New Man in Town

Part II

By Shiree McCarver

Just Because He Looks And Quacks Like A Duck
Doesn't Mean He's A Duck

Getting to know about Asian men and their cultures I discovered men who had masculine, yet sometimes feminine features with an open mind.

There is no mistaking if Asian men are male or female once you’re in their quiet presence. When they speak, your stomach flutters and your chest vibrate. They don’t speak just to hear themselves, they make each word count and it’s not just the words, it’s the sounds.

I was dazzled by deep masculine voices coming out of men thin as a reed, most shorter than an average American male, many weighing about a buck fifty soaking wet. That same man can be seen carrying his aging mother or grandmother on his back for miles just to save her from any added pains.

Asian entertainers are some of the hardest working people in their craft. Yet they do it for minimum pay in comparison to what American entertainers are paid

Asian men take their role as a male member of their household—no matter if the first son or third son—serious. There is nothing feminine in this manner of man. I have found Japanese men to be some of the most Alpha men in society. But because of their polite and visually unassuming nature, they are assumed docile and weak.

Japanese men have a combination of brains and strength. Because they grow up in a society focused on self-discipline, they are harder on themselves than anyone else could ever be on them.

Why not make these men romantic leads? Knowing all I know about them now, I can’t think how we managed to neglect noticing them for so long.  

Most Asian men still live in male dominated societies and when it comes to careers I may rebuke their behavior because in my family the women had to be the head of household. Unfortunately, this is found in a lot of African American households. I’m not saying all, because even in Asian cultures the males usually has no association with his previous family once he has begun another. Their reasoning is because it might confuse the children once the custodial parent remarries and the child needs a precise disciplinary model to emulate.

Many women, especially African American, are taking care of their households alone. Because of this, we have been deemed strong and confrontational and that is the stereotyping they have of us that we must dispel.

As a writer, I make my heroines strong women, I give them vulnerabilities and emotional defects that allow the Asian male character to beat his chest and stake his claim.

I personally have no desire to be put in the position to assume the male role in my relationships. It’s nice to find a culture of men who have no desire to give up their roles as men. They are so assured by it that they can embrace their feminine side and share it with other males without doubting their sexuality, for they believe it’s not their duty, but their honor to be the “man of the house.”

This is a strength that is so instilled in them, they manage to do what is expected of them as men even when the marriage is not a love match, but arranged by the head of their household.
Of course, all is not rosy in any society. For in the midst of all the good, they are still men with faults and weaknesses. So when you write about them as leads, don’t idolize them. Make them have flaws and even though their society may have high expectations, not all are able to live up to those expectations. Remember when you write fiction, the same rule applies as in real life if you want to make a realistic Asian male character.

Give your character some dislikeable characteristics that that slowly change in the presence of the female character’s influence on him and his life.

Discover the layers of your Asian heroes when you write about them as you would if you were dating them in the real world. You don’t have to put everything you know about them or their culture in the book, but knowing it will make the reader become more emotionally invested because knowing your Asian male’s history will make his actions and words more realistic.
Even with good intentions, if you don’t do the homework on your Asian male character, you will find yourself trying to dispel myths in your writing. It will read like a checklist of things you’re trying to show by using your characters to dispel assumptions.

The worse thing is for a published writer to forever put in print your stereotypical idealism without realizing you’ve done it, only to have someone who knows better set you straight on the matter. Or you realize it yourself when you finally do your homework for the next book featuring an Asian male lead.

For instance...being an Asian male isn’t a given that he can do martial arts. You will find more Asian men better at playing soccer than being able to do martial arts. So do your homework on the culture and your fictional hero’s abilities. He is his own man and each man is different. Listen to him and don’t try to write him to fit your needs but write the story to fit who he is.

The one thing I had going for me when I started writing books featuring Asian men is my personal love for these men and their cultures in general. I still may not be able to tell Asian cultures apart at first glance, but because of my love I can now decipher masculinity beyond the physical obviousness that I use to believe represented a masculine man in and out of my fictional stories.

 

Alabama native and Indie Author Shiree McCarver’s Asian leading men have started to fill a much needed void of diversity in our romantic reads.  She and her characters have boldly gone where no one has dared to go before in endearing stories featuring culturally diverse characters in romantic settings. Being an avid reader of romance Ms. McCarver decided to write the type of books she felt were missing from today’s romantic genres. It's this process her being recognized as the first author to write an Elizabethan romance featuring and African woman in an interracial relationship with an English royal.  She has also become the first author to pen a story about an older African American woman and a younger Japanese pop star in modern day Japan, and when we thought she was done, she surprised some and stunned others by writing a story featuring a transgendered Japanese male as the romantic lead. Ms. McCarver has written beautiful heart touching tales of love and she makes it work in the most seemingly impossible character pairings.  No matter who you are you will be able to relate to the only thing that matters in a true romantic read; the developing love story between the characters.

Shiree loves hearing from her readers!

E-mail:  shireemccarver@yahoo.com
More information and fun stuff from this author including sample chapters of her books can be found at: http://www.shireemccarver.com