If you haven't laughed at all yet.
I'm assuming it's just
because you're still trying
to figure out, ethnically,
what I am.
(audience laughing)
The best way to describe what
this face means
is half of me built the railroads
in this country
and the other half told
the first half to do that.
(audience laughing)
My mom hates that joke a lot.
(audience laughing)
Guess which one she is.
(audience laughing)
On my white side,
it's a lot of German, very, very
German.
I speak German, almost fluently.
I speak it, I speak it pretty much
fluently.
So after the show,
if you speak German,
don't talk to me because I'm lying.
But I speak it pretty fluently,
and I love the language.
I think it gets a bad rep
because here they just show us
German propaganda, basically.
Like they all sound, like,
(Imitating German) like mean.
When you listen to the language,
it's kind of nice.
And also, their language gives you
an insight into how they think,
the efficiency, literal.
That's very German.
For example, look
at the translations from English
to German literally and you
will see how German minds work,
all right?
We say things in our language
in English like, have fun, right?
That's what you guys are doing now.
Fun is just something you can have.
You want some fun?
Here, here, take some.
Oh, look.
I found some fun back here.
You want it?
Go take it.
Germans say
(speaking German)
which literally translates to make fun
because you're not allowed to just
have fun.
And you think you could just have
the fun lying around
or just you think the fun just grows
on the fun tree.
And then you just climb the fun tree
like a little fun monkey.
And you grabs a fun fruit.
And, mmm, this is delicious fun
fruit.
And the fun juice drips down the fun
chin, and the fun chest onto the fun
ground.
You think that how this works.
You didn't even plant that fun seed.
That someone else's.
It grew into the fun tree,
and you stole the fun fruit.
You are a fun thief,
and you steal fun.
That is who you are.
(audience laughing)
I wouldn't put it
past a German person
to go to a little girl,
like four-year-olds, for a birthday
party, be like, "you little girl,
"what is all this, ribbons, cake,
"presents, all for you, for fun?
"You know the only person who made
"fun on this day, who did work
"on this day, your mother.
"This iPad is hers now.
"Thank you very much.
"Here you go, Mama.
"Have fun with Candy Crush.
"You, here's a stick, here's a knife,
"go wittle something.
"Make some fun.
"What's your high score?"
(audience laughing)
My mom is an immigrant,
fresh off the boat from Hong Kong.
She's Chinese, in case,
you didn't get the railroad thing.
(audience laughing)
And I feel for her because she told
me a lot of-- moving to the Midwest,
she told me a lot of horror stories
about the racism she had
to encounter when she was here.
So I was fully on board
with the Stop Asian Hate movement.
I was 100% on board with it.
And my favorite story was
about the 76-year-old Chinese
grandma who got blindside punched
but then grabbed a stick,
and beat her assailant
into a stretcher.
(audience laughing)
Now if you're not clapping
or laughing,
and you didn't like that,
think about if someone punched
your grandma,
and then your grandma
just went Rambo on them.
How would you react?
(audience laughing)
You'd be like, yo, Grandma,
you got this.
I'm going to hang back.
Scared of you more than ever.
(audience laughing)
But here's why that's
my favorite story.
Because if that assailant,
if that dude was a little bit less
racist, just a little bit,
he would have known that a stick is
a minority grandparents favorite
thing to beat people with.
(audience laughing)
That's her secret weapon.
That's like punching a gremlin
near water.
What are you doing?
(audience laughing)
It's the same thing.
In both instances, you're punching
something ancient, tiny, and Asian,
(audience laughing)
that if it touches the thing
next to it,
has the power to suddenly
destroy you.
(audience laughing)
It's insane.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
Like this woman's been beating kids
since the Ming dynasty.
You don't think she can take out
a millennial from the Bay Area?
(audience laughing)
(audience cheering)
That's nothing.
That is nothing to her.
Catholic nuns watch YouTube
tutorial videos of old Asian women
just beating people with
sticks like, yo, Mae Ling got hands.
(audience laughing)
What do you think sister, subscribe?
Yeah.
I got this.
(audience laughing)
I don't even think she picked up
the stick.
I think she got punched,
landed, and then like Thor's hammer,
she just reached down, pow, just
knocked him across the freeway.
Mae Ling for life.
(audience laughing)
The only thing that would have made
this story any better,
the only thing, is if she would have
handled the interview afterwards
like a pro athlete.
(audience laughing)
Because she was quavering.
She's an old lady.
But that would have been awesome,
is if the reporter came over,
and she was just like,
so how did you fight off someone
who was bigger, faster, and stronger
than you?
And she just stole the mic out
of the hand and it was like,
"it ain't about the size of the dog
"in the fight, it's about the size
"of the fight in the dog."
Just drop the mic, drop the stick,
off to the locker room.
Mae Ling's out.
(audience laughing)
Mae Ling's coming back
in the second half, swinging.
Who want some?
(audience laughing)
But because I grew up
in the Midwest, you know, I wish--
I just wish I knew more
about my Chinese heritage.
You know what I mean?
I don't know as much as I want to.
But I do know that whoever invented
tai chi,
was just the best at not touching
things in public restrooms.
(audience laughing)
And apparently, we all learned
from the same master, right,
the same Shifu, the same sensei
because we all do the same thing.
And if you don't agree with me,
you're lying.
This is any of us trying to get out
of a public restroom stall.
All right.
I'm good.
(flushing sound)
(audience laughing)
Made it.
Phew.
(audience applauding)
Oh, my phone.
I got to go back in.
That's what I get for tweeting
on the toilet.
Oh.
(audience laughing)
That's how tai chi was invented.
It wasn't one Asian monk who trained
in the mountains for 20 years,
it was one trucker who stopped
at a Pilot station in Colorado.
(audience laughing)
He's just like, not today used
Band-Aid, get out of my face.
Getting out of here unscathed.
(audience laughing)
It's weird, people forget, people
forget culture and heritage are
different, right?
You know what I mean?
Heritage is just your blood,
who you are.
You might be
a little Irish, little Scottish,
little German, Chinese,
whatever you are.
But your culture is like who you
grew up around.
And I think that influences who you
are more than anything, right?
Your friends, your family,
the people you're with right now,
it's your culture.
In Indianapolis, it was all Black
and white people.
So I consider myself very culturally
Black and white.
You know, I talk very white
around white people,
as you can tell.
And I talk very Black
around Black people.
Always an awkward silence,
every show I've done,
every time I say that.
(audience laughing)
I don't care, judge me all you want.
Those are my friends and family.
I don't even care.
You judge me, all right.
I say things like finna.
I'm finna go do some comedy.
When I want someone to repeat
something, I say, give it to me
one mo again, and they usually do.
(audience laughing)
And most importantly, when I want
to get at the end of a story
but I don't feel like telling
the middle of the story,
I say things like woo woo,
to propel me to the end
of that story.
(audience laughing)
All right, confused white people,
let me explain.
(audience laughing)
Woo woo is just a Black version
of the phrase, one thing led
to another, that's all that is.
It's just to take up
80% of the middle of a story
you don't feel like telling.
Here's a Black dude telling a story.
Ay, man, me and my boys cruising up
to this club.
And all of a sudden it's like, woo,
woo, woo. (mumbling) say, ay.
And I was, like ah, ah, woo, woo, woo.
My friends like whoopty woo ah ah ah
woo, woo on this and then I fell off
a bridge.
And you're like--
(audience laughing)
--you don't want to clear up
the middle of that?
You went to a club, and then bridge
falling off.
That's how that story went?
If it's a book, it'd be prologue,
woo woo, epilogue, end of book.
(audience laughing)
Why are they building bridges
near clubs?
What are you-- what city are you in?
You just never know.
As a matter of fact,
that's how I thought Obama should
have just pacified white people who
didn't like him, in his speeches,
to just confuse them and leave.
(audience laughing)
How great would that have been?
He just goes up there,
"ah, listen.
"Now they questioned my health care.
(audience laughing)
"And you know what, they questioned
"my birth certificate, as well.
"And to those people,
"I just have one thing to say woo woo
"woo woo woo woo woo, legalize
"gay marriage.
"Thank you very much."
(audience cheering)
We'd all been like,
I don't know what his platform is,
but I'm voting for this guy.
I didn't understand any--
and the best part is they would have
to teach that to your kids
in history classes later.
Some social studies teacher would
have been looking at your kids like,
"turn to page four.
"And in 2012 Obama enacted the Woo
"Woo act as a legitimate defense
"in a court of law.
"Turn to page five."
The weird thing is the only people
that ever gave me any grief
for talking like that were not
Black people, it was white people.
And I was like, you don't have a dog
in this fight.
You can't get offended on someone
else's behalf, it doesn't make
sense.
My Black friends, they didn't care.
They just knew that was me being me.
And I think they understood,
it was a sign of respect.
Really think about it.
If someone from another country,
came to this one,
and asked you for directions,
in whatever your accent is.
"I don't know how you get
"to the corner of the street."
And you just rattle off
fluent English,
it's going to be too much
overload, they're going be like,
"I don't understand.
"Slow down, please."
But if you look them
dead in the eyes,
and talk to them just like them,
and you're like, yes you
do go to this corner of the street.
And you take a three left and four
right, and you go backwards,
in the forwards.
They're going to be like,
"you are best American.
"I understand everything, everything.
"This way, right?
"Yeah."
(audience laughing)
If you don't believe me,
I have to do that to my own mom.
I know I'm right about this.
I'm just like, yeah, Mom,
you're cooking.
Just take the chicken put it
in 300 degrees for 30 minutes.
She's like "I don't--" and I'm like,
put it in at 300 degrees for
30 minutes.
She's like, "gotcha."
(audience laughing)
(audience clapping)
That's why I don't even think you
should teach foreign languages
in schools anymore.
You should just teach broken English
in other people's accents.
(audience applauding)
Why not?
Spanish 101 course.
"Today class, we're covering
"confrontations.
"Repeat after me, that's no yours,
"homes.
"Now you go."
(audience laughing)
Very good class.
A-plus.
Dismissed early.
(audience laughing)
Let's go home.