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I Love My Wife T-shirt in Chinese

www.attractasianwomen.com

Would you like to meet and date more Asian women?
That was the come-on in the recent Learning Annex catalog for a June 12 class called “How to Attract & Date Asian Women with Ming Tan.” The two-hour-and-45-minute, $44 course promised students that they would become an “Asian woman magnet” after learning such things as “How to flirt in Chinese—get way beyond ‘Ni Hao Ma!’” (“How are you?”)

Well, pity the poor, lonely Asian-seeking souls out there, because Ms. Tan’s class was canceled, with no future dates planned and no explanation offered.

So what happened?

“The course got in there by mistake,” said Learning Annex national director Steven Schragis, speaking from the company’s headquarters on East 53rd Street. “We have a number of programmers around the country and they book courses, and there are procedures to check them, but this one slipped by.”

Mr. Schragis continued: “Essentially what happened is, we have a class that we offer sometimes about meeting Jewish singles. And a person thought, ‘Well, that class is successful—let’s play off that.’ And that’s how it started, evidently.”

Did people at the Learning Annex think there was something untoward about men afflicted with what is sometimes (tastelessly) called “yellow fever” or “Asian fetish” seeking the cure (i.e., scamming techniques) in one of their classes?

“I think you are extremely astute in your analysis of what’s going on here,” Mr. Schragis said.

Ms. Tan, who calls herself an “Asian relationship expert,” did not agree to an interview, but she did send a long e-mail on June 14. She wrote that she is a first-generation Chinese-American born in New York City who has lived in the United States for over two decades. She has two online dating Web sites, www.AttractAsianWomen.com and www.AsianSocials.com, and decided to write her book, How to Attract Asian Women, “after lots of men used what she said were ineffective pick-up lines targeted towards her Asian ethnicity.”

In her e-mail, Ms. Tan added that her book’s purpose is to “raise awareness” about rudeness toward Asian women and to “educate men that Asian women do not want to be stereotyped.” She claimed to have interviewed hundreds of Asian women from all over the United States who were between the ages of 19 to 58, some of them recent immigrants, others Asian-American.

“My book is not intended to objectify Asian women,” she wrote. “I wanted the book to be fun and tongue-in-cheek, to show the humorous side of some Asian women’s dating experiences, thus the ‘An Asian Woman Reveals It All’ subtitle …. It was not my intent to offend anyone. My intent is to break social barriers, not watering down the message to be politically correct all of the time to eliminate criticism that would make the message fade away. So, if criticism comes with the territory, I accept that as part of the process.”

“Why are some subjects so taboo that they cannot be discussed?” she asked halfway through her e-mail. “Isn’t freedom the reason why so many people from countries all over Asia come to the United States?”

Ms. Tan said that the Learning Annex recruited her, named the class, wrote the ad copy and asked her to teach it. “The class was canceled due to protests,” she wrote. “While I have received many nasty e-mails from these protesters, I have also received many supportive e-mails.”

Mr. Schragis conceded that he was “quite sure” that there had been at least one call to the Learning Annex from someone objecting to the class. “Did someone call and complain? I think that probably did happen. They didn’t complain to me, but I’m not surprised. It was a mistake. I wish it didn’t happen.”

Was the class canceled to appease the forces of political correctness?

“That happens every once in a while,” Mr. Schragis admitted. “But that’s not what’s going on here. The people who would complain about this course—I wasn’t fighting them, I was saying, ‘You’re right. It’s not what you think, but I understand what your problem was, and guess what? It’s not going to be taught. We’re not fighting, we’re agreeing. We’re friends.’ That’s what was going on here.”

Mr. Schragis said the cancellation had nothing to with Ms. Tan personally and stressed that she hadn’t been banned. “She didn’t do anything wrong,” he said. “She got caught in the middle of something that shouldn’t have happened.”

www.AttractAsianWomen.com

It certainly seemed like an ad geared to Asian-fetish white guys. It appeared in the June Learning Annex catalog: “How to Attract & Date Asian Women.” With teasers like “How to be an Asian woman magnet,” and “How to flirt in Chinese.”

The course, a new offering, was abruptly canceled a week before its June 12 launch. It was to have been presented by Ming Tan, a Chinese-American writer who grew up in New York City. She’s described in the Annex brochure as an “Asian relationship expert of the Asian & American Professionals Network’s AsianSocials.com,” and “author of How to Attract Asian Women.”

Tan says she understands the course was canceled after a flurry of protest from Asian-Americans who thought it was targeting Asian women as playthings. Tan says the course, like her book, would teach American guys, Asian and not, how to approach Asian women in a way that won’t offend them. The problem, she says, was twofold: that the book has a tongue-in-cheek attitude, and that the title was misinterpreted as a catchphrase for Asian fetishers.

The fetish thing, Tan says, wasn’t intentional. Nevertheless, protest e-mails were sent to both her and the Annex. Comments were posted on Asian websites like asianavenue.com and igoo.com. Some protesters threatened to shut down Tan’s own website, attractasianwomen.com.

The igoo.com controversy started when “chungtita” posted the Annex ad on the site’s message board. More than 30 responses came in over the next few days. Comments included: “Wow. That is what you call one dumb ass bitch. I hope she gets married to some ignorant yellow-fever idiot,” and “Ming Tan sold out to Mr. Capitalism…”

Tan had her defenders. “You people have it all wrong. This is not just for white guys,” one wrote. “I was at one of Ming’s events in May and she was very nice.” Another added, “Ming Tan is so misunderstood here. Before you pass judgment, why don’t you read her book in its entirety?”

“Angryasianman.com” blasted the Annex course on his site. Angryasianman, aka Phil Yu, regularly denounces perceived racial injustices. “Singling out Asian women is degrading them as some sort of a prize to be had,” he says. “I don’t see other ethnic groups being targeted this way.”

I ask members of a “relationships forum” at asianavenue.com what they thought of all this. “Aznxtreme777″ responded: “Let me guess. U r an idiot. And u need a bigger idiot to tell you how to rope Asian girls, right? I thought so.”

The national director of the Annex, Steven Schragis, has his own explanation for why the course was canceled. It was his decision, he says. He claims he wasn’t aware of the protesting e-mails, and there was only one phone call he knew of.

“It’s not a class that should have run. It seemed a bit offensive. It wasn’t appropriate.”

And only three or four guys enrolled for it anyway, he adds.