Ep. 24: Comedian Olivia Xing discusses her Party School special, ESL comics and how to handle bombing on stage

Chinatown 2.0

English - March 24, 2023 04:52 - 51 minutes - 35.1 MB
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Previous Episode: Ep. 23: (Mandarin) Weibo co-founder Indigo on China's startup scene, NFTs, life in Japan/Vancouver

Olivia Xing is an actress, standup comedian, artist and student based in LA, and she recently did a one-hour comedy special called Party School where she told jokes about China, the US, politics in both countries, and the immigrant experience.

00:00 Teaser
00:44 Intro
02:48 How Olivia got started with her Party School comedy special
08:19 Chinese debate show 奇葩说
12:12 How Chinese comics and rappers deal with censorship
16:26 Olivia's biggest takeaways from her comedy special
18:38 Richard's favorite jokes from Olivia's comedy special
23:29 ESL comics: English-as-a-Second-Language comics
25:13 Minority comics shouldn't pander to stereotypes just to get laughs
30:02 Fellow professional comics she admires
32:36 Cultural outlets for the Chinese diaspora
35:25 Why there are so few male ESL comics
37:33 Recommendations of ESL comics to follow
42:45 How Olivia deals with bombing on stage