Q&A With Star Chinese Comedian Joe Wong Ahead of His Gig Apr 8 at Cheers Gulou
Even though Joe Wong has had plenty of success in the notoriously tough American standup scene, when he returned home his wife scoffed at how soft he'd become.
The Jilin born comedian and his wife were bargaining with a street vendor in Beijing, where Wong had moved to host the TV show 是真的吗?/Is That for Real? after a successful standup career in America that included appearances on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and The Late Show with David Letterman along with a performance at the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association Dinner with none other than then Vice President Joe Biden in the audience. After all that he was back in Beijing, dealing with a vendor charging him RMB 80 for some vegetables. Wong’s wife attempted the time honoured Chinese practice of bargaining, fibbing about only have RMB 50 in her pocket.
“After she said that, I immediately just said ‘Ok, I’ve got it,’ and handed over the RMB 80,” Wong recalls with a chuckle, during a phone interview with the Beijinger before his standup set at Cheers Gulou. He adds: “After I handed over the money, my wife snapped at me: ‘How could you forget?’”
Below, Wong tells us more about navigating those cultural differences, the prejudice he’s faced along the way, and how he’d poke fun at Donald Trump if ever given the chance to perform in front of the President.
So have you regained your bargaining skills? Or are you still be ripped off everyday in Beijing?
(Laughs) I recently saw a guy in a mock outfit asking for money, saying “Do you want me to pray for your family?” So I handed him RMB 10. Then he’s like: “How many members are there in your family?” I told him three and he said “Ten is not divisible by three! That's not enough money for each of them.” So I told him: “Then why don’t you give me RMB 1 back?” They always have more ways to get money out of you.
I’ll share some funny stories like that at the show tonight. It’s the first 45-50 minute headlining show that I’ve done this year. So it’s been a little while. After that show, I’ll be heading over to America to do a series of shows there too. This new material touches on my life now that I’m back in China. I came back in 2013 to host a TV show here. So I’ll be talking about how my son is adapting to life in China, and stuff like that.
A minute ago you mentioned your show Is That for Real? It’s a bit like Myth Busters, as I understand. Can you share any funny behind the scenes stories with us?
When it first started, it was almost like an investigative journalism show. But now we’re almost just focusing on rumours and old wives tales. Like if you eat brown sugar, it’ll supplement iron in your blood. People believed that for ages. So we did some experiments and proved it’s not true.
An even funnier one: for a while, people believed if you ate papaya your boobs would grow larger. We tried that too and found out there’s no evidence for it either.
You were probably worried to try any such experiments on yourself, just in case you’d have to change your whole wardrobe.
Well we did find out there’s a way that papayas can make your boobs bigger – if you stuff them down your shirt.
You're best known for telling jokes about Joe Biden to his face at the TV and Radio Correspondents Dinner, or appearing on Ellen and Letterman. But Is That For Real? an even bigger accomplishment in a way? You’d definitely be reaching more viewers with it on CCTV.
I think it’s both. I broke into the comedy world in America, and I defined my comedy style by watching shows there.
But once I was in Hollywood I saw the other side of show business. I had a deal with Letterman’s World Wide Pants company to develop sitcoms, back in 2010. But I quickly realised there’s a lot of racism against Asian Americans that a lot of people don’t even realize. For example: they’d tell me to my face “Oh, we can’t do any Asian family sitcoms.” When I asked why they said “Because Margaret Cho’s show failed.” I understand that sets a bad precedence, but they’d never say to a white guy: “Matthew Perry’s show failed, so we don’t have any white guys on our network now.”
Recently I met up with Jim Gaffigan when he was here in Beijing. We were almost on the same TV series at one point, a show about a Catholic priest played by Jim and an Asian priest played by me. But at the time there was a lot of backlash against the Han character on 2 Broke Girls so a lot of executives said: “Oh, Asian people are too sensitive.” So they wanted to use an African American guy instead.
All these weird things got me concerned about having a career in Hollywood. I worked for three or four years to get a sitcom going in American without any luck. Then I got this opportunity to make a pilot in China, like within four days, and used some jokes I developed in theatres for the pilot, and it quickly got picked up. So I decided to work on that show instead.
It’s so funny when you talk about all that sensitivity. I find there certainly isn’t much political correctness in China-
Oh yeah, that’s so true.
A lot of bluntness and straight talk, in fact.
Yes, yes. I have some jokes about that too. I know political correctness can be a good thing. But I feel like different races get treated differently because of it. Even in the U.S., if a lot of Asian Americans talk about racism no one wants to listen, everyone will l just say: “Enough of that, we’re having a seminar about racism against blacks right now.” (Laughs)
But things have gotten better in recent years, with shows like Fresh Off the Boat being so successful. That gives me more confidence now than in the past, so I’m still working to get sitcoms going in America.
When you mention your comic friends like Gaffigan, it makes me curious about how you guys interact. Like now, during this interview, it sounds like you have a bad cold or you’re losing your voice a bit, and that must be something you and your fellow performers dread. So have you ever offered to give Gaffigan or Letterman any Chinese medicine to help cure that?
(Laughs) The thing is, Chinese medicine doesn’t quite work. But Jim is an interesting character. He has five kids and three of them are learning Mandarin, so that’s why he took this last trip to perform in Beijing. I hope that both our cultures can continue to interact and understand each other like that, because deep down we’re all human. The longer I stayed in America, the more I felt that both our peoples are similar, but our systems are so different.
But in terms of how I interact with other comics, we mostly just chat, but don’t give each other much advice. Jim is really impressive to me, especially how he and his wife wrote their own show. I get less advice from them than inspiration – I look at him and think I should write more.
Aside from inspiration, there must lots of downsides to this business. Have you ever been heckled onstage?
American audiences are mostly nice to me. I’ve been heckled a few times when I performed in Boston, but mostly by drunks who are so wasted no one can understand what they’re saying. So I’d just make fun of them and ask “Are you talking Chinese to me? Is that why no one can understand?” And they’d usually just shut up.
I have to say I really love standup audiences. Western audiences are more active, drink a bit and have a good time. Chinese audiences are more reserved at first, and take longer to warm up, but after that they’re great too.
When you do a show in expat neighborhoods, like the one you have planned for tonight, is it different from a set that you’d do in the U.S. because maybe more bilingual Chinese people are there?
I think it’s pretty much the same. When I was doing standup in America, in cities like Denver, 99 percent of the audience was white or black. But in San Francisco there were way more Asians. I find some of those Asian audience members like racial jokes a lot more than white or black people, but otherwise it’s pretty much the same.
Lastly, I wanted to ask you about the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association dinner.
Right, that was the most stressful show I’ve ever done. Before the show there was a banquet and I had to sit at a line of tables onstage, so I had to have dinner in front of 2000 people. I could see CNN reporters that I used to watch on TV looking at me. It was stressful.
Then the first few minutes of my routine didn’t go as well as they would have in clubs, but I trusted that I had good material. And I remember my joke about national debt, and before I delivered the punchline I was nervous because everyone was feeling the pain of the financial crisis. I thought: “My God, what if it hurts them and they only groan?” But it got a huge laugh, and somebody actually applauded. So from that point on I knew I had the crowd.
I read Donald Trump won’t be going to any correspondent’s dinners anytime soon. But if he were, and you had the opportunity to perform, would you jump at the chance to make fun of him to his face? Or would it be too scary?
Oh I’d definitely love to. He’s the elephant in the room, a literal elephant. I just feel that, because he was promising to build a great wall on the Mexican border, clearly he hasn’t been to the Great Wall of China. If he did, he’d realize there are a lot of people on our wall, and his wall might keep out Mexicans, but Chinese would end up crowding it over. Especially on all these long weekends.
That’s hilarious. Anything else you’d like to add?
I would like to say American and actresses and actors face similar problems to what I had in the States. They can get parts but it’s hard to get a lead role. Of course not a lot of professional actors come here to China, but it’s still a struggle for foreigners to make it in China. But there are a lot of foreigners trying to do standup in Chinese, so I hope they stick to it and get lots of opportunities.
Someone like Dashan?
Yes, he’s changing the style and blazing a path. And there’s others who are trying to do comedy in Chinese. So I just wish them the best of luck and that they keep working at it.
Joe Wong will perform at Cheers Gulou (245 Guloudongdajie) on April 8 at 8pm (doors open at 7.30pm). Tickets are RMB 150 (one glass of wine is included). For more information click here or see the poster above.
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Images: WSJ, NBC, TSE 1, the Beijinger
