One of the things that I’ve always wondered about, or at least, bugged the hell out of me is seeing Asian guys with one long pinkie fingernail. My first boyfriend had it, and he claimed that when he was having sex with women that he would use it on them. Granted, we were both under 18 at the time, and I was completely in the dark about women’s anatomy, but the idea of having a fingernail anywhere near those parts just sounded rather painful to me, so I took that statement with a huge grain of salt.
I’ve seen it on lots of different men, from many different Asian countries, though it seems to be predominantly on guys who are from Southeast Asia, mainly Vietnam or the Philippines, though I’ve seen other guys with it from China, etc. No one bothered to explain why they had one to me, except for the sexual explanation.
Lo on behold, I was surfing The Straight Dope, a huge font of incredibly trivial (or necessary, depending on how you look at it), knowledge who got their staff to do a rather unscientific way of gathering reasons for this (namely, posting something on their message board). They proclaimed that it was primarily as a way to pick their nose and/or ears.
Ewww. At least it makes more sense, but I’ll probably think twice before I shake a guy’s hand if he has that long-ass pinkie fingernail.
However, I want to put it out there to see if there’s anyone who can prove me wrong, and show me what that fingernail is used for–and if you’re willing to admit you actually do use it for… bodily functions… uh, great.
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tsibugan wrote:
I keep my left pinkie fingernail long to pick my nose and my ears. It’s also good for opening up shrink-wrapped plastic packages, but it’s mostly useful for boogers and earwax.
Also, keeping the long pinkie nail on your left hand eliminates the hand-shaking dilemma.
Just being real.
Posted on 17-Dec-07 at 1:56 am | Permalink
Bo wrote:
My understanding was that the the long fingernail was used for snorting coke. This post is also the first time I’ve ever heard this phenomena being associated specificially with Asians or Asian-Americans. I always thought it was a musician thing.
Posted on 17-Dec-07 at 6:28 am | Permalink
George wrote:
The pick your nose/ear theory seems to be the most logical. But someone I know from Singapore with it once told me that it’s actually a sign of class. That having a long fingernail represents you belonging to a higher class, because if you had to work in the fields, that fingernail would break and be impossible to grow. This particular person was rather wealthy.
However, more often than not, the people I see with long fingernails (especially in China) are those of a lower class, such a taxi drivers. So who knows. Maybe it once represented a higher class, but has since lost most of that meaning and has been adopted by poorer people as a sign of being “better” and given new use as an ear/nose picker, lol.
Posted on 17-Dec-07 at 6:31 am | Permalink
cheekyricegirl wrote:
i don’t even want to hazard a guess or entertain any of the possibilities as to why such things are done.
all i will say is that it is WRONG. GROSS and WRONG. when i see it, i just wanna jam my hand into a latex glove, reach over, and snap that fingernail right off!
it’s GROSS! BLEH!
Posted on 17-Dec-07 at 10:38 am | Permalink
yoko wrote:
My dad has the long pinkie fingernail, and yes, he’s not a cokehead; he uses it to pick his nose. Sad, but true.
Posted on 17-Dec-07 at 10:52 am | Permalink
Efren wrote:
Yeah, whenever I see a guy with that fingernail, I have to resist the urge to grab the nearest pair of nail clippers and snap it off, or at least take said guy to the nearest nail salon and force them to undergo a manicure.
The cultural/class explanation sounds fascinating, though I’m not sure who in their right mind would want to research it–unless you’re a graduate student in sociology, anthropology or Asian American studies. And if you do, you’d better mention me in your dedication, dammit!
Posted on 17-Dec-07 at 1:19 pm | Permalink
Efren wrote:
Bo, for me, the only people that I’ve really seen it on were immigrant Asian men here in the Bay and LA. I don’t think I’ve ever really seen it on a musician, though just having it on the pinkie would be a bit weird, don’t you think?
Posted on 17-Dec-07 at 1:24 pm | Permalink
Simon Bao wrote:
One can usually tell on any given day when Efren has too much time.
Effie, I can’t speak to any other peoples, but you do know that long pinky nail is not unusual among Vietnamese and VietnAmericans. To be honest, I’ve never heard anyone say exactly what it’s about. It is quite handy to have one long nail, for picking up things too small or thin for the fingertips to manage. I know this as I used to have such a nail, so long ago. It was nothing more than a small useful to, in my mind. And given that I had one, you know it had nothing to do with class. Or aspirations to class.
Whatever lies behind the custom, it’s got to be a pretty resilient custom. There are parents my age who have their sons going around here with one long pinky nail.
At least among Viets, however, it is certainly *not* for cleaning out one’s ears. I’ve never seen anyone do that. Those of us who don’t use ordinary Q-Tips for cleaning ears are almost sure to have a tiny brass ear spoon made specifically for ear work. And it does indeed look exactly like a tiny coke spoon. In fact, I suspect that tiny coke spoons are the direct descendants of ear spoons.
Ear spoons continue to be much more popular than the ill-conceived ear “spork” introduced in the 1980s.
Posted on 17-Dec-07 at 3:50 pm | Permalink
cheekyricegirl wrote:
i concur with simon on the point of having seen it on quite a few vietnamese americans dudes. i even went back to vietnam earlier this year, and lo and behold! the young dudes there have it, too.
having a single long nail may be quite a useful utensil, for all the purposes outlined in the comments above mine . . .
but it is still GROSS!
when a nail gets to being that long, it starts looking pretty downright dirty and skanky. the only time that having long nails like that would be okay is when you play classical guitar or are a fantastic guitarist — like kaki king. LONG gross nails all around, but at least when she shoots a music video, she has her nails all painted and beautiful-looking.
at any other time, NO! GROSS! cut it NOW!
when they get that long, you can’t even cut ‘em with a regular nailclipper — you have to bust out with those hedge trimmers that are two feet long!! or get a damned buzz saw!
Posted on 17-Dec-07 at 5:27 pm | Permalink
Bo wrote:
You see guys on the subway in New York with the occasional long pinkie. It’s gross. And they aren’t just Asian. They come in all colors and shapes. Ewwww.
Posted on 19-Dec-07 at 11:38 am | Permalink
Rita wrote:
I’ve always been told (by relatives from a farming village in Taiwan, though none of them are farmers today) that the long pinky nail was for luck. Superstitious luck, as in, it’s bad luck to cut it–or let it get broken. And I’ve always believed them. I kept one long myself for a while, just for fun, back in high school, but then some guy in my art class acted like we were both in the know about doing coke. So I cut it.
Posted on 21-Dec-07 at 11:20 pm | Permalink
nail_grower wrote:
I have very long nails, since my childhood. The reason is simple: lot of girls “suffers” a huge nail fetish, and they are strictly fascinated by my nails.
Posted on 29-Dec-07 at 3:27 pm | Permalink
Jaimie wrote:
Okay. So here’s some food for thought.
A Chinese friend of mine - who is quite knowledgeable about societical history- told me that the pinky is long for two reasons that relate to status:
1) yes it does differentiate lower class and higher class. ie. higher class have longer nails because they do not do manual labour
..but the pinky in specific is long because (you may have to look at your hand for this one)…
2) it was known that if the the tip of the pinky passed the 2nd knuckle on the annular (finger right next to it), that you were genetically of a more ‘respectable class’ and others would give you more respect. So, men would grow out their pinky nail to ‘elongate’ their pinky length to ‘elevate’ their status.
I am certain that there is more to this than what I’ve described. But the content is there. Interesting how this has also influenced Vietnamese, and Laos culture as well.
Has anyone else heard of this?
Posted on 01-Mar-08 at 6:01 pm | Permalink
me wrote:
A lot of guys (like me) have long pinky nails just for an aestethic taste. I think they are very nice and cool.
Posted on 12-Jul-08 at 10:29 am | Permalink
Gio wrote:
I have a long pinkie nail cuz itz cool but i wana grow em an inch how long r urz an how long does it take
Posted on 18-Jul-08 at 5:04 pm | Permalink
lalalala wrote:
I work at a casino where the majority of guests/players are asian. A lot of them do have the longer pinkie nail, but it is not only the men. I have seen this on a number of women too. From my perspective, I just questioned their hygiene. So if it is a sort of status symbol, it really isn’t being regarded as that by outsiders.
Posted on 03-Sep-08 at 2:31 pm | Permalink