Like, I think, most immigrant parents, mine have instilled in me a healthy paranoia about the world. In spite of raising me in a very safe and relatively affluent neighborhood, mom and dad never let me go outside unaccompanied. Even stepping to the mailbox could result in me getting kidnapped.
So when I told my mom that I was planning a trip to Prague with some friends this summer, her first response was, "Don't go anywhere alone! I read a story in the newspaper about a Chinese girl who got kidnapped while she was traveling there." Similarly, when I was in Pittsburgh for a conference, my mother said, "Be careful! I just read a story about a Chinese girl who was on vacation in L.A., and then somebody killed her and dumped her body in the hotel water tank."
Perhaps my mother is particularly morbid, but my aunt launched the exact same warnings when I told her about my travels. Perhaps they're subscribed to a Dead Chinese Girls news feed or something.
All jokes aside, these incidents are indeed real, and being a petite Asian woman does mean I have to exercise caution. The trick is to figure out what amount of caution I should apply in my day-to-day activities. In fact, as of this moment, I'm waiting for a guy to pick me up on a date. I am now thinking that I should have planned to meet him at the art museum we're planning to go to. I should probably take a picture of his license plate and send it to some close friends in case he decides to kidnap me, chop up my body, and dump it in the river.
