 The race was of Southeast Asia. How did a Singaporean comedian making a joke at New York City's comedy cellar become an international outrage? David, let's talk about it. Yeah, I mean, people are internationally protesting this clip right now. I'll let you guys decide for yourself. Run the clip. Country Singapore, after we gained independence from the British, we were a struggling little nation. In order to survive, we formed a union with a larger, more powerful country, Malaysia. Where are you from? Malaysia or Singapore? Malaysia. OK, yeah. Are you at home? When my prime minister went on TV to announce that you guys had dumped us, he cried, because he thought we're not going to survive without you. But then four years later, we became a first world country. And you guys, Malaysia, what are you now? Still a developing country. Oh, you, Malaysia, you're the best breakup revenge. Now, Malaysia, you're trying to come around like, hey, Singapore, you're looking good. And we're like, I know. But why haven't you visited me in 40 years? And you're like, ah, yeah, I tried. But you know, my airplanes cannot fly. You're missing out funny, huh? Some jokes don't land. This joke kills in Singapore. I get a pair of y'all from the Malaysians. It's OK, they don't have internet. Long story short, Andrew Jocelyn Chia is a comedian from Singapore. She lives in New York City now. We actually know her. She did our Asianology show. She is a funny comedian. She made an edgy joke about MH370. I mean, some people would say she was even being a little bit mean to the Malaysian audience members at the Comedy Cellar. But certainly, to be honest, it doesn't seem anything too far outside of the range. However, Andrew, the response from Malaysia in Singapore was crazy. We're talking about diplomats, party opposition leaders, protests at the US Embassy. Singapore issued a statement being like, hey, guys, she was no longer a Singaporean citizen when she made this joke. She was an American citizen. Why do you think this went so crazy? Because a lot of Americans, Andrew, cannot understand it. All right, everybody, we're going to answer this question. We're going to go through the comments section because the world is weighing in on this, not just fans of comedy. So please hit that like button. Check out other episodes of the Hot Pot Boys. David, number one, I think a lot of people who heard her joke initially in America because she has done the joke many, many times before. And it's gotten a lot of laughs. I don't think a lot of people understand the relationship or the tension between Singapore and Malaysia. Well, most Americans, let's just say, I'm going to go ahead and say 96% to 97% have no clue where Singapore and Malaysia are. And they just don't even know much other than they cane people in Singapore. That's probably what they know. Yeah, and I think the outrage is really coming from the fact that within the confines of a comedy club and the context of a comedy club, this joke, although, was edgy. And some people could say offensive. Was still very much a joke. Honestly, I'd give it a 7.8, maybe 8.2 out of 10. There was still two more notches of intensity that you hear at the comedy club in a two hour set on like a Wednesday. People make jokes about 9-11 in New York City. Where that happened, right? Now, I will also say this, though, because you post a clip on the internet for the whole world to see, the whole world gets to judge it. Right? No, they're going to judge it like they were there sitting in the comedy club without all the context, but they were right there. No, they don't. Yeah, I don't even think they're judging it like they're in a comedy club. They're just judging it while they're eating breakfast, like, with their, like, kaya toast or, like, nasi lemak. And they're just like, oh, my, this is offensive. Oh, this pisses me off. You know what I'm saying? So I guess, like, I guess it's really tough because nowadays, a joke can be funny within a context. But if you bring that out of the context onto the internet, it can get a lot of views. And a lot of people will think it's funny if they've been to a comedy show. But if you haven't, then it's probably pretty offensive. Yeah, I mean, I think that that's why there was such a widespread of opinions, guys. I looked this up. I had to stop doing research on this because literally we're talking about 50 hyperactive threads on various platforms, maybe like 500 comments each. And I'm not going to read 25,000 comments about Jocelyn Chia's airplane joke, to be honest. But there is some serious takeaways to have from this. So make sure you like, subscribe, turn on your notifications, Andrew. Let's get into the very first comment. Somebody said, wow, Asians are just not ready for stand-up comedy, man. Man, I think that a lot of Asians don't put themselves in comedy club environments. Well, it's not an Asian thing, right? A lot of Asian Americans have never even seen stand-up comedy live, even though they've watched it online. Would you agree with that? Yeah, but I also think that if you watch a lot of comedy for the most part, probably I would say 90% of people who watch a lot of comedy think like this joke was edgy and was kind of offensive because her style is a little bit more brash. But ultimately, it was still a joke. Yeah, I would say- And it doesn't do anything to like the geopolitics behind it. Like, it's not that Singapore and Malaysia are on the brink of war, although there is tension. It's like, you know what I mean? I think she was just playing on like pre-existing power dynamics. Like Singapore is way more economically developed than Malaysia. It's more, you know, like there's different racial compositions. Somebody was saying, you know, everything in the West is just harsher. The comedy is harsher. It's more blunt. It's more sarcastic. It's mean. Look at our version of hip-hop versus the type of hip-hop that comes out of Malaysia or Singapore. Our version of hip-hop would be way more intense and just like extreme as well, right? Everything is more extreme, right? America is an extreme place. That is true. Somebody said, do you think it's true that most Asians just are too soft or too easily quote unquote, butt hurt by that for Western comedy? That's why she intended this joke for an American audience. Yeah, yeah. I think a lot of her fans are American and I think that, I don't know. I mean, honestly, Asians just, you can generalize and say people from Asia or people from a traditional Asian background do not have the same Western comedy sensibilities or context or tolerance. It's true. Yeah, despite being relatively fluent in English in Singapore and Asia. In America, we wanna roast each other. We roast our politicians while they're trying to win a campaign. Right. In a lot of other countries, traditional societies, like the Washington DC Correspondents Dinner, that comedian possibly would be executed, right? Yeah. Like at the most extreme end. Yeah, I mean, listen, I think that there's pros and cons to each society, all right? Somebody said, as an American, how is this even newsworthy at all? Why did the governments get involved? This is weird. This was a joke in America, by the way, I'm white, so maybe I don't get it. Yeah, so here's the thing that there is, not that I do not think Jocelyn Chia meant anything racial by this, but I think some people who are offended are taking it somewhat racially because Malaysia is 70% Malay, right? And that's a different ethnicity than the 70% of Singapore, which is ethnically Chinese. For sure there's a racial element here. There's definitely a racial element. That's the unspoken guys. Andrew, not, Andrew, you're talking about race wars of Asia. The race wars of Southeast Asia. They go on and you know where you're playing. And I think that this is the truth that we will speak on, but even a lot of internet comments, Andrew, we're afraid to speak on. Andrew, it's clearly a very sensitive issue. And somebody said it stirred up a lot of stuff that had settled at the bottom of the glass that was clearly still there. And her joke was like a little stir, and you know, in a cup of Milo that just, you know, Milo that just stirred up. You know what it is? It's because Uncle Roger Nigel Ng, right? Who is funny? He actually got his social media band in China for a joke he made about Xi Jinping, right? Right, right. It wasn't even that harsh. It really wasn't. It was not that. I was actually surprised he got banned. But obviously, I think a lot of people expect that type of thing from China is like, oh, well China's extra sensitive about that stuff. So of course they're gonna ban him, but Malaysia, whoa, I don't get this. Somebody said, but yeah, it still doesn't make sense. Even if what she said did stir up some bad blood, the government still seemed like they're overreacting. She wasn't a diplomat. She became an American citizen and she's literally telling jokes. She has no power to make any decisions whatsoever. You know what's different though is because she still kind of has a Singaporean accent. So it appears as if she is from there and being the representative. Here's the issue here, and I love Jocelyn, but I guess how people are viewing it is that they're viewing her as the one representative of that country or that region. You know what it is? People may tacitly, deep down, without vocalizing it, internally feel that a heavy volume of Singaporeans feel that way towards them. Right, they agree, and I think that's because it's kind of played into the stereotypes that a lot of people believe in. So I think that that's why. Somebody said, I'm a white woman and I was offended. Jokes about tragedy are not cool. Bad taste joke. And somebody said, let me guess, you also got mad at Chappelle's last special too. And then somebody came through and said, well, you're a white woman and offended. I'm a white man, and this is pretty tame compared to other things, it's just morbid humor. I would say that if you are offended, I think that's fine. I think everybody has the right to be offended about anything, it's true. Right, you can say, you know what, I didn't like that joke or yo, that joke hit too home because there are some people who commented and say, hey, I actually lost a relative on that plane. So of course I'm not gonna find it funny, it's true. But I guess, for example, if a Singaporean comedian, which Singapore is a country that's well off, right? If they were making 9-11 jokes about America and trying to downplay America, obviously because America, the way we think and the art tolerance for comedy, I don't think a lot of Americans are gonna get offended by this. Some would, honestly, like, listen, jokes that work in New York City at the comedy cellar might hit completely different at a Republican comedy venue in Dallas, Texas. That's true. Right, like depending on how much you wanna diss or not diss America, different parts of England, for example, you go to London, you tell British jokes, the crowd is so international, maybe they're not even from London, they laugh. If you go outside of London in the UK, I heard they're very nativist, that's what I heard. David, are you trying to say that context matters? The context matters a lot, and like you said, internet does not allow for things that are hyper-local to stay hyper-local in that club. Even though there was a white person in there that night that Jocelyn Chia was performing, they was like, oh, you're gonna get a lot of one-star Yelp reviews because they were almost feeling the heat between her and Malaysians. They knew, they knew, yeah. Like I said, who knows? Maybe she wish she could have that one back or maybe not. Somebody said, you know, why are you mad at her joke when you should be mad at the Malaysian government for messing that whole situation up? There's an internet comment by way, guys, not by words. Somebody said, there shouldn't be any limits. There's freedom of speech. However, there's also freedom of consequences. The consequences are the consequences just like you can say whatever you want to say. Yeah, and I think Jocelyn is standing her ground. She's saying, hey, it was a joke. I've performed it hundreds of times. I'm going to keep performing it. I am not canceled. In fact, some people want to see me even more because I'm now controversial. Right, that's probably true. Ultimately, there's probably pros and cons though, like the internet profile is going to take a hit, but in person, people are going to want to see more edgy comedians that say just wild things, right? Somebody said, it wasn't the joke for me that offended me. It was her being rude to the Malaysians and not wanting to give them any sort of compliment to make up for it because at the end of her set, she said FU Malaysia and it felt like she was saying it to the Malaysians in the audience's face. Listen, I think that there's a point of the joke where it did get even more harsh. Like it got continually more harsh. You're talking about as the joke escalated. Yeah, it's still a joke. She's still a comedian on stage and I think if you talk to her offstage, she's still going to be very nice to you. Yeah, she was nice to all of us. She's a very sweet woman, but I could see again, out of context, you're living in Penang or Kuala Lumpur and you open that up in the morning and someone sends you that video. You could be offended. So it's easy. Yeah, by the way, I'm not telling anybody who's offended to lighten up either because obviously, guys, we all live different lives on this earth. We all have different cultural positioning within different like plots on this game map of this earth. Of course, we're all gonna feel differently about different things, right? Think about it. You're sipping on your kopitiam in the morning, just wallow it. You're just like, you know. Somebody said, if you have the skills, you can jujitsu anything and people will laugh at anything. She just had poor delivery on this particular joke. Yeah. But she didn't stick the landing. Would you agree or disagree or? Oh, that's a pun right there. No, I'm just kidding. But yeah, I mean, she could have said something like about how good Malaysian food is and how like she wants a Malaysian chef but not a Malaysian pilot or something like, you know what I mean? Like that could have been like a little compliment first, but I'm not telling her how to do her comedy. But of course, you know what? I think Jocelyn's gonna live with that. I think she's gonna be fine. I don't think that although there's online death threats, usually that stuff doesn't really mean anything to be honest in real life. But you know, I'm sure she took note of how people feel about it. Somebody said that, you know, they had a Patricio Neil quote, good jokes and bad jokes come from the same place. When you don't allow people in the room to make bad jokes, you're killing off the good jokes and humor. Basically saying that bad jokes are all part of the process. And you know, sometimes you tell the joke, this way it's a bad joke. You tell the joke this way with a different tone, even just a few different words, it's a good joke. Humor is very, in a way, it's very subjective. It's not like singing, right? Andrew, nobody can deny Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, Christina Aguilera's range, right? But like jokes are subjective. Yeah, for sure, 100% man. I would, all right, one of my biggest takeaways is this, I guess. Moving forward for a lot of comedians who wanna post clips on the internet, even including ourselves, including myself, right? I post some of the clips of our comedy. From our technology, yeah. Yeah, of our comedy, of my comedy on the internet for the world to see, because you want a lot of views, you want more viewership, but guess what? You don't control how those people view your comedy. How they take it, what lives they've lived, how they perceive it, doing whatever situations they've been through, right? What context they see it in. So then they have every right to comment back. Now, they could probably be wrong because at the end of the day, if it's a comedy clip, it's a comedy clip, it's supposed to be comedy. But yeah, people are gonna get offended and the whole world can get offended. Yeah, I mean, I do think, and I don't know, I don't wanna say, you know, as an American, I could still try to put my Asian hat on. I've been to Malaysia and Singapore multiple times each. I would say this, it did surprise me, the level of seriousness that diplomats and politicians had to issue statements, right? But if they see, like they themselves might get it, but if they see their basis energized by it, they have to address it because their basis is still their career too, if they get voted in. I do believe it was suboptimal delivery and execution of a volatile subject joke. Volatile subjects in comedy are the most fun to play with Andrew because they're like explosive elements on the periodic table, but they can go downside as well, right? But they can also go upside and people love the comedians, they can talk about these very explosive subjects. That's why Chappelle, Patrice O'Neill, Bill Burr, you know what I mean? For sure. Are so lauded. I mean, if you look at her delivery versus like a Mark Norman, who's a white guy, but his delivery's very like smug and hey, hey guys, like I'm gonna talk about race, you know? And then like almost nothing he says almost feels offensive, but obviously if your delivery is kind of like yelling and that's her style, that's her character, then it is gonna even be perceived a different way to outside people. Yeah, but let's be honest. Like you said, I mean, as much as the joke could have been told a little bit better, smoother, more refined here or there, there may be some religious, racial demographic, socioeconomic rivalries at play that those go way deeper than whatever joke she made. I think ultimately jokes like this, I think that in a way in the longterm can do some good because it brings up something that was under the rug, right? Right, you're saying stirring up the Milo that's at the bottom of the cup. Yeah, now some people are kind of like, why now, why she do that? Like we just, we don't want to talk about that. Like we just try to live our life. Like what is she doing? You know, trying to rock the boat, la. You know, but you know, in America, we like to rock the boat. Yeah. And we like to shake things off. We will try to shake off the dust. That's what we like to do here. I don't know. For me, I've always been a fan of the American style, but yeah, understanding Asia and just like how different they are, how they approach everything musically. And even when we're playing on the basketball court with a bunch of kids from China, if a kid like goes 0 for seven, it's considered rude for you to tell him to stop shooting. Even if he's bricking threes and he's gonna brick another three threes and he's gonna lose the game for the team. It's just weird. I don't know why that is, but that's just a difference in culture. All right, everybody, we're gonna wrap it up there. Let us know what you thought about Jocelyn's joke. Was it funny? And could you see why so many people are offended? Or do you think that's like stepping over the line and that I guess people are being too sensitive? Can you just chalk it up to a wildly different culture despite, you know, I'll tell you this Andrew, not everybody who speaks English at a fluent level necessarily is culturally English in their mind. That's true. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for watching. We're the hot pot boys. And until next time, we out. Peace.