I receive hundreds of responses a month, and many of them ask the same questions. Since I don't have the time to respond to each letter, I have decided to make a page that will answer many of the more common questions that I get asked.
What do you drive? - Different kinds of people ask me this question. Rice-Boys ask because they are pissed off and are convinced that I drive something really slow, or nothing at all. Other people ask because they want to know what kind of car a person who would make such a page drives.
Well, I am sorry, but I can't tell you what I drive. Why? Because of those Rice-Boys that got their feelings hurt by their page. It's for my own safety, really. I don't want anyone to know what I drive because I don't want to walk out of class or some movie or something and find my car all keyed up.
What I will tell you, however, is that one of the cars I own is an older Japanese sports car. The other car I own just got wrecked, and since I am not going to be driving that any more, I thought I would let all you people who have been dying to know what I drive a little treat by letting you know what I used to drive. You can read all about it on my "What Does This Bryan Hong Character Drive Anyway?" page. back to top
I wrote to you but you never wrote back. What gives? - Well there are two explanations. One is that if you used the response form, you didn't leave your e-mail address.
But the main reason is that I get anywhere between 10 and 50 e-mails a day just from the Rice-Boy page. Given that volume, and the fact that I go to school, work part time, and try to have some semblance of a life (and have fun too...), I can't write back to every single one of them. Anyway, this FAQ will probably answer 90% of any questions you might have sent my way... which is part of the reason why I made it. back to top
Don't you know these guys have a right to do whatever they want to their cars? - Yes, I do. And don't you know I have a right to say that I don't like what they do to their cars? I am not violating any of their rights... it's not like I am forcing them to stop doing what they do. I am just telling the world that I think what they are doing is stupid... so stupid that it is funny. Why should they have the right to do whatever they want if I can't say whatever I want? back to top
Don't you know this is just a stereotype? - Yes I do. Don't you know how to read? Check out what the first sentence on the What Is Rice-Boy page says and come back and ask me this same question again. back to top
If you are Asian, why are you putting down your own kind? - Most of the people who ask me this are Asian. It also frequently takes the form of "U DisGrAyCe aZiaN PrYdE", "you must be some hillbilly racist white guy" or "What kind of Asian are you?".
Many people go on to tell me about how it is bad that I am making Asians look bad because Asians already have enough stereotypes to work with and how I am making Asians look worse or whatever. If you are one of these people, you need to realize something - you are stereotyping people of other races as being unintelligent and believing whatever they read and of being racist. You need to wake up and understand that most people are smart enough to make their own observations and their own decisions. The ones that aren't are a lost cause anyway.
You also need to realize that Rice-Boys are not all Asian. They aren't even mostly Asian, if you look at things at a nationwide scale. After receiving literally thousands of responses, from all over the world, from people of all races, I've noticed something - the people who are quickest to point out that not all rice-boys are Asian are (guess who?) the white people.
And what about RePreSenTin' AziaN PrYdE?
Fixing up Imports is not an Asian "thing". Asians didn't come up with it, they aren't the only ones doing it, and they aren't even the best at doing it. Baggin' on people who fix up Hondas has nothing to do with bagging on Asians. If you look at the companies who make the best performance parts for imports (aside from those companies in Asia, duh), most of them are owned by... surprise! White people! If you look at who owns and drives the fastest Hondas, Acuras and DSM's, you will find that they are (surprise) mostly white! If you look at who owns the shops that do the best work and make the fastest cars, who are they?
It is, in fact, mostly the Asian people who believe that "sport compact cars" or import performance or whatever is a primarily Asian activity. So who needs to open their eyes about race?
So to the Asian rice-boys out there that are wondering why I am dissin' your brand of aZiaN PrYdE, I tell you this: stop hangin' out with people who are exactly like you. Not everyone (even asians) thinks that what you are doing is cool. If you would just step out of your little circle of friends (all of whom think exactly the same way as you do), you might realize that you look stupid to just about everyone else but the people who think exactly like you. You make the rest of the Asian population look bad. Stop equating fixing up Honda's with Asian pride. I'm Korean. Why should I be proud of Japan and Japan's cars anyway? The Japanese did horrible things to my people during the wars...
Of course, that is not to say that I am holding a grudge against Japan... in fact, I think their cars are great! It's just that whether or not I drive a Honda shouldn't have anything to do with whether or not I am proud to be Korean. back to top
Don't you know that the name "Rice-Boy" is racist? - Does the name suggest Asian stuff? Why yes it does. But the "rice" pat refers to the cars, not to the people. For many years, Harley riders have been calling Japanese sport bikes "Rice-Rockets". No one assumed the rider was Asian then, and no one assumed that the person calling the bike a "rice-rocket" was a racist. Regardless of the race of the drivers, the cars still come from Japan. The ethnic background of Rice-Boys varies widely. The origin of their preferred vehicles (Civic, Integra, Prelude, Eclipse) does not. Again, it is mostly the Asian rice-boys who respond to me that confuse their car with their whole identity, and are unable to separate the car from the driver. Again, it is mostly the Asians rice-boys who don't realize that many rice-boys not Asian.
At any rate, this page was definitely not meant to be all politically correct and stuff. I expected it to offend some people, and actually, I kind of wanted it to. This page would be horribly boring if it was all politicaly correct...
Why do you keep this page up/What is the point? - There are several reasons this page exists, and continues to exist. Here they are, more or less in order of importance:
This page is supposed to be funny, and in my opinion (and thousands of others), it is. I think too many people take things too seriously and maybe are too attached to their cars as a source of identity. They forget what this page is about. They get so mad that I make fun of a car that is similar to theirs that they forget that I am not making fun of their car... I am making fun of what someone else did to a similar car.
I am Asian, and Asian Rice-Boys make Asians in general look bad. Contrary to what the average Asian rice-boy believes, rice-boys are a very small minority among the population of Asian Americans. Most Asians, in fact, think that rice-boys look and act stupid. But since the rice-boy part of the Asian population is by far the most visible (who would miss that huge ugly sticker and that giant wing with the loud exhaust if it passed by them?), there are quite a few people (Asian and non-Asian) who believe that all Asians think it is cool to be a rice-boy. The Asians who think that way do, mostly because all they do is hang out with other people who think the same way and never see themselves from an outside point of view... so they naturally think that everyone thinks the same way they do since all of their friends think the same way. The non-Asians who think that way do because it seems like whenever they see an Asian, he is inside one of those annoying (highly visible cars). They don't really notice all the other ones that just drive around in normal cars... because it doesn't grab their attention. So this page is here to show people (Asian and non-Asian) that not all (and in fact, most) Asians do not think it is cool to be a rice-boy.
Rice-Boys make real import enthusiasts look bad. Why do the true Honda enthusiasts get so little respect from the big American Muscle crowd? Part of it, yes, is due to ignorance on the account of "V8-boy". But a bigger part of it is the fact that there are so many wannabe and fake Civics driving around, that you can just about bet that the guy in the "fixed up" Civic next to you has a slow car. This makes the real enthusiast, the one who actually cares about performance and actually spent the money to make his car go fast, lose credibility in the face of "V8-boy". Being an import enthusiast myself, I want to make the fakes and wannabes look bad, and I want them to KNOW they look bad. And I want to make sure that people know that there is a difference between the import enthusiast and the import "enthusiast". That some of us actually do care... back to top
Why did you censor the 8 light Accord? He was in a public place so it's legal. - Because legality isn't the whole issue. As offensive as this page is supposed to be, I do have limits of taste, and since the owner of that car specifically asked me to remove the pictures from the page, I thought it would be in very poor taste to leave them up there. At any rate, he has since removed his racing stripes and his unnecessary stickers. I think he realized that not everyone thinks what he did was cool. Or maybe he just grew up. Who knows. back to top
What's wrong with wanting to make a car look good? - Nothing! As far as I can tell, there are three kinds of people who fix up their cars. There are the ones that care about performance and want to make their cars go fast/handle well. Then there are the ones that want to make their car look good. But there is a third group - those who try to make their car look fast.
You see, there is a difference between making a car look good and making a car look fast. Lowering a car and putting some nice rims on will enhance most cars' appearance. A car that has been lowered improperly that bounces down the street or leans to one side, though low, does not look better than stock. It just looks stupid. Putting on a giant sticker on the side of your car 99.9% of the time does not enhance your cars appearance.
But those who only want to make their cars look fast do so under the pretense of going for high-performance. They use performance to "justify" what they do to their cars. In actuality, they don't really care (or know anything about) performance and really just want to fit some image. These are the kind of people that bother me. back to top
Don't you know that some imports are fast? - Yes, I do know this. But my page isn't about people who actually care about performance and want to make their cars go fast. It's about those who pretend to go fast. See the above question about making a car look good. back to top
Imports aren't the only fakers out there. Why don't you make a page about domestic rice? - Why don't YOU go make a page about domestic rice if it bothers you so much? This page already sucks up enough of my time just trying to deal with the imports. The other reason is simple - I just don't have any pictures of domestic rice to put up... except that one Neon. I'm a student. I also work. And I do a lot of other things with my life. Maybe if someone paid me to make this page I would try to get more coverage but, well, I prefer not to. I don't want this page to rule my whole life.
I cannot possibly cover all of the aspects of fixing up cars in one page. back to top
I drive this car, with these mods. Am I a rice-boy? - I get this question a lot. Someone will describe to me what kind of car they drive and what they have done to it to get an opinion from "the expert" on whether their car is rice or not rice.
Well, the truth is, only you really know. Ask yourself - Why am I doing these things to my car? To make it look good? To add performance? If your answer is the second one, then you have to really ask yourself honestly - Do I really care about performance? Or am I just trying to look cool? Are you doing what you do just because other people are doing it or say it is cool? Have you really done anything to your car that really adds performance? Do you know why and how your mods improve performance? Do you really?
Do you sincerely believe that your car has an additional 30 horsepower because the magazine ad for your exhaust claims an increase of 10 horsepower, your air filter 5 horsepower and your header 15 horsepower?
If so, you might be a rice-boy...
On the other hand, do you really fix up your car just to make it look good? (Remember, looking good and looking fast aren't the same thing...) Do you really care about performance? Is your car actually fast? Do you not care whether your car is or looks fast or not? Then you probably are not a rice-boy...
It is quite possible for two guys to have essentially the same cars with the same mods, and have one be a rice-boy and one not. The reason is that it doesn't have so much to do with the cars themselves as it does with the attitude of the people who own them. back to top
How can you say domestic cars are better than imports/Why do you compare the two? - Well, I don't say domestic cars are better than imports, you just think I do. Why is everything about domestic vs. imports? The truth is, I never say one is better than the other, and I don't prefer one over the other. I like all kinds of cars, for what they are.
I am not really the one comparing the two. The only reason why I ever compare imports to domestics is because rice-boys are talking so much crap that just isn't true. The only reason why I even compared the NSX to the Corvette was not to say that one is better than the other. It's just that some dumb rice-boy made some sweeping generalized comment like "American cars can only go fast in a straight line". Well, my reasoning is that since the C5 is able to compete on the same level as the NSX in handling, one of two things must be true - a) The NSX's handling sucks; b) American cars can do more than just go fast in a straight line. I think we will all agree that it is "b" that is true. And, even if you want to argue that the NSX handles better than the C5, well, it should! At nearly twice the price tag, we should expect twice as much!
I hear rice-boys constantly talking about how they can burn Mustangs and Camaros when all they have is an air filter and a muffler, some springs and some stickers. I only compare Civics to Camaros just to show that people who talk like that are just plain stupid. back to top
Don't you know that Joe Blow has a 10 second Civic? Imports are better! The Integra Type-R gets 105 hp/liter! - So what if he has a 10 second Civic? It doesn't mean that every guy out there with a Civic and an annoying exhaust has a 10 second machine. I know imports are capable of this level of performance, but the fact of the matter is, it is very expensive to get that level of performance, and few people have it!
In the end, the ultimate performance equation is "speed = money". That's right. You can make anything go fast if you put enough money into it.
Yes, the Integra Type-R has a very impressive hp/liter ratio. I will not deny that. But where is the torque? Everyone seems to forget about torque... Why is the Integra GS-R slower than a VW GTI VR6 when they both have just about the same horsepower? Mmmm hmmm, the answer is... TORQUE!
At any rate, yes, some imports can be made faster than even fixed up Camaros and Mustangs. And that is indeed, quite impressive. However, in a drag race, if you win, that is great. But if you lose, you lose. You can't shake your fist out the window and yell to the guy in the V8 "oh yeah!?!?? Well my car gets 95 horsepower per liter compared to your low tech 43!!" and actually expect that to matter to him... he just burned your ass, and that is the end of it. It might even make him feel better knowing that his "low tech" machine just beat your high tech one. back to top
If you like both imports and domestics, why do you sound like you support domestics more? - Because we are mostly talking about drag racing here. Because drag racing is what most rice-boys are talking about. Because drag racing is what happens when a Civic pulls up next to a 5.0 and starts to rev his engine.
Personally, I am not all that big on drag racing. I love the sound of a high revving engine spinning up to 7,000 RPM and beyond. I love carving apexes on canyon roads (or actually, any road, even city streets). I am not really a fan of big V8 engines and drag racing and such. I am, however, a fan of THE TRUTH. And the truth is, the average fixed up Civic is not going to beat the average fixed up 5.0 at a stoplight confrontation. back to top
Last Modified 12/08/97.
Questions? Comments? Got a Rice-Boy story of your own?
Please fill out the Rice-Boy Response Form.
Disclaimer:
The term "Rice-Boy" is meant to be a derogatory term. But not
racially derogatory. Some people might say that regardless of what
this disclaimer says, it makes Asians look bad. Well, I hate to
break it to these people but asians are not the only people
on this planet who eat rice. Everyone eats rice. White people eat
rice. Black people eat rice. Native Americans? They eat rice.
Europeans eat rice!! And, if you open your eyes, you might notice
that a whole lot of the rice-boys out there aren't even asian! The
"rice" really refers to their cars. It's not about their race, it's
about their attitude!