KEY POINTS:
Before we start this tour of a few central Auckland Asian hot spots, let's have lunch. Like the Maori and Pacific Island cultures, Asians rarely do anything on an empty stomach. I'm at QQ Rice on Wellesley St with TimeOut's tour guide for the afternoon, Alistair Kwun.
He reckons QQ is like the Asian version of Subway. It is, except there's rice instead of bread, and kimchi (a Korean relish made of fermented vegies) and Korean chicken instead of a foot-long Italian meatball sammie. It's delicious, slightly sticky, and healthy.
Kwun, who was born in New Zealand and whose parents are from Hong Kong, is the director of Alistair Kwun Communications, a public relations agency that focuses on cross-cultural communications. He's a one-stop-shop for what's happening in the Asian community and his main aim is to bring cultures together.
He sees four key things that drive young Asians: fashion, entertainment, food and technology. And just around the corner from QQ is Elliott St - a short, one-way strip that caters for these four needs.
Kwun reckons the area is popular with Asian businesses because they can tap into the thousands of Asian city-dwellers, including the large numbers of overseas students who live in the central city, and the street is also a main thoroughfare for non-Asians.
A third of the way down Elliott St is the Mid City Arcade. It saw better days in the 90s when it was a picture theatre and today it still has that grubby look like it's stuck in a timewarp. The arcade is full of Asian shops, including cutesy gift shops, fashion stores, specialist Asian DVD store Fasoyo, and a cellphone shop.
Kwun calls it an ethnic precinct.
"It's an ethnic precinct but it's not just for that community. There's opportunities for everyone to get involved," he says.
For a start, try the restaurants, including the popular Dragon Boat and for the "best Japanese in town" there's Karuki. And non-Asians who are into kung fu can rent Asian DVDs "because they have subtitles and you can't get them at Video Ezy". Kwun says European women wanting smaller sized clothes often shop at the Asian boutiques in the Atrium.
Then there's Margaritas, a Mexican bar that's popular with young Asians, because, as one of the staff suggests, the university and AUT have their own bars "but Margaritas is like a student bar for the whole of Auckland".
Across on High St the Asian influence is more underground. In a seedy corridor near the Metropolis Hotel two young guys stand on a stairwell adding their mark to the already heavily graffiti-ed wall. They wander off with a giggle when they see us coming. The air is tangy with the smell of vivid marker.
At the top of the narrow stairs we enter Ionic, a dark yet stylishly decorated streetwear and action-figure shop owned by 25-year-old Robert Shen. Shen says his main customers are Asian guys because non-Asians don't want to fork out up to $1000 for his wares.
"They wouldn't buy it. They spend their money on drink," he says, with a cheeky smile.
One level up there's the DVD Viewing Room. Kwun says it's just like a karaoke lounge - with booths for groups to rent - but you watch movies.
We head to Commerce St to Emart, a Korean-owned Asian supermarket that's open 24 hours. It sells traditional brands of soft drinks, chips and alcohol as well as Asian varieties, including a potent-looking Korean plum wine.
A couple of doors down, on the corner of Commerce and Customs St East there's a building you'd expect an inner-city dentist to inhabit. It has two libraries-cum-reading rooms, with seats laid out in rows, and hundreds of Asian manga comics to browse.
While manga comics are pretty specialised, it's a weird and wonderful world, this Asian one, and there's something in it for everyone.
