Dr. Asian Rake is a dating consultant and a full-time professor at a top research university. Currently based in Singapore, he guides select clients to improve their lifestyles. To learn more about him and his services and products, visit www.asianrake.com.

This article was originally inspired by fellow columnist Rochelle Nguyen's

article, which was in response to a letter written in reaction to her original article entitled, "Five Reasons Asian Girls Like White Guys."

It's also taken me about a month to write because I wanted to ensure that I wrote dispassionately with a cool-head and because business got really busy

recently.

I agree almost entirely with her original piece. Her main point was that Asian men lacked certain personality traits that kept them

from being as dominant in social interactions as white men. I actually concur with her on this and am actively working to help empower Asian men in this

respect. And I agree with almost everything she wrote in her follow-up article. Everything, that is, except the following.

This is from the

respondent's letter. No doubt, a non-native English speaker wrote this, as it's ungrammatical in places with spelling errors.

"Yes you have at some some clue in this, it is true you are brainwashed by white beauty standards, a social illness that has hurt so many women. And of

course there are plenty of asian men are also big, muscle, tall, athletic PLENTY! you have been deprived."

This is Rochelle's response to the paragraph.

"Oh please, this one is a no brainer. Even the leading men in Asian cinema can't compare to the leading men of Hollywood. Where in an Asian film can

deprived?"

I realize it may be unfair to use Rochelle's writing here as fodder and stalking horse for my own points. This paragraph

seems more like an exception to the rest of her piece. In any case, I'm using it as an example of a typical perspective on the physical appearance of

Asian men.

I don't normally like to wade into such minefields as racial prejudices. On such topics, reasoned argumentation often gives way to

emotional appeal.

However, given that the readership of the Amped Asia site includes many Asian-American men, I wish in this article to help

disabuse Asian men of self-limiting negative stereotypes and misconceptions regarding their Asian masculinity and heritage. This is to begin in some small

way to cut off the limiting beliefs that American and other Western societies impose on Asian-American men.

A Message to our Asian-American Sisters

First, allow me to go on a preliminary tangent and speak to our Asian-American sisters to explain why

their Asian-American brothers are so caught up in this topic.  

It's much easier to accept criticism about something you have the power

to change. Critiques of your social skills or your fashion sense are relatively easy to swallow.  

However, when someone says something like

"White men are bigger, taller, more muscular, and more athletic than Asian men," this strikes at the root of Asian men's identities. Yes, with

work, an Asian man can and should become more muscular or athletic.  

But without radical surgery, an adult male usually cannot change his

height or shoe size. Such categorical assertions will and should, if we want masculine Asian guys, generate a outrage from Asian men.  

As

Asian-American men, moreover, we will feel a sense of betrayal when our Asian-American sisters fail to understand us or support us. We grew up alongside our

Asian sisters, were raised by Asian mothers and aunties, and share a common Asian heritage with our Asian female counterparts. We view them as part of our

"in-group." So when they perpetuate stereotypes and misconceptions about us, we feel a sense of betrayal.

Perhaps this is misplaced.

After all, they are just echoing what the media and other sources of social influence have fed to them.  

There are even some Asian-American

brothers (some of whom run some Asian-American websites trying to make Asian-American guys into better Asian men) who also perpetuate the view that Asian men

in Asia are effeminate and weak, that Asian-American men should in some sense repudiate their Asian heritage, and that American culture is more masculine and

produces men superior to what traditional Asian culture produces.

So we can't put all the blame on our Asian-American sisters. Sometimes,

too, we as the sons of Asian immigrants, engage in self-perpetuating stereotyping practices. We, too, self-Orientalize. We ought to acknowledge our own

complicity in the current, sorry state of affairs. But it sure would help if our Asian-American sisters would understand.

Written by Editorial Staff

Just The Facts, Ma'am

Second, let's take a look at the factual claims made here.

The central claim is that "more white men are tall, big, muscular, and

athletic than Asian men." Furthermore, Rochelle asserts that "it is easy to say" this.

I wonder where the evidence is for such

sweeping claims. Asia includes China, North Korea, India, and a total population of over four billion people, making up roughly two-thirds of the world's

population.

Who among us has reliable records of the current height, weight, and body fat to muscle ratio of the population of North Korea, The

People's Republic of China, or even India?  Maybe the CIA.

How, then, can we make accurate factual claims about the total number of

tall, muscular, and athletic Asian men in the world? This is not even mentioning how vague these terms are in the first place, a point I shall come to later

(how muscular is "muscular"?).

In absence of any hard data, let us indulge, as Rochelle does, in anecdotal evidence and at least give

some specific examples.

While my examples are drawn mainly from China, as my Ph.D. research focused on this area, and I am of Chinese descent,

I'm certain that a little more research would likely turn up comparable data for Japan (sumo wrestlers and samurai come to mind), Vietnam, the

Philippines, and especially Korea.

Part of the misconceptions prevalent among Asian-Americans about Asian culture stem from the extremely small

sample size upon which they often draw. This applies to just about everything in Asian culture.  

I think it completely laughable that Asian

-Americans think they are experts about Asia because they drink bubble tea (or boba) every day, munch on California rolls, and shop in the grocery store in

Koreatown, or because they spend the occasional summer with their relatives in Asia. I remember the days in Toronto when people wouldn't believe me that

Mandarin Chinese is spoken by the majority of Chinese in China. They were convinced that Cantonese was the main dialect because that's all they heard in

the Chinatowns!

Asia is a complicated place. To someone who has devoted almost a decade to the academic study of Asia, this is the mother of all

understatements.

Take just China for example. Most immigrants to North America, until very recently, came from southern China, mainly Hong Kong

and Taiwan. Southern Chinese tend to be come from leaner, ectomorphic stock. Through most of Chinese history, dating back at least a millennium and a half,

southern Chinese were considered the scholars and artists while the northern Chinese composed most of the martial class.  

The people of the

northern steppes were some of the greatest warriors in the history of the world. By the thirteenth century, the Mongols had swept from the Sea of Japan to

the Holy Roman Empire, conquering and ruling over 20% of the world's total land area.

Northern Asians, who share in the ancestries of

northern Chinese and Koreans, have included some of the tallest, most muscular, and most athletic men in the history of the world.

Given that the

tallest and biggest Asians have historically originated from northern Asia and that most of America's Asian immigrant population is from points farther

south, it makes sense that Americans would form the misconception that Asians are homogenously short and skinny.

According to the latest report

(2008) from the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, as an official U.S. Census Information Center, Asians comprise 14.9 million American residents or about

5% of the total population. The largest sub-group is of Chinese descent, numbering 3.6 million. Most of these originate from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and southern

China. Recently, there has been a marked upsurge in mainland Chinese immigrants.  

The second, third, and fourth largest groups are neither

Korean nor Japanese, which may come as a shock to those living near sourthern California's Koreatowns and Little Tokyo. Korean residents in America

number 1.5 million and Japanese residents total 1.2 million. Indians comprise the third largest group at 2.7 million. The second and fourth largest groups

are actually Filipinos at 2.9 million and Vietnamese at 1.6 million. Notice that Filipinos and Vietnamese are from southeast Asia. So there are relatively

few northern Asian immigrants in America, though that situation is now starting to change.

So the small sample of Asia that you get in America is

misrepresentative of Asia as a whole. Asia is big. There are all kinds of Asians, including groups that are generally tall and big.

Height

Where in the world is the world's tallest man? That's right. China. Inner Mongolia, to be exact. His name is Bao Xishun, and he stands at

7'9" (2.36m) and is a relatively healthy 60 years old. Incidentally, the world's tallest woman ever on record was also Chinese. Who is the

tallest player in the NBA? That's right. Yao Ming. A Chinese guy. His hometown is Shanghai, though he most likely has Northern Chinese ancestry.

Muscular

In the most recent Olympic games (Beijing 2008), which team dominated the gold medal standings overall? Yes, the home team:

China. 51 gold medals compared to 36 by the US and 23 by Russia.

Take gymnastics, for instance. Certainly, gymnastics is one of the top sports

requiring a great combination of strength and agility. Have you seen those Olympians on the rings? Their armpit muscles are bigger than most girls'

biceps, lol. Which team totally trounced the competition? Yes, right again. China. China took home gold medals in the Men's Individual All-Around,

Men's Floor Exercise, Men's Pommel Horse, Men's Rings, Men's Parallel Bars, Men's Horizontal Bar, and the Men's Team competition.

Talk about domination.  

You want pure, brute strength? How about weightlifting? Yes, China again. The Chinese team took home gold medals in

the Men's 56kg, 62kg, and 69kg categories. And have you seen the Chinese men's water polo team? I'm not saying this to be gay or anything;

it's just that a friend of mine happened to be at one of their Olympic matches, and she snapped some pics of these gigantor dudes in their tiny speedos.

Any cursory perusal of the photos of Asian Olympians should disabuse you of the idea that there are any genetic or biological reasons

behind the stereotypes about men in Asia. There is nothing inherent or genetic in Asian men making them less muscular. If anything, as we've seen, they

have the potential and capacity to be even stronger and more muscular than their non-Asian counterparts.

So much for the claim that Asian men

aren't as "tall, big, muscular, or athletic" as non-Asian men.

Written by Editorial Staff

Go to Asia

One of the most important sources of the problem is that Asian-Americans are getting an inaccurate and incomplete cross-section

of Asian cultures. There is a lot more diversity in Asia than what you can see represented in America.

This largely explains why Asian-American

men have witnessed so few Asian alpha males.

Where are all the Asian alpha males?

Honestly, growing up in Canada and America, I

really didn't see many. I saw plenty of Asians who excelled in academics, athletics, the arts, and public service. Friends and family went to such

storied institutions as Penn, Harvard, Stanford, MIT, and Oxford, and then went on to very successful careers in respected professions like medicine, law,

pure research, and various branches of business. This is why they call us the "model minority."

But where were the Asian male sex

symbols?  

Not in America or Canada, I tell you. Not even in Hollywood movies. Nowadays, you find newer stars who are more representative of

the scene in Asia, guys like Takeshi Kaneshiro (can't believe how the Amped Asia crew missed him and many of the top male stars in Asia), but they

certainly haven't entered mainstream American consciousness yet.  

Certainly, asexual martial artists like Jackie Chan, Jet Li, or Bruce

Lee would not count as sex symbols. I strongly agree with Rochelle's opinion of the sex appeal of these otherwise excellent role models. I like Jet Li a

lot, particularly after he started spear heading his inspirational One Foundation charity and especially since he's not a rabidly horny dog like Jackie

Chan and Jackie's son (reports of their philandering ways in KTVs are legion). I guess being raised in a Buddhist monastery can do a boy good, lol. But

Jackie and Jet? Sexy they were not.  

Only in my second straight year of living in China did I come into contact with true Chinese alpha

males. After that, though, I began to see them all over the place.

Simply spending a summer in Asia won't cut it, although it's a good

start. Unless the average Asian-American has a guide who is really well connected in the local area, it will take him some time to find the local Asian alpha

males. They're like rulers of an underground society, ensconced deeply in their territory.

But once you find one and spend some time with

him, you'll start to spot them more frequently. After all, China is a country of 1.3 billion people. That's over four times the population of the US.

India is nearing 1.2 billion. At least 3-5% of those men in China and India are pulling as much high-quality tail as any man in the West. That's a lot of

guys.

My first extended encounter with a local Chinese alpha male was in the person of the ex-boyfriend of one of my girls in Beijing. The guy

lived in a far suburb of Beijing. He had 3-4 toughs along whenever I saw him. He was muscular, tattooed, had a shaved head, wore lots of jade jewelry and

liked black clothes, and had an addiction to chewing on toothpicks. He rarely smiled. Whenever he spoke, it seemed like he wasn't moving his lips. Yet

the effect was striking.  

To his many girls, he was the sweetest little boy and the perfect gentleman. The contrast was dramatic,

enchanting, and sexy. And the girls, when I asked them why they like him so much, said that they appreciated how he was tough with all the guys and the

outsiders, but super sweet to them. At last, my first Chinese alpha male. It only took me a year and a half floating aimlessly in China and twenty-nine years

of my life to find one.

After that, though, I started to spot them all over China. And I'm not just talking about gangsters. There was a

whole range of alpha dudes.

Written by Editorial Staff

In the Beijing bar district known as Sanlitun, I once saw six or seven extremely tall, young Chinese males surround a taxi in which sat the Chinese cabbie, a

white girl, and three white dudes. There were two guys in the group who were at least 6'7". One of them was maybe even taller. They looked like a

college basketball team. One of the dudes was standing at the front of the taxi with one foot on the bumper and grill, preventing the driver from driving out

of the small alley. A couple of the other dudes were reaching through the window and grabbing the white dudes with one hand while pounding their faces with

the other. The white girl was screaming hysterically. There were plenty of white expat dudes just staring at what was going down. The tall Chinese guys

finally let the taxi go. By this time, there was a huge crowd on both sides of the street watching. It turns out one of the white dudes had insulted one of

the Chinese guys, and things just escalated. Typical. Bar fights aren't all that uncommon in Beijing. One night at 5AM, I was at a club chatting up a

cutie when one of my wings came back holding a paper towel over his bleeding forearm. He just started talking to me as if nothing had happened. Apparently,

he had gotten into a fight downstairs and didn't see that one of the dudes was wielding a broken beer bottle. Hilarious. This sort of thing happens all

the time in Sanlitun. That's one of its charms.  

What I want you to notice is that there were six dudes easily over six feet tall who

were standing up for their pride on a bar street full of white expats. These Chinese dudes weren't Olympians or state sponsored athletes, as far as I

could tell, as state athletes have strict curfews and very monitored lives. These dudes were just regular guys, but they were tall. In the US, I often feel

short because I'm shorter than average. In southern Asia, I fit in better. But in northern China, I feel just as short as I do in the US. Who says that

there aren't tall, athletic Chinese dudes? Who says that Asian guys don't have balls?

My first two long-term girlfriends in Beijing both

hailed from the north. One was originally from the northwest in Inner Mongolia and the other was originally from the northeast in Jilin. The first was

5'8" (1.73m) and the second was 5'9" (1.75m). They had even taller cousins. They used to tease me about my height (5'7"/1.70m)

because all the males in their family were taller, and I was the shortest guy they had ever dated.  

A little known fact in the modeling

world in China is that there are plenty of Chinese male models over 6' (1.83m) and female models over 5'10" (1.77m) walking those runways in

Beijing. We're trying to bring some of these runway models down to Singapore ;-)

So, yes, there are a lot of tall people in China. And yes,

there are a lot of muscular people in China. In fact, not just in China, but in all of Asia!

But you don't even have to be all that tall or

muscular to turn girls' heads.  

Rochelle held up Brad Pitt as a standard. Let's look at Brad Pitt for a minute. He's just barely

tall enough to be a male runway model, squeaking in at 5'10" (1.8m). Many of my Chinese guy friends were this height or taller, and many of my

girlfriends' guy friends were taller than this.

He's muscular, but nowhere near what he would have to be do compete in any bodybuilding

competitions. What makes him stand out is his low body fat percentage. That famous look he had in Fight Club wasn't all that muscular; he was lean,

really lean. He bulked up for Troy, but not that much more; he was still lean.

What is universally attractive to women is a low body fat

percentage. That's easier to achieve for ectomorphs like Pitt. The good news for Asians is that genetically, we are predominantly ectomorphs, too.

      "Ectomorphs are your typical skinny guys. They have a light build with small joints and lean muscle. Usually

ectomorphs have long thin limbs with stringy muscles. Shoulders tend to be thin with little width. Ectomorphs find it very hard to gain weight. They have a

fast metabolism, which burns up calories very quickly. Ectomorphs need a huge amount of calories in order to gain weight."

The general

consensus in online bodybuilding forums is that Pitt is an ectomorph, which makes getting the lean, cut look in Fight Club that much easier. (I am somewhat

of a mesomorph myself, which has its advantages, but makes getting the Brad Pitt Fight Club look harder to attain.)

The amount of muscle Brad

Pitt had in Fight Club isn't hard to get. The average, adult skinny Asian guy could get there in a few months of really rigorous training. The hard part

is cutting away all the fat to get and keep the lean look. Most of this is accomplished through the right diet. For a very low body fat percentage, you are

looking at a very strict diet, not so much in the amount you eat, but in the kind of food and drink you consume.

All of this is achievable for

the average Asian man. In fact, ectomorphs have a distinct advantage in getting the cut, lean look. And if it's true that Asian males tend to be

ectomorphs, then all the better for Asian guys!

So, are Asian men just as tall, muscular, and athletic as non-Asian men? Hell, yeah. And I'd

argue that they are even more so!

How much does this matter in attracting women? It certainly helps. But if you've got the right body

language and tonality, that can matter even more. Verbal technique can also make a difference. Looks are just one factor.

However, my main reason

for writing this is to help Asian-American men fix the way they think of and see themselves. I am here to help you realize your own potential as an Asian man

and to see that there are rich resources for you in Asia to build up your "inner game"—the strong, confident attitudes and mindsets that

define a man who naturally attracts women. Stand up for yourselves, and take pride in your Asian genes and heritage!

Written by Editorial Staff