Are you an Asian American princess?
These are the first signs:
- Everyone thinks you’re at least five years younger than you really are.
- You can play the piano, violin, cello or some other stringed instrument that is not a guitar.
- If you got an A in a class, your parents wondered why you didn’t get an A+.
- Your IQ is higher than your weight.
- You had a double major in college because your parents didn’t approve of the first one. Examples:
- Art & Accounting
- Dance & Dentistry
- Literature & Law
- Music & Microbiology*
* Unless you went to Julliard, and then you are in a string quartet with your three sisters.
Five More Signs of an Asian American Princess
- You know the cheapest place to buy a Coach bag.
- You’re 5′2″ but you tell people you’re 5′5″ because you live in high heels anyway.
- You used to think your parents were so FOB when they ate kimchee or daikon with their pizza, but now you see white people flocking to overpriced fusion restaurants that serve the same kind of thing.
- You have been to Hawaii at least three times. (Double points if you went there for a wedding.)
- You think halter neck tops are cute, but you can’t wear your padded bra underneath.
Yet Another Five More Signs of an Asian American Princess
- You know some choice Asian swear words. Examples:
- Lo De - Asshole in Vietnamese
- Dong Muk-uh - Eat Sh*t in Korean
- Dew Nay Low Mao - Mother F*cker in Cantonese
- Futota Kuso - Fat Sh*t in Japanese
- You’re dating a white guy, but you wish you were with John Cho.
- You make sure your white boyfriend knows the difference between Asian and Asian American.
- When someone asks if you can speak English, you answer, “I have a Ph.D. in Shakespeare, you smelly lo de.”
- When someone standing on a street corner asks if you can stop to take a survey, you answer, “No speaka Engrish.”
If you answered yes to 5 or more of these, congratulations, you are officially an Asian American princess!
When I was growing up, my family would eat pizza on Sundays after church. A few minutes after we’d received the body of Christ shrunk to the size of a coin, we’d drive to our favorite pizzeria and get a hot pie with extra tomato sauce.
My brother and I loved the chewy crust, the bubbly cheese, the slices of pepperoni. It was greasy, salty heaven, and the cheese was hot enough to burn the roof of my mouth. I didn’t want to think about what it was doing to the little bit of Jesus that was inside of me.
As we were gorging ourselves and falling into food coma, inevitably, my mother would stop and say, “Hmm, wish I had a little kimchi.” My brother and I’d look at each other and roll our eyes. Our mother was such a FOB. Such an incurable FOB. She had to have kimchi with everything. Spaghetti? Kimchi goes with that. A grilled cheese sandwich? Put kimchi in the middle. Pancakes? With kimchi on top, pretty please; hold the maple syrup.
Years later, I would see people flocking to fusion restaurants, where they’d pay up to a day’s wages for a tiny dinner. The restaurants are often celebrated with four-star reviews. Many of these places are run by Asian chefs who’ve combined their European training with their mama’s cooking. Or by Caucasian chefs who recognize the fact that Asians are not a “minority.”
You know what the key ingredient is in many of these places? Kimchi! At one restaurant in Seattle, you can get a mac and cheese with a side of pickled radish. In New York, you can have kimchi with your foie gras.
The coolest innovator of all, of course, is Roy Choi, the taco truck guy in L.A. who serves kimchi with quesadillas and Twittered his way to fame. And only charges seven bucks. (We thrifty Asian American princesses like that.) The Korean taco seems to be a growing phenomenon, as evidenced by Koi Fusion, which started in Portland a few months ago. The guy behind Koi Fusion realizes that the demographics of Portland isn’t exactly that of L.A., still he’s determined to bring the taste of Korea—and kimchi—to the masses. Who would have guessed that my fobby mother had been a trendsetter all along?
food
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Asian-American princess, FOB, Joule, Kimchee, Kimchi, Kogi, Koifusion, Korean fusion, Korean Tacos, Korean-American, Momofuku
In addition to designer purses, Asian American princesses like to collect logo-licious shopping bags from expensive stores. My friend Vivian, a princess in Taiwan reports that many women there like to collect bags from Versace, Dolce & Gabbana, Prada, Gucci, etc. Pretentious? Perhaps. However, this could really benefit the Earth. Americans use 10 billion paper bags a year. This equals 14 million trees. In China, 3 billion plastic bags are used every day. So please, Princess, remember to bring your empty Prada paper bags when you hit the boutiques! Who says recycling can’t be chic?
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This adorable picture is of Nicole “Nikki” Tai, a Seattle princess when she was five years old. I can’t believe she’s completely in the bag! Now grown-up, Nikki is an avid photographer. To see her work, check out her page on Zazzle.com. She’s got some pretty Asian-inspired cards there for sale.
One day, I was near Uwajimaya, a large Asian supermarket in Seattle’s Chinatown. A good-looking guy walked in the opposite direction. I mean, a really good-looking guy, the kind of guy you imagine when you read about a hero in a novel. As we walked past each other, he stopped in his tracks, smiled a big smile and said, “Bonjour.”
Wow. I couldn’t believe the perfection of this moment. The sun was shining, the guy was French, and out of all the people walking on the street, he had chosen to say hello to me.
Then he asked, “Do you know where I can get zee opium?”
I was so stunned that I couldn’t talk for a few seconds. He kept smiling his Frenchie smile, waiting for me to answer.
I finally said, “Hong Kong? 1848?”
He let out a heavy sigh. “Ah… OK. Zank you.” He had apparently traveled very far in search of opium. And now he’d have to travel back in time.
Image credit: www.opiummuseum.com
Image credit: http://www.collect.at
At some point in every woman’s life, she realizes that she’s a magnet for jerks. For an Asian American princess, the jerks tend to be SADs (serial Asian daters). She might like the attention for a while, until she realizes that SADs are PAT (pathetic).
Perhaps there’s a guy at school or work who’s pursuing you. How do you find out if he’s for real or if he’s just into your wontons?
Signs of the Serial Asian Dater:
* Steven Seagal is actually not an SAD, according to Who’s Dated Who. But he still looks like a douche in the Chinese jacket.
Recently, my fobby mother gave me a pack of underwear from Korea. They came in assorted pastel colors and had appliquéd flowers on the front. They were something that only a six-year-old girl would find charming. “Don’t you think I can buy my own underwear?” I asked.
“Korean underwear so much better, so soft,” my mother said. “Wear it so you pretty on the inside.”
This was not the first time we had a discussion about underwear and men. One year in college, I lived in a house with three other students. One of them happened to be male. His name was Jason and he was a fifth-year senior. In his room hung a giant poster of the Mona Lisa smoking a joint. Luckily, the college was a several hours’ plane ride away from home, so my mother never saw that poster. But she was shocked that I was sharing a house with a man who was not my father or brother. “Make sure you lock your door!” she shouted over the phone.
“There’s no lock. None of the bedroom doors have one,” I said.
Then she had another brilliant idea. “Make sure you wear underwear when you go sleep! And wear pajamas with legs, not nightgown, in case he try something.”
***
As luck would have it, underwear became a running theme in my relationship with my mother. A few years ago, we were in Korea together visiting relatives and friends. We had a great time touring palaces, temples and markets. One of the most memorable sights for me, however, was a pair of mannequins at a subway station in Seoul. They were sporting underwear—sexy underwear. If this wasn’t freaky enough, the mannequins had oversized heads, with enormous, cartoonish eyes. It was as if they’d been constructed anime-style, except they had none of the cuteness of anime. The male mannequin had a goatee. It reminded me a little of Ethan Hawke.
***
What strange gifts have you gotten from your mother?
Leave a comment here, or email me at soyon_im@hotmail.com.
Asian women love big designer bags. The bigger the bag, the more surface area there is to show off the designer logo, whether it be Coach, Gucci, or Louis Vuitton.
While some of the branding is obnoxious, the real danger of these big designer bags is that they encourage women to haul around the contents of their entire bathroom. The more space a bag offers, the easier it is to stuff it with a ten-pound make up kit and electronic gadgets such as cellphone, iPod, and ceramic hair iron. Plus, when a woman finds herself at a buffet dinner, she can sneak some California rolls and shrimp toasts into that same purse.
Asian American women are quite athletic, as evidenced by their ability to carry their heavy purses, which can weigh up to 15% of a woman’s own body weight. The straps of the bags press down on their shoulders, causing them to walk lop-sided as they peruse their favorite shops on a Sunday afternoon. Adding to the physical challenge are the four-inch heels that threaten to topple their sense of balance. Fortunately, an Asian American princess can often call upon her BF (boyfriend) or GBF (gay best friend) to hold the giant bag and relieve her of some of the stress.
Despite the burdens of carrying an oversized bag, most Asian American women have multiple versions in different colors and shapes. Being a wide reader of fashion magazines, Asian American women will often know more about the purses than the women who sell them. At a shop, an older saleswoman (usually Russian) will try to be friendly and greet a potential customer with “Konnichiwa!” unaware that she is speaking to an Asian American princess and not a Japanese tourist. The foreign greeting will irk the Asian American princess, but only a little, since it is so obvious that the princess, with her advanced degree and plum job, lives a much easier life than the older lady peddling the bags.
However, the princess and the peddler may have one thing in common: They both like to save money. To feed her bag obsession, an Asian American princess will join forces with other princesses and drive two hours to a factory store where designer purses are sold at 30-50% off retail prices. This shows that Asian American princesses, while they may look like vapid fashion slaves with their stiletto heels and giant bags, are actually very frugal and smart. After all, they were raised by cheap immigrant parents who saved every penny while they worked at their 24-hour grocery stores and who made the princesses study really hard even on their summer “vacations.” So while the Asian American princess often falls for stupid status symbols, she is not so stupid that she pays full price.
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