FUNNY MAN

With an Emmy Award under his belt, Malaysian-born Ronny Chieng opens up about taking risks, chasing dreams and pushing for greater diversity of Asian stories in showbiz.

- SERENE GOH

The Finny win this past January for The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, in the category of Outstanding Talk Series, hammers Ronny Chieng's name onto a recognition wall that, until recently, was an elite list of Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and John Oliver-titans of American political satire. Chieng has been a correspondent for the show for over nine years, and in November of last year, guesthosted it for the first time. Two months before that, he sold out The Star Theatre's 5,000 capacity for two nights. Compare this to David Bowie's 4,000 draw at the Singapore Indoor Stadium in 2004, and you get a sense of how far being a standup comedian now compares to "rock god" among aspirations.

Even following his Singapore education track would have landed him far from his rubbertapping farming roots. in Sitiawan, Perak. After Fuchun Primary, Pioneer Secondary, and Pioneer Junior College, he graduated from the University of Melbourne with commerce and law degrees. Accenture offered him a cushy gig in Kuala Lumpur as a technology consultant. He chose comedy-the kind of career choice that wakes Asian parents up at night, screaming.

At 38, he is part of a new class of global Asian celebrities-one that includes the likes of Awkwafina, Simu Liu, NBA star Jeremy Lin, and, of course, fellow Malaysian, Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh. He worked his way up to sold-out shows with stints at Montreal's Just For Laughs comedy festival in the 2010s, famously getting noticed by Noah, who gave him the correspondent gig in 2015. "The Daily Show is like the Harvard Business School of comedy, where everyone's super on it," Chieng says. "Everyone there is great at their jobs, so it makes you better. When everyone around you is really good, then you have to live up to it."