How I Travel: Ronny Chieng First Flew Business Class by Mistake
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In the new Hulu show Interior Chinatown, a background actor trapped playing different cliched Asian characters on a police procedural gets involved in Chinatown’s crime scene. Comedian Ronny Chieng, who co-stars on the show, based on the much-lauded book of the same name, is a bit of a connoisseur of Chinatown neighborhoods around the world, having lived in Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, and now the United States. “It’s pretty funny, because the idea of Chinatown is basically in a non-Asian country, right? But the best Chinatowns are probably in Malaysia or Singapore,” says Chieng, who remains a senior correspondent on The Daily Show. “But damn, I’m biased. I have to go with New York City. It's my Chinatown and I think it's the best Chinatown. It's got food, tailors, massage places, coffee. New York City’s Chinatown is where it's at.”
As he wrapped up his Love to Hate It comedy tour, Ronny Chieng chatted with Condé Nast Traveler about returning to Japan again and again, eating kaya toast in Singapore, and wondering why hotel staff won’t leave him in peace.
What he wants in a vacation:
When I go on vacation, I don't like to do touristy things, so I tend to go to places I'm somewhat familiar with, like Hawaii, where I feel like a local there, or Japan—my wife and I go almost every year, so we have our spots. Japan is such a great mental reset. You can't help but leave kind of refreshed. I like to go to Singapore because my mom is there. I love the food and I know how to get around. I also feel like a local in Australia because I lived there for so long, and same with Malaysia. I just like to go at a slow pace.
Where he eats in Singapore:
I go to my usual spots in Singapore. I actually have a food guide on Apple Maps, so if people want to see it, they can log into that. I usually go to Tong Ah Eating House, and I get the teh tarik, which is a milk tea. It’s one of the few places in Singapore where you can still get it made from scratch. They have really good kaya toast, which is egg and coconut jam, and coffee pork ribs.
His strategy for long-haul flights:
I make sure I have something relaxing downloaded to my phone. It'll literally be Tibetan singing bowl music, or rainfall, or Apple’s sleep music, which is just relaxing brain music with no words. That's my key to surviving travel—having that kind of stuff on your phone, ready to go. I've been finding a lot of joy in getting a newspaper at the airport or bringing a physical book with me. I'm very lucky to have gotten back into reading. A couple of months ago, I read Pachinko by Min Jin Lee and that got me back into it. Reading a physical book really helps. The other thing I do is download this video game emulator that looks like a mini GameBoy, with all these video games from when I was a kid that I never actually got to play, so Nintendo or Sega games. And my wife got me onto Korean face masks. Putting a Korean face mask on while you're flying is great.
His travel pet peeve:
Inconsiderate people. I mean, that's nothing new, but people feeling entitled when they’re traveling is my pet peeve, as though their problems supersede everyone else's. People who lack consideration really irritate me.
His mysterious first experience in business class:
The first time I flew business was a total accident. I was 16 years old and living in Singapore, and I visited my sister, who was going to university in Australia. I was flying by myself, but my mom brought me to the airport and being a mom, we went five hours before the flight, before the counter even opened. At the check-in counter, we picked out a seat, and then I get on the plane and it’s the most comfortable seat ever. It’s just me and this guy next to me and we start talking and he’s telling me how he’s an engineer. A nice flight! I hang out with my sister and on the way back I get into economy class and it’s shitty seats and I’m like, wait… So they upgraded me and didn’t tell me and there was no reason for it. I don’t think my mom asked for it. I still can’t explain it to this day. I just thought Singapore Airlines was awesome—and it is awesome, but [economy is] not that awesome.
His favorite vacations ever:
Japan is one of the coolest places I've been. It feels so different, but yet so interesting—every aspect, from the incredibly dense modern cities to the beautiful, serene countryside. Everyone is very polite. They take great care with how they do everything. The first time I went it was incredible, so now I go there often. Recently, my wife forced me to go to Paris and I was kind of prepared to hate it, but I actually loved it. And I was surprised by how much I liked Vietnam. My wife is Vietnamese, and she brought me there with her family—to Saigon, Hanoi, Hoi An, Sapa Valley, and Halong Bay—and I had a fun time, probably because they helped me navigate the country.
His favorite cities to do stand-up in:
New York is obviously great. It always feels like a hometown crowd here. San Francisco is great, or Seattle. If you want the more unexpectedly great comedy cities, there’s Washington DC, or Madison, Wisconsin, or Denver or Minneapolis. Nobody really knows why, but we all know which are the great comedy cities. It's a combination of a comedy-savvy crowd who love to attend live performances, and the venues. Are they up for comedy? Do they get it? Some people think that you can just do comedy anywhere, but the venue is such an important part of it. The height of the ceiling has to be low; it's intimate. A high ceiling changes the dynamics of the gig completely. The culture and venues combine and it becomes a really cool comedy city, and then word spreads and all the comedians love going through these cities.
The hotel trend he hates:
It drives me crazy when hotels give you too much of a brief when you check in. I just want to go to a room! I don't need to know about anything else. And I don't know if this is a recent thing, but I’m finding hotels [keep] calling you in the middle of the afternoon for some stupid bullshit that doesn't matter. They'll wake you up for something that's totally dumb, like they call to say, “Oh, we just want to check about turn-down service,” or “We’d love to give you this amenity,” or something. People just flew in, they have jet lag, and you're interrupting. I don’t know when they started calling you to give you things you don’t want. Leave a message!
Originally Appeared on Condé Nast Traveler
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