Book
The Asian mystique : dragon ladies, geisha girls, & our fantasies of the exotic Orient
Record details
- ISBN: 1586483943 (pbk.)
- ISBN: 9781586483944 (pbk.)
- ISBN: 1586482149 (hbk.)
- ISBN: 9781586482145 (hbk.)
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Physical Description:
print
xvii, 437 p. : ill., map ; 25 cm. - Publisher: New York : Public Affairs, 2006.
Content descriptions
| Bibliography, etc. Note: | Includes bibliographical references (p. [411]-418) and index. |
| Formatted Contents Note: | Part 1. The Asian mystique. Mystery, sex, fear, and desire: a brief history -- Hollywood, Burbank, and the resulting imaginings -- Matters of men and country: the unbearable lightness of being portrayed -- "Race-sim," fetish, and fever -- Part 2. Ten people, ten colors. The real memoirs of geisha -- The other side of Miss Saigon -- Glamour of the skies, sorority of service -- Screwing, getting screwed, and getting ahead -- Who's playing whom -- China doll, dragon lady -- Power women -- Epilogue: Demand creates supply. |
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | Women -- Asia -- Social conditions Women -- Asia -- Public opinion Stereotypes (Social psychology) East and West Asia -- Foreign public opinion, Occidental |
Available copies
- 1 of 1 copy available at Camosun College Library.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 1 total copy.
Show Only Available Copies
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Circulation Modifier | Holdable? | Status | Due Date | Courses |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lansdowne Library | HQ 1726 P73 2006 (Text) | 26040002770085 | Main Collection | Volume hold | Available | - |
- Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2005 April #2
Prasso, who has lived in Phnom Penh and Hong Kong and written for Business Week, nearly turns the fascination of Western men with Asian sexuality into a subject of numbing correctness. Fortunately, though, her determination to explore "our relationships and interactions, our misconceptions and stereotypes" doesn't suck the life from her compelling topic--perhaps because she is not above taking readers into the girlie bars of Bangkok and Manila, the personals ("Red Hot Asians") of the Village Voice, the cinemas and TV screens of West and East, even the home of Mineko Iwasaki, who inspired Arthur Golden's best-selling Memoirs of a Geisha. Using this frame of reference effectively, Prasso explains the symbiotic nature of Western fantasy and Asian fulfillment--often to great profit--of that fantasy, the roles that Asian women play and defy in the West, even the dangerous implications of this still-active fantasy upon global politics. Especially interesting are her observations on the emasculated role of Asian men in Western media--picture, for instance, Jackie Chan even kissing a Western woman. ((Reviewed April 15, 2005)) Copyright 2005 Booklist Reviews. - Choice Reviews : Choice Reviews 2006 April
When references are made about an "Asian mystique," the phrase can conjure up fanciful, Orientalist notions about an inscrutable East. But for Prasso, the expression presents an opportunity to dissect and analyze misperceptions about Asia and Asians. More specifically, she focuses on how the West sees Asia as mysterious, while its women are regarded as exotic and sensual. Asian women are not always submissive, however, as stereotypes such as "Geisha Girl," "Suzy Wong," or "China Doll" coexist with "Dragon Lady" or "dominatrix." But in Asia, there are women who wield power as effectively as their Western counterparts. So why is there this continuing disparity between myth and reality? Intrigued by this question, Prasso explores the history of these images in the media and popular culture, and shows how this legacy has continued to the present day. She shows, too, how this misunderstanding and lack of comprehension about Asia and Asians has adversely affected intercultural relations, foreign policy, and trade. This wide-ranging book is as informative as it is entertaining. Suitable for a general audience. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries. Copyright 2006 American Library Association. - Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 2005 March #1
A labored rebuke to anyone who imagines that Asian womenâand men, for that matterâare merely players in some Western fantasyland out of Terry and the Pirates, or perhaps a Jackie Chan movie.Does anyone think that way? Former BusinessWeek Asia correspondent Prasso suggests that just about the whole of the West is guilty of believing that Asian women are geishas, "servile, submissive, exotic, sexually available, mysterious, and guiding," or else Dragon Ladies, "steely and cold as Cruella de Vil, lacking in the emotions or the neuroses of real women." As for Asian men, who figure less in her pages, there are images just as unflattering: martial artists whose butts any self-respecting Western action hero can kick, fawning lackies capable of committing any evil for a little taste of powerâor powdered rhinoceros horn, Asian men requiring such things for their manhood. Prasso makes good points, but she does not say with sufficient clarity that those images, some of which are very old, are really inventions of the media. It is from the media that her most powerful examples arise, and as a reader of pop culture Prasso is very sharp-eyed; she notes, for instance, that whereas the buff Anglo leads in Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle wear short-sleeved T-shirts, the Chinese-American actor Lucy Liu is "the only one in spaghetti straps revealing a bare upper back," looking very much like the Thai and Filipina sex workers Prasso interviews. Liu, Prasso adds, has also played the Dragon Lady in such films as Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill, though less effectively than former news anchor Connie Chung. Prasso's arguments are rather scattershot throughout, as when she seems to think it's news that an educated office worker in Beijing is more like an educated office worker in London or New York than a farmer in Shaanxiâsomething that students of globalism have been remarking upon for years now.Still, valuable as a study of manufactured imagery and the racism that comes with and of it. Copyright Kirkus 2005 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved. - Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 2005 May #1
Prasso, a prize-winning journalist and member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, here addresses a non-Asian audience. She asserts that "we" view Asians living in both the West and Asia as exotic, relying on mostly unflattering stereotypes. We perceive Asian women as "Dragon Ladies," docile wives, vixens, or prostitutes and Asian men as either devious or undersexed and weak. These stereotypes, she explains, arise from longtime imperial adventures in Asia and are maintained and fostered by the representation of Asians in the media. In an attempt to correct these misconceptions, Prasso surveys a variety of topics that seem somewhat idiosyncratically organized: social and marital relationships between Westerners and Asians and among Asians, the truth of the geisha, the experience of a Vietnamese woman who had a child with a U.S. soldier, flight attendants on Cathy Pacific Airlines, Asian sex workers, and Asian women in politics. Prasso bases this engaging if wordy volume on interviews, media, secondary sources, and reportage. Recommended for academic and large public libraries.-Cynthia Harrison, George Washington Univ., Washington, DC Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information. - PW Annex Reviews : Publishers Weekly Annex Reviews
Prasso, a former Business Week Asia editor, asks if Westerners can look objectively at the Eastern region, blinded as they are by "issues of race and sex, fantasy and power." It's this worldviewâone the author admits succumbing to and feeling a "sense of loss" in giving upâthat clouds cross-cultural relations. Prasso's ambitious agenda focuses on both Asian women and our perceptions of them, exploring the historical and pop cultural roots of the "Asian Mystique" and ending with a "reality tour of Asia." Her stories about the lives of Asian women from diverse cultures and socio-economic backgrounds are compelling. The Japanese woman who inspired Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha shares her distaste for the novel's "misinterpretation" of her "flower and willow world." A Chinese investment banker struggles with modern demands and traditional expectations. With the author in tow, a Filipina prostitute navigates a seedy red-light district. Prasso has an almost voyeuristic fascination with sexual mores, and the result is a frank, at times graphic, exploration of how some Asian women cope with stereotypingâand with Western males looking for one-night stands. But when the author moves from reportage to social anthropological analysis, the book loses focus. Self-conscious ruminations, such as the incongruity of dancing with Filipina prostitutes to Madonna's "Like a Virgin," sometimes intrude and distract. In addition, Prasso never really gets a grip on the Asian Mystique's effects on foreign policy, concluding, not surprisingly, that it is "much harder to measure and more difficult to prove." Nevertheless, Prasso's work and travels have opened her eyes, and this book might do the same for others. (May) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
