#146. Dawn Wong: All Joking Aside
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I can't stop saying Don Juan, like Don Wong. Don. Don Juan. Yeah, but I have to say Don. Don. It should be very New Jersey, but Don. Don. Don Wong. Don Wong. Don Wong. Don Wong. It's very New Jersey. Don Wong. Because I didn't even get it. I was like, Don Juan? We got pretty deep in that conversation. We got pretty silly, too. Yeah. At the same time. And getting her perspective and also correcting some of maybe some of our...

misconceptions for sure it was really good um it was a great discussion and at the end i found out like eric you you want to become a stand-up comic is that what you're trying to say maybe i mean i think so now that i have really thought about it for about an hour and a half yeah

It's such a great art form. It's one of the hardest. Stand-up comedy, honestly, is one of the hardest art forms there is, in my opinion. I truly believe that. And you have to have a certain level of intelligence. You have to have high intelligence, high EQ. There's a lot of things. Courage. Yeah, courage. That rules me out. Do you find me funny at times? I find you funny naturally. What do you mean?

Like my personality is funny? Yeah, like we laugh at you, not with you. All right. Our guest is a stand-up comedian based in Shanghai. She has over 2 million fans on social media. Many of her sketches and skits have gone viral, both in China and abroad.

She's a film director to boot. This was an incredibly fun and deep conversation. So without further ado, please give it up for Dawn Wong. I just couldn't listen.

They're probably like listening to my phone right now. For sure. They're right outside that door. I know. Guys, come on in. Yeah, once you get on that radar, then... Yeah. Well, I think that's probably something we all have in common, having Western exposure, but also having Chinese roots. And living here is, I think, the complicated relationship we probably have with this being home, right? It's a very complicated relationship. There's a lot of nuance to it, I guess. For sure, yeah. Yeah.

But anyway, let's not get down the dark and windy road just yet, right off the top. If we go there by accident, then it happens, you know. All right, well, first, cheers, Dawn. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Welcome. Happy Chinese New Year. Happy Chinese New Year. It's Dragon's year, too. Yes, it is. Are you a dragon or something? I am a dragon. Oh, shit. Really? I'm kind. I'm kind.

My mom's a dragon. Does that mean that... It really means shit. It doesn't mean anything. Everyone's like, oh, you're a dragon? It doesn't mean anything. I just don't know what else to say. It's just dragon. It sounds cool. It sounds cooler than the rabbit. Welcome to the show. Thank you. So you're a stand-up comedian.

We've been, as Howie said to you, mentioned before we started recording, we've been wanting to get a comedian on the show for the longest time. Yeah. We love stand-up comedy here. You do? Yeah, we love it. Nice. And I've been telling myself for the longest time that I'm going to go see a stand-up comedy show in Shanghai. For some reason, I just still haven't gotten around to it. Oh, really? Yeah. You couldn't find one? I just weren't funny enough. I've just been lazy about it. I've been to one. Kung Fu? No, when Theo Vaughn was here. Oh.

That was a long time ago That was a while ago That was the only one I've been to Alright Yeah It used to be Shanghai used to have A lot of international comedians Coming here Then gone Yeah, not so much But what's the local scene like?

The local scene, you mean the Chinese comedy? Yeah. That's competitive. A lot of clubs, a lot of very different comedians, very different levels of comedians. Well, it's been popping up like crazy the past year or two. Yeah. Because of the TV show. Yeah, exactly. Are there a lot of venues around town? A lot. So you can do a bunch of sets a night?

Yeah, a lot of people. I don't do much Chinese comedy, actually. I only do English comedy. I did a few Chinese comedy. Because I think it's really the vetting, the script vetting,

That threw me off of Chinese comedy. So I was doing English comedy for a while. But then English comedy show got licensed. Then you also have to do script by profession. What does that mean? You have to give, approve your script? You have to submit your script to the bureau. So your whole routine, you have to submit it? Everything. Every single word you're saying on the stage, you have to submit. Are you submitting it directly to this bureau? Or is there like some sort of third party that gathers it? The club is submitting it.

They are the ones who deal with them. I guess that makes sense because that's just like the offline version of having, let's say our podcast episodes approved on any of the Chinese podcast apps. They have to be approved. I mean, they're not pre-approved, but they can take you down. Yours are live. So we have the benefit of recording it first. It's because yours are live. So what happens if you deviate?

while the club get fine. Really? Like someone will actually like go watch? Yeah.

Yeah, sometimes. Like 抽查 . Sometimes, yeah. I can see that. They will send somebody sitting in the back checking your script if you're sticking to the script. Holy cow. But you do some like crowd interaction stuff. What about that? Crowd's fine. At least you don't touch anything sensitive. Well, there's no way they can control that, right? You have to self-center there. Yeah, and also make sure you don't put it online. It's really the online, if you go viral,

like some like some clip that's quite quite sensitive or that's some topic you shouldn't touch on which is a lot it's very limited yeah it's very limited yeah so if you post online and they see it they're like yeah you can't

But through experience, like in repetition, do you get a clearer and clearer sense of where the lines are and you kind of can navigate within those boundaries better? Obviously all the curse word, like shit, fuck, and all those. Oh, you can't curse? No. Oh.

Oh, so you have to be clean. You have to be really clean. Even in English? Yeah. Oh, shit. Okay. Yeah. And also, obviously, you can't touch on LGBTQ. You can't touch on, you know, just things that people might get offended about.

Anything that will stir the pot. Yeah, like, for example, oh, there was one time this comedian said something about, like, Chinese people love money and we're, like, greedy, you know, in terms of money. Then they're like, oh, you can't say that. Like, that kind of thing. Really? To that extent? Yeah. And any adult topic, for example, I guess, I have a joke. I remember I submitted. It's really about me, like...

I'm 35, you know, I'm getting like my body's dropping, my skin's dropping. I'm saying like my, my boobs, I'm trying to say my boobs dropping. I'm not even mentioning boobs, right? I'm just saying like, I want to get this tattoo. And I see like tattoo ideas of girls getting tattoos like right here, right? I said, I can't get that. I'm 35, like five years later, I have to get a new one. That's the

joke and they're like no no they deleted the joke that you can't do this is it because of tattoo or is it because no they say it's too dirty people would think about your boobs i'm like think about like a sagging dropping boobs like okay but is that that particular venue saying that because they want to protect it's not venue it's the yeah we curse a lot on this show uh-oh that's fine like podcasts like i don't think people it's still under the radar i think there's a different standard

I think there's a different standard between live shows. Because when we had Frank on, he was kind of saying something similar. But I think these live in-person events, I think they're just more strict and more sensitive about this. Yeah, for sure. It's weird. But it's similar to how movies or even commercials, you have to go through all these steps to make sure that

you know, you're not talking about anything that's overly sensitive. Yeah. The actors need to cover up their tattoos. Yeah. You know, things like that. So it makes sense that if you're doing stand-up and like you said, it's a live venue where they have no control over. Exactly. That makes sense. Yeah. That's crazy though. And also like people.

Like, sometimes they're not even afraid of this content. They're more afraid of audiences that's going to, like, report. Like, sometimes after a show, there will be audience calling. Like, offended, right? Yeah, and then they'll be calling, like, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, which is, like, a line for the city, whatever. Then they call the city line and say, hey, like, I was at this comedy show and somebody made fun of single people. You know? What? Right? Is that, like, China's version of cancel culture? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, except that it's worse. The consequences are worse, right? Like the club get fined, the comedian might not work. But, you know, it's weird because sometimes they will connect things to, like you said some joke that it's not even, you didn't even mean that way. Then they would connect it to like a political way or something. They take it out of context. That's the worst scenario. That's scary, yeah.

So what makes you keep doing stand-up comedy then? I just love comedy. I always loved stand-up comedy. I started off, I got all the followers because I started off getting some Western comedy. Then I subtitled them. So I do clips and I subtitle them. Then I put it online and people watch it. So what you're a fan of, right? The other comedians and you just subtitle. Who are you a fan of?

So many. I was obsessed with Joan Rivers for a while. Joan Rivers? I could see that. I really like Dave Attell for some reason. You know, I like him. Louis C.K. is one of my favorites. Same here. Like in terms of just the writing. It's like perfect writing. Yeah, so many people. There are a lot of new people actually coming up. There's a guy who does crowd work, Jeff Akuri.

Like, it's a really new guy. Yeah, so many people. Comedy, yeah, so I always loved comedy. And so one of my comedian friends, Storm Xu, so he's the one of the first people who started doing English comedy. Then he was like, you should start doing

you should like try it you should like to try it I remember 2019 I had this video went viral it's me my wedding speech and I did like a funny kind of six minutes I saw that video that's a really good one like a funny speech then that went viral and

And yeah, my friend was like, you should come for open mic. And as you try, you love comedy. Why don't you do it? So I tried one English comedy. Then yeah, and I loved it. And since then I started doing it. For English comedy here, like what's the crowd like? Is it mostly expats or is it a lot of just Chinese people who understand English? At the beginning it was more...

more expats than Chinese audience. Now it's like half-half. And sometimes it's even like a full room of Chinese audience. I mean, that makes sense. I mean, even before when we were talking about podcast listeners, a lot of our subscribers are Chinese that speak English or learning English or somewhere in between. And

That surprised us because when we first started the show, being in China, speaking English, we did not think that we're going to hit this market. But all of a sudden, it turns out 80% of our listeners or 70% of our listeners are local or abroad Chinese. So it was very surprising. And I don't know if you ever, if you look at your sort of, you know, 数据, if you see anything like patterns like that at all.

My Chinese social media, obviously all the followers are Chinese. You know, it's interesting. Like sometimes you go to a stand-up comedy show and a lot of Chinese audience come just to learn English, which is kind of weird, you know? Like what can you learn from? We are the educators now. It's illegal to have classes. It's really weird, right? Yeah, but people come and they're like, oh, I want to improve my listening skills or something like that, right?

So that was interesting. Did they get your sense of humor, though? Like, did they get the punchlines, the jokes? That's another thing. Most of the times, like, sometimes you go to a comedy show, then there's, like, more international audience. Sometimes it's, like, full Chinese room. Then you can tell the punchlines work so differently.

Yeah, sometimes you'd be stressed. So you have to adjust your set a little bit. So sometimes you see a full crowd of Chinese people, you need to adjust your set to them. Yeah, because the sense of humor is very different. Very different than even the choices of using words. You need to make some words easier.

Yeah, that must be a huge part, like the difference in culture, right? Between Eastern and Western senses of humor. I've always thought that humor was one of the most difficult art forms there is. And in terms of like films and awards, like Oscars and stuff like that, I almost felt like comedies never got their just due.

in these industries I just feel like people don't take it as seriously as a drama right when you look at the awards that are given but I think like humor comedy is so hard to do like the timing the language you know everything is has to be and it's different from region to region yeah

Yeah. So do you find that like a difficult hurdle? Because you're kind of in between where you're probably getting both audiences. You're getting the Western audience and the Eastern audience. Like how do you balance that? Like when you do comedy in Shanghai, the international audiences, the good thing is they get a lot of those more Chinese jokes. So if you do a lot of jokes about China, about the China and the East and the West,

culture differences they all get it this January actually no the Christmas after Christmas I went to Ireland I did the set in Ireland so I was I find it struggling because I've been doing comedy here for the past few years then I went to Ireland I'm like oh what jokes I should I should I do there you know that that will work so I pick because they the club only gave me like five minutes and

So I picked a few jokes and I did it and it went really well. But I know those jokes, a lot of those jokes would not work very well here. Oh, interesting. To the Chinese audience. And also, I think just the sense of humor is very different. Like Bill Burr used to say, like the Irish audience are the... Toughest. Just not only tough, isn't there the most fun and like just a lot of comedians favorite comedians.

crowd. Really? Yeah. Because they can take a joke better? Oh yeah, they can take a joke. Like you can say something really mean and they'll just laugh at it. They love you ripping them through. But Chinese audience, they have to listen to something super clean and super nice. When you have a Chinese audience, you have to be friendly. You have to be likable. I almost think you have to... It's like...

The comedy comes from an intelligent pun almost, right? It's like a smart way of playing on a word or on a thought as opposed to sometimes in Western humor, just a very dirty thought that takes you by surprise is enough or something like that, right? I think it's just that level is just so different. Well, there's a lot of that. I think that, I mean, then you get into this whole topic of humor and you can have a drama, like some of the best dramas have...

really iconic moments of humor. So there's a lot of stuff in here. And of course you practice a certain form of it. I think what fascinates me is a few things. One is like relating to your audience because anytime you're telling a story, you've really got like the most powerful stories tell you something about yourself that you always knew, but it wasn't really on the surface. And so something that they may not have thought about before, but it's them. And when you can highlight these things, um,

I don't think it matters like what race it is, right? Irish, Chinese, but that universal element relating to your audience. And then you start thinking about like comedy is just so fascinating because you watch something and like, what does it tell you about people? I think it's totally an art because you watch maybe one of your skits or sets, sorry, and then-

It's like you really understand human nature. And part of our show is really just having more long for you're much more efficient about it because you've done all the hard work to distill it down into a story. But we're having honest conversations with people like yourself because we're just trying to get down to the root of human nature and

So that we can understand ourselves better. And then we can maybe just get a little bit better. So I think humor just gives you more insight. Maybe it's about like, don't take yourself so seriously. Or like, yeah, I do act like that, you know? It's really interesting. Yeah, when I was an iron, I obviously observe a lot.

So then I try to find the interesting things that I can rip. You know, I can like roast, whatever. Yeah, because... But like here, I have to talk about something that's more cute. Like here, the audiences love more cuter and more friendly stuff. So...

Yeah, it's weird because I think it's also the audience are so used to vetted content. So they're so used to clean content. So when they see something that's like harsh or edgy, then they're like, oh, like... It's uncomfortable. Yeah, it's really uncomfortable to them and they get offended. They get offended on others' behalf. Then it just happens a lot. Yeah.

Well, I didn't know they were that, like the crowd here was that sensitive. Yeah. I didn't know that. I think it used to be like this, to be honest. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I remember I'd gone to like comedy shows, maybe 2013, 14 here. And I can see like the audience is like having the best time. Like whatever jokes, they just crack.

But now you can find that people are just, they crave more like clean. Do you think it's a generational thing? It can be. Also, I think it's just people are so used to because they started watching stand-up comedy through the TV show, Xiao Guo's TV show.

And that's very clean comedy. That's heavily vetted. Very clean comedy. Yeah. So it's like, oh, my girlfriend. Oh, my mom. You know? Just like this kind of... Like a sitcom. Very, very... It's not sitcom. You know? 脱口秀大会. That's the show name. Yeah. It's interesting. No, but I mean like the humor. It's like sitcom. It's very, very clean. Yeah, you're right. It's like Growing Pains. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Full House. Yeah. It's very interesting. We're giving away our age with Full House. Because...

There's different forms of media and content. And then if all of that stuff is being edited down, right? When every movie is coming and every TV show is going through the same vetting process. So they're just not exposed to stuff. And so like imagine a child listening to curse words for the first time. Like the word suck. Like when I was seven, like that was like the worst word ever. I'd be like, oh my God.

you know like i would just it was like it was like a bomb really suck the word suck yeah wow wow how old were you like three years old i remember i remember he's like last year i remember i was in second grade i hope my mom's not listening to this one but i was in second grade and then i don't know i opened up the dictionary and i came across the word breast but then i was like hey you know like hey micah look over here it's

What is it? We were like giggling like little kids. We're like, Oh my God. I remember when I was like seven, my dad got mad at me because I was like, because they bought like, I remember they bought strawberries and they put on the table and I came in and I said, Then my dad was like, what did you just say? Because they thought I said, Yeah. And my dad was,

mad that was that was like explaining i said no i said what so there's a space yeah my dad was like still angry i don't know yeah that that really um

I remember that really well for some reason. What was your upbringing like? What drives a person to become a comedian in the first place? My dad is from Shenyang, Dongbei. Dongbei is the land of comedy. My dad is a naturally funny person.

And I remember when I was a kid, my favorite entertainment on TV would just be Xiaoping and all the sketches and all the Xiangsheng, all the Chinese stand-up comedies. So I remember that was my favorite thing to watch since I was a kid. So you grew up in Dongbei? No, I grew up in Jiangsu province. My parents are both Dongbei. So since you were a kid, you had a big comedic influence. Yeah, I think it's mostly from my dad.

Yeah. He'd just be funny the whole time. Even his accent is funny. You know, the Dongbei accent is naturally funny. I just think the Dongbei accent is cool. I love the Dongbei accent. And then there's that one guy that was really famous, like some Liu Laoger. Oh, Liu Laoger. And it's just really funny. And then for a while, a few years ago, I was traveling up north all the time for work. So I'd go up to Shenyang. I love hearing them talk.

It's just like very funny. It's funny, right? They just seem like they're in a good mood. Yeah, yeah. I like that they're very direct. They don't talk in circles, right? They're like the Irish of Chinese. Yeah, they are. That's so funny. Have your parents been... What did they think about you pursuing a career in comedy? Were they very supportive of that? Were they uncomfortable with that in any way? No, they didn't care, but...

But last year, since that happened to me... They cared. Yeah, they really cared. But yeah, they were fine. Like, I don't really talk to them about this. They don't really ask me about this, too. Yeah, I don't think they get it that much, too, because I do mostly English comedy. Do you ever do jokes about, like, your parents? Oh, yeah. Because I talk about my mom all the time, to the point where my mom was like...

like she'll call me up and she's like look stop using material about me on your show okay it's funny because i thought this was going to be the one episode that you wouldn't bring up and you happen to find a way to always always finding a way every single episode without exaggeration every single episode some floyd things here yeah there's some oh you think i'm messed up these two why do you talk about your mom so much

Why don't I... Oh, that's a powerful question. Her secondary career therapist. How much time do you have? Yeah. But she's had such a powerful influence and she continues to wield a powerful influence both in incredibly positive ways and then in ways where I've had to like basically move halfway across the world and like fix myself. Did you get fixed? Well, this show is... But again, if you think I'm broken, these two are just... They're like glass. That's interesting. Like...

In the last four shows...

on two of them, each of these guys had meltdowns. And the show became meltdown number one and then meltdown number two. The difference is our meltdowns hail in comparison to your meltdowns. Your meltdowns are like Mount Olympus erupting. What is this? This show is all about meltdowns. Actually, yes. Some of the episodes get into this weird therapy world where all of a sudden it's like,

We feel like we're alone and like, I've been crying all night last night. Hold on, we're recording this, right? Oh my God. I think that's why we get fans. People like it when we break down. I assume you guys all grew up in US. Yeah. So like even...

Even you growing up there, your parents still, like the Chinese parenting still influence you, right? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. My parents felt that they had to represent all of China in my little town in the U.S. They had to bring like the full force of China in 5,000 years of history. Oh, my God. And like, just so that I wouldn't forget. That's the thing. Like, even myself, when I go abroad, I feel like I represent China, right? I feel like a...

And you know, it's like my duty to, you know, I, I, I will walk more carefully. I will look at like red lights. I'm like, I'm not walking. You know, white people are going. I want to set a good example. Yeah, exactly. You're like about to speak. Yeah. I'll hold that back. Yeah. The, uh,

But why did China get into spitting in the first place? Why did we get to the point where we're like, oh, wait a minute, I'm just going to shit on the street. No, no, no, I can't do that. No, but let me ask you, Don, have you always felt that way? Or is it more because of recent tensions and stuff, you feel more of a need to represent abroad? No, I always feel that way. It's almost like, because as a Chinese, you don't grow up as an individual anymore.

You know, everything is about a group. It's about the country. It's about the nation. Whatever you do, it's about that, right? If you grow up, you're raised that way. You're always like your behavior represent your class or your school. You know, it's always that. You never feel like you grow up as an individual for some reason. So it's always the 集体主义. Is that like part of Confucianism? Because I also got that. It's like if you disappoint, it's like you shame yourself.

Not just you. You shame yourself, your family, your broader clan, the entire country. For me, growing up in the States, I never felt that way. Because I grew up there, right? That's all I knew. The Western world was the only world I knew growing up, for the most part. But...

I never felt that way. But now, whenever I go abroad, after having lived like, you know, 15 years here, I definitely feel that way. I feel like, oh, I need to represent. I need to, like, I need to let people know, like, you know, like, we're cool. That's so weird, right? Yeah, it's weird. But growing up, I never felt that way. So weird. You know what's funny? I always think,

Sometimes, you know, this is a really bad thought, but I sometimes think, I wish the first generation, the immigrants, the first immigrants generation in the U.S. is Dongbei people. What? Why? Because we're like gangsters. We're like, if you look at us, we're like, what the fuck are you looking at? And we drink and we're funny. You don't want to fuck with Dongbei people at all. Yeah, right? So I wish that's the first impression ever made to the U.S. Yeah.

Yeah, I feel like Dongbei people, now that I think about it, it's like they're like a mix of Irish and Russian. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, they're tough. Yeah. And we're tall, you know. Unfortunately, we got people like Eric representing China in the interview.

Yeah. In Texas. If Dongbei people were the first immigration, then, you know, I think the stereotype would be completely different. I think you should do a sketch on that. I think you should do a sketch of the first immigrants as Dongbei people. That's so good. Like, um...

All the movies, the TV shows, all the characters based on Chinese people in the US were totally different. Would be kind of like the Italian mobs, right? Totally. Don't make gans. So Don, I don't know. From what I've seen of you and your work...

You seem to have a pretty Western lens through your comedy. I think the way you tell jokes, your observations. I mean, even your English is perfect. So growing up here, how did that happen? I grew up in a small town in Jiangsu. And we didn't have access to...

foreign teachers, you know, English, like there's not a lot of Western cultures at all. So you have to look for it. So I remember growing up, I was always interested in dialect and languages. So when we started English lessons, that was back then at my time was like middle school, the first year of middle school. That's the time when you start the English lessons. But my mom is a teacher. She's a Chinese teacher in high school.

So she got her colleague, an English teacher colleague. So when we're like primary school, the fifth grade, then she started to teach a few of us in her home, at her home, that we will be going there to learn some English there.

So I remember I always just loved English classes. So then growing up, I remember I was just like trying to look for English songs, English shows, movies. You watched Friends, didn't you? I watched everything. Yeah, I watched all the shows. And that's where I learned the English, really. Yeah. You know, I've met a couple of people like that, even my coworker.

great English and I'm like oh did you study or no just watching DVD yeah watching that's how you learn it wow so it wasn't even from spending time abroad it was I haven't really spent spending a lot of time abroad at all like I didn't study abroad

I haven't really worked abroad, you know. That's crazy because if I didn't know anything about you and I was just talking, which I am, I'm meeting you first time today, I would think you have spent a lot of time abroad. Yeah, a lot of people assumed. But that's really, because you need to, when you learn a language, you need to create a language environment. That's what we say, right? So how do you create that when you don't have that? You just constantly watch the TV shows, the movies. So that's like a dialogue for you.

You can't see watching. And I think she watched a lot of American because she has that bit of the Southern American sometimes slipping in that I noticed. Yeah, it's an American accent. Right, you hear that, right? Yeah, I watched a lot of American TV shows and movies. What was your favorite? Do you have a favorite?

Oh, so many. I remember starting, I probably started actually the first American TV show, Prison Break. That's a lot of Chinese people's first one. That was huge. Yeah, then Lost. Lost, yeah. 24. So many, like Desperate Housewives. House is actually my favorite show. House, oh, the doctor. MD, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

That's interesting. It's like one of my favorite. Yeah. What about like English or American shows attracted to you? Attracted you to that? I remember first time I watched Prison Break, I was like, holy shit, you can shit on the government? That was the first time I was like, what?

That was mind-blowing. Really? So it's a completely new concept to you, right? Yeah. You can see like the corruption. You can show all those. That's me. In public? Yeah. I was like, wow. So...

So I remember. And I remember just like the... Because it's so different from the Chinese shows. The Chinese shows are family friendly. All of them. From top to bottom. But it changed a lot because there was that recent hit, that show, I forgot the name of it. But it was all about the corruption. Tanhua? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But even before that, there was another one that was all about corruption. Oh, yeah. What's that one again? The mobster one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's why I think my understanding is that

Earlier on, Hong Kong shows were so popular. And then it became the Korean shows. And the Korean ones these days...

Like the dark ones are like, there's so much, they're so dark. I mean like the killing, the gore, I mean it's like, you know? Koreans know how to do like dark. Really dark, like gory, gory kind of shit. Yeah, like old boy. I was just about to say old boy. My mind was blown by it. I'm like, oh my god. It's so twisted. And then like there's recently one called like Moving, I think.

I think where like these people have superpowers and the government and like all this stuff. And then they're just like, I mean like hundreds of people die in like five minutes. Oh yeah. That's really crazy. I love that. So this, I feel like there's a rebellious streak in you a little bit. Yeah, for sure. Oh, I've been growing up. I've been always kind of different like from everywhere, everyone else in my school or class. Um,

Like the teachers always said, this kid has too much personalities. They always say that, like too strong character. That's the word they always use on me. Yeah. But, but then, you know, after I grew up, I meet a lot of international people. I'm like,

I'm normal. Now you found your tribe. You're like, I'm so funny. And I'm actually a nerd between them. I'm on them. Yeah. Yeah. You're actually like subdued. Justin had the reverse experience. So he grew up in Jersey with a bunch of just kind of Dongbei types, right?

And then he'd go loud and just busting each other's balls and stuff like that. And then he goes to California and then he noticed people just start keeping their distance from him because they're like, he's so aggressive. Yeah, because even in America, between the East Coast and the West Coast, there's a big culture difference. And so I grew up in the East Coast. When I went to the West Coast, I was like,

I was like the most docile kid amongst like my group in the East Coast. But when I go to West Coast, I'm like the most rambunctious, like alpha, like crazy guy. And it was so weird for me to be that. Yeah. Yeah.

That's very interesting. Because growing up in Jiangsu province and knowing my heritage is from Dongbei. And that is kind of the same, you know. Like you go to a school and you're so different because they're all from local southern kids, especially the girls. They're cute and very gentle. And I'm like, and I'm tall, you know. Were you like a bully then? No, no.

bully but like you know let's just say no boys were interested in me well they were probably i'm sure they were interested they were probably just like uh intimidated intimidated they're they're always into those girls who are like super cute and tiny yeah always don't you have a bit about that yeah what do you is that through your just your upbringing your observations growing up that you know the difference in asian when it comes to like

The beauty standards, right? Yeah, and the beauty standards of what they find attractive in, let's say, an Asian girl is wildly different between foreigners, Westerners, versus Asians. I feel that too. That's actually a really interesting topic that I would love to talk about. I want to hear your response. A little bit of context is that a couple weeks ago, we had another guest who's a friend of the show's

and she's like a from nanfang a southern girl but she's like pretty yeah she's she's a bit rebellious type um and we were talking about like stuff like zhenan and like shajiao and then like like different perceptions like well how to like what kind of guys do girls like etc etc now we're kind of talking about the other sort of side of it yeah i mean like

I grew up just being tall, you know, and kind of, I remember when I was a kid, I was kind of like a tomboy. So, it's hard for me to like, sad, yeah. Like you. You know? Mm-mm.

For people who are not watching video, she just did a little shake. That was as Sa Jiao as she can get. That's so Sa Jiao. This is as Sa Jiao as she gets. By the way, she has a Perrier bottle. She didn't ask us to open it. Whereas Julius was like, oh yeah, can you open the bottle? No, she did. No, but she says that that is an example of Sa Jiao. Let's not misrepresent her here.

That's something that she would do if she wanted, like what girls would do to maybe get closer to someone. So she did say that. I don't know if she does it herself, but she's an example. That's so weird, you know, because it's like Chinese men, they're more into girls who are like weak. You know, they like weaker. I think Asian men in general. Far Eastern Asian men. Yeah, I don't think it's just Chinese.

No, it's weird because like when I grew up, this was something like even me growing up in the States, I was still, I had more, I had more in common with like the sexual taste of like

like Asian men, far East Asian men. Sexual taste. No, what I'm saying- What do you mean exactly? Okay, okay. Let me explain myself. Wait a minute. Let me explain myself. No, so growing up between my white friends and me, whenever they would say, like when we're talking about, let's say a particular Asian girl or Asian woman, they would be like, oh my God, that girl is so hot. And they would show me and I'd be like, no, that doesn't really do it for me. And then when I show them of an Asian woman,

lady that i thought was really attractive they'd be like you like that yeah like that doesn't do that for me either and it wasn't just one time it was like routinely that was the case with different you know western people where i realized okay i just have different like tastes just since like sexual taste it would say white and

You know, it has to be young and skinny. That's the time. Yeah, skinny is a thing, huh? Skinny. And you have to look certain, like, innocent look. Yeah. Like cute, cute, right? So it's like a weird, like a man's, I don't know. It's like they want a virgin. You know, remember back then, everybody wants a virgin. Still now, like a lot of people still. So it's kind of like that. Yeah. Fucking borderline.

Yeah, that's like, it's not just a stereotype, but I think that there's a lot, there's some, that patriarch, whatever the word is, right? There's some stuff in there. Patriarch. Or just feeling of dominance. Yeah, yeah. Like unhealthy dominance. Yeah. Yeah, like more, like overly traditional. Well, I remember, I think it was a recent conversation,

It was about how my friends back in the day or how when I was back in the States, I'm from New York, and we would meet a girl. And if, you know, we guy talk afterwards, be like, yo, she knew what she was doing in bed, you know, that kind of thing. But oh, damn, that's awesome. Right? It's like a good thing. Yeah. If the girl knew what she was doing in bed. But then I had like a similar conversation in China. And it would be like, if she knew too much in bed, it would be like a no, no, it'd be like,

Like a negative thing? Yeah, like sort of like, oh, she got around too much? She's a little too good, you know? She's a lot of practice or something, right? You know what I mean? I think that's one thing about, like, there's an analysis about this, like, men want to find, especially Chinese men, want to find a girl who has no experience so that you don't know I'm shit.

That's horrible. That's bad. You have experienced better ones. Hey, come on. Let's be honest. I'm sure a lot of guys feel that way to a degree, right? It's in there somewhere for sure. Yeah, it could be. Because we're all kind of self-conscious about like, you know. Don't put your own insecurities on everybody else. Don't even try to front. Don't even try to front. No, but I feel like this gap in terms of like,

what we find attractive is growing even now it's like not even when i was growing up because when i look back to the states and on social media in the western world i find like the trend now is like these huge butts like really really curvy like like huge thighs huge butts and like everyone's like oh that's like the attractive thing like kim kardashian right like how she got i don't

I don't find that attractive at all. And so I just find this huge disparity in that it's growing even wider now. What kind of entertainment or movies, TV shows, or celebrities you grew up watching? All American, basically. The Asian ones would be like Jackie Chan's or Jet Li's, stuff like that. Like Hong Kong? Some Hong Kong movies and TV shows? Even in those old...

Hong Kong TV shows, movies, like the girls are more like pure looking, right? They have like very little makeup. It's all brainwashing. It's all brainwashing, right? And I think like if you, they always give the example of like in the 1800s and you look at some of the portraits of the European women and they were,

They were totally different than the ones that are now, right? Like we, in this more modern generation, I think a lot of people in the West, they like the girls that work out and that muscles and all that stuff. So I think like there's a lot of cultural differences and it's how your brainwashed is what you see. And then a lot of what you see is generated by marketing and, you know, people that have other interests. So I agree with you, but I would question,

How much of it is released? Because I think I'd be a good example of that. I grew up in the States. I wasn't watching Asian film and television a lot, like very little compared to the amount I watched American shows and TV and movies. So I was fully absorbed into all the media that they would be consuming as well.

But I still turned out very different in terms of my page. But you're just one example. I know, I'm just saying. What I'm saying is that no marketing is 100% successful. Any commercial that goes out there, it's not like 100% of the people are going to buy that thing. Even if 1% of the people buy whatever they see on a commercial, they've already achieved success. So I think that there's a lot of that that's shaping us. And then the forces behind what's shaping us, it's out of our control. Yeah.

My analysis is, I mean, I asked the wrong question. It should be, what kind of porn do you watch? That's really the question, right? Accurate. That's what really influenced you sexually. That's the real truth right there. Accurate.

You didn't watch white porn. I'll be happy to say it if we all go around the table and say it. Including you, Don. If we all agree to this. That's called an honest... She cut through all of our facade. All of our bullshit. I was blaming it on mass marketing. Exactly. We're blaming it on everything else. But it really comes down to what porn you watch. It really is. But it's kind of the chicken or the egg kind of thing. Because...

obviously the porn you watch influences you, but then your decision to watch that gravitate towards that type of porn, there must be some other influential factor that would drive that motivation or that attraction in the first place. Well, the best question then is at what age did you start watching porn just as like four? Yeah.

I think, Revy, typically, like, most kids who grow up in the States... Early teens. Yeah, early teens. Yeah. I think the first one was, you know, like, me finding magazines, you know, stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sixth grade. Usually it's about sixth grade. Yeah. Sixth, seventh grade. Yeah, yeah. Pretty early on. Well, kind of...

Exactly. You still didn't answer. No, okay. No, again. Okay, let's make a deal. Love that. I am happy to say if we all go around and say, I don't want to be single. Fine, fine. I have nothing to hide. I got nothing to hide. Okay. So my first discovery of porn was actually like was Playboy and Penthouse, but like the American issues of that.

And then as I matured, it definitely is heavily weighted towards Asian pornography. Okay. Yeah. Interesting. What's the... And I don't know why. And again, it goes back to that thing where this was something I noticed very early on that... What kind of Asian porn? And a lot of my... It's weird because a lot of my Asian friends growing up... Well, not like growing up, but like a lot of Asian friends I made later on when I grew up

They were still like very attracted to like white women. You know, your classic, you know, Caucasian beauties. And for me, like, yeah, they're hot. They're beautiful, of course.

But I was still almost like more or less attracted to Asians. Okay, so like what kind of like Asian? Okay, no, no, let's go around and then we can decipher. No, no, no, no. You guys are trying to pull a fast one on me. Why are you saying you guys? I'm silent here. That's so broad. What do you mean? Like that's like saying nothing. That's like saying nothing. You say yours first. That's like saying nothing. I don't want you to get out of it. You say yours first. By the way, is there such thing as Irish porn? No.

I'm sure there is. Is everybody drinking on that? Eric's trying to get out of it. There's always a bottle. All right, Eric, you go. You're trying to get out of it. Look, I'm going to answer it this way because I think it's more important to get at the substance of what we're trying to talk about. Oh, just answer the question first. You just asked some vague... You answered some vague bullshit. I gave a very direct answer. No, I will say that

I'm going to offer my own unique angle on this and it's going to be way more revealing than what you said because it was just such an empty response. Okay, go. Stop preluding. So I would say that, and you have to bear with me on this narrative, that starting at about when I was in fourth grade,

Jesus, Eric. Hold on, listen. He's trying to drag it out. When I was in fourth grade, most of the kids in my class were Caucasian, the neighborhood I lived in. And there was a girl that lived sort of down the street and we went to school. And I remember thinking,

She had blonde hair and she was very tall. And I remember thinking she was very pretty. But I wasn't attracted to girls at that point because I was so young. But I remember thinking very specific. I still remember her name. Like, yeah, she's very attractive. And then when we got into fifth grade, that was the first time where I saw people date. And so there was a guy and a girl and they dated and we're kind of like, that's kind of yucky, you know? And then when I got to sixth grade, I had my first crush.

And this girl was like one head taller than me. She was a soccer player. She was Caucasian. And I was like, so in love with her. And like, we were friends.

And I mean, I just had no chance. Like she was going to go for like the eighth grader one. But I remember one time I think she like took pity on me and she like gave me a kiss on my cheek or something like that. I was just like in cloud nine, you know? And so like from sixth grade and I had many crushes in middle school, but I was just like this puny little Chinese American kid and didn't have a whole lot of confidence. But I would like, I was just so into all these Caucasian girls, really, really, you know, blondes, whatever, right? Brunettes.

Then we got into high school and there was some Asian ABC girls. I was like, oh, they're pretty attractive or whatever. And then my first girlfriend wasn't until college actually. And she was actually, she grew up partially in China, Australia, and then the US. Was she mixed? No, but she was full Chinese, but she'd grown up a little bit in China.

And then, you know, like I lived in Argentina for a little bit and I was just, I was blown away, you know, by the women there. I'm still waiting for the porn answer. Somehow we've arrived at Argentina. Somehow we've arrived at Argentina. And then when I moved here, I think that like my, my taste definitely shifted. And, and so like, then I dated, you know, the, the girls I dated were all, you know, Asian. And then, you know, now I'm married and my wife is,

Chinese but you know she spent half her life kind of abroad but like grew up in China and it actually yeah I mean in this area that shaped everything and then if you just look at porn stuff I mean you just kind of you know I don't know you just click a couple of buttons you see stuff you know but that I would it's like both it's like so what do you say what kind of porn do you want it's a very simple question yeah Asian and white

So both. Do you skew one way or lean a little bit? Honestly, I was waiting for the punchline. He's like, Argentina, and I'm a wife. I love shit porn. It's like telling you there's something left field out of nowhere.

Probably like 70% Asian, 30% other Caucasian, etc. 70% Asian, I think. Oh, 70% Asian, 30% other? Yeah. Okay. When I was in first grade... He's like, I like boys. I was always watching non-Asian. And it wasn't until I moved here that I started switching.

So I'm a product of environment. Wow. Interesting. Yeah. I couldn't watch Asian porn before. But now you're all about it. Now I can. Now I'm enjoying it. Yeah.

So basically, it's different. It's a different mentality, I think. That's crazy how like your environment is like, even like when you're fully grown. I've said this many times before. Before I moved here, I never dated Asians. I never was around Asians. I was always dated like South American or white or non-Asian. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I'm a lover of all. No prejudice here. If anyone listens to this episode and finds this... What, vulgar? Vulgar. Then I'm blaming it on Don. Or is now vulgar. Yeah, I think it's open conversations. We use it as sex education here. Yeah, what is... I mean, I know obviously you don't speak for all women. Wait a minute. Why are we jumping into... No, no. We're going to get our answer. What I'm saying is...

In terms of, first, obviously I want to hear your answer in terms of what kind of porn you watch. But in terms of women watching porn in general, is it more common than a lot of men think? It's very interesting because, you know, most porns are made for men. So women, most of the time, actually, I will speak for a lot of women now, don't enjoy watching it that much.

Because a lot of them is a little bit even abusive. Abusive, you know what I mean? So it's like you watch it, you might not enjoy it at all. So nowadays, I heard a lot of women start to watch porn

porn that's made for women. - There's a lot of porn female directors. I've seen some articles about that. - Yeah, so I think that's popular right now. - How is it different than, let's say, the typical porn men would watch? - To be honest, I haven't watched one. - Apparently it's more story-based. - Yeah, yeah, it's more-- - So it's a lot more story, a little more romantic. - Yeah. - But there's sexual-- - But it's still very graphic? - When you get to it, but then I think there's a whole-- - I don't know why I did this. - Yeah, what does that mean? - I don't know. - But it's still graphic?

What is that? I don't know why I did that. That's so weird. Well, it's like the complaint that...

Women often have about men not taking enough time for the floor play. Yeah. Right? No, but... Okay, from what I was told, or not told, but read, basically, it's story-based, situational-based, which a lot of some men, male porn is like that as well, but it's all about that fantasy. So it's these improper moments, but done tastefully, not so aggressively, and...

Yeah, and that's what I... Female porn directors are going that route. Production quality a little bit higher, not just like, you know, up close and... More artistic. More artistic. The lighting, yeah. Just in general, it's a bit more moody as opposed to, you know, to the point. I think, I mean, as a Chinese person, I say every single Chinese person, the first porn you ever sing is a Japanese porn. Oh, really? It has to be. Yeah, everybody...

That's what's going around. That's the resource you had. So I think most people watch Japanese porn. And I always find it really unpleasant. That's how I felt back in the day. Whenever I watched Asian, I was like, that's so weird. I'm actually not that into Japanese porn or Asian porn. But they're the biggest one, though. They're the most common one. They take their porn very seriously. And it's the most, like, probably...

male-dominated perspective. Oh, for sure. The Japanese point gets crazy. It's pretty bad. And it's all about the schoolgirl. It's like borderline pedophile. You know, it's just like a lot of pedophile things in there. So it's really uncomfortable. And when you watch it as a female, you're like, am I supposed to like this? But you see a lot of men, every single man, all the boys, they're all like, ah, this is the thing we watch. And they learned everything from that. Yeah.

The mentality comes out from that, yeah. Yeah, so there's a lot of really, like, disrespect in the porn. I mean, you don't, I'm not saying, like, in sex you should be, like, respectful or something, but just, like, the kind of thing that they do to women. There's a lot of raping in Japanese porn. And I think that's one of the things, like, Asian cultures, like, women are like, oh, when they say no. No.

but they don't mean no. And that's really bad, I think. And that's really bad signal sent to most young boys when they started watching. They're like, oh, so women, when women say no, they didn't mean no. They wanted it.

So that's always how we're raised. That's what I felt like. Yeah. Well, I'm curious not to jump off this topic too prematurely, but I try to avoid this kind of stuff. But like in your comedy then, is there a message that they're trying to, like is there a positive message that you're trying to send to people sometimes? In general? Yeah. Like we're changing topics, but yeah.

Yeah. I don't know. Like my humor is a lot of darkness in my humor. But I don't know if I'm sending any positive messages at all, really. It's more just commentary? Maybe when it comes to women's issue, like I like to send off more positive image, especially to the women audiences, you know.

But, yeah, I wouldn't go kind of like, oh, you know, Zheng Neng Liang, you know, those Chinese. I wouldn't go there, you know. Yeah, they seem like you.

Are there a lot of really good up-and-coming female comedians in China? What's that ratio like between, I guess, men and women in the comedy scene here in China? It's very interesting because I always talk about women's issue, women's right on my social media. We always discuss it.

Because we always say, oh, there's a lot of things in China, women's right, in terms of women's right. We don't think it's as protected as the Western world, you know, because it's more mature there because the women's rights.

movements started way earlier right so but in terms of comedy I see all the misogynist shit happening in west than China because China started comedy center comedy new it's really new art form that it's really it's really new so it started off equally

So whoever that's good, it goes up to Xiao Guo or the show, right? So Xiao Guo, you can see a lot of women, girl comedians. If anything, I feel like the most famous Chinese comedians are women. Exactly. Right? The KOLs, the influencers now that are comedians are women as opposed to male. They're more popular. More popular, yeah. They're more loved.

But when, for example, same clip I post on Chinese social media, then I post on YouTube or Instagram, you always see these comments down below, oh, women just not funny.

I always see this every single- On the Western platforms or on both? Western platforms. You never seen one single person in China say that. I've never seen that. But only in West, I constantly seeing this comments. I believe that. Because if you just look at like the big comedians in America, let's say, it's male dominated. I don't really know of any like real, like maybe Ali Wong or-

But even so, it's... But they're not even as big. Yeah, it's crazy. And even you go to these most famous women's clips, then you go there, all the comments are like, women's is not funny, blah, blah, blah. Women always talk about sex. It's like, come on. Like all the men comedians talk about sex all the time. Yeah. I'm actually curious, staying on this sort of topic.

we've kind of danced around this before, but now that we have someone like Dawn on the show, I want to just kind of dig in a little bit deeper, which is...

How do you feel about male and female equality? Because like gender equality, for example, I mean, that's always been an issue in the West for decades already. And like you kind of touched upon, there was an earlier movement and here it's not really, you can't really pinpoint a time to any type of movement per se. But I always felt without any statistics, just felt there's definitely misogyny, but

In terms of the general public workforce attitude towards, let's say, male and female positions of power or just general male or female access to different type of career paths, I didn't feel it was as bad as maybe the West. I felt that it was okay. For example, whenever working, I always work with

female leaders in brands and stuff like that. And they were very respected and very powerful and really good at what they do. I've met a lot of these kind of positions and I always thought, yeah, it was not that bad here. It didn't seem like it was that obvious. I'm just curious how you feel in general. Do you feel that that might be a correct perception or do you think I'm

still kind of off I think you're off because we all live in our own bubbles right so you live in that 1% of elite bubble of your client is like big international corporates where their working environment is more equal it's more protected there's HR is protecting that shit but

Most, I would say 90% of Chinese, for example, just women going to look for work nowadays. Like if you go to HR, then you're sitting down in the interview, they always ask you, are you married? Do you have a boyfriend? Yes. Always. Yes. And it's legal to ask, which is absurd. Because in the West, you can get sued by that.

And you can see, constantly you can see the hiring posters here in China says, we only want men. Oh, they actually say that? They actually say that on poster. Wow, I did not know that. We only hire men. And there's a lot of job positions. For example, you're just out of college or whatever. Then the job position, you can see like they want more men. They will say on the positions, we want more men than women.

And even for men, for women, it should be more higher. You need to have higher degrees. You need to have higher... Really? And for men, we actually would love to lower the standard just to get more men in.

That happens most of the job markets. Yeah, that's very interesting, Dawn. I mean, I work with a lot of, I mean, my wife, like I don't work with my wife, but like I've talked to people kind of in the workforce and they really echo your sentiment, you know? And they've experienced exactly what you're saying. And they ask the questions in a very subtle way.

Subtle is okay. Most people don't even ask subtly. They just ask straight forward. But even companies that have international backgrounds, even the ones you would expect them to operate it differently, no, they find a way to ask the question. It's just very off-putting. And so one of the narratives I recently heard, to really echo what you're saying, and I'm curious if you've heard this, is

basically if you haven't achieved some significant amount of power as a woman like 35 is like that cut off like what i hear in asia it's like after 35 it's like okay pretty much yeah even for men it's a little bit like that yeah yeah the ageism right but like the you were saying like the job postings and it's just like anyone over 35 don't apply yeah is that true true yeah

Very true. And a lot of people after 35, they got fired from the company or sacked from the company. They just can't find a job. It's hard for them to find a job after you're 35. And for women, it's even harder. And especially women have to go to... Once they have their babies and it's hard for them to return to the job. Right now, it's an issue. A lot of people discuss it online, on social media. A lot of people discuss it. I remember on Weibo, there was one time I...

I was like discussing it with my followers. I was like, I was saying like this job market for women, like how, what do you guys, have you guys experienced? So I got like... Just people were like, yes, I'm going to talk about this. 600 comments just talking about this. Just like the unfairness that happened to them. And there's a lot of men coming to my comments say like, my wife experienced this and this and this constantly. So it's not...

In that sense, it's not really protect, like women's rights, not really that protect. It's pretty bad here. Wow. It's really pretty bad here. Yeah. I mean, it might be better than other Asian countries, but it's pretty fucking bad. Yeah. I would say, like, obviously, I think there's spots in the world that are probably like much better examples, but I think on the whole, globally, it's an issue. Yeah. Yeah. I remember a few years ago, I was just, because as I said, like everybody live in their bubbles, you know, I was like, yeah, I feel like in my world, every woman is so...

and they got what they deserved. But then after I became, I have a lot of followers and I started to hear them out. And I'm like, holy shit, there's so many things I don't, I have no idea like what people are living with. You know, it's crazy. Yeah. You know, what you just said, it actually brought me back to how when I was, because I haven't been doing hiring processes in a long time. But that kind of brought me back into like,

some people especially uh local hr they want to know if you've had kids or if you're planning to have kids and i remember having a conversation once with a previous company with my hr and i was like why do you want to know that why is that such a big deal like i don't understand well why and she's like well you know they allow them to take advantage you

They try to secure the job and then they have kids and they're out. So it's like we're hooked in and there's nothing we can do. So that's why we have to ask. We have to know there's too many people that take advantage of that. So I thought about that. I was like, okay, but it's still such a weird thing to ask. It's just... Right? Like, what are you supposed to say? And some people, yeah, they lie. They tell you that they don't plan on it and all of a sudden it's like by mistake. Yeah. But it's just weird that type of conversation, right? Because it's not so black and white. It's not like...

I'm asking you this question because I don't want you to get pregnant. But from a corporate perspective, it's like they're trying to... It's all about money. Yeah, exactly. It's all about money and cost. They don't care. It's like if it costs me more to hire you because you're going to be pregnant soon...

And I can't get the value in return for you. They treat everyone like a commodity. So if I can't get the value for it, then I'm not going to hire you. So a company I used to work for asked that question. They asked it very directly. There was no playing around. And I sat in on many of the interview processes. And I was even part of the interview process myself.

And they asked that question all the time. It was like standard protocol to ask it. But when you look at the company itself, literally, I would say 90%, I'm not exaggerating, 90% or above of the company was all women, like the people that actually worked in that company. It was heavily, heavily, like 90% women. And obviously, that's just one company. And I'm not saying that that represents on the whole at all.

But I'm saying there is a difference between the discussion of it versus the actual practice of it. And my feeling is, I think in the West, let's say take United States, there's definitely the discussion around women's rights. It's more mature there. It's more outspoken there. It's more front and center there. And for sure, HR, there's a lot of lines you cannot cross. Like if you ask if a woman's pregnant, you cannot ask that. You'll be sued for sure.

So there's that, but then there's the actual practice and what you see in reality. And I don't know, my feeling is from my friends who live in the States, who worked in the States from my own experience there versus here working on both sides, um,

I feel like the disparity in terms of the whole women representation in the workforce, whether it's the pay wage, whether it's representation, whether it's the standards and criteria you need to meet being hired for women. I feel like that exists in both places, regardless of the openness of the discussion around it.

And I think that's the real problem, right? We can talk about it all day. We can pay lip service to these ideas and concepts all day. But if we don't actually, if society itself doesn't change, it's meaningless. Yeah.

It's also hard because the woman has to give birth to the baby. Then that's, I think that's one of the hardest problem. Like it can be soft. I mean, a lot of European countries, they give like same amount of maternity leave for both the husband and wife. Then it seems like it's more equal. Yeah.

I think that could be a solution. Because here sometimes you see women complaining about this. And people will say, oh, the men will say, what are you guys complaining about? But then...

when women start to say, "Hey, let's give the same amount of maternity leave to men." Then those men start to shout. They start to be, you know, they're online. They're like, "No, we don't want this because how are we going to go back to the job and still have the same, keep my same position?" You know, so then they realize, wow, this is what women, exactly what women's been going through, you know? So when it happens to you, then you realize it's a problem. Yeah.

Yeah, I think the idea of, especially when you're talking about giving birth, it's much harder for women in general to keep a career and to keep that career trajectory versus a man, for sure. Not everybody can have a nanny. In Shanghai, we see a lot of people, they can afford a nanny. I had this friend in the States. She's a woman. She's Korean. She's a lawyer. And so she was on track to make partner in her firm.

And I remember her having this real tough decision whether or not to have a baby or to make a partner. It was like one or the other. Like you can't do both. Yeah. Like you just can't. Exactly. You know, so yeah, that's so tough. And that's a decision like men don't have to make. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Exactly. It's just one of those really complicated issues, right? It is. Because it's not so black and white. It's not. Yeah. There is a cost to the companies. You know, the company doesn't want to, especially smaller companies, especially they don't want to pay.

for that kind of price. But yeah, I seriously don't know how to solve it, but there's obviously countries having more successful routes. I don't know. Yeah, for sure. Well, thanks for coming, Don. We solved the problem though.

Like the very opposite thing from comedy. We just talked about that. No, no. That's good to talk about, I think. But that's an issue that's important to her. Yeah, it seems like you're very passionate about it. Yeah, I mean, like how you're a director, right? I'm also a filmmaker. I'm also a director. So even as a female director... Yeah, I would love to hear your perspective about that. I don't... You can tell you don't get...

respected interesting sometimes I would bring my crew member or whatever to go to a meeting then they haven't met us they will automatically speak to my male crew member assuming they are the one who's in charge they are the directors

What do they do when they find out you're the director? There's kind of some are shocked or yeah, it's just and sometimes even they don't listen to you because you're just you're a woman director. They're just don't. Yeah, but when you're on set I love when I go on set then people like all the crew members they just they work hard and they they don't care. They just want to get a job done. You know, like I think

part of this is just important is that there's probably still so many women and people who support women that are just trying to convince people that this is an issue. And I think that's a big problem, you know, that like this shit's like happening and,

And there's millions of, there's just so many people that are kind of, including myself probably to some extent, that's just ignorant. Like you're still at the process of trying to convince people that this is like a fucking problem. Like that's really fucked. That's like super duper fucked, you know? And I think that, I think you can say that about so many important topics. But this one in particular, I just think that the fact that we still question it means that

And I don't think that we should feel guilt for it because like, I'll ask my wife a lot of stuff just to double check myself, you know, and it's just like staying curious. But then I'll find that like some of my perspectives are probably not very up to date and it'll be quite shocking, but I just find it. I don't know if that's a challenge and opportunity that there's just such lack of aware. Maybe it's an opportunity. Maybe it's like, if we can just get the word out, if we don't have to get to a point where we have to prove these things, um,

then everything will be a lot easier. Yeah, it's not until some other authority or body or union can come in and be like, this is the way it is. If you don't participate, then you're out.

in terms of changing this type of mentality. Because, for example, if one company just stands out like, we're the good guys, you know, we do this, unless they're just so dominant in the industry that everybody has to follow because all the good people are going to that company because market declares, yeah, I have to do that.

then yeah, I guess that works. But otherwise, you need some other big body government union establishing a law or something that everybody has to follow. I mean, what else are you going to do? No, no, no. I mean, that's part of it. Honestly, what else are you going to do then? That's part of it. It's just like sustainability when we talked about last week, right? It has to happen at all levels. Like there's no, it's like no government can be like, okay, here's the policy. Well, going with that sustainability conversation, I mean, I honestly think, and maybe I'm more skeptical about it or pessimistic about it,

I just feel like until anything, and this goes with any movement we want to change, until it starts making financial sense in this world, you're not going to see a lot of change. And the whole kind of sustainability thing, which was cool about that. Give her the background on that. Well, we had our previous guest. We're talking about sustainability, being eco-friendly, and how corporations have to kind of change the way they do things and how they purchase and source and produce, blah, blah, blah, right? Recycle, right?

And the cool thing about that conversation is that it's actually getting to a point where sustainability actually will be the most cost efficient and financially lucrative model to go. We're not fully there yet, but it's heading into that direction. Whereas before it was just a buzz term, right? Like we want to be sustainable, but it was actually more expensive to be that. Now, like technology and innovation and the way the world has shifted, it's

and the way the market sentiment is towards these things, it's actually very beneficial financially for companies to hold this position. So that's an interesting thing. So until the markets shift where it's in the best financial interest, you're just...

not going to see a lot of change. Like, I don't agree with that, but I think that's just the reality of the world we live in. I would say if something is long-term, it will never be financially sustainable, then that movement probably cannot happen. But I wouldn't say it the other way, like, oh, it has to be financially, you know, and that's the only way it can happen. I would just say that's like one condition long-term.

but there are so many different factors, right? Like they were talking about like in Shanghai, even without the system, like Shanghai had one of the most self-sustainable circular economy just because there would be people that made it work. Like people would pick up the televisions and this and that and they would, you know, so I think it has to... Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Like bingsang. He actually said that most of that actually goes to a secondhand market where people actually buy it. Like the electronics. But everything else doesn't even leave the city limits. It gets recycled within a matter of days. And it's like a new box. It's a new, some sort of new packaging or whatever it is. So like whether it's like

I think, first of all, we just have to recognize that in all these areas, there has been significant progress, so we can't lose hope. Would you want to live 100 years ago? None of us, first of all, would want to live 100 years ago, right? For sure. So I think there's been significant progress. And then I think it just has to happen at every level. The fabric of society, the economics of it, the supply chain, all of these things for sustainability, they all have to kind of...

sort of move. And so one piece moves forward and it kind of creates some, you know, a halo effect for something else. And then slowly things sort of change. Right. But it really just like everyone has to ultimately get on board with it. Well, that's the issue. Everybody has to get on board. Over time. Because when going back to what we're talking about here, which is the male and female equality, um,

especially in the workforce. It's about everybody being on board. It's this perfect analogy that I used to always have as a filmmaker.

Whenever I'm on set and I had a female DOP, female gaffer, producers, you know, I've had them like they run the gamut. And I think especially in China, I've met a lot more female production people, not non-clean producers, but production people here than when I was back in the States. Really? Yeah.

Not now. I'm sure now it's different. But at least back then, it was always guys that I've worked with. DOPs, gaffers, art. Art may be a little bit different, right? But yeah. So anyway, so here I noticed that there was a lot more female – I wouldn't say a lot more. There were female DOPs, female editors, female –

other key creatives and even Faye was on the show remember like we work with together I work with together she shared some stories that she felt something like what you said where it was like hello I'm the DOP like talk to me with that way please I'm not some assistant or whatever

And what she said kind of resonated, which was it's not because that person was negative towards me being a female. It was just that he wasn't exposed to it. So to him, it didn't connect. But once after she showed her ability and also worked together, all of a sudden, the guy's like, you're the shit. And then it was all good. So that's the thing. It's about the human nature, the exposure.

Right? Once you get exposed and you kind of get used to, just like if you've never had Western food, you're like, ooh, I don't like Western food. But then you eat it, you're like, it's not bad. And you eat it a couple more times, okay, I like it. It's the same idea. You'll never really know or really buy into anything until you get exposed to it, until it gets normalized. And just like what Eric is saying, yes, that normalization, it takes a lot of different moving parts to

to make it normalize. But where I was coming from is like you kind of need that strong arm to make it go forward a little bit quicker or a little bit easier. Yeah. I think the problem is we don't have enough female leaders in every industry. It's not enough. I mean, there is, you can see there's more and more, but it's definitely not enough. So the decision makers, they're still men.

And as you said, they're not exposed to what these girls are going through. So they don't know what these girls are going through. So they just automatically assume, oh, this is the way we should do things. But yeah, it's a funny analogy. I always say sometimes men cannot get it. But once you compare it to race...

For example, I'll make an example. There's one time, I don't know if you guys know that news. So it's like a dragon boat in Guangzhou, then some women sat on it. Then everybody's like internet bullying her and everything, saying women should not sit on the dragon boat. And the guy who owns the dragon boat said, you can't sit on the dragon boat because you're a woman. And now my dragon boat's fucked. You need to pay or whatever.

So it's like that's like a big thing, like this tradition that women are not allowed to sit in the Dragon Boat. But then all the women are obviously online, they're all angry, right? It's like, what are you talking about? Then all the men, a lot of men don't get it. They're like, yeah, it's a tradition, it's a tradition. But then if you replace that with racial, so if you say Chinese people are not allowed to sit on this American boat. Yeah.

or this white people's vote, whatever. The Chinese man will obviously be very, very, yeah, what the fuck, this is racist, you know, but somehow it happened to women, it's not sexist. It's the double standard there. Yeah, so if it's a racial thing, then it's not okay. But for somehow, for some reason, if it's a women thing, it's okay. So that's, I think people cannot stand in women's shoes. That's like one of the biggest problem.

And also, you know, the decision makers are not women. So, yeah, also they cannot stand in women's shoes. Yeah. What about in the comedy scene? Is that, I'm assuming, is that like a breath of fresh air in terms of

Maybe there's more equality there. I'm guessing. I don't know. Or do you kind of see the same dynamics playing out in the comedy scene? Yeah, like in China, as we said, in China, the comedy scene is very equal. I think it's very equal. Women don't feel very struggling in this industry at all. Because as you said, all the female comedians are very, very successful. And you can see a lot of audiences are female.

Sometimes they come to see me because you're a woman and I love your jokes. You have jokes about women's point of views. I love that. So you can see it's like a very different market from the Western comedy world.

Like when you go to the Western comedy, like even this time I went to Ireland, you can see there's barely, I couldn't see like a women comedian in that club. You know, it's just different. Like that night we have like four male comics and one female comic. That's it.

So you can still see it's so male-dominant. And that one was you. Yeah, so that was... Yeah, I think there's something to the idea of starting from zero. Because you don't have tradition at play. You don't have any preconceived notions or...

You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Because it's fresh here, stand-up comedy, it's not a thing. Maybe some people were exposed to it here and there, but for mass public, it was not a thing until it became a thing. Yeah. And when it became a thing, because it was equal footing for both male and female in the way that the B-side, right? It's a competition. And you had males and females competing against each other.

it was equal. It was not anything like, oh yeah, I have a history of male comedians, stand-up comedians, you know. There was none of that history. So history is getting made now. And that's like the dragon boat thing, right? Because it's always been male. Yeah, the tradition. Whenever you have like a legacy, then it's harder to change. But like that makes sense too. It does. But maybe even the market might even be different. Like I think what you were saying, Dawn, and this is a total ignorant assumption I'm making. Okay, I'm going to preface that.

But my feeling in terms of being back in the States, the people I know that are like really into stand-up comedy and the comics are all guys. Yeah. They're all guys. Like I know very few women if I name this, unless they're like a Dave Chappelle or something, they might know them. But like if I name someone like Shane Gillis or something like that or Theo Vaughn, they'll be like, who is that? Like they wouldn't know. They're not interested. Yeah.

But here, it seems like the audience and the market here is heavily women in terms of their interest in comedy. But how big is the market here, too? It's a new market. The Chinese market is big. But it's new, though. Yeah, it's very new. That's the thing. So the audience is... The first thing they learned about comedy is, hey, I've seen this comedy. First comedy I show I've seen is like...

a lot of women comedians. So they're like, this is comedy. The first impression made on them

But in West, it's different. Also, yeah, the marketing, it's like sports. It's kind of like sports. I can see now it's a little bit different. In the West, even there are more and more female comedians. But also you can see the audiences are, you know, for example, the comments I mentioned earlier said, oh, women are not funny. I think they're not not funny. It's just what they said didn't resonate with you. That's probably one of the biggest reasons.

Yeah, it's not what they're used to, which is fine. So when this woman sat on stage, said these amount of jokes, and these women laughed really hard. But man's like, what is she talking about? I don't get it. And you take maybe someone like Bill Burr, maybe a lot of women won't find him funny because they don't relate in the same way. That's like, that doesn't relate to me. Are there any...

Are there any stand-ups in the West, female, that you really look up to? That you think is doing really well? Obviously, Ali Wong is doing very well. That was great. Who else?

I've just been thinking oh Michelle Wolfe is definitely my favorite Michelle Wolfe yeah she's my favorite Michelle Wolfe yeah have you seen her stuff no no I gotta check it out Wanda Sykes Wanda Sykes is funny she is crazy she's funny but when you mentioned Joan Rivers earlier I see a little bit of Joan Rivers the way you perform when you do your skits yeah yeah yeah interesting yeah I don't

I don't know why. It's like... It's a little satirical, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because Joan Rivers is... She's bitey. Yeah. She's vicious, you know? Yeah, that's one thing I find myself sometimes struggling here. Sometimes you go to the West, they want a female comedian to be more, you know, what you said. Like, it's more edgy and more feisty or something like that. Present that kind of, like, more stronger character. But here, like, if a woman...

If I go on stage, then I said some jokes and I'm like doing like an angry kind of bit. And they got really scared. But what if you just keep doing it until they get used to it? I want to do that. Right. You can see this. It's actually a world problem too. Like you don't see female billboards like ranting.

Ranting for... Roseanne Barr. Yeah, ranting, but that was so long ago. And also she's quite different too. Yeah. So you see most women can't be Bill Burr.

Like they can't rant. Because I think a lot of it is that double standard. If there was a female version of Bill Burr, she'd be like heavily criticized. She'd be called a bitch. She'd be whining. They would just call her a bitch. You're a bitch. And it's not pleasant to whine. Not even whining, like aggressive. Because like you can apply this same sort of thing to leadership.

Which is when a man is like angry or aggressive or whatever it is, they're powerful, they're showing leadership. And when a woman does it, then it's like, you know, think of all the negative pejorative things. And so there's a lot of like unconscious bias and like a framing effect. Even, you know, just like a family hold.

Like sometimes you see like the dad, if the dad's being angry, it is authority. Then it somehow is really useful. But the mom's getting angry, she's just hysterical. It's kind of like that in a lot of people's households. Except for mine. Your mom's definitely the alpha. The respected alpha. You're starting to see it now. Yeah.

Any chance he gets. That's interesting. What about coming up as a comic, though? Because I watch a lot of comedians' podcasts, and I get to understand a little bit into their world.

And one thing they always like to talk about is like the times where they bombed. And that's kind of like a rite of passage for stand-up comedians. Yeah. What have your bombing experience... Because they say every comedian bombs, right? It's a rite of passage for everybody. What have your experiences been like and how does the audience react to bombing when you have like a really bad set here in China? It's...

it still is very different like because for example the same set I've done in Ireland and I come here to do the same set in China in front of Chinese audiences I would definitely bomb like now I learned that but at the beginning I didn't at the beginning I still do this very western international set then I would be like bombing a lot in front of Chinese audiences I'm like holy shit like they so it's really you feel really personal obviously at the beginning you're like like

Are you in that moment? They just hate me. They just don't like me. Yeah, you're in that moment like, what the fuck? But what is bombing like? Are they just really quiet? They don't laugh? Yeah. Or do they heckle? Do people heckle here in China? No, no, no. That's not a thing here, right? It's not a thing. It's not a thing. Like, they might, when you do a crowd work to them, they might talk way too much. Like, giving you information that you don't need at all. TMI. But it's kind of like, yeah. But bombing here, it's more like everybody's quiet.

They're very quiet. It's like they don't get your joke. They're just staring at you. Yeah, and they don't get it.

That's like the worst. I can imagine. I can see a lot of comedians here, especially the Western comedians. And they perform in front of a bunch of Chinese audience and they bomb hard. And they did not... You can see they're panicking on stage. I remember Dylan... I don't know if you know Dylan Moran. No. He's like this Irish comic. He's like really big. He used to have this big TV show called Black Book. Yeah. He's very big in Europe. Yeah.

even in America. But then he came, one time he came to China because the show he did, a lot of Chinese people actually watched it. So they know who he is. They love him. But then he came here to do standup. He bombed so, I was there. He bombed so hard in the first half.

so hard that I can see him just panicking. He was panicking, just thinking, what's wrong with my jokes? This should work. You know, it's obviously the language barrier. There's like the jokes doesn't translate and all that. Then the second half, I don't know what he adjusted. Then he adjusted the speed of his wording. And he just like, he just went back to his old jokes and all that. Then people start to laugh.

Yeah. Oh my God. It's weird. And the same Irish club I did in Ireland, in Dublin. I heard also Dylan Moran went to that club and he pumped so hard there too.

Yeah. So it's very, very different. And sometimes you think you're bombing, but actually the audiences are, they're listening. They're enjoying it. They're learning. It's so weird. Also, Chinese people, sometimes they don't laugh out loud. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They kind of laugh inside. They don't express. Yes. Emote. Yes. Yeah. Then after the show, they came to you and say, oh, I fucking loved your show. I'm like, did you? Yeah.

You could have told me. Yeah, you could have told me with your face, you know? That is true. Yeah, so that was, so sometimes, so at the beginning, every bombing I took is so personally. It's got to crush you. I can't imagine. I can't, I could never do so. I will be breaking for like two weeks or, you know, a few weeks. I have been just thinking about it.

But then later on, as more you do comedy, you're like, I'm not bombing at all. I'm not bombing. It's just you can't find the reasons. Do you find that the audiences here tend to like crowd work? They love crowd work. I would think so. They love crowd work. They would love that engagement, right? And mostly nowadays, people learn stand-up comedy through social media. They watch stand-up comedy clips. Then every comedian posts crowd work.

because they don't want to expose their jokes. They want to save their jokes for selling tickets. What's kraut? What is it? When they interact with the crowd. When you're just riffing and you're freestyling and going back and forth with the crowd. Interesting. I thought the perspective was because you're showing off your skills, like how fast you are because you have to be fast.

If you're not fast, your crowd work is going to suck. And you can bomb doing crowd work. Exactly. So that actually shows your intelligence. That shows how fast you are. Oh, for sure. It's like freestyle rapping. It's so impressive. I saw your crowd work. I think it's really good. It's really funny. I don't think I'm very good at crowd work because I do more jokes. But then sometimes you will watch some really popular comedians in China. They only do crowd work.

Then you go to their shows, then you realize their jokes are so shit. They are only good at crowd work. They're just good at riffing on people. Yeah, then you see the best comedians who does jokes just doesn't do crowd work. You need to be really comfortable on stage to do crowd work like that. And also, if you watch enough...

offline shows you will find out a lot of comedians their crowd works are not they're planned a lot of them are planned oh they have a plan in the audience no no no it's not the audience the jokes are already planned so no matter what you what the audience is going to respond I already have a response so that's what most comedians do oh that's lame actually no but that's when you watch it you can't tell at all

That's kind of like what magicians do too when they like work with the crowd. Like they already know they have this set up and they just like, you know, they pick people who fall in line. You guys should have seen my crowd work with Crossroads. Oh, did you do a little riffing? Like the whole time. Where was this? At Crossroads. Oh, oh, oh.

Yeah. Well, let's not make this all about you, Eric. You should have seen my crowd work, though. You should have seen my crowd work. It was solid. Yeah. No, but like, because what I've seen of you, you seem, Don, you seem so natural on stage. Yeah, very comfortable. You seem really, really comfortable on stage. And were you always like that? Because the fear of like public speaking is like such a huge fear. It's like, I think it's like the number one phobia like in the world. Yeah.

Is that something you had to get over or were you just naturally always like not afraid of being on stage and talking in front of people? I always, no, I always kind of loved performing in front of people since I was a kid. But like in terms of like going on stage and do jokes, that's completely different. Yeah. Right. So you go on stage and you constantly fear that your punchline won't work. Like they won't laugh at your punchline.

I know I'm super insecure. I know a lot of comedians are very comfortable on stage. They're way more comfortable than me. And I'm not, I'm actually, I presented that I'm very comfortable, but I'm actually not. And especially I'm a, I'm more, I'm actually introverted person.

Yeah, I heard you say that. That's really hard on stage too, especially doing crowd work, right? When you're not good with people, when you're not good in a conversation, meeting strangers. It's crazy you say that. What do you tell yourself like,

when you have that constant sort of anxiety? Like, have you gotten better over time? Like, is there other mantras? Like, what do you do before? What's your routine before a show? I don't have a routine. You just throw yourself in? You drink coffee, alcohol, and tea. No, just kidding. Yeah, but, yeah, I remember I used to be quite nervous on stage.

But most of the times I remember just like as soon as you grab the microphone, then you start to talk, then they're sort of just gone. Unless you bombed in one joke. That one punchline didn't work. Then it's kind of messed up with your head up there already. Because you keep thinking about it. Yeah, you're just like, why? Then you just start to think, what's wrong with that joke?

then you kind of lose concentration a little bit. And you lose, I bet you lose confidence on all your next jokes too. You lose confidence. You can feel, sometimes you can feel the tone of your voice, the vibe when you're speaking is like different. So the audience, the audiences are like predators. Yeah.

they're down there, they're like, they can smell blood. They're down there, they can catch a tiny bit of your insecurities. They can see it. So once, yeah, you expose yourself there. Well, and I mean, it's so funny that you say like predator, right? Because that's how it feels to you.

And from their perspective, it's like they're actually just innocent people, but they feed off your energy. And because they feed off your energy, anytime they sense the dip, essentially like the show is just about raising their level of energy and their consciousness. So whenever they, they're basically attuned to you because they're watching your every move and that's what makes it so hard. And so that if you then do something where then you get in your own head and

then they're going to then feel that. You know, it's like... Secondhand embarrassment. Yeah, yeah. And then you feel it in your heart. And they're like, what should I do? It's so embarrassing. And someone's bombing, I will feel secondhand embarrassment. Immediately. And I really want them to do well so I don't have to feel this embarrassment. You know where I feel it? But the more they bomb, the more secondhand embarrassment and the more it's like this vicious cycle. Even one second, I feel it usually here. Yeah.

Like I actually feel it. Justin's like in the crowd like, Cho-Cho-Ni-Bi-Al-Ba-Ma. It's bad, man. So you don't have a routine. No. At least it's got to be better because people don't, it's a little bit better because there's no heckling here. I would imagine that if you had also to deal with like a culture that like heckles,

That would just even more be like, oh my God, like more fear inducing to me. For me, heckling, like sometimes I meet, I have audiences heckling me

I would use it. I would, I would try to use it because it's now it turns into, cause every audience know I'm not the asshole, you know? So now it's your advantage. Yeah. But when you're alone on stage bombing, then that's all on you. That's true. Yeah. It seems like silence is like, would be the worst.

like of anything. It's like, you know, you're like, if you're like, if you said something and you kind of pissed off your friend or your wife or, or, or your, you know, your parents or something like what I was most scared about, it was just like, no reaction was like the scariest. If they actually had a reaction, you could do something about it. It's like the no reaction. Then you're just like, you don't know where to go on the fence on that. Yeah. I'm on the fence on that. Oh, really? But what, but what's the culture here in terms of within the comedian community? Um,

Is there like, let's say, for example, I wanted to go into stand-up comedy. He's getting to where he's really trying to, what he's really trying to say. Complete newbie. He wants it. Enter. Is there this like hierarchy and culture of like, oh, this is the new guy getting into the scene. We're going to haze him. We're going to make him earn his dues. Like you have to like wash the dishes at the venue, like whatever it is. Is there that type of culture here in terms of this?

this kind of fraternity or sorority of like comedians and new people? I heard in the West, this is a thing. Yeah. Like when you're new, like it's... It's brutal. Yeah, it's brutal. That's what I heard. Yeah.

But here, no, here is very... Everybody's very supportive. Yeah, that's great. Very, very supportive. Especially the English scene. Yeah, if you're new, like everybody try to make you feel good. Wow, so... They make sure before you go on stage, the host will tell the audience...

like this is your first time stand up comedy is really hard and let's just give the best to him yeah that's so different because in the states they'll just throw you to the wolves you know like you swim or you die yeah but here like they give you a lot of encouragement and all that so um yeah that's awesome which I really appreciate this scene and also I think especially for English because there's not a lot of

financial interests and a lot of competition. That's why everybody's so supportive. Everybody's friends. Because if you're doing it, you're passionate about it at the end of the day. You enjoy doing it. So the comedians are all very supportive. There's no like kind of little competitions like in like a mean-spirited way at all where people are trying to sabotage each other? In Chinese comedy,

Hedge comedy scene, it could be a little bit different because there's so much more money involved in competition. Clubs will be reporting each other to the government like, oh, this club, they said something. Trying to shut them down. Yeah, this shit happening all the time, which is really bad, you know, because you're not only hurting yourself. Like in China, this means you're hurting the whole industry. Yeah.

If you report it on that club, to the government's eyes, it's like, oh, it's not this club is the problem. It's stand-up comedy scene is the problem. Like, it's uncontrollable. You know, it's crazy. So, I think that's really bad. But, you know, I think this backstabbing in...

in the entertainment industry, it just happens everywhere. But here in Shanghai, I would say we really appreciate the scene. There you go, Justin. You should do it. No, I'm joking. He's not joking. He's serious. I'm totally joking. Look at him. He's blushing. You know, I never really planned a career path here as a comedian here in China.

I like doing things on social media. I have a lot of followers watching my some like funny videos and sketches and stuff like that.

But as a comedian, I think just the script proving alone really threw me off. And I don't know I enjoy... Because yes, doing this is for sure enjoyment comes first for me. Because I have another job, right? So I have my main job as a director and that pays my bills and everything. And I love that too. So which makes doing comedy even more a passion, even more something that I would love to enjoy.

So I think I can see myself because we have one English show. It's called Spicy Comedy in Shanghai. That's the only English comedy in China. It's in China or in Shanghai that's licensed. That's a legit licensed show.

And I've been doing that a lot. And I noticed I just, at some point, I just really don't enjoy it. Especially every time I have to submit the script. Then it come with feedback of the script. This joke. That's so weird. This joke, you can't do that joke. You can't do that. It just really bombs you out. Sucks all the fun out of it. Yeah. Because you feel like,

comedy, I'm a comedian, I should be more an artist than a money-making machine. You know, which a lot of comedians here, I can, nothing wrong about that, but a lot of comedians here, they use comedy as not only a passion, also a money-making thing.

Which is great. Like, I feel good for them. They should, you know, they deserve getting paid and make money. But just playing that game along of, like, submitting the script is too much for me. Yeah, I mean, I see that from what you said earlier. Because, like, you know, you made this comment, like, in...

China, sometimes you don't grow up as this individual. You're representing all this stuff. So everything about your background and growing up in that small town, but having family from other places and really kind of sticking out and being...

Like that's you. So like going that now into this world where you're doing something really love, but then you have to do it in a way that everyone wants you to do it. Like that goes against every sort of bone in your body. And I also think it's, you get to a point of success. And I think everyone, like a lot of people will hit that wall because it's

you know, any kind of entertainer or performer, artist or whatever, because then it becomes commercialized and there's money involved. And then there are people that want to control it.

Once it gets big enough where other people, you know, have their own incentives and then, you know, whether you're like a director or you're like a filmmaker, you know, you're making TV shows, you're always listening. So that censorship, although it's something that maybe there are certain aspects of it here, but I think anywhere you go, you're always going to have some type of censorship because it's like aligning the interests in a certain way. But I feel like it's so, it happens so soon here that,

that it just probably takes all the joy out of it. Yeah. I'm cool with, like, I don't do politics on stage. I don't do, you know, like, any sensitive stuff on stage. But still, like, there's so many stupid, silly jokes, clean jokes that you can't do, which is just

I just really hated it. You got to work a lot harder for those jokes. They're a lot harder to come by, right? Because it's got to fit in that particular parameter. You know what's funny? Like a lot of comedians enjoy this. They enjoy the wedding. I talked to a lot of comedians. They enjoyed that because they think, oh, wouldn't it be fun to like bypass the rule, like to...

to like make your joke write your jokes actually right on the edge kind of thing not on the edge but like yeah they're just saying but it's like yeah so to them it's like a game like you're trying to like yeah in the old Soviet Union I don't know but there were I mean it was like the same thing right back in the day and a lot of the classical composers like they I mean they really had to follow you

Because they were very, very... Prokofiev was a very famous Russian composer. And they would get Shostakovich...

And they would get off on doing subversive pieces, right? Well, it's like an art form all in and then even till today, people are like, no, that person was like a puppet. And then other people like, you don't even know that person was not a puppet. Like we know that person, everything he did was subversive. It was like all a parody. And it was the ultimate joke because no one and the government level ever knew. Yeah.

it yeah but it was like like that but I don't I mean you know also there's a lot of audience didn't get it right yeah we're talking about like classical music so no one gets it you're like telling all these jokes like and everyone's like yeah no idea what you're saying exactly

But what's your outlook on the future of stand-up comedy here in China? Are you hopeful about it? That it's going to keep growing and keep getting better? I would just be happy that it survives here.

Yeah, I don't know about a better, I don't know if it's going to go better because in my point of view, the better is really like in terms of an artist, if an artist can create an art. But now you can see comedy is very, very commercialized here.

It's very much commercialized here. And it's going to a point that it's like, what are you guys doing with comedy? Yeah. I almost ask myself whenever I... I don't watch those shows. What is it called again? 脱口秀大會. 對,脱口秀大會. I've seen episodes and I see them here and there. I just feel like the general public who don't know any better...

are getting led to believe that that is comedy. - Yeah, yeah, that's the thing. But then there's a lot of people argue, say, "But they let so many people know there is comedy." There's the thing called standup comedy, which is true on a lot of level. 'Cause before that, most people don't know what standup comedy is. Then after that, you can see like offline clubs, there's so many clubs open up, then they're doing standup comedy.

But I know exactly what you're talking about. Because you can see people online, they've never been to one single show offline, but they only watch online, watch that show. And they think that's stand-up comedy. And they use that as the barometer. Yeah. And that's the weird thing. And that's so interesting because it's like different philosophies, right? Like where some people might be like, to your point, okay, we can get to a bigger audience online.

And then some people are more purists and say, well, you do that and you dilute the whole thing so there's no point anymore. And there probably are different schools of thought as well. I mean, there probably people are just commercial bastards, whatever, right? But there probably are different schools of thought on this. There's negatives and positives you might be able to take away. Yeah. I guess the argument on the other side is, to your point, Don, is...

Most people will know that there is such a thing as stand-up comedy, whereas that term didn't even exist before. And once they get maybe exposed to, oh, there is this thing called stand-up comedy, there are stand-up comedians,

And if they really enjoy it, maybe they end up starting to do their own research and they start finding other stand-up comedians abroad, like how you did and how your influences were. And they start seeing the Bill Burrs and all the other, and Michelle Wolfs and all the other comedians out there. Yeah. Actually, I remember at the beginning, a lot of those comedians from Togo Chodahue, they follow my way, they watch what I translated.

Then they look for inspirations and stuff like that. But then after Toho Tachiro went really, really famous and people start to learn that, oh, this is stand-up comedy. And they actually stopped watching Western comedy.

Yeah. Like you can talk to a lot of audiences here. They don't know who Louis C.K. is. They don't know who Bill Burr is. They don't know. But in order to even find a lot of that stuff funny, I think you have to get the cultural references. Because so much of it is rooted in like specific cultural references. Exactly. That if you didn't grow up in that culture, you wouldn't really know. Yeah. Or you weren't exposed to that culture. You wouldn't know. Yeah. The other thing I want to kind of dig in more is more about Chinese humor in general. Because I think there is a difference.

And without being eloquent in kind of describing what that means, what is Chinese sense of humor? Because I don't think I can do it, but I want to see if you can maybe.

There is a difference. I always hear it from my coworkers or from other people I'm around that are local. They're like, oh, 美国幽默感. 美式幽默感. 美式幽默感. 美式幽默感. And I'm like, what? Okay, sarcasm, I guess, is a big thing because I'm always sarcastic. Is that what that means? 幽默, sarcasm? No, 幽默 means humor. Okay. Right? And 美式 is American. But is that what it refers to? Is sarcasm? Well, I say it must be from my sarcasm because I'd always make sarcastic jokes about things. And they'd be like, 美式幽默又来了。

And then when watching, let's say, Chinese films or Chinese TV shows, I feel like the humor is a lot more physical. So there's a lot of physical humor or playing on words. Yeah, playing on words. So it's almost like you're expecting the word, this character to mean this thing, but they play it around. You're not expecting that.

Yeah. So those are the two things. It's mostly, it's actually pretty intellectual because you have to be smart in terms of breaking down characters and how to do the wordplay, whether it's delivering quickly and then, you know, miscommunication or physical humor, which is more like Lauren Hardy kind of,

Right? Old school Three Stooges. You know? So it's like, oh, I fell. Ha ha ha. Yeah. What's your take on this? It's really funny when you talk about, you know, satire. Because some...

Really, Chinese people don't get sarcastic jokes at all. No, like never. Yeah, no, that's something we used to talk about even before we ever did the podcast was like, we come in with our US sarcasm and people would take us seriously. Seriously, yeah. They took it literally. And then you're like, oh, fuck. They took me seriously. And then you look like a fool. Yeah. So you would be saying, for example, you would say something like,

oh, aren't you smart? And they're like, yes, thank you. It's like that kind of thing, right? It's like constantly. So I remember I have a really good friend, Peng Dang. He does comedy in Comedy Cellar. Yeah, he's a regular Comedy Cellar. So he's really good. And he came to Spicy Comedy. Then he did like a few shows there.

And he just couldn't get his head wrapped around why people don't get his subtle and, you know, sarcastic jokes. I'm like, ah. And then he's Chinese, you know, so... 但是他是用中文吗? 用英文。 对。 So, yeah, it's really, really... I think even in Chinese humor...

We probably have, yeah, we have sarcasm in Chinese humor. What is the Chinese word for sarcasm? 讽刺 讽刺 Yeah, we have sarcasm, but when you translate to English, somehow it just doesn't work anymore. But Chinese humor in general, it's very different. Even you can see like regionally, like the Southern and the Northern humor is so different.

Well, here's a timely one. What about, because every year during Chinese New Year, on national broadcast TV here, they have this whole celebration thing, right? Yeah, and then they have that comedy skit. What's that called? It's a name for this. When they do like a, it's almost like stand-up as a performance. It's a whole play. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I watch that because it's always on in the background somewhere when we're having dinner during Chinese New Year.

What is that type of comedy? Is that comedy that most Chinese people really relate to? What do you think of that type of comedy? I think recent years, people have more critics to Chun Wan's comedy. What type of criticism? Like, it's not funny anymore. It's too...

Yeah, like it is not funny anymore. Because you can watch like the ones we grew up watching. Like Chun Wan is our first entertainment to watch. It's like, wow, the best thing. Like the comedy are so funny. Like, you know, those Dongbei guys like Zhao Benshan. Do you know him? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's the best, right? Like they have this smart, clever, satire. And the skits are very funny. Very good skits. And the Xiang Sheng, sometimes the Xiang Sheng is really, really good. But nowadays you can see it's so...

We don't even know why. It's just not good anymore. Yeah. I think a lot of them, it's obviously the vetting for sure. Yeah. Because you can see back then, you can still talk about a lot more topics. The range is way bigger. It's way broader. You can see the sketch can do, they can do like sarcastic things on certain things. Or more sexual innuendos, you know. No.

Yeah, a little bit that. But mostly like sometimes they even talk about like corrupted officials or whatever. Like in the skits in Chunhua. Wow. Now you can never see those things. You can't. Wow. They used to have those kind of jokes too? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. A lot. A lot. They would be making fun of those people and all that. Yeah.

Yeah. But now you just don't see anymore. And also I think people's tolerance of comedy, their tolerance of jokes are like what I said, you know, they are so used to cleaner and more and more vetted content. So they can't see anything.

That's not even edgy. Because life isn't like that, right? Life is not so vetted. That's so similar to what I hear American comedians talking about doing campus gigs. So when they refer to campus gigs, they mean going to universities. Across the board, consistently what I hear from these top comedians is they don't do any university gigs anymore.

Because that's like they say that's the worst crowd to perform in front of because you can't do anything edgy in that crowd anymore. They get offended? Yeah. You can't do like anything remotely. And then even they have to even submit some stuff and the universities have to approve of their whole routine sometimes. But

Yeah. And it just reminds me of what you're saying. It's like this idea of people want it polished and clean and within the lines. Don't go trying to push the boundaries and be edgy. Yeah.

And I think echoing your sentiment a lot is like that is what stand-up comedy is all about. Like, I mean, that is very what like a lot of humor and comedy is founded on. Like if you go back in the day in the early like medieval times with jesters, the jesters were there was to poke fun of and roast people. Like that was the funny thing. And they were to even make fun of the king, you know, that was like their thing. Yeah, it's like that's like the very heart of comedy. If it gets too washed down.

It does lose, it loses that spirit. Yeah. How do they do roasting here? We do roast shows. We do roast shows, but unlicensed. We do the underground. Wait, you roast like specific people or you just like roast generally, like go around the crowd roasting people? No, we do like a roast roast, like comedians roasting each other. Oh. Yeah. So we do like, for example, on my birthday, I did a birthday roast on me. Like, so I got like a few comedians come to roast me.

That's fun. Oh, roaster. Did it hurt? I love roasting. The Comedy Central roasts were legendary. It's so funny. Legendary. Yeah. I love when people make me fun of, including myself. Yeah, me too. That's why we roast each other on the show. Yeah, we're always roasting each other. Which is funny because in China, people love to watch you roasting other countries' people. Other countries. Yeah, yeah. Like if you roast Chinese people, oh, fuck. You're fucked. Game over. Yeah, but in...

That's why my wedding speech went so viral. They see me like on my wedding day roasting my husband, roasting the Irish family. So

And they took it well, right? Yeah. Oh, Irish people can take a piss. Like you can just, yeah, you can take a piss on them. It's fine. And they love it. They absolutely love. And even like going to my husband's house, you can see everybody's like roasting each other all the time. That's great. Yeah. It's just the humor there is so different. And here, if you roast someone, people are like, oh, can you do that? No, you can't do that. Yeah. Hold on. When's your next show? Oh,

I haven't planned recently, but after Chinese New Year, I'm going to start planning probably a tour. Yeah, that's my... Because recently I've been really busy with my directing project. Great. So that was hard for me to do the comedy shows. Yeah. And also...

Yeah, also I'm trying to give myself a little bit of break trying to figure out because I think after I came back from Ireland, I'm just like, what do I want in comedy? Like, what exactly do I want? Yeah. I think that's a question a lot of people are asking themselves these days. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I would love to go watch. The next time you go, please let us know. I'm going to be there. For sure. I'm sure she's going to pick us out in the crowd and roast us. Roast Howie, please. Where can people find you if they want to connect with you? They can follow my... If you're Chinese, you're on Chinese social media, follow Xiaotianwang. That is my Weibo, Xiaohongshu, Douyin.

If you're on Instagram and YouTube, it's Donnie the Chinese. Donnie the Chinese. So, or search Don Juan, I probably will pop out. I love your name because when I was like Don Juan, I'm like, did she do that on purpose? Like Don Juan, you know? Wait, D-A-W-N? Yeah.

D-A-W-N in a Wong, like Wong. It's like she did it on purpose, but kind of not because that's her name. But it sounds like Don Juan, like D-O-N-J-U-A-N. What was funny is like, it should be Don and W-A-N-G.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right, right. But then all the white, you know, it's like wang. I'm like, I don't want to be a wang. That's true. It sounds terrible. I'm already a dong. Like, I don't want to be a wang also. That's true. That doesn't sound good. Interesting. You're kind of like, you're pushing them to pronounce your name more correctly. Yeah. Right? Dong wang. Big dong. Big dong.

Aidan, thanks so much for coming on the show. It was really fun talking to you. I feel like there's so much more I want to talk about, right? We need to have you back on. Yeah, let's do it. Anytime. So much fun. And we're definitely going to check out your shows. But once again, thank you for coming on the show and spending this time with us. Thanks for having me. Hey, cheers. Great fun. Cheers. Xinnian kuaile. Xinnian kuaile. Are you going anywhere? I'm going home. Home. Yeah. All right. Cheers.

All right. Well, that was Don. I'm Justin. I'm Howie. I'm Eric. All right. Be good. Be well. Peace.