“Indians Are Not Asians”: M’sian-Born Comedian Ronny Chieng Doesn’t Feel Represented By Rishi Sunak

By Quinny Tan  •  31 Oct 2022 in News

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Malaysian-born celebrity, Ronny Chieng recently raised eyebrows during an episode of The Daily Show with a remark he made.

Hailing from Johor Bahru, comedian Ronny made a joke towards Indians that some found to be insensitive.

Last week the newly appointed British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was the talk of the town, and the media reported his position as a worthy representation to all Asians.

Unfortunately, Ronny disagrees and said that he didn’t feel represented. “Let’s be clear, Indians are not Asians okay?” said the comedian to host Trevor Noah.

“They’re still great people, they’re just not Asian, okay?”

The clip was uploaded on Tuesday (25 October) and captioned “Don’t call Rishi Sunak the UK’s first Asian PM in front of Ronny Chieng,” catching the attention of many enraged South Asians.

Don’t call Rishi Sunak the UK’s first Asian PM in front of @ronnychieng pic.twitter.com/IgnzVk8r62

— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) October 25, 2022

Some depict his joke to mean that Indians are not the only Asians, but most didn’t see it that way.

In the video, he said “answer me this. If this guy is Asian, how come when he became Prime Minister, I felt absolutely nothing?”

He went on to joke that while he was “down at the Dim Sum Palace this morning”, he and his friends had not looked at Sunak and said, “That’s me up there!”

This stirred criticism from netizens, especially among those from this part of the world.

Ronny hails spent most of his childhood attending school in Singapore. He has lived in the United States since 1989 and will soon join the cast of the drama series Interior Chinatown alongside Chloe Bennet and Jimmy O. Yang, directed by Taika Waititi.

What do you think of Ronny’s joke?