Behind Closed Doors with Jordan Leung
Jordan Leung is a stand-up comedian who will be performing in our upcoming Keepsake show, Unmute Yourself. Tickets are on sale now! In this interview, Jordan chats with Jay and Hailey about his experience performing comedy in New York and Hong Kong (where he lives now), how he organized over fifty Zoom comedy shows during the pandemic, and whether or not his niece is truly his biggest fan…
In this semi-weekly blog series, we post in-depth interviews that take you behind closed doors (or #BCD) with independent artists, many of whom have performed or will perform in a Keepsake show.
Hailey:
Interpret this however you’d like: when and why did comedy “begin” for you? Why stand-up in particular?
Jordan:
I get asked this question every time and I think I’ve improved my answer. I was always kind of the funny kid, the class clown in school growing up. So comedy was always in the books, or an option. It wasn’t like I suddenly wanted to be funny. When I first moved to New York, that was a big push because obviously the comedy scene is so big here. I wanted to challenge myself and do something new. It all went together and happened like that.
Hailey:
When did you move to New York?
Jordan:
2016. I just graduated from undergrad and applied to grad school in New York. I didn’t move to New York because I wanted to pursue comedy, it just sort of happened while I was here.
Jay:
Who are your biggest comedic influences? Who are you loving right now?
“I don’t actually watch that much stand-up comedy because I don’t want to get too influenced by them. I want to keep my work my own.”
Jordan:
There’s this one guy, Nimesh Patel, he’s one of the first comedians I saw live in New York. Now, he writes for A Little Late With Lilly Singh, and he also wrote for Saturday Night Live (SNL) for a bit. The first time I saw him perform, I thought it was cool that he used his position as an Indian-American to navigate all these different topics, and that really resonated with me.
I don’t actually watch that much stand-up comedy because I don’t want to get too influenced by them. I want to keep my work my own.
Jay:
Sometimes I feel like that with songwriting. More often, I catch inspiration from other creative outlets like books or podcasts, rather than music.
Jordan:
Yeah, then you get too mainstream and it’s like, is that who I am right now?
Jay:
You performed at the Sacramento Comedy Fest in 2019. What was that experience like? How did you feel on that stage and afterwards?
Jordan:
That was the first comedy festival that I got into. It was my first “legit” show in California, so it was the first time my high school and college friends from California could watch me perform. It was also the first time I felt like there was some proper, tangible validation for my comedy instead of some person at a bar saying, “oh, that was fun.” It was a full festival. They put my photo on the poster and stuff. I was the most excited about that. And I was also a little nervous because it was my first time performing in front of a larger audience. It was really fun.
Hailey:
How many people were at the festival?
Jordan:
It wasn’t a huge festival, but the audience was over 100, which was a big audience for me.
Hailey:
I went to high school in Montreal, and Just for Laughs is one of the largest comedy festivals in the world, so the scene in Montreal naturally is big. The crowds there were massive. I always thought it would be absolutely terrifying for the emerging comics who got in.
Jordan:
Exactly! It’s so different from anything you’ve done.
Hailey:
Yeah, and they do accept a lot of emerging people that have done the smaller shows in clubs and bars. To go from that to a festival, I can’t even imagine.
Jordan:
It’s actually easier the more audience there is. But it’s more of a nervous thing when you’re like, “holy shit, all of these people.” In theory, anything you say in front of a larger crowd should be amplified and way funnier.
Jay:
I also saw that you were going to play the Asian Comedy Fest in 2020. How was that experience?
Jordan:
It was right before the pandemic, but I didn’t go because I ended up going back to Hong Kong. But it would have been a cool event. My other Asian comedian friends were all there. Normally for a show, we don’t get more than one or two Asian comedians on a lineup. But for this one, if I went, we all would have performed and it would have been super cool.
Hailey:
When did you move back out to Hong Kong? Was it right before the pandemic?
Jordan:
No, I was actually in Hong Kong briefly and when my uncle picked us up from the airport, he was like, “oh, there’s this thing in Wuhan.” I think it was January 2020, and cases started rising in Hong Kong, so I left to go back to the U.S. Then it started to get out of control in the U.S., so in March of last year, I came back to Hong Kong.
Hailey:
I feel like that’s a classic scenario, where everybody in Asia knew it was coming earlier obviously because it was happening there, but they also knew the U.S. would be an absolute mess.
Jordan:
I know a lot of people here in Hong Kong that were a part of the same situation, so it’s interesting.
Hailey:
Yeah, I had a lot of Singaporean friends and they all left.
Jordan:
Exactly. People from Asia are in Asia right now.
Hailey:
Speaking of Hong Kong, venues are opening up there now. Are they at limited capacity, or are they able to fill up? We saw you were performing at what appeared to be a nursing home recently, and we joked with Dylan Adler that the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) also had a bit of a split crowd--some young folk in the back, and older Asian women in the front. What is it like performing for audiences of different age groups?
Jordan:
So the first part of your question--we’re at limited capacity. There are restrictions at 50%. It really varies, so the more local Hong Kong Chinese people are on the safer side. For others, they’re usually a little more brave. They’re kind of like, “whatever!” and take their masks off and stuff. Comedy shows are a bit of a gray area because we’re not really relevant in Hong Kong so there aren't many laws explicitly saying we can’t do live comedy. We’re not a concert, so we’re in the gray area.
In terms of performing for older audiences, it was rooms like MOCA that prepared me for that. MOCA was the first time I got to perform for older Asian people. There was one joke I said that I should not have said.
Hailey:
Do you remember what it was?
Jordan:
I had this joke about clitorises.
Jay:
Oh! I remember my mom was in the audience for that…
Jordan:
Oh no… I just heard a pin drop and I was like, oh fuck. Man, that was my funniest joke at the time, you know? It’s like when you have opportunities to do that, I know next time no matter how good you think this joke is, you shouldn’t say it in front of older Asian people. That experience kind of accumulates. If I’m ever in a situation where I’m like, oh shit, this is an audience of old Asian people, I can call back the last three times on what I should or shouldn’t do.
Hailey:
Actually, going off of that too, I’m curious--you’re performing in some English stand-up and also doing Cantonese?
Jordan:
Yeah, it’s like two different scenes and two entirely different audiences. I do both.
Hailey:
You grew up speaking Cantonese, but is it easy to speak it in comedy? Is it difficult to translate?
Jordan:
It is a little difficult. For me, the writing and delivery isn’t as sharp as I want it to be. I can still communicate a concept, but I’m not able to be as sharp just because my English is better and I’m more used to doing comedy in English. But it’s cool, it’s pretty fun.
Hailey:
It’s a really awesome skill to build up. It’s almost beyond fluency to be able to grasp humor in another language.
Jordan:
It’s so cultural, yeah.
Hailey:
You started up a comedy series on Zoom called “No Pants Comedy” and actually had your pilot show the day that the Bay Area shelter in place order started, March 15 2020. Was that your first comedy show on Zoom in general, and how did your (and your fellow comics’) stand-up adapt to Zoom? And also, how many shows do you think you’ve now done on Zoom in the past year? I feel like it’s a lot!
“I’d never done comedy on Zoom, and it wasn’t going to be the same, but I think the connectivity was the best part.”
Jordan:
It’s probably at least 50 shows, something like that. I’ve been doing it for a while. I’m pretty sure my show was the first Zoom comedy show, period. I hadn’t heard of anyone else doing something like this at the time, unless it was a private thing. But if I didn’t do it, someone else would have done it anyway.
The biggest thing was being able to work with comedians across the world and country. It sounds so obvious now, but at the time, it was like, holy shit. I didn’t actually live in San Francisco. I lived in Sunnyvale, an hour from San Francisco in the Bay Area. Technically, all the better comedians and shows would be in San Francisco, but I never traveled there for comedy because I didn’t want to be in traffic for two hours to perform at an open mic for 10 minutes, so once we started using Zoom, it was a great way to get my name out there more and make more connections. That was the biggest adaptation. I’d never done comedy on Zoom, and it wasn’t going to be the same, but I think the connectivity was the best part.
Hailey:
Were most of the comedians on the show people you had connected with previously? Or people you were reaching out to?
Jordan:
Mixture of both—connecting with old friends but also being able to get comedians that I normally wouldn’t be able to book. That part was really cool.
Hailey:
That’s a really awesome opportunity. The global access is great.
What was the worst set you’ve ever done as a comedian? Tell us that story!
Jordan:
One time, I was at this mixed variety mic show. I thought it was mixed, but turns out I was the only person making it mixed because everyone else was doing music. I went up second and I didn’t know because I was very new and green to comedy, so I was like, Yo, all these jokes worked before, they’re so funny, I’m just gonna say it and it’ll work.
And it was on a roof as well. It was so awkward, man. The worst part about it was that I invited this girl to come watch because I was like, yo, it’s gonna be cool, and it was just the worst experience ever. I had another show a day later in a comedy club and I told the same jokes and they all landed and I was like, why didn’t I just invite her to that one?
And also, at MOCA, that specific moment when I told that joke about clitorises. That was the quietest the room has ever been in my comedy career.
Hailey:
Oh no! Not one of my shows!
Jordan:
Ha, it was just that one moment. Otherwise, it was fun, but that one moment. God.
Jay:
You pulled it off, though. I would have never known it was awkward for you. You just went straight past it.
Jordan:
I had to commit! I already started it, and I had to commit.
Hailey:
And I also think, at least for us and other performers watching the silence, that was really funny too, having the audience sit in that uncomfortable feeling.
Jordan:
I have the video somewhere. I have never watched it because I know it’ll be so bad, but I should watch it back someday.
Jay:
So, you lived and performed in a few cities--San Francisco, New York, now Hong Kong. How does the comedy scene differ among these cities and has the movement inspired your material? Is there a place you particularly miss or want to go back to? Is there a place that made you feel fulfilled creatively?
Jordan:
“In Hong Kong, I’m able to talk about [my Hong Kong identity] in front of people and say specific things that only Hong Kong people would understand. Living in Hong Kong has been a huge part of my career [...] It has its own culture and identity.”
For the cities, they are really good examples of small vs. big comedy scenes. New York is always the big one. It was a good place to start because it helped me set a standard for what good comedy is. People always say New York has a specific style with tighter joke writing versus an LA style, where it’s looser and more focused on storytelling. I try to follow the New York style, for sure. I miss New York City a lot, so it’s sort of the end goal for my comedy career.
But for Hong Kong--the biggest thing for me is that it’s my home. When I perform comedy in America, I say, “I’m Asian American...etc.” And I obviously am, but I kind of hid the Hong Kong part of me because I would never bring that up on stage or mention it. But in Hong Kong, I’m able to talk about that in front of people and say specific things that only Hong Kong people would understand. Living in Hong Kong has been a huge part of my career.
Jay:
Yeah, I really resonate with that too. My family is from Hong Kong. I’ve been back a couple of times, but I feel like I belong there in a way. Even though I wasn’t born there or didn’t grow up there, I have an attachment to that place in a way and it feels like home.
Jordan:
It has its own culture and identity.
Hong Kong skyline, October 2014. Photo by Hailey Savage.
Jay:
You are very active on social media! Is there a platform that ‘works’ for you? Describe your relationship with social media in general.
Jordan:
For comedians, the main socials you have to consider are Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. TikTok is banned in Hong Kong, so I don’t bother with that. Instagram works for me because I’m able to create content in image, video, and text, whereas the other platforms may specialize more in one form.
For social, in the beginning, there was a bit of an adjustment phase. I had this notion that people who post on social media all the time were so annoying and self-centered, but I realized that if I’m going to have a public presence, it’s kind of my job to do that. I was trying to find my voice in the beginning and balance posting for me versus posting for engagement with my followers. I’m still figuring it out, but I’m starting to gain more traction.
Hailey:
Your niece is kind of a star on Instagram, thanks to you. Is she truly your biggest fan?
Jordan:
We hang out a lot, she’s my fan.
Jay:
Does she think you’re funny?
Jordan:
Yeah, everyday, she can’t decide if being funny is a good or bad thing. She’s very happy saying I’m so funny, but then if it’s something she doesn’t like, she’ll be like, “that’s not funny!” I don’t want to influence her too much. I don’t want to brainwash her into somehow becoming a comedian when she grows up. When I post stuff about her, it’s just really genuine interactions that have happened. I do find her super funny and there are funny moments to share. She makes me laugh a lot.
Hailey:
Where do you find that you get your best feedback from? Is that directly from audience reaction, from friends who come to your shows, critics, yourself? What is your process in receiving and applying feedback for your stand-up?
Jordan:
It would be a combination of the audience and myself, I’d say. If one of my non-comedian friends gives suggestions, I’m more like, ok, uh, thanks for your suggestion. For the audience feedback, it’s the laughter.
But I think based on what I want to do with my comedy, I have to trust myself more than the audience because ultimately, it’s what I want to say. So when I first started out, if the audience laughed too hard at an Asian joke that I didn’t think was that good, that’s not exactly the feedback I was going for so I had to trust myself. So for me, I need to find that perfect balance of audience satisfaction as well as my satisfaction, and that came through my own judgment and feedback.
Jay:
Your work is typically very current, and you openly talk about race and your experience as an Asian American. In a few of your sets, you joked your goal is to be so famous that “Jordan Leung” replaces “Jackie Chan.” I was actually listening to the Chinese radio recently where they were talking about anti-Asian hate crimes as of late and the host was saying we need to bring back a “Bruce Lee” icon so people know not to mess with us. How has the recent spike in anti-Asian hate crimes affected you? Do you feel drawn to speak about it in your work and if so, in what ways? How do you think art/comedy play a role?
*Editor’s Note: This interview took place before the shootings that occurred in Atlanta, Georgia on March 16, 2021 and resulted in the murder of eight people, including six Asian women. Jordan and Keepsake House responded to the news on our respective social media platforms.
“I think we would benefit from having powerful figures that aren’t Asian niches.”
Jordan:
This is going to sound bad for the anti-Asian part, but because I’m in Hong Kong, I’ve honestly felt such huge relief that I don’t have to think about that stuff all the time. Obviously I feel bad but when that’s so distant and far from your day to day reality, it’s easy to become disassociated with what’s going on. It sounds kind of selfish because I just get to live as a human without having to think about racism all the time, but obviously I know what it’s like to be Asian American and the struggles we face.
I think when people say Bruce Lee, I don’t know if they mean a Kung Fu hero specifically or just powerful Asian figures. I think powerful Asian figures make sense but a literal Bruce Lee seems like overcompensating hyper-masculinity, and is not really realistic. In the sense of having more influential figures, that makes sense. I know Daniel Dae Kim and other celebrities have organized [resources and campaigns to fight against anti-Asian racism]. But the problem is those are relevant to Asians but are niches to the general American public. I think we would benefit from having powerful figures that aren’t Asian niches, but it would have to depend on who it is.
As far as comedy, it can be a powerful tool to address issues such as these. After a major event happens, the first SNL monologue is one of those things Americans will look to as something to help make sense of an event. Comedy can definitely be a vehicle for that dialogue, but I’m not quite that person, or I don’t tend to do that in my comedy. But if someone were to effectively communicate it, that would be great.
Hailey:
One of the things that I’ve always admired about you as a person is that you are obviously pretty honest and upfront, but you also use that as a tool in holding people accountable, in various ways. Shortly before you moved to California from New York, after you had done a few “Music + Mic Night” shows at MOCA, you messaged me (the host of those shows) and talked about how wary you were when you first saw that a white woman was hosting these variety shows that featured majority Asian American performers.
I appreciated that you gave me a chance, but even more I appreciated that you were willing to call me out if my hosting ever became uncomfortable, appropriative, or exploitative. It was very important for me and for the other performers to have someone like you willing to point those things out.
Outside of your material bringing up relevant Asian American perspectives, have you consciously looked for shows and venues that align with your values? When you were in the States, was that kind of venue ever difficult for you to find?
Jordan:
About you organizing events, I appreciate you bringing it up again because I know it’s easier not to. For that, I think about it a lot too because I ask myself, “how come I feel comfortable with Hailey hosting this?” Sometimes, I feel uncomfortable with a white person organizing an Asian event. For you, it was very clear you were helping to facilitate and enable this event to happen. It wasn’t like you hired all these Asian performers and at the end, you were going to headline this thing, you know? So it was very clear you’re helping to make this happen, and that’s really cool, and I could feel comfortable with that.
For the venues, it’s harder in America because you do want an Asian space, but most venues don’t know what the hell comedy night is or what you’re trying to do, or they don’t have the proper equipment to set it up. And if you want to do a comedy show, there’s this dive bar whose owner might be problematic, but just has everything ready and set up to go. At the end, I might just go with the dive bar because there are fewer logistics to deal with.
In Hong Kong, I had a similar problem, but the question was more, can I find a space that can support a creative?
Hailey:
Did you ever feel like you wanted to turn down a venue or gig but didn’t because you wanted to perform or needed the money? It’s such a tricky place to be put, so I’m curious.
Jordan:
I’ve definitely done shows for producers that I don’t care for much, but I’ve been able to separate the audience from the producer. The show is ultimately for the audience and not the producer, so I’m willing to do that. If I have more choices in gigs, I might turn stuff down, but so far, I’ve done most of them.
Hailey:
I’m very glad that you felt comfortable to say something to me; it was amazing you said that at all. In this case, I held the power in bringing you back. So it was a big deal to me to say, “this was weird for me at first.” That’s really important, and I’m glad you felt you could do that, and I’m sure we’ve all taken jobs we don’t necessarily agree with or don’t align with. That’s a position young people are put in all the time, especially the minority you represent, so that can be hard to navigate. So thank you for sharing.
Jay:
What can audiences expect from your set in the upcoming Keepsake House show?
Jordan:
Jokes, I guess. It’ll be fun, I’m not going to take it too seriously in terms of talking about heavy topics. Light-hearted, fun, silly more than anything.
Jordan will perform in Keepsake’s first show, “Unmute Yourself,” airing live on Zoom Sunday, March 28. Buy tickets now!
Poster by Jeff Deng.
Jay:
At Keepsake House, we talk a lot about the magic in live shows and the communities they help create, almost like every live performance is itself a keepsake that you cherish from a whole house of life experiences. Tell us about your most memorable or fulfilling live performance, the one you would grab first in a fire.
Jordan:
“It’s the homecoming and being able to say things as the real me. I feel like that’s my true audience. ”
I just realized the question, I misheard you and thought you said, would I ever do a magic show?
Hailey:
Oh no! Yeah, not magic.
Jay:
Although maybe one day…
Jordan:
We had a comedy club in Hong Kong called The Riff and every time I’ve performed there, it’s definitely magical for the reasons I’ve said before. It’s the homecoming and being able to say things as the real me. I feel like that’s my true audience. I’ll always hold that close. It’s also a very nice looking club, too.
Hailey:
That’s actually a good point I don’t think about enough. Comedy clubs can be really freaking gross. So a nice club would probably feel so relieving.
Jordan:
I felt so professional.
Hailey:
You’ve made it.
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