I was lucky enough to be off site where I used to work and close to the Asian market that I used to frequent. Being the middle of the day, I assumed that I’d have the whole store (warehouse, actually) to myself. Leisurely strolling the aisles, I was quickly alerted by this loud and heavily accented chatter.

Rice crew/crispies, poser Asians with a gangster mentality, had to get their “snack on” and decided to stop in the store. They filled their baskets with noodle packets, cookies, and strange fruit-flavored gummi candies. Despite my disdain for this slacker teen group, I was slightly jealous of their friendship. These kids were obviously of different ethnicities all brought together by their parents who decided to make their living in the United States.

I never had the benefit Asian friends growing up and so I consider myself very narrow minded in other Asian cultures outside of my own. I look at these kids and I wonder how I would have turned out if I had a strong Asian influence growing up. I imagine my huge posse, splitting up into groups of five. Those groups cramming into riced up Hondas or Toyotas, scraped and scarred from crazy street racing or regular driving habits. We would head off a parking lot, to dance to the high bass tunes pouring out of the trunk of the most beat up rice rocket.

We’d get drunk off of malt liquor or cheap beer and stink of name-brand cigarettes. At the end of the night, we’d go get some phở and ironically complain about the ethnic things that we don’t want to do, just because we have to do them with our parents. We’d burst into impromptu karaoke as the cramped rice rockets become more roomy, as we all get dropped off at home. Sneaking a cigarette on the back porch trying not to be caught by the parents, then off to bed as a free-spirited individual and awake as a dutiful member of a large, close-knit Asian family.

Meh, so long as I was never one of them I can feel comfortable in judging them from afar… fucking ching chong stanky-ass slacker parasites