- All right Singapore.
This is happening la.
Did I nail that? Did I nail the "la"?
It's pretty good? All right.
I'm trying so hard to learn these Singaporean slangs.
I asked Comedy Central Asia, "So how can I tweak my bits
a little bit to resonate with the Singaporeans?"
They're like, "Ah easy la, you just put a "la"
at the end of each sentence, you'll be fine la."
(audience chuckles)
I was like, "No, no, no,
like you can do that.
I can't do that, right.
That'd be cultural appropriation, right.
And I'll have no part in this nonsense...
la."
(audience laughs)
Tell you guys a little bit something about myself.
My name is Brian.
I'm from Taiwan.
28 years old, I still live with my parents.
Yeah. (audience cheers)
Yeah, there's pride in that, come on.
Yeah and you know why though, right?
I live off my parents because I'm from Taiwan,
I can't like, declare independence or whatever.
(audience groans)
Yeah, it's usually frowned upon on the international stage.
Yeah that's what happens.
But you know, first time in Singapore.
I love the place.
I just got here yesterday.
But when I landed, I sorta found that I had a sore throat.
And I was like, "No, I'm doing Comedy Central Asia tomorrow."
I have to find an ENT clinic right.
So I whipped out my phone, opened Google Maps.
I'm a lazy guy, so you know I use the speech to text feature.
And I say to my phone like "er bi hou ker"
which is "ENT clinic" in Mandarin right.
But I forgot to switch languages,
so when I said "er bi hou ker",
it was like "happy hooker",
(audience laughs)
which is not what I was looking for at first.
(audience laughs)
But just outta curiosity I was like,
"Yes!"
Yeah I'm like, I'm not the only one with a sore throat tonight.
(audience laughs)
Guess what I found, I found no results.
Singapore,
your hookers are not happy.
(audience laughs)
You guys know there's actually a store
called Happy Hooker in Chicago?
Yeah, it sells fishing supplies.
(audience laughs) Get that.
Like what's it next to, Master Baiter, come on, right.
But Taiwan is a great place. It's an island full of flora and fauna.
We have actually, an endangered species
called the rock macaque, yeah I know how it sounds.
Yeah, rock macaque, if you rocked it more you wouldn't be endangered right.
The point is, we're not allowed to touch these monkeys.
So if a monkey comes along, he touches us, that's fine.
But if we touch the monkeys, that's bam, $3,000 fine.
Yeah, and the biologists all think this is ridiculous.
They're like, in what world does this make sense.
They can touch you, you can't touch them.
I'm like, no that's how I chill with girls too.
(audience laughs)
I basically get really close and hope, hope,
for physical contact.
"Please, please, I have a guava, please touch me."
(audience laughs)
We also have a lot of frogs.
So, I recently learned this interesting fact.
In most frog species, only the male frogs croak.
Did you guys know this?
Yeah only the male frogs croak.
And I thought this was fascinating.
So I asked a biologist, what are they trying to communicate?
They must be trying to send across some kind of message.
And the biologist was like, well like yeah,
so when a male frog croaks,
it's tryin' to send two types of different messages.
Now the first type is the male frog would approach
a female frog, he'd be like, hop, right. And he'd be like,
(croaking)
And that's frog language for, "I'm a dude."
(audience laughs)
Subtext: "I wanna hop on your back."
And I was like, okay, okay, that's normal procreation,
circle of life.
So what's the second type of croak?
He's like, the second type of croak
is when another male frog hops on his back,
he's like, "I'm a dude!"
(audience laughs)
I was like, "Okay so both scare people off,
that's great, fantastic."
(audience chuckles)
I don't know, they probably taught this in school.
I wouldn't know.
I've never been the ideal student growing up.
I got sent to detention when I was in second grade.
Like who does that, detention second grade, right.
And I'll tell you the reason why.
So there's this kid in school called Henry.
He kept stealing my Legos, all right.
Now, you gotta understand, as a seven-year-old
having your Legos stolen, that's a big deal.
So I went to the teacher.
I tried right.
I was like, "Ms Jenai, it's Henry,
he's stealing my Lego car.
He's breaking and entering my Lego house.
He's usurping my entire Lego nation."
(audience chuckles)
But Ms Jenai, she was Palestinian,
so she was like, "Pft,
call me when someone steals your whole country."
(audience groans)
I did not know if Ms Jenai was just messing with me,
or if she actually knew I was from Taiwan,
'cause that shit happened 70 years ago, all right.
(audience laughs)
Take that, Miss Jenai.
But anyway, I was still angry right.
So I punched Henry and got thrown in detention.
Now the worst part about detention is not detention itself.
It's having to explain what detention is
to your Taiwanese parents.
You know that day I got home, my mom was like,
"Why are you home so late?
What's detention?"
And I tried to play it down.
I was like, "You know, it's not that big of a deal.
All that happens is, after school we have to stay
in this big classroom.
This really boring-looking teacher in the front forces us
to finish our homework.
After one or two hours, we're free to go."
And at this point, my dad came storming in.
He was like, "What happened at school today?
What did Brian do again?"
(audience laughs)
And my mom was like, "Can you believe what your son
did at school today?
He found a free tuition center!"
My dad was like, "But we pay for that shit!"
(audience laughs)
Yeah, I've done some studying abroad.
I finished my Masters in Paris actually.
Now Paris is a city that's very, very different
from my hometown Taipei, very different.
Everything is different, like the way we greet each other is very different.
So in Taiwan when we greet each other,
we do this really held back, this like, "Hi."
(chuckles)
I dunno, yeah 'cause like in Taiwan,
we avoid physical contact at all costs.
Like we don't embrace each other,
we don't shake hands, we do this.
(audience laughs)
But when you're in Paris, and you meet your friend,
you're supposed to kiss them?
I was not prepared for this.
(audience laughs)
You know first day of school I get to my classroom,
meet my female classmates,
we're like, "Salut, salut, mwah, mwah."
I came so hard.
(audience laughs)
You guys gotta understand.
Like as an Asian dude, this is as far as I get
with European women.
This is carpe diem right there.
This is like, seize the day.
(audience laughs)
But like next day, I went to school
with this huge backpack.
And all my classmates were like, "Wow Brian, you study so hard, you're so diligent."
I'm like, "Nah man, this is all underwear, dude."
(audience laughs)
I gotta keep myself dry throughout the day,
all your greetings and shit.
(audience laughs)
It's very different, it's very different,
For example, the metro system.
So both Taipei and Paris, we have metro systems.
But the things inside are a little bit different.
So in Taipei, our metro, we have bathrooms, right, we have toilets.
But in Paris, they have walls.
(audience laughs)
So for those of you who have never been to Paris,
you can basically pee wherever you want.
(audience chuckles)
It's like this giant urinal.
Probably why Chinese tourists like going there so often.
(audience groans)
Yeah, I'm Taiwanese I get to say that.
I check my privilege.
But anyway, the point is, it's super different.
And so another thing, in the metro system,
both metro systems have vending machines.
But in Paris, their vending machines sell condoms.
Yeah l'amour, right.
Whereas in Taipei,
we sell tissues.
(audience chuckles)
Yeah, tells you something about our night lives.
(audience laughs)
It's also the reason why we don't shake hands.
"I'm fine, thank you."
Thank you guys so much, that's my time.
(audience cheers)