‘Modern Love Podcast’: What Does It Mean to Be a Kept Woman?

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From “The New York Times,” I’m Anna Martin. This is “Modern Love.” As I’ve gotten older, I’ve started talking more and more with my mom about her life and about her relationship with my dad. Something she’s opened up about recently is how complicated it’s been to build their life together.

My mom is Chinese, first-generation American, and my dad is a good old Irish Catholic boy from Pittsburgh. Still, they made a choice to be with each other. And over 32 years of marriage, they figured some of this stuff out, but there’s still lots they wrestle with.

That’s why I’m so drawn to today’s essay. Deanna Fei is Chinese-American, and when a white guy fell for her, she, just like my mom, had to ask herself, was their connection strong enough to work through their differences?

Deanna Fei, I’ve so been looking forward to this conversation. Welcome to “Modern Love.”

Thank you so much for having me.

So your “Modern Love” essay is full of these vivid scenes of you in your 20s, living in Shanghai, and it begins with you and your boyfriend on a date pretty early on in your relationship. It’s a beautiful night in the French Quarter of Shanghai, but then something happens that really throws you. Can you read the beginning paragraph of your essay for me?

Sure. “One balmy evening in Shanghai, my boyfriend and I were strolling home from dinner when two boozy blond men called to us. We stopped, expecting a plea for directions. The men leered at me and grinned at my boyfriend.

‘Where’s the party?’ they asked jovially. ‘You know, Chinese girls, where can we get one of these?’ They meant me. My boyfriend cursed at them. He held me close as we crossed the street, but I dropped his hand.

For the six months we’d been together, we had endured more than our share of stares from locals and Westerners and everyone in between. Some of those stares had been curious, some smug, and others hostile, but nothing had been as flagrant as this.

I felt as if those men had seen the truth while what we knew of ourselves was a sham. He was no longer the boyfriend whose home I shared, the journalist whose dedication and drive kept me inspired, the man who scratched my back through entire seasons of ‘The Sopranos.’ In that moment, he was just a laowai, another foreigner in China taking home an Asian woman like a souvenir.”

So this night out clearly takes a turn. What did it mean to you that those men saw your boyfriend as a laowai?

Well, it basically meant that they recognized him as a fellow white man. They assumed that he, as a foreigner, was there to make money and pick up Asian girls, and I looked to them like just another Chinese girl, like a fetish object, something that could just be picked up and dropped.

How did it feel when those men pointed to you and talked to your boyfriend in that way about you?

I think I felt like something subhuman but also like they had exposed something that I was trying to run away from.

Mhm.

And I think I dropped my boyfriend’s hand because it just felt like, well, if I push him away, then I don’t have to be seen in that light anymore, and I can just be me. I don’t have to be seen as an appendage of this white man in Shanghai.

When you say you felt subhuman, which is such a visceral and such a deep feeling, had you ever felt like that before?

Yes. I mean, it was a feeling that was very familiar to me growing up in a neighborhood where my sister and I had to run from neighborhood boys who threw sticks at us and called us racial slurs. I mean, I experienced a lot of sexual harassment from the time I was 11, in Queens in New York City, in places where you would think that diversity would protect you, but among my Asian-American girlfriends and I, that was not the case.

Mhm.

And our education system certainly didn’t value the language of my family and my ancestors. I mean, they actually forced my parents to stop speaking Chinese to me as soon as I started preschool.

Wow.

So I lost my native tongue and my connection to my relatives and my own grandmother.

Wow. So when those men speak to your boyfriend about you, they don’t even speak directly to you.

Right.

When they speak to your boyfriend about you, all of this, it sounds like it comes flooding back it came to you in this moment.

It came flooding back.

And you dropped his hand not just because of this moment — because of all the moments before.

Yes. It was as if all the ways that I had been made to feel like something other as an Asian woman were all rushing at me —

Oof.

— and made so explicit in the way that these men talked to my boyfriend as if I was not a living, breathing, cognizant human being as well.

That is so much to have to navigate in one moment. I want to back up for a second. How did you end up in Shanghai in the first place, before you met your boyfriend?

I was in Shanghai researching my first novel, which was about a Chinese-American family of very strong women who reunite to do a tour of China together for the first time.

Wow.

And they uncover family secrets and family history along the way, including the role of their own grandmother in the Chinese feminist movement. And all of this was really revolutionary to me in terms of my own thinking about my identity and my family, and also just having a sense of I’m really exploring this and reclaiming some of this history for myself. So I received a Fulbright award to go to China and just travel to all the places that were on my character’s itinerary and seeing all the places through their eyes.

What’s your life like at the time?

In my life in China, I was so used to navigating these very thorny lines between are you Chinese or are you American? Are you local or are you foreigner? Can you speak Chinese or can you not?

And I was always in between, and I would literally have experiences where I would be with some fellow American Fulbrighter and going to some gallery or something like that, and sometimes a guard would literally put their arm between me and my friend and say like, OK, well, you can go, but you cannot.

You have to stay back.

Right, exactly. And so I would get taken for the tour guide or the translator or sometimes the prostitute if we were at a bar, because that was just the way the scene was in Shanghai at that time.

And I lived in a tiny studio that was infested with mice.

That’s not good.

And there were always stray cats screaming outside, and I would get woken up every morning by the rickshaw vendors selling sweet potatoes and sharpening knives, and it was such a rich and intense experience, and it was really a formative time in my work and my career and who I was going to be.

Totally. And then you meet this guy. Where? Where did you meet him?

So we met at a reading that was sponsored by the U.S. consulate, and we were introduced by a mutual friend after the reading. And we just started talking, and I didn’t see him as a romantic prospect.

What were your first impressions?

I mean —

You were having this incredibly independent, personally formative experience. You’re living in what sounds like a bit of a closet. What were your first impressions of him?

He was tall. He was —

Your voice is changing. You definitely weren’t into him when you first met him.

No. You know, he was charming and really just a compelling person to talk to, and he asked really good questions, and he seemed really thoughtful and kind, but I was just not at a stage of my life where I was looking for any relationship. I certainly was not looking to date a white guy in Shanghai because the examples that I saw everywhere around me at that time felt very exploitative, where it always seemed like the local woman was extremely vulnerable in terms of her resources and also any social stigma that would attach itself to her but never to the guy.

You were seeing these models of a type of relationship between a white expat man, it sounds like, and an Asian local woman.

Yes.

And you wanted none of that.

I wanted none of that. But when I sat next to him, I just felt this feeling of warmth and well-being, and it just felt nice to be next to him.

Tell me about your first date.

Yeah. So on our first date, we went to a Thai restaurant in the French Concession, and we walked through some gardens in this beautiful post-colonial section of the city, and everything in my head was, this is pointless; I’m leaving Shanghai.

Because you’re Fulbright is up.

Because my grant was expiring, yeah. And I was moving back to New York, and he was about to head out on this reporting trip, and by the time he returned, I would have left Shanghai already. And so once he realized that, he said, come with me on this trip, and —

That — wait, pause. That’s a trip with a guy you’ve just started seeing.

Yeah, not only just started seeing. I mean, this is after our first date.

Oh my gosh. Deanna, what were you thinking when he asked you?

I mean, I think my first thought was you’re crazy, and this is crazy. And I wouldn’t say that love had entered my mind, but I certainly knew that this was something different than what I had experienced before, and I was curious, and I wanted to see where that would lead.

Mhm. So you said yes to the trip.

Yes, I did.

So tell me about it. Where did you two go?

We were in remote places. We were floating down the Mekong River. We were stopping to interview fishermen on riverbanks.

Wow.

We were swimming at a pool in a hotel that was one of these former French colonial mansions.

Mhm. And to be clear, this is all — he’s paying for this stuff, right?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And so the intimacy of traveling with somebody who you’ve just met and also feeling like we were an instant couple, I mean, it was very strange. We were going to all these beautiful and really evocative sites where we were tourists, and there were so many, I guess, levels of foreignness for me, where I was a foreigner in a different country; I didn’t speak the language; he and I were strangers to some degree, and this is not a trip that I had planned; this is not a trip that I was paying for.

Totally, yeah.

And so there’s this sense of, how did I end up here? And at the same time, we were holding hands and calling each other honey or things that I would have said like, how did this happen? I mean, you would think that we would have had to known each other for years for us to pull off this kind of experience together.

And at the same time, that is how it was, and that was the part that I really could not ignore, that it felt like we had already been together for a really long time, and we were only halfway through that trip when he asked me to move in with him.

Oh my gosh. You mentioned that before you met him you told yourself, I’m not dating a white guy. Did you feel like you were betraying yourself in some way?

I did. I felt like I was betraying my mother, who was a very strong, fiercely independent working woman, and who had always drilled into me, women have nothing if you don’t have financial autonomy. I felt like I was betraying my friends back home.

Wow.

Who are all very strong, ambitious women, determined to make their own name as women of color. I felt like I was betraying my sisters. I mean, just —

Deanna, you’re laughing, but that’s a lot to feel.

It was a lot. And so I think the way that I was able to make a provisional peace with it in my mind was to keep telling myself this is temporary.

But then when he asks you to move in with him, I mean, that doesn’t feel like things are going to end; it feels like things are only going to continue to intensify in your relationship, right?

I mean, you’re absolutely right. And there was a part of me that knew that this was something very real and worth investing in no matter how much I tried to tell myself at the same time that it wasn’t.

It sounds like you had some walls up. How did he break those down?

I very much did have some high walls up at that time. I was broke, and in my 20s, and working on a novel, and living off a fellowship that I had received. And he was at a different stage of life — he was established in his career; he was on an expat package. And when we got together, I felt really uncomfortable with the difference in our circumstances in that way, and his perspective was more, if you would never choose a man for the money, then how can you walk away from me for your lack of it when I’m saying to you that it doesn’t affect how I see you or how I treat you?

And the fact that we travel and we go out to fancy dinners on my dime, that is a non-issue, really, for him. That doesn’t affect how we are as a couple. So he was able to say things like, yes, you are supposed to move back to New York, but you don’t actually have a job lined up, so move in with me. And what matters to you is finishing your novel, and all I want is for you to be in this life with me, and you can do that.

So I think it was this combination of seeing what was important to me and valuing that and wanting to know more and go deeper about really everything to do with my family, and my history, and my work, and what it meant to me at the same time as he wanted to be there for every part of that.

When we come back, Deanna makes a decision about her future. That’s next.

So, Deanna, your very new boyfriend takes you on this trip, and almost immediately he asks you to move in with him. What did you say?

I think I raised every possible objection, and I think I tested him every which way. Because the question that I was wrestling with was how can you offer to pay for everything for a woman that you’ve just met and truly want an equal relationship? Can I compromise this aspect of my independence without sacrificing too much of myself?

And I was tortured over these questions, but also we would wrestle with these questions together and still in the end, come out with, but if we love each other, then that’s all that matters.

You did say yes to moving in, correct?

I did say yes to moving in, and so I would count that as our third date.

Well, why don’t you read the part of your essay where you talk about that third date, moving in with him?

“I gathered my belongings from my mice-infested studio, and I moved into the journalist’s 3,000 square foot perch in the VIP tower of a hotel compound. I learned to smile less uneasily at the doormen who rushed to greet us, to focus on my computer as the housekeeper worked around me, to leave my wallet in a drawer whenever we ate out.

When we traveled throughout China and to Vietnam, India, Turkey, Italy, and Hungary, I often carried nothing. He had the currency, itinerary, and keys, so why not my passport?

He never expressed reservations about our arrangement. In fact, he’d begun talking of marriage. And although marriage seemed a remote possibility to me, I began to understand his vision — a future where not only our finances, but every twist of fate would be shared.

My financial dependence was breaking down my cynicism about romance. I couldn’t tell myself that I didn’t need him, like I’d done with every boyfriend before him.

He liked to say, you’re a keeper. I had to grab you and keep you. This became our joke until we encountered those blonde men. After that, I didn’t see myself as just a keeper; I was a possession, a woman being kept.”

“A woman being kept,” can you tell me what that experience was like for you?

Yeah, I guess I was starting to feel like this is ultimately not my life. It’s like I’m kind of an imposter in this life, and I’m being allowed into this through the privilege of my boyfriend, but none of it is anything that I’ve earned, or that is coming my way, or that people see me as entitled to.

Hmm. So you’re still telling yourself this is temporary; this is not forever.

I was.

But you also write that at this time, he’s beginning to speak of marriage, which is a type forever in a lot of ways.

Yes.

So did it feel like he didn’t totally understand your struggle If he’s talking about this kind of commitment, and you’re still like, I just don’t know if I can do this forever?

Mhm. I think he was very confident in his powers of persuasion.

And I think he also felt like what I’m offering you is not just money, obviously. It’s that I value in you what you value most about yourself, and that is what I want for our future and our lives together.

He was planning forever, and he stuck with that through all of my fighting against it, really. And I think there was an element for him where he understood my struggle to a point.

Hmm. So you kept pushing him off because you still had to figure things out, but then I want to — there’s this part of your essay where he says something to you that you really can’t push off and that makes you think about your entire relationship differently, and this moment starts with the two of you in a cab. Can you tell me about that cab ride?

Sure. So one night, we were in a cab speeding towards yet another hotel and yet another city, and I had a cold, and I was cranky and tired and just not really even appreciating all the amazing privileges of our life together.

And I thought he was looking at the scenery when out of the darkness he said my name first and last, and he said that he would love me forever, which was something that he had said before, and then he said I love generations before you and generations after, I love your children. I hope to be their father.

“I love generations before you and generations after.”

Yes. And all I could do was take in what he was saying and let those words sink into me and realized that all this time, I’m fighting and I’m fighting, and part of that is a fight as a woman of color, who’s had to fight for a lot, but at some point, when do you stop fighting and see that what I had in front of me was a man who was offering to be there for me through anything and was saying, it’s not only that I accept your struggle, what makes you difficult, what makes our relationship difficult, what might make your family and my relationship with them difficult; I don’t only accept it, I love it, and I want to make it my own.

Oh.

And then in terms of children, which is just not something that I could imagine at that point, his ability to look ahead and say what he said, it took my breath away, and it made me realize that through all our travels, that wherever we were in the world, he was my home; he had become my home, and that’s what stuck with me that night and has stuck with me through the 19 years since we met. And we’ve been married for 14 years now.

Oh. You write in your essay that your husband called you a keeper. Is that something he still says to you?

Maybe no — well, OK, sorry let me think.

OK, I guess to go to a heavy place, we recently had a very scary experience where he got a cancer diagnosis —

Wow.

— and had to go for a pretty intensive surgery. And when my husband was wheeled out of surgery, groggy and in pain, he said something like, my consolation is that I’ve gotten to look at your eyes all these years.

Oh!

And that is forever. And so I guess that is where we still are. I mean, on a daily basis, we bicker all the time.

Sure, of course.

All the time.

Yeah.

There is a lot of resentment that builds up, all the things that I think are pretty inevitable after 19 years and three kids. And yet, when you strip it all away, we do come back to these moments where he can reach right back to these — I mean, I don’t even want to call them lines because they kind of just come from his heart. And all these years later, I have this sense of, I am so lucky to have found this man at a time when I wasn’t looking, and didn’t appreciate it, and tried to push it away, and that he was willing to stay with me, that he had the strength and the determination and maybe the blind faith. I don’t know how to explain it, but he’s the keeper.

Deanna, thank you so much for bringing me into your love story. Thank you for this conversation today.

Thank you so much for having me. It’s been such a pleasure.

Deanna’s first novel, the one she was writing in Shanghai, was published in 2010. It’s called “A Thread of Sky.” We’ll drop Deanna’s full “Modern Love” essay in its entirety in the “Modern Love” podcast feed for you to enjoy.

If you have a story that you want to share with us, we’d love to hear it. We’re always looking for good stories and new perspectives for the “Modern Love” column, no matter where you come from or who you are. To find out how to submit your own story, go to nytimes.com/modernlovesubmission.

“Modern Love” is produced by Julia Botero and Christina Djossa. It’s edited by our executive producer Jen Poyant with help from Anabel Bacon. This episode was mixed by Sophia Lanman. Our show is recorded by Maddy Masiello.

The “Modern Love” theme music is by Dan Powell, original music by Pat McCusker, Diane Wong, and Rowan Niemisto. Digital production by Nell Gallogly. Special thanks to Paula Szuchman. The “Modern Love” column is edited by Daniel Jones. Miya Lee is the editor of “Modern Love” projects.

I’m Anna Martin. Thanks for listening.