After her event, Life and Laughter, I sat down with Jennifer to discuss her upcoming book, Chopsticks or Fork?, her creative process and collaboration with Lin Jie Kong and the inspiration behind ABC’s Chopsticks or Fork?.
Jennifer Wong is a Chinese-Australian writer and comedian. As a wordplay-loving food enthusiast, she's the presenter of ABC's Chopsticks or Fork?, a six-part series about Chinese restaurants in regional Australia. Her first book, Chopsticks or Fork?, co-written with Lin Jie Kong, will be published by Hardie Grant in late 2024. She writes a column for The Guardian called ‘Jennifer Wong's Class Act’.
Date- May 26, 2024
Location- Carriageworks Media Room
I watched Chopsticks or Fork and I thought ‘this is just really nice’. I like that you showcase the towns and their stories, specifically the story of the woman who went back to the family restaurant.
Emily, and her husband, Johnny, have a baby now. Johnny is Samoan and he works in the bar at and helps her manage the restaurant. They've bought a home down there and that's their life now.
That's really sweet. Also a baby. That's so much work with everything. I don't how my mum managed with the five of us.
Five of you. Wow. Wow. Well, on the one hand, that's a lot of people who can fold napkins. Yes. On the other hand, five kids. Oh my goodness.
[laughs] Given your extraordinary creative output – from hosting multiple series like ABC iview’s ‘Bookish’ and ‘Chopsticks or Fork’, comedy shows like ‘The Sweet and Sour Hour of Power’ and Jennifer Wong Has No Peripheral Vision, writing a regular column for The Guardian called ‘Jennifer Wong’s Class Act’ and curating In Other Words, the writers and big ideas festival as a part of the OzAsia Festival in Adelaide – I have to ask two questions: First question: How do you do it?
When you describe it like that, it sounds like a lot. But because of the way time works, these things all happen, not simultaneously. Last year, I curated In Other Words, and I did a stand up tour and I wrote for The Guardian. But those three things are easy enough to manage because they don’t happen all at the same time and they’re kind of complementary.
You know, it is easy to fit in an exercise class and then write about it because the standup shows are at night. In Other Words was a part-time gig. The team I worked with was in Adelaide. It doesn’t fit into a regular 9-5 but it does fit into 24 hours a day.
It’s actually my preferred way of working, to be able to switch from one thing to another, as opposed to have to concentrate on writing a PhD or writing one book and that’s the only thing you work on as it uses different parts of the brain.
It’s actually really satisfying to be able to, for work purposes, read a whole stack of books. That’s my job. That’s what I have to do and then go and do an exercise class that I otherwise wouldn’t get to do, and then try to write something about it. When I try to write something about it, it helps me get into stand up mode and try to write funny from observation. It’s my preferred way of working. It’s not something I find to be extraordinary at all.
Sounds like the way that like you've managed to juggle all these outputs is because this is what fits you.
That's right. Yeah. It fits and works for me because I find a 9-to-5 situation in an office to not suit the way that I like to work.
You know, I learned over the years, now that I really like to be the person choosing how I use my time as opposed to if you have a nine to five office situation. I'm speaking very generally, of course. But often you might be assigned a story to write that you have very little interest in, but it's your job, so you have to turn it around right?
I get to choose what I spend my time on. That's just the way the freelance kind of situation works, you know, is that you do lots of different things. It's probably a more challenging way of earning a living than to have a standard salary, super, and paid leave.
But it's a really joyful way of getting to meet lots of different people and go deep into a particular interest and then turn your attention and your focus to another one. So I think I think it just suits the way that my brain works at this stage, yeah.
That's really nice to hear, especially because there's a lot of the career advice we get as uni students is linear and very funneled in. Hearing you speak about how it works for you is nice. That's comforting to hear that somebody like has managed to make it work for themselves.
Yeah. I think linear and funneled is probably not a bad thing straight out of uni.
Maybe straight out of uni I wouldn't be able to do the work that I do now because I wouldn't have learned all the things I needed to learn. It really is important to show up on time, do the hours, socialize and work as a team. All of those skills are really good to have even if you are a freelancer.
I've written and spoken before about the fact that my mental health hasn't been stable throughout my adult life. As someone who, sometimes, might need a bit of downtime before the day gets started, it works better for me that I don’t need to go, ‘Hey, I’m not well.’ because it’s my time.
If I need to start my day at 11 and work till 8:00 at night, that’s okay but for a young person, I want you to have paid holidays. I want you to have someone buy the photocopy paper so you don’t have to. The structure is there for a good reason for the bulk of the population who doesn’t freelance. There are very clear pathways, there’s stability. I’ve swapped stability for the privilege of choosing what I spend my time on.
I'm glad. That's says something about your character that you're able to recognise and say ‘Yeah no, this is a good path and told to students a lot for this reason.’
It does have a practical purpose, especially if you know like you've got a HECS debt and you've got family that wants you to be stable because perhaps they didn't come from a stable background for whatever reason, as migrants or whatever, right?
Those things are really, really important. I've worked at lots of different offices and different workplaces. I think a good freelancer would benefit from having all those years of experience.
You have written widely about food, mental health, cultural identity, trends in fitness and wellbeing activities whether in The Guardian, Instagram captions, or Chopstick or Fork – your upcoming book out in September published by Hardie Grant – I have to ask: what writing do you enjoy doing the most?
It definitely has to be funny. It's very satisfying when you can write something and it makes people laugh because you don't have to write in that way. You can tell a story without it being funny at all. So I take great delight and joy in being able to take something very small. And then just stretch it out in order for it to pay off in a in a humorous way. So that's probably what I enjoy the most.
Is there a particular format that you're drawn to or do you prefer to perform?
This year's been interesting because I've taken the Guardian articles which are around 600 to 700 words and use that as a base for my stand up. They’re partly based on the experience I have in the exercise or wellbeing session that I’ve written about for the Guardian. I’ve also written about it in order to perform on stage.
The format is 6 to 700 words which is not that much. But if I’m doing this standup show that goes for an hour, I can choose to spend ten minutes talking about one single experience.
In that way, all of a sudden you’re telling a story from beginning to end so the chronology of it can be used as a structure. Even though that’s the same for the Guardian articles, because they are so much shorter, you can’t fit as much in.
The ability to develop character in ten minutes, the ability to share some opinions and have it dripping with attitude and the ability to really escalate a situation by going off on a tangent in order to bring the audience back later, to really put a journey into that experience, is satisfying in a different way because you get to spend more time exploring a topic. The really satisfying thing is that you can explore that in a way that doesn’t have to fit a Guardian style situation.
If I’m writing 600 words for the Guardian, there’s an expectation that it will be a particular way. It’s a first person semi review format, right?
But if I do ten minutes on spin cycling in my show, it can be ridiculous. All of a sudden I can start to say things like ‘I’m bobbing up and down on a bicycle, riding it while standing, looking like a male lizard in a courtship ritual’ which is probably something that didn’t make it into the article. I can act out what that bobbing lizard looks like. That is writing in a physical way, and that is something that I can’t do in a piece for a news organization.
Thank you for going in-depth! Your interests: food, writing, jokes and puns are a dime a dozen on dating apps but it takes quite a person to build your life around them. Was writing Chopsticks or Fork? the natural next step in your roster of creative outlets like stand up comedy, hosting, and writing articles?
Chopsticks or Fork came about really specifically in that Lin Jie Kong had the idea for it. We were both working at the ABC at the time. She still works there. She pitched the show after she had the idea for it. And somehow during COVID we were able to make it happen.
It was just a combination of the right time and the fact that culturally she and I are completely across this as a topic. I could go in and speak to people in Cantonese. We both have a basic understanding of what the food situations are going to be in that we're both, you know, children of immigrants.
I don’t feel like the show was an extension of the fact I make food puns but it’s more that the opportunity came about at the right time. To be honest, sometimes, I can’t believe that we actually were able to make that at all because it all happened during lockdown which is why we couldn’t go to Victoria. We didn’t go to Victoria until we worked on the book.
Sometimes you just get lucky. You have the idea, the funding is available, the timing works out, everyone you want to talk to says yes and you run with it.
That's really nice to hear the context behind it. I watched it and thought in the back of my head, how they actually get this to happen because it’s not often that shows like this get made.
The story behind it is that Lin Jie was in a part of northern NSW called Karuah. She was on a road trip coming back from Brisbane to Sydney with her husband, who is French, and she had had enough of pub food while she was on the road. She didn’t want to eat another chicken parm. She didn’t want to eat fish and chips.
Her husband stayed in the hotel room because he didn’t want to eat so she went to the Karuah RSL club because she saw online that there was a good Chinese restaurant inside. She goes inside and sees that not only do they have lemon chicken, honey prawns, but they’ve got mapo tofu and steamed fish. They’ve got peking pork, right, which is her favourite. She orders a combination fried rice and peking pork and she has what she describes as the best Chinese food she’s ever had in Australia.
She rings me up and she goes, ‘I just had the best Chinese food I’ve ever had in Australia.’ and then she goes ‘Why are these people here and what are they doing here? Why? Why did they stay here? Why are they making this incredible food?’ And so she goes, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we could travel around Australia finding out the answers to these questions?’ That’s what she pitched in the kitchen at ABC to an executive and that’s how the show was made.
That's really cool. I'm amazed that they have mapo tofu.
You’ve creatively collaborated with Lin Jie Kong in the past for ABC iView’s Chopsticks or Fork and now you’re working together on the book, Chopsticks or Fork. What has the process of writing a book with your long-time creative partner, Lin Jie Kong, been like?
Lin Jie and I work really well together because we are both incredible at our jobs. [laughs hysterically] Please note that I then laughed hysterically at what I just said.
No, Lin Jie Kong is so talented and is a total boss. I love her so much. We both have really high standards in how we want to tell stories. We share really similar values in terms of wanting to tell stories that vibe with us as people who grew up here with a Chinese background whose parents worked really hard, long hours in order to provide for their kids. You know the story.
Obviously, we haven't only been working on Chinese restaurant stories our whole lives. But to answer your question about working on the book, there were lots of transferable skills that came about from our previous work experience despite neither of us having put together a manuscript before.
Lin Jie, as a producer, made sure that that everything was looked after because we had to book flights, accommodation, travel all by ourselves in order to get to the other four locations that we visited apart from the show. We played to our strengths. In terms of writing, we would divide it up so that I would work more on the stories and that kind of thing. Lin Jie’s photography in the book is stunning.
I can't wait for you to see the book, especially some of the photos that she took in Tasmania. You know, cashews, chilies that are drying at this gorgeous farm that we were on where the restaurant was paddock-to-plate restaurant
The person who ran the farm was also the person who ran the Chinese restaurant that used the meat from the animals that live on the farm.
The animals, of course, are no longer alive.
We know what the other person is good at and we get stuff done.
That's really cool to hear that. Books are normally written by one person so to hear about your collaboration is great.
Yeah, we both worked on the recipes. You know, some of the stuff that is written is a combination of both of us that same piece together at different stages.
For example, sometimes when Lin Jie might write something and then I'll punch it up with jokes. We've told these stories together. It's very easy to be on the same page when you've travelled to every state and territory together.
You know, we've sat together and met these ten families together. We've eaten their food. We've taken their food home to eat because they insist that we take food with us. It's quite easy to come up with the one voice in order to share these stories with the public.
Yeah, I really appreciate the fact that you wanted to shine a light and showcase these stories.
The books and the series are not about me and Lin Jie. We literally show up and we ask the questions and then it's time for the families to shine. We vibe with their stories.
It's not about us telling our story in the series. It's really about the families. You know, neither Lin Jie nor I would have seen these stories on Australian TV at any point.
For us, making the show and having it so that you could go on our view and have a man tell you in Cantonese why he ended up working in the kitchen for all his adult life. It's their show. Like it's really their show, it's their book.
Thank you. Do you have a writing routine and what does it look like?
[laughs] God, I wish I had one, can you please give me one?
I spoke with Michelle de Kretser and she said that she writes 500 words a day, and that she tries to make it a routine. She was given the advice a thousand words a day and she said that’s something I can’t manage but I can manage 500.
I think the question you should be asking is. ‘Do you have any routine in your life at all?’ And I would say at the moment very much no because part of the year is being on the road touring and when I come back it's like unpacked suitcase on the floor, lots of stuff everywhere, in recovery from being on the road.
My energy is not 100% all the time. My routine is ‘is there a deadline? When is it due? I will do it in time for the deadline.’ I don’t have a routine. I wish I did but I don’t. What I’ve learned through the years is that I appreciate the adrenaline of being last minute but I actually know that I don’t particularly enjoy working like that.
What I do now is give myself plenty of time. Despite not doing 500 words a day, 1000 words a day, I make sure I start really early. That can be a really ugly draft that can be a brain dump after doing an experience I’m supposed to write about. And then I am so grateful for my past self when it comes time to sit down and actually write it. I don’t ever sit thinking that a perfect 600 word piece is going to come out word for word if I sit here for four hours straight.
Thank you. It's kind of refreshing to hear this answer because they sound very disciplined generally.
I'm not a robot. You're not a robot. The fact that people can make it work, I think that’s great, but they probably have a lot of routine in their days. I am not someone who has a lot of routine in my week so it's a juggle.
Thank you. That’s a very real answer. And now to round off the interview, please share some book recommendations. What books would you recommend to read for pleasure and what's a book that you would read to challenge yourself?
OK, so a book that I would read for pleasure is ‘Portrait of a Thief’ by Grace D. Li. It is about a bunch of Asian American college students who travel the world in order to steal back from famous museums all the artefacts that have been stolen from China. She hasn’t ever been in a heist so she watched a bunch of Fast and the Furious movies and Oceans 11 in order to write it. It’s just fun to imagine what it would be like and think who I would be in the team assembled for a heist.
And then to challenge myself. Can I look up the title?
Oh yes, of course.
OK, so there is a book that I have been waiting to be able to have the right amount of energy to read. It is called 'Animal Joy' by Nuar Alsadir. That, literally, is the book cover.
It’s not the first page. That is the cover of the book. Someone has decided to publish a book that looks like this.
That looks very French.
This book is called Animal Joy: A Book of Laughter and Resuscitation. She’s an American poet and psychologist. She goes to clown school in France. You know the really famous clown school that all the Australians go to? Gaulier is renowned for humiliating students by getting to their very core and breaking them down in order to make them the performers they’re supposed to be.
This book is based on her experience there but it refers to a lot of texts from psychology which I’m interested in. From the excerpt I read, it beautifully details her experience of doing a really bad job of being a clown and the process of being a clown. It’s also a challenge physically because the words are very small.
Incredible. Thank you for this interview!
Thanks.
Interviewing Jennifer was a real pleasure. It was such a delight to meet her and find out more about the show, the collaborative process, and how it came to be. It seems fitting that it was pitched in a kitchen. She’s an absolute delight, humble, and generous with her time. I’m excited to see the book come out in September.
If you’ve ever thought, 'chopsticks or fork?' at a restaurant, this book is for you.
If, like me, you worked in one of these restaurants in regional Australia, I hope this book finds you. This book is for us. Preorder the book here.
