Lucy Liu's Mia dating an Asian American Man

Harry Mok
January 24, 2008

Actor Jack Yang plays Jason, who meets Mia on a blind date on the show.

It could possibly be the first time that an Asian American man and an Asian American woman have kissed in prime-time television history.

Asian American romance is rare in part because there is hardly ever more than one Asian American character on a show, so it would be impossible for a couple to get together.

Of other recent shows I can think of, Will Yun Lee was getting some Bionic booty with a white cyborg woman on the new Bionic Woman show, Sandra Oh's character on Grey's Anatomy was engaged to an African American man and Grace Park's characters on Battlestar Galactica are coupled with white men.

Like Angry Asian Man, I can't really think of another instance of an Asian American (not from Asia like Sun and Jin from Lost) couple, and especially one kissing, on a network TV show. If anyone else can, chime in on the comment board.

Contributor: 

Harry Mok

Editor in chief

Editor in Chief Harry Mok wrote about growing up on a Chinese vegetable farm for the second issue of Hyphen and has been a volunteer editor since 2004. As a board member of the San Francisco and New York chapters of the Asian American Journalists Association, Harry has recruited and organized events for student members. He holds a master’s degree in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was also a graduate student instructor in the Asian American Studies Department.

Comments

Comments

Draugai wrote on Fri, 02/15/2008 - 12:41pm
So true!
dex digi wrote on Sat, 03/01/2008 - 12:54pm
@miambert890 - I don't think any Black blogs - at least any worth reading - would make the claim that Black people are grossly underrepresented in mainstream American media culture. I would go as far to say that I don't think any Black person actually has that viewpoint. We're all over the TV, news, etc.The distinction, of course, is as you say - the "quality". There's plenty of Black people on television and on radio - but when they are mentioned, it is generally in the context of them being entertainers, athletes, or criminals - sometimes two of the above.Now, if you want to talk about mainstream American culture in general - then yes, Blacks are underrepresented in the "respectable" fields.It's up to you to decide whether it's better to be perceived as a race of criminals and degenerates or a race of sneaky, conniving foreigners - if you'd like to die five minutes into the movie or just never show up at all. Personally, I'd take secret option C and choose "none of the above".
lisalee wrote on Sat, 03/01/2008 - 10:02pm
@ dex digi - just for discussion sake though, don't you think that in order to get to option b, you'll have to go through a period of only having option a? would we consider that progress? if only secret option c existed, but we gotta speak realistically. if we had option c, we'd all be white. ha.
Heroes fan wrote on Fri, 01/25/2008 - 1:09am
Well, on Heroes, Hiro Nakamura kisses Yaeko. Like once. And while the characters are supposed to be Japanese-Japanese rather than Japanese American, the actor Masi Oka is Japanese American. And it was prime time. Does that count?
InfoMofo wrote on Fri, 01/25/2008 - 7:41am
The distinction between the Asian couples who have kissed on Lost and Heroes and this new one seems arbitrary. Asians kissing on TV isn't any more progressive all of a sudden because they don't have accents...Anyway, I never saw the show, but did Margaret Cho not kiss any Asian men on her short-lived sit-com? That would be the other thing I'd look in to.
Harry wrote on Fri, 01/25/2008 - 1:31pm
InfoMofo, I think the distinction is important. Asians (from Asia) are the "other" or foreigners.For whatever reason, Asians as a foreigner seem more acceptable than Asian Americans of the red, white and blue variety in movies and TV. Asian Americans are rarely portrayed as full, human characters.So for a lot of people, seeing Mia and Jason together is rare and a big deal for the reasons stated above and because of all of the Asian male and female sexual stereotypes that are out there. The fact that we're having, have had and will continue to have conversations like this here on this blog and elsewhere is a testament to that.
mlambert890 wrote on Wed, 01/30/2008 - 2:32pm
Not saying you're wrong (because I do think that you're correct here), but the idea that conversations on a blog are testament to anything is, I think, flawed.No matter how outlandish or outrageous an idea is, there is someone, somewhere, giving it serious attention on a blog. Blogs are, by nature, pulpits for the hyper opinionated more than anything else despite pretensions towards actual journalistic integrity.For example, I am sure that the majority of African American blogs still would argue that African Americans and African American culture are still massively under represented in the larger American culture (not speaking of the *quality* of the representation, but purely the *quantity*. As someone who isn't African American, I find that viewpoint mind boggling given how amazingly pervasive "hip-hop" has become, no matter how many people choose to blog on it, but yet there it is.
rebecca wrote on Wed, 01/30/2008 - 4:40pm
i think it's significant that not only do they kiss, etc., but they explicitly discuss asian dating--with a twist. if i recall correctly, she expresses interest, and he declines because HE doesn't "do chinese." he follows up by saying something like, c'mon, doesn't your parents' pressuring you to marry a chinese person make you run the other way? (they had been set up at her mother's insistence) they later hang out as friends, fake-dating to make the ex-boyfriend jealous, and at the end determined that it was worth pursuing for real (hence, the kiss). more than the kiss, the asian dating conversation is noteworthy. plus jack yang is hot.