Telling Jokes (and Emotional Healing) with Youngmi Mayer

• Youngmi grows up in Korea and Saipan (1:00)
• Feeling like an outsider as a white person in Korea (5:00)
• How feeling like an outsider has influenced Youngmi’s comedy (9:00)
• Complexities of biracial upbringing (10:45)
• Youngmi retraces her history with starting Mission Chinese restaurant (14:30)
• Working through co-dependency issues (17:58)
• How Youngmi was able to assert her own creative desires and goals, working through baggage of Asian American upbringing and depression (19:15)
• Doing the scary thing of pursuing creative endeavors and honestly facing the possibility of failure (24:40)
• The challenge of living transparently emotionally and being vulnerable (25:30)
• Processing and healing from repressive Asian upbringing (26:50)
• “Was it scary to get into stand-up comedy?” (28:20)
• Coming up with stand-up jokes and practicing them (31:00)
• Power dynamics: Commanding the room as a stand-up comedian while also being vulnerable (36:30)
• Stand-up comedy as means of self-healing and talking about personal history on stage as comedy (38:25)
• “Do you think you could handle fame/celebrity?” (40:05)
• Youngmi answers a spiritual question: “Why is there suffering in the world?” (42:55)

You can check out Youngmi's podcast "Feeling Asian with Youngmi Mayer and Brian Park" here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/feeling-asian/id1481891689

Connect with Youngmi on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ymmayer