How to American | Jimmy O. Yang | Talks at Google

[Music] all right welcome everyone I am Gretchen Howard I am one of the partners at capital G which is alphabets growth equity investing fund and I have the privilege and honor of introducing you to my friend Jimmy oh yeah and come on down [Applause] alright hey gang thanks for coming out everybody I appreciate that is there a dog here yes Google has a dog open-door policy so Jimmy wrote a book recently it's called how to American we we're gonna we're gonna have a little chat here and then we'll

open it up to questions and just as a little incentive if you don't have the book already those who asked questions will be the first to get your very own copy of the book so exciting I'll be signing it taking pictures afterwards exactly yeah all right so we're gonna start in the beginning you're born hi you're born in Hong Kong uh-huh tell me about that let's start there yeah I was born in Hong Kong and I moved to LA when I was 13 in 2000 in 2000 those after like the handoff from the British c

olony back to China right and and and I think there was a lot of worry there's probably one of the reasons why our family moved here and when I first came here I couldn't really speak English very well kind of like jingyang you know and I I've learned I'd learn English in Hong Kong how kids here would have learned Spanish right so it's not very well and like I didn't understand life simplice slangs like what's up like they don't teach you that in school like what's up you know right and [Music]

eventually I learned a lot of English by watching BT Rap City I was like my thing so yeah and then it just progressed from there but even before you move to LA let me see if I get this straight your parents were originally from Shanghai that's true they spoke we spoke it was speaking Shanghai nice back home and then I learned Cantonese from school so I speak Cantonese in school and then I watched shows a Mandarin so no wonder you're confused very yeah and then English some somewhere came along s

o how did that even feel as a kid even before you got to the us not knowing either speaking really good English just being in Hong Kong but having parents who came from the mainland yeah I was kind of already too foreign kid cuz whenever I speak to my parents they'll be like oh that's the Shanghai boy right there you know there's like a internal almost hierarchy and a semi racism within Chinese people like Hong Kong people always think that better than other you know mainland China people you kn

ow and so they always call me like the Shanghai boy and so maybe that was like my first experience assimilation which really came in handy later when I came to America when I was actually the foreign kid okay so you get to the u.s. you're in LA mm-hmm what's your your first day in the u.s. what happens it was just it was just complete culture shock you know cuz Hong Kong was like Manhattan you got like buildings 25 stories high as a concrete jungle and then you came to LA the the the streets are

like six lanes wide everything was just like a two-story strip mall and you walked down the streets nobody in the street so it's like where am i you know there's like this Mad Max oh what's going on and the first day my grandpa took us to his favorite American restaurant we walk 45 minutes down the street first first of all we pass by a Pizza Hut and that was my favorite restaurant in Hong Kong because Pizza Hut in Hong Kong is like a gourmet restaurant with like seafood pasta and like real lik

e gourmet soups and stuff you know and I saw the real authentic American version and it was just like a hole in the wall in an oven like what is this how is the real version worse than the foreign version I was panicking and at grandpa it was like this is my favorite American restaurant we arrived at the strip mall and it was El Pollo Loco it was a Mexican fast food place but it was amazing and then it was like the first time I experienced like American freedom inside of El Pollo Loco because if

you think they give you so many choices it's dark meat and white meat which my grandpa's like don't ever order two white meat that's dry and rough that's four American idiots okay there's corn tortilla flour tortilla you get the flour tortillas the corn tastes funny and then you know you get a glass of water and you can go to a soda machine get or whatever you want and then and then you go to the salsa bar and just get whatever you want you know get some onions and cilantro and go home and saut

eed that stuff with some fish later it's freedom people all right so after you in your little chicken taco you you go to middle school and you go to John Burroughs right yes John Burroughs is very it's inside of LA Unified School District so it's very diverse it's the first time I've ever met a black person a white person Latino person in real life because in Hong Kong obviously only all you had was Chinese people in my school and it was crazy because I'd seen this different types of people on T

V but I never met him and I was 13 I was about I don't like for 10 really scrawny little kid with glasses and like I just remember the first day I was pretty good at basketball back home in Hong Kong [Laughter] and then when I care I was in eighth grade this kid marques was like dunking anyway yo like this is what America is about like it was crazy to me you know and then and then I saw this Latino kid he had a mustache I couldn't grow any hair at that point it's complete culture shock you know

just you know my English was the night cuz I'm just trying to fit in I thought you were a ping-pong star back in Hong Kong I was so stereotypical back in the day I was very stereotypical growing up in Hong Kong I play the violin I was pretty good at math and I play ping pong competitively but what that seems like a stereotype here but in Hong Kong you just another dude that's just what people do it's like playing catch did you bring your skills go to the middle school did you show them nobody ca

red about ping pong very until college when when it became like a beer pong that's all all different yeah so middle school is this one your beat your bTW love affair thing has started I remember like the first day of school people were telling me like to sack my pants like I'm in the locker room changing on my PE clothes and the kids like eight hey blue shorts down and I'm like oh my god what is going on here now laughs and and apparently it's a culture of sagging your pants back in the early 20

00s you know that that looks cool if you pull it all the way up they call you John Stockton pull all the way down to my knees no no don't do that and even just even underwears there's different like people walk boxers here in Hong Kong we were like tighty whiteys and people made fun of me for that you know so I learned a lot not not just about the language but culture from you know watching be et right yeah and then how was it so your middle school then you go to Beverly Hills High School right

yeah my dad my dad was a genius he used a fake address Jimmy's dad is right here [Applause] oldest Googler in the building yeah and the subtitle of the book it's a one entitled how to American and immigrants got it disappointing your parents so here we are we're gonna talk about your you're still not quite in the disappointment phase in high school right that's more college yeah yeah I'm still I'm still the good asian kid then yeah I got to disappointing them later so who did you hang out with i

n high school it's a group of kids I I wanted to hang out with I wanted to find like a group of Chinese kids I can kind of really hang on to you know when you don't really know the language you you know you kind of long for that you know something that reminds you back home but there wasn't really a lot of Chinese kids in high school so I ended up just hanging out with a bunch of random misfits right like I had a couple Persian friends a friend from Bangladesh and and a friend one one Chinese fr

iend and at a Korean immigrant friend so there's a great group of different people and we just kind of we're never the cool kids but we also weren't like super lame we just kind of never fit in with any particular group we wore in the skaters we weren't athletes or anything like that you know but you started to find your people you started I started to find my people and I started a rap group that's what happens when you watch TV do a little of that rap first I can't no no no no I well what I di

d I eventually I knew I was a horrible rapper so I I recruited my buddies you know who can rap and I just made the beats right and I was like my first creative outlet it was me my black friend Julian and then my other friend Yugi who was half black and half Japanese so it's perfectly one and a half Asian guys I wanted to have like and and we call the rap group the yellow Panthers it was very embarrassing did you ever sell I sold maybe a couple bootleg CDs in school like we'll just burn CDs you g

uys remember that when you burn it takes 30 minutes to burn a CD and then and then you sell off like five bucks to some kids my first paycheck I really made in show business was from a website called fudge stick calm this is true okay don't look it up it's not a thing anymore it used to be a site a porno site and and I used to post my beats that I made online and this guy called me one day he was like hey are you doc west that was my beat maker name was like the wackest name ever right doc West

it's like from dr. drain Kanye West I just combined it to myself it's horribly hacky and he called he was like hey um so are you Christian I'm like not really why what what's up he's like well so I'm an adult entertainment business and a lot of Christian people aren't down with what I'm doing and my name's LeBron James that was his name not LeBron James LeBron James and he was like I like I like one of your beats and can I use it for a trailer for one of my pornos so I sold it to my first payche

ck all right so a little short-lived music career you go to college UCSD UC San Diego I'm sorry one of the most boring places ever did you like it you did like it oh good where'd you guys study like engineering computer science or something good Oh at least you guys study something you guys liked economics how'd you end up here and posture kidding I'm kidding so am i I study economics awesome and Here I am but you didn't is that what your dad wanted imagine he wanted me like something legitimate

right what what Asian parents would consider legitimate is like engineering science so I went in as a mechanic generic major and I realized I would never graduate so now I went into economics which is like the easiest major that is still approved by Asian parents right he was financial advisors okay you know that that's what it is and so I did it for five years it took me five years to graduate economics degree which is very sad and I think extracurricular activities yeah you know smoking a lit

tle too much weed my freshman year I just I was just trying to not be grouped in because there's so many Asian people and UCSD right it was like what's the first time I came to America that Asian was the majority once again but now I have a different identity crisis because now I don't want to be grouped in as dealer cuz I'm like dude I listen to jay-z man like I'm I'm doc West you know I mean like I don't I you know I'm cool so when you're younger you don't want to be grouped in with some when

you hit that age that college it you wanna be cooped in so I try to do other stuff and and for some reason as twisted as this logic sound it kind of made sense to me was if you just smoke enough weed you would transcend being just the asian kid you will be the stoner kid for me my mind somehow that's better sorry dad but so did you not hang out with any other asian kids no I did I mean that's my only option in UCSD and it was fine it was like maybe other Asian stoner kids I didn't know what I wa

nted to do like I when I graduated after five years I'd no idea what I wanted to do I just know I didn't want to do economics you know I didn't internship as Smith Barney that my dad hooked me up with is like one of the really nice financial firms I don't know if you guys know about this Smith Barney I mean it just sounds nice I think it's smart Morgan Stanley now or something but like I just sitting behind the desk I was like oh my god I'm gonna do this for the next 40 years looking at some oth

er people's mutual funds I I was having like a panic attack I mean that that's that actually sounds attractive to a lot of people like you know the safety of having a nice job like that but to me it just didn't appeal to me so but that's hard I mean your dad got you this job he helped you go to college right he was there for you he really like raised you a lot through your teenage years right because your mom went back to Shanghai yeah pop out over here and have a sudden you tell him you don't w

ant to do the job that he got you how did you that's when I disappointed him how did you get up the courage though to have that conversation with him it was it was hard man cuz you don't ever want to disappoint your parents especially they've done so much for you right like they came to this country for you for your education got you in school right fake faked an address to get me in the Beverly Hills High School mean come on and then I want to tell him I don't I don't want to do this job you kn

ow and do what I don't know like stand up and it was hard but I figured it was probably better to disappoint my parents for a couple years than to disappoint myself for the rest of my life so that's why I just I was like I can't that I can't do this I don't want to do this job and I went through a journey after that you know of finding what I wanted to do right I didn't think stand-up was gonna be a career it was just something I found that you know it was a friendship that I found in stand-up w

ith other comedians and a camaraderie and as something to do even you know just a community that saw I don't feel as stuck but I tried other things you know like a three jobs when I graduated I I i sold used cars during the day this was on San Diego and then I'll go to work at the comedy palace working the door collecting tickets and then in exchange I'll get Nicole Minh as a stage time doing stand-up and then at night I became a strip club DJ so let's talk about that cuz your boss's name was sh

ooter yeah his shooter I don't know why I probably shot somebody who knows there's a very gangster like seedy strip club and when you're like twenty-two you think working at a strip club is like the coolest thing right especially when you watch too much music videos but it wasn't it was it was like I soon realized nobody in that strip club actually wanted to work there they were there because they've been in prison a few times and they have to work there now and ever I got nicknames like shooter

the bouncers name was beast he used to be in the Aryan Brotherhood back in prison so he probably wasn't too hot on me working right right and yeah it wasn't it wasn't that great of an environment but I try to be professional oh we're gonna talk about that okay but back to your stand-up you'd sounded like when you know you were taking tickets at the door you actually had some people who became really good friends and also advisor so Sean Kelly Sean Kelly mine he kind of became my mentor I think

that's one of the most important things it's fun is finding like a good mentor and and not afraid to ask somebody to you to be a mentor and really you know how do you meet him who is a yeah so he was the guy that start at the comedy palace he was like a businessman and a comedian and everybody insane he was like yo if you want stage time you need to talk to Sean Kelly I'm like who's Sean Kelly he's not like Dave Chappelle's cousin or something like I don't know and you turned out just to be like

this brilliant businessman that really helped me along my career and yeah he was the one I guess in the beginning he was like man you know you got such a unique story of immigration you know like and you're wasting the time talking about like hacky like masturbation jokes don't do that every other comic can do that but you have your own story you should develop this material eventually write a book about it and then you know you can you can do talks you can do whatever look look at me and he wa

s the one that talked me out of working that strip club he's like yo Jimmy you're funny man you got it you got to move to LA before this gets like you know and like a point of no return so yeah yeah finding that mentors is extremely important I love that he pushed you in that direction because there's one part in the book where Tyrell and Guam who seem to be good friends of yours who are also yeah they're two comics but it sounded like you know they had a more lively sex life than you did at thi

s time right right today we're incorporating all that into their standup yeah you were like I wanted to do that right yeah so you so Sean sir has somehow saw that in you not you know yeah and made you tell you a real story so how did that change your comedy it's great I think it's still evolving when you first start as a comedian you just try you're not funny right nobody's funny when they first start you just try to do jokes that you've seen on TV and your own remix of that you know a lot of li

ke some masturbation jokes alike and then and then you graduate to something like self-deprecating Asian jokes or something like that and then eventually you you you become one you were able to become more vulnerable and talk about you know the immigration stories that I have right like that I wrote in a book and I'm really happy to kind of use some of that material and that's material people can't even steal and it's just your thing right so I think that's what I'm trying to strive to doing bec

ause that's what some my favorite comedians did you know Chappelle George Lopez has great you know family stories and like and like him being a mexican-american in America so I want to do more of that right so how did you then make that jump from doing stand-up to then going to LA getting an agent Lee talked me through that chef oh man I just wanted to I just wanted to do stand-up my goal was to get a college agent I can make like two grand a week doing college shows right but then you know thin

gs start unfold and I went back to LA I was living in this dude's living room from Craigslist for 300 bucks because I didn't want to move back to my dad's as a failure right you know so I it was just struggling I was just trying to make ends meet I was hoping a book commercial you know as a commercial you can make like thousands of dollars with one day of work you know with residuals so that was what I was hoping for so I signed up you know put my headshots of all know all those websites like de

sperately seeking for an agent and then the first agent I met with a commercial agent I was like oh man this is created great this is gonna change my life and I drove up I pulled up it was at an apartment rental office it wasn't even an agency I walked into an apartment building and then he at me like read the Staples commercial right it's like our staples where all the folks at and I was so bad the apartment rental agency rejected we were fine we don't need you and I was like almost about to gi

ve up on that and then I found another small agent that kind of took a chance on me and she started sending me on auditions that would like beyond my goals at that time even not just commercials but like modern family just like two lines here and there and I couldn't I was I guess I learned some timing from doing stand-up but I'd never taken acting classes so I wasn't very good and then eventually I spent a lot of money in like acting classes and I got my first part on a two Broke Girls so they'

re just like two lines yeah and I thought that was like the epitome of acting like it was amazing you know and then from then you know the two line part you know and then I got another two line part got like a part on Always Sunny you know would have a few more lines and what type of characters were they are you getting cast in it's different one of my favorite parts in the book is is this audition log I have right it's the 101 auditions that I went on before I got my hundred and second audition

which was Silicon Valley so let me see here if I can find a good section where's that log okay 100 these are these auditions I used to meticulously keep a log and I got Silicon Valley I'm like no okay but it's a lot of like stereotypical roles like my first like few parts it's that I auditioned for him and get it it's like wow Japanese host Taiwanese 20 looks like 12 computer geek Tucker ethnic friend this is one of my favorite parts like looking at these part I'm like oh my god like I used to

dream about getting these roles you know I mean right and really Silicon Valley started off as a two-line part also like it was when jingyang open the door he's like this is Pied Piper like that was that was the two lines that kind of started it and then they wrote the fish scene after and then something else and him by season two I became a series regular it was so like I felt like I snuck in the back door and it was just amazing so even that first season you were still trying to pay the rent t

rying to make it work I got paid nine hundred dollars per episode nine hundred dollars that's a SAG minimum wage okay that's the lowest they can pay an actor and that's what most people get paid in Hollywood when he's just starting out so for I was in three episodes in the first season and I may be like five words total and I was paid was like $2,700 or you know what maybe residuals three grand at the end of the day and I was still super broke I actually drove goober between season one and seaso

n two of Silicon Valley but nobody recognized me then you know and I used that $2,700 as down payment for like a 2006 Prius and then that's that's how I you know it's could sustain myself and when I got a call to be a series regular on season 2 it was it was life-changing like I knew that was the moment I was like oh my god this day everything's about to change so let's talk about Mike Judd then because he's obviously been a big influence on you I judged my guy who wrote the foreword on this boo

k yeah and the first time you ever heard him speak was besides beavis and butt-head it was at UCSD Mike judge was my commencement speaker when I graduated how crazy is that 2009 he was the campus-wide commencement speaker I was very hung over that day I almost didn't go and a my buddy convinced me he's like oh come on man just go you know like he did like beavis and butt-head he's to beat us but that guy and the king of the hill guy I'm like okay whatever I'll go and then his story like really s

poke to me because I was really lost at the time and he was saying that he was a physics major in UCSD and he was working in Silicon Valley in the late 80s making computer chips for fighter jets I believe and he said he just he just didn't like it you know and eventually he became a touring musician and then from then he found his passion in an animated studio and that's how you made Beavis and Butthead it was it was an amazing story it was it was a story that I kind of never allow myself to hav

e grown up in an Asian family my dad always told me that if you pursue your dreams that's how you become homeless artists are homeless people so you know he never like like I was never allowed to kind of have that dream thing right that's a very American thing and that's what big theme in the book is it's in Asian culture he's supposed to be obedient follow the rules to be a good son in American culture he's supposed to be an independent man go pursue your dreams pursue your happiness so how do

you kind of you know I'm sure a lot of Asian people here could relate to this or even anyone it's like how do you which side do I go to kissteria exact polar opposites right and I think deep down I always want to be that artist person but you know I I did go through the route even throughout college of China just be the good son right and then the Mike judge speech like really spoke to me I'm like man this dude didn't know anything about Hollywood but he was able to make it so that kind of you k

now gave me a little extra motivation to go pursue stand-up and whatever I loved and yeah five years later he had no idea I was sitting in the audience I just went into an audition for the part and I got the part and the first day at table read I told him I was like Mike you want my commencement speaker man thanks so that was a pretty cool moment and Mike Mike's like a very calm quiet guys like yeah cool so okay so now you're on Silicon Valley full-time how how do you reconcile you have your own

sort of immigrant story and then there's the story of your character how do you how do you think about that how do you prepare for that like what do you draw from your own experiences what do you absolutely I think it all came full circle that I'm able to kind of use my past story into building the jingyang character because he's basically a version of myself 15 years ago you know kind of wandering around County can't understand a lot of things and in a way being kind of bullied by a DJ's chara

cter Erlik but but he's not stupid so he can kind of come back with like some like just really deadpan factual you know trash talk that you don't see coming favorite comeback line uh well I remember so so when I was younger when I first came here like you know people talk trash to me right and when you're young like when you're 13 who was like eh your mom's fat like yeah whatever and I'm like no she's a skinny Chinese woman that's a very jingyang woman in a way and and I think one of my favorite

things and I mean there's so many favorite moments with me and TJ I just love working with him one of my favorite scenes personally is when we walk into the mansion party we try to get into the Muir Woods project and we just constantly keep trying to throw each other than to the bus you know we did a ton of improv there too one of the thing was like when TJ is like can we just go in just take one quick lap you know he doesn't even eat and I've said yes I'm very hungry like that's stuff like tha

t and then there's another take where I just start naming off different food that I see in sounds like old Korean barbeque like spaghetti meatballs like just so much going on in that scene that was that was the first time that me and TJ had the whole scene to ourselves you know and the whole background is setting so that's really fun and I think that was the day that would discover I was like oh man we we do have something like there's something special there ya know so in this season you know o

bviously TJ's not on or we're not quite sure where he is so how do you how do you find an opium in Tibet how did you find your rhythm not having him to go back and forth with ya mean he's one of my best friends I think him and Mike are my two best friends on the show so it's really sad to hear him go he called me like a midnight one night and he was like I'm not coming back for the next season and I was like shocked you know I'm like oh my god so that means whatever the last scene we did was gon

na be our last scene together so I was like really sad about it but you know I think it turned out to be kind of a blessing in disguise you know the writers have to think of more creative ways to kind of you know build out the show without TJ and also for me I get to interact with some other cool people and kind of be a pain in the ass to other people which is really fun yeah so yeah yeah you know I'm trying I'm trying we'll see how it develops and yeah yeah I get to interact with a lot more peo

ple and even I think one of my favorite actors I'm Matt Ross who plays Gavin Belson yeah so I get to do some stuff with him and another cool project crazy rich Asians yes are you guys familiar with that have you guys read the book or anything yeah so it was an international bestseller a book that's a satire like you know a billionaires in Singapore and I culture and it's tough they turn into a movie and it's the first studio movie in 25 years since Joy Luck Club that features a full Asian cast s

o this is like art black panther [Applause] not the yellow not the yellow candidates well basically the yellow Panthers yeah so we just shot in Singapore last year it's coming out in August and it's a really good movie and and the experience of that was was amazing because as Asian in Asians in Hollywood a you know I don't know different art forms like a lot of times on any set we're the only person on there and now there's an added weight of like now the scrutinies on you to represent asian peo

ple right so and and you always looked at as the asian dude no matter what right it's always Asian - something give me the Asian leading man Asian Asian funny guy or whatever right but shooting this movie it was great it was in Singapore where the most talented most beautiful funniest Asian people are all in one room trying to make this movie and the pressure is just kind of off of you like you're not just a token Asian dude on the set you just you can do your job like me as the funny character

you know Constance Wu Henry Goulding as like the lead character the romantic lead and we just kind of handed off the baton and it was the first time in Hollywood that I felt white and it felt great yeah for sure let's get to some questions we actually have a mic right there if you guys want to get we're live streaming so we're gonna need you guys to talk into the mic so if you can line up back there and we also have a Dory if you guys want to ask anything in the door as well so just state your n

ame and then in the question hey Jimmy I'm Vince thanks for coming out writing that book it's awesome hearing that story I was curious I love your role in Silicon Valley and there's some like cringe-worthy semi stereotypical Asian moments I'm wondering how you reconcile that yeah I think it teeters the line of being a stereotypical character and then portraying an immigrant character and humanizing it right I know a lot of especially american-born Asian actors that don't even the they won't even

audition for a part that has like an accent or something and for me I kind of disagree with that because I was the kid that was foreign I was to kill with an accent so my job is not to judge that but to portray him in a humanizing funny way to make them look better I think that's more important than shunning those people out because one of the most painful things when I first came here wasn't the fact that you know say black people Latino or white people didn't accept me because I was too forei

gn kid I expected that but one of the most painful things worse like the american-born Asian people didn't accept me because they didn't want to grouped in and be grouped in as like a fob as like the fresh-off-the-boat guy you know so I kind of feel pretty strongly about that where I want to make immigrants just as appealing and just as sexy and just as funny as you know a perfectly english-speaking person and I think that's important we're gonna alternate one live and one questions okay all rig

ht the next question is do you have any thoughts on anything else what is your relationship like with Erlich TJ Miller in real life he's a good friend of mine and we really got along I think we got the same sense of humor and stuff like it was like if I felt pretty good about it I said I was the first one he called like when he decided to not do Silicon Valley we hang out every now and then he's in New York now so we don't get to hang out as much but I took him to a showing of Patriots day a mov

ie I was in and the posture about the Boston Marathon bombing and then after the movie T he was like standing up clapping and then he just like announce to the fielders like guys this is my friend Jimmy O yang he was the kid in the movie please I right clap so he got a big personality like he is kind of that guy in real life but I I love him he's awesome yeah thanks for coming out as someone who's navigated that really complicated space of kind of giving up the more guaranteed regular salary job

kind of pursue something that could be a spectacular failure what kind of advice do you offer or could you offer to someone trying to decide whether or not to take a chance on something that could not work out mm good question I think for me like I just I almost couldn't live with myself not doing what I love I always think it's it's better to try something and fail miserably than to have never tried at all so if you sum it up in that sentence you know and and I talked to you know some startup

people I think those guys are like really brave and they artists to write like because they they could be working somewhere for like 200 grand but they started they decided to take a chance and and one guy told me he was like you know it all you are missing is maybe two years of opportunity costs but you can always go back to you know doing something safer so yeah you're just only losing a couple years you're fine just pretend you're in a coma or something if it didn't work are you experiencing

any reverse culture shock now when you go back - yes yeah when I go back to Hong Kong in China I went back to Hong Kong for the first time in 17 years last year after I shot crazy rich Asians and that kind of I couldn't find an ending for the book and that trip gave me the ending that I needed for the book it was culture shock I'm so used to LA now now I'm not used to taught buildings and stuff like that right and the people I'm like oh my god this is so anxiety inducing they're just people ever

ywhere but there is still a part of me that feels like Hong Kong is always home because when I went there that was just I don't know I felt at peace at something because here like like we talked about if I'm playing ping-pong or like playing the violin or like just eating dim sum here I'll seem a little stereotypical I try I dabble but I'll be like the stereotypical dude here right but if I'm just uh if I'm eating dim sum in Hong Kong reading a Chinese newspaper I'm just another guy I don't have

to explain myself you know so there's some kind of safety and a peace there and I just it was good to know that there's part of the world that I can always feel that way because in America like I just became American citizen last year thank you still agent because like I joke about that but it's true right because nobody in any part of the world not America not Italy not anywhere not even Japan will be like oh look that's an American guy no no no I guess because I don't have blond hair blue eye

s or like whatever right okay but you you look way more American than I do even though we're the same level in America so I think hopefully you know with movies like crazy rich Asians more more seeing Asians and media and seeing you know a more homogenized place like like Google like this like people would start seeing Asians as Americans more and more in the future first off I wanted to say it was really freaky looking over at your dad me too yeah I agree my dad is also a yeah who gets up rando

mly to take pictures so it's great yes thank you I also have a photo shoot whenever he goes to lunch or dinner and my question is about how you prepared for your role of jingyang um I think some people could say that you've been preparing for this role your whole life being Chinese being an immigrant but did you do any specific immersive research in this area for example going to Stanford classes or immersing yourself in a hacker hostel and if not you know how did you best prepare and write abou

t the idiosyncrasies of this area Thanks um so this past offseason actually I made HBO like give me like a tour of everything so I talked away with a lot of great consultants on the show that you know think Costello is one of them so yeah and then and then I I visited you know Google this past summer and I visited Facebook and you know more midsize companies like lyft and which capital G invest in it and a few places and I learned a lot and studying the characters there it's really cool and also

just for jingyang the character to immigrant character itself whenever I Drive to the lot I listen to the Chinese radio for like you know an hour when I'm driving you know 1300 am the the Mandarin station in LA that's my jam you know so it gets me kind of in that Mandarin mindset and I also whenever I before I I do a scene I always I kind of say this mantra to myself in Mandarin I say well puts the doll what was the stuff what was stuff which means I don't know a manner which I I think it helps

me think in Mandarin first of all but also in a way it kind of sums up who jingyang is as a person either he actually doesn't know about something or he doesn't even care to know about it you know so yeah that would be I guess my preparation for it Thanks okay you mentioned before that stand-up isn't really a thing in Hong Kong do you have any plans to try doing stand-up there and are you funny in Chinese yeah stand-up it's becoming a thing in Hong Kong now there's a club that opened up called

take-out comedy that's the actual name of the stand-up comedy so I would want to go try some stand-up out in Hong Kong maybe even in Mandarin or Cantonese or something but it's not as easy as just literally translating my English jokes into a different language it's more than that it's cultural differences they wouldn't understand a lot of stuff that we talk about here so it'd be kind of a challenge but maybe in the future I'll be down to explore that do you think I'm funny still keeps me humble

thanks so much for coming today I know you talked a little bit about your story getting into Hollywood in America but is there any kind of specific occurrence is that you felt really down or you got a lot of pushback like racially or just not fitting into the role and do you still face that moving forward today yeah when I didn't get the loud Japanese host part I was gonna I think what a Saturday it's like a part perfectly describes you and you still don't get it it's like short Asian Chinese w

ith glasses and long hair and you go in and your audition you still don't get the part you're like wow I'm bad like the openness Nissa tea part I get it there plenty of options but you know what at the end they I never try to blame it on the fact that I'm Asian even though that might be true even though people could be racist so they're actually looking for a white guy but they have to audition Asian guy or something but I it doesn't give me benefit me at all if I try to blame that on me being A

sian so I just try to you know be better the next audition if I'm not funny on stage you know I try to write better jokes and come back the next day and not use being Asian as a crutch even though it might be true sometimes right so yeah that's how I look at it thank you Thanks hi do you mean I'm actually a really huge fan of yours other than Silicon Valley I actually gone through all the videos I can find of yours on YouTube Wow thanks man oh yeah I even checked your YouTube comments it's kind

of creepy I'm super excited to be here my question would be like it further in the future would you more look into a continue your path as a comedian or like doing both comedian and being actor in show business yeah I think both and and more writing also and creating well you know I pee cuz cuz still like there's not a lot material out there for Asians to do you have to come up with your own stuff so hopefully one of my goals is turning this in a TV show maybe like like a version of Atlanta but

our version of it right and that will probably reach like a more mainstream audience because stand-up still doesn't translate to a lot of Asians especially like I never grew up listening though like knowing what Stan Abyss my dad didn't know what really stand-up was so I think turning in a TV show or something would reach like a broader more mainstream audience talk show my dad still calls it a talk show I'm like I'm going to laugh factory denies that what to do talk show thank you um we're sorr

y one more thing yeah sure I also have a question about like the problems you mentioned about like Asian being minority in the show business business um as you gain more popularity and influence to your audience is there something you want to do more about that like maybe like one kind of actions you would take to to change that kind of putting a great actor into a sort of a stereotypical role in a TV show yeah I think um what I can do is just creating my own material and putting myself in it yo

u know and giving myself jobs that maybe other people would have given to Scarlett Johansson and Matt Damon you know I mean so I think it's really important to create and and do what you do best right where's it's right to stand up you know act so I always just try to concentrate being the best I can when there is an opportunity I can nail it because there's a lot of groups out there like you know until and double-a-c-p cape you know it's for the Asian advancements and stuff like that and they'r

e doing a lot of groundwork and you know representation and make sure the right article comes out and there's no like racist commercials anything you know right or whatever right so they're doing their job but that's not necessarily my job right my job is to really nail the opportunities that they create for us and really when I go into an audition room not just being the best Asian actor but being the best actor in that room so I can get that role it is kind of amazing that you've gone in just

a span of a couple years from literally sleeping on the couch right paying $300 and run scraping it together driving uber to now having the weight of you know representing and what that means on TV and in film and do you do parts of the accent or not and how to create opportunities like how do you just deal with that probably trying not to think about it you know and then you have a panic attack until I am no I'm just enjoying a man like this is really fun to see all of you guys show up like I n

ever imagined this would happen you know or I would imagine this happening in the future but it's just great I'm just trying to enjoy the moment like it's getting a little busy but still I never try to put the weight of representing Asians on my back because that doesn't make me better at my job you know so I just I just try to entertain thank you so much thank you very to see you and thank you of course of course I love this guy hi Janine so um I think you restored really resonates with me beca

use I dropped out of medical school and for like two years my mom's like you know what you're never gonna get a girl to want to marry you if you're not at all haha are you married now no so maybe she's right maybe she's right I got I got two questions first question is if you never got the big break on Silicon Valley huh ended up being uh you know miserable failure like you said what do you think you would have ended up doing and my second question is um so do you have groupies now not that you'

re like a Asian celebrity well the last guy I guess if I didn't get Silicon Valley I think I would still be working hard to try to get something right and I always try to put like you know I have to have different things in a pipeline like if maybe I never became a really good actor I would have just tried to concentrate on stand-up or concentrate and writing or something like that but I don't see there's a world where I would have went back to Smith Barney or anything like that I think you know

people have a misconception of like Hollywood or the arts is luck or it's nepotism or something needs magical needs to happen for you to make it happen but the end of the day if you work hard enough and if you're good enough it's gonna happen one way or another right especially in the stand-up world if you just get good enough at least you can do some colleges at least you can make ends meet right you might not be the next day Chappelle but you can make it a job so I think that's where the disc

onnect this with maybe the older generation and also how a lot of people think of the arts yeah I groupies III don't know I still use Bombo sometimes thank you hi Jimmy my name is Zhang and the other part of the story really resonated with me the immigrant part so as an immigrant myself who's been living in the US for almost two decades one question really trips me up a lot and it's where are you from so Jimmy yeah where are you from like it depends who's asking that question right if it's if it

's an uber driver that I don't really want to talk to I'll just say LA and that's the end of that and a lot of people like to ask you know know where you're originally from and you know people take offense to that and I get it like I wish we don't live in a world like that but you know I'm proud of where I'm from like I'll tell people I grew up in Hong Kong and that I came here so if they want to hear the long story of that I sell them back yeah exactly anywhere you want yeah thank you thanks ma

n hi Jamie hi I was wondering if you're still keeping in touch with your high school friends the misfits and other folks who knew absolutely Silicon Valley and what are they up to now and do they think you're funny yeah you know what there's still some of my best friends man my buddy Jeremy Persian guy he's in construction now and but he wants to be a writer so we're actually writing something together because he knows my life as well as I do yeah and and you know my friend who lives in Irvine n

ow he came out to support one of my book signings and it was really sweet to see that and yeah they still live pretty close to me and still some of my best friends and it's good to have people like that to keep you honest I think like they would check me they're like Jimmy accent to Hollywood man you know why going out to buy gold chain what's wrong with you so I stopped at one gold chain thanks hey Jimmy my name is Tony big fan of the show I'm excited to check out this book also being the child

of like immigrant parents I'm curious to see how the conversations or process went with you talking to your parents about wanting to you know leave Smith Barney disappointing your parents you said you know for a couple of years like what was that like talking to your dad and it's hard I think also in an Asian family we're not as open in a way like with the Western family like an Asian family like we don't necessarily I love you or I'm proud of you things like that on the surface worse you know

it's a very casual thing for my Americans French saying I love you I love you I love you right so Thanks so you know it's hard man you know I saw some therapy and you know you have to kind of just like kind of step up you don't want it to be like a thing or like you don't end up talking to somebody right so it's like an ongoing conversation I think me and my dad now has a good communication we're like we talk all the time even about stuff that I make him talk about stuff he doesn't want to talk

about sometimes you know like stuff from the book and he brought the book and stuff like that so sometimes it's up to us to maybe force that conversation on him yeah was there a point that you felt you had to kind of like earn his acceptance at all or was it was he come past that I'm past that now I think yeah you got him to try acting right yes he's an actor he played my dad in Patriots Day this is pretty good actor yeah thanks having Asian parents means there are a lot of expectations they exp

ect you to go to a good school get a good job and then get married after school and have kids before 30 right mr. herons expectation changed as your career grow and how do you deal with those expectations I guess I think there's a lot of people feeling similar pressures yeah has their expectation changed that do you do you want me have kids like soon [Laughter] [Applause] there you have it yeah I thought maybe there is I think I don't know but I try not let it get to me you know Thanks hi Jimmy

I'm Charlene thanks for sharing the story today so my question is now you've gained lots of popularity and fame but is there one at what point do you think that you think you are actually going to be famous someday in from TV show and at what point do you start to actually believe that you know you're you're gonna be you know what you're doing and you're gonna be good in acting and um I think being an actor and like being a Stan be always kind of insecure and and it's not like an absolute like o

h now I'm a good actor I think I'm very confident in my abilities now ever since you know a few a season in Silicon Valley and all this stuff I've done but it's you always try to just get better you know and not suck so I don't know not too much because Silicon Valley is a single camera says shoots like a movie so I think that gave us a lot of practice and and you know Silicon Valley's like going to school for me at the acting school I never had so that was awesome so maybe one day I'll sell out

I don't know what was seen as two rappers would say where they're nice when you cry I cry in the evenings I didn't know that hey it's a question do you cry have you ever cried from the pressure or the fear of not making it no I don't think so it wasn't like the fear like I get anxiety from it but it's never like crying like sometimes I cry tears of joy when I realized last I am that's when I cry Thanks okay my question my country is actually I like Jeannie on this row very much but it's I think

it's very different with the guys I met in Silicon Valley I think like me I'm an Asian guy and in software engineering Silicon Valley but I think most Asian guys I met a very smart and the Dickerson's down but the jigna is totally different with that dude has to say he's stupid do you know that oh I I know the ROI is not decided by you it's by director or some some other guys but I mean do you know what's the true software engineer in Silicon Valley the Asian solid software she's inviting you t

o do a Google engineering immersion Chinese folks asking a tough question I I mean you got it you got it you got to still play the comedy of it right like if it's just a dude sitting in front of a computer making really awesome apps and really successful making hundred it's not funny so that's I think funny to do to make it a satire of you know he has some of the mannerisms of the Silicon Valley people but he still kind of has the balls and and he's kind of steps up and he's kind of an and you k

now he's kind of an opportunist in a way you know I think gigant can code pretty well but not hotdogs app he just made okay thank you thank you for coming Jimmy my name is Vicky I'm in a ABC American born Chinese my parents are from Taipei I grew up exactly kind of the similar path that you may have been and until I got into Google my mom was disappointed with me what did you do before that um well I actually went through the recruiting program University recruiting so I actually went to UCSD an

d went through the Career Center and actually applied to work and I never stepped foot in that career so it's my first job out of college it was the only job I applied for and I was like I hope this works out and my mom was like you better hope it works out so now to this day even my grandparents like don't leave Google whatever you do don't leave and I don't think they even know what I do so it's like there is an expectation I totally understand kind of what yeah a lot of us are gonna thing the

question I had for you was around children your future children I have a child now and I grew up going to Chinese school doing all the traditional Chinese things we do I find it challenging to figure out how to raise my child in America and also instill in cultural the basic cultural decisions I grew up with and I feel like there's some responsibility my and to do that so my question to you would be imagine yourself being your dad one day having your own children um how would you go about makin

g sure that your own children don't lose their own cultural identity given that leaf they're not from Hong Kong Shanghai they speak Mandarin or I do John Boyer okay so do you speak to your kids in Mandarin um so she's only want like for 14 months well I mean will you use them yeah no I planning on sending her to training school yeah just what I use cuz your kid's gonna learn isn't like that told me like your kid's gonna learn English in school you might as well speak to them in Mandarin you know

like I see you know some of my relatives like they insist on speaking maybe May English to the kids so the kid doesn't aren't gonna be foreign like they were you know but that the kids grew up in America he's gonna speak English so I think the language itself is very important you know I think everyone's trying to learn Mandarin now yeah Beauty show him some beauty so I think like even like people actors and people meet it we're trying you know so hopefully as he or she he or she she as she's g

rowing up there would be more material out there of a positive cool Asian representation you know read her this book I mean we only have Neha kai-lan right now but I'm sure there's more opportunities and things for her to learn from but yeah I agree I think language is part of it but also the tradition traditional sense I don't know if you plan on celebrating certain holidays with your future children and yeah yeah but I'm not want to give parenting advice thank you thank you I feel so incredibl

y grateful I'm the last one so like I made it this better be good yeah it's gonna be a long one first of all hi dad I mean I didn't get the hot dog signature on the book but that's not a complaint there's only one right yeah kudos to your comments on the crazy rich Asians being the Black Panther for agents really strong I feel strong about that too this is a boss thought leadership so I'm also 1.5 generation Asian Canadian and went to Canada was 14 my voice might be shaking right now sorry guys

too excited oh you're good yeah the leadership I also really like how you were saying that the French say that the difference between Asian boring America I mean ABC's here and the one point five generations I see there's a change of like ABC total ranking 1.5 generation more as Asia's rising specifically in China after 2005 there's still more to be done and the thought leadership part is I don't want to divide anyone we think all this labels like also like that versity is like a talk in Google

like globally like how do you just like tell people like we're just the same I like we're all immigrant and you should be proud of who you are without yeah like if they haven't been to your shoes yeah I think it's hard to tell people that I think even if you turn a TV like something like the immigration issue is so politicized there's two sides and there's two people arguing they never get anywhere right and that's why I kind of want to write a book like this where it's just me telling my story

and hopefully a humanize it's the immigrant experience right and so maybe people can see it from my point of view and in a kind of humorous light-hearted way and really understand what it was like to be an immigrant it's not always soft stories like oh whatever but you know in a real way like as as if this is a real person so I think that's important to me and and it's hard to convince people but sometimes it's easier it's like pitching jokes to the writers room you don't want to tell them hey t

his is the joke I want to do but you want to kind of make them think they came up with that idea right you should do that we have bosses you should make them think it's it's their idea and and and how do you do that is maybe by telling them a story through different mediums right stand-up books or just in person telling my story so I think I and just showing them like who you are letting them know you as an immigrant and I think that that's that does more work than arguing with someone and shovi

ng a point down they throw I think we're all very lucky that we got to hear your story and right thanks guys [Applause] you