Read: 2026-08-08
Recommend: 8/10
I like how unapologetically she tells the truth about race and gender. It made me think about how, as a minority, we should navigate trying to do well in a society still shaped by white male dominance. I also appreciated her attitude toward life: when in doubt, go out.
Here are some text that I highlighted in the book:
I really began to rethink my plans of being a stay-at-home mom after I saw that movie Jiro Dreams of Sushi. It’s an acclaimed documentary about the Steve Jobs of sushi in Japan. He’s extremely anal about the temperature of the rice and the texture of the fish. He has two sons that are his protégés, but it’s very hard for them to live up to their father’s legacy. Because Jiro is so dedicated to the craft of sushi, at night he dreams of sushi. Everybody watched that documentary in awe of Jiro and his singular commitment to the art of fish. I watched that film and thought, Where the fuck is Mrs. Jiro? She isn’t even mentioned in the goddamn documentary. Somebody had to raise those two sons while Father Jiro was busy being a sushi hero. Somebody had to wash the cum out of the sheets at night after Jiro furiously beat off to the perfect piece of glistening mackerel in his mind. What does Mrs. Jiro dream of? Freedom. Recognition. Divorce. I saw that movie and decided that I wasn’t gonna go out like that.
Even if I had wanted to stay at home and not work, I really couldn’t. Daddy’s family made Mommy get a prenup. A “prenup” is short for a “prenuptial agreement,” but what it really means is: “I still don’t trust this bitch.” So if Mommy had fallen out of the workplace completely, and Mommy and Daddy got divorced, Mommy would’ve been fucked SO hard.
Nobody is great at stand-up comedy right away and it’s important to have room to experiment, find your voice and, most important, to fail.
And Tony Sparks smiled, cupping the back of his ear. “Say what?” This time louder, everyone repeated in unison, “A lot of love!” “I can’t hear you!” “A LOT OF LOVE!!!” And then all the bitter comics would temporarily be awakened from their depressed-ass state, clap furiously, and scream, in awe that they were part of an actual community with actual traditions. While I did my three minutes about K-Y Jelly, and the difference between extra virgin olive oil and slutty olive oil, Tony was right there to my left, laughing and clapping. And when I got offstage, he bent down to my ear and whispered, “You gonna be famous.” From that day forward, I would go up every single night at a different mic and try a million new jokes. I mostly bombed. It’s the only way to get good.
A comic once told me to never take a stand-up comedy class because it’s hacky. And it is hacky. If you disregard my advice and pursue stand-up, please at least do not ever take one of those courses. Doing the open-mic circuit is real stand-up comedy class. That’s when you really find out if you have the strength and stamina to make a real audience laugh. The audiences for those stand-up comedy class shows are made up of friends and family of the students in the class. It’s not a real audience. Those laughs aren’t genuine. Those classes are a sham because they’re too safe and nobody will respect you if they ever learn you took them. Again, if you become stand-ups, I’ll be riddled with anxiety. But if you become stand-ups and take those classes, I’ll say you’re not my children. Stand-up is not supposed to be warm and fuzzy or welcoming. If it was, everyone would do it. Some people think that stand-ups are all dysfunctional or have mental health problems or bad families. But I think all you need to be a good stand-up is to have a unique point of view, be funny, and enjoy bombing in front of strangers. You really do have to learn to like bombing a lot. Even now, when the audience is too good, sometimes I think, I didn’t deserve that. You’ll know you’re a stand-up when, after a spectacular bomb, you don’t feel like you want to quit, but instead the opposite: You want to go up again. If you don’t bomb, you’ll think you’re good and there’s no work to do. But there’s always work to do. That’s the beauty of stand-up. A joke is never finished. There’s always more material to write. A joke can always age or get stale. It ain’t music, where Mariah can sing “All I Want for Christmas” over and over. (That’s my favorite song and if you don’t like it, again, I’ll say you’re not my children.) In that sense, stand-up is a lot like fashion: It demands innovation with every new show, and you’re only as good as your last collection.
Friends and family kept asking me how I was doing in NYC and I just didn’t know what to tell them. They were wondering, “So have you MADE IT YET??!!” And no, I never really made it in New York. But in retrospect, the loneliness was good for me. It caused me to focus. There were nights where I would perform nine sets in one evening because that was the whole purpose of me moving to NYC, but also there was nothing else for me to do.
The absolute worst is when one of those women is an aspiring stand-up comic and expects me to help her skip the line. I’m down to help people out if I can, but only after they’ve paid their dues. And I’m not one of those women who doesn’t like other women. I love women.
In the world of stand-up comedy, I’ve felt an increasing amount of jealousy and resentment from certain white male comics for being a woman of color. I hear that line a lot: Me, I’m just another white guy. Here’s a solution: Try being a funnier white guy. There are plenty of white guys out there,
Bottom line: Spending a significant amount of time outside the United States in your formative years makes you a better person. You learn things from simply living your day-to-day life in another country that can’t be taught in a classroom, like open-mindedness and empathy. Plus, you get to eat delicious food and (hopefully) fuck hot foreigners.
It blew my mind how far the U.S. dollar could go; it felt like the entire country was on sale. And like my cheap uncle says, the best thing about Vietnam: “NO TIP.” No wonder why gross, loser American men love to go to Southeast Asia to feel powerful. “I’m an expat” is a very fancy way for these men to say “No one would fuck me in America” and “I’m a pervert who wants to sleep with as many Asian women as possible.”
Either you’re a “vegetarian,” which is a Buddhist monk who has no sex and shaves their head and lives in the temple and eats tofu with soy sauce and water spinach for the rest of their lives, or you’re a person who has sex or will eventually have sex and eats meat. Those are the only two choices of things to be.
I was hoping to find love with someone on my program. But again, it consisted of 98 percent women. I think this is common for study-abroad programs. Women tend to be more adventurous and you have to have your shit together to go abroad. There’s a lot of paperwork and fear of the unknown involved. One of the boys was another doughy white man (no thanks). And the other was a guy named Hai. From the moment I saw him, I was into it. He looked like the male version of me, which really turned me on. He wore tortoiseshell glasses, short-sleeved checkered shirts, cargo shorts, and colorful New Balance sneakers. I wanted to fuck a version of me that had a dick—the ultimate form of self-affirmation.
A question I always get asked is: “What is it like being an Asian American woman in Hollywood?” I hate this question almost as much as I hate “What’s it like to be a female in comedy?” because nobody wants their identity and defining characteristics reduced to just race and gender. I resent that white men never get asked, “What is it like to be a white man in movies?” And what disappoints me even more is that the people asking me are always Asian American. It feels like they want to hear a titillating story
The answers to making it, to me, are a lot more universal than anyone’s race or gender, and center on having a tolerance for delayed gratification, a passion for the craft, and a willingness to fail.
it was very important for me to know, early on in my life, that an Asian American woman was capable of making all of those complicated emotions cohabitate in one amazing art piece.
The other question young people always ask me is: “What advice do you have for a person like me, an Asian American woman wanting to get into Hollywood?” Here it is: Let go of seeing yourself as nothing more than an Asian American woman. Ask yourself who you are outside of that. Challenge yourself to get out of the community. Don’t just drink boba, do your laundry at home, take pictures of food, go outlet shopping, and talk exclusively to other Asian Americans. Even if you end up doing something totally unrelated to entertainment, I want you to take this advice, because I want you to become interesting, confident, and cultured women. Expose yourself to how other people in America live, how they think, and you will discover the universal struggles that connect us all, like how we all sleep in hotel rooms and pretend they’re not covered in the cum of a thousand dead lonely men. If you hang out with the same people, you will only be able to make those people laugh. Go to Burning Man. Travel to different cities in America. Travel the world. See concerts. Go to plays. Eat Ethiopian food. Introduce yourself to everything there is. When in doubt, go out. Not just for material, but to experience new people, new social situations, and unfamiliar surroundings.
After I watched Hedwig and the Angry Inch, I went on to see it in the theater ten more times.
I remember walking down the street as a family when I was around eight years old and two white teenagers started saying “ching, chang, chong” as they passed us. I remember being called “chink” in a football game in high school and the next kickoff sprinting toward that person and drilling them into the ground. Racism and stereotypes are unavoidable and not everyone will understand where you come from, but having Grandpa Ken, similar to your mother today, embrace being an Asian entertainer on TV with such fearlessness, a pioneer on the airwaves, taught me pride and showed me that representation matters. This is why I buy you Asian Barbie dolls and children’s books with faces that look like yours: because I want you to grow up immersed in role models that look familiar, so that you too can be inspired and live in a world of creative possibilities. By the time I met your mother, I was able to draw from my childhood experience with Grandpa Ken to recognize and support the unique path your mother was forging for herself.
Allowing your mother to publicly poke fun at what was a sensitive spot for me was scary at first. But over time I realized that the jokes enabled me to better see the expectations I placed on myself that didn’t match our reality and therefore weren’t helpful to me, or us, to continue to bear.