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Laugh out loud: Asian comedians
47 Plays9 months ago
We've been talking about a lot of heavy topics, so we wanted to lighten the mood. This episode was extra special because the three of us recorded this in a co-located space when we got together in NYC. We chat about our favorite and not-so-favorite Asian comics, while discussing how humor can relate to the workplace!
Articles for Nerds
Strategies for managing impressions of racial identity in the workplace
https://hbr.org/2018/11/the-benefits-of-laughing-in-the-office
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Theme
00:00:04
Speaker
Sure. Welcome listeners to another episode of Hidden in Plain Sight. I'm one of your co-hosts, Dook. I'm Ekko. And I'm Jenny. And today we're talking about humor in the workplace. In person. All three of us are in the same location. This is a very special episode. It is. This is actually where we actually had our meeting to actually conceptualize this podcast. So it's actually one month to the year.
00:00:32
Speaker
I was going to say, don't say where we were reported. We just say we are getting together so we can cut that. Can I say where? No, you didn't. No, you didn't. You didn't.
Humor to Lighten the Mood
00:00:41
Speaker
Okay, so humor in the workplace, the reason we're doing this is because we want to do something a bit more lighthearted. Yeah, I think some of the topics we've been talking about, microaggressions and stereotypes and all these other things can really like bog us down, right?
00:00:57
Speaker
be just a nice mix for us and really our audience members to really listen in and play. Learn about some things that could be funny. I mean, not that there's a chance they already know. And because we're meeting in person, so we want to make this topic more
00:01:14
Speaker
enlightening it was.
Stereotypes in Comedy: Jimmy Yang in Silicon Valley
00:01:16
Speaker
And I think we landed on this topic because, Echo, you were talking about Jimmy Yang, right? Yeah. Tell us a little bit about what that clip was, and maybe you can start there. Yeah. So for no particular reason, YouTube started to push Jimmy Yang's comedian to life bait, probably because I'm Asian. Could be your brother.
00:01:39
Speaker
Yeah, we all look alike, right? So there was one episode, I believe it was done when he was giving a talk at Google, and that was based on one of his successful portrait of a tech geek in Silicon Valley, which is a TV show that has been go viral for a while, talking about the in and outs for people working in the tech industry. Has anybody seen the show? I haven't. You know, I used to work at a startup, so it
00:02:09
Speaker
maybe could be too close. So I heard about it. I just didn't want to watch it. Did you see it? I saw it a couple of times or a couple of like episodes. They put a lot of like a humor into like how what it means to like be a startup and raising the fund and losing it, failing it. And it kind of interesting. They also put some of the
00:02:32
Speaker
real name name even though they use like a fake names but people know oh this is like alluded to Google this is alluded to like Microsoft so even like the beginning of the episode they always put up the a map where you see like all the startups literally like putting the prototype in real life to the to the show and in that show that Jimmy Yang was portraying this
00:02:56
Speaker
tech guy, I think originally from China, shy and kind of weird and not speak too much and even if he does, it felt like he's doing some damage to the group.
The Impact of Stereotypes
00:03:11
Speaker
And I find that was quite interesting because it's literally like a reinforcement of some of the stereotypes that people had on Asians and how Asian working attack. And then Jimmy Yang responded in that talk and he felt this is his way to dismiss some of the stereotypes that has casted on Asian population by portraying it on the big screen. I slightly disagree because some of the stereotypes that he portrayed was
00:03:41
Speaker
too true or probably like too over exaggerated what people will be seeing on the big screen and the way he put it is like once you're a comedian you you're just a portrait and and it just become part of your life and that's a way that he dismissed some of those stereotypes casted on him but then I was like there's also implications yeah
00:04:03
Speaker
to it and people gonna see it. For people who are next familiar with those characters that they will think this is how Asian will behave and they will expect something similar in the in the workplace. So I'm assuming Jimmy Yang is like the only Asian character on that show right? I think so yeah. Okay so that's a problem. Yeah because I've heard like
00:04:24
Speaker
John Stewart and Dave Chappelle kind of say the same with their craft that they, everyone is, they're looking to make fun of everyone, including themselves and no one's safe from comedy. So it totally makes sense. But there are a lot more black and white and Jewish comedians than there are Asian comedians, right? So sometimes when we have fewer numbers, it's hard to really distance that from like, is it just their way that they're trying to get into the business?
00:04:55
Speaker
they're truly trying to be true to the art and really do mean that they are going to make fun of everyone and the archetypes that are out there. Do you think it would have been better if the show featured like other Asian professionals, Asian Americans who are more versatile and then one of the characters is Jimmy Yang, like who is kind of a stereotypical nerd.
00:05:18
Speaker
I think that would be much better. You said he's the only Asian in the show? He was, or just for the selected episode that I've been watching, that he was the only one. I may have to check it out later. Yeah, that would be nice.
Pressure on Asian Actors
00:05:33
Speaker
I feel like a lot of Asian and Asian-American, not only comedians, but even maybe actors and actresses, sometimes feel the same way. They have to represent the whole
00:05:44
Speaker
race. And that's so hard to do because, you know, Asians are like 50 something percent of the world's population. So 50 percent of the population. Oh, Jenny, you know, come on. No, no, I did not know. I didn't know those 50 percent. A little bit more. I mean, from like a pie from west to west to east plus native Hawaiians. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Don't mess with Asians.
00:06:13
Speaker
Yeah, I think even like in that show, there are five main characters and three of them are white. So, and they portray like a very different stereotypes or various stereotypes of white people. A range of stereotypes. Yeah. So then people might also argue, yeah, like they, they all manifest or like exaggerate that to a certain degree. So why do we feel buzzard if this is just one about Asian, right?
00:06:39
Speaker
But to me it just for some reason just get to me like I wish there are more variety of that exists rather than just having that one specific open. And speaking of which I feel like nowadays there are more Asian comedians than there were maybe in like the 90s or there were we just didn't know of them because they weren't given the spotlight or given the time and space to actually perform their work.
Favorite Comedians and Identity
00:07:18
Speaker
On that note, should we just lift off some of our favorite comics? They could be Asian, they could be non-Asian. Sure. I can start out first. One of my favorite comedians growing up is actually George Carlin. Oh, you're going old school. Old school. The stuff from the 70s and 80s, even though I wasn't even born yet, I saw that in the 90s and I thought it was hilarious. His anger and his rage and his rationality and how he brought things back. I didn't know this was
00:07:48
Speaker
but I realized now that he's just a really good writer. And he made a lot of really interesting sense and interesting points. Not all of them I agreed with, but I got a good laugh out of it. And I sensed his humor and I sensed his urgency in wanting to educate people as well, too. And I thought it was great. Kind of same thing with, oh gosh, I was gonna say, not Robin Williams, I was gonna say the same thing with Dave Chappelle.
00:08:17
Speaker
That's so weird because Robin Williams was one of my top ones. It was just on the tip of my tongue. I didn't know he was a comedian. I know he was a good actor. Well, it was so weird because I associated him with all these Disney films and these PG TV family movies and then if you watch his
00:08:36
Speaker
stand up it's so dirty yeah it gives you a different perspective of where the genie is coming from reference to Aladdin of course what about you echo for your some of your top community
00:08:53
Speaker
So it's so interesting we talked about this because growing up like stand-up committing wasn't the same like in my past life prior to the states because that wasn't the same like in China either because it just started to become more popular in China now like actually
00:09:10
Speaker
There's a TV show that has dedicated to the stand-up committee where like all the people will come there and compete and so this is all broadcast to like the wider audience these days. But I also know like how I get to know this is there are some like episodes that I saw on YouTube and
00:09:32
Speaker
because the algorithm recommended to me like Jimmy Yang example, and also Ali Wang. I do think I like some of her jokes back then when she just get out. This is before she become like a famous as like an actress and do more things these days.
00:09:49
Speaker
And I also quite, I catch the two scene that you just mentioned on what we considered as a good comedian. One is make you laugh, of course, the second one is you also get something out from it. Either educational or something that you make you think
00:10:08
Speaker
more about that topic. So for anyone, I think there's some episodes she mentioned about the way that she thinks about marriage, that she thinks about as a woman.
00:10:22
Speaker
And not necessarily as an Asian woman though, that's probably something that I really see that as like Asian female working in the Canadian business, like they usually use their identity quite often. Some are either like very focused on like Asian theme, some are more probably leaning towards the women or the female as the identity, which I saw that was quite interesting because you can literally like group all those things into, they talk about their parents.
00:10:51
Speaker
their family drama and how Asians are being stereotypically treated as model minority. Those are probably some of the scenes that I've seen people talk about quite often. Now that you mentioned it, I mean, Ali Wong does a really good job balancing that, so she makes it very, very relatable for the non-Asian audience, but she does also talk about the difference between jungle Asians and fancy Asians.
00:11:14
Speaker
I have reservations about that terminology. But I guess that's, you know, part of our, like, there's certain things you like and certain things we don't like about some of these things, right? But I feel like it does put a mirror up, but, you know, I think that's part of the comedy. Jenny, what about you? Who are some of your favorite comedians? I mean, George Carlin is one of them. Robin Williams, for the reasons I mentioned, makes you think. I like comedy that, or I like comics who are thoughtful and make you think.
00:11:41
Speaker
Rather than comics who just rely on like gratuitous humor like people who only talk about sex and dicks Usually those comics. I don't really like because yeah, I find it very very vapid and kind of empty brought you
00:11:54
Speaker
Raunchy, raunchy. But you can be thoughtful and raunchy. Like I think Dave Chappelle is an example of that. So sometimes he gets into the weeds and he talks about something really vulgar. But at the end of his episode, you're always thinking about, oh, like something to think about. Yeah. Yeah. I think Joe Wong is on our list. He's actually, I think, a good example of a comedian who makes fun of
00:12:16
Speaker
his Asian side, but not at the expense of our Asianists. I do really like that because I haven't seen too many Asians talk about politics. For me, I'm a big C spanner and I follow politics. Someone found this and sent this to me a while ago and I thought it was hilarious that he was making constitutional jokes.
00:12:40
Speaker
And I just rolled over when I heard some of these punch lines. And hopefully we can share some of this with our podcast listeners as well too. And I'll only play it for a minute. So this is Joel Wong at the White House Correspondents Dinner.
00:12:56
Speaker
Back in 2012, Barack Obama is president. Joe Biden is vice president. I'm not sure he's going to get to the Joe Biden joke, but if he doesn't, I'll probably try to tell it. It probably won't be as good as how Joe delivers it. But we got a few jokes about the Constitution because Joe had to go take a citizenship test, and these are the things that you got to think about as he was going through this process.
00:13:27
Speaker
When we need to become a U.S. citizen, I have to take these American desparations. We're going to ask these questions like, who's Benjamin Franklin? We're like, ah. The reason our convenience store gets robbed? What's the second amendment?
00:13:56
Speaker
We're like, aww. The reason aren't the media store guess what? What is the rule versus Wade? We're like, aww. Two ways of coming to the United States?
00:14:27
Speaker
Oh my gosh, I love it. And of course, Joe Biden is there. He's slamming his hand on the dinner table and laughing away. Later on, Joe says he got a chance to read Joe Biden's autobiography, and today he got to meet Joe Biden in person. And of course, he says the book was much better. That's smart humor. Yeah, I really like it.
00:14:53
Speaker
It's not easy to do that. Yeah, it's so it's so hard to like insult people in a nice way, but I just thought that was great. So some of this stuff, like Jenny, like you said, when it's out, Ronci, when it's out, just all this explicit stuff and it makes you think about this or think in words in different ways, or there's a play on words and it takes you a little while to come along with these comedians. I really, truly appreciate that a little bit more.
00:15:20
Speaker
I'm glad Joe Wong got a chance to do that and to do it at a really big stage at the correspondence dinner.
00:15:36
Speaker
And I think one thing that make he stand out from all the other comedian is, well, I think there are certain times he did joke about his own identity, for example, like that, the question that they asked for, for him to become the US citizen. But I don't see he using that to be
00:15:58
Speaker
the only thing that we talked about. Like there are deeper brother societal issue that he talked about that actually make the scene or the content for his comedy. And I think that's important because I think there are audience or there are like Asian comedians only talk about their Asian identity, only talking about the stereotype or their family drama. Then that makes you feel like, okay. I just realized I think I appreciate Asian comics.
00:16:27
Speaker
who don't throw their people under the bus for the sake of humor. Because you can still bring in your identity, make a commentary without completely throwing your people under the bus. And I think an example is like the small dick joke. I actually heckled a guy at a stand-up comedy show
00:16:47
Speaker
He was the opening, the person who was introducing all the comics that night. And for some reason, I don't remember what the context was, but he said something about like, oh, at least I don't have a small Asian dick. And I said, oh. And he was like, who is that? And I was like, how many Asian dicks have you seen? Oh. That's not cool. Did he answer? No. Oh, come on. No. But I'm just like, how you talk like you're an expert, but how many Asian dicks have you seen? Right.
00:17:17
Speaker
I might edit that out, we'll see. But I do think like a lot of the Asian comedians make fun of that. Like even like some of the, like Jimmy Young mentioned that in the past. Like when he brought up this concept when he was talking about his girlfriend, like, oh, people are saying like, oh, one of her girlfriend and saying, you actually don't like Asians. Like what you mean by, I don't like Asians. And so basically he just put in that like small dick joke.
00:17:46
Speaker
And then made it as like, oh, I'm glad that you actually still made out with me, even though you had that impression of me in the first place.
00:17:56
Speaker
for some stereotypes.
Humor in the Workplace
00:17:59
Speaker
So have you ever used humor in the workplace to diffuse the situation or just break the ice or maybe, I don't know, how do people use humor in the workplace? I have. So if I can tell a little story about my first job is at Best Buy. I was about 18 or so. I just got my first job. I just turned 18 a couple weeks ago, got in. One of the supervisors came by.
00:18:23
Speaker
And of course, this is in Iowa, and I was working with a lot of other white coworkers, and this one supervisor asked me, hey, nice to meet you, yada, yada, yada, do you know Karate? And I looked at him, and I said, stereotypically I do, and I walked away. And a bunch of other guys who were around us kind of just laughed at him.
00:18:48
Speaker
I think he kind of got what I was trying to say later and came back and apologized and we actually became actually pretty good friends at work. But just saying that and walking away kind of diffused the situation for me a little bit because I really didn't want to have to, and this is my first day at work, I didn't want to have to defend that or have to go into an explanation why I do or I don't. And why does it matter in the first place? I'm here to sell computers.
00:19:14
Speaker
Like, do I really even know how to defend myself of doing that in the Midwest? Probably not. I'm impressed. Did you think of that on the spot? I think, yeah, I think it probably was on the spot. I mean, it's just, I guess my crude sense of humor, like growing up, like, you know, there's a lot of us who are new immigrants to the States and tempers get
00:19:38
Speaker
very short and people get into a lot of fights. It's something I try to avoid and I think using that humor was something that allowed me to escape the other side of it just to be angry and feeling all the time. I'd rather just laugh at it, diffuse it. If it doesn't work, find whatever. But if it does work, I may hit someone to actually think about some of the stuff I said.
00:20:05
Speaker
little bit longer and then we can talk about it but I don't want to fight them over over this you know just like like for me as a guy someone told me I had us all dick we'd get into a fight this isn't this isn't you know joking words you know this you know it's it's fighting words yeah because I think most people in that situation would have done nothing a lot of people I think would just have said anything I guess
00:20:30
Speaker
I guess growing up from me, growing up in the Midwest, I really just had to figure it out. And I guess my wit, luckily I had my wit with me that day. I respect that. So audience numbers, if you ever get asked that question, now you know what to say. Stereotypically, I do. And that could apply to anything that's kind of like racist, like, oh, or do you eat only with chopsticks? Stereotypically, I do. Yeah.
00:20:57
Speaker
This is actually brought back to the article that Jenny you shared on like using tumors in the workplace. Like I see people using that for the
00:21:07
Speaker
identity or the impression management where the humor can both show to the other side that you actually wanted to align or engage with them without like putting this like a confrontational upfront, but still kind of like slightly different on like, hey, this is not something that you are agreeing with. So showing your disagreement in a polite way.
00:21:35
Speaker
Yeah, and we'll put a link to that article. I mean, it was basically an article about the different strategies that certain people use to respond to racism in the workplace. And one of the things that they found was humor. So I think that example was great. You use humor to diffuse a situation, but also let them know that what they said was not OK. I got lucky. Had no idea what I was doing. I mean, I was 18. Such a precocious 18-year-old.
00:22:05
Speaker
Echo, do you have any examples of using humor? I mean, so you use humor to diffuse the microaggression, but you could use humor for other things too, right? Just like making the eyes. And that's why I felt like I need to learn more from Doug. In that situation, I will be totally like silent. What? What do you say? Gosh. But it does come with practice and knowledge of it. Like once you know how to respond, then the next time, like what Jenny mentioned, like, yeah, we can really like apply that to all the situation. You know,
00:22:34
Speaker
This brings back like one of the jokes that is kind of close to home, but like, you know, it's like one of those, it was a joke, but it was kind of close to
Historical Context of Stereotypes
00:22:42
Speaker
home. Like growing up, I get told a lot like, Hey, immigrants came over here taking our jobs. Right. And of course, like some sometimes when like, you know, parents or folks who are in the community speak about that, and you know, or a certain region, like, you know, perpetuate those things.
00:22:59
Speaker
it gets passed down to younger folks. And, you know, as a teenager in the Midwest, you know, I would hear that actually quite a bit. Like what? Like give us an example. You know, immigrants here, you guys don't speak English, you guys are here to take their jobs. And of course, some of my friends would sometimes say that too. They say it jokingly. And of course I said, yeah, we're taking your jobs and we're going to take your white women too. Damn, ducks got jokes for days. Yeah.
00:23:25
Speaker
Now what you had there also got me thinking I think this is coming from Jimmy Young like a while back when people get like asked like if you're Asian and then people accuse you like taking their jobs and I think he responded as like well yeah it's not the startup jobs that we're taking over or something like that so meaning like hey you should look at whether the job that we are actually taking over versus the one that taking from you meaning like
00:23:55
Speaker
because the people who actually complain about this are probably more of a lower income kind of job that taking away from the folks. However, people who actually really here in the States are probably not even, that's not even their pool of ideal jobs. I think that's interesting. I think it does depend on the air. I would say in maybe the 80s and the 90s when you have Vietnamese, Hmong, and Cambodian immigrants coming over,
00:24:24
Speaker
Like they were actually competing with a lower wage job. Your meat packing plants, your chicken, Tyson chicken plants, and you're like sewing plants like you had, you were competing with other.
00:24:34
Speaker
Asian immigrants that were willing to take worse conditions or poor conditions and a lower wage. Flip it to now in the 2010s and maybe in 2020s, it's a little bit different when you have a more highly skilled set of folks coming in to maybe get educated over here and staying over here and getting higher skilled jobs.
00:25:00
Speaker
You know, I think there are folks sometimes that could be envious. And I think that's one of the easiest things that they can do is to come to this neophytism or where they're just afraid of this new folks coming in and taking their jobs. But you know, it's been a perilous journey for them as well too, but they don't really talk about, they just want to make it easy. And I think simplify and say like, it's somebody else taking something away from them. But, you know, I'm sure that's not the case. Like everyone really has to work hard to really get a job.
00:25:29
Speaker
That's a good reframe. It is actually happening. Yeah. And on top of that, I do think, especially with the manufacturing industry has shifted to China or some other Asian countries that also, that was like used in the presidential campaign. Like people literally saying like China is taking over our jobs. And so that's also something that had primed those audience to say, Hey, you are the one actually taking over my job. Yeah.
00:25:59
Speaker
And I think, oh gosh, we're going to go into a little history lesson here. I think China joined the World Trade Organization in the 1990s. And I think it changed their economy in a huge way. And of course, as they joined the World Trade Organization, a lot of it, like you said, the jobs and manufacturing was outsourced to China. And you actually don't see a lot of actually manufacturing jobs in the US anymore. We're a lot more of a service industry now. Yeah.
00:26:28
Speaker
And then COVID happened and then they realized we need to bring some of those jobs back because if there is a pandemic and logistics stops, what are we going to do? Absolutely. Yeah. Go to Mexico. Jenny, do you have any examples of humor that you use to diffuse the situation?
00:26:46
Speaker
I have a workplace dinner example. Yeah, let's hear it. And I use humor after the fact when I was kind of venting to my colleagues. I may have told you the story before, but it was a sort of a holiday dinner with colleagues when I was working down in Columbia, South America. And there was a bunch of professors and there was one woman who tapped along. I didn't know who she was. She was German.
00:27:12
Speaker
And I just thought, oh, I hope I don't have to sit next to her because she just had that look on her face. And it just so happens that she sits right next to me and I'm like, okay, okay, here we go again. Like, I just knew she was one of those people who were going to say something stupid. And throughout the dinner, she kept on asking me questions like, or saying things like, oh, my husband and I know karate. And I'm like, I'm Korean.
00:27:39
Speaker
You know, she asked me, so, you know, what's your ethnic, or where are you from? So I just said, I'm Korean-American, I'm from the U.S. And then she said, oh, my husband and I really enjoy karate. Did you really say it that way? Karate. Yeah, she said karate. As if it would make it any better. Exactly. And I'm like, well, that's Japanese. I'm Korean. And I tried to steer the conversation back to something normal, like, so how are you enjoying Korea? Like, why are you, what brought you to South America? But she kept on, like, going back to,
00:28:09
Speaker
Oh, I just love your people's culture. And I was like, what do you mean by my people's culture? So loaded.
00:28:16
Speaker
Yeah, so I just like ask questions and I think she she kind of just like disengaged after that because I wouldn't give it to her. Right. What does that mean? Your culture? Yeah, yeah. And I wanted to say a few words to her because for some context, she was a German living in South America. So I had something that I wanted to say. But there were other Germans at the table who were nice. Like they were not my progressing me. So I didn't want to like rock the boat. But in my head, I was just like,
00:28:45
Speaker
I wanted to ask her, so your grandparents, were they in the war? Which side were they on? Jenny, as a Korean-American, do you get asked whether you're from the North or South? Oh, I get that all the time, all the time. So one time, so this didn't happen at work, but this happened with one of my friends' parents. So she was a white woman, a white British lady. And I said, oh, my family were South Korean, or were Korean. And she's like, South or North? And I actually said North Korean.
00:29:14
Speaker
And I kept the straight face. And I was like, yeah, we came over Korea. There are like thousands of defectors every year to South Korea. And that's how my family came over. So yeah, my family came over to North Korea. My friends were all cracking up. Yeah. Did you tell you were a sleeper cell? Yeah. But going back to the first example, I complained to some of my colleagues afterwards and I was just like, I could have said all this thing about like her being a Nazi.
00:29:41
Speaker
You know, why are you living in South America? It's because you're escaping, you know, your war crimes that were badly committed. Kind of interesting about there are also distinction on some people with good intent, but
00:29:56
Speaker
really poor knowledge for even like starways, like bad intent. And in that case, I probably see that as more like a former, like meaning like this lady might want to just be more showing like she can get along with you and she wanted to be part of your conversation. But it's just poor knowledge make her feel like very ignorant. So should I forgive her because she had your intention? I don't think this can be the excuse for people who actually
00:30:25
Speaker
display this aggression on other people, but rather. I think it's only fair if we get to ask those people the same questions. Like, you know, I asked Jenny that because, you know, I get asked that as a Vietnamese person all the time. And here's the thing, like, I want to ask my American friend. But what do you, what do they ask you? Are you from North Vietnam or South Vietnam? Oh, okay. You know, and of course, like, I want to ask, like, well,
00:30:52
Speaker
Did your family fight with a confederate or with a union? I wanna know! I wanna know! I wanna know what's in your blood. Are you a slaver? Are you a... Are you a Yankee? I wanna know. And you know what? That's good. Do you have slave owners in your family? Let's talk about that.
00:31:13
Speaker
I just want to, yeah, I do that just to turn it back on them because I'm like, yeah, I know your history too. I want to talk about your history too. Who's landed to take away from? You know, like it's, you know, it's just some of these silly questions that they're trying to, I think, ask. I don't think like, I feel like you said, I don't think they understand the intention, the intention they have may be good, but the questions they ask sometimes are bad. Yeah.
00:31:37
Speaker
Yeah, and you know what, I made it very, the reason why I got so pissed was I made it very easy for her because I kept on turning the conversation back to, so what are you doing in South America? How do you like it? And she kept on turning it back to your people, your culture, your global. And she probably feel like she is making an effort. And that's the issue. Like, she probably felt like, oh, I know all those history you all have, and I can show like, I really wanted to bond with you. But it's just in the wrong way. Yeah. Stupid things.
00:32:07
Speaker
just keep the conversation human like you know yeah you know what do you study what do you do how you how do you like living in the city you know just and then what are your interests exactly and then naturally if you really want to know about that cultural background like oh come up in conversation there are ways you could ask it but be like oh i know karate like please
00:32:26
Speaker
I mean, if they start out with that, we're in Nihau. I mean, that's a...
Assumptions and Insensitivity
00:32:29
Speaker
Oh, Nihau or Konnichiwa. I've never gotten Annyeong Haseyo. No one has ever said Annyeong. That's so funny! It's always Nihau or Konnichiwa. So, I was meeting Taloon last year, well, two weeks ago, and I was, like, buying this ticket from the National Park, and the guy was, like, Konnichiwa. And that's it. Like, I was like, uh... I saw, like, Nihau is more common for Asian, and I was like, okay, I don't speak Japanese. Thank you.
00:32:56
Speaker
I find this hilarious because as an Asian American, if I only knew to say hello to somebody in English and I stop there, it wouldn't be that great. But how do other people get away with that? It makes no sense to me. Oh, you can say hello. That's wonderful. But yeah, I can speak in full complete sense in English. You can speak English with me. It's all right.
00:33:32
Speaker
So where are we? Did you put in the last one? The numpy nation was white. Oh, that happened when I was working at a company. So here comes with an example from Jimmy. Oh, another example? Yeah. Are we still doing more examples? I think so. Example.
00:33:50
Speaker
Oh, so that, that example was one of my white colleagues was saying how we don't have to look at the engaging survey results by Asians. They just love them with whites. And I was like, I just said, you know, Asians are not white since when are we white? Yeah. I'm not sure if this will make it to the cut, but actually I had something. I mean, it's not, it wasn't humorous for me at all. I was in my first research methods course in like Northern Iowa. I was actually working with.
00:34:19
Speaker
I think all white women on this student project, and we were doing demographics, and I insisted we had all these different races and ethnicities. Can I be just white and other? And I'm like, I didn't know how to respond to that. I'm like, well, maybe in this class, but if we actually utilize this on campus, probably not.
Comedy Influences and Representation
00:34:45
Speaker
And the fact that I think
00:34:49
Speaker
this person dismiss it better. Is this, gosh, is this what it's gonna be like? I don't know, it's frustrating that you see people like that. It's very white centric. It is. It is. But going back to the humor, how would you respond to that today? If you want a job, no. We can't have a survey just white and other. White and other? Yeah, yeah.
00:35:13
Speaker
And we just want to be included, guys. We just want to be included. And you know, I'm really glad that we, like, at least, like, I feel in terms of, like, comics, I feel like we are more so. Yeah. Yeah. Because I feel like in the 90s, like, when in the 90s, when I grew up, I was watching, I listened to records with, I think, Bill Cosby, George Carlin. I listened to Robin Williams. I watched In Living Color, which is mostly
00:35:40
Speaker
A lot of black folks, plus Jim Carrey and one Asian guy, I think he's saying something park.
00:35:48
Speaker
I want to say, it's not Peter, it's not Peter Parker. It's not the Peter Parker. Oh, I forgot Margaret Cho. Margaret Cho. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think she was big in the, I think in the 90s and she had her own, she had the first Asian TV show, right? Family TV show. Yes, yes. I don't think it ever took off. Is that right? I remember watching that. Did you? Tell me about Margaret. I just remember watching that it was about an all American, Asian American family.
00:36:12
Speaker
Back then like Martin and Sinbad and like Fresh Prince, those were like the three shows you watched and then you had an Asian American version of that and then it was just like about an Asian American family. I never saw her, but I heard of her name. I think I started, I looked up some of her stand up recently and she actually joked about it. And she's like, you know, I was the first one to actually have a comedy show that centered around Asian and Asian Americans. And it was so bad.
00:36:42
Speaker
They took us off for generations.
00:36:45
Speaker
Oh, my goodness. Talk about the burden. Yeah. And then it wasn't until, I think, Fresh Off the Boat came back on that that was central again. And of course, even with Fresh Off the Boat, I think we had people feeling that they had to represent all types of age. But the fact that we got to see some of it was just amazing. I just didn't think that was really there in the 90s. Mark and Joe was probably there. But even I missed her.
00:37:14
Speaker
I wasn't watching the channels that she was on, I watched. First time part of the movie. Yeah. I'm a lot of Kenan Ivory Wayne, Marlon Wayne, Sean Wayne, Jimmy Fox. Jimmy Fox, David Allen Drier. I mean, those are the comics that I grew up at. It made me laugh every weekend. But I'm glad to see that there are more comics. Joe Wong, Ally Wong, right? Yeah. Joe Coy is another one. Yeah.
00:37:42
Speaker
Who else? Ronny Chieng! Yeah? Oh my goodness, how could I forget Ronny Chieng?
Karen Chee and Media Representation
00:37:46
Speaker
He's a great, always angry Asian man. He's good. I've seen him live a few times. At the Daily Show? Oh, who don't scare them? He showed up at the stand-up comedy clubs that I used to go to when I was living in New York. So you actually see him in night. Can I add one more? Yeah, yeah. And one of my favorite shows is actually Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.
00:38:09
Speaker
there was this guest host that came on. It was actually Karen Chee. And I had no idea who Karen Chee was. Karen Chee is this Korean American woman who actually worked for the Late Show with, I think, Seth Meyers. And she had a bit, but she had, she was guest hosting on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. And Peter Segel rarely gets off air. And the fact that he did, and then somehow Karen Chee got on there,
00:38:36
Speaker
It was amazing because I think that one episode I was listening to, she had Randall Park on and she was roasting Randall Park. And it was just really nice to have one Asian person roast another Asian person. And when you have like Asian people roasting each other, you could say like, well, it's clearly not about race. She's clearly just trying to get to him. And I think it was hilarious and it just,
00:39:02
Speaker
made me laugh out loud. And I just looked into her just a little bit more, but she guest hosted a couple of times on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. She had a little skit on Seth Meyers on Asian, as an APIA heritage month. And we can play that in a little bit, tips that she gave to late night TV watchers.
00:39:23
Speaker
And it's something really nice to just see a young up and coming Asian American artists grow and just also just be freaking hilarious. I love it. That's what representation does for you. Yeah. Yeah. I want to check it out. So she's a comic. Yeah. Okay. This weekend I'll have to check that out. Yeah. Cool. I like Randall Park too. Yeah. Me too. Okay. I'll find the link and I'll clip it to that part where she starts roasting Randall Park. And we'll play a little bit on the podcast when we're editing.
00:39:54
Speaker
Okay, cool.
Conclusion with a Haiku
00:39:55
Speaker
So way to conclude our episode today with another chat, GPT Haiku. Yes. The Haiku about Asian comedy. Okay. Eastern humor shines. Chuckling giggles, drawing in toys. Asian comedies farming. I actually don't know how to interpret that Eastern humor shines because I find... Can we just say humor shines? Exactly. We would be missing a couple of syllables.
00:40:25
Speaker
Should we conclude our episode today? Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Hidden in Plain Sight, your podcast for all things Asian. Catch us later on the next episode. Thank you!
00:40:47
Speaker
Oh man, Rainbow, I loved you in your rom-com, Always Be My Maybe, which is, it was just like an instant classic, and it was starring you and Ally Long, and for people who didn't know, Ally's character picks you over Keanu Reeves, and I was just wondering, if Keanu showed up at your door and declared his love for your wife, do you think she would pick you too? Um... Yeah.
00:41:46
Speaker
Very cool.