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