Speaker 1: Hey guys, and welcome back to another episode of Black
Speaker 1: Fun Card. I'm producer Keisha and this is our third
Speaker 1: installment of bringing you some of the wonderful conversations that
Speaker 1: Britain Laura had with our great guests.
Speaker 2: At each of our live shows across the country.
Speaker 1: We got to fly around to seven different cities across
Speaker 1: Australia and we were joined by some of the best
Speaker 1: people like I could ever have imagined joining us on stage,
Speaker 1: and so we wanted to bring some of those conversations
Speaker 1: to you while we were taking a bit of a
Speaker 1: summer break.
Speaker 2: Today's episode is with the hilarious Michael Hing.
Speaker 1: Now Michael Hing, you might know him as Hangers because
Speaker 1: he was on Triple Jay.
Speaker 2: He's also on the Project.
Speaker 1: He does a bunch of comedy and a bunch of
Speaker 1: other podcasts. He's a very very busy man and he's
Speaker 1: also an absolute laugh and a half. In this chat,
Speaker 1: he shared two actually I was gonna say the most
Speaker 1: outrageous accidentally unfiltered, but he decided to share both because
Speaker 1: why not, they were both equally as.
Speaker 2: Outrageous as each other, which I love for him.
Speaker 1: He also spoke about having two Chinese doctors as parents
Speaker 1: and wanting to work in comedy because it's a little
Speaker 1: bit of a contrast to the narrative of being you know,
Speaker 1: successful to want.
Speaker 2: To work in the arts.
Speaker 1: They spoke about being a finalist for Cleo Bachelor of
Speaker 1: the Year and using culture in comedy. He also spoke
Speaker 1: about some deeper things, but of course he's a comedian,
Speaker 1: so that there was still hilarious, which I don't know
Speaker 1: how he managed to do. He spoke about things like
Speaker 1: microaggressions and some racism that he's experienced being an Australian
Speaker 1: Chinese guy who worked in media, as well as speaking
Speaker 1: about what he finds worthy of speaking out against and
Speaker 1: how a lot of people who experience microaggressions can feel
Speaker 1: quite exasperated from the experience. So it was a really
Speaker 1: great chat. There's so many laughs in this one, but
Speaker 1: there's also some really impactful lessons, so I hope you
Speaker 1: love it. Let's get into the chat that Britain Laura
Speaker 1: had with Michael Hing at one of our live shows.
Speaker 3: We have our very last guest for this evening now.
Speaker 3: He is a comedian. He was also a radio host.
Speaker 3: He has a podcast and he is a host on
Speaker 3: the project You guys probably know him from being the
Speaker 3: drive show on Tripper Jay as well.
Speaker 1: We have Michael Hang joining our hangers.
Speaker 4: Get on in here? Wrong with the red? Oh yeah,
Speaker 4: I brought some one.
Speaker 5: I think this is I don't know if this is
Speaker 5: your writer or something, but I've stolen someone Samfish's writer.
Speaker 2: Come on, take the welcome you look at me? What
Speaker 2: does your top?
Speaker 5: Says the black eyepatch. It's from a Japanese shirt maker
Speaker 5: that I can't afford to buy things from, so I
Speaker 5: asked him for sponsored content and have it done the
Speaker 5: post anyway, Look, it's fine.
Speaker 4: Swipearp, swipeper.
Speaker 2: We'll put links in the show notes.
Speaker 3: Now, Michael, we start every podcast episode the same way.
Speaker 3: You might not know, because I don't know if you've
Speaker 3: listened to many episodes of Laugh on Cut, this might
Speaker 3: all come as a surprise to you. Sure, but we
Speaker 3: start every interview the same way, and that is with
Speaker 3: your accidentally unfiltered story.
Speaker 5: Oh sure, well, I have some options. My life is humiliating.
Speaker 5: Do you want to hear about Do you want to
Speaker 5: hear about dick pics? Or the option about there's also
Speaker 5: an STI story, So I don't know what you prefer.
Speaker 6: Do you guys want to dig pic? Okay, we have
Speaker 6: time four, we can do both.
Speaker 5: Okay. Well, the Dippic story is very from a very
Speaker 5: long time ago. And I was dating someone. She was
Speaker 5: in a different part of the country, and I was
Speaker 5: having dinner with my parents because I lived with them,
Speaker 5: and we were.
Speaker 4: Like kind of just texting.
Speaker 5: I was like, I gotta go have dinner, and she
Speaker 5: was like, oh, before you go get dinner, I have dinner.
Speaker 4: Can I show you something? And I was like what?
Speaker 5: And then she sent me sort of a I guess
Speaker 5: a an amorous photo and guys, I'm a virgin anyway,
Speaker 5: I and I was like, oh, thanks, like because you
Speaker 5: got to be polite, you know, thank you.
Speaker 2: It was not your response, there is, Michael. There's nothing
Speaker 2: worse than.
Speaker 3: Getting a reply to a sexy photo that is thank you.
Speaker 4: Well, what are you supposed to say?
Speaker 5: I'm gonna have I can't be like, oh, because I'm
Speaker 5: gonna go dap dinner with mum, Like I can't.
Speaker 4: What am I gonna do? No, you can? You can
Speaker 4: compartmentalize the horniness.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that one in the microphone.
Speaker 5: Look, sorry if you missed that, Lauria said, at least
Speaker 5: send the squirting emoji. Anyway, thanks for the souper mum anyway.
Speaker 5: So I so we're getting bucked out of the details,
Speaker 5: she says to this photo. I say, I'm very grateful
Speaker 5: for that, but I have to go get dinner.
Speaker 2: Oh thank you, I'm grateful.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And then she says to me, she says, to you, oh,
Speaker 5: I got this quite I don't know not it was
Speaker 5: a nice text, but it was like quite forceful. It said,
Speaker 5: I've shown you what you're missing out on. I will
Speaker 5: you just show me what I'm missing out on? Right,
Speaker 5: So the implication there is very clear. So I go
Speaker 5: and have dinner, and then after dinner, I say, Mum, Dad,
Speaker 5: excuse me, I've got some homework to do whatever, and
Speaker 5: I go home work.
Speaker 4: How old are you? I was probably like nineteen or twelve.
Speaker 4: I was sorry. I wasn't. I wasn't like fifteen, to
Speaker 4: be clear, I was. I was.
Speaker 5: I was at UNI and I went back upstairs and
Speaker 5: then I've never done this before, but you know how
Speaker 5: when you don't want your parents to come in your room,
Speaker 5: you're like jam a chair under the door because you're like,
Speaker 5: what I'm about to do is going to be so
Speaker 5: humiliating that I don't want anyone to ever see this.
Speaker 5: So then I like, I'd never I'd never taken a
Speaker 5: dick pic before, so I wasn't sure like what.
Speaker 4: Angle to take it from? What lighting?
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, no, not just not just that, because like
Speaker 5: because obviously it's like I could take it from the
Speaker 5: from like my perspective, but I was like, I don't
Speaker 5: think she would have ever seen a dick from that
Speaker 5: angle before, so maybe I've got to try and do
Speaker 5: it from her perspective. Like it's a front I'm selfie,
Speaker 5: but then it's like just a weird like oh god, yeah,
Speaker 5: it's a bit full on, so you're like, oh god.
Speaker 5: So then I'm like getting lamps and shit into try
Speaker 5: and do like I'm like, oh no, just just point
Speaker 5: oh five camera, make it better.
Speaker 4: I don't know, like, and it took me.
Speaker 5: I was like twenty minutes trying to sort out the
Speaker 5: lighting and stuff and felt quite self conscious. And during
Speaker 5: that time, obviously, you know, blood flows an interesting thing,
Speaker 5: and you know, I lose the erection and you can't
Speaker 5: you can't say, you can't be like, hey, what are
Speaker 5: you missing out? And then you send her a photo
Speaker 5: of your soft dick, you know what I mean, because
Speaker 5: that's horrifying. So so, without not knowing what to do,
Speaker 5: and again being quite young, I was like, oh, I'll.
Speaker 4: Just look on the internet.
Speaker 5: I put on the into Google. I was like, I'll
Speaker 5: just have a look what dick pics are available. But
Speaker 5: I don't know if you guys have ever googled for
Speaker 5: dick pics before, but most of the place to send
Speaker 5: my dick to somebody, most of the penis is available
Speaker 5: on Google that they're sort of white and my penis
Speaker 5: like it look it matches my face, you know, I
Speaker 5: mean like it's the it's the same design team has
Speaker 5: worked on both of these items. So now I'm like
Speaker 5: half an hour after dinner and I'm googling Asian dick pics.
Speaker 4: And that's.
Speaker 5: And again I don't want to embarrass anyone who want
Speaker 5: to have done this, but like, if you google it,
Speaker 5: most of the deck pics coming out of Asia, a
Speaker 5: lot of them are censored. So now I'm googling uncensored
Speaker 5: Asian dick pics.
Speaker 4: And I'm like, I find.
Speaker 5: One that I think looks a bit like mine, I think,
Speaker 5: and I'm like, oh, so then here, okay, here's the
Speaker 5: here's how obviously I'm the villain in this story, but
Speaker 5: this is how fucking crazy my brain is. I like
Speaker 5: found the photo, I then sent it to my emailed
Speaker 5: it to myself, opened it on my phone kind of
Speaker 5: like cropped it in the phone in the photos app,
Speaker 5: then screenshot at it right so the metadata would be
Speaker 5: the same, Like do you know what I mean, I'm
Speaker 5: trying to smart man in case a c I was
Speaker 5: looking at my dippics or whatever. I send this to
Speaker 5: her and I'm like, here you go. And then obviously,
Speaker 5: like we've been together for like three years at this point,
Speaker 5: and she just text me you back, being like, that's
Speaker 5: not your dick.
Speaker 2: You've been together three years.
Speaker 6: You left that out of course she knows your dick.
Speaker 4: And I was like, oh, well yeah. So I was like, oh,
Speaker 4: here's what happened.
Speaker 5: I tried to use the lighting and I've never done
Speaker 5: this before, and I lost the blah blahlah blah blah.
Speaker 4: Anyway, we obviously didn't make it.
Speaker 2: So where did the sci come into it?
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is a separate one. Okay, So this is
Speaker 4: again a long time ago. This is an x I day.
Speaker 5: And to be clear, in these stories, I think this
Speaker 5: is obvious, but I'm not. I'm the object of mocker
Speaker 5: in these stories, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: I don't want to do we got it one of
Speaker 4: these people.
Speaker 2: No, I was confused, don't worry.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So I'm like, this is this is again. Quite
Speaker 5: a while ago when I just started doing comedy. I
Speaker 5: just started doing stand up and I was like traveling
Speaker 5: around the country a lot, touring and it was like
Speaker 5: living my dream. But my girlfriend at the time, she
Speaker 5: was working full time back where we lived in Sydney,
Speaker 5: and so she was like pretty unfulfilled by the relationship,
Speaker 5: which I think is like very understandable. So I came
Speaker 5: back from a three month tour and she was like,
Speaker 5: I can't do this anymore. It's been three months while
Speaker 5: you've been away. It's been really hard. I think we
Speaker 5: should break up. And I was like, hey, I understand,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean, fair enough, So we split
Speaker 5: up that two and a half weeks later, I am
Speaker 5: going to the bathroom and I noticed some what I
Speaker 5: would broadly describe as some symptoms in like the danger zone,
Speaker 5: and I'm like, oh, this isn't good, right, Because I'm
Speaker 5: a bit of a germophobe as well.
Speaker 4: Right now.
Speaker 5: I'm like, I should go get this checked out. So
Speaker 5: I don't know if you like me. I've got two doctors.
Speaker 5: I've got the doctor I go to when everything's fine,
Speaker 5: and then I've got the shameful doctor I go to
Speaker 5: when I'm like I need help, you know. Like there's
Speaker 5: one doctor I go to. I'm like, oh, I need aspapapas.
Speaker 5: This doctor's like I need a test, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean. So I go into a place in Sydney
Speaker 5: call King's Cross, which is like kind of a I guess,
Speaker 5: like what was previously quite a sleazy area, and there's
Speaker 5: a sexual health clinic there that's like they'd be very
Speaker 5: good work.
Speaker 4: It's very anonymous. They just give you a number.
Speaker 5: It's like it's like totally it's very safe and very
Speaker 5: like very helpful. I went in there and I'm in
Speaker 5: the waiting room with my number, waiting to like at
Speaker 5: like a fucking Deli number, getting waited to be called
Speaker 5: into the doctor's office, and the doctor and the person
Speaker 5: comes out and they're calling the person before me. And
Speaker 5: when you've ever been to a sexual health clinic in
Speaker 5: the waiting room, everyone's so tense, like no one's in there,
Speaker 5: being like I'm gonna fucking nail this test, you know
Speaker 5: what I mean, Like, you know, yeah.
Speaker 4: So I'm there and I realize what's happened.
Speaker 5: I'm like, oh shit, like I think i've because I'm like,
Speaker 5: I know, I haven't you know, messed around.
Speaker 4: So that's what's happened. Oh sorry.
Speaker 5: What I didn't mention was the night we broke up,
Speaker 5: we also had crazy you know what I mean, like
Speaker 5: just one night. One night only said you know what
Speaker 5: I mean, kind of goodbysex. Right, So I was like,
Speaker 5: I know, I haven't missed around. So if I have
Speaker 5: got something, does that mean she's cheated on me while
Speaker 5: I've been away, which I guess I would understand. But
Speaker 5: then we're back and then it's you know, is that
Speaker 5: what's happening? Is that how I've got this thing? And
Speaker 5: my mom begins to squirl. I think, I think my
Speaker 5: girlfriend cheatd on me. So then the doctor comes out
Speaker 5: and she goes, oh, you know number eight eighteen or whatever,
Speaker 5: and I go into the thing and she goes what
Speaker 5: seems to be the problem and I just haven't told it,
Speaker 5: talk to anyone about this. So I break down in
Speaker 5: tears and I'm like I think my girl friend cheated
Speaker 5: on me.
Speaker 4: And she was like, oh, we mostly do pathology here.
Speaker 4: So I So then she goes, all right, give us
Speaker 4: a look.
Speaker 5: And so it was like these three marks that kind
Speaker 5: of went through down the center of my I guess,
Speaker 5: like you know, danger zone, right, and we can here, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: well do it was it was above the penis, right,
Speaker 5: And so she gets me too, there's.
Speaker 4: Three these three like welts, and I'm like, what the
Speaker 4: fuck is this? Right?
Speaker 5: So she gets me to undo my pants and when
Speaker 5: you're at the doctor and you so, I down did
Speaker 5: my fly and you know, and they're like, went down
Speaker 5: to my jeans and I pulled down the jeans and
Speaker 5: I remember this, I pulled out my underwear, but I
Speaker 5: pull it down beneath my knees. But like so I'm like,
Speaker 5: I'm showing it my dick, but I'm like covering my
Speaker 5: ankles just in case.
Speaker 4: She goes and she goes, what's this, I'm like, it's this,
Speaker 4: and she goes, I've never seen anything like that.
Speaker 5: But I'm like, what do you mean, don't tell me this.
Speaker 5: Tell me this is just a I don't know, tell
Speaker 5: me it's a panetole can fix it, and then she's
Speaker 5: like getting the like the fucking magnifying glassing. They get everything,
Speaker 5: and she's got another. They shine the light on and
Speaker 5: I'm like, oh God. And then she's like oh, and
Speaker 5: I'm like what she and she grabs the sort of
Speaker 5: flaps of my jeans and she pulls them up like
Speaker 5: that and she goes.
Speaker 4: Oh, I.
Speaker 5: Think those marks are from the buttons on your jeans.
Speaker 5: And I was like what, and she was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 5: I don't think you've got an s C. I think
Speaker 5: I think your jeans are just too tight. And I
Speaker 5: was like, oh, like I have had sex before, like
Speaker 5: I haven't risked.
Speaker 2: I'm dying for you. But I mean, I guess that's
Speaker 2: the best possible outcome.
Speaker 4: Best possible outcome. I don't know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I just I just in the loneliness of the
Speaker 5: two and a half weeks, I may have eaten a
Speaker 5: couple of large pizzas just for you know, just for
Speaker 5: me or whatever.
Speaker 4: And and your jeans.
Speaker 6: Okay, all right, well Michael, You're I fucking love that
Speaker 6: you're both of your parents are doctors.
Speaker 5: Yes, but obviously you can't ask m'm about that, you
Speaker 5: know what I mean?
Speaker 6: Yeah, so you didn't want to go to mum talk
Speaker 6: about the flaccid penis and maybe the no.
Speaker 2: Both your parents and doctors, how did they feel when you.
Speaker 6: Decided to go into the creative arts acting stand up comedy.
Speaker 5: Gosh, well, not only are they two doctors, they're also Chinese,
Speaker 5: which you know is a relevant factor in this specific instance.
Speaker 4: At the time, though, I did a bait and switch.
Speaker 5: So I this is for if anyone is like my
Speaker 5: parents are like concerned about me, you know, going into
Speaker 5: a career in the arts, do what I did. So
Speaker 5: I knew I wanted to do comedy. But the other
Speaker 5: thing I was doing at the time was playing a lot.
Speaker 5: I was playing a video game a lot called StarCraft
Speaker 5: because again virgin and I was thinking about So, there's
Speaker 5: this thing called esports. You wouldn't know because you will
Speaker 5: fuck But there's a thing called esports, which is like
Speaker 5: video game competitions, and they do it a lot in Korea.
Speaker 5: And I was thinking about going to Korea to play
Speaker 5: video games professionally.
Speaker 4: So I had led with that and I said, mom, Dad, I'm.
Speaker 5: Thinking about going to Korea, moving to Salta to play
Speaker 5: vide games professional that, no, you can't do that that's
Speaker 5: not a career, and I was like, Okay, don't worry.
Speaker 5: I've got a backup, stand up comedy and and that
Speaker 5: and that.
Speaker 4: So they've been pretty happy with I.
Speaker 5: Think parents are just fine, right if they love you
Speaker 5: and you love them, and they just they know you
Speaker 5: can pay rent and feed yourself.
Speaker 4: That's mostly mostly they're happy.
Speaker 3: I mean, we spoke about some of your accolades very briefly,
Speaker 3: but something and a really amazing accolade that I think
Speaker 3: most people may not know of is that in twenty fifteen,
Speaker 3: you were actually a finalist for Cleo Bachelor of the Year.
Speaker 5: Okay, scattered applause, mostly confused, some confused faces. Yeah, so
Speaker 5: I got nominated. This is if you don't remember. Cleo
Speaker 5: was a sort of a magazine that used to do
Speaker 5: sort of they used to find one hot guy every year,
Speaker 5: but before that they had elimination process with the find
Speaker 5: other other guys to compete with him. And I don't
Speaker 5: know how, but I got on their short lists for
Speaker 5: some reason, and I felt very flat and I thought
Speaker 5: it was quite funny that I was going to be
Speaker 5: on clear Bachelor of the Year, and they said, oh,
Speaker 5: you've got to come to this photo shoot and I
Speaker 5: was like, I'll go to a that sounds like fun.
Speaker 5: I've never done a proper like photo shoot before. And
Speaker 5: they said wear a white T shirt and uh and
Speaker 5: and some jeans.
Speaker 4: I was like, I can do that. And then when
Speaker 4: I turned up, they were like.
Speaker 5: I was like, why did you want to sort to
Speaker 5: wear a white T shirt? And I was like, oh,
Speaker 5: because it's it's magic Mike thing. Am I gonna get
Speaker 5: you to strip? And I was like, well that you
Speaker 5: should have told me that before I and I was like, what,
Speaker 5: why's the white T shirt? She goes, oh, well, if
Speaker 5: you don't want to strip, we'll just make it.
Speaker 4: A wet T shirt.
Speaker 5: I was like, oh, maybe that'll be a bit better
Speaker 5: because my body's whatever. And she I was like, can
Speaker 5: I do the wet T shirt seat of the stripping?
Speaker 5: And she goes okay, So she got me to stand
Speaker 5: like and you got to there's like when you turn
Speaker 5: up to these shoots, there's like twenty five. The only
Speaker 5: way I can describe them is like hot media girls,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean, Like women who have studied
Speaker 5: media at UNI, and they they're kind of they don't
Speaker 5: want to go into like I guess like hard journalism,
Speaker 5: but they want to use their degree, right, And so
Speaker 5: these people are like living their best lives, and they're
Speaker 5: all so attractive and fashionable, and they've all got clipboards
Speaker 5: and they all they were all like rating you out
Speaker 5: of ten. And you feel very emasculated at that time.
Speaker 5: And they got me to stand up against a wall
Speaker 5: in a kiddie pool and then one of the women
Speaker 5: had a bucket fill with water and she just threw
Speaker 5: a bucket of water at me, you know, like you
Speaker 5: might see someone washing an elephant.
Speaker 4: To the zoo, right, just throw a bucket of water
Speaker 4: at me. And then they like like take it. She's
Speaker 4: like funck and the photographers like, yes, more of that.
Speaker 2: So did you win?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I did not.
Speaker 5: I think I lost to Larry Emder's son. I think, oh.
Speaker 2: He's pretty hot.
Speaker 5: Okay, well, but so were you so much?
Speaker 4: Michael?
Speaker 6: You you actually use a lot of politics in your comedy.
Speaker 4: As you can tell from the three stories I've told tonight.
Speaker 6: Believe it or not, No, but I feel like, I
Speaker 6: mean politics comedy independently can be quite polarizing when you
Speaker 6: put them together, very polarizing. What made you want to
Speaker 6: use We're so political when with your stand up routines.
Speaker 5: So it's like in stand up, and I also like
Speaker 5: I work on the project and I've used to work
Speaker 5: at SBS on a show called The Theed, and you
Speaker 5: just kind of like, if you're reading a lot of
Speaker 5: the news, I think it's difficult to not have opinions
Speaker 5: on it, right, you become informed about things, and then
Speaker 5: you suddenly start to feel passionately about things. And then
Speaker 5: stand up I think is best when it's like a
Speaker 5: real relationship between you and the audience. And so I
Speaker 5: think if you genuinely feel something, you want to talk
Speaker 5: about it. The trick is can you turn it from
Speaker 5: like just having an opinion into something funny? And I
Speaker 5: find that really interesting. I find that really fun to
Speaker 5: play with. But I think the real reason I do
Speaker 5: it is that when you're doing stand up, it's just
Speaker 5: you alone on stage, right, And when you walk on stage,
Speaker 5: people immediately start to have judgments about who you are,
Speaker 5: what you look like, what you might think is funny.
Speaker 5: You know, it's just subconscious, but the immediately have those judgments.
Speaker 5: And when I started doing comedy, there weren't a lot
Speaker 5: of people who look like me doing stand up. Comedy
Speaker 5: in Sydney in Australia, and so I would come on
Speaker 5: stage and people would immediately see like a Chinese guy
Speaker 5: with glasses, and they'd want me to like acknowledge that
Speaker 5: or mention it, or do jokes about that. And a
Speaker 5: lot of the people that did jokes about that, you know,
Speaker 5: back in the day, were like they're like doing funny
Speaker 5: accents and they're pretending to be their mum and it's
Speaker 5: very like ethnic comedy stuff, which wasn't really my vibe.
Speaker 5: So I started acknowledging the fact that I was Chinese
Speaker 5: by talking about the racism that I'd experienced in Australia,
Speaker 5: which is a thing that I found interesting and like
Speaker 5: kind of funny as well and like weird, and we'll
Speaker 5: talk about that.
Speaker 4: And really that kind of then became, like.
Speaker 5: I guess, a career of sorts, but it really just
Speaker 5: came down to that one thing of like walking on
Speaker 5: stage in the audience wanting you to acknowledge the fact
Speaker 5: that you're Chinese, as though I didn't know something, you know,
Speaker 5: But I.
Speaker 3: Mean one of the reasons why I was so looking
Speaker 3: forward to having this conversation with you on stage. And
Speaker 3: I remember the moment I was sitting in my car
Speaker 3: and it was looking through TikTok and one of your
Speaker 3: tiktoks came on, and like, I've loved the conversations that
Speaker 3: we've had on the project, but it was this very
Speaker 3: specific TikTok that you were having a conversation with your
Speaker 3: co host Hobber around the racism that you have experienced
Speaker 3: in your workplace when you're working at Triple J and
Speaker 3: how that permeated so much of your career, but how
Speaker 3: there was this expectation that you would just deal with
Speaker 3: it in silence and not make a big deal about
Speaker 3: it because it makes other people uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: Can you talk us through a.
Speaker 3: Little bit around what that part of your life was
Speaker 3: like or what that period of your life was like.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so just to I guess as a bit of
Speaker 5: an audience poll as I mean, I won't be a
Speaker 5: fen but does anyone he has anyone he ever listened
Speaker 5: to Triple J?
Speaker 4: Okay cool coo cool? Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, a couple of freaks in here, but most so
Speaker 5: Triple J is like a It's an Australia wide radio
Speaker 5: station that's run by the ABC and the only way
Speaker 5: you can get in contact with the radio host is
Speaker 5: through a think called the Triple J text line four
Speaker 5: three nine seven five seven triple five, and we're always
Speaker 5: asking for your right We're always like, hey, you know,
Speaker 5: are you going to this concert? Tell us what it
Speaker 5: was like? O for three nine seven five centriple five,
Speaker 5: you know, or like hey what have you like? You know,
Speaker 5: what are you up to this weekend? Or for three
Speaker 5: like textus in you know. But what it means is
Speaker 5: that anyone could just message you anytime of the day.
Speaker 5: Because the ABC can't afford to have like an army
Speaker 5: of producers for every show. We're reading all those texts
Speaker 5: all the time. So you might think, like when I
Speaker 5: text into a radio station, who who sees it? It's
Speaker 5: the posts to see it, because they're the ones who've
Speaker 5: got to call you back to put you on air
Speaker 5: or reout the text or whatever. And so when I
Speaker 5: started a Triple J, I remember the like within a
Speaker 5: month of me starting there doing like the Drive Show,
Speaker 5: which is what I did, COVID was starting to kind
Speaker 5: of kick off, and being a Chinese guy whose name
Speaker 5: is Hing, some people had some really strong opinions on like.
Speaker 4: I guess what I'd done.
Speaker 5: Obviously, you started, I started COVID obviously, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean, like ground zero, Yeah, And so like I would,
Speaker 5: I would be like, hey, it's like Hoburn Heying bla
Speaker 5: blah blah blah blah, and people were like, you're a
Speaker 5: fucking Chinese spy and the communist part like it was
Speaker 5: just like and people are in these very bad places,
Speaker 5: they're very stressed, and so they're just taking out on you, right,
Speaker 5: And I remember being and I was getting called all
Speaker 5: kinds of horrible slurs, and so I went to my
Speaker 5: boss and I said, hey, do you think we could
Speaker 5: put a filter on the text line so that like
Speaker 5: racial slurs don't come through to us when we're reading
Speaker 5: the text line. And they were like, well, don't we
Speaker 5: want kind of have to have a raw, kind of
Speaker 5: like unfiltered version of what the Australian public think. And
Speaker 5: I'm like, I understand what you're saying, but like, you're
Speaker 5: a white guy in your forties, you know, you don't
Speaker 5: know what it's like to come in and just be.
Speaker 4: Told you're not human, or you're.
Speaker 5: A trader to this country, or you're a spy. We
Speaker 5: can't trust you. You've started a global pandemic, Like it's
Speaker 5: a different experience. And I found that as I talked
Speaker 5: more and more to people at the ABC about it,
Speaker 5: because the ABC is a very wide organization, and especially
Speaker 5: at the upper echelines in management, you really had to
Speaker 5: like stop them and slow them down and be like, hey, like,
Speaker 5: I know you can't possible understand what it's like to
Speaker 5: have this experience, but I need you to know that.
Speaker 4: This is meaningful to me.
Speaker 5: Like, there was another presenter on the show on a
Speaker 5: triple J at the time called Evanie Wado who's of
Speaker 5: African descent, and she got all kinds of horrible stuff
Speaker 5: and when she went to the bosses, she had the
Speaker 5: exact same thing happened, you know, where they were like, ah,
Speaker 5: we don't know.
Speaker 4: We kind of wanted to keep it raw and unfiltered,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 5: And what it took was all of us going to
Speaker 5: them and being like, this is hurting us a lot,
Speaker 5: and this is actually making us worse at our jobs,
Speaker 5: because every time someone calls me a gook or someone
Speaker 5: tells me to go back to the where I'm fucking from,
Speaker 5: it takes me two and a half three minutes to
Speaker 5: recover from that. Well, I'm thinking about that and I'm
Speaker 5: not in I'm not My mind's not at you know,
Speaker 5: a game, right, And I said to them, I have
Speaker 5: to assume you don't know what it's like, because if
Speaker 5: because what they said to us, They're like, oh, you
Speaker 5: think because we're white, we try to understand what this
Speaker 5: is like. And I was like, I think I have
Speaker 5: to I have to assume you think that, because if
Speaker 5: you could know what it was like and you still
Speaker 5: did nothing, that would make you a pretty careless person,
Speaker 5: a pretty careless person who doesn't care about the well
Speaker 5: being of their employees. You've got a bunch of asking
Speaker 5: you here to fix it. And so after a while
Speaker 5: they decided to put in a filter on the text line.
Speaker 5: So now if you text in racial slurs to triple J,
Speaker 5: they won't get through. But what's nice, what's really great
Speaker 5: is that racist are creative. Oh Scott, goooks with zeros,
Speaker 5: you can spell?
Speaker 4: You know what I mean.
Speaker 6: I love that you're still trying to make jokes about it.
Speaker 6: But I am genuinely really sorry that you went through that.
Speaker 6: I would have always said Australia's not a racist country.
Speaker 6: I used to be that person, and I feel now
Speaker 6: quite embarrassed that I ever said that, but I think
Speaker 6: there was a level of ignorance.
Speaker 2: I was blanket Australia's not a racist country.
Speaker 6: And then I started to have more in depth conversations
Speaker 6: with my friends with people of color.
Speaker 2: My sister married a wonderful Indian.
Speaker 6: Man, and when I started to have these conversations, I
Speaker 6: realized that there are genuinely people that do not think
Speaker 6: they are racist, or do not think they're making racist comments,
Speaker 6: but they are making micro racism, micro racist comments and microaggressions.
Speaker 6: And these are things that I didn't even know existed.
Speaker 6: Can you talk to us a little bit about micro
Speaker 6: racism and microaggression and what that looks like for people
Speaker 6: that might not actually know because you, I imagine, experience
Speaker 6: it on the regular.
Speaker 5: So'st it's mostly white people here tonight.
Speaker 2: We actually can't really see because the lice.
Speaker 5: So, like I guess when we talk about, like is
Speaker 5: Australia racist country, you need to think about, like what
Speaker 5: does the word racism mean to you? So for some
Speaker 5: of us, when we think of racist, we think of
Speaker 5: like new Nazi skinheads with swastika tattoos, you know, making
Speaker 5: violent threats, and that's obviously racist. But then it's like
Speaker 5: when we get all the way down to like, are
Speaker 5: you just treating someone differently in a bad way because
Speaker 5: of their ethnicity or their nationality or their race. You know,
Speaker 5: And you know, it doesn't just have to be you know,
Speaker 5: the classic Asian stuff of like oh you can't drive
Speaker 5: or you know, it could also be like stuff like
Speaker 5: I was told my entire life that I was great
Speaker 5: at mass.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm like, fine, but like my t's just
Speaker 4: like you should do foll in a mass, you should
Speaker 4: defoid in a mass. I'm like, I'm like, fret, I'm okay.
Speaker 2: Like it's the glasses.
Speaker 5: It's just like it's like glasses, it's a you know
Speaker 5: what I mean. So like, but then so like, I
Speaker 5: think that's a version of it. I think there's like
Speaker 5: also this thing that happens where like when you're starting
Speaker 5: a new job. For me, certainly, and I wonder if
Speaker 5: other Asian people or other people of color fields as well.
Speaker 5: When you start a new job, you're just waiting for
Speaker 5: the first time that someone in the office or at
Speaker 5: the shop or wherever decides they are comfortable enough.
Speaker 4: With you to make a racist joke.
Speaker 5: And what's fun about that is they don't mean it
Speaker 5: in a mean way. It's a joke between friends. But
Speaker 5: it's what it does is it takes the control. It's
Speaker 5: totally out of your life because you haven't said, Okay,
Speaker 5: it's cool because obviously friends say fuck shit to each
Speaker 5: other all the time and it's fine. But what's weird
Speaker 5: about this is like when your boss decides you're now
Speaker 5: close enough for them to say that or you know,
Speaker 5: and they don't mean it in like a hey, you're
Speaker 5: not a human being or whatever way, but it's still
Speaker 5: just like you're like, oh, okay, well that's what.
Speaker 4: I am to you.
Speaker 5: That's the most interesting thing to me is the thing
Speaker 5: I have no control over. And I think that's the
Speaker 5: thing that has really been the biggest effect in my life.
Speaker 4: On that front.
Speaker 3: Michael, how do you manage those experiences, because I mean,
Speaker 3: when you work in the world of media and you're
Speaker 3: being told by the big bosses like it's not that bad,
Speaker 3: you know, we want an open text line, or they're
Speaker 3: trying to tell you to push down your experiences when
Speaker 3: you kind of are in a.
Speaker 2: World like the media world, so few.
Speaker 3: Jobs and everyone is fighting for those positions, and then
Speaker 3: you're also fighting for those positions as someone who is
Speaker 3: a minority within the Australian media landscape, how do you
Speaker 3: then decide what you feel comfortable to speak up against,
Speaker 3: knowing that you're going to come up against backlash and
Speaker 3: knowing that you're going to have people in powerful positions
Speaker 3: being like, sh don't make it uncomfortable for everyone.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, like it's interesting.
Speaker 5: I think I also feel the other way, which is
Speaker 5: like sometimes I don't want to talk about it because
Speaker 5: I'm like, it doesn't feel like a huge thing compared
Speaker 5: to the stuff other people go through, Like I see
Speaker 5: the hate that like women who worked at the station
Speaker 5: got the misogyny, or Indigenous people who worked at the
Speaker 5: station the stuff they got as well. So it's like
Speaker 5: you kind of on one hand, you kind of feel
Speaker 5: like I don't want to bring it up because I
Speaker 5: don't want to be pretending, Like you almost feel like
Speaker 5: you don't want to be competing against other people or whatever,
Speaker 5: which isn't true. Obviously we're all we're all moving together.
Speaker 5: But that's certainly something in the back of my head.
Speaker 5: The big thing for me, I like you can see
Speaker 5: when I was just trying to make jokes before. It's like,
Speaker 5: that's what my natural reaction is. I want people in
Speaker 5: the audience to have a good time. I want people
Speaker 5: listening to the show to have a good time. So
Speaker 5: I'm trying to keep things light and bright. And then
Speaker 5: when you're like, oh, by the way, I got a
Speaker 5: death threat from a white supremacist on the weekend. Lol,
Speaker 5: it's like, doesn't hit the same. Yeah, It's like it's like, hey,
Speaker 5: shop and play flume, you know what I mean. Like
Speaker 5: it's you know, like and I get it if you're
Speaker 5: just like driving to work or driving home from work
Speaker 5: and you hear us being like, hey, it's time for
Speaker 5: a serious chat about this man who wants to like,
Speaker 5: you know, who's threatening violence, and they're like, hey, I
Speaker 5: just I didn't come here for this, you know. So
Speaker 5: I think choosing for me and I don't know if
Speaker 5: this is right or wrong, but it's like choosing the
Speaker 5: moments and flagging the point so that, you know, flagging
Speaker 5: it so that because I trust that most of the
Speaker 5: people who listen to our show, for example, they listened
Speaker 5: to their show because they liked the show and they
Speaker 5: liked us as people, and so I liked flagging and
Speaker 5: saying like, hey, today we're going to be talking about
Speaker 5: some people more serious and letting people opt into it,
Speaker 5: because I also know that, like it can be quite
Speaker 5: triggering for other people to listen to like stories about
Speaker 5: racism and stuff, and so like trying to choose those moments.
Speaker 5: But the thing is, like, you also don't want to
Speaker 5: be like known as the guy who like fucking like
Speaker 5: goes out and then complains about white Australia.
Speaker 4: If you want to be that guy, you want to
Speaker 4: be a friendly, cool guy who's hanging.
Speaker 3: Out, especially when you're a comedian, because you're like, I
Speaker 3: want to be the funny guy.
Speaker 2: I'm the funny guy.
Speaker 5: I want to talk about you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But in that I mean when it comes back
Speaker 3: to comedy, where did that come from? Like this wants
Speaker 3: to make people laugh, this want to create comedy that
Speaker 3: is I know, I know we said that it's laced
Speaker 3: with politics. But at the end of the day, is
Speaker 3: there or was this something that you leant into when
Speaker 3: you were younger, as like this is my superpower.
Speaker 5: So well I wouldn't call it my bank account, wouldn't
Speaker 5: call it a superpower, but.
Speaker 4: I think that.
Speaker 5: So I grew up in a place called the sutherland Shire,
Speaker 5: which if you don't know, is like a pretty conservative
Speaker 5: part of Sydney.
Speaker 4: It's where the Kernala riots happened. Did someone cheer that way?
Speaker 5: Because in Canberra, of all places, and so like, I
Speaker 5: grew up as like one of not many Chinese kids
Speaker 5: in my year, right, and so it was obviously a
Speaker 5: thing that affected me because my my I remember like
Speaker 5: like like even from a young age, my teachers would
Speaker 5: like we would have like a like an international food.
Speaker 4: Then you had to bring food from your heritage.
Speaker 5: And my my family are from like like they're Chinese,
Speaker 5: but like generations back then from Walgot, which is like
Speaker 5: a country town us of whales. So I brought in
Speaker 5: Lamington's because I thought that was fun. And then and
Speaker 5: my teacher was like, this will not do. And she
Speaker 5: went across the cols and like and she thought again
Speaker 5: she thought she was trying to do a nice thing.
Speaker 5: She like went and bought like microwaves, spring rolls and
Speaker 5: was like, Michael, this is what this is what people want, right,
Speaker 5: And I think what she was trying to do is
Speaker 5: explain she was trying to use this opportunity to teach
Speaker 5: the class. Hey, like Chinese food is nice. I think
Speaker 5: she was trying to do a nice thing, but obviously
Speaker 5: the message I got from that was like, you're not Australian,
Speaker 5: You're Chinese, right, And I think like moments like that
Speaker 5: from my childhood made me have to have a thing
Speaker 5: that was more interesting than being Chinese about myself, you know.
Speaker 5: And I wasn't good at sport and you know all
Speaker 5: the other things that I wasn't smart enough. So it
Speaker 5: was like, I can be the funny kid. And so,
Speaker 5: like with all comedians, it basically comes back to childhood
Speaker 5: trauma and a defense mechanism.
Speaker 2: So you have wrapped up Triple J.
Speaker 6: You're still in the project. What do you see in
Speaker 6: your future? What do you see in the next five years?
Speaker 6: Do you want to do stand up till the day
Speaker 6: you die?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I love it. I love doing stand up.
Speaker 5: I mean, I can't imagine anyone here has ever seen
Speaker 5: me do stand up comedy. But it's the most fun.
Speaker 5: It's the thing that brings me the most joy. I
Speaker 5: love it so much. I would I will do it
Speaker 5: for free in like rooms to four people.
Speaker 4: I will. I will do it. I will tour nationally.
Speaker 4: I don't care.
Speaker 5: I'll do it forever, but in Australia because the comedy
Speaker 5: scene so fucking crazy, you can, like, you can't really just.
Speaker 4: Do stand up.
Speaker 5: You've got to have like a TV show or like
Speaker 5: a radio gig or whatever. So we left Triple J
Speaker 5: and we started a podcast which is very exciting. It's
Speaker 5: called it's called Silver Bullet. It's oh one person that's cool.
Speaker 2: It was the same person that chuned for the Croneala Riot.
Speaker 4: It's a pro racism podcast.
Speaker 5: So it's a podcast where we we like my raad
Speaker 5: up hunt of Lewis and I, we trial wellness trends.
Speaker 5: So well, whatever it is, we'll give it a crack.
Speaker 2: With its penis steamings.
Speaker 5: Yeah well we Grace Tane made us to hot yoga,
Speaker 5: We went and tried to get botox. We've done Tom
Speaker 5: Carter he might know from TikTok made us to eat
Speaker 5: like the diet.
Speaker 4: Of Dwayne the Rock Johnson for a week.
Speaker 2: What about the anal sunning perandeums pandems. I want to Okay,
Speaker 2: I want to I want to see that one. We
Speaker 2: are coming into summer, so perfect time.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, yeah, so there's that and then and also
Speaker 5: doing the project and I want to I don't know.
Speaker 5: I want to just like daily radio. You guys would
Speaker 5: know what it's like daily radio. Your mind just is
Speaker 5: like racing all the time. I just want to take
Speaker 5: some time to make something cool, you know. I want
Speaker 5: to I want to write something, or I don't know,
Speaker 5: travel or I don't know.
Speaker 4: I've got time to live my life. I got married,
Speaker 4: which is kind of funny.
Speaker 2: And you're like, you're in like Vogue wedding magazine or something.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's fucking crazy.
Speaker 2: What an upgrade from Clear about that?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Take that Clear. If you're not gonna give you a bat,
Speaker 5: I'm in Vogue now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, fuck you Clear, Michael.
Speaker 6: I know that these conversations are really hard, and I
Speaker 6: know you wanted to come out and just be a comedian.
Speaker 2: Which you did do.
Speaker 6: But we're really grateful that you have had these conversations
Speaker 6: because Laura and I a big part of what we
Speaker 6: want to do is always bring the laughs and make
Speaker 6: people laugh, but we also want to educate people and
Speaker 6: help people, and racism is a really big one and
Speaker 6: a really important one.
Speaker 2: So I'm super grateful that.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having Yeah, and also, I mean, coming
Speaker 3: from someone who does spend so much of their time
Speaker 3: being funny. I think it's so powerful to hear you
Speaker 3: speak about and like I said, when I listen to
Speaker 3: the TikTok that you put together and the way in
Speaker 3: which throughout your career in media, people have been like.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's not that bad, like just you know, just
Speaker 2: take it. It's part and parcel of the job.
Speaker 3: I don't think that unless you've ever experienced yourself, which
Speaker 3: for us we never have, that you could ever comprehend
Speaker 3: what that would be like. And we have experienced a
Speaker 3: very different version of online trolling, and like the relentlessness
Speaker 3: of it. It wears you down so much and it's
Speaker 3: so hard to explain to people what it feels like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 5: But then like there's also like really great things as well,
Speaker 5: Like you know, you get to come to Camber and
Speaker 5: do a fun show, like it's nice. You know, it's not,
Speaker 5: I mean, it's not doesn't make the racism okay, obviously,
Speaker 5: you know, you get to stay in a nice hotel
Speaker 5: and drink some wine.
Speaker 4: It's kind of fun.
Speaker 3: Michael, You're a fucking legend. Thank you so much for
Speaker 3: coming and joining us out.
Speaker 4: Thank you, guys.
Speaker 2: We're so grateful.
Speaker 5: Thank you, guys, Michael hearing everyone.
Speaker 2: Hingers is just such a character. He's such a laugh.
Speaker 1: I hope you found that episode really interesting and loved
Speaker 1: that conversation with him.
Speaker 2: Guess what, guys, next week we're we're back to normal programming.
Speaker 1: We have an incredible guest joining us next week. I
Speaker 1: don't know if I'm allowed to say it in these recordings,
Speaker 1: so I'm not going to just in case, but if
Speaker 1: I am allowed to, I'll come back and like re
Speaker 1: edit it in or something like that. So I hope
Speaker 1: you've enjoyed some of our live laughs. From some of
Speaker 1: our live shows, We've had hangers, we had Elodie colland
Speaker 1: we had flex and many you can go back and
Speaker 1: listen to those if you missed them earlier.
Speaker 5: In Yeah.
Speaker 2: So we'll be back in your ears next week. I
Speaker 2: can't wait.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to catch up with you and see
Speaker 1: how you been, see how Britain Laura have been, how
Speaker 1: they've been spending their summers. I'm sure that we're going
Speaker 1: to have many, many, many updates. But in the meantime,
Speaker 1: you know the drill, Tell your mom, tell your dad,
Speaker 1: tell your dog, tell your friends, and share the love.
Speaker 2: Because we love bla