Joe Wong the comedian

May 6th, 2009 · Comments

Joe Wong is originally from China and came to the United Sates in 1994. He has a doctoral degree from Rice University. He works for a large pharmaceutical company in Boston. By all indication, he falls into the stereotype of "smart, hard-working, nerdy, foreign-born" scientist with a heavy accent.

But, he has been moonlighting as a comedian in the New England area. He has become quite popular. He just made his first appearance on David Letterman show.

Some people might argue that some of his jokes make fun of immigrants and are self deprecating. But, if you listen closely to his jokes, you will find that he has an unusually deep understanding of American culture. It’s apparent that he has put in a lot of thoughts into his jokes; they’re not as simple as they sounds. He is clever, insightful, and humorous.

I appreciate his humor. I think we need more people like Joe Wong, who has the courage to break the stereotype and has the persistence to pursue something that he is passionate about.

Do you like his jokes? Check out his appearance on David Letterman Show.

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Tags: Learning and Growing

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Victor 06/02/2009 08:59 AM 1 point
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Jokes in Chinese are actually very technical and a bit complicated, and often are funny because of wordplay, or using particular words in different contexts, though they sound the same or similar. In a lot of ways this is why english subtitles are all quite incomplete because chinese conversation is very specific. For example, many times a short chinese sentence, completely translated, will yield a much longer english sentence than is normally spoken.

But actually you can see this is joe wong's comedy. The way he purposely misunderstands a topic or word to make it funny, that is to see it from a contextual shift, is an interesting extension of chinese humor into the english realm.

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Maggie 05/18/2009 10:04 AM 1 point
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Finally, a really funny Chinese comedian! Chinese are not loud, never famous with geity, and their jokes are subtle. I like Joe Wong because he has this face that doesn't show much expression, but his jokes are really funny ... the kind that make you think first, digest it and have a tummy aching laugh!! Good job, Joe Wong!!

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