Blog been getting way too serious lately… Let’s lighten it up, shall we?
“Robots are causing all the Robot Crime in Robot Chicago…”
Ronnie Chieng, Johore (Malaysia) born, Singapore and Aussie-educated standup comedian, recently went on Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show with a case for an Asian President in the White House, how every Asian-American child “no longer has to aspire just to be a neuro-surgeon.”
We first came across Chieng when he played the status-chasing cousin/ Poser Dad coaching his 3 sons to freeze at “optimal angles” for photo ops and dictating his wife’s dress labels (Bottega Veneta, anyone?) in Crazy Rich Asians…
Dis is him (pic from news.com.au)
… though Chieng has a day job as a senior media correspondent on The Daily Show, and recently he interviewed Democratic Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang about his 2020 run (I’ll add that I think many candidates get in the race to make themselves heard, bring up issues they care about in the debates, not just say, bid for nuclear launch codes):
Gotta be a little impressed Yang managed to keep a straight face what with Chieng just… bloviating everywhere, Robert Greenstein, Founder/ President of the Center On Budget Planning & Priorities, a Washington D.C. think tank focussing on fiscal policy that affects moderate and low income households, kinda lets a few smiles escape when declaring I Am Not A Robot…. But I Could Be… Y’know, in case you thought this blog segment was all about Big Birthday Parties With Ulterior Motives Serious World Domination.
Greenstein nonetheless affirms Yang’s plan for Universal Basic Income – putting USD 1000 a month into the pocket of every American citizen – as a beautiful way to allocate funds, with a big qualification that it costs so much the US Govt would never be able to afford it. (How to pay for it is addressed in the clip further down)
(On an aside, Yang is a father of two boys, the elder of whom he mentions openly in interviews is autistic, and in his elaboration below about Universal Basic Income, he highlights how his wife stays home to care for the kids and among others UBI “pays”/ incentivises vocations or jobs that are difficult but not acknowledged as actual “jobs,” like that of the Stay At Home Mum/ Dad who can’t make a 9-to-5 (but can start an online business/ take some refresher courses etc). Also that the majority of Americans who receive UBI aren’t going to quit their day jobs, but need a little extra help paying off student debt, paying for kids’ education…
As for the Who’s Going To Pay For It, I also view it as a play on time. An investment expense today that goes towards retraining to keep from existing skills becoming obsolete, ultimately funded/ repaid in the form of a better skilled, better educated, debt-free workforce, paying back the government in future taxes on higher earnings. Someday those Jobs and Employment economic numbers gonna show real results. (Not say, Issa Election Year We Need Fewer Poor People Let’s Adjust The Poverty Line/ Minimum Wage etc Calculation So We Call Fewer People “Poor’. (Even if they’re making exactly the same amount they did before we changed the definition of “poor” or “unemployed”..))
More cashflow, higher spending power, a cash injection, to be spent on more taxi rides, eating out, shopping, various other consumer “luxuries”… Yang highlights job creation et al… and a 10% value-added tax (not unlike Singapore’s GST) and forgoing of Welfare Benefits to pay for it (not to mention shifting some of the tax onto companies like Amazon.):
While this post was more about Asians killing it at Standup (before I got a little carried away), the diverse candidates and plans that American presidential candidates will discuss in upcoming debates are a real wealth of entertainment and education – not just because of the many ideas they are floating in order to solve America’s (and to some extent the world’s) problems, but because of who they are. Incredibly diverse. Talk shows are gonna get so much more exciting than the Kardashians.
Oh wait, you also need to see who some of the other Asians in Standup (besides Ronnie Chieng) are… Like Dr Jason Leung (hang in there for the “Everyone fears Chinese bit..”)-
(Forgive him, he went to medical school. Yes he is a real doctor.)
AND I saved the most interesting and thought provoking for last – Joe Wong, who performs regularly for audiences in both China and the US, and tries to make it all a little bit better with a laugh (this one didn’t go to med school. He just has a PhD in Biochemistry):
The world truly is changing – and it’s not all bad.
ps: Want more Ronnie Chieng? He’s also known for hammering Fox News for the so-horrendous-it’s-almost-funny-but-only-Asians-get-to-maybe-laugh-in-the-same-way-only-black-people-get-to-laugh-at-racist-black-jokes (and sorry white people looks like you don’t get to laugh at anything) car crash of stereotypes that the current mayor of New York then came right out and condemned. Here’s Chieng’s clip which includes respectful interviews of Chinese Americans at the end – sorry ’bout the language (BIG CAVEAT); and I almost liked when the Fox guy tortured Asian martial arts categorisations completely to death, BUT I did not like when he put very old people on camera who obviously had no idea what was going on – nothing justifies that disrespect.
(And I say this as someone who speaks nothing else nearly as well as English – either I’m super blur, or I really haven’t encountered a native speaker of any Asian language who behaves like I’m stupid just because I don’t speak their language well (not counting those who might think Imma plebe – ay, I got an A on that Sun Tzu elective I took in Uni okayyy – wait for it – which I wrote in English <sheepish>) OK anyway):
For the younger folk who might miss the Alfred E. Neuman For President reference by the Cantonese-speaking interviewee who didn’t want to choose between the two candidates in the last presidential election:
This is Alfred E. Neuman (pic from Comic Vine)
For real though, Fox Guy Trolling Chinatown probably made more American Chinese raise their kids to run for POTUS someday… I’m just sayin’..
