IT’S OFFICIAL: Asian males are girlier than Western ones. In physical terms, guys from the east are smaller and less muscular. In mental terms, they are more open to non-macho activities, such as wearing accessories, collecting dolls and getting into fist-fights at designer handbag promotions.

A reference to the metrosexual nature of Asian males in this column produced many letters containing evidence for the above, such as this factoid: A research project by Megumi Ushikubo concluded that 60 percent of Japanese men aged 20 to 34 were Otomen, which means “girly guys”. In the media, multiple anecdotes = data.

There’s no room to reproduce all the comments, but here’s a smattering:

“We can’t do anything about the fact that our build is more like that of the average Western girl,” wrote reader Rafan Junior.

“Just because we use hair gel and wear brassieres doesn’t mean we are not Real Men,” said Martin Weligama.

“Just because we are gay, it doesn’t mean we are gay,” said Smithson Yau, confusingly.

But this only applies to young guys. Asian males over 34 are often extremely old school masculine in the worst way, several readers said.

One Asian male, Otis Schindler, also known as Lift Lurker, proposed a grading system for masculinity and femininity:

MMM for “Chuck Norris type”

MM for “Manly man”

M for “Regular man”

GM for “Girly man”

EM for “Effeminate man”

RF for “I am woman hear me roar”

MF for “Manly girl”

F for “Regular girl”

FF for “Girly girl”

Youngsters and confused people can use TBD for “To Be Decided”.

Lift Lurker classified this columnist as “off the scale” in terms of masculinity.

“If Chuck Norris came within 50 meters of you, he would start to turn gay,” he said. “At 10 meters Chuck would be fully gay.”

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A “LACK OF food” is causing piranhas to go on a rampage at a lake resort in Brazil, the news media reported last week. What does this mean? Are fish jumping the queue at the hotel buffet?

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ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER last week commissioned a set of seven massive metal replicas of himself, the New York Daily News reported. US commentators speculated they will be given as commemorative statues to places associated with him, such as Austria and California.

Rubbish! They’ll come to life and smash through walls, leaving Planet Earth a pile of smoldering ruins. Haven’t these idiots seen the Terminator films?

Incidentally, the book industry buzz says Arnold’s biography will be called Total Recall. Is this a suitable title for a man who “forgot” to tell his wife about a child he’d fathered 10 years earlier?

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THE SRI Lankan government’s new on-line visa system offers visitors a range of languages, including “Japanees,” “Chinees,” and “Arabian”, the Island newspaper reported last week. No one need feel insulted. The website misspells its own country’s name: “Smri Lanka”.

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“THE US resumed full-scale intelligence sharing with Britain last week,” the UK government announced. Okay, so the two teams of spies which convinced each other that tinpot dictator Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction can now work together again. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

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SEEN ON the back of a Beijing car: “Baby on road.”

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TOMORROW: A report from the Occupy Wall St protests in Asia