way up.

Disclaimer: As you have gathered, I am speaking specifically about my experiences in Korea, where I now live. However, I have done a good deal of traveling and have also lived in Japan and Thailand and would say that this advice carries in those places too. Moreover, I am not trying to condemn people who have a passion for learning about other cultures, but I want to remind people that idealizing places and people can have very dangerous side effects. So no matter what your motivation is for coming to Asia, please keep a healthy dose of reality with you at all times.