- You know, it's tough when kids call you names.
It's always worse when they just use your name.
- I knew she was about to get to my name,
'cause she had that, like, ethnic pause.
- My life now is just a never-ending guessing game
of "Where Are You Really From."
- Open your eyes!
I don't know how my mom did it.
You know what I mean?
My mom's amazing.
She had two kids that were living at home at the time
when she was single, and she raised both of us really well.
She was amazing.
She became the mother and the father.
And the reason why I tell you that is
because she reminded us every fucking day.
There wasn't a day that my mom didn't tell us that.
Just me and my sister, just playing in the room,
playing around, and then my mom would just
come into the room and go,
"I just want you kids to know one thing.
I'm the mother and the mother and the father.
I bring home the bacon, and I cook that motherfucker, too."
(audience laughing and clapping)
My mom was tough as shit!
I dare anybody to fuck with my mom's kids!
Dare anybody, my mom was 4'10, she'll fight anybody.
She didn't give a shit!
That's how tough my mom was.
I remember one time, I was at a shoe store
and I was fucking up the shoe wall.
You know the shoe display wall?
Fucking it up, just putting shoes all over the place, right?
And the salesman saw me, and he was like,
"Hey, get the fuck outta here!
Fucking up the shoe wall, get the fuck out of here!"
He's cursing at me, right?
He didn't know my mom was in the back of the store.
He couldn't see her! (audience laughing)
She's 4'10!
My mom popped around the corner, she was like,
"Hey, who are you talking to?
You don't talk to my children like that!
Who are you, huh?
I want to speak to the manager!"
(audience laughing)
And the guy started making fun of my mom's accent,
"Oh, you want to speck-speck to the manager?
You want to tock-tock to the manager?"
And my mom goes, "Oh, that's funny.
You're making fun of my accent?
I live in your country and I speak two languages,
Tagalog and English.
You live here.
How many do you speak, one?
You're stupid." (audience clapping)
So the guy started cursing at my mom, right?
He was like, you know what?
I don't need to hear this shit.
Get the fuck out of my store.
Take your kid and get the fuck out of my store!"
So my mom started cursing back, right?
I've seen my mom curse before,
but we've never seen her get into a curse-fight.
And when you curse, certain words go together,
but my mom takes whatever curse words she knows
and throws them at you.
He's like, "Get the fuck out of my store,"
my mom goes, "Oh yeah?
You son of a shit, fuck your pussy!
Have some dick with a shit in it
and your pussy has a mother mother shit!
Fuck your pussy, you!"
(audience laughing and clapping)
I looked at my sister like,
"Did mom just say 'mother shit?'"
If I lost something, I lost it.
My mom would never help us find shit.
Normal parents help their fucking kids, right?
Normal parents help, it's like, "Okay,
did you lose something?
Your keys?
Was it in your pants?
Well, what jeans-
Were you wearing jeans?
Well, let's look for those jeans."
That's how you fucking help your kids find shit.
Not my mom.
If I lost something, I can guarantee
my mom's right behind me, fucking with me.
She enjoys that shit.
If I'm looking under the couch,
I guarantee my mom's right behind me like,
"Oh, what, what, what?
What's under the couch, Joseph?
Is it your keys?
Did you lose your keys again?
Well maybe they walk under the couch like that!"
(audience laughing)
Now I gotta ask my mom for help,
that's the worst mistake I can make.
"Mom, I'm late for work.
Do you know where my keys are?"
"Joseph.
Did you just ask me where your keys are?
Isn't that a stupid question?
That is a stupid question, Joseph!
'Excuse me, person that does not drive my car.
Do you know where my keys are?'
That is stupid, Joseph!
Why don't you ask me where my keys are?
I'll know the answer to that!
Go ahead, Joseph ask me!
Come on!
Ask me right now."
"Mom, do you know where your keys are?"
"Of course I do!
Of course I do, Joseph!
I know where my keys are all the time!
You know why, Joseph?
Because I put them in the same place
that I always put my keys.
I hang them over here
on this wooden plaque
that says 'keys!'
Joseph, when you lose something,
do you use your eyes to look for it?
Or do you use your mouth?
Because every time you lose something, Joseph,
you use your mouth to find something.
You can't find anything like that, Joseph!
You just walk around, 'Has anybody seen my keys?
I don't know where my keys are!
I'm late for work,' open your eyes!
Look for them!" (audience laughing)
- My name is Tien, but my full name is actually Hanhtien,
which is spelled H-A-N-H-T-I-E-N, remember that.
I once had a teacher in high school,
♪ A white teacher ♪
who was reading through roll call.
And I knew she was about to get to my name
'cause she had that, like, ethnic pause.
And before I could say anything,
she looked at those letters, H-A-N-H-T-I-E-N,
and said out loud,
"Is there a Hank Tina in the room?
Hank Tina?
Is there a Hank Tina here?"
That means this grown-ass adult,
who's been given the power to mold young minds,
looked at those letters, H-A-N-H-T-I-E-N,
and thought to herself,
(laughs)
"This is unfamiliar to me.
You know what?
I'm just gonna combine the nicknames
of my favorite two American names,
Henry and Christina, Hank Tina."
Hank Tina?
Hank Tina's not a name anywhere.
That's not a name that exists anywhere in the world,
unless you're, like, the child of progressive parents
from small town, Missouri.
And they're like, "Get on out there, Hank Tina!
C'mon, scoot!
Find the gender expression that fits you!
Scoot, Hank Tina, scoot!
You love it when I say 'scoot!'
Scoot, Hank Tina!"
- Surprise!
Sheng Wang is Chinese.
(audience laughing)
What's up, everybody?
Thank you so much for being here.
My name is Sheng Wang.
Sometimes when I tell people that, they're like,
"Wow!
That is perfect for pursuing standup comedy."
I'm like, "Yeah, but first,
I was trying to pursue childhood."
You know, it's tough when kids call you names.
It's always worse when they just use your name.
Even recently, I was making a reservation
for this hotel in Arkansas.
I gave the guy information, it was all good.
I told him my name is Sheng Wang, he said, "That's funny.
You don't sound like that."
I was like, "My bad.
I'm sorry if I don't meet your racist expectations.
I'm sorry if I don't sound like
a complete stereotype, Arkansas.
You, on the other hand, doing a really good job."
- So I was hanging out with my younger brother recently
and we got into a conversation about
how great an older brother I am.
I brought up the topic.
And he was being sarcastic 'cause he had remembered
a game that I had invented when I was six and he was four
called "The Belt Game." (audience laughing)
You see, I found my dad's belt
and invented a game where the rules were
you had to hit each other with the belt.
And that's as far as I'd gotten at that point.
Now I'm the older brother, right?
So I got to go first.
(audience laughing)
So I took the belt and I whipped him
in the eye.
(audience gasping)
And he started screaming and crying like a four year old.
And then my mom walked in, and to my surprise,
she also knew how to play the belt game.
(audience laughing and clapping)
I was like, "Mom, how do you know how to play the belt game?
I just made it up!"
Apparently she was an old pro.
Because she would take the belt
and she would hit me across the back with it.
And she said, "Now you know how your brother feels."
And I looked back at her and I said, "No, I don't.
I hit him in the eye!"
(audience laughing)
That was the end of belt game
and a much needed return to Nerf.
- I grew up in a predominantly white suburb
and when you're one of the few Asian-American kids,
people say some pretty weird stuff to you.
And by weird, I mean, like, entertainingly racist.
Not like, "Oh my God, that was so bad,"
but "Oh my God, that was so creative.
How did you come up with that?"
So I was in high school, shopping for tankinis
at the local TJ Maxx.
Yes, ladies, tankinis, 'cause I wanted to be
modest but flirty, you know?
Show an inch of my skin so people are like,
"What's the rest of her stomach look like?"
And so I was shopping for tankinis
and I felt a tap on my shoulder,
and I turned around,
and this white woman goes, "Are you Michelle Kwan?"
(audience laughing)
And I love picturing this woman
seeing me across the way, thumbing through tankinis,
and she's like, "Oh my God.
Oh my God!
Is that...
Is that two-time Olympian five-time World Figure Skating
champion, Michelle Kwan in my favorite TJ Maxx?
Oh my God!
No one else in the store knows!
No one else in the store knows.
Okay, I'm gonna go talk to her,
I'm gonna go talk to her."
(audience laughing)
I didn't say anything right away
because that's never happened to me before,
and so in my hesitation, she goes, "Are you Michelle Kwan?"
(audience groaning)
I don't want to speak for Michelle,
(audience laughing)
but I feel like I'd know my own name if it was Michelle.
You wouldn't have to slow it down for me.
When I look back on that moment, though,
I can't blame her because I was
shopping for tankinis like this.
(audience laughing)
That's for all the Kwanatics out there,
that's what we call ourselves.
- It was weird growing up in the Midwest with my situation
because I find that my life now is just a never-ending
guessing game of "Where are You Really From," you know?
It's just exhausting to get it all the time.
Like I was at a party recently,
and a guy I did not even know approached me
from across the party, and without even knowing my name,
the first words out of his lips were,
"I'm sorry, but what kind are you?"
Like I'm some sort of unmarked dessert
on a buffet bar, you know?
It was just that casual.
And it's so frustrating, it's, like, fine,
I don't mind having the conversation,
I don't mind answering the questions,
it just never turns into an interesting conversation.
Like, every single day, it's just like,
"Oh, I'm from South Korea,"
and they're like, "Oh cool, I taught English
in South Korea for a year,"
and I'm like, "Awesome, I knew some D students
in high school who needed to escape, too," you know?
We all know 'em.
Okay good, some of you knew some people who needed to flee.
That's good.
It's just frustrating.
I don't know, it was never worse-
I worked at the Olive Garden for two years.
Hold for applause, okay.
(light applause)
Wow, some of you think you're too good
to clap for the Olive Garden.
Well, have I got something to tell you, you're not!
No, I love the Olive Garden.
I worked there for awhile and I remember this one time
I approached this table, it was three elderly white guys,
and, you know, we exchanged pleasantries,
and then at one point, one of the guys at the table
was like, "Say, son, are you Korean?"
And I was like, "Oh my God, that's an amazing guess.
How did you know that?"
And he was like, "Well, I fought in the Korean War,
so I know a thing or two about this."
And I was like,
"What does this mean for our relationship now?
Do you need a new server?
Are you going to have a flashback or something?
What's going on?"
It's almost worse when people guess correctly.
Like, I met this guy on a dating app,
and we exchanged numbers, and we were texting
back and forth, and out of the blue at one point,
he was like, "So you're Korean, right?"
And I was like, "Yeah, that's amazing.
Like, how did you guess that?"
And he was like, "Your eye shape."
And I was like, "Ugh, like, are you gonna
measure my skull next?
Like, where are we going with this?"
And the weirder thing is that
I hadn't sent him any pictures of my face,
I'd only sent him pictures of my butt hole,
so I don't know what eye shape he was talking about!
Very confusing, very confusing.
I deal with a lot of questions about my race,
but one question I get a lot,
and it's sort of like a jokey question,
you probably get it too.
Do you get a jokey question that bugs you?
Okay, so on the count of three, we're going to
say the question that we get at the same time.
And hopefully it's the same question because this is on TV.
(audience laughing)
This is a big life moment for me.
So if you mess this up,
have that weight on your shoulders
as I count down from three, okay?
One,
two,
three.
"Do you eat dog?"
Okay, you didn't say anything.
Outrageous.
No, that's the question.
People think they're so clever,
like they're the first person
to ever ask me this question.
"Do you eat dog?"
And it used to me piss off and upset me,
'cause I get it, like, I know why
you're asking the question,
but at this point in my life, I'm like,
"Yeah, I would fucking eat a dog.
Why not?
I eat all the other meats.
Doesn't seem like an issue."
Okay, I'm losing you.
I can sense that.
But, bear with me, there's a point to this.
Do I have any dog owners in the audience tonight?
Make some noise if you're a dog owner.
(audience whooping) You guys have dogs.
Here's the thing, I would eat your dog,
sight unseen, I would.
You don't even have to show me a picture,
I just know that I would eat it
if it were presented to me.
If it were cooked nicely, you know?
But the thing is, that's the line for me.
Like, there's all these ads in New York right now
that PETA has, that has a spectrum of animals,
and it's got a pig on one side and a dog on the other,
and it's like, "Why would you eat this pig
but you won't eat that dog?"
And it's like, "Because I've never met that pig, okay?"
If I knew its first name, that might change things!
That's the message of "Charlotte's Web," it really is.
You can eat any old pig you want
as long as it doesn't have an inner life, you know?
And that's where things get really dicey.
What they need to do is do what they do
with cigarette packs in Europe.
You know, they put blackened lungs
on the outside of the packs.
If they would just put facts about the cows
on the burger patties, I'd never eat
another god damn burger.
You know, if it was just like, "This is Daisy.
Her favorite color is blue,"
and I'd be like, "I can't eat Daisy!
She likes 'Magnolia,' I love that movie!
We have too much in common, I can't do it!"
(hip hop music)