After Trevor Noah started anchoring The Daily Show in 2015, he brought on Ronny Chieng as a field correspondent who could offer a global perspective. Now Chieng is one of the show's anchors. He's third generation Chinese Malaysian, and grew up in Malaysia, Singapore and the U.S. He has a new Netflix comedy special. Also, filmmaker and writer Miranda July talks about her novel, All Fours. It's about a 45-year-old married woman, her erotic affair with no actual sex, perimenopause, and the related fears of losing her libido and getting older.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: Who is Ronnie Chieng and what is his background?
It's a big achievement. That's not a small achievement. Sure.
Sure, but I don't know. I think the work comes first, you know, getting the job is one thing, but then can you do the job? And so it honestly just came out of kind of humility of like, oh, yeah, I'm on The Daily Show, but doesn't mean I've done anything yet. So why tell them, you know, like my philosophy was like, like, just do the job and then maybe they'll hear good things about you.
And then that will be the, you know, I mean, like I didn't need the flowers from them.
You deprive them of bragging rights.
Quite frankly, if you want to talk about bragging rights for them, once I started doing decent work and people started liking what I was doing, then they would go up to them and be like, hey, your son is on The Daily Show. Which I think is better than you coming out and trying to brag about something. At that point, I hadn't even been on screen yet.
I'm not sure how popular The Daily Show is in Singapore or Malaysia. So I'd rather just do the work and then hopefully people like it.
So you grew up mostly in Malaysia, which is one bridge away from Singapore. You compared it to me to how New York is to New Jersey.
Yes.
Yeah. Or how Philadelphia is to New Jersey on the opposite side.
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Chapter 2: What is the premise of Ronnie Chieng's new comedy special?
Yeah, a reboot that you were in, and you're very popular there, or so you say. Okay, yeah, sure. And you say you have a lot of MAGA friends there. Yes. And on The Daily Show, you spent a lot of time satirizing Trump.
Yes.
So how do you get around arguing about politics with your mega friends?
That's a great question. I think, first of all, one, we might be in media silos. So the stuff I say on a daily show might not actually ever reach my mega friends because we're all so siloed in our media consumption. That's one. And then two, I think that decent people have a sense of humor. about things, you know?
So I wouldn't take the comment section as reality in terms of what the reaction is to a clip in the comment section from MAGA people about political clip. I don't necessarily think they would react that way in real life face-to-face. And third of all, Hawaii is a very different vibe, you know? Like, Hawaii people know how to get along for the most part.
I think in Hawaii, they know how to put community before themselves, which is very un-American, by the way. This idea that in Hawaii, you know, everyone's very generous and you get more than you give in Hawaii if you come with the right energy. And so I like to think that in Hawaii, I always try to come with the right energy.
I won't be so presumptuous to say that I always manage to nail it, but I think I come with the right energy and I think the locals and the Hawaiians there respond to that. So... You know, they can be, you know, hardcore MAGA people, but they, you know, they're totally cool with me as far as I know.
You say you love America. This is the country that puts showbiz above everything.
Oh, you're quoting my special.
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