The first generation of U.S.-born Asian Americans raised after 1965’s Hart-Cellar Act passed would have found it difficult to imagine that sushi and boba would one day be beloved by all, that a Korean boy band named BTS would be the biggest musical act in the world, that one of the biggest movies of 2018 would be Crazy Rich Asians, or that a Facebook group for Asian American identity memes would be 2 million members strong. And that’s not mentioning the execs working behind the scenes at major companies; the activists and representatives fighting for equity; and the singers, rappers, dance crews, and social media pioneers making their mark on pop culture. And still: Asian America is just getting started.

Phil Wang: ‘Tarantula, centipede … I’d eat them again before Phil Wang: ‘Tarantula, centipede … I’d eat them again before

Race is something people are always aware of, but never really talk about, which is fertile ground for comedy’: Phil Wang. Photograph: Netflix For my money, the best noodles in London are at Xi’an Impression by the Arsenal stadium. They have really amazing hand-pulled noodles with big pieces of beef, but they also do really good dim sum and very cheap corkage.And if that sentence doesn’t make much sense to you, you are invited to delve into the complexity of loving something like Indiana Jones so much and yet, having mixed feelings. (To my chagrin, I’m looking forward to Indiana Jones 5 – the Dial of Senior Living.) This, for Wang, is what he loves about standup. One time, after a gig in London, a white middle-class couple from Essex came up to him – and the comedians Pierre Novellie and Nish Kumar – and said they had enjoyed the show in the main, “but enough of the race stuff, eh?” Wang found the comment, and the ensuing discussion, enlightening. In Malaysia, everyone had talked about race all the time: that’s what happens in a country that is highly racially diverse, where the largest ethnic group – the Malays – make up only half the population. In the UK, where 80% of the population is white British, the subject can remain more of a taboo. In his 20s, Wang began to make modest changes to his look. He had always worn thin, frameless spectacles hoping, he thinks, that people wouldn’t realise he was wearing glasses at all. Then, one day in Specsavers, he popped on a pair of oversized frames as a joke and saw they suited him. He had never thought much about his hair, but decided to finally spend money on a cut. “It’s arrogant to call it a transformation,” says Wang. “I mean, who knows if it’s even better, but it feels better. It’s certainly more expensive.”

Phil Wang - Sidesplitter: How To Be From Two Worlds At Once

This article was amended on 16 August 2021 to make it clear in the body of the text that Philly Philly Wang Wang is now on Netflix.I’ll get absolutely crucified for this, but I still don’t entirely get yorkshire puddings. It’s just bread in a bowl shape. Bread as a gravy cup. When I hit nine, 10 years old, I just became … “voracious” would be the word. In Malaysia, we’d go to coffee shops and I’d have a full dish of noodles as a starter, then a full plate of grilled meats as my second course. I was having double meals. And I got very, very fat, so from the age of 10 to maybe even 15, I was a big boy. All this is given extra credence coming from an open-minded internationalist than an archetypal Little Englander, and typical of the fascinating, honest and sometimes unconventional personal take that defines the book. He wants an open conversation about race and says it always makes him feel more human when he engages in that. Hachette imprint Hodder Studio recently published Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith's Inside No 9: The Scripts, Tom Allen's memoir No Shame and last week put out Pippa Evans's self-help book based around improvisation, Improv Your Life. Titles from Ellie Taylor and Sukh Ojla are due out later this year. In May 2021, Wang hosted a new podcast called Phil Wang Hates Horror, which was released on Audible.

Phil Wang to publish first book, Sidesplitter - British

Calling all Phil Wang fans - the dude has written a book! Essentially his musings on what it means to be mixed race in today’s world with a whole lot of funny thrown in, Sidesplitter is a thought (and chortle) provoking read. From History to nature, food to love, Wang covers his experience of life being from two very different worlds, and there is both serious discussion and laughs aplenty. It is at times a funny read and there were several times I laughed out loud at various situations he described. Phil has a really nice calming tone to his writing; you can tell this hasn’t been ghost written as his voice shines through. Incidentally, Wang also confesses to leaning into the British psyche: ‘a sort of apologetic arrogance, a bumbling and shy sense of absolute superiority’– as you can tell from his self-deprecating, but ultimately high-status - tone. He has a refreshingly different take on topics of culture and belonging. At a time when many people are seeking increasingly granular definitions of what groups they are in, and defending each one vigorously, Wang advocates for the more relaxed, melting-pot attitudes of Malaysia.

It will probably be a wine at this point. The most underrated grape, I think, might actually be a frappato from Sicily. It’s a really delicious light red that is very, very nice chilled. But hard to find! This book definitely made me laugh and I really wish I could be at Phil Wang's event at Cheltenham Literature festival because I would love to hear more from him. The structure of the book is a great balance between facts and observations alongside humour and personal opinions. I definitely learned a lot as well as laughing out loud at various moments. I like how this book is marketed as 'not a memoir' but each section comes from a very personal point of view. Perhaps there’s little surprise he sometimes wants to emphasisethat side of himself when East Asian men are seen as so sexless in Western culture. But with 1.4billion Chinese people, Wang argues that the Chinese men are scientifically the sexiest race on Earth.