2min chapter

Asian Not Asian cover image

S2E2: The Secret Art of Self-Defense w/ Emma Choi (NPR's "Everyone & Their Mom")

Asian Not Asian

CHAPTER

Are You a Fucking Weirdo?

There's not a lot of Asian people in comedy at Harvard. So there's not a community to help you through that. And I think, I mean, you guys probably felt this, but like being Asian in comedy is like, you know, you're not enough of a minority to like say whatever you want,. But you're not white enough to also saywhatever you want. Um, and yeah, and that's really hard.

00:00
Speaker 1
Um,
Speaker 2
and yeah, and that's really hard. And there's not a lot of Asian people in comedy at Harvard. So there's not a community to help you through that. Sure. Yeah. And I think, I mean, you guys probably felt this, but like being Asian in comedy is like, you know, you're not enough of a minority to like say whatever you want, but you're not white enough to also say whatever
Speaker 1
you want. So it's like, you're always self censoring. So it's really fun. So yeah, that's such a good point. And what you mentioned about, you know, I feel like sometimes going to these really, I don't know, prestigious institutions, you feel like, you know, you're not really supposed to explore that, you know, being a creative person or whatever. Right. Like, and I sometimes think that, you know, I wasted my time at Berkeley because like, you know, if I was, if I knew I was going to fucking be a podcaster, I would have just skipped college. I don't know. I don't need to have a degree to do this. This is stupid. But like, you know, because when you're, I think when I was at, at Berkeley, it was like very much you're going to be a professional in some way. And maybe for you also, by that time, I'm going to, or I'm going to be in tech or something, right? It was like these very high powered roles makes perfect sense. But if you're like a fucking weirdo, like me, you know, like, you just don't know what to do. I remember I interviewed at like, I remember, I was like, I need a job right after graduate. No idea what that meant. And I was like, I need to work in office. And I think I would like to be a manager looked up the job office manager. Didn't realize what office managers do. Yeah, now I also realize I would be a terrible office manager. I'm not organized. I'm not, I'm not good at that sort of thing. But I didn't know, right, because if you didn't go into the four or five, like things you were supposed to do, then you're fucked. So you're just like, the these, no, I'm not, I'm not even talking about just like, not even talking about like any kind of crazy, like, stand up comedy, right? I'm talking about just like, another kind of job, you know, I, you know, so that was where I got like, tripped up, because I was like, to your point about not being Asian enough, I was like not a cutthroat. I'm going to be a consultant or something like that. Didn't even know what that meant. So like,
Speaker 2
no, it does.
Speaker 1
Yeah, right. And so, yeah, I don't know when you, when you got out, you feel like, okay, well, office manager, you know, like me.

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