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Like you, I grew up overseas – mostly in Asia – and it was always interesting to read about America from afar. What were some of the sources you remember getting your news from?
This was all pre-internet in the ’90s, so we had Time and Newsweek, and our TV news would be from Channel News Asia. We didn’t have cable so we didn’t have CNN International or anything like that. Compared to Singapore or Malaysia, American politics seemed a lot more dramatic and the stakes felt a little higher, although it was lower for me personally. There was a show around and around American news that was always very interesting.
And then the show led me to American TV and movies like The West Wing and Die Hard. Die Hard really looked like American politics in a way. The Americans in that movie don’t know how to relate to these smooth European criminals, so they act in a way analogous to how Americans act in any kind of political situation. If you liked Die Hard, you would naturally be drawn to a country where people behaved like this.
I guess what I’m saying is that American pop culture would naturally push you to be interested in American politics! [Laughs]
One of the pieces in your Netflix special that I really liked was where you ranked Asian countries for fun factor with South Korea currently at the top. I lived in Hong Kong in the early 90s and felt like the center of the pop culture universe back then.
Yes, you were in the peak of Hong Kong! The idea of ranking Asian countries is not new, but ranking them according to how fun they probably are.
Do you expect Singapore to still be cool in the same way?
Probably not Singapore, no. I don’t know how it happens, but it’s one of those intangible cultural things where there isn’t really a mathematical equation. You can only feel in the moment as to who is doing the coolest things. Right now, South Korea is undoubtedly kind of dominating, and Japan has its moments. Hong Kong was at the top once, and then they fell a bit. I don’t know if it comes in cycles, but I know it’s something every country tries to do, but few really can. It is difficult to artificially manufacture coolness and culture and all that.
