Fighting Hate With Comedy: Jiaoying Summers / Stand-up Comedian, Comedy Club Owner

Direct Talk

Today's guest on Direct Talk
is Jiaoying Summers.

Originally born in China

she confronts issues of racism
as a stand-up comedian in the U.S.

On stage I am happiest.

Because I feel safe.

I felt that moment and
nobody can drag me down.

And enjoy being me

and bring laughter to people.

Summers left China
when she was 18 years old.

She sees a growing crisis
with increasing hate crimes against Asians

in her new home, the U.S.

She uses TikTok among other social media,

to give awareness on race issues
through comedy.

This is a QR code

that you can scan.

And then find out

what kind of Asian I am.

Summers has a billion views on "social"

and has been a sensational influencer,

especially to the younger generation.

She also supports activities
to fight against hate towards Asians.

We ask her how she uses comedy
to bring change to America.

Fighting Hate With Comedy

Los Angeles

Los Angeles is
the entertainment center of the world.

Summers is a stand-up comedian
based in the city.

You look so cute!

Hi! You look cute.

Wow, gangster!

Is this Godfather?

Godfather?

She performs almost everyday

sometimes several sets in one day.

Jiaoying Summers!

Her jokes are based on the differences

she encountered when she moved
from China to the U.S. 15 years ago.

Do we have any Asians in the house?

So I'm not the only person
who brought Covid to America.

It's nice.

Do you think the Asians, we are happy to see
somebody squeeze soy sauce on fried rice.

It's fried rice.

There's soy sauce in some fried rice.

You are wasting soy sauce.

We control our anger.

I control my anger.

I go home and I have verbally abused
my white boyfriend like a normal person.

She's amazing.

I'm Chinese too.

I guess she's naturally really funny.

- Really good time.
- Great.

Yeah, absolutely.

It was a great time.

My job is to speak the truth and
make them laugh. That's what I do.

There's no boundaries in comedy.

Now there's cancel culture or
censorship in America, in comedy,

and I choose to stand up
for myself and for my voice.

So my dream is to become the person

who can talk about important issues
in the world and make it funny.

It's very hard to make that funny

but once you have
this very strong point of view,

Not mocking people,

but share what deep inside my heart

and mocking myself

and people really relate and they love it.

Crimes against Asians living in the U.S
jumped when the Corona virus pandemic hit.

A woman was pushed into a subway
and died in New York in 2022.

It was a horrific racial crime.

Summers felt she needed to do something.

She brought awareness and criticism to "hate"

that was happening through her comedy.

I made a friend in Kentucky.
His name is Billy Bob.

Billy Bob is a very nice guy.

But sometimes
Billy does not respect my boundaries.

You know, there's one time Billy asked me,

"What does dog meat taste like?"

So I told him,
I said "Billy,

can we respect each other's boundaries?

Because I never asked you,

what does your cousin's XXXX taste like?"

She appeals to her audience,
often times, using strong language.

How did this joke come about?
Did it really happen to you?

Yes.

They always say
what does dog meat taste like?

Does it taste like chicken?

They ask us to squeal. Yeah.

People think it's okay to ask
that kind of questions to Asian people.

They really think It's okay.

Imagine you ask a black child,

oh, does your father have a job?

That is not okay.

It never should be okay.

So the same with asking this
to a Asian person.

It is very racist.

And they don't understand the racist

because we never got mad about it,

we just ignore them.

I talk more about the culture shock,

I feel like it helps Americans
to understand that

we are the same people,

Asians, Americans, we are all the same.

So I think that's really help with xenophobia
towards Asian Americans.

Summers also wanted followers
from the younger generation.

So, she started short comedy clips
on social networks three years ago.

Today she has 1.3 million followers

with a billion views.

I see I'm not the only one

Every time I see one of your videos,
my day gets a little better

I was working a lot on my social media
trying to find my voice

to see what relates to my audience.

My audience shows me
what's relating to them.

Based on the viewers,

the more viewers I have,
I know, that kind of video is relating.

As far as we see could be a year of lockdown,

and I cannot just do nothing.

And that's how I really launched my TikTok.

But I'm only going to tell jokes.

Only will tell jokes.

Because once I build my fan base,

they will buy tickets
to see me doing a show telling jokes.

If I'm just doing the silly stuff
dancing stuff.

Why, yeah you have ten million followers,
but what am I good for?

Twerk?
Like it's just...

I was very intentionally
when I started my TikTok.

Summers was born in Henan province in 1990.

China adopted the one child policy
during that time,

in order to ease the population growth.

One-child Policy

Boys were preferred over girls

as heirs to many families.

There was an incident where a baby girl
was discarded in a bin and left to die.

I was born in China in the 90s.

There is a one child policy.

So when I was born,
my father asked my mom,

"Will she live?"

My mom said,

"I think she will

if you just bring her back
from the dumpster."

There is so many girls,
they were born during the one child policy

they were not wanted.

And they were told they were not wanted.

Once you feel like
you don't deserve to be alive

and your life was gifted to you as a bonus,

you will really start to have low self esteem

and making the wrong choice in life.

I feel like I should talk about
the source of all of the problem

is that we don't feel we are worthy
of the things that we actually deserve.

And that's the problem, I feel like.

And I wanted to rip my heart open

and show people my darkest secrets,

and the most miserable thing
ever happened to me.

And it didn't break me.
It made me who I am.

Summers moved to the U.S. to study
at the University of Kentucky when she was 18.

University of Kentucky

She got married and gave birth.

It was during that time she decided
she wanted to become a stand-up comedian.

She started to perform during open mic
in between gigs of other comedians.

This allowed her to hone her skills.

Yet, she faced discrimination
in various forms.

A chance at success didn't come easy.

As a female,
Asian American immigrant comedian,

I know exactly, that is how unfair,

how dark comedy is.

is very racist,

is very sexist.

You go to open mic.

You have to stay in line for three hours

for a lottery open mic.

There's 100 people

and 20 people get pulled,

you'll sit there for three hours
waiting for your name to get pulled,

you may never get go on stage.

And that's the time you're going to invest in

and is really crazy.

I did my first open mic,
obviously in Koreatown.

And I bombed.

I don't remember what I said.

I was so nervous.
I feel like I got run by a train.

And I remember I was walking down the stage.

Somebody was saying

"Somebody should not be doing comedy."

And then I was crying

and I went to the bar,

I got a vodka shot

and I had the vodka,
went to my car and started crying.

I was breastfeeding.

My milk just started coming out.

Then I have a cup
to catch the milk to save for the baby.

Now I realize this.
They can't drink this.

There's a vodka in the milk.

So I was crying.
I'm like, "You're useless."

I'm dumping the milk and I'm like no,

that is White Russian.
I should drink it.

I drink it.
Now that's a good joke.

A White Russian Cocktail is made with vodka,
heavy cream & coffee liqueur.

So that's actually my first good joke.

as a standup comedian,

and the White Russian.

The best White Russian in the world,
I drank my own breast milk.

So I was crying.

Then I said, hm, I'll write this down.
I'll try it tomorrow.

This incident was the beginning to
her successful stand-up comedy career.

The next opportunity came in 2020.

She got her own comedy club in Los Angeles

and provided a stage for minorities
who have been blocked due to race or gender.

She gave them a chance at performing.

She had "open mic" slots
available almost every day.

Daily Open Mics

One can register on the internet

by paying five dollars

to stand up for five minutes on stage.

It was an innovative system.

This is the only comedy club
that you can come to during the day,

which is just unheard of in the comedy world.

I couldn't find a theater to go to,
I couldn't join a theater club.

I came in here and I was like,

You know what? We can do some jokes.

Her club became a place
where a shot at comedy was made possible.

Every hour, we have nine slots.

It's five minutes per person.

you have to sign up a day before
because it is always fully booked.

We are very busy.

So people, I think there's a
great way for comedians,

because when you start doing comedy,
you have other jobs.

You are a bartender,

maybe there's some doctors,

they want to be a comedian,

but they don't have time

to sit in line with for three hours
to maybe get on stage.

It's just, it's so abusive.

I don't want to take power away
from my people, my community,

I want them to know that

whatever I'm doing,

they can do it too.

There's nothing special about what I'm doing,

the only special thing is that
I actually think I can do it.

Summers is a single mother with two children.

What does Mummy do?

Mommy's a comedian.

Mommy's a comedian.

She makes time for them despite being busy
with shows all over the United States.

I can see that I just do more shows.

I just write more jokes.

I just make more content,

because that's the only way I know
how I can be better than myself for tomorrow.

I know I'm better every day and I know,

I am at ease.

I'm like, Okay, we are moving forward.

And that's all you know.

My daughter and my son,

they will understand that
why mom come home late.

And why she is always working on her craft.

And when they see my performance,

and they see that we raise money
to help the victims and,

my jokes are uplifting our community,

they will understand
they will forgive me

and I think they will become a better person.

And they also become outspoken

about problems that's happening
towards Asian American community.

Asian Hall of Fame
November, 2022

She received the Asian Hall of Fame award
in November of 2022.

Summers left us with this message.

Courage

Yong chi.

Courage.

That's my best weapon I ever had.

Right now my courage is helping me

to not waver against the censorship
and the cancel culture

to stand up for my words.

To be true to my opinions,

about the politics,

about my commentary about social events.

I think that's what is going to
set me apart from the noise.