Today, I'm in steamy Singapore
to meet someone who was born in Malaysia,
grew up here and the United States,
and went to Melbourne University to study.
He's now taking over the world with his comedy.
It's Ronny Chieng.
Ronny Chieng. Hey.
What are you doing just standing outside your apartment?
I don't know. Where the hell have you been?
I've been waiting for, like, half and hour.
Have you? I'm so sorry. Good to see you.
You have literally flown in. Yeah.
Like, two and a half minutes ago. Two and a half minutes ago,
I landed, I came straight to film this shit.
That is fantastic. I love that. Do it.
I'm so excited to show you Singapore.
You've picked the worst place to stand around,
because this is where people dry their clothes.
And if, like, a gust of wind blows, all that stuff falls down.
Is this a typical Singaporean apartment block?
This is the real ghetto shit right here.
This is real Singapore HDB flats, Housing Development Board flats.
This is where real Singaporeans live.
And when were you living here? 1994 to 2004.
Your parents still live here, but has it changed much?
It has not changed much.
But in Singapore, they're really good with, like...
..I guess every five years, they repaint everything,
so it all always looks really fresh.
Will you take me up? Yeah, let's do it.
Fantastic. Yeah. Thanks a lot.
Let's go up there now.
So, this is called, like, a void deck.
And so, there's a real void deck culture in Singapore,
'cause there's so many buildings.
So, like, void decks are, like, where, you know,
kids will come down and they'll play soccer,
even though you're not supposed to. Yes.
And, like, you know, you come and hang out.
Oh! Oh.
And... oh. Magic!
♪ I wanna take you home
(GASPS) View! Yeah.
I was at dinner with a girl last night.
We played footsie.
I won.
Ronny Chieng is a comedian,
actor, radio presenter, and citizen of the world.
Now a resident of New York City,
he contributes to Comedy Central's The Daily Show
and last year was listed by Variety magazine
as one of 10 international comics to watch.
(PHONE RINGS)
He's currently in production on his comedy series,
Ronny Chieng: International Student.
Apples are red with thin, edible skin
and white flesh, OK?
Whereas oranges are rounder
with orange-coloured skin and orange-coloured flesh.
And the skin of an orange... hey, generally discarded before eating.
Alright. You know what just happened there?
You know what I just did? I just compared apples to oranges.
(LAUGHTER)
It can be done!
So, this is my parents' house right here.
Fantastic!
OK, so, welcome to my house.
Well, my old house, my parents' house.
Your old house. Yeah.
Fantastic. So, this is the living room.
This is the living room.
This television has been here since 1995.
(LAUGHS) They refuse to get rid of it.
Every time this TV died, I would be like, "Yes!"
And my dad would find someone who was able to fix it.
Who the hell knows how to fix this?
That's called recycling. Whoever's fixing this, stop!
Now, who used to live here? Oh, me, my sister...
Grace? ..and my mum... my sister, Grace,
Yeah. ..my mother and my father.
May and Rick? Yeah.
Would you eat dinner out here?
No. We would eat in the dining room.
But my parents were super busy.
Like, we never... we rarely ate together as a family.
In fact, my dad was in China, working, for, like, 10 years.
Oh, right. So we, like...
..he would come back intermittently.
And my mum was working all the time,
so we were real, like, what you call latchkey kids.
Latchkey kids. Me, too. Yeah. We'd just come home.
We'd just have to stay at home, and... yeah.
Wow. I'll let you in on a little secret.
I never told anyone this. This up here?
So, this thing used to have, like, a cover, a glass cover.
And then one time, when yoyos were in, in 1996,
I was, like, trying to do a yoyo trick.
It was called Around the World, where you do that.
And it shattered this whole thing. And no-one was at home.
And glass was, like, falling down my face.
And I just cleaned it up. Never told anyone.
No-one ever noticed. This thing's been broken.
I have never told my parents that this thing is broken.
Your mother's never said a thing? Never.
No-one's noticed that that thing broke, yeah.
They'll know now.
Yeah, they'll know now, but... got away with it.
That's great. Now, can I...
The statute of limitations on that ran out about 10 years ago.
Look at all the photos, Ronny! Yeah.
They put this out to impress you. (LAUGHS)
This is usually not... No, I'm kidding. This is always out.
Is this you in Scouts? Yeah, I used to be...
Ronny in Scouts.
..used to be in the Singapore Scouts. Ugh.
In Singapore, it's really hard
to be a Scout, 'cause there's not much to scout.
(LAUGHS) It's a lot of buildings and...
Just in the void area. Yeah.
So, this is a baby photo. Nobody knows who this is.
We don't know which baby this is.
They don't know if it's you or Grace.
Yeah, we don't know if it's me or Grace. No-one can know.
You'd think if you had a baby, you'd be able to tell
which baby it was, but... Wow.
..No-one knows who... is me or my sister, so...
Gee.
So, the piano, it's a necessary Asian thing.
If you have kids,
you're supposed to make them play the piano.
Are you joking? Well, clearly not.
Like, there's a mini grand piano here.
So, if you and Grace were latchkey kids,
you pretty much looked after yourselves, then.
Yeah, yeah. Pretty much, yeah.
So, that requires a lot of discipline,
to be able to sort of go... I guess so.
You put yourself to sleep.
You know what time you have to go to bed.
You know when you have to get up.
I don't want to pat myself on the back too much,
but I will say... Please, do.
OK. (LAUGHS)
For a good job raising yourself.
I will say, we didn't do shitty... Bad things.
Yeah, we didn't do bad things.
We weren't kids who, like, snuck out.
Like, if we said we were home, we were home.
You were home.
We never snuck out and, like, went to the city or something.
And did you have friends in this block?
Yeah. So, one thing you do in Singapore
is that you make friends with people in the same block.
And what you do is, you play block catching.
Like, it's block tag, where you play tag
but you had to run up and down the stairs.
So it's vertical. It's not just horizontal.
You're playing in, like, three dimensions of tag.
Yeah. So, you were allowed to play around here,
but where were your boundaries?
Were you allowed to go further out by yourself?
Right. So, that's interesting,
'cause this was my primary school, right here.
You've been to quite a lot of schools, though,
in Singapore, haven't you? Yeah.
Yeah. So that was one of the primary schools.
OK, so, here's the kitchen over here.
Yeah. Hang up clothes.
This is a very, like, Singaporean home kitchen.
Yeah, I learned to fry eggs here. Apartment living.
And what kind of kid were you? Were you a funny kid?
I don't think I was particularly funny.
I was always the odd one out, because I came from America,
so I talked a little different.
So it was a little bit of being always outsider.
And I was really dorky. Wasn't the cool kid at all.
So it's hard to say I was funny or if it was just, like, dorky.
So, over here, this is my bedroom.
There's nothing here which is remotely mine,
because my parents... when we left,
..they decided to rent out the empty rooms,
because I guess you CAN put a price on childhood memories.
And that price is a month's rent.
Oh, Ronny, really? (LAUGHS)
No, I don't really mind. This air conditioner,
I remember the day this was installed.
It didn't come with the house.
And then the other thing I did was,
I ran my own telephone wire into my room,
like, on the ceiling. I ran it in here.
And I put my... I would put my computer here.
And it was like, that was it.
Once you got the internet in your room, it was like...
Apartment living. Yeah. You are... balling.
Like, you are... you can do anything at that moment.
Oh, and this thing. I put this on.
It's like... everyone knew how to open... operate a door,
but I just put it on.
I'm surprised it's still here. No-one took that off.
See? Mum and Dad did leave something. They did leave something.
Now, let's localise this a little bit.
Sure. You were born in Malaysia.
But at one point, you and Grace and your parents
went to New Hampshire in the United States.
Why did they go there?
They went there for... to attend college.
They went to college late in life.
So, they went to college after they had two kids.
And they went there.
They did their undergrad and then did their master's.
Wow. Then they came back. Yeah.
And how old were you? I went there... they went first.
And so I was away from them
for, like, a year when I was, like, two.
And then I went there when I was, like, three and a half.
What about Grace? She was... she went with them.
Really? Yeah.
And who did you stay with?
I stayed with my grandmother for, like, a year.
So, what's your first memory when you get to New Hampshire?
My first memory was my sister challenging me to spell 'apple'.
She said, "Do you know how to spell 'apple'?"
I said, "Yeah." And she said, "Do it."
And then I just messed... completely messed it up.
And then she said, "It's A-P-P-L-E."
And then that's the first word I spelled.
So, what language are you speaking at this point?
In my head? Yeah.
It's English. It's always been English in my head, yeah.
Everything... I think in English, yeah.
I only learned Chinese late.
So, everyone in Australia thinks I'm super Chinese.
I'm like, "Yo, I only learned Chinese
"when I was... when I was eight years old."
So, when did you come back to Singapore?
I came back in '93.
And how old were you? I was eight, eight years old. Yeah.
When we left, my mum was like, "Don't worry. We'll come back."
I remember her telling me, like...
..'cause I left a lot of toys behind.
I was like, "What about this Ninja Turtle?
"What about this one?" And she's like, "No, don't worry.
"We'll come back." Never went back!
Never went back. Huge lie. The biggest lie ever.
And then, so, we moved here, and then we were in Malaysia,
and then we were trying to figure out schooling,
which education system to go to, Singapore or Malaysia.
And she chose Singapore,
because everything in Singapore is English-based
and it's internationally recognised.
So what that meant is, every day, we were travelling
between Malaysia and Singapore, every day, to go to school.
The way they go to school here is completely different.
School is a big thing. School is a big difference.
School in America, I remember, was fun. (LAUGHS)
School in Singapore was a lot less fun.
So, how did the kids here react to you?
What were they saying or doing? Oh, it wasn't great, yeah.
We didn't... yeah, it wasn't great. It was a lot of...
Did you feel alone? Felt very different.
Yeah, for sure.
You're relearning, like, a culture
that's technically supposed to be your own...
And you don't know it. ..but you don't really know.
It's horrible, yeah. I slowly adapted to them, you know.
And you have to, don't you? Yeah. You learn the language.
You learn the way they talk, what they're into.
So, after a while, you know, after two years...
..I'm surprised at how quickly I learned Chinese.
I learned Chinese in two years.
I don't know if there's anything older Chinese teachers hate
than the Chinese kid in class who cannot speak Chinese.
They hate that shit. They look at you like this...
..it's almost like... you feel like you're, like, a traitor.
Chinese teachers are really strict in Singapore.
Are they? Yeah. There's a lot of yelling.
There used to be a lot of, like, physical, corporal punishment.
Mmm. Yeah.
(DINGS)
Now, you went to a few primary schools.
We're gonna go to one... not the one that's just behind here.
We're going to go to Fuchun. Yeah.
So, this is Fuchun. Fuchun Primary School.
Primary. Yeah.
It's a bit of a ghost town. No. This looks about right.
When I went to school, I went to this.
No, I'm just joking. Yeah, this is totally different.
Totally different. I didn't expect...
..I didn't expect it to be shut down,
because I looked on the internet.
I thought there was a new school here.
Yep. But yeah, this is the building.
I remember Fuchun Primary School.
I can still see the logo, like, all whited out.
Up the top. Yeah, yeah.
And this is the first school I went to
when I came back from America.
Shall we go in? Yeah, let's go.
Whoa.
I have not been here in 23 years.
It's like a set. Yeah.
It's like a ghost town. Like a zombie set.
(SOMETHING BANGS)
Lots of kids running around, all round here.
Yeah. That sound is in no way freaky, by the way,
so let's just keep doing the... Why? Do you think...
..it could just be flapping bits of roof.
Man, that is pretty scary. (BANGS)
It's pretty freaky.
The logo is still here. And look at what Fuchun stands for!
Nah, they just made that shit up. No!
Yeah, they had the name, and then they put the...
It's "Forward in thought and action." Yes.
"United in work and play. Courteous and caring.
"Handle all things with care." That's just some guy...
"Neat and tidy in whatever we do."
..retrofitting some shit into the name. That's not even...
Do you think? Ah.
Was this where you had school assemblies?
Yeah. So, if it was raining, you would assemble here.
Normally, we would assemble out there.
And then you would sing the... (BANGS)
..you would sing the national anthem.
Can you remember it? The Singapore national anthem?
Yeah. Yeah, of course. Um...
Oh, shit. (LAUGHS)
You think it's unusual that Singapore would have a school
left like this, not fixed up or reused yet.
Yeah, it's a bit unused.
Usually, they would, like, put a school in here to utilise the space.
What's interesting about Singapore is,
when I was going through school,
you would see the student populations
rise and fall according to the horoscope.
So, everyone wanted, like, children in the year of the dragon.
And then they would, like... then you would see
a massive bump of kids in year of the dragon,
and they would have to have more schools.
And then, like, the next year, when it was, like, a shitty year
or some other animal, it would drop back down.
And then schools would contract. Yeah.
No. Yeah, it goes up and down
with the Chinese... Horoscope.
Yeah, the Chinese lunar calendar.
And what's your main memory of this school, coming here?
Was it a good one or a not-great one?
At this point, I was fresh off the boat from America,
so different... you know, different kid, different culture,
trying to adjust to the Singapore system,
which is very academic-intensive.
So it wasn't great.
Did you have a favourite subject while you were here?
English, 'cause I could just do it. (LAUGHS)
We had a dentist, and she would, like, pull out teeth.
But you were scared of her, obviously.
Yeah, everyone was scared of her.
Oh, my God. A mural.
I still remember this.
Man, it's still here. I remember all this.
And what is it supposed to represent? Are they different jobs you can do?
I think it represents, like,
what happens when you are a really bad painter.
(LAUGHS)
I don't know what this represents, but it's crazy to see this.
I haven't seen this in, like, 23 years,
so I'm getting some total recall flashbacks right now.
Man, the colour is the same colour, everything.
We would have morning sessions and afternoon sessions at school.
So, morning session would be, like, 7AM till 2PM.
And then afternoon session would be 12:30 till 6:30.
What were you? I was afternoon.
So I would have to leave Malaysia
around 9:00 or something dumb like that.
And then we would go to 6:30, and then we'd get home by 9:00.
You'd get home at 9:00! Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And you're little. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It was fine. That's how you... that's how we did it.
Oh, my God. We only did that for, like, a year.
But people did that the whole time.
This is crazy. Look at that, this guy.
I know. I still remember this.
"Kacang-Putih Man."
We would march from the assembly hall.
We would go in two lines.
We'd walk, like, all the way to our classrooms.
And if you, like, talked, they would, like, yell at you.
(LAUGHS) Teachers would, like, stop the whole progression
and be like, "Who the hell is talking?"
(GASPS) I cannot remember which...
Room is yours. ..classroom I was. Yeah.
This is like Jurassic Park,
like, the fact that we're walking through this...
I know.
..and everything's still growing there.
It's so surreal.
Man, I remember this auditorium was old when I got here.
(LAUGHS) And now it's, like, even older.
But I just remember coming in,
thinking, like, oh, the curtains were, like, dusty.
Sometimes, we would have productions here.
And were you involved? Were you doing any...
No. No?
Not at all. I was trying to get through the day.
I thought I was going to become an engineer.
I think what people don't understand
is that primary school is very competitive in Singapore,
because it's in that final year
that, then, your future is truly decided
in quite a significant way for high school.
Unfortunately, yeah.
I think in some ways,
your future can be decided in Primary 4, even earlier.
Wow. So, when you're in Primary 4,
you're...'95... you're 10 years old,
and your whole life can be determined
by that exam you take when you're 10 years old.
I remember getting my results back and being disappointed
and being sent to a school
that I didn't want to go to in secondary school,
that was, like, a lower-ranked school.
And my sister was sent to, like, the number one school in Singapore,
so there was this huge, you know, discrepancy between us.
It's very difficult to change, because when someone tells you,
"This is your path," you can change lanes,
but you... it takes a tremendous amount of willpower.
And you don't even know, at that age,
what you want or what you're gonna be
or where you're gonna end up.
Sport. Yeah.
Were you sporty much? I tried to be.
Yeah? Yeah, I really liked basketball,
so I tried to play basketball, always tried out for school teams,
and was always, like... barely made the team
and, like, on the bench.
I was just the worst player on the team.
How would you describe little Ronny here?
Oh. Different.
I ate the same thing for lunch every single day.
What did you have for lunch every day?
It was eggs and rice, every day. Eggs and rice.
Eggs and rice, every day. I like that.
It became, like, a joke in the class.
Did it? The teacher would be all,
"What do you have to eat, eggs and rice?"
"Yeah." (LAUGHS)
Were all the schools coeducational?
Yeah, all co-ed. Well, not all, but the government schools were.
So, with co-ed schools,
what was the policy on mingling and dating?
What was the policy? Mmm. Were you allowed to?
Yeah, I guess. Yeah. No-one... You didn't see anyone dating?
Yeah, we saw people date all the time.
Alright.
The only person who wasn't dating was me.
Ah. And that wasn't because of rules.
That was 'cause of something else. Bad personality.
(GASPS) Look at this! This is... So...
Shutters! Yeah.
That's how we do it, shutters. I remember these shutters.
End of every year,
we would have, like, a big cleaning thing
where we would have to clean everything,
the shutters, everything. The kids would have to clean...
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The kids would have to clean!
Once a year, you would. Take that on board.
It was, like, when you left the school,
you cleaned the classroom.
How important were teachers? Yeah, super important.
The good ones, the ones that were helpful.
There were some that were helpful.
There was some teachers who, like, were really empathetic,
and they would kind of speak to what you're going through
and still be like, "OK, you have to do this.
"I know it sucks, but you just have to do this."
Yeah.
Honestly, it depends on the kid, right? Isn't that...
That every kid's an orchid or some stupid bullshit like that?
You have to, like...
Tend to it. Yeah.
Some kids need the extra attention, you know. It's very hard to pick.
I mean, dude, teaching's a hard job, you know.
It's a very hard job. I agree. Yeah, it's a hard job.
And kids are, you know, pieces of shit...
They can be. ..at best.
Gee, you've made some friends out there in teacher-land,
saying that. I know. Especially... yeah.
You really have. Especially the older you get...
..oh, my God. It's a nightmare. It's a nightmare.
I couldn't deal with any 15-year-old.
I'd be like, you know... There'd be an incident.
Well, on that note, why don't we go and meet
one of your teachers from high school?
Yeah. He's been living here this whole time.
(LAUGHS) (LAUGHS) Things have not gone well.
Mr Tan? Ah, Ronny!
Good to see you again. Good to see you.
Very good to see you. It's been a long time.
Yeah, it's been a long time.
We're here outside Pioneer College, which is where you taught Ronny.
Is that correct?
Yeah. Yes, that's right.
With most of the people we do for this show,
there is always a fantastic teacher in their life somewhere
that just made a difference in a small way or a large way.
And that teacher wasn't available, and so we got Mr Tan.
(LAUGHS) (LAUGHS)
So, thanks for coming. Thanks, Ronny.
Ah, so rude. See? See? He's doing it already.
No, but look how young he... I know.
I can't believe how... like, he hasn't aged a day!
You haven't aged a day.
Now, Mr Tan, what do you remember of Ronny as a student?
Well, I mean...
No, please be honest. Say what you got to say.
I'm gonna say the truth. Yeah. Say the truth, yeah.
Ronny is an absolutely bad student.
(LAUGHS) (LAUGHS)
Bad student? Really? I think not a great student.
Well, how do you define "great student"?
That's what I'm interested in. By the grades.
By the grades. It's all about grades.
And what subject were you teaching, Mr Tan?
OK, I was his form teacher for his class,
and I was also his physics teacher.
Right, OK.
And, well, I say he's a bad student
because he is not absolutely good at physics.
But he's a great class manager.
(LAUGHS) (LAUGHS)
What's a class manager?
Basically, he's in charge of the whole class.
Was he really?
And he helps me to manage the class.
Yeah. And he reports to me. Yeah.
Do you remember that? Yeah.
Do I have to be... can I leave for this?
This is very awkward for me to do. (LAUGHS) Hey, you're not the first.
You're not the first. This is so awkward for me here.
But, no, please don't stop. He's honest, though.
Was he an angry kid? Yeah, he was.
That's a very loaded question. He had issues.
Why don't you let him answer "What kind of kid..."
What kind of kid... was he angry? Yes.
I mean, I felt that sometimes in class,
he is angry, angry at, you know, school,
sometimes at family, at, you know, authorities,
at, you know, what is he going to do in life.
He had his own issues,
as with all students of his age.
You know, he's struggling with, you know, his self-identity.
And clearly, he has grown into a fine adult.
Ronny described you as the teacher that was in charge
of kids not going crazy.
Right.
What does he mean by that, do you think?
Because I actually thought that when I wasn't in class,
he was making them go crazy.
Oh!
And so therefore, I am bringing sanity back to the class.
Ah. (LAUGHS)
I think he was beginning to be funny.
Do you?
I think his classmates found him with a weird sense of humour.
A weird sense of humour. Fantastic.
Or rather, his own sense of humour. His own... (LAUGHS)
I wouldn't say "weird." Yeah. (LAUGHS)
Now, did you think that he would ever be a comedian?
Honestly speaking, deep inside,
I thought he would do something interesting.
Interesting. Great! That's correct... I'll take that.
..'cause it is interesting, yeah. Yeah, I'll take that.
I am quite glad that Ronny has found his calling, you know?
It is a calling. That is true.
To make people laugh. Yeah.
To take the risk to do comedy as a career full-time,
I think it takes a lot of courage.
And I think this is maybe what I...
..think that he has done well in that area. Yeah.
Well, Mr Tan, thank you so much...
My pleasure. ..for making time today.
And it's been lovely to see the two of you connect again.
Yeah, it's been great. Thanks so much, Mr Tan.
Thanks a lot. Thanks for coming out.
Aw. Fantastic.
How's today been? It's been awful.
(LAUGHS)
Thanks for making me go through my school that has been abandoned
and my teacher who thought I was a shitty student.
I really appreciate that. You loved the way he was so honest.
I could have lived without those memories.
(LAUGHS) Yeah, it was great.
Thanks a lot for... it was cool to revisit those places.
It's those places in your memory. It's like Inception.
If Mr Tan is right
in that you were, at times, angry as a young man in high school,
did going to Melbourne dissipate that anger a little bit?
I think it did.
And it came back hotter than before. Yeah.
But initially, yeah, initially, it was a very happy time.
And then I was lucky to have comedy to channel that into.
What did the anger come back about? What is study again?
When I went to Melbourne, it was this great moment.
When you go to college,
the great thing is that you can, like, reinvent yourself.
So whoever you were previously doesn't even matter.
You can, like, reinvent yourself in college.
And I remember being very outgoing when I first went to university,
and I was trying to make friends with everybody.
And then I just kind of realised not everybody was as friendly
as the brochure, the Melbourne uni brochure.
And then that's when things got a little more real
and we all got more guarded.
But the city itself was awesome,
and it's a love affair I've had with Melbourne,
and I've never stopped loving it.
Beautiful city.
I ended up living there for 10 years.
Beautiful. And my wife is from there.
And I stayed there. Melbourne's been great to me.
And I would have stayed there if not for the job.
So, moving away from your parents must have been an incredible shift.
Yeah, it was. I think my family works...
My family works better when we're apart.
Like, when we're apart...
..when we're together, there's a lot of friction.
But the moment everyone's in different places,
oh, the emails are loving,
like, long, loving emails describing the day
and how much we care about each other.
The moment we're in the same room, it's like, boom.
Something... the chemical reaction, and there's a lot of friction.
And so, you're at uni. Yeah.
Are you going to see live comedy?
No. Not at all?
So how did you start figuring out
that you might be able to do five minutes somewhere?
I didn't know if I could.
I just wanted to see if I could do it,
so I signed up at the university campus comedy competition.
I showed up, and then I did five minutes,
and I won that competition.
OK, so your first time you do it, freak, you win it.
Yeah, I win it.
Now, is that good or bad? Is that too soon, too fast, getting that kind...
No. No.
I generally think... Loved it.
..that nothing means anything,
so I don't get... let stuff get to my head.
Really? I wasn't like, "I'm the champ."
I'm like, "Oh. That was cool. Let's see if I can do it again."
And then I kept doing more and more gigs.
Did you have a plan? No, no plan. There was no plan.
Well, at some point, you would have had to go,
"Mmm, I might not use this law degree.
"When do I tell my parents that I might not..."
Oh. No, I just kept doing it. I didn't tell them anything.
I didn't tell them shit. Yeah. I just kept doing comedy.
And the whole time I was doing my law degree...
..and then after that, after the law degree,
I had to pass the bar to get qualified as a lawyer.
So I did that.
And you're supposed to take, like, six or seven months,
and I took, like, two years to do it.
And the whole time, I'm, like, just doing comedy the whole time.
And then, by the time they found out,
I was, like, on TV, so it didn't matter.
You've often said that you're an outsider,
but in fact, on stage,
you take the attitude that you're the normal one
and everybody else are the weird ones.
Was that by design, in the beginning, to do that?
No, it wasn't.
I was just trying to make funny jokes,
and then it turned out...
..like, that's a great analysis, I think, of the comedy.
But, yeah, it just turned out like that.
I was just trying to do funny jokes, honestly.
'Cause when you start out,
you don't know enough to break down what you're doing.
You're just, like, trying... (MUMBLES) ..dick jokes
and trying to make people laugh.
And then, over time, you develop, like, a theme
or, like, your voice and how you approach things.
What's great is that you found your way back to America.
Yeah. Managed to find my way back.
Do you know what I mean? The circle.
I know. It's a big circle, back to New York.
You're on The Daily Show, which is amazing.
Aw, thank you so much.
What's it like? On The Daily Show?
Mmm. It is very challenging.
To be good on The Daily Show,
you have to be fast, smart, and funny at the same time.
And on any day, I'm at best, like, one of those things.
So I'm constantly just trying to keep up with everybody there.
Where's home for you, then? Where do you belong?
Yeah. That's a good question.
When you kind of...
..when you're from everywhere, you kind of belong nowhere.
And so... I mean, I feel just as at home here
as I do now in Melbourne, as I do in Johor Bahru, Malaysia,
as I do in New York.
Like, I can navigate this no problem.
I read somewhere that you said... which, actually,
I really believe in.
Yeah.
Talking about success and saying,
"I try not to get too high on the highs
"and get too low in the lows." Oh, you did your research.
I try to keep an even keel with it,
'cause, you know, someone once told me,
when things are going really well, you know that's not reality,
and then when things are going terrible,
you know that's not reality, reality's in the middle.
My personal philosophy is to try to keep an even keel,
because I know I'm emotionally very charged,
and if I don't think of things like that,
I can get too angry or too... you know, too upset or whatever.
So I need to keep an even keel. That's just my method.
Yep. But I think everyone's different.
Where do you see yourself in 10 years time?
Oh. It's very hard to say. It's still...
It's a real difference between the performing arts
and the corporate world, which I come from.
The corporate world is all about 5-year plan,
10-year plan, all that stuff.
The performing arts world... oh, my God.
These artists, they're, like, living day to day and really happy.
So, I've learned from both, you know what I mean?
Like, there is a certain freedom of living day to day
and not worrying about "What's gonna happen?
"What's gonna happen?"
You know, they really live for the moment and perform.
But 10 years, that's too hard for me to call.
Too hard.
I'd love to be still doing stand-up.
If little 12-year-old Ronny were to walk up to you now,
what would you say to him?
I'd be like, "If you like a girl, and she doesn't like you back,
"the only difference between being romantic or being creepy
"is whether or not she likes you. And that's it.
"That's the only line separating those two.
"So if she doesn't like you, move on.
"Or else you're gonna get... if you try to win her over,
"you're gonna look really creepy."
I love it! We've never had love advice at 12.
I think it's fantastic! Yeah.
Don't... just relax. Yeah, relax on that thing.
It'll happen. Grow up. Just grow up.
Spend your time growing up and let the maturity come,
'cause... It will.
Ronny, thank you so much for meeting us here in Singapore...
Oh, that's OK. Thanks for having me.
..and spending the day with us, 'cause it can be full-on,
so thank you for that. Yeah! Thanks a lot.
Thanks for letting me relive all these emotions
I've very consciously buried.
Yeah, consciously buried.
Thank you. Thanks a lot. You're the best.
Thanks for coming out with me. Ah, no, thank you.
Some of those moments were very surreal.
(LAUGHS)
Did that just happen? Yeah.
Did Mr Tan actually come? Yeah, he did.
Captions by Ericsson Access Services
Copyright Australian Broadcasting Corporation