Asian and Nerdy



""I became a comedian because I was the only Asian in my high school...that failed math.""

- Dat Phan, Vietnamese stand-up comedian.

Pretty much any South or East Asian character in western media who isn't a martial artist or a gangster will be highly intelligent or usually geeky... if not both. If done clearly and more on the intelligent side than geeky, this will be an exaggeration of the Brainy Brunette.

The polar opposite of this, becoming more common in recent years, is the Asian Airhead -- an almost Always Female character archetype that centering on an Asian girl who is gorgeous, popular, thoroughly Americanized and dumb as a brick.

The reasoning behind this stereotype is that most Asian cultures regard education and smarts as very important things. Parents passed down these beliefs to their kids over generations, and eventually it became this trope.

See also Bollywood Nerd and Jewish and Nerdy. The Other Wiki has an article on the "model minority" stereotype from which this trope is derived. For related tropes, see Nerd and Black and Nerdy.

Anime and Manga

 * As anime and manga are Asian-dominated mediums, their Asian characters are likely to be less stereotypical than those found in West-dominated media. They'll still have nerdy characters, but they will be mixed in with more non-nerdy Asian characters.
 * Axis Powers Hetalia, although its anthropomorphic characters are based on National Stereotypes. The Asian nations who fit this trope are Im Yong Soo/South Korea (said to love gaming and the Internet) and Kiku Honda/Japan (shown to be a Teen Genius / Gadgeteer Genius and something of an Otaku), and even then it isn't the main focus of their characters; Korea is best known as a Know Nothing Know It All Annoying Younger Sibling with his gaming interest mentioned only on his profile. Japan's nerdy qualities are only brought up now and then. (However, in High School AU Fan Fiction, Japan is typically portrayed as one of the most intelligent students in his class by fans.)
 * Reversed, possibly consciously, in Black Lagoon: the central team's techie is the only white member.

Comic Books

 * Sharri Barrnett, the Filipino programmer in Steelgrip Starkey and The All Purpose Power Tool.
 * Ryan Choi, who spent some time in Ray Palmer's shoes as The Atom, and also taught at the same university.
 * Tan and Patel, Spot's techsupport colleagues in I Zombie, are heavy examples.
 * Amadeus Cho of the Marvel Comics universe, who is one of the smartest people in the world.

Film

 * Harold of Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle
 * Bruce (Masi Oka's character) in the 2008 Get Smart movie. Of course, he was flanked by two geeky white men: Lloyd and Max himself. Also, in the direct-to-video spin off Bruce and Lloyd: Out of Control, Bruce is apparently more successful with the ladies than Lloyd.
 * Data from The Goonies is this in full 80's glory.
 * The 1981 film The Cannonball Run featured a pair of racers of indeterminate Asian origin (one of whom was played by Jackie Chan!). Their car is a 1980-81 Subaru hatchback modified to a James Bond-esque gizmo-mobile which even turns into a submersible at one point. The humor is pretty gentle for 1981, although their high-speed, unsubtitled dialogue and exaggerated facial expressions are definitely unfortunate. Something of a Reverse Funny Aneurysm considering Subaru's later rallying success. The only thing missing is that the movie car is black instead of blue-and-yellow.
 * Sixteen Candles. Long Duk Dong - though it's subverted by the time the film is over, as he's gone into Full Wacky Pseudo-Stoner Mode.
 * Also, Lau in The Dark Knight was hired by the mobs to launder their money because he was "good at calculations". This, with a few other examples above, grates on the nerves of Shirt Guy Dom. In particular, he was an accountant who lived in a country where he couldn't really be touched by the US. Still fits this trope, but it's justified.
 * The "Asian Nerds" in Mean Girls. Averted by the "Cool Asians."
 * Takashi in the first Revenge of the Nerds.
 * Lawrence in School of Rock "I can't be in the band! I'm not cool enough!"

Literature

 * Aversion: Claudia Kishi of The Babysitters Club: artsy but terrible in all her other subjects. Her sister definitely qualifies, though.
 * Matt Scudder's occasional hacker-for-hire Jimmy Hong.
 * Cheater/Dennis Woo of Hidden Talents.
 * In The Hunger Games, everyone in District 3.
 * Jenny from The Cornersville Trace Mythos.
 * Stacey Chen from Val Mc Dermid's Tony Hill books.

Live Action TV
"Chang: Relax. I have a plan. [louder] Hey, Math Club! I'm Asian! Are you guys Asian?
 * Hiro in Heroes. It helps that he's played by Masi Oka, who's a genuine article geek.
 * Cody's nerdy Asian girlfriend from The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. She even takes A.P. lunch.
 * This was double subverted in the weirdest way possible in Degrassi Junior High, where Yick Yu, a dorky bespectacled Asian kid, had to work extra hard in class to break the stereotype (that apparently exists in the Degrassi world) of Asians as dimwitted jocks. Uh, what?
 * Originally to be played straight, but the actor complained.
 * Arguably, Grant Imahara of Myth Busters plays up to this stereotype. He builds robots for fun and in the jailhouse rope episode had pi on his "prisoner" outfit as a "prisoner number". At least he's not a stereotypical bespectacled dork; he's very handsome (see picture above). When they tested lie detectors, Grant was asked if he had ever thought of building a robot girlfriend. He said "no", and the machine flagged it as a lie.
 * If you need any additional evidence, in this picture, not only is he dressed as Spock in that picture, but when he was inducted into the 501st Legion (think Civil War reenactors, only with Stormtroopers) he attended his ceremony dressed as the Tenth Doctor.
 * Toshiko Sato in Torchwood.
 * The 2009 live-action Scooby Doo Continuity Reboot has cast a Japanese-American actress as Velma. However there was no effort to change the character into an Asian, and furthermore, when she's in the Velma costume, you wouldn't know she's Asian.
 * While she's thoroughly Americanized and acts like an Asian Airhead, Zoe from the short lived Knight Rider 2008 series speaks 9 languages and is a genius at computers.
 * Evelyn Kwong from Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide is the smartest person at James K. Polk besides Cookie, leading to a lot of competition. She subverts a lot of the accompanying tropes that go with this though, she's competitive, rude, loud, mean and a sometimes Stalker With a Crush.
 * Vince Masuka of Dexter. However, he subverts some of the stereotypes by showing interest in and, occasionally, success with women.
 * And by not being very Asian, except in appearance.
 * The Amazing Race prefers to cast this type of Asian team. They generally speak Chinese, too.
 * Lt. Tao of The Closer is probably second only to Imahara in how incredibly this trope he is on contemporary TV.
 * Averted in the Disney Channel movie Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior. Wendy herself averts this trope, but because of the film's title falls into the stereotype of martial artist. Her brother, however, averts both stereotypes as a popular and somewhat dim jock.
 * In Community, the school's Math Club appears to be comprised solely of this trope, as lampshaded when Jeff and Chang are pinned down by them during a paintball tournament:

Math Club Member: ... That's pretty racist, dude.

Chang: That wasn't a no! I'm coming over!"


 * Played with in regards to Trini in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers as she is shown to be a good student though the biggest nerd in the group is Billy - she was his Translator Buddy early in the series. She's more like a combination of Billy and Valley Girl Kimberly.
 * Paul in The Nine Lives of Chloe King
 * Raj Koothrappali in The Big Bang Theory.
 * Glenn from both iterations of the The Walking Dead is a subversion, possibly a slight Deconstruction of most of the older Asian stereotypes. Before the outbreak, he was very far from the innocent, quietly nerdy Asian archetype. In fact, he never spoke to his parents, and was so far in debt from college and other purposes, he had to resort to car theft with his friends, and various low-paying jobs such as pizza delivery to make ends meet. After the outbreak, he quickly becomes the Guile Hero of his survivor group, as a comparatively rational thinker with a preference for sneaking around the walkers.
 * Dr Chi Park, third-generation team member on House, is an over-achieving Meganekko. In a twist of events, she's asked resident Chick Magnet Robert Chase out on a date, and he's said yes.
 * In the short-lived Some of My Best Friends, Camp Gay Vern attempts to fix a broken TV. Another character dubiously asks if he can really fix it, and he responds, "Hello! I'm Asian!" Turns out he has no clue.
 * Kevin in Supernatural, "Reading is Fundamental". He's introduced playing the cello in his bedroom (which is filled with honors and awards). When his phone starts ringing, he doesn't pick up until a timed alarm on his computer tells him practice time is over, at which point he starts talking to his nearly-as-nerdy girlfriend.

New Media

 * I Love Bees has nerdy medical student Hiroyuki, roommate of the Middle Eastern and Nerdy protagonist Kamal.

Newspaper Comics

 * Asok the Intern in Dilbert. Scott Adams has said that if he keeps getting complaints about stereotyping, he'll make Asok a drug dealer.
 * The sibling pair of Phoebe and Eugene in FoxTrot.

Video Games

 * Jenny from My Sims has an Asian appearance. Her Interests are Geeky and Studious. More specifically, she "is president of five science fiction clubs, seven video game clans, and a prolific fan fiction author."
 * Mei Ling from the Metal Gear Solid series is a Chinese-American data analyst going to MIT at the time the first Metal Gear Solid game takes place.
 * Ling-Ling Johnson from Guilty Party is The Smart Guy in a group that's already pretty clever, and in addition to being a cracking good Kid Detective, she's a Gadgeteer Genius who designed portable lie detectors.
 * Jung Park in Rainbow Six Vegas is a South-Korean electronics specialist. He carries the radio, does all the hacking and can recognize a Farraday Cage from thirty paces. He's also a former member of the South Korean 707th-- also known as the "White Tigers"--and is a crack shot with his G36C.
 * Yoko Suzuki, a former Umbrella researcher from Resident Evil Outbreak.

Web Comics

 * Ki Oshiro-Wellington from General Protection Fault, who can out-nerd almost anyone.
 * Played with in regards to Tedd of El Goonish Shive, who is half-Asian (his mother is Nanase's Japanese mother's sister) and very nerdy indeed.
 * My Hot Ass Neighbor lampshades and subverts this with main Wong who has all the physical traits expected of a stereotype from his height making him the shortest character by a wide margin save for his grade-school sister despite being in high school, to his coke bottle glasses and buck teeth, which Sharona points out as the reason she needs him as a tutor (and then some) then subverted as he has "something else" that gets the ladies going, too.

Web Original

 * The entire point of the song 'Nobody's Asian in the movies' by Maurissa Tancharoen from the Dr. Horribles Sing Along Blog musical commentary, Commentary the Musical. The song ends with "I'm gonna go play with my violin and... math!"
 * Possibly a jokey jab at the lead actress of Dr Horrible, Felicia Day, who is not Asian but was a violin performance/math double major.
 * One article from The Onion interviewed a pair of Asian students who, due to lazy and stupid behavior, were praised for breaking stereotypes.
 * Generator (Jade Sinclair) of the Whateley Universe is the Crazy Awesome variant of this. She once invented real, working shoulder angels. The campus nearly didn't survive.

Western Animation

 * Kim and Kam from Class of 3000.
 * Toshi, one of Steve's friends in American Dad, is a highly intelligent Asian. Who talks in Japanese all the time and wants to kill, humiliate or mutilate Steve, usually.
 * Averted by Jerk Jock Vince Chung, who is "so cool that you forget he's Asian."
 * Averted in (of all things) Danny Phantom, where the most visible Asian student is a friendly, but dimwitted jock. Same in The Spectacular Spider Man, with Kenny "King" Kong.
 * It should be noted that this is a Race Lift. In the Ultimate Universe (he doesn't exist in the main Marvel verse) Kong is very much Caucasian.
 * The Chang Triplets from The Proud Family.
 * Averted in WITCH with Hay Lin, who is an artist and a bit of a scatterbrain. The nerd of the team is Taranee.
 * Averted in 6teen with the character of Nikki Wong, who, while certainly not stupid, is somewhat lazy, and also happens to be a Snark Knight.
 * Futurama: "A Big Piece Of Garbage". Professor Wernstrum requests a group of interns, and that most of them be Chinese. Likely because it makes him look smarter (or so it has been suggested by tie-in comics) Subverted by Amy Wong and family, who are either dense or clumsy, or both.
 * Though Amy seems to be more of a Genius Ditz than a straight-up Asian Airhead, now that she's finally got her degree. Her research even managed to doom and save the Earth!
 * Phoebe Heyerdahl from Hey Arnold.
 * Tom Chan in The Amazing Chan and The Chan Clan, and to a lesser extent his brother Alan.
 * There's a minor character in South Park named Kevin Stoley. He's a Chinese-American and is quite a Star Wars nerd. Barely more than a Living Prop, we don't know his intellect though.
 * There's also the rather weird fact that other than explicitly saying he's Chinese-American, nothing else implies this, including surname or appearance. It's not like South Park is usually subtle with this sort of thing...
 * Mandark from Dexters Laboratory is implied to be half-Japanese.

Real Life

 * One of India's biggest exports is IT graduates. Which then become parents who accept no less than A's from their children so then they can compete with other IT graduates.
 * Frequently an Enforced Trope (albeit unintentionally), as 80% of the scholarships for Asians are for those wishing to become doctors, lawyers, or scientists. The 20% of scholarships for ANY other field are taken so quickly that some people think all Asian scholarships are for those three fields.
 * South Koreans, Japanese and more recently Chinese and Taiwanese are often assumed to be at least one step higher on the competitive gaming ladder than any Western gamer. The common explanation is that they apply their traditional determination, dedication and competitive nature to videogames as well as (or in lieu of) Real Life. As with other generalizations, however, the truth of this belief varies from person to person.
 * On the flip side, the general social trends of Eastern cultures which emphasize the group over the individual tends to result in typically more successful groups. In the space of modern genres like the MMO, this attitude can prove fairly dominating.