After decades on the fringe, Asian comedians are getting the last laugh
Joe Wong – bespectacled and dressed in an outfit casual enough for a grocery run – bounds onto a stage on New York's Upper East Side. Before he tells his first joke, he
notices a phone raised in the front row. 'Oh, you're taking pictures?' he asks. With exquisite comic timing, he strikes the one pose guaranteed to land: a rigid smile, frozen in place, flashing the Asian V-sign.
Joe Wong on stage in China, in 2025. Photo: Courtesy Joe Wong
The crowd erupts, and he's off.
'I'm an immigrant parent,' he begins after the laughter dies down. 'They say that two wrongs don't make a right, but two illegals can make a legal …'
The Jilin-born comedian moved to the United States at 24, carving out a career in one of the hardest fields for a non-native speaker, let alone a Chinese man in America. Doing stand-up in a second language demands the cerebral dexterity of conducting a symphony from memory. It also requires navigating nuance, cultural complexity and the risk that one misjudged punchline could get you cancelled faster than J.K. Rowling at a gender studies conference.
In recent years, Wong, 55, has found himself part of a broader shift. He's one of a growing number of Asian comedians making their mark on Western stages and sharing their perspectives. From Ali Wong and Ronny Chieng to Jimmy O. Yang,
Atsuko Okatsuka and Sheng Wang, Asian comics are no longer niche. They are highly bankable and decidedly mainstream.
Hong Kong-American comedian Jimmy O. Yang poses for a portrait at The Peninsula Hong Kong in Tsim Sha Tsui, in June. Photo: Sun Yeung
It's a striking change, especially given the road has been anything but smooth. During the pandemic, a surge in anti-Asian hate crimes swept across the US and Europe, and at the 2016 Oscars, Chris Rock infamously introduced three Asian children dressed in suits as accountants, a throwaway joke about Asians being good at maths, the moment underscoring how often Asian identity was still treated as a punchline. How did these performers move from stereotype to storyteller, and what has it taken to challenge the culture of comedy?
This week, Wong returns to Hong Kong to perform his Twin Tariff show in both English and Mandarin, one of the few stand-ups to regularly delight audiences in the US as well as China.
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After decades on the fringe, Asian comedians are getting the last laugh
It's May 2024 and Joe Wong – bespectacled and dressed in an outfit casual enough for a grocery run – bounds onto a stage on New York's Upper East Side. Before he tells his first joke, he notices a phone raised in the front row. 'Oh, you're taking pictures?' he asks. With exquisite comic timing, he strikes the one pose guaranteed to land: a rigid smile, frozen in place, flashing the Asian V-sign. Joe Wong on stage in China, in 2025. Photo: Courtesy Joe Wong The crowd erupts, and he's off. 'I'm an immigrant parent,' he begins after the laughter dies down. 'They say that two wrongs don't make a right, but two illegals can make a legal …' The Jilin-born comedian moved to the United States at 24, carving out a career in one of the hardest fields for a non-native speaker, let alone a Chinese man in America. Doing stand-up in a second language demands the cerebral dexterity of conducting a symphony from memory. It also requires navigating nuance, cultural complexity and the risk that one misjudged punchline could get you cancelled faster than J.K. Rowling at a gender studies conference. In recent years, Wong, 55, has found himself part of a broader shift. He's one of a growing number of Asian comedians making their mark on Western stages and sharing their perspectives. From Ali Wong and Ronny Chieng to Jimmy O. Yang, Atsuko Okatsuka and Sheng Wang, Asian comics are no longer niche. They are highly bankable and decidedly mainstream. Hong Kong-American comedian Jimmy O. Yang poses for a portrait at The Peninsula Hong Kong in Tsim Sha Tsui, in June. Photo: Sun Yeung It's a striking change, especially given the road has been anything but smooth. During the pandemic, a surge in anti-Asian hate crimes swept across the US and Europe, and at the 2016 Oscars, Chris Rock infamously introduced three Asian children dressed in suits as accountants, a throwaway joke about Asians being good at maths, the moment underscoring how often Asian identity was still treated as a punchline. How did these performers move from stereotype to storyteller, and what has it taken to challenge the culture of comedy? This week, Wong returns to Hong Kong to perform his Twin Tariff show in both English and Mandarin, one of the few stand-ups to regularly delight audiences in the US as well as China.
