When I got off the stage, I walked through a thick cloud of weed smoke and saw Snoop Dogg. Snoop gave me the coolest handshake and said, “Good job, homie.” This was the crowning moment of my career.
Become a series regular on a TV show
Stop driving Uber
Get my own apartment
Win an Oscar
Meet Snoop Dogg
I was invited to do a podcast at Too Short’s studio the next week and I got to hang out with the legend himself. Too Short is a West Coast rapper whose career spans from the eighties with hit singles such as “Gettin’ It,” “I’m a Player” and “The World Is Filled…” from Biggie’s Life After Death album, to more recently, the Bay Area hit song “Blow the Whistle,” where he famously says, “What’s my favorite word? Bitch!” He is known as the man who made the word bitch famous in rap songs. His studio is a giant warehouse converted into three recording studios, a live sound stage, a room filled with arcade games and full living quarters. It was every artist’s dream to be in that place.
On the podcast, we talked about BET, strip clubs and weed. For a kid that grew up in Hong Kong, I had a lot of common interests with a rapper who grew up in Oakland. I took a hit off of Too Short’s blunt and I coughed for the next five minutes. He laughed and said, “You can’t handle that Too Short weed.” And he was right: one hit and I was high for the next eight hours. I confessed to Short during the podcast: “I actually used to make beats before I got into comedy,” and I showed him some of my beats. He started bobbing his head. “This is good.” That was the ultimate stamp of approval in hip-hop. All the days spent making beats for the Yellow Panthers had finally paid off.
In the Boombox studio with DJ Bobby Loco, Too Short and my golden All Def movie award. I was so high that I have no recollection of taking this picture.
I thought selling beats to Fudgestick.com was the pinnacle of my music career; now I found a new frontier collaborating with Too Short. Short rapped on one of my songs and I was featured in one of his music videos. It was one of my lifelong dreams come true. Stand-up and acting are my bread and butter, but there is always a special place in my heart for hip-hop music. When we shot the music video for the song called “You Came to Party,” I knew exactly how to make it rain in that party bus from the hours of research I did on BET Rap City. The song also happened to be one of the end credit songs on Silicon Valley in season four. Jian Yang and Too Short made for a new dynamic duo.
This time, instead of asking myself, Now what? I had learned to enjoy the Now. Looking back to see how far I’d come from making music at Chris’s apartment to making music in Too Short’s studio gave me a brand new perspective. It’s exciting to chase after a new goal, but it’s meaningless if you can’t sit down and enjoy the moment.
LIFE IS LIKE BUYING A FLAT-SCREEN TV
The day you buy your 55-inch flat screen and throw away your old Zenith tube TV is one of the best days of your life. You call all your buddies over and you watch Planet Earth for eight hours. It’s magnificent. That flat screen marks a milestone for your success. You’ve made it. Then two months later, you get used to the 55-inch TV; it’s just another TV to you. You watch the Price Is Right on it and scream, “One dollar! Bid one dollar, you fucking idiot!” just like you did when you had your Zenith tube TV. And sadly, you can’t go back to your Zenith tube TV. You have tricked your brain into a new standard and there’s nowhere to go but up. So you set a new goal to buy the newest 75-inch 4K TV. You save an extra hundred dollars every paycheck, and it feels exciting. You visualize the awesomeness of 4K in your dreams every day. You finally go to Best Buy and pick up your new baby. It’s the happiest day of your life, and the picture is better than your eyeballs can handle. You invite all your buddies over and you watch Monday Night Football in majestic 4K. You can even see a piece of Tom Brady’s perfect brown hair flow in the wind as he delivers the perfect spiral. It’s so awesome you get hard a little bit. Then another two months later, you’re sitting there alone screaming at Brady because you are coming up short in your Fantasy Football League. “Throw another touchdown, you fucking asshole!” And now the 75-inch TV becomes the new normal, yet again. Your amazing TV becomes just another TV. You can’t even go watch the games at Buffalo Wild Wings with your boys anymore because their 65-inch TV now looks like a Zenith tube TV to you. You go back to watching the Price Is Right, verbally abusing the contestants. Everything is still the same as when you had the Zenith tube TV. Then they roll out a new OLED super-high-def 85-inch TV. You’re motivated again, striving to get the new standard. But now you understand the cycle. You look back and see how far you’ve come from the crappy Zenith, and it gives you a whole new appreciation for the 75-inch TV you have in front of you. You learn to enjoy Monday Night Football again while you remain excited for the OLED 85-inch TV in your future.
CHAPTER TEN
HOW TO
AMERICAN
I finally became a US citizen in 2015. I had been qualified to become a US citizen for several years, but it cost $725 to file the paperwork. I wasn’t unpatriotic; I just didn’t have $725 to spare until 2015. The main differences between a US permanent resident with a green card and a US citizen are the right to vote, the right to sit on a hung jury and the right to not get deported if you claim you’re a US citizen at the Tijuana border. I was finally convinced that I needed to become a US citizen when a friend told me his buddy with a green card was deported after he was charged with domestic abuse. I wasn’t planning on beating my imaginary wife, but I realized I could have gotten deported for something trivially illegal like smoking weed in public. That wasn’t a chance I was willing to take. Just to be clear: domestic violence is terrible and all perpetrators should be deported to an island where they beat each other in a giant octagon, like a Thunderdome for assholes. All the logical factors aside, truthfully, I did feel a great sense of pride in finally becoming an American citizen.
To become a US citizen, I had to pass the civics test to prove that I had a good enough understanding of American history and the English language. I had to prepare for a Q&A from a booklet, “100 Civics Questions.”
How many justices are on the Supreme Court?
What is the economic system of the United States?
What does the judicial branch do?
I have seen enough of the “Jaywalking” segment on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno to know that most US-born citizens wouldn’t know the answers to these questions. I had to study those questions like it was the SATs. They should have let me pass the test just based on the amount of Bud Light and American football I’d consumed over the last ten years. I think the test should have more relevant everyday American questions like:
What constitutes pass interference in the NFL?
What’s Snoop Dogg’s real name?
Who is Leonardo DiCaprio currently dating?
The NFL, Snoop and Leo are just as quintessentially American as the Supreme Court.
The test took place in a stuffy room inside of an old brick building in downtown Los Angeles. I don’t know why all government facilities have to look as dreadfully boring as possible. To properly welcome these potential new American citizens, the test should have taken place at a strip club. Leave a good impression and show everyone what America really has to offer. After an hour of sitting on the most uncomfortable government-issued plastic chair, they finally called my name: “Man… Shing… Ouuuuu… Yang?” It was exactly the same as my first day in school in America. “You can just call me Jimmy.” The lady who interviewed me was a woman with a thick Jamaican accent. I am pretty sure that I was more Americanized than my American-citizenship interviewer. I bet you she didn’t even know what constitutes pass interference in the NFL. I answered every question correctly like I was Ken Jennings on Jeopardy. After acing that test, I thought I’d get to meet the president and he’d congratulate me on my new citizenship. Instead, I had to wait another several months to become a US citizen at the naturalization ceremony. All I could
think of during that time was, Don’t get arrested for smoking weed in public.
I was one of three thousand people from eighty different countries at the Los Angeles Convention Center for the naturalization ceremony. It was a magical moment for everyone. I was surrounded by soon-to-be US citizens of every color, race and religion. Sitting next to me was a Mexican couple in their sixties, behind me was a Persian dude who looked like a classmate from Beverly Hills High School and in front of me was an old Chinese couple who reminded me of my grandparents. It was truly a beautiful sight. People were crying from jubilation. Whatever journey they went through to become American citizens finally culminated in this moment that they shared with other fellow immigrants from all over the world. For me, it was especially sentimental because it meant I had $725 in my checking account. We sat down as a local politician took to the podium and congratulated us on this monumental day. Then they played a song accompanied by a music video on the big projector screen to welcome the three thousand newest citizens to the US of A. The video started with the classic eagle flying by, followed by beautiful farmland and a slow zoom-in shot of Mount Rushmore. Then the song came on.
“I’m proud to be an American where at least I know I’m free…”
The Mexican couple next to me put their hands on their chests as if it was the national anthem. I didn’t have the heart to tell them this wasn’t the “Star Spangled Banner”; it was Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.”
Everyone around me started to tear up, but I was too distracted by the crappy music video to be fully in touch with my emotions. Really, America? This is the best music video we have? Any music video from BET would be better than an eagle flying over an empty cornfield. Instead of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA,” I suggest we play Jay-Z’s Big Pimpin’ at the naturalization ceremony. Instead of flying eagles and Mount Rushmore, it should be partying on a yacht, popping Cristal with bikini models. We should show the newly anointed American citizens what it truly means to live the American dream:
“We doin’ big pimpin’ up in N.Y.C. It’s just that jigga man, Pimp C, and B-U-N-B.”
I would have cried if they played that. God bless America.
Everyone congratulated me for becoming an American citizen. But I didn’t feel any different. I was still Asian. I was now officially an American person with an American passport, but I still looked like the same Asian kid who didn’t know the Pledge of Allegiance. Nobody in any part of the world is going to come up to me and say, “Hey, American guy! Cool passport! Rocky Balboa!” No, random people still look at me and holler, “Hey, Karate Kid!” “Jackie Chan!” “Bruce Lee!” The color of my passport doesn’t matter; most people will always see me as Asian before they’ll think I’m American. It’s hard to put ethnicities aside in the melting pot of America. Sometimes I identify so much with my ethnic background that I forget what I’m really about as a person.
I went to Winnipeg, Canada, for my first trip as an American citizen with my freshly minted US passport. It was for a weekend stand-up stint at the Rumor’s Comedy Club, opening up for Shawn Wayans from The Wayans Bros. I got off the plane and strutted through the border security with my beautiful blue passport. Finally, I’m an American that can’t be told to go back to where I came from by the border patrol. I laid my passport down in front of the Canadian border patrol officer like it was a badge of honor. She gave me a warm Canadian smile, probably impressed by how American I was. Then she flipped through the empty pages and looked at my name. It’s now Manshing Jimmy Ouyang; Jimmy is finally my official American middle name, not just a nickname. She looked up and asked, “So are you here for business or pleasure?” When I was young, I was taught by my parents to always say pleasure at border security for our family vacations. So I automatically replied, “Pleasure.” And I gave her a confident American grin. She asked:
“So what brought you here to Winnipeg?” Now I had to back up my pleasure story, but it’s okay. I’m a professional actor, I got this.
“Just to get away from LA, you know, all the craziness and traffic. I thought it’d be nice to go to somewhere quiet, and have a little vacation in Winnipeg.” Nailed it, Tom Hanks.
“So you’re not here to visit family or anything?”
“I mean I have a friend in town that I’m planning to see.”
“What’s his name?”
“Shawn… Warner.”
“Sir, why don’t you come with me.”
Fuck.
She led me to a back room where, once again, there was a man holding an assault rifle. I was once again detained at the border. It was like déjà vu. It doesn’t matter which citizenship I possess, I should generally stop lying at any country’s border. She whispered something to the Teflon-vested man and she took a seat across from me. Her Canadian smile was gone. She said:
“Why don’t you tell me the truth?”
You know when your mom catches you in an obvious lie, but you still try to stand your ground because you don’t want to get caught lying? This was exactly that, except Mom doesn’t have an armed guard behind her.
“I was telling the truth ma’am. I’m here to get away for a little vacation. Here to have fun.”
“Nobody comes to Winnipeg to have fun,” she said bluntly.
I couldn’t argue with that. I guess I underestimated just how shitty Winnipeg was. I didn’t know what to say. She typed something into the computer.
“Are you a stand-up comedian?”
“Umm…” How did she know that?
“Are you opening for Shawn Wayans this weekend?”
What the fuck? Is she psychic?
“Umm… No…” I resisted with one last lie.
She turned the computer screen around and showed me.
“Then why does it say on your Facebook page, ‘I’m going to be in Winnipeg, Canada, this week—Rumor’s Comedy Club! Opening for Shawn Wayans. Get your tickets now!’”
That was the most embarrassing moment of my life. I wished the guard would shoot me with the assault rifle to put me out of my misery. I put my hands over my face, not sure if I should cry or laugh at my own stupidity. She pressed on:
“Why did you feel like you had to lie?”
The jig was up, now I had to beg for mercy. “I am so sorry, I’m just a stupid person. I have no idea why I lied. I’ve never been on a business trip before. I’m so sorry.”
She shook her head at this pathetic liar, and then she looked over to the armed guard. “What should we do with him?”
The guard said, “It’s up to you. You can let him stay, or send him back to where he came from.”
The same words the Tijuana border patrol said to me ten years ago haunted me again. But then I realized, this time “send him back to where he came from” meant sending me back to America, not Hong Kong. As twisted as it may sound, I felt pretty good about that sentence. Even though I was a stupid liar, for the first time in my life somebody actually saw me as an American citizen, not a Chinese immigrant. On the brink of getting deported from Canada, I felt more American than ever. America is now “where I came from.” I made it! I’m an American!
She decided to have mercy on me and let me through to Winnipeg, where I performed nine sold-out shows with Shawn Wayans. Who said nobody comes to Winnipeg to have fun? Winnipeg was a blast for this American.
HOW TO HONG KONG
I hadn’t been back to Hong Kong in seventeen years. A part of me had always avoided going back to the motherland. I was nervous it would ruin the perfect childhood I remembered; I didn’t want to risk changing the perception of the positive memories I had from Hong Kong. What if Hong Kong is nothing like I remember?
I finally had an undeniable excuse to go back to Hong Kong when I landed a role in the Crazy Rich Asians movie filming in Singapore. Crazy Rich Asians is based on the New York Times best-selling book of the same name, written by Kevin Kwan. It takes us into a semi-fictional world of the ridiculously fabulous lifestyles and first-world problems of the
filthy rich billionaire families living in Singapore. Kevin wanted to “introduce a contemporary Asian to the North American audience.” When the movie was announced, it made waves in the Asian community. Crazy Rich Asians would mark the first American major studio movie in twenty-five years to feature a full Asian cast since The Joy Luck Club. The actors, the producers and the director, Jon Chu, all shared the same sense of pride and responsibility to properly represent Asians in mainstream media with this monumental opportunity. This was our chance to show the world that we are just as brilliant, just as good looking and just as funny as everyone else in Hollywood. This was our key to open the doors for all the amazing Asian talents in cinema.
The most talented, most beautiful and funniest Asian actors from every corner of the world came together for this movie. There were no egos or superstars on the set. We all understood that we were making something much bigger than ourselves. We had Chinese legend Michelle Yeoh; Chinese American actors Constance Wu, Harry Shum Jr., Nora Lum and myself; Korean American comedy superstar Ken Jeong; Filipino American comedian Nico Santos; Chinese British actress Gemma Chen; Japanese British actress Sonoya Mizuno; Chinese Australian actors Chris Pang, Ronny Chieng, Remy Hii; British Malaysian leading man Henry Golding; and local Singaporean A-listers Fiona Xie and Pierre Png. It was my first time working with all of these amazing talents, but there was an immediate familiarity among all of us. Even though we were brought up in different countries, where some of us were immigrants and some of us were second and third generation, we shared the same experience of growing up Asian. We had all experienced being seen as Asian before being seen as American, British or Australian. We all shared the same experience of calling every older family friend “Uncle” and “Auntie.” And we all grew up thinking it was a farfetched idea to become an actor. It was an incredible feeling to be among these amazingly talented Asian brothers and sisters who understood each other. Everyone made each other feel even more proud to be Asian. For once in my life, I wanted to flaunt my Asian side instead of hiding it to fit in as somebody else.
How to American Page 17
