Peace and Love,

Piankhi Zimmerman

I just really wanted to say how much I laughed at your comics. They were absolutely hillarious, and so true. It scared me (in a nice way) to see how my mom is very, very, much the same. (Why can't you major in law or med??) (Why not date a chinese guy?) (What will doing that go on your application?) (Think about your future!) And, I know I've said the same thing your friend Marie said about never dating asian guys. I just... really love how I can relate to your comic. Thank you so much for making it, and I positively can't wait to see more.

Sincerest gratitude,

Jenny

P.S. -- I'm from GuangZhou too! Fu Shan in Guang Dong, to be exact!

Just want to say that I like your comic strip. Reading your comics made me think about my sisters and what they are currently going through. Especially the dating situation.

I also agree with the boycotting. Although I boycott different things for different reasons. I'm very bitter when it comes to American Pop Culture.

Well keep up the good work and good luck with your studies.

regards,

Loc Vu

The comic is pure and true. I look forward to the day when Jennie Lo's attitude is exalted into the norm - and I believe your short strips have just nudged us closer to that day.

-Andre

Thank You,

Senny Sok

You hit the nail on the head there. Asian Americans sure are a silly bunch with our cultural upbringings and living and working in America. Yeah pretty much computer sci, engineering or pre-med. I chose comp engineering.

Keep up the works, but might i suggest maybe a few male Asian characters to give their side of the story.

Regards,

miKe Xia

Im a 20 yr old guy going to a very small sized pilot school in a small town in Utah. People here have asked me the usual questions like eating dogs and cats. I came here to the States (Los Angeles) when I was 10 and still holds a Chinese citizenship. So I don't really feel offended to these questions, I even tell them that dogs actually taste pretty good (better than rabbits imo).

I m proud to be Chinese, I tell that to anyone who has ever asked me what I am, and I'll continue saying that even after I become a US citizen.

What I wanna say is, do one for us FOBs, we'll appreciate it more than you think..

Do you know of any stores that sell your comics? I currently don't live in the Bay Area...Washington DC actually...but I would like to know about Asian comic artists. I have seen other comic sites started by other Asian artists but they are more pet projects than actual enterprises. There is a guy in Boston who does have a weekly strip in an indie paper. However, I just bought and read American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang and thought it was great.

I read the AsianWeek.com article leading me to your site. So is most of your material inspired from true stories from Asian women or are some a collection of your own frustrations. (ie: Why is it white guys dating asian chicks but not as much the other way around?)

I think that is what I liked about your strips...it took these observations/frustrations and basically flipped them around. Again, keep up the good work.

-KC

I came across your website from angryasianman.com. Growing up in Berkeley, I can completely understand the issues and scenarios you draw in the strips. You're such a great artist that I can even recognize where on the UCB campus the strip occurs.

I really like your stuff and was wondering if there was some way to purchase a paper copy of it. I wish there were more asian comic artists who talked about issues affecting the asian community.

Keep up the good work.

-KC Chang

Anyways, I work a lot with media companies down here in LA, and I never see voices of girls I knew at Berkeley out in the mainstream media.

Anyways, I'd like to donate... do u take paypal?

Regards,

Raymond Kim

Then again, if you are a mad genius, my hat's off to you sir. I must admit, yours is the funniest webcomic on the net and the only problem I can find is that you don't update nearly often enough. You're parody of racist dicks is so dead on, I can't decide which is better, Jennie the racist or this "ethan lee" persona you've created. You strike a fine line between controversy with comics that are obviously racist, but just not so overly so. A master of the tongue-in-cheek style of humor. I especially love it how you give interviews in character. A word of advice: your comics seem to poke fun only at white people. It'd be so much fun to hear Jennie attack the other groups out there. You know, like gays, blacks, atheists, the handicapped, etc. Anyways, keep up the lulz!

My name is Conor, a twenty-one year old Caucasian male who found out about your comic tonight and read it out of curiosity and a desire to understand your perspective on the issues you addressed. While there are points you have made that I agree with, there are a few that I felt compelled to address through E-Mail in what I hope to be an articulate and calm manner.

I feel your comic does a brilliant job in relaying information and statistics pertaining to the Asian American community that might not be readily understood or acknowledged. I had no idea prior to this that Asian women were disproportionately targeted in sex crimes, and appreciate being made aware of this fact. However, while I do feel that while there is a significant measure of Caucasians who regard Asians as "exotic" or with some form of racism, your comic seems to mark all white people as being crude and abrasive. In fact, it leaves me with the impression that white people are lesser than those of Asian descent.

As an East Asian studies major, I would like to offer some defense for those Caucasians who treat Asians with respect and make a definite effort to both understand and honor aspects of Asian cultures. I have spent years trying to better grasp these cultures so as to avoid being the stereotyped Caucasian that I see described in many of your comics, and have friends who follow the same path.

I just hope that in trying to increase awareness of contemporary and historical Asian issues, you won't come under the impression or leave others with the understanding that there are no worthwhile Caucasians; that we are trying to fight that which you have described.

And again, before I send this E-Mail, I would just like to thank you for increasing my awareness on the issues I had not previously been acquainted with. I hope this finds you well, please take care and best of luck.

-Conor Mooney

do you asian-women even know who U R?? know where U stand, who you're suposed to be??

are all those white guys u date are they really your type?? do they know the asian culture , beside looking at you as sub-servient GIESHA-CHINADOLL??? word made up by white man. hey look we 15 million in USA so we should have our own pride by now.look at your friend JAckie trying to come back to asian world after getting pregnant with HAPA kid that nobody wants. now she can't get accepted back no-more. wanna end up like that????

hey look at it this kid why do Hispanic-women won't date white-guys , 'cos they so proud of thier culture they need a white-man to take care of them like a BABY-SITTER to make you look supportive in USA society. lokk at www.latina.com find out

I stumbled across your fine comic quite by accident. As a middle-aged man, married (to an American lady of British/Hispanic descent) for 23 years, who has lived in Hong Kong and South China for the last ten of them, it strikes me how the issues are in many ways the same on either side of the Pacific. One thing I do note--why is is acceptable to call me a "gwailo" which is not exactly a term of endearment, but its totally unacceptable for me to use any slang word to refer to an Asian? "Oh, it just means foreigner." No, it doesn't. It means "foreign devil".

If I was Jackie's husband and a member of her family called my daughter a "gwai mui" there would be a problem, I can tell you that.

Best Regards,

Matthew Fenton

Perhaps it's too early to totally condemn your work, but I think it definately has lots of room to improve, I'll be watching to see when you finally decide to get off the interracial dating issue (which is clearly the dominant part of the comic right now), and move on to something else. If you are under the impression that there are no good interracial relationships, then so be it, continue with these unrealistic portrayals of them that insult everyone's intelligence. (I mean seriously, why Jennie, why do you date a guy for three weeks if he showed he was an Asiaphile after the first date?) I'm not trying to defend interracial dating or anything, but it's not simply a black and white issue where you can say, if you date white... all these horrible things will happen to you, but if you date a fellow Asian, all your problems will be solved. I liked the "What are you" story arc the best. Then I liked the "I'd never date an Asian guy" story arc. Those two were wonderful. They hit home. What I disliked was the "date with rob" story arc, but it wasn't that bad. The absolute worst was the one where Jennie is talking to her older friend. Come on, you can do better than that! As I am criticizing your work, you'll probably not put me up on your webpage, but I'd at least appreciate a reply.

-Eugene Hwang

Everyone in SAF plays to type; Marie in particular seems less like a real person who happens to be dating someone caucasian and more like a crude, pickaninny parody of self-hatred. A straw man to dismiss a thought -- such as the virtues of a color-blind approach -- that doesn't fit with the strip's prepackaged ideology.

I can read SAF and like it, even if I think the worldview you represent in print is absolutely silly. But at the rate you're going, I can't imagine popping open SAF and actually being surprised. That's a damn shame, given the talent you have on display.

More than anything, I hope the Jennie in the comic isn't as autobiographical as you make it out to be. It doesn't seem like a terribly happy place to be.

I do wish you luck with John Cho, though. He's a pretty man, I can't deny it.

Best,

Joe

You elevate Asian culture, while you attempt to drag other cultures though the dirt... white people in particular. What is wrong with you? Can you honestly say that you have NEVER met a white person that you have never found to be ignorant like the ones in your comic? ~~~~OOohhh ~~~~ if you marry a white person you will be shunned by your close-minded family, and he will cheat on you because he's white, so you'd better marry some Chinese dude instead because they are honorable, wise and loyal hahahaha.

Imbecile.

Why are all of your comic strip characters Asian? There aren't any white guys, you say there's a black guy somewhere in there, but I haven't seen him. Malcolm? What kind of name is that? It says he's an extremist? Why? Are all black people portrayed this way to you? "Black people are in an extremely bad situation," huh. Not the last time I stepped outside. Last time I checked, things have been pretty much clearing up very rapidly in comparison to 40-50 years ago, and hundreds of years further back.

HAY JENNIE, BLACKS WURNT TEH ONLY 1s WHO WURR LINCHED. LOLOLOLOLOLL

What the fuck.

You take every racist comment and apply it to yourself as if to make yourselves look like jesus fucking christ on the cross.

I hope you look back on this shit 20 years from now and you go "man, did I really think that way?" and then then laugh at your own ignorance.

I personally can really relate to the ones about people asking "what are you". I lived in Hawaii for a number of years and it seemed like just about everyone wanted to know what I was, the question posed in that exact manner.

Wish I read your comic then, so I would have had something more clever to say than "White. From the mainland. Honestly, I don't know and it doesn't make much difference to me why is it so important to you?".

Keep up the good work,

Scott Snell

And what\'s this \"Asian people should only date Asian people because otherwise they\'ll dilute the Asian gene pool and their non Asian lover will steal their stuff and cheat on them.\" stuff? That\'s not going to promote open mindedness and tolerance.

But I shouldn\'t disagree with you, should I? After all, it\'s not just black people who have been disagreed with!

- Kevin

What do you intend to accomplish? If anything your adherence to these stereotypes and differences would only cause the social groups of the whites and Asians to grow further apart, and I feel it's already pretty far apart as is, as your comic shows.

Also, how can you take a stance against racism while being inherently racist yourself? It flows both ways you know. You can't just sit back and denounce Michael Richards, then try to propagate that all white men are pigs

Honestly. I get concepts like pride in your heritage, but this comic is absurd and horrifying.

I really thought humanity had put such worthless ideas like "the evils of miscegenation" behind them.

But your comic reminds me that people like you still exist, and that makes me sad for all of the human race.

You do know that all people are humans, right? We're all decended from common ancestors and share a certain genetic makeup, and that there are only superficial differences between races in the end.

And for the record, I have a mixed ancestry of both asian and european. Oooooh, I'm a spooky product of horrible, horrible crossbreeding. Oooooh, scary! And so is my fiance, she has both in her ancestry as well, WE'RE SPOOKY MIXED RACE PEOPLE! BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA!

I know that you're a small minded fool, and I don't expect to open your mind to reality, or change your ways for the better...

But I do maintain a small hope that maybe, just maybe you'll learn not to be such a bigot.

But maybe that's just my "inferior white blood" making me stupid.

... Yeah. Seriously. What's your problem, Ethan? Your comic claims to "facilitate discussion and raise awareness about historical and contemporary issues in the Asian American community," but really all it does as serve as a painful reminder of the reality of cross-discrimination. Your portrayal of all white males as being lust-crazed perverts with a desire to nail Asian women specifically because they're Asian is not only incredibly biased but incredibly inaccurate. As if events similar never happen to African American women, Hispanic women, or even Caucasian women by other racial minorities, right?

Clearly your "Asian American Studies class" has succeeded in shoving your head so far up your ass you are incapable of reading your own comic and recognizing the almost comically obvious racist themes toward Caucasians. Here's an idea: how about instead of wallowing in a pit of needless angst about yours and other Asians' "life stories," you get a crow-bar, pull your face out of your rectum and stop assuming 4chan is an accurate representation of all Caucasian males?

With that said, I've decided to boycott your comic and all magazines, newspapers and websites idiotic enough to publish it for its racism and pervasive stupidity. Good enough reason for ya there, jackass?

Love,

A concerned Caucasian female

Particularly the strip about the Asian guy dating a white girl. That is akin to a white person chastising another white person for dating an African American. Do you understand how ignorant this is?

Seriously. Take a look at your comic and replace all the Asians with white people and all the white people in your comic with African Americans.

Sincerely

Xopher.

You really shouldn't base your opinions of European Americans on the worst examples, either. That is, of course, why nonadjacent nations exhibit such strong contempt for America. Bill O'Reilly, George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and Hal Turner are already putting us in a rabbit hole because they've made European Americans intolerable figures overseas. Please don't contribute, and please forgive the dishearteningly stupid members of my ethnicity.

I'm sure you must get this a lot. You suck. hard.

Sincerely Kevin Ritchie

I have a feeling you hear this a lot, but for your boycotts and protests about racism, your comics are the most racist comics I have seen. I am not sure why you don't think that hating or portraying all non-Asians as rude slimebags is not racist, but somebody asking you your heritage is. Oh, by the way, I'm a white geeky dork. I found your comic at this link - http://badwebcomics.blogspot.com/2007/06/single-asian-female.html . My heritage is Irish, but you can just stereotype me as "white" because that is not racist at all, right.

-Another dorky white guy

1) asian women of jennie's age, all of which are portrayed as protagonistic entities.

2) White men, who are, without exception, portrayed as pigs, even when asking where someone is from.

3) Older asian women, who are classified as outdated and oldfashioned.

4) Young asian men, which, oddly, is the only category of people from which a duality is found. On one hand, jennie, clearly snarky from being snubbed (likely due to her radical fanaticism, and not her heritage) labels a UC asian student as a sellout for going out with a white woman. On the other hand, jennie's brother, who seems to be a male version of jennie, is portrayed as approachable and sensible.

Overall, your presentation of characters is clearly indicative of your hyper-americanization. Your narrow minded pro-asian to the exclusion of all others mindset is more western in influence than it is asian. This inherent contradiction is likely the source of the angst which drove you to create this strip, and is juvenile, to say the least.

Sadly, since almost everyone can see through your stupid xenophobic worldview, none of this analysis is merited in the least, because its obvious that people don't take you seriously in the first place

Why to propagate hate you cunt. Instead of writing comics, maybe you should go back to the fucking kitchen like a good girl.

1. Use your real e-mail address. Your character is not you. You are a guy taking advice from his female friends. Only creepy online stalkers create false female personas.

2. This is all based on a well-off(presumably)Chinese family. Southeast Asians go through a lot of the same thing, but also have to deal with poverty and the assumption that they must be well-off. Their circumstances often make it easier to exploit and abuse them. Even if you focus on one group, don't forget how diverse Asian American women's experiences really are.

3. You talked about "dual oppression", yet you don't distinguish how parental pressure or perceived foreignness affect women differently.Your "Mom" and "What are you?" strips could just as easily have been about guys. Why not talk about the contradiction of being expected to work while also getting married and becoming an obedient housewife? Or how the media oversexualizes Asian women? Asian American women also suffer from extremely high rates of suicide and depression, a very unique issue you could work with. (http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/05/16/asian.suicides/index.html)

4. You're treading a very dangerous line in the dating strips. There's definitely a lot of intersecting and problematic elements in Asian female/white male relationships: racism, history of colonization, power inequalities, social standing etc, that women should at least be aware of. But suggesting all or even most of those relationships are invalid is guaranteed to alienate a lot of readers. Same with saying that dating only Asian men is or should be a solution.(Your "Jackie" strips imply that very strongly.)

5. Straw man situations. Don't. Marie not acknowledging Jennie's point about her cousins AT ALL isn't realistic.(Unless you want to say women are stupid.) Similar thing with Jennie's date. Why have her go on a second date with him if he was so obviously a racist? Try for a little more complexity, more discussion.

6. Following my previous point, you need to make each strip more self contained. Your current format is to have an overarching idea/point that all the strips lead up to. The problem is, people won't bother to read that far if the individual strips aren't compelling enough. Little bits of your whole idea are not enough. Creating a discussion forum for each strip would help create interest, so get on that.

7. If you don't take my advice in point 6, your update schedule become unworkable. It's too slow as is, really.3-4 weeks? Anything less than weekly updates makes you irrelevant in the fast paced world of the Internet. Your "Current Events" section is proof of that. It took you months to post strips on the NorCal rapist and Michael Richards.(I know because I had you bookmarked.) If the restriction is your artist, I would suggest lower quality art more frequently is acceptable/encouraged. Stronger storylines can compensate.

8. On that note, do NOT repeat the "Current Events" story format. Preaching like that within the strip is annoying. It's not good to use your characters as a direct mouthpiece, because it's unnatural; would they ever say those things in the context of their world? Make a separate blog post if it's that critical.

9. This is more of a personal criticism, but it relates to my last 3 points. The "Michael Richards" strips were absolutely terrible. Your final point was that Asians can be targeted for racist speech without as much public outcry. That is completely true. BUT, and this is very important, racism affects EVERYONE and you need to speak up in any and all circumstances, even if Asians aren't directly involved. If Asian American women think racism doesn't affect them directly, then they enable it. Look at the two Asian women on The View who laughed off Rosie O'Donnell's ching-chong joke and Natasha Yi, who defended her husband's racist prank call on JV Radio. They thought that they were not the ones being criticized. I've heard this in relation to sex trafficking in Asia as well.("Well, I feel sorry for those Asian women, but I'm going to be a doctor and it has nothing to do with me.") Your second strip in this arc was offensive because it mirrored this insipid view. Lynching jokes only matter because Chinese people were lynched as well?! You have Jennie reading Malcolm X's autobiography(great book), you should know better.

10. Last point, as I've already gone on far too long. I understand the reasoning behind your NorCal rapist strips even if I thought they were unnecessary. However, realistically, date rape is a much greater risk for college students, and your advice on how to prevent rape is faulty. Martial arts for women is in general a good idea, but grappling arts like jiujitsu are more useful than kicking styles like taekwondo. Attackers can also know martial arts, and usually have a size advantage, so the fighting will wind up-close and on the ground. Of course, being aware of your situation is the best defense, and you did mention that, which is good. Pepper spray, though, is useless. In most date rape situations, the guy is already too close for a woman to get it out. Even for random attackers, civilian grade pepper spray is diluted and you have to aim carefully. Even that may not be enough. (A police officer once used his POLICE-GRADE pepper spray on a suspect. The guy just powered through on adrenaline and beat the officer to death with his own nightstick.) Other weapons like Tasers require training, and you risk having it taken away and used on you. Emphasize assertiveness and avoiding risky circumstances more, if you're doing public service announcements on rape.

Well, that's all, assuming you got this far. Take it or leave it. I wish you luck in your efforts to spread awareness of these issues.

-Linden Chiu

As a white male, I'd just like to ask, where exactly does Ethan Lee get his facts about white men from? Spike Lee? Because his portrayal of white guys is ridiculous and so blatantly and maliciously racist, that it makes me feel ill to read. I don't know what experience he or you have had of white people, but I find it hard to believe that it justifies the content of your webcomic.

It's quite clear that white people being racist, or suspected of being so, today are criticised and vilified, yet other ethnicities can spout racist slander and stereotypes about whites and get away with it. This is what I see quite plainly in SAF; Sleazy, ignorant, ginger-haired caucasians hitting on the protagonist, warnings about a white rapist targetting Asian women, etc... If this is how you sum up every white man, then I'm sorry, but you need to get your facts straight.

I imagine you have plenty of reasons to justify the content of your webcomic, and I agree that there are white men who are completely ignorant of how they convey themselves to Asian women, but I would say that was mostly just down to stupidity. However, you attack it as if it was a direct and intentional assault on Asian women everywhere and Asian cultures as a whole. I assure you, I am nothing like the stereotype portrayed. I respect and admire Asian cultures and history, but I don't behave in the fashion your comic portrays. I hope I haven't misunderstood the idea of your comic, but from what I have seen, I am immensely saddened at what is implied.

Make of this email what you will, but I felt I must say something, because racism is not just the domain of whites. Something we should *all* think on.

Thank you for your time

Sean Hudspeth

As a single white male with several Asian friends who happen to be single and female, I have to say that your preaching about "dorky" white males being ignorant, unintelligent, and only concerned of thier carnivorous lust for "exotic oriental girls" is really repulsive.

You side with African-American leaders and use their advancements in our countries history as justification for your desire for complete racial segregation. You aren't being beaten, you don't have seperate water fountains, and no one is burning crosses on your lawn. The most severe hits you take are depicted in your comic when your sitting at a table drinking and one of your infamous "dorky white male" archetypes confronts you. Sorry but Malcom X and other african american leaders fought against real racial injustice, not just against being asked if he was from Nigeria or South Africa like your characters and their confrontations by people asking about their national origins. Yes, i realize that may get annoying being form America and being confronted like that, but its no reason to be ranting and raving about how these white males are interrogating you and destroying your private life. Brush them off and get on with it, one day you'll learn.

I know alot about asian culture, because i have studied it and fallen in love with it. Is that so wrong of me? Yeah, I could just be another "dorky white male" but im proud because my true friends, some of them asian, look past race and skin color when they decide to hang out with me and share a relationship. And yes, I have been romantically involved with Asian girls...but not because of my desire for some "exotic oriential" enchantress. We grew a bond, and explored a relationship together. In one of your comics you depict the main character saying "Whats she got that I dont? im taller, prettier, and asian!" Now this, this is just disgusting. Relationships shouldnt be about looks or skin color. Is it so wrong that those two people talked, liked eachother, and created a bond? Must he suddenly drop this girl because she isnt the prettiest or tallest, and not even Asian?

Its this kind of illustrated bigotry that can really have an effect on people. You are demonstrating that Asian men and Asian women can only date and interact with eachother. I find that horribly wrong because along with your seperatist beliefs you are provoking hate and xenophobia against other races and their cultures.

Harry Zallen

Good question, why would he date her? While we can't know for sure, it might be because she has shown no signs of being a racist bitch! Jennie might need to learn a thing or two about that if she wants more popularity.

To say that I became disturbed after reading your comic would be an understatement. It is shocking that you can get away with being to blatantly racist. It is people like you who are setting race relations back. You are a disgusting human being.

-Concerned About Comics

I fail to see how you can criticize people like Micheal Richards when your comic is so obviously racist against whitey. I don't know if a white guy raped your sister or something, but the racism is just so blatantly obvious. For example, is the Malcolm X book in Jennie's arms really necessary as she criticizes a man for going out with a white woman (OH NO, NOT A WHITE WOMAN, GOD FORBID A WHITE WOMAN HAVE A BETTER PERSONALITY OR LOOK PRETTIER THAN AN ASIAN WOMAN!)

In conclusion, get off your high horse you racist motherfucker.

KTHXBAI.

I am writing to tell you how much I love your hilarious webcomic. It often makes me both smile and think at the same time! You have quite a talent and I predict that you will go very far in life. I hope you find the Asian man of your dreams and live a happy life with him. I sympathize with your plight, as I am a white man but many of my prospective white mates are seduced by thuggish negroes who brag about their sexual prowess. The races should not intermix as this causes consternation and unfairness. I have developed a scheme where an elaborate network of wire fences in all public places will keep us separate and harmonious. I hope I can have your support in this brazen proposal.

Thank you and good luck with your comic books,

Dr. Stephen J. Krune III Webscape Corporation www.webscape-corporation.com

What you need to do, is shut the fuck up, and if you hate white people so much, get the fuck out and go back to whatever the fuck country you descended from. Oh I guess I'm the racist now right?

I just wanted to ask, word is it's actually a guy who writes these "comics", if that's true, YOU ARE A FAGGOT. fucking gook chink jap wop nigger honkey spic towelhead kike

Thank you and keep the good work coming!

-Stephen

http://sass.buttes.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=10666&p=1

have been mocking your webcomic. They have been deliberately defacing your copyrights and I think you should register there, and help me defend SAF.

http://4chanarchive.org/brchive/dspl_thread.php5?thread_id=29746575&x=saf+comic