TakeOut Comedy

Jami Gong: Founder and Producer of TOC
Jameson (”Jami”) Gong is a Chinese American, born and raised in New York City’s Chinatown. He is one of six children; one older brother and four sisters. His parents worked hard and gave them a lot of love. Jami graduated from Stuyvesant High School, and later Syracuse University. He has worked in retail for many years. Throughout Jami’s life, he always possessed the gift to make people laugh. He believes that laughter soothes the soul, and unites people of all ages, race, gender, and religion. When he was growing up, he watched Johnny Carson on “The Tonight Show”. This show inspired him to become a future comedian.

His first try at comedy
happened on a dare when he was a sophomore at Syracuse University. There was a stand-up comedy contest on campus sponsored by Doritos. His friends dared him to enter and he did. The night before the contest, he wrote some material, and memorized them as best he could. He expected only a few judges to view his act, but the whole room was filled with students, teachers, and other critics! He was so scared! However, it was too late to back out!!! Miraculously, Jami survived and was very proud of his first time on stage.

In his junior year, Jami entered the same contest. This time he did a better job, and realized comedy was his calling. Jami was determined to do even better for his senior year and entered the contest again.  At the end of the show, the MC announced the winners. The third prize was a dinner for four at Pizza Hut, Jami was the winner! Out of sixteen contestants, he had won third prize. After the show, his friends congratulated him and made many new fans that day!

In 1999, he co-founded www.ChinatownNYC.com with his college friends Raymond Chin, Sunny Wong, and Eddie Shieh. Later he got licensed as a tour guide, and started doing historical walking tours of Chinatown.  His tours have been featured in Gourmet Magazine and filmed for BBC International TV, PBS TV, Swiss TV, Italian TV, Taiwanese TV, WNYE-NY TV, NHK TV, The NBA and The Travel Channel.

After some soul searching, he decided retail was not his passion and decided making people laugh would be his full-time profession. His determination led him to perform all around the USA and he even made an appearance on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien”.  In 1995, Jami was knighted by the country of Malta.  Jami also had the honor of carrying The Olympic Torch in June 2004 and was the only Olympic Torchbearer profiled by The NY Times.  In May 2005, he was the keynote speaker at Kodak and he has also spoken at The Toastmasters Club Hong Kong, The University of Arizona, The University of Utah, NYU, Smith College, Drexel University and Johns Hopkins University.

He also narrated the only walking tour CD of Chinatown, NYC. Please see www.soundwalk.com.

Jami’s vision is to revitalize NYC’s Chinatown and to raise the awareness of talented Asians to the world.

History of TakeOut Comedy

My maternal grandmother lived in Hong Kong, and was beloved by all of her family. For many years, she lived in an elderly home and was hospitalized for the last five years in Hong Kong. When we were growing up, she encouraged us in school and loved us very much. Occasionally through the years, we would visit her in Hong Kong. All of us looked forward to the trips to spend time with her. My mom was traveling back and forth from NYC to Hong Kong for the last five years to take care of my grandmother. On Wednesday, November 27th, 2002 my mother called the family to let us know that our grandmother’s health had taken a turn for the worse. She told us it was urgent for all of us to try to get to Hong Kong as soon as possible. I was in retail and at that time, it was the busiest shopping time of the year. However, that was not as important as being together with my family. Luckily, my bosses understood and granted me a leave of absence. My family decided that I would go first and evaluate her condition before they all would fly to Hong Kong.

I bought my plane ticket and flew out on Sunday, December 1st. About midway through the flight, I got an idea that I should do a comedy show in my own neighborhood and bring back entertainment to Chinatown. The nightlife and entertainment in the Chinatown area had disappeared a long time ago. The four theaters that were around in the 1980’s have turned into a mall, a Buddhist temple, an office building and the forth one is still abandoned. I wrote down all my ideas and my vision on a barf bag in front of me. (I still have that barf bag.) I was excited about my ideas, and I couldn’t wait to share them with my grandmother and mother. When I landed in Hong Kong, I planned to go immediately to the hospital to visit my grandmother. My mother met me at the airport and told me that grandmother had gone to heaven. My heart was crushed, and I stood there numbed. She had passed away during my flight and did not want me to see her in that state. I truly believe that when she passed away, she gave me this vision of bringing back entertainment and nightlife to Chinatown. All of my siblings subsequently came to Hong Kong for my grandmother’s funeral. I still miss her dearly and truly do believe she gave me this idea during my flight.

When I arrived back in New York City, I immediately started working on my plans for a series of comedy shows. After the 9/11 attacks in 2001, Chinatown had been going through continued hard times, especially financially. The recovery efforts impacted access to the area, and therefore the local businesses. The situation worsened with the “Park Row issue” and access to parking, and later the false SARS rumors scare.

I wanted to do something positive to help out the community. I held creative team meetings with my friends Chun Wong, Emily Eng, and Josh Kaufman to discuss different concepts for shows. We came up with “TakeOut Comedy”. I was determined to fulfill the vision my grandmother gave me and sent out mass emails for performers. The response was overwhelming. People loved the idea of helping out Chinatown by bringing back entertainment to the area.

Next. I needed a venue. I looked into many places in Chinatown and the choice was Asia Roma. I pitched my vision to Mei Chan, the owner. She supported me and gave me a night. Thank you Mei! The first TakeOut Comedy show started with two performances on February 6th, 2003. Both shows were completely sold out! Afterwards, we asked for audience feedback and received positive and encouraging feedback.

Later on, I heard my college friend, Alan Tong, was opening a new bar/lounge with friends called YELLO. The place was a bigger venue and the next TakeOut Comedy was held at YELLO on April 3rd, 2003. Seating capacity was about 90 people, and the place was packed again. It was awesome! We did many soldout shows afterwards!

Then I decided to introduce standup comedy to Hong Kong. After 2 years of research and 9 trips to Hong Kong, I decided it was a good risk to open a comedy club in HK and to discover local talent!

Opened since Feb 2007, The TakeOut Comedy Club HK, The FIRST Fulltime Comedy Club in Asia, continues to bring more laughter here as we are hitting an untapped market and creating a whole new comedy market from scratch. We have weekly English and Chinese standup comedy shows, Improv shows with The Peoples Liberation Improv, and we fly in professional American comedians occasionally.  Now, running since May 2009, our sister chapter in Singapore is discovering new talent and bringing much laughter there.  We will soon expand to China and more countries in Asia.  COME LAUGH WITH US!