A molecular biologist walks into a comedy club and goes onstage...
Sounds like the perfect set-up for a joke, right? But in the case of Joe Wong, it actually happened. Joe holds a Ph D in molecular biology, still works for a pharmaceutical company on cancer research and is the comedian du jour in the US, making appearances on The Late Show with David Letterman and Ellen. This March, he's headlining the Radio and TV Correspondents’ Association dinner with President Barack Obama* in the audience.
How does a scientist – they don't exactly have a reputation for comedy – decide to make people laugh? For Joe, the realization came quite late.
“I was in college in China when I wrote two sketches. I thought one of them was quite funny. I never really thought about becoming a comedian until I came to the US.”
Joe went to the US in 1994 to attend university. After the company he was working for in Texas closed its doors, Joe moved to Boston, the mecca for stand-up comedy.
“I didn't even know there was an art form called stand-up comedy until I moved to Boston in 2001. I found out that there were comedy clubs here where people could go onstage and tell jokes. I went to a couple of shows and I was addicted,” Joe said. A few months later, he was performing onstage himself.
Joe grew up in Jilin province in northeast China and discovered comedy at a young age. “I grew up in the 70s and 80s and there was very little entertainment. We didn't have a TV, so I listened to the radio a lot. The programs that I enjoyed the most are xiangsheng or crosstalk.”
Crosstalk is about as close to stand-up comedy as you can get in China. It is performed by two people, one to set up the jokes and another to deliver the punchline.
What works in America may not necessarily work in China
Joe describes his comedy as intelligent and observational. “I know a lot of ethnic comedians in America make fun of their ethnic roots – Asians make fun of Asians and Italians make fun of Italians. My comedy is slightly different. It's more about observing American culture from an immigrant's point of view.”
His ethnicity, of course, is part of the routine. “People here are not so used to seeing Asian comedians onstage. I have to say something about my heritage, otherwise, people will keep thinking about it. It's good to say something up front to make people feel comfortable. That's why when I got on Letterman, the first thing I said was 'So, I'm Irish' and basically joked about my ethnic background a little bit. People could laugh and forget about it, then I can move on with my jokes.”
As Joe found out firsthand, though, the jokes that American audience lap up won't necessarily be appreciated by the Chinese.
“I went to Beijing in 2008, which is where all the stand-up comedy happens. I performed at one of the theaters on a Sunday afternoon. I basically translated all my jokes from English to Chinese. Maybe only about two jokes got a strong response. They were play-on-logic jokes, those that don't rely on cultural context.”
In China, a joke from a hundred years ago will still be appreciated by the audience. In the US, jokes have to be new, current and very up-to-date.
One reason could be that there are differences between the American and Chinese brands of humor. Joe points out that in China, humor has more tradition. A joke from a hundred years ago will still be appreciated by the audience. In the US, jokes have to be new, current and very up-to-date. There's also more sarcasm in American humor. Plus, the audience have different expectations.
“In America, they expect stand-up comedy to be very fast-paced; they want to laugh every 10 seconds. In China, you can spend more time setting up the joke, taking your time before delivering the punchline. The audience is not in a huge hurry. They're basically drink tea and eat some peanuts while listening to the jokes.”
A constant struggle
Joe has also made his mark in China. He was on CCTV and has been featured on radio, newspapers and magazines there. His parents, who still live in China and have never been to the US, didn't see the behind-the-scene struggles that Joe faced.
“It's been eight years and a lot of hard work, especially because stand-up comedy is not as popular as it was back in the 80s. It's a labor of love; I didn't make money for years and years. A lot of times, to perform onstage at a comedy club, you have to bring your own audience. As an immigrant, I didn't know anyone in this country, so I ended up talking to people on the streets in winter, trying to convince them to watch the show. The beginning was really tough.”
Joe is currently trying to develop with other comedians a TV series that reflects Asian-American life. “If you watch all the TV shows in America, there's not a single one that's mainly about Asians in the US. In the mid-90s, there was a TV sitcom by Margaret Cho, but it was very short-lived. It's a long shot. It's very hard to get a TV deal and people tend to watch reality shows more than scripted TV shows nowadays.”
Whether he pulls it off or not, Joe will probably continue on trying to make people laugh. “I just love humor. That's kind of the way I see life. You know, in this world, we had Hitler who killed millions of people and the great humanitarian Mother Teresa. But in the end, they both died. That, to me, is the biggest joke. I'm here to harvest jokes from everyday life. That's how I see the world.”
/ Written by Geni Raitisoja /
*President Obama canceled his appearance at the event. US Vice-President Joe Biden was the guest of honor in his stead.
