INVESTIGATION: Where the Hell Does the Word "HOON" Come From?

With the above video, I introduced the word “Hoon” into the lexicon of stoolies around the globe. Hoon Mania swept the country and I had folks from all over begging to crank a hoon with The Wonton Don.

One time a stoolie even requested that I send him a signed pack of Hoons to Nebraska and I obliged.

Now contrary to popular belief, I did not invent the word “hoon” nor does “hoon” mean cigarette in Chinese. I first heard the term from a high school friend who had a small group of buddies that commonly used the term to refer to cigarettes. At the time I was living in China and every time I came back to the states I would bring back a few cartoons of cheap Chinese cigarettes  for my friends. Over time the word “hoon” became synonymous with the cheap cigarettes I would bring back from Asia. It made sense as hoon does sound like an pretty Asian word. It’s even a common surname in Korea.

However, up until yesterday, I had absolutely ZERO idea how the term “hoon” came to be a slang term for cigarettes. Anytime I tried doing a little research, all I’d discover is that in Australia, a “hoon” is a widly erratic driver.

hmmm very interesting, but what does driving like an asshole have to do with smoking cigarettes? Could it be that hoon was just a funny sounding word that a couple bros in Massachusetts thought would be fun to start using in place of “butt”, “dart”, or “heater”? No no no, as I found out yesterday, the word hoon does have a direct connection to smoking, but to my surprise, not tobacco.

The other day I was scrolling through Instagram when I came across this picture shared by a Chinese history buff I follow.

look a little closer

I decide to ask why the hell the word “3 hoons” was on a pack of opium.

And there you have it folks, back in the heyday of the opium trade, when the British empire was importing LOADS of the shit into China, it was weighed and sold by the “hoon”!

Wikitionary Examined thirty-one men. Their average consumption was six hoons. The greatest daily consumption by one man was fifteen hoons; the smallest, two. The average number of years they had been addicted to the smoking of opium was seven years and some odd months.

Now the slang term kinda makes sense. People used to smoke hoons of opium. The Chinese in particular used to smoke so many hoons of opium that their emperor banned the British from importing opium into the country. The British weren’t happy about that as they were making insane amounts of money off the Opium trade so they decided to go to war with China in what was called “The Opium Wars” or as I’ll be calling them from now on, “The Hoon Wars”. The British won easily and the Chinese would continue smoking hoons for years to come. Smoking opium has since gone out of style (now people tend to prefer opiates prescribed by their doctor) so it was only a matter of time that someone adopted the word “hoon” for smoking tobacco. There used to be a bunch of merchants in the Boston area that were involved in the Opium trade so maybe they were the ones who originally brought the term back to Massachusetts. Honestly, I have no idea how the term made it back to Massachusetts,  all I know is that I’m happy it did. Hoon responsibly my friends…