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Comment by bigtunacan | Hacker News Reader

In my mind at least, this is both quite odd and yet fascinating at the same time.

It makes me think though of a Chinese intern that used to work for me. She would make comments about how "good looking" white people were from time to time, and how she thought Chinese people were ugly. When she would see pictures of my kids she would say things like, "You have the cutest children ever; Chinese kids are so ugly."

On top of this there was another Chinese intern who was quite close with her, and obviously interested in starting a relationship, but while she liked him she said she could never be more than friends because he was ugly. In reality he was a very normal attractive young Chinese man. He was friendly, well educated, well groomed, but he never stood a chance with her because she was repulsed by her own race. I found the whole thing to just be very sad.

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It's not sad. People can like whatever they like or dislike whatever they dislike. It's easier to understand if you neither see her nor him as Chinese, nor foreigners as foreigners, just see them as people with different attraction characteristics. Thinking that her preference is sad is the other side of the bias coin.

Let people like whomever they like for whatever reason they state or function under.

It's like a flavor preference in food. Preference for one flavor over another, whether indigenous or not, is not sad.

No, it is not just a matter of flavours. It's a deeply ingrained and institutionalised bias that happens all around the world. You see it in Mexico, in India, in France, in China, in Nigeria: white is pretty. Sweden and Norway are widely regarded as the ultimate in beauty.

I wish I knew why this happened and how to fix it. It's a giant problem that should not exist.

On the great social level it could result is some problems -the same as if everyone decided they wanted to become doctors. Individually there is nothing wrong with such preferences. In China and Japan lighter color meant not being outdoors, meant not working the fields meant someone of means. That's where it comes from and existed way before any modern contact with Europeans.

This seems one sided. Many white guys love a darker tone. What about Brazil turning out supermodels? I couldn't list or count any, but every time I hear something about models there seems to be a Brazil reference.

Really? I can't think of a single one from Brazil besides Giselle Bundchen. And she definitely has some German in her. I think the vast majority of super models are European, especially Eastern European - Czech, Hungary, Russia, Ukraine, etc.

Then why do so many people go to tanning salons? It's a signal you had time for leisure, you could spend time at the beach, you didn't have to work. So its not tanness itself people are attracted to but what it signals. In Asia, its the opposite, being pale, means you don't have to do manual labor, work the fields, so people look to seem paler so as to appear of higher classes.

Here are nine more: http://www.stylebistro.com/Brazil's+Top+10+Most+Beautiful+Mo...

In India there are billboards and TV advertisements advertising 'whitening' creams to bleach your skin to a whiter tone.

Whereas a lot of pasty white folk want tanned skin :)

No it's actually harder to understand if you take race out of it since it's exactly the only reason why she won't date that other intern. This argument is also missing the data point on whether she dates other Asian men with features similar to Chinese men so you believing it's just "attraction characteristics" is simplifying the argument as though race is not some incredible influence for our attraction of others. And where do you think her perception of her own race as "being ugly" comes from?

I honestly don't know if you're white or not, but I will go with the high probability guess that you are white. Mainly because no person of color would ever say what you've just said. So yeah, easy for someone who doesn't have to deal with their skin tone to say what you've said.

The entire culture of America, and most European countries is heavily biased against Asian men. It is sad that her only negative against him is that he's Chinese. Asian men are still having to deal with the fallout of William Hung and every other caricature of Asian males that _still_ show up on network TV because people are cool with making fun of the nerdy Asian guy. So don't tell other people that we should ignore race when the society and culture tells us otherwise.

Also it's fucking offense to relate dating "non-white" people as a flavor preference.

People in other continents have always had preferences of one type or another, whether it was strength, height, color, etc. Who cares why people have preferences. While she, the person in the comments, does not date chinese (or specifically thinks local Han are ugly), there are also people who will only date people of their own race. There are also people who only date Africans, or any other particular ethnicity for any variety of reasons. It's not a problem. You see a problem where there is none.

I hope you realize you're not far from advocating people should only date within their ethnicity and intermixing is bad.

Clarified dating oreference

How could you possibly infer that I advocate people should only date within their own race? She didn't even say she only dated white people, she said she didn't date Chinese because she is totally put off by them.

What I find about your comments is that you are totally trying to erase race out of the issue then saying it is fine to date only _one_ race. I'm confused by that.

And personally, you only want to date people with <X> trait, that's fine. No one should stop you from doing that.

You don't want to date <Y> because <something stupid>, that's also fine. But don't expect not to get called on bullshit like that.

Ok, so I think we basically agree in principle. People can like or dislike people for any reason, when it comes to personal attraction. The reasons can be superficial, or otherwise, but in the end it doesn't matter and it's really no one's business --with perhaps the exception of parents while their progeny are underage, but even then it's questionable. So you think her abhorrence is stupid, fine, we agree she has the right to think her unchoice are ugly and undesirable. I'm sure there are just as many Han women who think whites, blacks, browns, etc., are disgusting, for whatever reason, who cares. They can observe any preference they want.

"People can like whatever they like or dislike whatever they dislike." -- Imagine if the above woman was a white guy publicising his thoughts on another group being ugly. People cannot like/dislike whatever they like/dislike, they are only allowed to dislike their own. This touches on black usage of the so-called n-word, and the white guilt - privilege and self-loathing. People do like/... whatever they like/... , but god help them if they say so - political correctness. You can get away with saying you dislike something like a sharia based culture, but anything more subtle than that and you're in trouble.

It really doesn't matter who is saying it, whether majority or minority within a jurisdiction, obviously she's majority in her jurisdiction, still does not matter. Doesn't matter if jew or gentile thinks a particular ethnicity is physically ugly or ugly in manners, etc. Just don't act prejudicial in other spheres, especially commerce. When it comes to the heart though, anything goes. You can like or dislike any one or any group for any reason and you should not be castigated for it.

You're being a little unclear on what is vs what should be, which are obviously different.

Only it's not a surprise that this 'flavor' in personal attraction correlates to a group of people who are the most powerful and dominant and wealthy in the world: white males.

If you consider the possibility that these may very well be related (and there is AMPLE evidence to show attraction to wealth, power and status exists), then yes it does become quite sad. Because now we see people's personalities and status be judged on the basis of skin color as a proxy of status/wealth/power, rather than merit. And that's a step even worse than judging someone on the basis of their wealth instead of merit.

Of course there will be people genuinely attracted to e.g. wasps, just as there are people genuinely attracted to asians. That's completely fine and a personal preference as you say. But I've met Chinese people who aren't like that and who indeed will say Chinese people are 'all ugly', and any white person is a model. From that and other things they'll say and how they'll behave it's apparent that it's not about a personal preference, it's usually driven by racial (I dare so racist) notions about the world.

It's particularly apparent when these 'preferences' extend beyond beauty, i.e. when white people are considered more intelligent or more capable, especially in a context where the opposite view exists about blacks. South Korea for example is notorious for such racism and the weak legal system which has very very few legal frameworks against racial discrimination.

Definitely quite sad in my opinion.

> She would make comments about how "good looking" white people were from time to time, and how she thought Chinese people were ugly. When she would see pictures of my kids she would say things like, "You have the cutest children ever; Chinese kids are so ugly."

If it makes you feel better: I dated a white girl (I'm not white) who would constantly say the same about white people. Kids that I thought were very cute just didn't seem cute to her. She wanted more color in them, darker hair, darker eyes, etc. We broke up but are still friends.

I also dated another white girl who had not dated any white guys after high school. We also broke up but stayed friends. Then she met a white guy on OKC, but after the first date wasn't excited about him. He seemed like a great guy, so I encouraged (pushed hard!) her to accept a second date. That went better, and next thing you know, they're married and have a kid... she couldn't be happier now.

Our brains work in so weird ways.

> Our brains work in so weird ways.

I think, to be specific, it's more cultural influence.

Perhaps by "ugly" she meant that she didn't like the idea of all the baggage that came with same-culture relationships.

Perhaps she was in love with the idea that non-Chinese meant not being exclusively Chinese herself - she felt perhaps she could open up to another culture and escape her own.

Alternatively, maybe she just had the hots for you?

Sounds like she's been taking lessons from Uncle Ruckus (no relation)

Odd and fascinating indeed.

The whole WMAW dynamics is complicated.

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