By Kai Curry
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
Do you know comedian Joe Wong?
In 2010, he headlined the 66th Radio and TV Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington D.C. A former biochemistry student in Boston, he was at the top of the comedy industry.
Between 2009 and 2012, he performed on “Ellen” and “The Late Show with David Letterman” multiple times. Wong then went to China to become the Asian American host of the top rated Chinese TV show “Is it True?” for almost 10 years. Now, Wong is back and slated to perform his first stand up tour, “This Asian Hates Asian Hate,” in Bellevue on Feb. 25.
Joe Wong as the host of the Chinese TV show, “Is It True?” Image provided by Joe Wong.
The Asian Weekly talked to Wong about his relocation to China at a time when he was blowing up in the U.S. “It was a very tough decision because once I was in China, I pretty much had to start my stand-up from scratch, from writing the first word in Chinese because the jokes don’t quite translate.” Wong hoped that, similarly to in the U.S, he could make an impact on the way comedy was viewed in his homeland. “I made the decision for two reasons. One is that at the time, there was no stand-up comedy in China.” The only thing resembling comedy on Mainland China back in the early 2010s was “crosstalk.” In large cities like Beijing at that time, there was maybe only one comedy club. Thanks to Wong’s influence, “younger kids there, they saw my performance in America, then they started to do stand-up comedy in China, too.”
In Wong’s words, it was “a brand-new movement.” By the time his show ended in 2022, there were 10 to 20 comedy clubs in several major Chinese cities. “I think stand-up comedy is probably the most significant event in Chinese entertainment for the past 10 years,” Wong said.
But it wasn’t just the comedy scene in China that Wong helped change. From the beginning, he has been actively striving to influence comedy in the United States for the better—that is, to take a stand against racism and the use of bigoted slurs on stage. When Wong started out, it wasn’t that he was the only Asian comedian—people like Sheng Wang and Ali Wong were there with him—but this was before even shows like “Fresh Off the Boat” and Asians were not wanted. “It was very difficult,” Wong told the Asian Weekly. “People would say to my face, ‘We don’t want an Asian family show’” or when discussion was had about who to pair Wong with at a show, people would say “we don’t want an Asian sidekick.” Wong continued, “People can be racist toward Asians. They don’t even try to hide it. On the other hand, if you mention racism against Asians, people get very upset.” Wong has gone on tour to address this hypocrisy and the fact that anti-Asian racism and hate continues, such as in the now popular trope of protests against being “canceled.” “I’m a comedian myself. I know how hard the struggle is. I don’t want to be an obstacle on anybody’s career. On the other hand, I don’t like people using Asian slurs. People forget how bad it was for Asians during the pandemic…as soon as it’s not on the news anymore.”
Recently, CNN asked Wong his opinion about controversial anti-woke comedian Shane Gillis getting to host Saturday Night Live. Wong’s answer during that interview was, “There are consequences if you use slurs. We get bullied. Our kids got bullied. You start to see the avalanche of…hate.” Wong Is passionate about this topic. “My son was born here. He’s going to grow up here. I don’t want this to be the society he grows up in.”
Wong was born in Northeastern China close to the city of Baishan. His mother was a doctor and his father an engineer. When Wong was 5 or 6 years old, his father was sent to a work camp, where he had to mine ore with very rudimentary equipment. Wong did not have to accompany his father, yet his experience at school in China was sometimes of a nature that people in the U.S. might not understand. “The school didn’t even have heat at the time,” Wong recalled. “Students had to bring a coat to school…Once I forgot…and the teacher made me stand outside of the classroom at minus-20 degrees temperature, with no hat or gloves.”
Some of his teachers felt Wong had no promise, but his parents never told him that, so he grew up believing he could always try harder and be successful. This ethic followed Wong to the United States, where he came to study biochemistry. It wasn’t long though, before Wong discovered stand up comedy. He likes to try new things, and in 2001, he took a comedy class. “I always assumed that people were born funny. I didn’t know you can practice jokes and your sense of humor until I was in the United States.” Incredibly, when Wong headlined at the Correspondents’ Dinner in 2010, he was still working in biochemistry. His schedule was crunched to the point that, when invited after the Dinner to an interview with well-known journalist Wolf Blitzer, Wong was forced to decline because he had to get back to the lab!
This multi-tasking did not last long. After the event, “We had a stack of Wall Street Journals in the lobby, and my picture was on the front page. It was just a little bit hard to focus on the work and plus I got more gigs to do, so I just decided to focus on comedy instead.” Wong was so successful that he has even been featured in a book, titled “First Generation: 36 Trailblazing Immigrants and Refugees Who Make America Great,” by Rich and Sandra Neil Wallace. In the book, Wong is heralded alongside other notables such as Madeline Albright and Yo-Yo Ma, and called the “All-American Immigrant,” something he ascribes to himself. “I always identify myself as an immigrant,” Wong told the Asian Weekly. “America is always kind of weird. It’s called a country of immigrants, but on the other hand, immigrants also have a negative stereotype, and some people don’t want them to be in America anymore. It’s just a play on this concept: immigrant means you’re not from America, but I am an American.”
Hateful terms like “chink” or “Chinaman” have been directed at Wong himself. “These are triggers.” In recent years, watching the popularity of racism rebound has jaded Wong. “When I first started doing comedy, I felt that comedy could be a positive force to influence society, but I no longer believe that.” Nevertheless, Wong stays determined to keep up the fight. “There are so few of us. Everybody has to say something; otherwise, it’s just going to continue.”
For information and tickets for “This Asian Hates Asian Hate,” go to https://valleyrain.org/event/2024/02/25/joew/.
Kai can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.
Although Wong’s parents never told him he couldn’t succeed no matter how hard he tried, he nonetheless believed in himself and his abilities, even though some of his professors didn’t share this belief.