Ammon News - By Taylor Luck

AMMAN - When Wonho Chung walked on stage at the King Hussein Cultural Centre earlier this week, his unlikely journey had come full circle after a quarter century.

In just two years since his first stage performance, the South Korean comedian with a Jordanian passport, who took part in the Amman Stand-Up Comedy festival this week, has become a pioneering Arabic comic, presenter and entertainer.

Chung’s journey started on the streets of Amman, struggling to fit in as a person with “the heart of an Arab with a Korean face”.

The son of a South Korean physiotherapist father and a Vietnamese mother, Chung was born in Jeddah in 1983. His family moved to Jordan when he was two and the Kingdom proved to be a welcoming environment, he told The Jordan Times.

Chung said he had a passion to perform, particularly sing, since he was four. He would videotape Eurovision song contests aired on Jordan Television and re-watch them dozens of times until he perfected the lyrics. He later received voice training at the National Music Conservatory, with his lyrical talents becoming a trademark of his career as a comedian, during which he often breaks into song in Arabic to the astonishment of the audience.

During high school and college, Chung studied under Jordanian theatre greats such as Nabil Sawalha and continued to develop his voice.

Determined to work in front of a camera, after graduation Chung headed east to Dubai in order to get “any career” in the television business.

Once he entered the industry in the emirate, Chung made sure he involved himself with every aspect of the television production process.

He was discovered in the fall of 2007 by Showtime Arabia (now Orbit-Showtime), which was hosting the Axis of Evil comedy tour in the region. Organisers were searching for a Korean comic to fill out the line-up for the show, named after former US President George W. Bush’s infamous term for North Korea, Iran and Iraq, and were impressed with Chung’s skills as an entertainer.

In order to break into the field as a stand-up comedian, he spent a month with the group touring Jordan, Egypt, Kuwait, Lebanon and Dubai, each day crafting his material with cast members, joke by joke. By the end of the tour, Chung had enough material for a 20-minute act.

“They told me to just get up there. I would get up on stage, say that I am working on starting out as a comedian and audiences were receptive,” he said, noting that as the tour progressed he would slowly try out jokes and spontaneously break out into song.

Being the only Axis member fluent in Arabic, Chung was interviewed by regional and international satellite channels and became an instant hit with audiences despite his brief stage-time.

Now back in the Kingdom, where he performed at the festival’s Arabic nights, Chung noted that his life in Jordan has been a major influence on his stand-up material.

With material ranging from his family being mistaken for Philippine domestic helpers to his attempt to understand the techno-babble of car mechanics in Bayader, Chung has a distinctively local perspective.

Even in his work as a presenter for several television programmes, TV interviews and onstage work in Dubai and elsewhere, Chung has proudly retained his Jordanian accent as homage to the country that gave him a chance to develop his talents and pursue his dreams.

The self-styled “best Korean import to the Middle East”, said he foresees a growing comedy scene in the Middle East in the near future, expressing hope that more Arabs enter the genre and adding that Jordanians, as well as aspiring entertainers, can learn from his story.

“Never give up on your dreams,” he said.
(Jordan Times)