A White Man's Quest for an Asian Wife

know it is hard for you to understand the way a Westerner sees an Easterner. I speak only for my self when I say I was born to the wrong culture. I joined the Army when I was 17 and at 18 was sent to the war in Viet Nam. At first I was like many young men there, scared, alone for the first time, thousands of miles from home. When we started fighting and the killing began I came into great conflict between my heart and my soul. I knew what I was doing was not right but I could tell no one. I resented the ³reasons² I was told. Instead I tried to understand. In these efforts I stumbled into Taoism. I could not tell anyone of my newfound interest; my thoughts and studies would remain hidden during those years. You have to remember; in the Army a man is only to think the "Army Way". It is the same in every country. After 2 years in Asia I was discharged and sent home, my Army life was over. At first all I did was party and drink from the happiness of being home, I forgot the Tao and began to live the Western life again.
     The times did not treat me well, the bad karma that I had built while in Viet Nam came back to me again and again, much like the locus to the crops, so much that I became a sailor (ran away) and for the next few years I sailed the oceans of the world. I still could not find what I had lost and still did not try to remember the Tao. This was due perhaps to the memories that were associated with my first encounters with Buddhism, the death and needless destruction of families and worth.
     One day, many years later, after collage, a failed marriage, and many jobs, I met an Asian man, very old, going through the trash on a street corner in San Francisco. I felt sorry for him and offered him money (I thought he was homeless) he looked at me and in perfect English said, "No, what I am searching for, no money can buy", he then went on to talk in Chinese that I could not understand except when he mentioned Tao Te Ching, very clearly, in English. He then went on his way. I watched him as he left, a very frail man, very old, very small, with his cane and humped back and felt a warmth deep inside of me. I went to the library the same day and found a book; I don't remember the name of it, except it was the writings of Tao Te Ching. That day was October 10th 1980 and I was 30 years old. For the last 20 years I have studied the Tao.
     My relationships with Asian women began about the same time as I re-discovered the Tao. I met a Vietnamese girl that was hooked on crack cocaine in the Asian area of San Francisco where I was managing apartments; my job has always been that of a Property Manager. I rented to her grandparents and she would come and try to get them to give her money to buy drugs. She was a beautiful girl and quite young in appearance. One day she quit coming around and later I found she had over dosed on drugs. I felt so bad that I actually cried. I hated the way that her beauty had been taken from me even though we had never talked to each other except to say hello. Again the karma was fighting me.
     I believe that is when my karma began to change; by shedding those tears in anguish over someone that I did not really know, and feeling the pain of her grandparents as genuine as it was my own I realized that my life would never be complete without an Asian wife; I started my quest to find an Asian woman to be my soul mate.
     I have dated 2 Asian women. The first was Vietnamese. Hoang Nu and I for 3 years, she was Buddhist but only prayed when she wanted something. I found after a year, that she was once a massage girl in San Francisco, (a prostitute). She had moved into one of my buildings with her husband, an ABC (American Born Chinese) that she had married when he had wealth that he had acquired through the theft of money from a company he worked for. He threw her down the stairs one day and I found her crying and bleeding at my front door. The police came and took him to jail but he was out in a few hours and cleaned out their bank account. She had nowhere to go and had a young son that was 9 years old. She moved in with me. She drank all the time, just as I had done when I first came home from the war. I lived with her for 3 years and saw in her "ME" in everything she did. This was still my payment for the bad karma that I had created during the war. Eventually she got very bad and was never sober, she left one day and I have never seen her since. She went to Santa Anta where there is a large population of Vietnamese. That was 6 years ago.
     Onjira is Thai and 31 years old but looks much younger. I feel she was drawn to me due to my music and position. We dated for 4 months during which time we enjoyed a very loving relationship. On occasion it is necessary for me to drive to San Francisco. On those days I will leave early to avoid the bridge congestion. On such a day I saw Onjira getting into a car with another man (quite by accident) who called her "Sunshine". I found later they had gone hiking and camping. She never told me she was going. We had together made plans for that Easter weekend, coloring eggs, etc. and later to a reunion of my band. Perhaps it was too much to soon and when we talked later these were my feelings:

We started speaking 
Looked at each other, then turned 
The tears kept rising to my eyes 
But I could not weep 
I wanted to take your hand 
But my hand trembled so 

You kept counting the days 
Before we should meet again. 
But both of us felt in our hearts 
That when we part it will be 
Forever 

The ticking of the little clock fills my quiet room. 
Listen, I thought, it is so loud 
Like a horse galloping on a lonely road 
As loud as the beating of my lonely heart 

I dreamed of you shut in my arms. 
But the sound of the clock stifled our hearts beating. 
You say, 
"I cannot go all that is living of me is here for you² 
³For eternity² 

You had gone 
The world changed. 
The sound of the clock grows fainter, 
Dwindling away, becoming a minute thing 
I whisper in the darkness. "If it stops, I shall surely die." 
Again, Alone.

     The life experience of three Asian women had now left my soul but there was no feeling of emptiness. Instead I felt the warmth as I had that day on the street corner in San Francisco and I remembered the man that was searching. He had lost his karma. I know this now because I have found mine after so many lonely years.
     The Tao is often confusing, especially to a Westerner but I have found that sitting in my special place (overlooking the rose gardens of my city) hearing the children's laughter, watching the old display their love with silence, and feeling peace and calmness is the closest I have come yet to being a Taoist. As for my karma, it has now been satisfied, I have "repaid" and my life is again filled with creating and enjoying that which is created. I would never bring bad karma to a relationship and having been restored, now is the reason that I am searching for my wife/soul mate.
     I may have bored you with this writing and for this I apologize. If you have seen my honesty and accept me for it, I am grateful and you will feel my need for a beginning and not an end.
     Thank you for allowing me to share these thoughts:

Spinning words together to create vows will not 
   unite two souls. 
Pouring over words in marriage manuals will not 
   pour spirit into a relationship 
Words may speak of love but they cannot create 
   it. 
The union of one soul with another is born of a 
   passion that must not be tamed by words. 
Let your words be tools of this passion not barriers 
   to it. 
Words emerging from love's furnace will be few 
   but powerful. 
A few words of understanding may heal a wounded 
   heart. 
A few words of wisdom may comfort a lonely soul. 
A few words of sensuous longing 
May kindle loves embraces

by Richard diVely (Deno)
One Excelsior Court #110
Oakland, Ca. 94610

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