For the humor unit at Freestyle Academy, we were tasked with researching two different humorists with a related type of performance, and then create our own humor performance based on what we learned.
For my two humorists, I chose Dave Chappell and Robin Williams, and I specifically researched their stand up acts. Earlier in the year I had done research on Asian stereotypes in Silicone Valley, and since I am an Asian living in Silicone Valley I wanted to make my comedic stand up related to that topic. Many of the jokes I make are related to my family and my travels to Taiwan. Many common stereotypes are used to make my performance funny.
Analyzing:
Doing a Stand up act was difficult for me because I had never done a comedy performance before and I don’t watch comedy often on a normal basis. So coming up with the jokes, ideas, and pacing of my stand up was a tiring process for me that I went into with only what I knew about other comedians.
I analyzed and made sure to watch a lot of stand up acts myself to be able to understand the speech pacing. I made sure my jokes also made sense in a linear fashion so that I could tell somewhat of a narrative when giving my presentation.
Script:
Below You will find my script, and if you watch the actual video act, you will notice that the script may not match exactly the act. This is because when I made the flashcards and practiced my act, I wanted to also make sure it flowed well so I took away some of the jokes and restructured my act right before preforming it.
Script:
See I think I had it pretty good growing up, both my father and mother loved me and I had the perfect balance between a harsh white family and strict asian.
One of the many benefits of being both white and Asian is that I don’t have to be a prodigy in both Violin and Piano. Just piano.
Even though there are benefits there are also clear lines to which side of my family belongs with which. I’m not sure when I was convinced to try soy sauce on sphaggheti or ketchup on tofu it just happened.
It is pretty easy to differentiate between the two, you can’t get two sides more different than owning a Vineyard in livermore to the Taiwanese worker immigrant. Who knows maybe one of my grandparents made the train tracks to ship the wine for the other.
It’s pretty easy to make fun of my different racial backgrounds because of how distinct they are. The rich white side shows when I have a car ready for me when I get my license, and the Asian side shows when I am excited it is a cheap, recycled, beat up, 2006, crusty prius that I dented in the first week of driving.
But don’t worry the only thing that got hurt in that accident was my mothers pride when my driving habits didn’t include tailgating people as much as she does.
pause
Also some people might not get it when I say harsh white family. For clarification my dad, both his brothers, and two of my aunts did graduate from Stanford, meaning they expect me to be, “smart.” Although if I did apply to Stanford I wouldn’t have to lie about being on the swim team.
Just like this comedy presentation, I may have been over exaggerating on my initial application, but honestly, I think I have a good shot because my parents can cough up the money for a “special counselor.”
Short pause
I really am not a religious person, power to all yall who believe in god but I have only found myself ever praying in very few situations. Nine out of ten times it is when I am taking the public transportation in Taiwan.
breathe
When I do have to ride the bus I look around and most of the people are looking down at their phones and casually talking away, you know casual bus stuff. Except I am in the back screaming my lungs out as driver makes another two wheeled turn.
Like, nobody else cares that he is racing to get to the next stop as if practicing for his next grand prix. Aaaaaaand he scrapes by, barely missing an entire row of elementary school children in their dinky yellow coats going to the local sweatshop as a field trip. Probably just so they can buy a new pair of socks with the twelve cents an hour they make at Amazon’s warehouse.
And on the topic of capitalism I would like to point out another thing you should try when going to Taiwan. Definitely check out the night market, you can buy anything you can think of at the Taiwanese night market.
Okay, maybe not everything, like you can’t buy people, try China for that one. They really do sell everything from seafood to household pets, you just have to remind them to fry, boil, or just chop it up raw.
So when I would go to the Taiwanese night market I would walk up to a random clothing store and ask “oh how much is this hoodie?” and of course I wouldn’t understand them and they wouldn’t understand me cause I never paid attention in Mandarin class, so I would ask my mom “oh how much is this hoodie?” and she would say something like
“oh five thousands NT,”
English mom, ENGLISH MONEY.
“Three bucks.”
“SWEET inflation is the BEST!”
God I love capitalism. Maybe not most of the world but I sure as hell do and that’s what matters. Although, maybe if capitalism hadn’t have destroyed the Asian economy the busses could have afforded seat belts.
Performance:
Here is the actual performance which I did in class. I think I did overall a good job and was able to conqueror most of my fear standing in front of the crowd by being laid back. I also got some good feedback for future performances.