06.03.08
Are Asians hopeless romantics?
I have come to find that in our generation many Asians are hopeless romantics and are more prone to melodramatic moods.
Within Asian media, content is centered around love centered themes. Dramas and mini-series deal with finding the perfect love. Even the content of Asian pop music is exclusively loved themed. While it’s true that almost everyone, regardless of race, searches for their soul mate, it seems that Asians have made an industry out of it–an industry that reflects their cultural obsession with love.
This obsession with finding the perfect love antes up the Asian dating scene. I find that girls and boys both expect the initial honeymoon phase to last forever like they see in the fairytale dramas. Moreover, there is a melodramatic air with which they approach relationships. This can be both good and bad, for I find that there are many cute things that happen during anniversaries and special moments. Everyday things are enough proof of their love; however, when the honeymoon attraction ends, the bumps in the relationship turn into deep melodramatic episodes. And what are these couples clawing at? Fighting to make that one relationship their fantasy love?
I am a bit of a romantic myself, and I do believe that everyone can find their soul mate. But, whether the glamorous and visibly exciting love that is witnessed in dramas and movies can be achieved is another story. Love can be exhilarating in its own subtle ways, and I fear that many Asians expect big gestured love or what I call “perfect timing” love–the gestures where everything falls into place at the right time. It makes being in a relationship, even finding a partner, difficult when your expectations for love are that high. It makes Asians more susceptible to falling in love with the feeling of love, something much more different than actually being in love.
It is okay to be a helpless romantic, but my caveat is to take it with a grain of salt and know that if you expect showy love like that, then you must also expect great heartache because a relationship will not always be about the perfect music and the perfect mood. “Love without pain, isn’t really romance” (Royksopp). And romance is what all real love stories are about, yes?