#13 Phở

Though this is specifically a Vietnamese dish, Phở is widely popular with all Asians. If you do not know what Phở is, it's basically a rice-noodle soup in a beef broth. Phở is usually eaten in the morning or early afternoon. Some Asians may tell you that Phở is the perfect cure for any hangover.

Phở places are usually your average 'mom & pop' places. Though there are a few commercialized establishments, Asians aren't quite the fan of these. Ask any Asian, and each of them have their own specific Phở place they usually go to and may possibly claim that not many other people know about it.

Asians each have their own method of consuming Phở, as one can have it with all the bean sprouts, leafy greens such as cilantro, and a little bit of hot sauce; or perhaps without any vegetables at all and pretty much drenching the Phở in hot sauce so then it becomes reddish in unecessary spiciness. Either way, specifically with contemporary Asian-American culture, Phở is a fun, entertaining, and sociable thing for Asians to eat. When non-Asians are saying "let's go on a burrito run," Asians can be found saying " let's go on a Phở run." Nothing against burritos, but Phở for Asians is just like any other food where people go out to eat and hang out.

And as I always like to mention, if you'd like to do the infamous 'go out to lunch' or 'do lunch' with an Asian person, take them out for some Phở but do your best and find a "dive" Phở place. ( as simliar to the term "dive bar").

#12 Choreographed Dancing

A few years ago, the t.v show Asians commonly watched was "The Wade Robinson Project." Now recently, it is "America's Best Dance Crew." Asians absolutely, perhaps even more than kareoke itself, love choreographed dancing. It is but one of the only things Asians are capable of being better at than other non-Asians. We can easily see this, as the top competitors on America's Best Dance Crew are, you guessed it, Asian American crews: Kaba Modern and Jabbawockeez (with the exception of their lonesome black member).

If you look at most dance organizations on a college campus, or even dance organizations in general, the largest and more popular ones are founded and consist mostly of Asians. I'm not saying all Asians are able to do choreographed dancing, it's just that most (exceptional) choreographed dancing is being done by Asians.

Moreover, Asians love watching choreographed dancing. They flip out in a moments notice if some event were to arise that involved some form of choregraphed dancing showcase or competition. Asians become significantly turned on seeing sexy dance moves, remixes, flips, and jumps, "isolations" and the like. Asians are even in love with the image that a dancer must portray. It's quite tricky to maintain this image, but Asians find this incredibly attractive, let alone the ability to do choregraphed dancing.

If you ever want to ultimately impress an Asian person let me give a seperate message to guys and girls.
Girls: easy, just dress like a (hip-hop) dancer. You don't necessarily have know how to dance. Just maintain a rythym. To accomplish this, just go to the beat, count in your head...you may captivate an Asian guy's attention with your cool cute urban dancer outfit, but not having any rythym would drive them away.

Guys: this is a bit more tricky. You indeed also have to come with the same urban-dancer-hip-hop outfit, but you may also need to know some actual dance moves rather than just having rythym. Asian ladies love a nifty, fancy dancer and if you can pull this off, you've done more than enough to impress her. And do not under any circumstances mix "cool dance moves" with "freaking," this does not qualify you as a dancer, but just another dirty hound in the club. You're trying to impress, not harass.

And most of all, be sure to mention something about Kaba Modern or Jabawockeys being your favorite dance crews on A.B.D.C. Success is yours.

#11 Business Administration

We come to the last of our series of what Asians like in terms of career choices: Business Administration. Again the same reasons apply as I mentioned for both Med. School and Engineering. These Asians would hope to like to run their business or be in charge: CEO's, and what not when it comes to the business world.

Then there comes the controversial aspect of the "Glass Ceiling," which Asians may explain to you. If you do not know, the "Glass Ceiling" is a metaphor for an invisible barrier that prevents Asians from reaching these CEO and Managerial positions that Asians ultimately sought out for in becoming a BA major. (for more information, wikipedia.org is offers a fair amount of detail about it.) Asians are split on whether or not they agree the "Glass Ceiling" really exists. Though if you'd like to engage in some interesting conversation (more so, 'hit on') with an Asian Business Administration candidate, ask him or her if they believe it exists. Just prepare yourself via the link above if need be, it's a bit of a sensitive topic to some.

And as always, BA offers a very competitive field of Asian candidates. Though one can admit the material in these classes aren't as difficult compared to their engineering and pre-med counterparts, but the sheer competition that comes along with these classes is just as, if not even more, intense. Some Asians become involved in frats/sororities/clubs and join Business Administration related internships as to boast their resumes. Again it comes to down to who is involved in the most things. In the classes, Asians are even more notorious in keeping certain things from each other; even though I've personally seen Asians study together for these classes. Though there's nothing more annoying for Asians than having to help other Asians, especially ones that are well behind or not as good with the material, because in the end, it's every Asian for him or herself.

note: some may argue that I should include pre-law, however based on my own observations, there are far more Asians that like these three aforementioned career choices. However if anyone wants attests to this, by all means...

#10 Kirkland bottled water/Water Filters

This is distinctively different then white people and how they like bottled water. Asians do not value water as much as buying expensive, supposed higher quality water. Though Asians do agree on the contents of regular tap water and that it's way too dangerous to drink. So how do Asians make ends meet? Asians went to Costco and saw Kirkland brand bottled water.

For about 5 dollars, an Asian can enjoy 36 (it could be 24) bottles of clean non-tap water goodness. Every so often, you can check an Asian woman's purse, or an Asian male's back pack and see that there is a bottle of Kirkland water nested in there. Don't ever try to get an Asian to purchase any other brand, as any other brand would be over paying for water. And rarely would you see Asians carrying around the metal/plastic reusable containers. Asians aren't necessarily known for needing to drink that much water as opposed to certain non-Asians.

So overall I'm not saying Asians stand against paying for water, Asians are just only willing to pay for the Kirkland brand. It is even more likely when going to an Asian's house/apartment, that you will find this gigantic kirkland case, probably still partially wrapped in it's plastic seal but of course with the ripped in hole for access to the bottles. Or if your even more curious, look in the recycling bins of Asians, and voila- empty kirkland bottles galore.

On the other hand, Asians are also famous for having a water filter. It is more economically and environmentally beneficial for Asians to 'make' their own pure and clean water; by taking away the supposed bad stuff in tap water with their awesome water filters. It is guaranteed that if an Asian household doesn't invest in Kirkland brand water bottles, most likely there are 1 or 2 (the record I've seen was in an Asian college household, which was 4) water filters laying around in the fridge or counter top. So I suppose Asians are a bit more gutsy in terms of tackling drinking tap water with the help of a water filter. I'm not sure if I've ever seen non-Asians that commonly own water filters...mostly because of lack of trust in them to take away the impurities.

#9 Engineering

Next up, alongside medical school is engineering: computer science, electrical, mechanical, chemical, and civil engineering... just like premed, first entering college many Asians 'default' themselves to one of these majors. The same reasons apply, as to why Asians like Engineering: their parents like engineering, it's something they'd enjoy doing, the money, and well their parents like engineering.Engineering offers a similarly demanding and competitive college life, and minimal social life.

Not to say Asian engineer hopefuls don't know how to have a good time, but most Asians take their engineering very seriously and tend to overexaggerate how much time they need to commit to their work. Though when we say overexaggerate, it really means they like overly complain or 'bitch' about how much work they have to do...and unfortunately are famous for taking out this frustration on other people. Consider listening closely to a friend of yours who happens to be Asian and engineering: you'll realize damn this guy likes to bitch about Engineering. But they do enjoy doing it, there's no point to try and convince them " hey if you hate it so much, then why don't you change majors?" An Asian would never consider it.

This is perhaps the biggest difference between premed Asians and engineering Asians which is a lower chance in change in major. Because of how engineering is designed, candidates don't have a choice or option to opt out of engineering programs into other majors. Which is okay, because actually most Asians that do choose to be engineers because they really do enjoy physics, computer science, chemistry, mechanics and all the good stuff that comes with- more so than premeds and their respective majors.

Going outside of Asians choosing this as a major, many Asian women like engineering in the sense that they're attracted to engineering majors. However, it more so often the case that these Asian women that do find being an engineer major attractive are only referring to other non-Asian engineer majors. I directly quote from a close friend of mine, an Asian Engineer Major,
" it may seem as though these Asian women are attracted to me and my fellow engineering majors; where they find our dorky and nerdy querks and inside engineering jokes, our goofy yet slightly sophisticated attire, our thirst for technical knowledge, and our endless but highly intellectual and interesting rants and lectures about irrelevent facts of the technological world, are all cute and adorable to some extent... but litte do they realize that this is all platonic for us Asian engineers, but extremely sexually attractive for our non-Asian counterparts."

He's not bitter nor is he in a struggling competition for women with his engineer friends...he does have a girlfriend, but he admits that his girlfriend wasn't attractd to him because of his fixed engineering qualities and attributes he's famous for. You can test this, if you ever meet an Asian woman with a non-Asian boyfriend who happens to be engineering major. Odds are, she's very attracted to him because of his dorky qualities and resourceful technical knowledge. On the other hand, she may happen to have Asian friends with the same qualities, but no way would she consider being attracted to them. It's a phenemon that has been disputed for quite some time, especially by Asian men, but we leave the details out in respect to the blog.

edit: I recieved a request from an outside source, an Asian engineer major to add the following, this is focused on Asian males:

Asians like engineering because in turn, they become quite knowledgable in other sciences such as math and physics. As a result, Asian engineers sought out to help any girls in need of assistance in these sciences. Nothing makes an Asian feel better than being nice and coming to the academic rescue to girls struggling with math and physics. It may seem that these engineer majors are taking advantage of their capabailities, but fortunately enough engineers happen to know better and would never actually do any real exploitation. To put it simply, Asian engineers take pleasure in being nice and helping girls but don't worry they're nothing short of being harmless...and most girls who do sought for help know this.

note: William Hung is featured because he happens to be an Engineering major.

#8 Going to Asia

Whether it be study abroad or the annual summer trip, Korea and Koreans, Phillippines and Filipinos, Vietnam and Vietnamese, etc etc. Asians like going to Asia, or at least really like talking about going to Asia. Many Asians like talking about how great (insert their country here) is. And sometimes it's the case that Asians may make comparisons of their country with other Asian countries. Those who have gone back a significant amount of times are quite proud of themselves to have honored their countries of origin, and knowing their 'roots.' Many Asians feel it is necessary to make the return to their respective counries, and those who have been able to return consider themselves more culturally linked with their ethnicities. In other words, a Korean isn't not so Korean until he or she has been to Korea...and so on. Going to Asia is a part of every Asian's journey in self-discovery and maintaining a connection with his or her culture.

One important aspect that factors in when it comes to Asians wanting to go back to Asia: the food. America can only import so much and maintain authenticity. However, according to Asians many supposed Asian foods in America are hardly what the actual food actually like. This distinction is usually explained through the infamous Asian restaraunts that Non-Asians (Americans) love so deeply-refer to stuffwhitepeoplelike. Much criticism is recieved from Asians about these places and even about those who love that food. "This pho is nothing like the pho back home," or... "the dim sum in America is nothing compared to the dim sum in China."

But perhaps one of the more crucial reasons why Asians like going back to Asia is the *shopping. To be a bit more specific, Asia is known for a lot unauthentic, cheaply priced merchandise. We save going more in depth with this in a future post.

#7 Medical School

If there's anything in terms of career choice that Asians like, it's going to med school ( or other medical related fields such as nursing or pharmacy school) There is only but a handful of career paths Asians choose upon leaving High School. One of these paths is the Medical field, where around 40% (this precentage may be a bit inaccurate) of Asians initially choose going to Med School at the start of college for several reasons (this is in a particular order, yes it is): pressure from their parents, the money, to help people, and pressure from their parents. You may even hear Asians say, " I pretty much have no choice," more so they're 'forced' to like med school right at the get go. Some Asians may try to convince you that it was solely their decision to be premed/prenursing, but little do they know it was a subconscious decision infused by years and years of pressure from their parents they've recieved. On a side note, I agree that there those Asians who do choose a career in the medical field not because of the money, but it is something they'd really love to do. But the pressure that I'm talking about would never come from their parents if the medical field wasn't such a high paying profession. To put it simply, Asians like medical school because they know their parents like medical school.

Keep in mind, that we say "initially" choose, because we're empasizing that upon entering college, many Asians practically default themselves to being premed. But eventually (usually by the second year of college) a big percentage of these Asians will eventually change their career paths because they soon discover the nature of being a striving pre-med student sucks: not to say they now hate medschool, but they've come to realize that they hate the way to get there. Those Asians that do remain, love the competitiveness, highly-difficult classes, science courses, extreme demand for studying, and endless involvement in research, internships, and clubs related to medical school- that a premed is forced to live through all 4-5 years of college. Occassionally, there are certain Asians who have switched their majors to a non-science major, but still plan to go to medschool, as a way to 'dodge' some of the obstacles or at least alleviate the pre-med journey. Overall, if you take a survey of Asians that have changed their majors at least twice, odds are many of them were formerly premed, or at least have considered it.

If anyone wants to see the true essence of competition between Asians it's in Premed Asians. In classes, even though it is sometimes necessary that Asians must work/study together, Asians are known to witheld certain things from each other when it comes to this. In fact, some Asians absolutley despise having to help other Asians in the classes they're in, especially when it won't directly benefit them. Not to say they'd intentionally sabatoge one another (at least not that I know of), but there's nothing better that premed Asians like than knowing that they're doing better (in their classes) than other Asians.

This is even more evident when MCAT season comes for pre-med Asian hopefuls. As tough as the test is, and as much time, sweat and effort it takes to prep for such a crucial exam, Asians dont ever study together, or even talk about the test with other Asians planning to take it.

On the other hand, there's nothing premed Asians enjoy doing more than criticizing other premed Asians that study too much or are involved in too many premed related activities. Actually let me restate that: there's nothing premed Asians enjoy doing more than criticizing other premed Asians that study more than they do or are invovled in more activities than they are. They know for a fact in the back of their mind they too should be studying just as much, but to make themselves feel better about not doing so, they ridicule those that do. They get good laughs to say the least, but in the end they know they've got to 'step it up' eventually.

Though there are plenty of Asians who are humble about their pre-med successes, there are definitely plenty of Asians who boast about them as well. Outside of knowing they've done better than other Asians in the premed life, but being able to rave about it is the next best thing Whether it be with close friends, everyone, or in a blogger, Asians are known for inconspiciously showing off the grades they recieve, amount of clubs/medical fraternities they're involved with, or the research they're a part of.

note: as mentioned earlier, there are but a handful of career choices Asians like upon graduating high school. The rest, (business administration and engineering) will come in future posts.

#6 Linkin Park

This one is pretty good.

Let's talk about this historically:
Though we have all been a fan of Linkin Park sometime in our lives, Asians are quite famous for liking Linkin Park because prior to the coming of Linkin Park, the closest hard rock of the sorts that Asians liked was Green Day or perhaps the Red Hot Chili Peppers on the rarest occasion. Prior to the coming of Linkin Park, most Asians liked Rap and R&B music.

Then when Linkin Park came out with the song " In the End," Asians flipped out. They saw this catchy song with rap but sounded quite hard-rockish, (and maybe sounded 'metal' to a lot of Asians who have never heard Rock before), with an Asian guy doing the catchy rapping, and some other guy doing the catchy chorus. Soon, the Linkin Park Asian craze took the Asian (American) Nation by storm.

Asians changed styles of dress: purchasing converse tennis shoes, wearing band T-shirts, spike bracelets, got piercings, dyed their hair, wore eye liner etc. , and got into other rock music (from Limp Bizkit, Staind, Incubus, Sytem of a Down, to New Found Glory Blink 182 etc) , but of course stuck to their new 'favorite' band, Linkin Park. Hordes of Asians attended these rock concerts, and the white people were astonished to see how ethnic their concerts had grown into. Asians found themselves in a whole new world and were excited and most of all felt good about themselves about how non-Asian they felt they were acting. Though the Asians were widely accepted by the white people, they weren't very accepting of each other, in the sense that Asians started insulting each other, calling each other poseurs (or other names of the sorts.) It became a big competition to see who were the biggest rock (Linkin Park) fans, which would go on for a years and years to come.

So now that we have some history, even though we touched the reasoning a bit, let's elaborate more why Asians like Linkin Park.

Linkin Park had very catchy music that was memorizable for everyone, therefore for Asians as well. Linkin Park has two Asian (American) members, who happen to be good looking. Asians go crazy just to see one Asian member of a band. Asian girls were quite in love with the two members, Mike Shinoda and DJ Hahn.

The image Linkin Park brought on was somewhat a dark one, but not dark enough to be evil or appalling because Asians couldn't handle the Marilyn Manson-type of rock image, at least at the time. So all in all, liking Linkin Park brought a new image for Asians to bring upon themselves, something that wasn't so intense, but intense enough to start liking rock music outside of Green Day or Third Eye Blind, to can now claim themselves to be hard-rockers, in some sense. Most Asians that did like these bands prior to Linkin Park usually kept it with themselves, because liking these bands as opposed to Rap and R&B was un-Asian (American) like. I suppose for Asians, Linkin Park brought on the best of both worlds, therefore making it okay for them to openly like Rock music.

Some other fun facts is that every Asian knows the lyrics to that famous Linkin Park song, "In the End." (Though, it's okay to argue that everyone knows the lyrics to that song). Also Asians usually refer to Linkin Park as LP.

Nowadays, the Linkin Park craze has died out a bit as Asians discovered new genres of Rock. Asians have dispersed to Punk Rock, Indie, Folk, Metal etc. Not to say Asians don't like Linkin Park anymore, when that new single came out, "What I've Done," every Asian went out and downloaded it. Even now, Asians will list Linkin Park as one of their favorite, if not the favorite, band of all time, and Asians will always list either Meteora or of course Hybrid Theory as one of their favorite albums of all time.

So if you're into rock, and want to enjoy rock music with some Asian company- wanna be sure to please them, be safe and play some tracks from Hybrid Theory. They'll all reminice on how much a big fans of Linkin Park they were (or are), (again they will probably have a big comparison to one another on whose done the most extreme things in regards to liking Linkin Park, aka # of concerts attended, posters purchased, etc.) and you'll have a "In the End" sing-a-long and good times... no alchohal needed! (not even cognac)

#5 Boba (Tapioca Drinks)

In case you didn't know, "Boba" is equivalent to Tapioca Drinks, which are more commonly known as milk tea pearl drinks.

Nothing is more refreshing and fulfilling than going to a local milk tea shop and getting some tapioca. For Asians, this it is required to enjoy Tapioca three times a week. Everynight, these places are crowded full of Asians eager for some milk tea and perhaps an order of popcorn chicken and/or ice cream. Though you can order milk tea in a huge variety of ways, most Asians "keep it real" and pay the 1.99 for the regular gmilk tea with tapioca. The more westernized ways to have it: slushy, cappucino, irish cream, banana strawberry smoothie etc, are more appreciated by non-Asians. It's usually on rare occassion when Asians have these outrageous flavors.

Asians and Boba are much like coffee drinkers and white people. These places have long lines of Asians eagerly waiting for Boba. Asians may not be purchasing three or four cups a day, but they casually drink it just as much, and is a great medium for Asians to socialize. Like in coffee shops, Asians will purchase their boba and hang out with one another in the shop upwards to three hours since buying their boba. The "upside" I suppose is that Boba isn't such a high maintence drink as Coffee is. Meaning there is no "soy, extra shot, whip cream, caramel, etc etc." option for each order. And if there were, perhaps the most one can ever modify a boba drink is "pearl or no pearl?" Though most Asians would call you crazy to not have pearl in the drink.

A lot of Asians have convinced themselves that they know where the best tapioca is, and one place is better than another. That's pretty much saying "this place has better lettuce than that place" or "this starbucks has crunchier chocolate chips than that starbucks." Occassional drinkers would never know the difference in tapioca, but Asians are no Occasional drinkers of boba.

When do Asians drink boba? Here's a short list: taking a break from studying, after working out, after a test/midterm, on a hot day, after clubbing, after a mixer from some academic/social club, before lunch, after lunch, late in the afternoon, late night, after dinner.

It may seem that I'm implying " all the time" but not really, an Asian would never have Boba in the morning.