By the way, when I was in Europe, I was like, when we got drunk off approall Spritzer's late at night with my mom watching us, I was just I automatically turned into an obnoxious American who tried to do a British ACCP.
This is drunk Jenny in Europe. It's awful.
Oh my god, I love it. Yeah, apaol Spirits is a leaders.
Hello, I'm mini driver. I've always loved Preust's questionnaire. It was originally in nineteenth century parlor game where players would ask each other thirty five questions aimed at revealing.
The other player's true nature.
In asking different people the same set of questions, you can make observations about which truths appear to be universal. And it made me wonder, what if these questions were just a jumping off point, What greater depths would be revealed if I asked these questions as conversation starters. So I adapted Prus's questionnaire and I wrote my own seven questions that I person think are pertinent to a person's story. They are when and where were you happiest? What is
the quality you like least about yourself? What relationship real or fictionalized? Defines love for you? What question would you most like answered? What person, place, or experience has shaped you the most? What would be your last meal? And can you tell me something in your life that's grown out of a personal disaster? And I've gathered a group of really remarkable people, ones that I am honored and
humbled to have had the chance to engage with. You may not hear their answers to all seven of these questions. We've whittled it down to which questions felt closest to their experience, or the most surprising, or created the most fertile ground to connect.
My guest today is Jenny Yang. Jenny is a Taiwan born Los Angeles raised stand up comedian and TV writer who was named on a Variety's Top ten Comics to Watch. Jenny recently started opposite Michelle as an assassin in the Netflix action comedy series The Brother's Son. You can watch our monthly comedy show Self Help Me, a competitive self care comedy show, in Los Angeles, or stream online anywhere around the world. Find Jenny online at Jenny Yang dot
tv and Jenny Yang tv on Instagram and TikTok. Where and when were you happiest.
Oh man, so many answers to that. Fortunately, Oh my god, can you imagine if someone said I've never been happy?
Oh, by the way, no one's ever actually said that, but they've really resisted the notion of happiness sort of being a question we shouldn't be aiming towards happiness, and I've had to resist going and what should we be aiming towards my hot dogs? I'm a vegetarian. Also, I don't even know why did I use that as the as the as my equivalent, seeing like, what the fuck is wrong with me? Raikey? No one I said I've never been happy? But that would actually be really funny.
Yeah, I feel like, am I that person? No? I'm not that person.
Relatively recently, I took my mom, who is a kind of mom who's an immigrant who's lived all her life for other people, you know, doing factory jobs. Was a garment worker. My dad passed away a few years ago, and she had sort of taken care of him, and now she's like, what do I do? So I was like, Mom, I'm going to take you to Europe. You've never been
to Europe. We're going to go to Europe, And I don't know if I can describe the feeling of like, oh, I'm a grown adult now I can afford to take my mom to Europe and to like treat her, especially someone who doesn't treat herself, has never been treated, who always still has this old school mentality of like comparing prices with like what things used to be in Taiwan, like many decades ago.
Do you know what I'm saying?
Like there's just something about the satisfaction of like, I am so happy to spend my heart earned money on you.
Mom.
We went to a formal British tea in London.
Where did she go?
Oh god, I forgot it was some hotel.
It was everything was sort of cream. We sat down.
It was me a British friend of mine who I acted in The Brother's Son with, who's like a stunt guy who speaks Mandarin, so my mom doesn't speak English, so she was so happy to be with him, and then my fiance Corey.
We sat down.
It was like full service afternoon tea, so many utensils, so many bowls and plates.
You know, there was a pear.
Juice that was topped with like a puff of cotton candy cloud, Like my mom was out of her mind. She's like this is too much opulence, and she like teared up and she's like, wow, like I wish your dad was here to enjoy this.
And I was like, oh my god, just get me right in the heart.
Mom.
We're just in the lobby of this hotel just crying.
Oh my god. Isn't that amazing to be able to do that? Like you got to do that for her. It's not like a distance memory. This just happened, Yes, Like I love the immediacy of happy memories, things that happen right now that you know. I was completely present for that. She was completely present for that. I will never forget this. That is a cool memory. I really understand that. Like, I know it sounds weird because you're talking about your mamma, but as a single mom, yeah,
every single thing was for my kid. I never thought twice about, you know, the money that I spent on him, And it's very rare that you have that opportunity, Like how amazing is an adult to be able to give that to your mom.
I feel like I talked to so many peers who have tough relationships with their parents, and I had a tough relationship with my dad and feel like there's too much of a generation or cultural gap to have real relationships with them.
And I think if you're able to, I.
Really do think it's worth the effort to like push forward your adult relationship with your parents so that you can heal. It's very healing to be able to treat my you know, Oh my gosh.
That's a really good point. And I had this conversation the other day with someone. We were talking about forgiveness in general, and we were both kind of annoyed by the word and by forgiveness and you're not allowed to ever say that, And we were both like, do you want to like bitch about forgiveness a little? Yeah? I kind of, I kind of do. I kind of feel like forgiveness is, you know, a pain in my ass and I don't know why am I doing it and
what's it for? And I don't know that I completely agree with that, but I do believe in healing and the idea that you can actively do something that looks like it's having tea with your mama. Yeah, and actually what you're doing is healing something for you with her, and I'm sure something for her with you, and something about the whole kind of gusht out and dynamic of parent child and who knows because you too busy eating scones and pair juice with cotton candy froth. But when
you review it, it sure feels like healing. Like that's really cool. I'll take that end of day of the week.
The point is is that you want to be able to push the relationship to the point where you can enjoy the other person. So like, my mom is terrible at receiving love, and so for me to have gotten to the place where I could treat her to this elaborate British tea, I had to teach her how to receive love. I literally had to teach her how to say I love you too. I had to teach her how to hug me back. This is all the process.
My god, Jenny, what incredible patience really truly and also generosity. These are much better words than forgiveness than me. I really like patience and generosity. Like that you would take the time to not just be annoyed by that or hurt by that. She didn't argue, but to say, and maybe I'm sure you did spend time being hurt and said by that, But to actually just teach her to do it, and now maybe she does it and it must be incredibly satisfying when she does because you taught her.
Oh yeah, I know.
So It's just this is one of those things I like to talk to my friends about, you know, in terms of like what did it take to get there?
How do we feel better about our little stories?
Oh, that's so interesting. How do we feel better about our stories?
You know, like the life stories that you tell yourself about, like how we've struggled or you know, why we're here on earth and all of that. And you know, that's just like one example.
What is the quality you like least about yourself? Oh?
My goodness, it changes.
But for the most part, I think the thing that I beat myself up about the most is feeling like I'm not doing well enough or doing enough. I think as a little immigrant girl, I was the youngest of three. I was five when I came to America. My brothers were like fifteen and fourteen. They did not acclimate well,
and I was the first one to acclimate. And I was getting a's out of the womb, and so you know, I was very rewarded for like performing for like delivering a's, you know, going to good schools, giving my parents the checklist to make them feel like their immigrant story was worth it, you know, all of that.
Yeah, and deciding to do creative work.
Yeah, that must have been a big deal.
Literally it's not school. Yeah, creative work is not like structured for you. No one's going to give you an assignment necessarily to define your worth.
It's all very open. You have to structure it.
You know.
And I think that was what I knew.
I was like, oh, this is a way for me to undo so much of the stuff. Now I've been able to achieve a measure of success as a comedian and a writer, but still it's like it's still a struggle, you know, every day because, as you know, nothing's guaranteed. You have to create your own work sometimes all the time. God, you've been at this business longer than me, and it's.
Try not to diss the hustle, but oh my god, the hustle. Yeah, Christ like a bit of a day off, Like I like a bit of a day off from the hustle, thanks, just like maybe count some money.
Yeah, well, listen, we're all just out here trying to figure out passive income.
I know the way passive income.
Oh, that's a T shirt, Jenny, I want to get passive income on a T shirt because that is actually can we can we make that stand passive income.
I do a monthly show called self help Me where I make fun of wellness influencers, and I'm obsessed with the sort of wellness influencer grift, especially that the financial influencers.
The joke we like to.
Say is like, if you're not making one thousand dollars a week in passive income, kill yourself, Like why do you even live?
You know what I'm saying, Like why do you even exist?
Okay, what is your worth if not measured according to the passive income you're getting? So yeah, maybe we should make money off of a shared passive income T shirt.
First of all, I think it's a really really good idea. I made a T shirt the other day because I read this glorious Steinem quote and it made me so happy. And then I found the perfect navy blue and white baseball tea. And then I found a website where I could make just one T shirt where I should have made more, and on the front and very small letters, the truth will set You free. But first it will piss you off. And then it just said glorious steinem on the back, and I cannot tell you how many
people have gotten in touch. I could have made some passive fucking incoming do it. I could still do it. You can still do it in a wholesaler. I feel like, you know, I'm going to have to give someone that money to like Gloria Steinem Inc. I feel like Gloria Steinem inc is actually called planned parenthood. So that's what I'll do. But we should make if we made a
passive income shirt. Yeah. By the way, I think this is actually a really good idea because people are very much into making statements that are kind of conversation starters and also declarative. Like my friend gave me a hat that just says back in five.
That's really cute.
It's my favorite hat.
I love it.
I think don't be surprised if you get an email from me at some point or a DM that's massive income T shirt.
You're not kidding. And by the way, let's workshop some other T shirts, because I feel like four is a really good number, and people having a choice of four, they're more likely to buy two. This is my own economic theory. Oh my god, that if you give people four then they will buy two of the four because they'll be like, oh my god, I got almost all of them.
I am dying right now that on this podcast we are birthing a T shirt collab.
One hundred percent and also, by the end of the podcast, I want us both to try and figure out a name for our T shirt company. Okay, it should just be by the way. I want by one us to make passive income. I want plan a parent who to get a bit of it. Yeah, I want us to get a bit of it. Oh, this is going to be great.
We're figuring this out.
What relationship, real or fictional, defines love for you?
I mean, this is a boring answer, but you know my partner and I his name is Corey. He's a midwestern guy from Wisconsin who's not a regular white guy because for a long time I didn't date white guys. But I found this one who's a cozy midwestern man.
What's different about him from the other people that you've dated.
I just had a better picker.
Do you think that that that you change?
Oh?
Yes, that's good.
Oh my goodness, this is what's messed up.
It's like all of the like aphorisms and cliches that you see maybe like on an inspirational Instagram quote or something. It's all true, but it's so hard to live it, like to figure it out in your bones. You know it is. It's like, you know, be be with someone who you feel safe with.
Bitch, I don't know how that feels.
Wouldn't know that if it jumped out the toilet and bit me on the ass, and if it bit.
Me in the ass, I would be like, Oh, that's exciting.
I love the Ooh, maybe I need a tennis shot. Maybe I just need to jump into bed with you exactly.
That is not It's not even an exaggeration of the kind of like reptilian brain process that probably happened when I just like chose men in I'm just like, do I want to climb you like a jungle gym.
I'll make this work. You'll love me.
That is so wild. I feel like it was like Trauma Tetris. With most men, it was like, oh, which bit by insecurity and fucked upness? Are you?
Oh?
Yep, it doesn't fit, but I'm gonna make it fit.
I love Trauma Tetris have you have you coined that came with that?
By the way, that's another T shirt. That's a T shirt right that trauma Tetris. Listen, I'm telling you this real magic happening. I'm trying to think of a T shirt company. I don't know what it's called. I'm like going Yang Mini j Yang Driver minij Mini j Yang's gonna be something funny.
Driver Yang makes it sound like an Asian driving joke, which we don't want on stereotypes.
We're gonna come up with that.
I'm telling you, so, my guy, he's a cozy banestering guy. I didn't know that love can be cozy and safe.
That's so nice. Cozy doesn't get enough play as a real proper descriptive of like what you want in a love life. Yeah, cozy and safe is really cool. Yeah, And actually, because I really got exactly the same thing with my guy much older than you, finally found him. And it's incredible how those cozy words cozy and safe can actually become super hot. And that's an amazing revelation. Is like the hotness in what I before would have just like rolled my eyes out, like if there's not
blood driven down my arm. It's not love so dramatic, such a total nightmarish drama, Creed. I mean, basically, the poor guys who were with me, like I do feel some modicum I'm sorry for them, but also crist on a bike.
Yeah, I mean, you know, it's totally true.
You have to learn how to give yourself comfort and safety, to know how it feels in order to know when someone else can be that for.
You too, you know what I'm saying.
Like, I didn't realize that becoming more mature meant being more aware of my body and how I respond to things, cause I feel like a lot of us just live in constant fight or flight, and then to actually know what relaxation is is like, oh, that's well, that's kind of good.
That's so funny. I haven't been making any movies or TV shows recently. And I was lying on my bed reading my book this afternoon, and I'm nuts in love with this book, and I was having such a great time, and my dog was there and I'd just given him a bath, and there were clean sheets in the bed, and there was a breeze coming through the window, and like it was all so good, and I suddenly got this terrible, like adrenal rush of I'm not fucking doing anything.
I'm not making passive income. I'm not making any income. I'm just lying here reading this book. What the fuck? And I learning to in those moments to just go. Could you just take your foot off the gas? Yes, let's just call it half an hour? Just you spent many, many, many many years and many many many hours exhausted and working so hard like there was a wolf chasing you. Could you not just lie here for twenty minutes and read your lovely book with your dog and feel the breeze.
Yes, that's a I feel like that's a perfect example of how I'm trying to heal. I definitely took a break during the pandemic. I was like, the world was too depressing. I have too much to process. I'm falling in love, my dad's dying. There's so much happening. We need to just, you know, chill out during the pandemic.
The other story I like to tell my friends too, of like, there is a female comedian a friend of mine, who, at one point a couple of years ago, was just driving down I don't know, Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles or something, and all of a sudden, she started getting blinded from the outside to the middle while driving, somehow managed to pull over, went blind, goes to the doctor. The doctor like, the only thing we could figure out is that your adrenal glens are busted.
This is a stress response.
Holy cow, Minnie, I'm telling you. While I'm listening to her tell me the story, my mouth was just so wide open. I was catching flies. I was like, how how do you run yourself as a stand up comedian? And then she goes, yeah, I probably was just not resting and ignoring everything. And there's also the adrenaline of performance, right, like a lot of us are. You're chasing that an adrenaline high, you know, all.
The time, and it's missing. You don't feel normal, so exactly resting feels actually unsafe, like you're gonna be punished for it. Yeah, and like you're going to fall off the edge of a cliff. I've really examined that. This afternoon, I was like, oh my god, I literally feel like something terrible is happening and I'm just lying on my bed with the breeze coming through the window. This is something that needs to be examined.
But that's also why people become performers, exactly, And this is why people become actors and in front of the camera.
You know, I feel like that's just you.
Just like it. I just like it.
Your trauma response skills can be rewarded.
That's exactly correct. It is the evolution of my father's advice find what you love and get someone to pay to do it. It's like, find what's most traumatic and get someone to pay to do it.
I'm really good at this. I'm really good at being in fight or flight.
I'm really good at making cortisol. I don't want to do my own adrenal glans, but I literally make.
You feel like you have a superpower when you live off of your adrenaline.
By the way, cortisol might be another T shirt, Yes, just oh my god.
The wellness girlies love talking about reducing your cortisol.
I'm wearing that T shirt. I'm wearing that shan.
Okay, so we have cortisol, we have trauma, traumas tetris.
Okay, we just need one more.
By the end of the podcast, yeah, what person, place, or experience most altered your life?
Oh gosh, there's so many things.
The one constant is figuring out my relationship with my dad. A cocktail party question I sometimes like to ask, is are you a daddy issues or a mommy issues?
You know, like which one?
God, don't make me pity, you know, really mine is definitely more daddy issues, and it's you know.
Daddy than he is a survivor. He is a refugee, a war refugee, he is.
He brought us, He plucked us and brought us to America working for China Airlines, you know, created this new life for us. He is very extroverted but also kind of controlling. He's this patriarchal figure, very old school, and he was the first example of what a gender norm or what love looked like. And so I knew from very early on the my life's journey is to unlearn that and to relearn how to daddy myself.
I like to joke about that, just be like, how do I daddy myself?
Oh? That's so good. I like that. I like that how to daddy myself? No, just we always make that so exo, we make it so outside of us. So actually reclaiming that that is so good.
It's all an inside job.
And so you know, if you can garner the resources internally to daddy yourself feel free too.
You know, it's weird because I've heard that phrase before, like it's an inside job, but I have not extended that. Perhaps the things that need to be included like that. Yeah, because you go, oh, the male stuff. Surely that's not within me, that's not my gender. But it's just not true because it's energetic representation.
Yeah, I feel like as a young girl, growing up with very strong father figure, two older brothers who were my first you know, Heckler's and bullies, I learned to be a little tomboy. I've had to be very independent as an immigrant kid, you know, translating English since I was in elementary school for the family.
Being that kind of.
Over producer, overachiever, overdue or independent person meant that I can reassure myself that I'm okay, I am strong, I'm not trying. I don't have to overly prove myself, and then therefore I can be more vulnerable and softer, do you know what I'm saying, and more receiving rather than
producing and giving, you know, or affecting the world. I felt like I needed to be the one controlling or affecting the world even as a child, because you know, I'm translating the doctor's questions for my mom, like, Okay, how do I say in Chinese as a seven year year old to my mom, when was the last time you had sex? Like how do you ask about returning this item at the Ralph's grocery store?
You know, oh my god, the gamut that you had to run?
Yeah, So you know, I feel like that's a version of daddying yourself is like how do you give yourself the reassurance you probably wanted from your dad so that you can be a more whole person and not just be this sort of like survival skill human.
Right, what would be your last mail?
It would be my mom's.
We call them kind of like Chinese tamalies or zones, which are like kind of palm leaf wrapped rice dumplings that are savory. It's sticky rice, it's you know, perfume with soy sauce and fried shallots and baby shrimps and like sort of tender pork. I would eat that with some they call it morning glory, or like water spinach, but like Malaysian style, which is with like shrimp paste
it's stir fried. It's like hollow stem vegetables. I would eat that with also a side of just plain white, fluffy rice and also redbraised pork just outside of its own Yeah, those are probably my.
You'd have steamed rice with your sticky rice.
Yes, oh that's cool, double car.
Now, cob on cob. I've never heard a fluffy white rice as an accompaniment to.
Sticky yeah, yeah, no, why not? This was my last meal, right, let me let me ask for all the.
No, but I mean, just anyway, trust me, these are all like ideas. My next like that. It is really delicious. Is your mom great cook?
Are you a great My mom is a fantastic cook.
I grew up watching her make everything cook for our family every day, Chinese food, Taiwanese food, and so I've developed a palette and cooking skills because of it.
And I love food and cooking. And it was the.
Only way in a family that never talked to each other. Food was the way we bought, you know. And I feel like a lot of people share that experience. It's like, oh, if we could bond over the food, that's something.
It's Taiwanese food, is it seafood and pork like centric.
Yeah, it depends on where in Taiwan you are, but it's very seafood centric. It's a lot of vegetables chinesey definitely, but there's also the regional kind of like specificity.
Lots of seafood though.
Wow, yeah, in your life, can you tell me about something that has grown out of a personal disaster?
Oh gosh.
Personal disaster is quite a definition of something.
Well, remember I'm quite dramatic, so something that really didn't work out, something else that grew out of it.
For me, sort of dealing with my dad who had dementia during the first couple of years of the pandemic and then him passing away was definitely a recent personal disaster that I feel like I'm still trying to figure out how it is going to recalibrate the rest of my life or at least the next five to ten years. Because the pandemic itself, which number one, I don't think we're really over because we have not processed all of the grief and the loss that everyone has experienced, whether
that's actual lives lost or it's just opportunities changed. So for the world to stop helps an workaholic to be like, maybe I need to feel that warm breeze on my face.
And I think it did force some of that for me, and out of that grew rest and not being online as much and finding love, which is beautiful, but also the stress of dealing with the dad, who you know, did not go out quietly in his dementia, very stressful last couple of years of his life on the family, and so out of that it brought my family a little closer together, even though you know, my dad, his sort of household fascism was what drove a lot of my siblings and I apart, but you know, in the
last years of his life, we had to come together to take care of him. And so yeah, I think the silver lining is that I'm trying to figure out how to continue to enjoy life, be in the moment, and also to build community and to remember that while I still try to you know, get passive income in pay the bills.
Quite you're so focused, Jenny, it's so amazing. You're so smart and funny and articulate, like you're brilliant many. I mean, I'm saying that like it's a real revelation, because I mean, I kind of knew that before, but like you really
are that. You're very You're very clear about your goals, and you're very generous in the way in which you speak about it that you don't It's it's really cool because, like for me, generosity is not only sharing experience, but sharing it in a way that it can actually land with a person. Because God knows what all had information that may be correct looking at us, but you can't
really receive it. And I wonder if that's you know, you taught your mom how to receive, and perhaps you've really learned how to communicate your good news.
Yeah, thank you. That is such a tremendous compliment. I try to feel like I can connect with others and that I can offer something to others, and so I hope that how I communicate my life answers can help people.
You know, Yeah, I mean, we're all just shoving each other home.
Is that your modification on the Ramdas quote. We're not just walking each other home, We're just shoving each other home.
We're just shoving each other home.
Get on with it, christ I know, come.
On, I can be so empatient, truly, that is that is the heart of that.
It's my worst. We'll see, but I do think that our for tsha I'm gonna suggest that it says good news. Oh quite like that. I quite like somebody reading with your T shirt and go, oh goodness. It would make them happy in the same way the cortisol would make them go, oh yeah, I'm passive income and be like right.
I love that because it's almost like a shot test.
You just put a word and then people can just feel that's exactly right.
And by the way, I made the print deliberately. It's not tiny, but it's not huge. It's not emblazoned. I made it small for a reason, even not that I want people leaning and looking at my breasts. But I don't mind if it's in the service of them reading a pithy comment.
Yes, and it's not not that many. Okay, listen.
Also, it's not not that.
You want people to lean.
I get.
Lean in and look at my breast.
You'll get a message these are wise breasts.
That's another T shirt.
We can do that as a T shirt breasts.
Oh my gosh.
There's so many T shirts we can make.
It's gonna be good. Veela, you're an angel. I can't think really, really, really is so wonderful talking to you.
Likewise, and by the way, thank you for allowing me to workshop my horrible British accent for purposes of the Loved Relieve podcast that we were both on.
It was great.
Don't just say that, man.
I loved it did It was great? And the fifth film that was so colonial and weird like it was all really it was really met at the whole thing. I loved it. I loved it. Mini Questions is hosted and written by me Mini Driver, executive produced by me and Aaron Kaufman, with production support from Jennifer Bassett, Zoey Denkler and Ali Perry. The theme music is also by
me An additional music by Aaron Kaufman. Special thanks to Jim Nikolay Addison, O'Day, Henry Driver, Lisa Castella, a, Nick Oppenheim, A, Nick Muller and Annette wolf A, WKP, Will Pearson, Nikki Ito, Morgan, Lavoie and Mangesh had Ticket Doll