A meringue in the minefield...

As couples go, there's a long standing precedent of the American guy and the Asian girl. I'm guessing we all have our theories as to why this congress has endured over the decades to the point of cliche. But what I want to know is why the inverse of this coupling is so scarce? Asian guy and American girl. I'm probably rubbing sticks on a powder keg here, but come on, don't you wonder?

I popped this question to someone last night while watching Kurosawa's excellent noir caper, Stray Dog, in Johannes' outdoor jungle cinema. She opined that some American women might be wary of men who are accustomed to a more submissive type of woman. Good answer. But I wasn't convinced. I'm prone to think there are answers far darker and more difficult to utter. Aren't there always?

Actually, I could care less about the answer. I'm just drawn to the idea of having tough conversations with less stress and more success. We know there's a universe of tricky topics that are left untouched. We intuitively favor avoidance. Is that self-preservation tactic or just a lazy default mode? Can we agree that the stuff we choose not to talk about is probably stuff that matters very much? We naturally fear that our missteps will trigger landmines, and in many cases they will. But verbal landmines detonating in the company of intelligent friends can and should be tolerated - as long as there are no hidden agendas and a shared goal of enlightenment.

If you're fishing for topics, a good basic place to start is with the democratic prime directive: all men are created equal.

(The World of Suzie Wong is a movie I haven't seen in many years, but may be renting soon. Stay tuned...)