June 18, 2004 - TakeOut Comedy





June 18, 2004

PUBLIC LIVES

Carrying a Torch for Chinatown, and for Comedy

By WINNIE HU

INTRODUCING himself in a bustling square in Chinatown, Jameson Gong holds out four different business cards that neatly capture his wide-ranging life: Chinese-American activist, Internet entrepreneur, cable show producer, stand-up comedian. Stand-up comedian?

With the tiniest prompting, Mr. Gong breaks into one of his stock jokes, one that plays well to his bilingual audiences. "I started doing my Christmas shopping already, and I bought the fake DVD version of 'Shrek 2,' " he says in rapid patter. "You know it was fake because Shrek was played by Jet Li." The one-liners are more than just an act for Mr. Gong, 34, who says humor is his tool for prying open the insular ethnic enclave of his youth and making it understandable to everyone else. He has introduced monthly comedy nights at a restaurant on Mulberry Street and co-founded a Web site of Chinatown attractions.

Tomorrow, Mr. Gong will carry the Olympic flame through Lower Manhattan as an official torchbearer for the Athens Games. He is one of 140 people chosen by the city and corporate sponsors to transport the flame across the five boroughs - a group that includes Sean Combs, Stephon Marbury, the artist Chuck Close and Olympians like Sarah Hughes and Nadia Comaneci. "Chinese-Americans have been underappreciated, stepped on, ignored and for one shining moment, I'll represent them and they will be equal to everyone else," said Mr. Gong, who sports a jade earring for good luck.

Mr. Gong, who goes by the nickname Jami, was born and raised in Chinatown, the third of six children of Hong Kong immigrants. All six excelled at their studies, creating a Gong dynasty of sorts at the highly selective Stuyvesant High School. "My mom gave us two choices," he said. "Go to Stuyvesant or go back to Hong Kong."

He was admitted to the engineering school at Syracuse University, but wound up on academic probation after the first semester. Mr. Gong, who had never lived outside Chinatown, says he was too busy learning about the world to be bothered with calculus and quantum physics. He switched his major to geography, and had to learn the Cantonese word for geography - day lay - so he could tell his parents. He says they were supportive, though like many immigrant parents, they had expectations of a doctor, lawyer or engineer.

Mr. Gong tried out another Cantonese word on them - dun duck sio, or stand-up comedy - after a roommate dared him to enter the campus comedy talent search. He was so taken by the experience that he entered again the next year, and the next. He placed third during his senior year, winning a free dinner at Pizza Hut. "People said, 'You're funny,' " he says. "I have never felt more of a high."

Having acquired a geography degree and a taste for comedy, Mr. Gong moved back into his family's brownstone in Chinatown. He made a living selling sports souvenirs at Madison Square Garden, and in later years, working at a chain of men's clothing stores around the city. After hours, he took his stand-up routine to the comedy clubs. It was no laughing matter. He says he was so nervous on stage that his hands shook, and his lines vaporized into the ether. Then came the night in 1992 when he flailed so badly that he did not get back on stage for seven years. He returned after vowing to his sick grandmother that he would live life to the fullest.

MR. GONG, who writes his own material, now keeps a digital audio recorder and a little black notepad tucked into his messenger bag for those moments when comic inspiration strikes. There is no shortage of them in Chinatown, he says. And he has managed to translate them into one-liners for uptown audiences at Gotham Comedy Club, Caroline's and Comedy Cellar. Last year, Mr. Gong also began M.C.-ing a monthly show in Chinatown, "TakeOut Comedy," which has become so popular that a version will premiere in the fall on the cable channel WorldAsia TV. ( is the show's Web site.) "It has an Asian twang to it, but not really," he says of the title, a play on takeout food. "You know, I wouldn't say 'Fortune Cookie

Show.' "

Mr. Gong, who grew up watching Johnny Carson, plans to fill his cable show with like-minded comics of Asian descent. He held a national competition this spring in New York, Los Angeles and Hawaii to search for new talent, drawing more than 50 comedians from as far as Beijing. As his career takes shape, Mr. Gong has become an unabashed booster of Chinatown. He helped to organize a rally last year after the SARS scare drove away tourists. After the Sept. 11 terror attack, he snapped a dozen rolls of film to chronicle its impact on the area.

Mr. Gong says that when he was younger, he hated the pungent odors of greaseand garbage that permeate the streets of Chinatown. Now he steers people toward them as a licensed city tour guide promoting his neighborhoods. "I've learned to love Chinatown and to appreciate it and to give things back," he says.

The Olympic torch relay does not pass through Chinatown, but Mr. Gong says he will take the torch there after he completes his 400-meter leg just south of the neighborhood. He has already spent $400 to buy his own torch, and lined up friends and family to cheer him on through a barrage of phone calls and e-mail messages. "I just hope I don't trip and fall, and put out the flame," says Mr. Gong, ever the comedian. "I'm going to bring matches just in case."

Copyright 2004

The New York Times Company

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