The Book of the Study

¹In the days of the small screens and the endless scroll, there arose among the people a saying, and the saying was: Oxford Study.

²And it was spoken in the comments and beneath the videos, as though it were a holy citation; yet the citation was hollow, and the chapter and verse were not to be found.

³For there was indeed a paper, written in the year of our Lord two thousand and ten, by Balaji and by Worawongs; but it was no behavioral study, neither did it count the couples of the earth.

⁴It was a study of pictures — of advertisements upon the television — and of how the old shadow of Suzie Wong was cast yet upon the screens of the new age.

⁵Yet the people took the name Oxford and laid it upon all manner of judgment, that their accusation might seem to fall from the seat of learning.

⁶Beware, therefore, the citation that no man hath read; for it is a snare, and it taketh prey.

¹There are matters which the meme rideth upon, and they are not lies; but neither are they the whole truth.

²For the chroniclers of Pew did write, in the year two thousand and fifteen, that of every hundred newly-wedded Asian women, six and thirty had married outside their people; but of every hundred newly-wedded Asian men, only one and twenty had done so.

³And among those born within the land, the number rose to six and forty; but among those who had come from afar, it was only four and twenty.

⁴Thus the asymmetry is real. But the asymmetry is not a soul; it is a number, and it knoweth nothing of the heart of any one bride or any one groom.

¹Long before the meme was uttered, the soil was prepared.

²There were laws against marriage between the races, and these laws fell unevenly upon the peoples of the East.

³There were wars in distant lands, and there were the brides of war, and they came across the sea.

⁴There were pictures upon the page and upon the screen — of the white man as savior, and of the woman of the East as soft and yielding, and of the man of the East as faint of voice — and these pictures were taught to children who became men, and to men who became fathers.

⁵The meme is not the seed of this thing. It is but a late and bitter fruit.

¹In the marketplaces of the modern courting — the apps, the profiles, the swiping of fingers — there is a hierarchy, and it is gendered.

²The Asian man is oft excluded; the Asian woman, less so; the white man standeth in a place of comparative ease.

³Yet this hierarchy is not one preference, but many, layered each upon each like robes upon a king.

⁴And the marketplace is not the marriage; nor is the swipe the soul.

⁵He that confuseth the one with the other shall speak much, and know little.

¹There are those who teach that the Asian woman desireth the white man for his standing, or for her own self-contempt; and they call this knowledge.

²But behold, in the year two thousand and twenty-four, a measure was taken of two hundred and seven Asian women in America, and the mean of their hearts was weighed.

³And it was found that their highest attraction was unto Asian men, and their lowest unto white men — the opposite of what the elder studies had said.

⁴Then was it seen that the heart is not fixed, and that what was true in one season cannot be spoken of every season.

⁵Internalized contempt did sway some toward whiteness; resistance and pride did draw others toward men of color; and many, in the end, loved whom they loved.

¹Some have said: behold, the white husband ruleth the Asian wife within her own walls.

²But Han, who searched the great survey, found that Asian women paired with white men reported no less voice in the choices of their household than Asian women paired with Asian men.

³Symbolic power and household power are not the same kingdom, and they are not measured by the same rod.

⁴Be slow, therefore, to read the chart upon the wall as the gospel of every kitchen and every bed.

¹There be many witnesses: the marriage register, the dating app, the survey, and the interview.

²Each speaketh in its own tongue, and none speaketh for all.

³The register counteth weddings, not desires; the app counteth swipes, not unions; the survey counteth answers, not lives; the interview hearkeneth deeply, but only to a few.

⁴Whosoever taketh one witness and maketh it the verdict, the same shall stumble in the dark.

¹Thou shalt separate the citation from the meme.

²Thou shalt name the unit of thy measure: be it newlyweds, or messages, or words spoken in interview.

³Thou shalt not flatten the East into one people; for Asia is many, and her tongues are many.

⁴Thou shalt hold structure and agency together, denying neither the hierarchy nor the heart.

⁵Thou shalt not use the meme as if it were neutral; for even in jest it carrieth an old harm.

⁶Thou shalt not reduce a person to a pattern, nor a couple to a chart.

¹The meme is a distortion built upon a partial truth.

²The partial truth is that asymmetries exist, and that they were not made in a day.

³The distortion is the false citation, the flattened people, the single motive, and the laughter that is also a wound.

⁴Go, then, and read with care; and speak with care; and love with care.

⁵And let not the prestige of a borrowed name pass for the wisdom of an honest study.