Funny in Korea
[Applause]
um
first of all i want to say that it is a
big honor for me to be
a part of ted talks ted talks is a huge
thing it’s so huge that my mom who
doesn’t know anything
knows about ted talks i called my mom i
said um i’m going to be part of ted
talks i’m going to do a
ted talk speech and she was like oh ted
talk very famous
but why you speaking
you are not famous i said wow
i love you too mom i love you too but
she’s right
i’m not famous and that’s why i think i
need to
introduce myself so that you guys would
be like well who is this
weird looking at yoshi on stage right my
name is danny cho
and i am a stand-up comic who has been
doing stand-up comedy for 20 years but
specifically three years in korea
in the korean language and so i want to
talk about my journey
uh i started doing stand-up in the
summer of 2000
it was the summer between
high school and college and my friends
were like hey danny
you’re faint you’re funny dude but
can you do it on stage and i was like if
you pick a spot i’ll do it i was one of
those hormonal kids those dumb kids be
like you dare me oh do it that’s
that was my
that was my uh my dumb young hormonal
guy mind
so my friends they they found an open
mic
night in uh what back in the days we
used to call the hood
and so we went and
they called my name and when i walked on
stage
barely any claps it was
and then there was a woman in the back
that was like oh he chinese you know he
ain’t funny
and so i prepared about a five to ten
minute
set about you know like farting or
something dumb right
so i threw all that away and i attacked
her i made fun of her appearance
her looks her clothes i said oh you know
you look like
you’re not even f you’re not even like
national geographic hot you’re just
ugly all together right and so the crowd
was like oh my god
this chinese guy is going crazy and the
crowd went uh
they were just they were crazy right and
so to me
that feeling was very addicting you know
but what i want to say
before i continue on is that that
was not stand-up comedy according to
wikipedia stand-up comedy is a comic
act in which a comedian performs in
front of a live audience
usually performing directly to them
now a comedian it seems like they’re
doing uh dialoguing
but in actuality they’re monologuing
with a group of jokes
stories one-liners and that’s called
a set right and so what i did in the
hood
in that open mic was not stand-up comedy
i was just
verbally verbally attacking right uh
but the crowd went crazy that feeling
was so good that for 20 years
i’ve been searching and chasing that uh
chasing that high
you know and so
got into college was performing in
college and then graduated
and i became a business consultant right
i was a suit and tie guy
and um i was a suit as they call it
and uh but i was still doing stand-up so
i would get off of get out of the office
and then i would
go to the comedy club tell jokes in my
suit and tie
and then go back to the office finish up
the day
and go and i did that for three years
and uh i was making good money as a
consultant and you know
as a you know as a korean american son
you know my my my mom
you know you know how korean uh korean
moms they like to they brag
uh amongst their friends but they don’t
brag like
like directly you know they brag kind of
in
a roundabout way like my mom’s way of
bragging would be like
um like she’ll see her friend at church
and all of a sudden she’ll start
grabbing her head you know
and then and then her friends go oh
tanya and then my mom goes
um
all right they they they go in a
roundabout way
of of a bragging right anyway so i was a
consultant
and i wanted to quit but i was afraid to
let my parents down
right they went they came to america
they busted their ass you know to make
it
so that i don’t have to struggle like
them
and so they thought stability and making
a
decent amount of money was going to be
that
but i was going to throw that away to
become a stand-up comic
so i was afraid but the reason why i
quit was one day when i was at work
uh a famous comedian named bobby lee
calls me and he goes danny
i need someone fat and weird looking
on set tomorrow and i was like
hey man when do you need me on set
i’ll be there right away right because
i’m gonna be on tv man so
so i um i took a day off the following
day i went on set
and bobby between you know takes he was
like hey
uh you should quit your job bro you
should do comedy full-time
and i was like you think i could make it
he was like danny there’s two types of
people
that get on tv really good looking
people
and mutants and you’re a goddamn mutant
my friend
you know you look like a human thumb you
look weird it’s like you’re agile but
you you have no definition you know
you look like a potato it’s awesome
right and i was like and
i didn’t even get mad i didn’t even get
mad at all i was like
well i mean because he bobby also looks
like a mutant
you know you know he’s like my mutant
humber you understand what i’m saying
this is a
jacked up x-men you know what i’m saying
like bobby looks like a like a like a
scallop
you know what i mean he looks like a
chumbuk but but but still
he makes money and he says i can make
money
right and so he gave me the confidence i
quit my job
and oh that broke my parents heart you
know
my mom was like yeah
you throw away a six-figure salary
job to do this stand-up comedy
what the hell is stand-up comedy and i
went well according to wikipedia
stand-up comedy is and she goes what is
the wikipedia i said oh my god this is
going to be a long
stressful conversation anyway
so i quit my job and for about 10 years
i did what every non-famous no-name
comic does
we perform in all the hell gigs you can
think of
right so from college gigs college gigs
you think are fun
but sometimes think about it i’m in a
cafeteria
at noon where people don’t know that
there’s a comedy show going
and so people are like talking there’s a
blender going on over there because
somebody’s making a smoothie in that
side and this is what you have to fight
with
and then you get paid and then you drive
to the next college nearby you know and
then that’s what you have to do i did
that kind of gig i did military gigs uh
i did gigs um i did a biker gang
convention
you know and on top of that like i
performed uh
all over the world but not in like
theaters
or comedy clubs it was like dive bars
but this was fun
for the first five years it was really
fun you know sleeping in hostels hotels
cars trains sleeping on friends
couches you know i once slept at a frat
house
you know to save money right so that was
fun
and within my travels i found out that
they do stand-up comedy
in english in all of asia
right except korea right so
hong kong singapore malaysia
thailand vietnam japan and there’s a
small scene in korea
so nine years ago i came to korea for
the first time in my life
and i did a five city stand-up tour
in english for expats and english
teachers and
other people that just don’t know what
to do with their lives they were there
and so i was i was telling uh jokes for
them
and uh it was a great time i love korea
food was great got drunk
you know women were pretty it was
awesome right and then
one of my friends he is uh he’s one of
my closest friends
uh his name’s a big phony he’s a
singer-songwriter big fan he goes hey
man
uh wouldn’t it be great if you can bring
stand-up comedy
to korea and do it in korean i said
brother we are way too drunk to have
this conversation
because number one i can’t speak korean
properly
and number two the only things i know
about korean comedy at the time
were they weren’t doing stand up they
were doing like
sketch comedy like where people were
like drawing boogers and like
you know and then they’re just falling
on their face and they’re like oh okay
right so to me i was like i don’t
understand that
right and um i don’t think
the culture would understand stand-up
that’s what i believed right
uh and so if it’s again i’m touring
but that was planted in my head it might
be cool if i can do stand-up in korean
and then so for 10 years again i was
just kind of
doing the same thing over and over again
i was making i was making money i was
making a living but
i wasn’t happy i was starting to get
angry and bitter that my career wasn’t
taken off i wasn’t getting famous
like bobby said i would be right um so
instead of being bitter what i did was
you know what
i should make a drastic change so i
decided to move to asia and i was
thinking originally hey for about two
years
move to korea on the weekends travel go
to singapore hong kong
india wherever and do stand-up and then
on the weekdays
just you know do some random gig here
and there like english radio whatever it
is
that was my original plan and so
i get to korea and within the first
month
boom i did guam i did saipan
i did thailand i was doing english gigs
i did gigs in
in english in korea and i was like oh
man my plan is working
and i think i was happier i was thinking
about like
new perspectives in life and then one
day
a friend of mine named june he works at
an entertainment company
and he goes hey danny there is a group
of guys
that do stand-up comedy in korean
and they just started you want to go
check them out and i said what
what does that look like so
next week i go with june to the show and
there was about 10 people in the
audience
and uh the
they were terrible they were awful the
group uh
basically the laughter you hear from the
three people you see in this
auditorium right now was louder laughter
than what you
heard back then right and so i told them
yeah you guys are
but here’s the thing they just started
stand up you can’t
do an hour set and have a netflix
special within
three times going up you know and and
to them their reference for stand-up was
watching netflix or youtube with with
with terrible subtitles
so things were being lost in translation
so they didn’t really understand
why that joke was funny because because
they were at the mercy
of whoever subtitled that um that
project
and so i was like hey man uh koreans
have a word called conde right so i
conde
the hell out of these guys i was like
hey man
the setup’s too long you know i said
back in my days
i wouldn’t set up like this you know uh
and you know the punchline is weak
you know and so the group the four guys
are called comedy alive
they looked at me and they were like but
in their eyes
they were and then they were talking you
know when you when you when you talk uh
behind someone’s back or in front of
their face but you’re
talking through their teeth you go
right right like that’s what they were
doing though
right so what i did was i saw that and i
said okay
hey next week i want to perform
in uh korean and they’re like yeah okay
and i think they were like
oh oh deeply like yo let’s see if you
can do it you probably suck too
fool right so the next week i go
and um a long story short i had a great
set
actually it was the same feeling i felt
20 years ago uh in that where i was
making fun of that woman
but this time i was actually doing
stand-up comedy and
in the korean language and the the the
vibe of the place was so great
that it kind of altered my plans
i wanted to come here for about two
years just to kind of
get new perspective and get the hell out
of here but after that day
i decided hey i want to help
this stand-up comedy scene and so
from that day on i was helping mentor uh
the comedy alive guys you know if they
asked me hey hung like
how did they do this and i believe i
think you should probably hit that joke
this way
uh and we started open mics and
three years have gone by and within the
three years
a lot of crazy things have happened
right so within the three years
there’s been three korean language
netflix comedy specials that are out
uh there’s about 35
comedians that have regular paid sets
uh in korea now there’s about
three to four venues that do regular
stand-up comedy
and um kbs
uh they had a one season of a show
called stand up to showcase
stand-up comedy on korean national tv
and so i am fortunate
that i could have helped all these
projects and i had a little hand in all
of them
but i didn’t do it alone and what i
wanted to say was
it was because of my connections in life
that helped me accomplish all these
things
right so for example june if it wasn’t
for june to take me
to that crappy dive bar in
hongdae to see the comedy alive guys for
the first time
i wouldn’t be here right uh without the
comedy alive
team trusting in me believing in me
and making me like kind of their their
their
their coach right this i wouldn’t be
here
right uh without bobby lee saying hey
you’re a human thumb stupid you should
quit your job
and uh do stand-up comedy i definitely
wouldn’t be here
right and so what i want to tell all you
guys listening
is uh be nice to everybody you meet
because you never know who’s going to
help change your life
who’s going gonna help your life and uh
yeah that’s what how connections work
so i thank you for your time and i want
to leave by saying
oma i’m still not famous but
i’m doing okay thank you very much
you