Joe Wong 黄西 Http://Www.joewongcomedy.com

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Joe Wong http://www.joewongcomedy.com/

Joe Wong is not a genius. He was a miracle, but that ended soon after

birth. However, Joe Wong has come a long way from a slimy fertilized egg

in China to a unique comedian with a dry sense of humor in America .

Joe Wong is one of the best known comedians in the New England area

and is a favorite at comedy clubs, corporate functions, fundraisers and

colleges.

Want to watch a video clip of Joe's standup? Click on the link below:

Joe at The Music Hall in Portsmouth, NH where Mark Twain once

performedWatch now!

Joe Wong is not in this picture.
http://www.joewongcomedy.com/http://joeswongstandup.blip.tv/#1890861http://joeswongstandup.blip.tv/#1890861http://www.joewongcomedy.com/http://joeswongstandup.blip.tv/#1890861


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Joe Wong Tea timeAdd comments

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.Wong
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Joe Wong

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Joe Wong

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391999

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Joe Wong, stand-up comic

Posted by Danwei, July 31, 2009 6:54 PM

This article is by guest contributor David Moser.
http://www.danwei.org/humor/joe_wong_stand_up_comedia.phphttp://www.danwei.org/humor/joe_wong_stand_up_comedia.php


6/16

Moser is author of several essays and articles previously published on Danwei, including

Getting it up in China, The Three Stooges in China, The Mao Impersonators, Stifled

Laughter, andMedia "Schizophrenia".

SourceJoe Wong's homepage

Killing them softly: Interview with stand-up comedian Joe

Wong

by David Moser

A young Chinese stand-up comedian recently made his debut on the David Letterman

show.

Not an American-born Chinese, mind you, but a real born-in-the-PRC Chinese, looking like

he would be more at home in the nerdy environs of a Qinghua University computer science

classroom than on the glitzy Late Nightstage ( Youtube link).

The comedians name was Joe Wong (Chinese name Huang Xi ), and with the first few

self-deprecating jokes delivered in his sincere non-native English, the jaded TV audience

was clearly on his side. He killed em as they say in the stand-up biz but gently. His

stage persona was refreshingly soft-spoken and unpretentious, and his humor had an

ineffable charm that set it apart from the usual talk show fare.

I am one of the growing club of foreigners who have lost face going on Chinese TV to

performxiangsheng, or crosstalk (arguably the closest Chinese cultural equivalent to

American stand-up comedy), and this made me curious about Joes experiences in the

other side of the cultural mirror, performing this most American of humor forms on

American TV.
http://www.danwei.org/tv/getting_it_up_in_china_from_ho.phphttp://www.danwei.org/tv/the_three_stooges_in_china.phphttp://www.danwei.org/tv/david_moser_on_mao_impersonato.phphttp://www.danwei.org/tv/david_moser_on_mao_impersonato.phphttp://www.danwei.org/media_and_advertising/media_schizophrenia_in_china_b.phphttp://www.danwei.org/media_and_advertising/media_schizophrenia_in_china_b.phphttp://www.joewongcomedy.com/http://www.joewongcomedy.com/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD0s7gfTotk&feature=player_embeddedhttp://www.danwei.org/tv/getting_it_up_in_china_from_ho.phphttp://www.danwei.org/tv/the_three_stooges_in_china.phphttp://www.danwei.org/tv/david_moser_on_mao_impersonato.phphttp://www.danwei.org/media_and_advertising/media_schizophrenia_in_china_b.phphttp://www.joewongcomedy.com/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD0s7gfTotk&feature=player_embedded


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How had such a seemingly improbable cultural transplant made it to one of the most

coveted spots on American late night TV?

Joe kindly consented to me interviewing him, and I talked to him over the phone in Boston

on July 21.

***

David Moser: First off, how did you get the shot on the Letterman show?

Joe Wong: Ive been doing standup comedy in the New England area for many years.

Theres a guy named Eddie Brill who is a talent scout for the David Letterman show. Hes a

warm-up stand-up comic. Before the show he talks to the crowd to get them going, and

then David Letterman comes on the stage and does his monologue.

But hes also a talent scout, traveling across the country to attend showcases to see which

new comedians might be promising for the show. He first saw me in Boston back in 2005.

And I did really well in the showcase that night, and after the show he said to me Youre

on your way to the Letterman show.

But he said I had to change some things, and he wanted some more material. So I sent

him a DVD with a five or seven minutes more material, and emailed back saying he liked

one or two jokes, but he would need still more material. So I just took that as a no, and I

never contacted him for another three years.

Moser: What??

Wong: Yeah, a lot of other comedians were saying You should keep contacting Eddie, he

seems pretty interested, but I thought, oh well, he sees so many comedians all the time, I

figured he had already forgotten about me.

But in 2008 he came to Boston again and wanted to see me, and we did another audition.

And I did pretty well again, and this time he said Okay, I think youre pretty much ready

now. So from that point on we exchanged DVDs and he would say, like, Maybe that jokes

a little too long, you could make it shorter.

I guess on Letterman they dont like the tag lines that much. You tell the joke and thats it,

you move on. So we went back and forth like this eight or nine times, and finally he just

said Okay, I think youre ready, and he found a date for me.

Moser: So what possessed you to try stand-up comedy?

Wong: Well, I had always been interested in American pop culture. I guess if hadnt been,

I would have been better at my job as a scientist.


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When I was learning English, my teacher gave me a book on humor writing, and one of the

articles was by Woody Allen. And it struck me as really funny. After that I started writing

some articles for the campus newspaper, and one of them got published. And people

started coming up to me saying Your article is really funny, so that was the first time I

realized people might be able to appreciate my humor.

But not until 2001 did I realize that there was this art form called stand-up comedy. Before

that I had never seen stand-up comedy, because I didnt have cable TV until 2001. I

graduated in 2000, and I began to go out with my co-workers, and one night we went to a

stand-up comedy club in Houston, Texas.

Emo Phillips was performing that night. That night he didnt do any of the weird stuff he

had been doing. He just had regular hair, and he just sat on the stool and told jokes one

after another. He was just killing that night. I could only understand about 50% of the

jokes, but still, I was really impressed. Then the company I was with went bankrupt, and I

moved to Boston. And when you move to a different place, you have different thoughts

and ideas. I wanted to stand-up, but when I told a joke I got no response, because nobody

expected me to tell a joke. So I thought Maybe I should try this on stage. So I started to

take lessons in stand-up comedy at an adult education program in Brookline,

Massachusetts, Brookline High School.

It was a six-week course, one class a week, and they taught just the basics of stand-up

comedy, you know, the set-up, the punch line, and so forth. And they told you where all

the comedy clubs are, and you could just go on and do it yourself.

Moser: So you actually started by taking stand-up comedy lessons at an adult education

center in Brookline, Massachusetts? My god, I used to live there. Maybe I should have

enrolled in that adult education center. But you must have also been learning by observing

other comedians. Besides Woody Allen and Emo Phillips, who influenced you?

Wong: You know, when I watched Comedy Central, there were actually a lot of comedians

I didntlike, because some were very loud and obnoxious. They seemed to make people

laugh more by style than by content. But one comedian I really liked was Steven Wright,

hes from Boston. I really liked his material. And as I started doing comedy, I began to like

George Carlin, and Mitch Hedberg.

Moser: Yes, Ive noticed you dont go for the dirty stuff, the blue humor, or the ethnic

humor, and your jokes are mostly based on playing with logic, as you once told me. I

assume this was an intentional decision on your part?

Wong: I think its partly intentional, but it also fits my personality, as well. I cant say I

dont have any dirty jokes, I have some dirty jokes, I just dont have a lot. I have no

problem with other people doing dirty jokes, as long as its smart and funny.


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Moser: If I may ask, whats your day gig? Youre a biochemist or something like that?

Wong: My background is in biochemistry. Right now Im doing molecular biology research,

mainly on cancer.

Moser: Ah, thats a laugh riot, Im sure.

Wong: Yeah, right. [laughs]

Moser: If you want to kill as a comedian, better to do it with cancer.

Wong: Well, in a sense, when Im doing experiments in the lab, one of the things I do is

screening for genes that cause cancer. And in a sense, doing comedy is like that, there are

a lot of similarities. Just like screening a lot of genes, in comedy you have to also try a lot

of jokes before you can find the ones that work.

Moser: I can see that, yes. But looking at it objectively, can you see how insane this all is?

I mean, here you are a Chinese immigrant, a non-native speaker of English, a biochemist,

and you say Right, I think Ill be a stand-up comedian. Its sheer chutzpah. You know the

word chutzpah, right?

Wong: Whats the word? Chutzpah?

Moser: Yeah, its a Yiddish word, means a kind of brazen audacity, like, to have a lot of

nerve, or a lot of gall. Even to the point of being outlandishly crazy about it. Doesnt it

strike you as wildly improbable that you would go into stand-up comedy?

Wong: Yeah, actually Ive always found it a bit strange that other people think Im an

unlikely person to do this, because I think its a quite natural thing to do. Maybe it has

something to do with my world view.

I used to read philosophy and stuff, and Im not very religious either, so I pretty much feel

that life is just a big joke. I mean, you have war criminals, and you also have saints, and

people who work for their whole life, and in the end we all just die. What does it all mean?

So for me, life itself is the biggest joke, and Im just here to harvest smaller jokes from it.

Moser: Thats a great way of putting it.

Wong: By the way, Im impressed by this word, chutzpah. Ill try it on my manager, hes

Jewish.

Moser: Yeah, hell know the word. And as a stand-up comedian, you should probably be

familiar with the word, too, I guess. Okay, lets talk about the Chinese overlap with this.

When you were growing up in China, were you interested in humor, and did you listen to

the two-person comedy formxiangsheng, crosstalk?

Wong: Yes, I loved it when I was little. I grew up in the 80s, and thats whenxiangsheng

was really popular. I lived in the northeast part of China, which is very rural. I remember in

those winter afternoons I would walk back home from school listening to the radio.


10/16

The radio broadcast would play from these huge speakers all over the place mounted on

telephone poles or electric poles, and sometimes I would just stand there and listen to

xiangsheng until the broadcast was over and then go home. It was a lot of fun as a kid, I

really enjoyed it. But I never thought of doing stand-up comedy in China. I did some

sketches when I was in college. I wrote some sketches lampooning these Chinese movies,

these revolutionary movies, where the heroes would never die, you know. Like the old

American movies where the hero can suffer a thousand wounds and still keep going.

[laughs] That kind of thing.

Moser: But when youre doing stand-up in the U.S., do you ever make a connection to this

other world of Chinese humor,xiangsheng and such? Is there a connection there for you,

or does it seem to you like just two totally different worlds?

Wong: I think the latter, I dont think ofxiangsheng that much. In fact, the only time I

really thought aboutxiangsheng was recently when I was going back to China, thinking to

myself, Oh, maybe Ill check outxiangsheng. The style is very different, after all, theyre

not the same. When I think of stand-up comedy, Im usually thinking of the American stuff,

like Woody Allen or George Bush. These guys are stand-up comedians, but also theyre

really philosophers, because---

Moser: Did you just say George Bush?

Wong: Ah, Im sorry, I mean George Carlin. George Bush is another one. [laughs]

Moser: Freudian slip, maybe. I thought maybe you were making a subtle joke there.

Wong: But what I mean is, these stand-up comedians seem to have their own life

philosophy, along with the humor. But I just dont see that with thexiangsheng

performers. They just have their style, which is very different. Also, I dont like the kind of

comedy where performers sing on stage, andxiangsheng does that quite a lot.

Moser: You told me that you were attracted to American stand-up because there was

actually a lot of personal pain and sorrow mixed in with the comedy. Could you talk about

that?

Wong: Yeah, thats something thatxiangsheng could get into more. They could get more

personal, do something people could identify with. Its like with a novel or a movie, the

more personal it gets, the more fascinating it becomes.

Of course, not every aspect of your life is interesting, but if you go into it, you might find

some aspect that everyone can identify with. I think ifxiangsheng could rely less on humor

techniques, and more on personal feeling. That would be a very new area to get into.

Moser: Do you think thatxiangsheng could only make that breakthrough if there was also

a loosening of censorship in the Chinese media? After all, the way it is now, sensitive

topics are pretty taboo for humor.

Wong: I think media censorship definitely affectsxiangsheng, for sure. But there is a way


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time to think, and then when theyve got the joke, move on. So I learned to pace myself

on stage.

But for the Letterman show, the pace was even slower, because Eddie Brill and the others

told me Wait for the audience to finish laughing before you go on to the next joke,

otherwise people wont hear it. I dont know if you can tell from the YouTube video of the

Letterman show, but when I was on the stage I could hear the laughter very well. So I had

to wait till the laughter died down before I went on.

Moser: Yes, but whats funny is the look youre giving the audience during that time. It

sort of looks like How are we doing with that joke, folks? Has it sunk in yet? Need a little

more time? Its your relation to the audience that is so funny. Steven Wright, one of your

idols, will sometimes do that, as well, but hes more deadpan, stony-faced. Whereas youre

just a kind of affable, friendly comedian up there, saying Okay, can I go on to the next

joke now? The pause can be funnier than the joke.

Wong: Yeah, and also, when I perform stand-up at a regular comedy club I usually tend

to smile quite a lot. But one of the producers on Letterman told me I should not smile too

much. So I had to actually practice not smiling so much before I did that show. Anyway,

thats the reason for the pauses.

Moser: Yes, when I doxiangsheng here in China, I also tend to pause a lot between jokes,

but thats usually because I cant remember the next line. Which brings us to that cross-

cultural issue. What youre doing can in some way be compared to someone like Da Shan,

the famous Canadian who doesxiangsheng here in China. I mean, youre both non-native

speakers, doing a very culturally-embedded, indigenous art form on TV. Have you thought

of any comparisons between the two of you?

Wong: To be honest, I dont remember too many of the routines that Da Shan did. I

remember that name from when I was in China 14, 15 years ago. But I cant remember

any specific routines he did. So it might be hard for me to answer.

Moser: Right, sure. But one aspect you mentioned to me once was that Chinese TV people

actually invited Da Shan to do skits andxiangsheng, whereas nobody in America was

inviting you to do stand-up comedy.

Wong: Right, its very different being a foreigner in China. Its more of a novelty in China,

especially at that time when Da Shan first went there. There were so few foreigners then.

A lot of people from outside of Beijing would travel there, just to see the foreigners. They

were like a tourist attraction. [laughs] But it strikes me how different our paths are,

because in America I worked my butt off for seven and a half years before I got a chance

for a 5-minute shot on American TV, but you, your first gig was on Chinese TV, right?

Moser: Right, yes, actually the first thing I ever did here was a skit on CCTV with Hou

Yaohua, in about 1992. And I remember there were some lines in the script that I didnt

even know were jokes. So when I said them, and the audience laughed, I was thinking


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What was that? Why are they laughing? Did I say something wrong?

Wong: Wow. And you did it with Hou Yaohua, who is a dwnr[big shot]. Thats the

cultural difference.

Moser: That brings up an interesting point about being an outsider to the culture. We

talked about how so many American stand-up comedians are Jewish, and it goes without

saying that many of greatest comedians of all time have been black Richard Pryor, Dick

Gregory, etc. You could make the case that there something about having an outsider

status that can be very effective in comedy. You know the persona, like Woody Allen,

Jewish, a nerd, etc., or the class clown, the weirdo, the Pee Wee Herman, someone whos

sort of maladjusted or awkward, etc.

Theyre able to channel that into humor. And you are also, from the American standpoint, a

kind of outsider. You have an accent, you have the biochemist nerd thing going for you. So

is that something you try to consciously use in some way, or do you just do what comes

naturally on the stage?

Wong: For me its kind of unconscious. I dont think of my outsider status when Im

writing or performing. But I think you do have a point, because comedy is basically a

warped view of the world. Its not the ordinary view. So you have to have some kind of

experience or background that is outside of the normal for you to be a good comedian.

You need that different view of life. And Ive found a lot of times that, jokes that work are

thoughts that, to use George Carlins term, are brain droppings or something. Basically

the nooks and crannies of your brain have all sorts of thoughts, and people usually just put

them away. But the comedian has to pull them out and make them into a joke. If your life

experience is unusual, you tend to go for those nooks and crannies and try to make sense

out of life. I dont know if Im making sense here. [laughs]

Moser: No, it makes sense, but what I hear you saying is that you dont have to

consciously think of these things. It all just works because of who you are.

Wong: Yes, and I can remember that when I first came to America, certain jokes just

came very easy. I would naturally find humor in every day life. For example, there was this

scientific study quoted in the news that riding a bicycle carried a high risk of becoming

impotent.

And I was like, Well, almost everybody in China rides a bicycle, and look at the population

there. So these kinds of observations are pretty natural from the outsiders point of view.

So when I brought this up, people wouldnt take it as a joke, they would just say Oh, that

makes sense. But when I take that to the stage, it gets a laugh.

Moser: You said that when you first started watching stand-up comedy, you could only get

about half the jokes. And when I watchxiangsheng, I also often have trouble getting the

joke. Has that changed for you now, when you watch stand-up? Do you feel you get it

completely?


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Wong: I think I get it mostly now. If its a good joke, I think Ill understand it, but if its

just not going anywhere, maybe not. I think now I can usually get 99% of the jokes. Its

interesting, when I lived in China, we would read Readers Digestin English, and there

were always these jokes in there. And a lot of the time, my classmates would understand

all of the words in the joke, but they wouldnt know why it was funny. So they would come

to me and say Hey, Joe, how does this joke work? and I would be able to tell them why it

was funny. So I think I already had this ability to understand American humor, even when I

was in China. But after coming here I had to get used to all the slang and idioms before I

could get all the humor.

Moser: I remember there was a version of your Letterman clip on the Chinese Internet, on

which someone had added subtitles in Chinese to explain the jokes. I knowxiangsheng

comedians have a term,pr hu (), thick skinned, which means the kind of joke

that it takes a second or two to understand. The laugh doesnt come instantly. It takes a

second to sink in. And some of your jokes have that quality.

Steven Wright is like that, too. He has one-liners like: You cant have everything. Where

would you put it?

Wong: Yeah, or Its a small world, but I wouldnt want to paint it.

Moser: So I was wondering if you actually prefer thesepr hu type of jokes.

Wong: Yeah, I love them. Several years ago a comedian said to me, Joe, what you are

doing here is not comedy, its humor. Because people have to think about it a little bit

before its really funny. But I think actually the best comedy is humor. When I performed

my stand-up routine in Beijing at the Haidian Theater last year, one of thexiangsheng

performers came up and said to me basically the same thing he said forxiangsheng to

work, the people have to laugh immediately. But he said for my stuff to work the people

had to think for a minute, and thats not good. That was his comment.

Moser: So your act here in Beijing was notxiangsheng, but just your stand-up routine

translated into Chinese. How did that do over with the Chinese audiences?

Wong: It went okay, I got a couple of applause breaks, which was more than some of the

other guys got. But I wasnt that happy with it, because the people didnt laugh that much.

I had trouble translating my jokes. My Chinese is getting rusty, and Ive been outside the

country for 14 years. And my Chinese wording is not very lively, maybe kind of stilted, not

very up-to-date. Im also not used to performing in Chinese on stage. I speak Chinese at

home, but my projection on the stage is probably not right, or something. So theres a lot

of stuff I need to work on in order for my jokes to work in Chinese.

Moser: Maybe youre not enough of an outsider here in China. Or youre somewhere in

between.

Wong: [laughs] Maybe. I just dont have that edge.


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Moser: And you cant start out your act here in China with your opening joke Im from

Ireland

Wong: Yeah, that wont work.

Moser: But can you imagine coming back here to China and performing, notxiangsheng,

but real stand-up comedy?

Wong: Im thinking about that a lot right now. I had an opportunity to go back there this

October, but my manager thinks things might get a little too hectic here in America for me.

But Ive thought about this a lot. Mainly because I keep getting emails from people in

mainland China and Hong Kong, saying how much they like my comedy.

So I think there might be a market for this in China. But who knows? I might be pretty

busy here in America for the next few years, developing possibly a TV series and stuff. But

if I have time, I could spend some time in China and see how things go there. My dad has

told me theres quite a lot of English speakers in China now, which could be a new market.

I know Russell Peters did tours in India, and he was really popular there.

Moser: Okay, thanks for your time, Joe. In closing, maybe you could give me a little

exclusive scoop here, and tell me the very latest joke you're working on for your act?

Wong: No problem. Here goes:

Everybody has their claim to fame. Mine is that I used to be the youngest baby in the

world. For a split second.

I think I'm gonna live a long time, because my grandfather passed away at the age of 94.

He died from peer pressure. All his friends died and we couldnt talk him out of it.

When I get old I won't do things like get a face lift. I will do something creative with my

excess skin, like Origami. I might be old, but my face is a swan!

Links and Sources

Earlier this year in June, Joe and David Moser were part of a roundtable discussion

on east-west humor broadcast on China Radio International (CRI).

Youtube: Joe Wong on Letterman

Youku:Joe Wong on Letter man with Chinese subtitles

Joe Wong's home page

Tags for this entry:

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David Moser

,

Joe Wong
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