Scarcity of Asian Female Representation and Memoirs of a Geisha

You’re listening to Burnt Toast! I’m Virginia Sole-Smith. You’re listening to Burnt Toast. I'm Virginia Sole-Smith. Today, my conversation is with Kaila Yu.

Kaila is an author based in Los Angeles. Her debut memoir, Fetishized: A Reckoning with Yellow Fever, Feminism, and Beauty, came out earlier this fall to a rave review in The New York Times. She's also a luxury travel and culture writer with bylines in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The LA Times, Condé Nast Traveler and many more. 

Kaila's memoir grapples with her experience growing up Asian and female in a world that has so many stereotypes and expectations about both those things. We talk about the pressure to perform so many different kinds of specific beauty labor, the experience of being objectified sexually —and we really get into how we all navigate the dual reality of hating beauty standards and often feeling safer and happier complying with them. 

I learned so much from this book, and this conversation with Kaila.

Don't forget that if you've bought Fat Talk from Split Rock Books, you can take 10% off your purchase of Fetishized there too — just use the code FATTALK at checkout. 

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Episode 218 Transcript

Virginia

Well, I just couldn't put this book down. Your writing is so powerful. The storytelling is incredible. The research is impeccable. It's just a phenomenal book. 

You write that from a pretty young age, "I felt the straightest path to empowerment was through courting the white male gaze," which, oof. I felt that. So many women reading can feel that in our bones.

And iIn the great New York Times Book Review of your book, the writer asks, "How much can someone be blamed for their choices when those choices are predetermined by one's culture?"

I feel like this is what we're always reckoning with at Burnt Toast, and this is what runs through the book: So often, beauty work is a logical survival strategy for us.

Kaila

We're taught at such a young age that women are just prized for this thing we have absolutely no control over, really. We can get surgery and makeup but beauty is a currency that's depreciating from the moment you receive it, according to the patriarchy. Like, it shouldn't be considered depreciating, but it is.

And we learn this from like, Disney movies, right? In the book, I bring up my favorite, which is The Little Mermaid, which, because they recently came out with it again, has had a re-examination. And I think they edited it for current audiences. But The Little Mermaid wasn't unique. That was what every fairy tale was like. The beautiful princess wins a prince at the end, and that's the goal. 

Virginia

And it doesn't matter that she gave up her family, her home, her culture, her body, everything. 

Kaila

Yeah, she fell in love with him after seeing him one time. And him the same with her, without speaking a word to her, because it doesn't matter.

Virginia

It's purely aesthetic, what we're falling in love with.

Kaila

When I was growing up—and it's changed so much since then, luckily—there was just such scarce representations of Asian women. Mostly they were just prostitutes and massage parlor girls on the side, you know? Not even speaking in movies. It wasn't really until Lucy Liu that we got a well-known named actress—and that was way after college for me. So growing up there really just wasn't anyone.

Virginia

You do a great deep dive into Memoirs of a Geisha, which, I'm embarrassed to say--I was a kid when that book came out, and I didn't realize it was written by a white man! I was like, I'm sorry, what?

Kaila

Nobody knows this! I've been talking about it, and still to this day, many people are surprised.

Virginia

I had no idea. Why did anyone give that book the credence it was given? I mean, it's mind blowing. And you're right. It's a story of child prostitution and exploitation.

Kaila

That is glamorized. And sadly, it was beautifully written. Like, I loved the book when I was I think in high school, when I first read it. It is just so well done that you kind of just skate over the many, many red flags.

Virginia

So as an Asian teenage girl reading the book, you're thinking, "Oh, I'm seeing myself. This is Asian stories being told. This is powerful." And then, wait, who's telling the story?

Kaila

Yeah, we didn't really think about that. I think I knew it was a white guy author, but I was like, "That's okay." Like, at that age, I wasn't really thinking about it. I was like, "Thank you for sharing our story," because I didn't really know any history of geisha either. I thought this was what it was, right? 

And I was very invisible in high school. So to see these glamorous, beautiful geisha, dressing up in finery and fighting for attention in this seemingly glamorous world was very enticing to me. Because there really were no other examples.

Virginia

it speaks to the dearth of representation that you were like, "Pkay, finally, they're showing us" and it's this terrible story of a child prostitute.

Kaila

Margaret Cho really said this amazing quote, which I'm going to butcher, and I'm paraphrasing. But she said something like, "Asian actresses are like, 'Hopefully one day I can be the prostitute in a war movie, or hopefully one day I could be the woman that the husband cheats on." And she's like, there's so little representation that we would be glad to hold an umbrella behind a main celebrity, just to be in the picture.

Virginia

It's enraging. Since you mention war movies: I was fascinated by the history you include in the book, tracing the development of Asiaphile culture. And we should probably define that term for listeners, who don't know exactly what an Asiaphile is.

Kaila

Yeah, it's a pretty obscure term that's not used that often. But I use it just because it's an easy, succinct way to say man with an Asian fetish. But I want to specify that I don't think most men who are dating Asian women have an Asian fetish. I do think it's a small vocal minority, but they are very vocal and very online. And they are people who treat Asian women as disposable, replaceable sex objects.

Virginia

And this is really rooted in colonialism and in US military occupations.

Kaila

I don't think people realize the deep history of that. The origins are probably because when Western men first encountered Asian women, it was in colonialist situations. Whether they were going there to spread Christianity or during American occupations in multiple Asian countries. 

What's disturbing is that after these young, impressionable soldiers who are like probably barely out of high school, have finished fighting a very traumatic war, they're rewarded by being sent to rest and recreation centers in Thailand or somewhere beachy and nice. Where they found these stations, or clubs, of prostitutes set up specifically for them as a reward.

Virginia
It's skin crawling. That is just a part of our history. That is a thing we did. And I don't think it's well understood, and it completely makes sense then okay, this is how white men first began relating to Asian women. And it has just become more and more entrenched.

Kaila

And Thailand is still a hub of sex tourism today. I don't think there's any military occupation there now, but that industry is all from that time period.

Virginia

It's so dark.

Okay, so you have the Asiaphile issue. You have this geisha representation of Asian women as sexual objects, disposable. And then on the flip side, there is the stereotype of the Asian woman who's an A student, very cold, the Tiger Mom, the Lucy Liu sort of characters. Which is also really problematic and narrow. And those are your options. 

Kaila

Yes, yes. I fell into that model minority stereotype, which is exists because I think Asian parents immigrate here to give their children a better life, so they're very strict. My parents, at least, were very strict and expected excellence in school and obedience to parents. And so I was very shy and very studious and all of those things. And I found my social life very lacking in that way. 

And I did not like being a model minority student. Because that nerdy Asian stereotype was represented on TV at the time in very terrible ways, with the Revenge Of The Nerds guy, or with the Sixteen Candles Asian guy. Super cringy versions. You don't want to be associated with that at all, as a young person. So I really swung the other way, aggressively rebelling like some other people might not have. Most people, most Asians, didn't rebel as much as I did, but I just really, really rebelled against that stereotype.

Virginia

I mean, it's so understandable. It's not remotely empowering. Even with some of Lucy Liu's characters where she's playing like a "powerful" woman, it's a very narrow form of power.

Kaila

Yes, and it's sexualized. Always.

Virginia

So it makes sense that as a kid, you're like, "Well, I don't want to be in this box. I guess I'll go over here." And it just shows how few choices we give girls in general, but especially Asian girls. You've always got to pick a lane in a way that doesn't let you just be human.

Kaila

It's robbing women of multi-faceted humanity.

Virginia

So you were like, okay, I'm not going to be the model A student. Tell a little of where you went next.

Kaila

When I was in high school, there weren't any Asian female role models that were useful. And then the internet started. So then I was surfing around online, and I discovered that there were dozens or even hundreds of websites dedicated to this one Asian model named Sung Hi Lee. And I became really obsessed with her, because I'd never seen so many non-Asians and Asian guys be fans of an Asian woman, period. And she was so beautiful and stunning. But she was a Playboy model, so she was very, very highly sexualized. And I spent many years being a fan of hers. And then I started to aspire to want to be like her, because it just seemed like she had everything I didn't. 

And then eventually, when I got to college, I started to pursue pinup modeling, and then that eventually went into import modeling, which is very niche Asian car shows that ultimately inspired Fast and Furious. But it was not really known out of the import or Asian community.

Virginia

And were there parts of the work that were validating and enjoyable? Or was it always sort of this feeling of I'm trying to play a role, I'm trying to be something that other people want from me?

Kaila

I say that at first, it felt like love. I couldn't explain it at the time, but like looking back, I had such a lack of self-love from the beginning. I think I was just maybe born that way, or built that way. That attention, after feeling so invisible in high school, felt like so deeply validating. But it's just such a temporary hit. And then there are all these girls coming up behind you and you're being pitted against each other. So it's like a cocaine high, you know? It's lasts a day or two, and then you're chasing the next thing. So it wasn't at all fulfilling. 

Virginia

And you become increasingly aware of all you need to do in terms of your own body appearance in order to keep being the girl that they want for this. 

Kaila

I mean, before I even started pursuing import modeling, I got breast implants, which are still really huge now today, but this was the era where Baywatch was massive, and Pamela Anderson was the ideal. And I was completely flat chested, so I was like I don't feel completely feminine. Even Sung Hi Li, that model I looked up to, had breast implants.

So the complicated thing is that I don't regret the breast implants. I like them. But I wish we didn't live in a society where we have to get surgeries to feel better about ourselves, right?

Virginia

You wish it could be a choice that you made on your own terms, and not in response to this feeling of lacking something.

Kaila

But I definitely felt lacking in that arena. So that was the mindset behind the surgery. 

Then in the book I talk about—and this is a little bit timely now, because I don't know if you saw the Love Island controversy. This happened in the last season of Love Island, Cierra Ortega, who was a big contestant who made it near the end, got kicked off the show because she had made some comments about her eyes, calling them the C word, which is a slur referring to Chinese eyes. And she was basically saying, oh, my eyes look too Asian. I'm going to get them Botoxed so they're wider or whatever. 

I think Asians learned that many people didn't realize that that word is considered a slur, and then especially how she was using it, because she was saying she didn't like how her eyes looked.

Virginia

But no producer on the show knew that it was a slur?

Kaila

She didn't say it on the show. It resurfaced. You know how fans go back. So she ended up getting booted off the show. And I don't believe in cancel culture and all of that, but I thought it was important for people to know that Asians do consider that a slur. 

Virginia

It's important for everyone to understand. 

Kaila

But I myself got that eye surgery. There's a surgery called double eyelid surgery, which is probably the most popular surgery amongst Asians, at least East Asians, and it was popularized in South Korea, I believe, during the wartime by this white doctor named Dr Ralph Millard, who was trying to make prostitutes' eyes look better for military men or for wives to look better for the military men who were bringing them back home. And then in medical journals, he described the Asian eye as dull and listless and unemotional.

I wasn't trying to get my eyes lifted to look more white, and I think most Asian girls like me aren't. In Asia, bigger eyes are just considered more attractive. But it's important to know that the surgery originated from someone who had racist comments to make about the Asian eye.

Virginia

Another gift from white men. They really have done so much for us.

I had Elise Hu on the podcast when Flawless came out, her book about the Korean beauty industry, which is fascinating. It was really interesting for me to learn that these standards also are part of Asian culture. And it's not necessarily about seeking whiteness. It's also just a longheld beauty standard within the culture—but then fueled by racist white doctors developing surgeries and what not. And that that kind of push pull is really interesting to me, that it's a both/and.

Kaila

But then I wonder, as we're speaking, is that beauty standard ultimately Western? To have bigger eyes? I don't know. I haven't done enough research on that to comment on it at all, but that's a question that just popped into my head. 

Virginia

 I think what your book explores, and what you're talking about, is how we lose touch with the origin stories of these standards, but the standards feel so important to achieve all the same. 

And I think that's what we see over and over in beauty culture. We get conditioned and normalized to needing this body part to look this way. And we usually don't unpack why we've decided that's so important. And then when you do look at the origins, they're always very dark and racist.

Kaila

We've just seen it in this generation when we were growing up Paris Hilton was the body type choice, and then it was Kim Kardashian. Neither body is really that achievable? 

Virginia

No, definitely not. 

Kaila

And so it swung and you couldn't fit into either one. And then now it's back. So yeah, there's no way of winning that.

Virginia

Speaking of bodies, I wanted to ask you how you see anti-fatness, which is, of course, the beauty bias that we talk about the most on Burnt Toast, intersecting with and upholding anti-Asian racism.

Kaila

It's always a joke, when you go back to your family of origin, they're like, "Oh, you gained weight!" That's always what they'll say to criticize you.

But it's crazy. I was skinny when I was 25 and I got hired to do a movie in Beijing. And then when I got there, the skinny standards in Asia are scary. And I met the director, and then the next day, I got fired because he told my agent, like, oh, she's heavier than we thought. 

But I was not at all, I was skinnier than I am now. 

So, yeah, I do feel the beauty standards and weight standards in Asia are super, super toxic. I wouldn't want to be a woman in East Asia. It's even worse, I think, than being a woman in Western cultures. Between the youthfulness and weight standards, it's it's a lot tougher than here, I think.

Virginia

Was managing your weight something you were thinking about during those years as well? Like that was also part of achieving this look?

Kaila

Yes, definitely, weight was always a concern with that kind of East Asian expectation in place. I will be very transparent to say that I was doing a lot of cocaine at the time so that made it less of an issue, just because not eating is a symptom of a lot of cocaine.

Virginia

Yeah, that's a whole other piece. I think you write about addiction really beautifully in the memoir as well. And I super appreciated that component of it.

Kaila

When I started using substances and alcohol, it just, like, again, felt like a form of love. The first time I did ecstasy. I mean, a lot of people do describe ecstasy as feeling like love, and I think for someone so lacking in it, it was just maybe more deeply fulfilling than for the next person.

Virginia

I mean, as we were saying, working as an import model, it's so validating. It feels like love, and then it's over, and then you're not quite good enough, and you're competing against other girls. And then here's this other way to get the feeling. It just all makes sense that it would all fit together. 

How were your relationships with other women during this time? With the competition so cutthroat, and particularly the pressure on Asian women, that can create so much toxicity and competition.

Kaila

I think it was very well-reflected and illustrated for me in Memoirs of a Geisha. Because that's very much a story of how this very young girl comes into the industry and takes down this older geisha, like the most famous geisha in all of the area is taken down by this much younger girl. 

And from the minute the younger girl enters the scene, this older geisha is threatened because she knows she's there to take her place. And it probably happened to another geisha before her, you know? 

But, the thing with me is, I've always been a girl's girl. So I've always had my group of friends, and that's really helped temper some of the situations. I think I always felt very threatened in the import industry, because I felt I made it there because when I set my mind on something, I'll knock down the door to get in. But some of the girls were there just simply because they were super beautiful, and I felt like they just had an easy gliding ride through everything where I was trying to pitch and submit and get into things. So that always gave another layer of insecurity.

Virginia

Again, this is patriarchy, right? If we're all pitted against each other, then men have more control over women. And it's interesting that Memoirs of a Geisha, which was this very like formative influence on you, was portraying women pitted against each other. And then that's replicated in the industries you move into. 

And in Memoirs of a Geisha, it's not really a critique. He's not arguing that they should form an alliance, that they should reject the system. There's none of that. So it just kind of keeps perpetuating this representation of Asian women. It's all piling on top of each other, and it's so hard to start to see the whole picture.

Kaila

And then you're watching it in media happen too, right? With Britney Spears and Cristina Aguilera, who I don't think were enemies, but they probably became that way, because it was people started gossiping and then you just create conflict.

Virginia

Women are cast into these roles, and in order to hold on to the power that we have, it becomes necessary to keep playing these roles. 

What was it that helped you start to dissect all of this? Because you're clearly in a really different place with your relationship to all of this now, what was it that made you start to say, like, okay, I'm actually participating in a whole system that is harmful to me, that it doesn't align with my values.

Kaila

I don't think I even had any clarity about that until, like, maybe 10 or 15, years ago, when I got sober. I had quit modeling, and I had started a musician career. And then we had a little bit of success, but then ultimately, we weren't making any money. And I was in my 30s, so I was like, okay, I need to find a real career now. Because this wasn't working for me. 

So even then, I wasn't thinking critically about things. I was trying to find my career. But only when I got sober and I started going to a therapist, that's only when I could even look at anything with the drugs and alcohol. Everything is hazy and you could rationalize anything really. 

It's funny, because I do a lot of therapy and trauma therapy and IFS therapy. And it's much easier being sober and and having a support group and walking through some of the trauma as someone decades older than the little 21 year old. 

But it's just so important, I think, to deal with the trauma. Because I stuffed it down for decades. So then I kept having to feel it in different ways, and suffer through it. And I think when you just process the feelings and let them pass, feel them, then you're, they're no longer haunting you and your subconscious.

Virginia

But it's hard work. I give you a lot of credit. That's major uphill work. 

And you do a really incredible job in the book of reckoning with where you were complicit. You talk about pushing some of the younger girls in the band to be more sexual than they were comfortable with, because you were trying to make sure the band was appealing to Asiaphiles.

This is not quite the same, but before I did this, I was a women's magazine writer and wrote a lot of really terrible diet stories. It's hard to look at how we participated in such toxic systems. 

Kaila

Yeah. When you're a fish swimming in water, you have no idea. And it's important to look back, I think, and reflect on it. And I think the positive part of it is that I feel like Gen Z and Z and Gen Alpha, they're so much more aware, and they're already kind of being critical as things happen. Whereas for me, I did it decades later, and there's nothing that could be changed. But if we could just keep having these conversations and look critically at things while they're happening. Right now we're like, doing this whole reckoning where we're apologizing to the women of the 2000s, like the Paris Hiltons and the Monica Lewinsky's and Amanda Knox right now because we treated them horribly. 

Virginia

 How has that changed your relationship with beauty and with beauty work now? I mean, you talked about complicated feelings about your breast implants, which makes so much sense. I'm curious if any of it feels more optional now? Do you still feel like you have to opt in? 

Kaila

I think writing the book was one of the most healing things, which was an unexpected outcome that wasn't the intention of writing the book, I guess. 

And then also, my editor, Amy Lee, is an Asian American woman, so she could deeply relate to a lot of what happened and had experienced similar things. It is complicated, because I still dye my hair. I still like to look pretty. I think what it isn't is male-centered. And that just might just be because I'm older. I'm not dressing like I dressed in my 20s. 

Virginia

You're like, I would like to be comfortable now.

Kaila

But I would love to aspire to be where Pamela Anderson is now, where she just is makeup-less on a red carpet and everyone's like, this is amazing. And if more people could do that, and we could become just more normalized to that, I think that's where the change would really, really happen.

Virginia

She has had such an interesting arc, and I give her a lot of credit, that she's just like, why are you even talking about this? I'm just showing up with my face. 

And I think women are like, oh, this is so inspiring and amazing. And then when you see the male comments...

Kaila

Oh I haven’t been reading.

Virginia

There are so many men who are personally let down to learn that it was all fake. They frame it as, she was faking it the whole time, she was never really beautiful. If this is what she really looks like. "She was lying to us for years."

And this whole premise of men thinking that women wearing makeup is "lying" is so interesting, because this is what we're supposed to do to please you. This is the standard that patriarchy requires of us. You don't get to feel personally betrayed that we have held these standards.

Kaila

I love how they're personally offended.

Virginia

They're like, "But I watched Baywatch for years. She didn't look like that!"

Kaila

She was also 21, right? Women age, as do men!

Virginia

It's like when Jennifer Love Hewitt was was doing her publicity tour for I Know What You Did Last Summer. They rebooted it, and everyone was like, oh my God, she doesn't look the same anymore. And it's like, great, it's been 20 years. She was 17 or something when she made the first one. Now she's a mom with three kids. She doesn't look the same.

Absolutely wild. And meanwhile, men are allowed to age and become silver foxes.

Kaila

I think more and more we're just showing older women like that's normal and not having crazy amounts of surgeries. Like, I think it's just all about normalizing. So we could see more and more of this. 

Like, one really good example is how when I was growing up, Asian men weren't seen as desirable. They were emasculated. But now that K Pop is big, there are a lot of women who are suddenly into Asian men as they were never before. Media representation is so, so important.

Virginia

And I think it's useful for us in our own lives to think like, well, what can I give myself permission? I mean, I'm with you. I'm still dyeing my hair, but I'm every now and then I'm like, are we ready to let the grays out? I don't know. 

It's important to at least name for ourselves: I am participating in this labor. I could opt out. That feels scary. There's parts of this I enjoy because it's fun to feel pretty and I mean that's what I try to do with my own kids, at least. Like, when they see me putting on makeup or whatever, it's like, "I'm participating in patriarchal labor! Also, it's just a lipstick!" They're like, we get it.

Kaila

They're so much more aware.

Virginia

When we do feel like we can opt out of something, that's really liberating, when you can say, okay, I'm not going to. I don't hold myself to the thinness standard anymore. That's not what my body is. It's not what it ever is gonna be without intense, traumatic interventions. And so that one I'm letting go. Other ones are harder to let go.

Kaila

I guess it's maybe the conservative movement, because that's all about controlling bodies in a negative way. Because we've swung towards the Ozempic thin again, which I find it troubling that a lot of body positive icons are like, suddenly shrinking.

Virginia

It's kind of what we were saying. On the one hand it is really hard to exist in a fat body in this world. Everyone is allowed to make their own choices about their bodies. And it's sad that we're losing fat representation. It's sad that we're seeing more homogenized thin bodies. And it's tricky, because I really believe we can't police people's individual choices. 

Kaila

Yeah, so tough, so tough to be a woman.

Virginia

It really is. It's a whole thing. 

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Butter

Kaila

Well, I just finished bingeing this show called The Girlfriend on Amazon Prime. 

Virginia

I don't know that one!

Kaila

It has Robin Wright, and her son gets this girlfriend, and there are some things about her that the mom doesn't like, and then they go to war against each other. It's not really great for, like, female on female. But it's really well done. It's like, more trashy kind of drama. 

Virginia

We love some trashy drama!

Kaila

It's escapism.

Virginia

All right, I'm going to check that out.

Less trashy, but definitely drama. I just finished watching Dying for Sex on Hulu.

Oh man, all the trigger warnings. If you have anyone in your life, any cancer stuff, choose carefully. It goes to dark places. But like, such a beautiful story of female friendship. Who knew Jenny Slate was this incredible dramatic actress? You're used to her being so goofy, comedic and she has so many layers in that performance. It's so nuanced and beautiful. Oh, my God. I just absolutely loved it. Cried through so many episodes. 

Kaila

Yeah, I went back and listened to the podcast. 

Virginia

Oh, I want to do that!

Kaila

Iit's such a unique story, right? Because we're seeing so many reboots and, like Marvel. And I just love an original story. 

Virginia

It's so original, for anyone who hasn't seen the show, I'm not spoiling this. It's in the first episode, she's diagnosed with terminal cancer. She leaves her husband and she's never had an orgasm with a partner. She really wants to explore her sexuality before she dies, and she kind of embarks on this whole journey with that. It's, like, edgy and raw and very dark, at times, but also very joyful and empowering. And, yeah, it's just, it's not a story that gets told very often, that's for sure. 

Kaila

Would a guy ever have sex if he didn't have an orgasm, right? Women are just like, not having orgasms all over the place.

Virginia

Yes, yes, the rage I felt about that. 

Kaila, thank you so much for doing this. This was wonderful. Tell folks where we can find you and how we can support your work.

Kaila

Yeah. My name is Kaila Yu, so you could find me on all social media websites. And then the book is in all bookstores and I say, support your local bookstore.

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The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies.

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