AsianGuy's official spokesman is Berns - superhero and consummate lothario

How was it like for you growing up Asian American?
Well, specifically, I grew Asian Canadian but make my home in New York City now. Growing up in Canada was quite a perilous journey. It was a dark, cold, abyss where homeless people traipsed across a decayed urban landscape while wealthy elitists bought sweaters for their dogs, where national illiteracy rates bordered on catastrophic, where honest and hard working citizens downsized through no fault of their own had to struggle for basic human rights like health care, and where the government seemed to dismiss domestic concerns in order to consider spending hundreds of billions on a war in the Middle East. Oh wait, that's my life now!

Languages spoken? I speak French and English just from school in Canada and Mandarin from the home but I do have a lot of respect for people who can learn languages later in life.

Your Site URL
http://www.asianguy.com

Mission Purpose of your site
I'll tell you what it's not about first. It's not about collecting personal information from visitors for the despicable purposes of email marketing and it's not about watering down content to satisfy advertisers. That being said, what we try to do is define and display Asian-America through the use of satire. We do not profit nor to we ever intend on profiting. Whether you agree to disagree with our opinions, that fact keeps us honest.

Current Projects and Goals I'm also involved with http://www.humorisdead.com and its sexy extensions: http://www.adwhore.com and http://www.fuckedplanet.net. All are run by a great friend of mine and share a lot of the sardonic approach to reporting on social issues as AsianGuy strives to do.

I've been in the process of getting a recent book I've written published. The book is tentatively titled "Dot Conned" and explores the burst of the internet economy from the perspective of the corporate pissant. In order to convey the impact that the laughable pomposity had on the lowly people actually doing the work, lots of pranks and interviews were conducted. Sadly, most of the books that have been published on the topic have been business management how-to books written by executives. The story of how people in the trenches felt about all this nonsense deserves to be told, I think.

Most recently, I've been working on an Asian-American TV show that airs in Manhattan. I'm basically a news host and we've tried to take the stories and articles on AsianGuy and transfer them to the broadcast medium. Also, being on TV is a great way to meet the ladies!

Your Favorite Sections/Articles on the site, and why?
I love the Web Wars section above anything else on the site. The landscape of personal homepages created by Asian Americans is horrific. It's truly astonishing how many "DiS mAh pAgE" Geocities homepages there are. So, the premise of Web Wars is simple: feature two personal homepages, put them side by side, and let people vote on which person would most likely win in a street fight.

I do enjoy the Spoofs section as well. That's the archive of many of the various satirical tidbits we've done on Asian American culture.

Who would star you in the movie of your life?
Good question. For the sake of conversation, how about Sebastian Bach of Skid Row fame? I always dug 80s rock. Plus, he tags trashy metal chicks!

Which actress would play your character's romantic interest?

Another great question! The biggest crush I ever had was on the Princess from Voltron. Any way to make her a flesh and blood actress would do the trick.

There was an interesting segment on your site in regards to the lack of Asian American males on reality TV. So, let's pretend now that you, an Asian American male, could be on ANY reality TV show in the following list. Let me know which show you would or would not choose to be on and why. For the shows you DO want to be on, let me know what you think you can bring to the show.

a. The Real World
b. Survivor
c. Temptation Island
d. Big Brother
e. The Bachelor
f. The Bachelorette

Honestly, all these shows make me ill. So does TV in general. I'll stick to books, thanks.

If you had the opportunity to go on a talk show to share an insightful message, what would this message be?
I'd like to go on Connie Chung's show. No insightful message really. I'd simply like to stare at her. I'm just hypnotized by the amount of makeup she wears. Have you seen her recently? She looks like Robert Smith from the Cure for crying out loud!

Let's talk about your literary aspirations. What do you like to write about and why?
I'm naturally drawn to writing about how we function as a society and to what extent factors like media play in our belief system. One of the struggles that Asian-Americans face is when they want to move away from Asian-America. Actors obviously face this problem daily. If you are an Asian-American actor, it's extremely difficult to break away from roles geared specifically to Asian-Americans. I find a similar wall with writers. If you are Asian-American, you are expected to write about things from an Asian-American perspective. That's a particularly frustrating expectation when you are very capable of writing from a holistically American perspective.

Since you live in NYC, I am curious to know how 9-11 has affected you.
It's actually rare that I wake up before noon, but that particular day I was in the Empire State Building for some inexplicable reason. I was mesmerized with the sight of everything as everyone else was. But the impact it made on me was a realization about the grip that media has on the American public. Since 9-11, questioning American foreign policy or cultural imperialism, for example, brandishes you as unpatriotic, an endearing term that rouses suspicions of terrorism. Initiatives like Operation TIPS were actually given credence. Release dates for books like Stupid White Men by Michael Moore were delayed.

How has the city changed?
Well, there used to be two tall skyscrapers there that are gone now.

What music do you like? Name your three favorite artists.
Check out our spoof on the Asian party music scene at http://www.asianguy.com/spoofs/wazn/ for an indication of what music I DON'T like. I was always into metal because many of the idiots I grew up with were into New Order and crap like that. These days though, I suppose I listen to the Stones and the Beatles most frequently. If I have to pick a third, I guess I'll have to pick the band that should be in everyone's CD collection: The Misfits.

Your hobbies
Music! Like a good Asian boy, I grew up playing the piano. But I got rid of that around 13, when interesting things started happening to my body. That's when I realized that piano and sexy were mutually exclusive, and I started playing guitar. I still play religiously and that's a great aspect of living in New York City. There's a lot of opportunity to meet incredible talents which only makes you better.

Where do you like to shop for clothes?
I pretty much shop strictly at thrift stores. I'm sure other Asians do that purely because they are cheap fucks, but I do it because I don't want to put any money into the hands of the fashion industry. At the risk of overgeneralization, they wreak havoc on third-world countries where impoverished labor has to make the crappy shirts you buy for $80. I always love the response to this issue from companies like the Gap. They never acknowledge this slave labor and always explain that they outsource the manufacturing to companies. That's a long way of saying they have no intention of taking responsibility because it impacts the balance sheets. Moreover, the lemming-like nature of people and brand name clothing disgusts me. First of all, why would you want to wear Banana Republic when every other Asian has it on? Why not have a sense of originality? Second of all, what is the difference with Banana Republic over any other shirt? It's a fucking shirt!

Religion
Atheist. But unlike so many religious people I've come across, I don't care if others have parochial attitudes.

Political Party
Green Party, although I generally vote Democratic just to try to cancel out a Republican vote.

Long hours as AsianGuy's spokesmodel leaves Berns little time to woo

That's the unfortunate reality when there is no true third party.

Any personal message?
The official AsianGuy spokesmodel is our good friend Berns, a jovial chum who grew up on the mean streets of suburbia and now makes his home in San Francisco. He's a Silicon Valley luminary but hapless in love. My personal goal is to get him hooked up. So ladies with lowered expectations...let us at AsianGuy know that you are interested!

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This month's A-Profiler is brought to you by the very gracious volunteer, Cynthia Cheng.