GM Buyout: Takeover of Daewoo ignites protests and violence (in National News) Fighting for Their Jobs: Oakland teachers union leaders claim unfair firings (in Bay Area News) Backstage with Gedde Watanabe: He sang for his veggies (in A&E) Voices from the Community: Cecilia Chung welcomes you to San Francisco Pride Week (in Opinion)

Rice rocket

Inside the import car phenom

By Joyce Nishioka

Gary Lau doesn’t just drive his Integra. He takes it for a ride. He shifts gears, jerking from stop to go. It picks up speed and the engine revs. With the CD player cranked, Warren G flows:

She said “My car’s broke down and you seem real nice.

Would you let me ride?”

I got a car full of girls and it’s going real swell.

The next stop is the eastside motel.

Lau checks out the traffic in his rearview mirror, the mirror emblazoned with a sticker announcing, “Import Jackoff ’99.” All is clear. He changes lanes, feeling the rush of a cool breeze through the open windows.

“I love my car,” Lau says. “I baby it.”

To friends and acquaintances, he’s not just Gary. He’s “Gary with the Integra,” says his friend Jason Tam.

"That’s how people know each other in the city,” Tam says. “You don’t have to know the person. If I just said I saw this guy with a red GSR, they’ll be, ‘Oh, I’ve seen that guy around.’ They’ll ask, ‘Is he the one with the exhaust and these rims?’ They’ll have a picture.”

Rice Rockets Launch

Photo courtesy of HotImportNights.

Lau and Tam say most of their friends are part of the import car scene. It’s a trend rooted in 1950s hot rod culture. Since then, different fads have come and gone. Styles evolved and morphed, with groups copying from each other, and then creating something all their own. In the 1980s, it was the low-rider phenomenon among Mexican Americans, and the much rapped-about cruising, among African Americans, through the streets of California.

In the 1990s, Asian Americans began modifying mostly Japanese imports — Acuras, Hondas, Toyotas — with large exhaust tips, super spoilers, uni-blade windshield wipers, European racing rims, performance seat covers, driving lights in fluorescent or blue, 130-pulse decibel stereo systems, and stickers for show. For go, cars were lowered, nitrous oxide-injected engines were installed, and suspensions and exhausts were added to increase torque and horsepower.

The rice rocket was born.

And the trend is catching on. Not since the 1960s, when Bruce Lee introduced martial arts to middle America, have API males played such a major role in shaping pop culture. Rice rockets have generated whole new industries, from import car shows that boast attendances of up to 10,000 to the mostly Asian American import car models, whose faces (and bodies) are featured on dozens of Web sites devoted just to them. No fewer than eight magazines — Import Racer, Import Tuner, Sport Compact Car, Turbo, and Super Street to name a few — specialize in the sport, while enthusiasts and entrepreneurs have started dot-coms, AsianScene and ZoomX among the most popular of them.

Photo courtesy of HotImportNights.

Ed Arguelles, coordinator for AutoFest 2001, an import car event scheduled for July 23, sees growing interest in the import scene, evidenced by an increase in import car clubs and hefty profits — some $20 billion annually — posted by the modification industry. Moreover, The Fast and The Furious, a film about rival L.A. street teams, opens this week, ushering in the mainstreaming of the rice rocket.

“It’s not only Asians,” says Tam. “Caucasians, African Americans, Hispanics are all getting into it. It’s a cool thing. It helps bring people together.”

Photo courtesy of HotImportNights.

The culture has its share of critics, however. Though some women have made serious marks on the scene — such as racer Karen Marquez and organizer Charlotte DeVera — 15- to 30-year-old Asian American males predominate. At car shows, the sexes are segregated along self-imposed gender lines. Scantily clad girls pose by the cars, while testosterone-driven guys check out both with equal intensity.

“In the United States, cars have evolved as symbols of masculine power,” says Curtiss Rooks, a professor of Asian American studies at San Jose State University. “Those with the fastest, best-looking cars are the strongest males, who are always able to get the girl.”

Add to that the ongoing lack of representation in the media. Aside from a handful of actors, few Asian American male role models express any kind of sexuality. Jackie Chan kicks butt, but he doesn’t get the girl, Rooks says, and Jet Li gets the girl in Romeo Must Die, but you have to imagine him getting the girl.

“Car culture gives them a sense of maleness not found in the media, and offers them a way to express sexuality and masculinity,” he says. “The shows reinforce ethnic identity and solidarity but also promote the extreme objectification of women.

“It’s a blending of the best and worst of being Asian American.”

Boys’ Toys

It starts with Hot Wheels, Tam says. Then, come Tonka trucks. “A car is a natural thing for guys.”

Throughout adolescence, the interest intensifies. For Tam and Lau, getting their first car was like a rite of passage from boyhood innocence to teenage angst. For Tam, it was an ’89 Toyota Camry when he was 16. Lau’s first car, an ’86 DatsunSX, was a bucket, a real hoop-dee, he says.

They’ve upgraded since then. Lau has gone through three cars in the past year. Tam says he’s spent $2,000 for the sound system and suspension on his Legend. That’s nothing, though, compared to the $20,000 he spent on modifying his last car, an MR2. Indeed, most of their friends spend about $20,000 on their rides, $10,000 for the car itself, Tam says, and “if you want to go show and go, you’ll throw in at least another 10 grand.”

Photo courtesy of HotImportNights.

That’s a lot of money considering most hobbyists are in their late teens and early 20s. Tam explains he pays for the costs through plain old “hard work. A lot of people, their parents buy them cars. I haven’t used any of my parents’ money.”

He adds: “It’s endless. You’re never satisfied with the way your car is. You always want it to be faster.”

Asked if friends and family criticize his spending habits, Tam is quick to reply, “Oh, yeah. Girlfriends complain. They do. Every time I spend money, [my girlfriend] asks, ‘Why are you still putting money into it. It’s a luxury car. It’s not supposed to be crazy.’”

Lau says his parents nag him.

“They ask me, ‘Why are you spending so much money on your car? Money’s hard to get.’

“But I’m young, and I tell them it’s my baby.”

Both say there’s nothing more gratifying than “waking up and washing your car on a sunny day,” then smoking down streets, like Geary Boulevard, the errhhh shhhshhh hissing “every time you shift.”

“Honestly, when you’re 18 or 19 and you have a nice car, it makes people notice you,” Tam says. “And everyone who fixes up a car, they like the attention or they wouldn’t fix up their cars.”

If Tam drives past another rice rocket, he’ll pick up a street race. “If you see another car that can go fast, you probably take a race with them,” Tam says. “It’s about skills, how you maneuver in the traffic. You determine the winner by whoever gets far ahead.”

Lau, on the other hand, doesn’t challenge other drivers. “I’m not a racer, I’m a lover,” he says with a smile.

On the streets of San Francisco, though, just having a nice car can provoke jealousy.

“You always worry about the car,” Tam says. “There’s a lot of haters.”

“If your car is nicer than theirs,” Lau adds, “then they’ll mess up your car.” After Tam sold his MR2, it got keyed, he says.

So, is anything more important than cars? “Oh, friends and family. My girl,” Tam says. “You can’t let your car come between your relationship. I let my girlfriend drive my car — in a lot, an empty lot at first.”

Showing Off

Nothing this popular goes by without someone figuring out how to make money off of it. Enter large venue car shows.

For the past three years, Positive Entertainment has organized three events per year. In 2002, it expects to do five. Arguelles says Extreme Imports AutoFest, held exclusively in California, targets Asian American and Pacific Islander males, who make up the majority of the attendees.

“It started with the Asian community, in my opinion,” Arguelles says. “The Asian community started the scene.”

Big time corporations have taken notice. AutoFest has lined up sponsorship from BF Goodrich Tires, Car Audio and Electronics, Tenzo Racing Sports, and Momo.

At AutoFest 2001 in San Jose, there will be a show competition with some 300 cars entered. A panel of judges, made up of people hot on the import car scene, will rate the entries based on graphics, engine modification and wheel suspension — but not performance. AutoFest will also have a sound challenge, the DB Drag Race, with 60 to 100 entrants judged based on the loudness of their stereo systems, and an RC (remote control car) racing contest, with 100 contestants. In addition, the event will feature a DJ battle, break-dancing, and concerts by API bands One Voice and Devotion.

Some 10,000 are expected to attend.

Hot Import Nights events, produced by Vision Entertainment, also attract a mostly API crowd. They produce 12 shows annually throughout the country, from York, Penn., to Chicago and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where typically, 15,000 people turn out.

Not the Cars

Like all car events, the models at Hot Import Nights and AutoFest are as integral to the shows as the cars, themselves.

“If you’re an enthusiast, you go to the car shows for the cars,” Tam says. “But I’d say 60 to 70 percent are there for the girls.”

Arguelles explains that the models are “tied to display and promotions,” but refrains from guessing why the girls have become the hot ticket.

The trend isn’t that surprising, though, if you look at American muscle car culture. The import car shows “mimic Anglo car culture,” Professor Rooks hypothesizes, by endorsing Western notions of objectifying women.

“Asians also objectify women, but it’s different. Women are seen as serving men, as baby barers. Only prostitutes and strippers are sexually objectified.

“But Americans objectify the girl next door, the whole Brittany Spears phenomenon. The car shows allow these guys to fanaticize about Asian women in that way, as opposed to only having Cindy Crawford to look at.”

Tam is less analytical: “If you have a very nice car, it would just look extra delicious if you have a delicious girl with you.”

David Tan: Model Mogul

David Tan was studying for his master’s degree in pyschology at San Jose State University, when he caught the dot-com bug. With his family — and the financial support of venture capital investors — he started Bookjoint.com, a site where college students could buy and sell textbooks.

Tan decided to use some models for the site, so he did an Internet search and found Dyanna Bella, who was well known on the import car scene. She did a shoot with him, and after the two of them got to talking, they decided to start modFXmodels.com.

“Dyanna introduced me to her crew and asked to be involved, and the whole thing exploded,” Tan, 26, said.

Six months ago, Bookjoint.com became another victim of the dot-com fallout. So, Tan is now devoting his time to modFXmodels.

He’s never been a fan of imports, however. “Actually, I was anti-car show, anti-the whole scene, lowering cars, exhausts,” he says. “I drive a Pathfinder.”

He realizes, though, the marketing potential of the scene. He estimates that 90 percent of import car models on the West Coast are Asian American, including many hapas.

“The import car shows have opened up a whole new venue for Asian models,” he says.

ModFXmodels.com gives the girls even greater exposure. The site currently attracts several hundred members who, for $10 a month, can view photos of the models, which Tan takes, himself.

Though the girls featured on his site are familiar faces in the import arena, many of the young women at the shows are not professionals. Explains Tan: “There are 20,000 guys and any girl with a hoochie-looking outfit can get attention. The scene is inundated with models. They pull down the name of what it is to be an import model.”

The most well known in the field, including Sasha Singleton, Linda Tran and Kaila Yu, don’t stick around long, Tan explains. “Import models with big names move onto the next thing, music videos or acting. Import car modeling is considered low-level modeling.”

On the other hand, he says, the venues can give aspiring models a boost. “It gives exposure to Asian girls. A girl can do three shows and get 100,000 guys to know their names.”

Tan understands the marketing potential. He says when he sets up a booth at a venue, he instantaneously has 20,000 to 30,000 guys in one spot eager to pay for posters of the modFXmodel girls. “It’s all about exposure.”

Part of his business plan includes expanding his Web site and exposing more skin with semi-nude photos.

“If girls had clothes on, our membership wouldn’t grow. Sex sells.”

His parents, business owners themselves, are supportive, he says, because they recognize the Web site’s potential. Tan who lives with his mom and dad, even does the photo shoots at home.

“My parents will be watching TV and in the next room I’m taking photos of a half naked girl.”

He says both he and his mother and father see it strictly as business. Tan sticks to his self-imposed rule to never date any of the models. He doesn’t see his work as exploitative. “It’s not using the girls, it’s appreciating the female form,” he says. “I consider it an art form.”

Hot, Hot, Hot

Photo courtesy of www.kailayu.com

Kaila Yu, 21, holds the unique title of most searched import model on the web: she gets over 37,000 hits per month. Her career in the business began some two years ago.

Born in Taiwan, Yu grew up in Southern California. As a teenager, she went back to Taiwan to start a singing career. “That fell through,” she says, “but I had done some pictures for publicity packets and sent those to photographers I wanted to work with, and that’s how I got started modeling.”

After she put up a Web site for her modeling career, import car promoters contacted her and asked if she were interested.

“There’s always been a negative connotation that surrounds the import scene,” she says. “Anyone can be an import model. You just go to a car show and stand by a car and can call yourself an import model. Also, some of the girls show up extra scantily clad. There are sometimes underage girls who go and flash the crowd. So, it is generally considered a lower class of modeling. I didn’t want to get into it initially.”

She doesn’t have regrets now, though. The money and the exposure have been good for her career.

Yu says her parents are supportive. However, she says, at first she was afraid to tell them about her work. In fact, her mother didn’t find out about her modeling until someone mentioned they had seen Kaila on the cover of a car magazine.

“She had no idea. For me, I was scared to tell her because I thought she’d be really opposed to it, but she wasn’t at all like I thought she would be. After I explained my viewpoints, she really didn’t have a problem with it.

“I’ve always been really open about sexuality. In this country, especially among Asians, I think they have a tendency to be really repressed or think sex is bad or evil. And that’s not how I look at things.”

Yu now does about 10 shows per year throughout the country. She believes one of the reasons she’s been so popular is that her profile matches the demographics of import car enthusiasts.

“When I started I was the only Taiwanese or Chinese model out there,” she says. “I think that made a big difference because there are so many Chinese in California.

“For Asians, they don’t have anyone in the media to look up to or anyone to be fans of. Really, there’s only Lucy Liu. The models just give guys more choices in — I wouldn’t want to say celebrities, but something to that effect.”

One of Yu’s best memories is a Hot Import Nights show she did in New Jersey. The place was packed and many of the attendees had waited in line for two to three hours just to get in, she says. It was one of the first shows in the area, so many were there just out of curiosity. The guys seemed to be in awe, she says. But the best part was the teenage boys.

“The guys were cute and they were really shy. Some of them couldn’t even say anything. It was kind of funny. And just really cute… because they were so young and it was a big deal to them, I guess.”

Yu is pursuing a singing and acting career. In the next few years, she plans to cut back her import show appearances to one or two per year.

“At a certain point, I think they would get tired of you anyway — because guys are really fickle,” she laughs. “They’re always looking for the newer model. So, probably in one or two years, I will be out of the scene.”

On the Way Out?

Despite the fanfare, there are already signs of burnout. Tam and Lau don’t even go to car shows anymore. Tam says the next big thing is already here: motorcycles. “People are doing to their motorcycles what they’ve done to the cars — screens, exhausts, speed. A motorcycle smokes any car it races.”

Tam already owns a bike and he plans to sell his Legend.

“I want to get out of the Japanese cars and go into the European cars,” he says.

When asked why, he replies, “It’s bling-bling — you have the good cash flow.

“European cars are expensive and high maintenance, but it’s a good ride.”