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Modern Asian women are not demure
Al Gore and his wife broke up after 40 years of marriage
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l Gore and his wife broke up after 40 years of marriage. The guy who stars in The Bachelor reality show broke up with his fiancé last week after being together for a lifetime by the standards of vacuous celebrities, i.e., several days. BP boss Tony Hayward parted company with his beloved dividend paycheck.
So I was not surprised to find readers moaning about how hard it was to maintain relationships these days. “I eventually want to have a child,” said 22-year-old Eva Luk. “But I don’t see why I should have to marry one.” The three guys in the room would have strenuously denied that men were childish had we not all been busy playing three-way Mario Kart on our Nintendo DS machines.
Reader Farah Huq said she was trying something different in her social life: having guys as buddies. Mahjuja Tanzin was skeptical. “That sounds like a nice simple solution except for the little problem that boys don’t want to be just friends.”
Businessman Karuna Menon had a solution: “The problem is that you’re attractive,” he told the girls.
“Even the best young man will act silly on meeting you. Simply distract him. Turn the TV to a sports channel and cook him a chicken curry.” Mahjuja replied: “I’m not making chicken curry for any man ever.”
There — that’s the thing. Asian women are no longer demure, passive things. Take Christyn for example.
When this reader was small, she hacked the hair off her Barbie dolls, sewed their skirts into trousers and forced them to attack each other. Now she’s at a datable age, she ill-treats her suitors. When one guy said, “I love you”, she replied: “Yeah, I love me too.” Outraged, he left her and found another woman — but he later phoned to tell her that he was an idiot. “I know,” Christyn replied.
Modern women in Asia are tough creatures who can easily manipulate men. A married woman who did not want her name printed reported having the following conversation with her husband. Wife (W): “I need a black dress.”
Husband (H): “You have a black dress.” W: “I need a wide range of black dresses.” H: “You have three black dresses.” W: “Three is not a wide range. 20 is a wide range.” H: “You are not buying 20 black dresses.” W: “Okay, you win. I’ll make do with 10. Actually, seven or eight should be plenty.” M: “Right. I should think so too.”
By the time he realized that he had okayed a purchase of five new black dresses, she was halfway to Zara.
Eva said that today’s Asian woman can control men by simply teaching them the “Three Golden Rules of Relationships.” 1) Know that when a woman says, “we need to talk” she actually means “I need to complain”, so just shut up and listen. 2) Know that the word “minute” in the phrase “I’ll be ready in a minute” is a metaphor for an undefined length of time ranging from 20 to 60 minutes. 3) Know that a male who responds during an argument is automatically wrong. So is a male who does not respond. To save time, men should just apologize immediately. And then shut up and listen.
The writer is a columnist and journalist.
