AUGUST 15 — My Australian boyfriend came over this week for a long-anticipated visit after six months of our not seeing each other.
No, he's not Asian. He's white.
Almost every time I tell people that I'm dating an Australian, they automatically ask if he's Asian.
And no, he's not some rich 50-year-old with swathes of farm land in Australia either. He's two years younger than me, in fact.
While many of us strive to hide our prejudices against people outside our ethnic group, racism surfaces easily when it comes to romantic relationships.
Assumptions that I would be dating an Australian-born Chinese are certainly not malicious. But they do show that despite all our good intentions to eradicate racism in Malaysia, we are not comfortable enough with those outside our race to the point that we would consider dating, marrying and raising children with them.
Well-meaning people have also told me that Westerners have very different values from us Chinese or Malaysians.
Sure, cohabitation in Malaysia, for example, is frowned upon and people generally get married without living together first. Australians, however, usually cohabitate before tying the knot. Cohabitating couples also have legal recognition and rights in Australia.
Aside from that, I find it difficult to comprehend exactly what type of values might differentiate me from my Australian boyfriend. We share similarities in religious beliefs, or the lack thereof, and socio-political ideologies. He can even speak a little Mandarin; more than me, a "banana", at any rate.
During his visit here, he became the KL tour guide instead and took me all the way up those hundreds of steps to the Batu Caves temple which I'd never visited before.
He also surprised me with his knowledge of Chinese culture, telling me that dragons symbolise good luck because they are believed to have the ability to control rainfall.
Funnily enough, his visit made me realise how little I myself knew about Chinese superstitions when I struggled to explain whether the Chinese believe in heaven, after he saw people burning paper offerings for the dead during the Hungry Ghost Festival here.
While I don't have a problem with people asking me if I'm dating an Asian Australian, I find the term "yellow fever" extremely offensive.
The label conjures up images of lecherous white men chasing after Asian women, the "Oriental" kind that are perceived to be "exotic" and submissive.
It's such a racist and sexist term that reduces Asian women to fetishised sex objects.
Two male friends have used that term with me - both Chinese Malaysians. One said it in a joking manner after I told him about my boyfriend. The other had lived in America for a while and ranted about white girls not dating Chinese guys while denigrating Caucasian men who dated Asian women, before he knew that I was dating a white guy.
We should celebrate inter-racial dating instead of dismissing it.
However, it's heartening to note that inter-racial dating and marriages seem more common and acceptable in Malaysia now, though I don't have the statistics.
My best friend is an ethnic Chinese woman married to an ethnic Indian man. I also know of romantic relationships among my friends between Muslims and non-Muslims.
Hopefully, this trend will continue until a day comes that Malaysians are truly mixed and no longer easily distinguishable by race.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
