Add Top Chef 3’s Hung Hyunh to the list of reality-tv stereotype smashers

Tuesday, July 03, 2007


You’ve already heard me briefly talk about Top Chef: Land of the Asian-Americans - but there’s a good article down at the San Jose Mercury News by Susan Young titled Reality-TV stars smash Asian-American stereotypes - and I just had to make sure that I plugged my guy Hung from Top Chef 3 because he’s definitely helping to smash those stereotypes as well.

Out of all the Asian American reality t.v. stars who else do you remember who has referred to themselves as a C.P.A. - as in Certified Public Asshole - and says it with a smile - and who is as brash as he has been already in just a few episodes?

And he’s extremely talented, even impressing the hard to impress Anthony Bourdain, AND he has a link to last season’s instigator and colorful personality (some would say villian) Marcel (they’ve known each other for a few years).

So he’s a talented, egomaniacal, self proclaimed asshole (certified) who likes to hang out with other evil chefs who also think highly of themselves….hmmmm….definitely NOT the quiet and reserved mystical little Asian guy who’s going to give you the keys to nature and how it works after he cures that knot in your back with some acupunture…..grasshopper.

I’d say that qualifies as stereotype smashing.