The Asian Mystique: Dragon Ladies, Geisha Girls, and Our Fantasies of the Exotic Orient - Hardcover

Prasso, Sheridan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1586482149 ISBN 13: 9781586482145

Publisher: PublicAffairs,U.S., 2005

Synopsis

A prize-winning journalist and Asia expert issues a provocative critique of the West's eroticised illusions about Asia and how profoundly they colour our social, cultural, business, personal and political interactions Despite - and because of - centuries of East-West interaction, the stereotypes of Western literature, stage and screen remain pervasive icons: the tea-pouring, submissive, sexually available geisha girl; the steely cold Dragon Lady dominatrix; as well as the portrayal of the Asian male as effeminate and asexual. These 'Oriental' illusions colour our social, cultural, business, and personal interactions, and affect East-West relations. This book challenges these images and explores Asia and Asians as they really are, with unclouded, de-eroticised eyes. It demands that we move beyond our misty-eyed myths of exotic difference, and reveals instead the fully dimensional human beings beyond our usual perceptions.

About this title

Product Description:

Race, sex, fantasy and power - these are the issues explored in this highly provocative book. Challenging the cultural and political stereotypes that are still prevalent in the West, Sheridan Prasso offers anecdotes and insights drawn from her extensive experience of the Far East. She combines a sensitive understanding and a strong sense of history in this account of Asian women and Western fallacies about them. Slightly off-mint.

Review:

"A highly provocative book that challenges the cultural and political stereotypes of Asia." -- Elizabeth C. Economy, C.V. Starr Senior Fellow and Director, Asia Studies Council on Foreign Relations

"Valuable as a study of manufactured imagery and the racism that comes with and of it." -- Kirkus Reviews, March 1, 2005

"...An invaluable follow-up to Edward Said's landmark 'Orientalism' - incisive, probing, and wonderfully readable ... the equivalent of a page-turning potboiler." -- -- David Henry Hwang, author of M Butterfly

"...a compelling study... Prasso is realistic about the dynamics of power and sensitive to the vagaries of culture and sexuality." -- Los Angeles Times, May 22, 2005

About this edition

• Publisher: PublicAffairs,U.S.
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1586482149
• ISBN 13: 9781586482145
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 336