August 27, 2008
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I used to think that having black hair and slanted eyes was enough to make me Asian, but then I actually went to Asia and discovered I was kind of wrong. Sure, having certain physical features was enough to get me through the door, but from a cultural standpoint my Asianness was pretty watered down compared to the residents of the Motherland.
…Yes, I said “residents” instead of “Asians” because I know that citizenship is no longer limited by continental boundaries (say “yes!” to globalization!)–i.e., you don’t have to live in a certain place because of your race (say “yes!” to rhyming!). Only people who live in caves think otherwise…they also eat twigs and make friends with wall paintings.Anyway, this epiphany got me thinking: if my Asianness is watered down, then there has to be someone whose Asianness is more concentrated (hmm…suddenly I feel like having some orange juice)…so what makes someone hardcore Asian? Besides never knowing that “99 Ranch Market” had a cereal aisle even though he or she had been buying groceries there for centuries. There has to be some common factors amongst the more-Asianness community, right?
I decided to
snoop around my friends’ and relatives’ stuffdo some very scientific research and found 10 things that make someone more Asian (I’m 100% sure there are more than 10 things, but I got really lazy…please feel free to make suggestions!). It doesn’t matter what your race is; you’ve got some Asian in you if you do any of these things:1. There is a bag of dried shiitake mushrooms somewhere in your kitchen…most likely near a bag of tiny, dried shrimps.
2. You will never be seen buying a bag of rice that doesn’t weigh 20 pounds.
3. You can eat street food without ever getting explosive diarrhea (how I envy you).
4. Tea bags are for the weak! Your drink of choice is dried plant matter swimming in hot water.
5. It’s not “stomach lining;” it’s called “tripe.”
6. You are lactose intolerant.
7. You are a badass when it comes to eating fish and chicken: you chew from one side of your mouth while spitting out bones from the other.
8. You knew who Edison Chen was before he became famous for being an avid beaver photographer.9. You know what “boba” really means—and it doesn’t have anything to do with brown tapioca balls.
10. Just because it smells like ass doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t eat it.
Comments (63)
I am such a bad Asian…
Ew hahaha.
hahaha, #10 is abso-freakin-lutely hilarious!!!
Edison Chen is still cute.
what boba?
You are strikingly beautiful. Assuming that’s you in your profile picture.
haha so true!
Even if I’m not born in Canada, I’d just lived there for couple of years, when i went back to Hong Kong, friends could tell that i’m not the local local chinese. It’s weird, even coming back for the 3rd year now. Oh. Also local local chinese can tell if the person has the international schools’ background. They say it’s the clothes and hair that we wear are different from the local asian style.
what do you think?
@be_lie - pearl milk tea?
<3 edison chen
Cheers to the 20 pound bag of rice. Jasmine happens to be my favorite.
i am SO asian, except for the lactose intolerant part. tripe is sooo good
where is edison chen’s sex tape?
I’ve got maybe four of them. I am very much an ABC
Check for all, except # 3,7,9 and 10. Guess I’m not sticking well to my heritage. Well, most Singaporeans are watered down Asians anyway.
WAIT!…. what IS boba? now you’ve got me all paranoid
1- yes
2- yes
3- yes
4- that would be my dad
5- ?
6- yes
7- kind of
8- yes…he’s got horrible character, but he’s cute
9- I love boba milk tea!
10- uh…no
Interesting blog
2 out of 10.. what does that mean? and Edison Chen is just. wow.
60%…i’m on the borderline. what’s your score?
I must be 20% Asian then, in fact I am eating Chinese food right now. But it doesn’t smell like ass. And I am using fingers instead of chopsticks.
I do more than half of all that because I live in Asia, like hello? But I am Asian too.
1. Tiny, dried shrimps make everything taste better. They are just like salt, only you can chew them.
2. My mom asks me to buy rice weighing 10kg per packet, and we usually take three at a time.
3. High class people can’t take street food; but higher class people are so high class that street food can’t even disturb their stomach. I’m the latter.
4. Don’t forget we don’t add sugar and/or cream!
5. Tripe is Asian macaroni.
6. Just because we don’t drink milk, that doesn’t mean we are lactose intolerant. We just…you know…don’t drink milk…
7. My late grandpa shot bones like a machine gun. ‘Gimme more fish! I need to reload! Fire in the hole! Here comes the chicken bones!’ But not me.
8. Practically every girl swooned over him, how could we guys not know him? But now we know, good guys always win.
9. Even if ‘boba’ referred to the tapioca balls, we don’t actually call them ’boba’ here. Only un-Asian Asians say ‘boba’.
10. Ass smells like ass too–and you eat it.
11. We can pick up food with just two sticks!
12. We usually need to trim our jeans after we buy them; or we fold up the ends when we wear them.
(I just had to comment it like this; #11 and 12 are the suggestions.)
haha, your illustrations are always great!
…sigh…
I wanna be asian.
From the waist up.
i suppose from the list i’m pretty damn asian, except only for #6 and and #8. absolutely love the dried plant matter and badass at eating chicken and fish! LOL.
Hahaha…this is funny and yet so true in a way! lol. I don’t know what’s boba, i have never tried chicken’s feet, i’m not lactose intolerant. yet i’m as asian as i can get. & i know all the others!
LOL! there are a lot out there
7. You are a badass when it comes to eating fish and chicken: you chew
from one side of your mouth while spitting out bones from the other.
that’s a good one though… cherries are in that too haha
I’m going to become Asian!
i totally just said “yes!” to orange juice
mmm… yes.
also, that may very well
be the best mushroom evAr drawn lol
I AM SO AMERICAN. -.-
And lol to the lactose-intolerant picture, hahahaha.
I guess this means I’m Asian, but really, I’m not. I swear! …okay, fine.
So very true!
Though being the asian that I am, I still don’t get how we minus me love tripe and all – no internal organs are getting past my lips. =X
Your depiction of dried plant matter swimming in hot water is so adorable.
ha bones outside the mouth is an admirable trait…I don’t know if I could do that…
LOL… That list can go on forever tho.
I love your illustrations. The tea is so cute!
I’m such a twinkie.
only 5.6.&7 apply to me! woot i’m 30% asian according to sylvia. lmao
Aw, you beat me to my score!
11. There are two mandatory sauces in your kitchen and its not ketchup, but of course Soy Sauce and Fish Sauce.
I think #10 goes for every race! And I thought only black folks ate Tripe. And, I must be totally watered down cause if I went to Africa, I couldn’t click like those bitches. lmao.
My best friend was Asian and adopted by a white family and she has SERIOUS issues because of it
almost everything is food related… is someone hungry?
that is a very cool devilish milk carton.
Funny ass post – funniest part? That the shrimp has a Fu Manchu. Hahaha
So tell me, where are you at that you have become such a bananna?
Um, I don’t know what boba is…. uh oh?
This survey works. So far I’m completely not Asian.
haha cute illustrations. i do get stomach aches when i eat ice cream . . . i do well with milk (2%)!!
Only #3 and #8 describe me
And what is boba???
Oh wow. I lived with a Vietnamese for a year. I wrote all about it on my most recent entry. It was scary. Chicken feet, scaly fish with eyeballs, and moldy food come to mind when I think of authentic Asian now. (Vietnamese is considered Asian right?)
omg i love your illustrations!! They’re soo much fun!
I love the milk one! So true!!
my parents only buy rice in 100lb bags!
and number 10 is funny
boba…haha!
yay for asian entries
is it me..or is xanga secretasianland?
12. When you were young taking a bath meant washing yourself with a bucket and a cup.
Have you checked out that blog StuffAsianPeopleLike?
Ah whatever happened to Edison after that scandal?
fu manchu shrimp! i like how you anthropomorphize food. it always tastes better with a face. ugh, milk, the bane of my existence; you made me give up cereal but at least i can still stomach ice-cream..for a day. no water necessary, it seems I am not from concentrate.
I think I understand what you mean by the “watered down” part. Though born in the States, I pride myself on speaking, reading, and writing Vietnamese fluently. Yet when I visited my parents’ hometown in Vietnam, no matter how I dressed (wearing some of the same clothing that the natives wore) and even if I did not say anything, everyone just knew I was from America — and triple-charged me for everything.
haha I can relate to most of this.. I LOVE TRIPE!! with fish sauce..yumm lololol.
That little mushroom is so cute! I love floating plant matter Yum
haha, i still cant get over your mspaintings… if you even remember who i am that is!
HAHA! 80% of this applies to me. I always feel like an un-Asian Asian though.
i’d have to say, that was pretty funny.
though i think there is one thing that this list is missing.
hardcore asians don’t watch television, they watch CCTV
or something of that sort.
I’m from Asia, and I definitely look Asian, but I think I’m one of those watered-down ones. Ha.
I got seven out of ten! What does that say?
1 yes2 yes3 yes4 yes5 yes6 no7 yes8 no9 no10 yes
Yup, that’s Asian food. An Asian friend of ours actually made Bird’s nest soup, out of actual bird’s nest. I am an adventurous eater, I will eat raw squid and sushi, but I draw the line at eating something, some avian pooped eggs into.