You could tell he knows how to please his audience when he opened up with the philosophy that “all life is a party, and if you want to be happy, the trick is to not care.” He then related that idea to a personal story he gave about a good friend of his that came out of the closet. Well, this good friend finally came out, and was still being ignored until he gave Chang back the $20 he was owed.

As the show progressed, you could tell he was experimenting with edgier jokes when he saw he could get away with them, until he got to his dirtiest at the end of the show, which cannot be recreated here faithfully. He was big on ethnic jokes, and would often bring attention to his own race; he would start with talking about the rarity of genuinely funny Asian comics and the pressure that puts on him, and end with recreating his first sexual experience in the most stereotypical Asian-American voice possible.

Despite the show he puts on over his background, Chang is actually a professional Asian activist speaker. After the show ended and before the hilarious Q&A session, he turned the show off for a bit to talk seriously about Asians in modern American culture, the stereotypes that need to stop, the history that needs to be learned, and the action that must be taken. He brought up the Japanese-American relocation camps for anybody 1/16th Japanese back in World War II, where Americans rounded up fellow Americans out of wartime fear. He brought up other issues for a largely undocumented minority, raising awareness, and plans to do so on the rest of his tour across the country.

The show at RPI was the first on his tour, indirectly giving the RPI institute the honor of influencing the rest of his tour. Chang plans on using our reactions to tailor the rest of the tour. He said jokingly that he would blame us if his next show didn’t go as planned just because RPI found it funny.

But I think it’ll go incredibly well, judging by the overwhelming approval I found among the audience members that night and his penchant for improvised humor. At one point during the Q&A session, a paper plane was thrown onto the stage from the second floor, and Elliot dove across the stage to catch it before it hit the ground, to wild applause. It was a dramatic opening for a funny and mysterious message from above, but, as they always say, what happens at a UPAC Comedy show stays at the UPAC Comedy show.