The six men on stage included a poet, a break dancer and a filmmaker. They pounded rhythms on the dhol drum, modeled fresh fashions, slathered whipped cream on bare skin and discussed their passion for community service.

This is the "Mr. Hyphen" contest, a faux pageant in the San Francisco Bay area aimed at redefining the image of Asian-American men beyond nerdy, sexless stereotypes.

Conspicuously absent from the stage were computer experts, doctors, lawyers or dry cleaners. There were, however, martial arts _ with a twist.

Pahole Sookkasikon, an American-born graduate student partial to drawing, cooking, and "flirting for free drinks at the bar," knew that his hobbies would not translate well to the talent portion of the show.

So he fell back on something he learned in childhood cultural immersion classes: traditional Thai stick-fighting. Only his version featured three attractive women dancing backup while "Tardy for the Party," a song from the reality show "Real Housewives of Atlanta," blasted over the speakers.

"It was a transnational hybrid kind of U.S.-Thai mix-match of talent," Sookkasikon, 25, said in a November interview after winning the Mr. Hyphen crown. "It was a hot mess, man. But it was funny."

Much more serious is Sookkasikon's work to help southeast Asian ethnic groups such as the Thai, Hmong, Laotians, Cham and Mien, and his advocacy for organizations seeking more Asian participation in the national bone-marrow donor registry. The contest donated $1,000 to the winner's charity of choice; Sookkasikon (pronounced Soo-kah-SEE-kahn) chose the Thai-American Scholarship Fund and the Asian American Donor Program.

His total package exemplifies what one contest judge, the activist and writer Helen Zia, called the growing "Asian-American renaissance."

"It really is taking a page out of what W.E.B. DuBois and the African-American leaders of that period were talking about: culture," Zia said. "This is about changing the view in the American mind and the American culture about what is the Asian-American man."

The contest was established in 2006 by Hyphen magazine, an all-volunteer publication dedicated to covering Asians in America in all their complexity.

"The contest is a lot like the publication itself: Fun, tongue-in-cheek, kind of campy, but there's a serious message," said Melissa Hung, the magazine's founding editor. "Asian men don't get a lot of love in the mainstream media."

Zia said the earliest American images of Asians depicted them as a subhuman, invading, vermin-like population, then as servile, emasculated and asexual. Modern stereotypes focus on "model minority" smart students, Fu Manchu villains and kung-fu action heroes.