Rawr... first post, be gentle.
I had to post a reply in this topic, because I find everyone's insight and opinion utterly facinating.
A small note before you read... I honestly don't have any opinion on this, I was brought up about as liberally as you can get and these are simply my minor observations from my own little world.
This subject is quite relavent to me as I (Caucasian British) live in a house with two other white guys, and we are all dating Asian girls. One native Taiwanese, one godknowswhat generation Indian (essentially Indian-British) and one second generation Hong Kong (my gf).
Contrary to this evidence, I honestly don't perceve a tendency towards "white male, Asian female" couples where I live at all. I see our household as a bit of an anomaly. There is a very large Asian population in this city (largest Chinese community outside of London) and thus when you walk around specific Asian districts you would
very rarely see a resident interracial couple. I.e. I see loads of Chinese-Chinese or Indian-Indian couples every day and the Asian guys don't seem to have any problem at all.
Likewise, on my university campus I see many Asian-Asian couples, especially the overseas students, hitting it off together, presumably because they share a common language and culture. Disturbingly, there are many who attend and exhibit very poor English language skills and their academic performance suffers as a result... but that's a moot point. Obviously on campus there are a lot more interracial couples because of the huge melting-pot of cultures and backgrounds but I definately wouldn't say it was biased any way in particular.
Back to my friends and I; regarding parental pressure. I know one Irish-Chinese girl who's parents are
very firm on the point of her only dating Chinese guys and has little choice in the matter as they use their funding of her study in England to guilt trip her. So she's stuck with this guy who IMHO is an complete loser (he works at a call centre and his only ambition in life is to produce a web-cosmic. Which he can't even do).
The Taiwanese girl's parents strongly disapprove of her dating a white guy but being the headstrong person she is, dates my housemate behind their backs.
My other housemate's gf's parents don't give a flying fig what she does as long as she's happy. (Awwww)
My gf and I haven't been seeing each other for very long yet, but she showed her mother a random picture I took of myself on her mobile the other day and apparently commented "Just looks like any other white guy...". Slightly more to the negative side of neutral than I would have preferred but I think it'll be okay.
I've only ever dated white girls before and had some pretty bad experiences... even one case of physical abuse. I just put it down to the fact that I was so much less mature then, and didn't even know what I wanted out of a relationship (well apart from sex, maybe). It wasn't the "exotic" look of my current gf that attracted me to her (even though I think she's teh sexy!
), aside from the fact that we've got shed-loads of common interests, it was because she's the most amazing girl I've ever met. So much more open and honest than any other; I never have to second-guess her or read between the lines. I feel like I could just share thoughts with her forever. Do I think it's because she's Asian? No! It's 'cause we get on really well!
Um, well, hope you all wern't too bored reading that... that's all I've got to say for now.