August is Hot Asian Man Awareness Month

Celebrate by backing the Haikus For Hotties 2018 Calendar.



Attention, please! This is a Very Important Announcement about Hot Asian Men. Did you know that August is Hot Asian Man Awareness Month? It has been declared. Not by coincidence, the annual Haikus For Hotties Calendar is back! From the makers of Haikus With Hotties and Haikus On Hotties, the 2018 calendar features twelve months of Hot Asian Men, carefully curated by our friend Ada Tseng, esteemed Professor of Hotness.

This year, they're inviting fans to participate in the fun. Every three days, during the calendar's Kickstarter campaign, they'll unveil a new photo of a 2018 calendar hottie and invite you to submit a hotness-inspired haiku. They'll publish their favorite one and give each haiku winner a free calendar.

The theme for the 2018 edition will be "Cover Men," with each photo transformed to look like the cover of a magazine -- a nod to the fact that we still rarely see Asian men rocking the covers of Hollywood magazines. It's a fun way to highlight a multitude and variety of Asian men doing cool things in the media.

Check out this behind-the-scenes video of the photo shoot with the official Haikus With Hotties ambassadors Yoshi and Peter Sudarso, and the very first female calendar hottie, Anna Akana. (The image is a parody of this Vanity Fair cover with Tom Ford, Keira Knightley and Scarlett Johansson.)

Ode to the Haiku Hotties Who Kept Their Shirts On

Guest Post by Ada Tseng



Last year, when we debuted the first Haikus With Hotties calendar, a tongue-in-cheek celebration of hot Asian American men and their ability to write Japanese poetry, we led with these two photos:

Our unofficial Haikus With Hotties ambassadors Yoshi and Peter Sudarso (Power Rangers, Apartment 210)
And our cover man, Shannon Kook (Degrassi: The Next Generation, The Conjuring)
So even though every single other person in the calendar - from Eugene Lee Yang and Randall Park to Godfrey Gao, Daniel Henney and Hari Kondabolu -- was fully clothed, we understood (and even thought it was funny) when some of the new hotties we approached for the 2017 calendar asked: "Do I have to take my shirt off?"

The answer was: Well, this time, we're calling it Haikus *On* Hotties, so YES, OBVIOUSLY.

Get your hands on the Haikus On Hotties 2017 Calendar

From the Makers of
Hotties with Haikus now comes
Hotties ON Haikus.



Look, it's very simple. Hot Asian men. Poetry. Every month. People, it's the Haikus On Hotties 2017 Calendar, now available for purchase! The full-color calendar features thirteen months of attractive Asian men in various states of dress or undress, sharing a little bit of poetry with you. It makes the perfect holiday gift for your friends who need just a little more Asian American male hotness in their lives. Order now!

Created by Ada Tseng, Professor of Hotness, the non-award-winning photo and poetry series Haikus with Hotties was first launched in 2013 for Audrey Magazine, featuring attractive men answering ridiculous questions while counting syllables. Last year, the series inspired the crowd-funded 2016 Haikus With Hotties Calendar. And now, the project has morphed and returned with a twist: Haikus On Hotties.

How I Became a Pretend Expert on Hot Asian American Men

Guest Post by Ada Tseng



A few years ago, I convinced my editors at Audrey Magazine that it'd be funny to ask actor/model Godfrey Gao to exchange mediocre poetry with me about his hotness.

(Hey, hey. Eyes down here, OK? I know you're trying to figure out who that is in the photo above, and where you've seen his muscles before, but stay with me. There will be more pictures of that guy at the end of this post, I promise.)

Back to poetry. I had just been told that my upcoming interview with Godfrey would be conducted through email, and, as a serious journalist, I knew it'd be hard to experience the full extent of his hotness through email. So I was trying to think of a creative way to do the interview in which the answers I received from him through the written word would potentially be better than the verbal responses I'd get from him in person. Haiku seemed to be the most accessible form of poetry for two non-poets. I figured I could also get away with asking him ridiculous questions about his swooning fangirls, beauty regimen, and tips for modeling Louis Vuitton man purses -- inquiries that would be much less charming without the syllable constraints of 5-7-5.

He probably had no idea what he was getting himself into, but he answered in haiku, and the series Haikus With Hotties was born. For each issue after that, I just kept convincing other people that this was a good idea. Folks like Freddie Wong, Dante Basco, Randall Park, and Christopher Dinh. On one hand, these are creatives working in the entertainment industry who have been directly affected by mainstream Hollywood's lack of imagination when it comes to stereotypical portrayals of Asian American men. But on the other hand, they're also just funny people who very quickly made me realize that the fact that they don't take themselves too seriously is actually the hottest quality of all.

At the time, I didn't have a grand vision of what #HaikusWithHotties would become. But last summer, we successfully launched a Kickstarter to turn the series into a 2016 calendar, including a video where I introduced myself as a "Professor of Hotness" presenting my ground-breaking research. And we hopefully gave our supporters a reason to smile at the first of every month, when it was time to turn the calendar page and unveil their next hottie.