Dear Girls

Dear Girls is a collection of letters written by comedian Ali Wong to her two daughters, recounting tales from her youth and life in an attempt to pass on some hard-earned wisdom to them and anyone willing to listen to her story.

If you’re born in a village, live in a village, and die in a village, a village perspective is all you’ll ever have. My college friends and I often talk about how different we have become from the people we used to know back home, and for most of us, travel played a large role in that transformation.

Spending some time abroad — and I’m not just talking about a holiday — forces you to be self-sufficient, to deal with a new reality and culture, and might open your eyes to life in the real world outside of your usual local bubble.

When Wong studied at UCLA, she first spent two months in Hawaii. Besides taking different classes, making new friends, and gaining ten pounds because the food was so delicious, she also attended an inspiring talk. Haunani-Kay Trask, a Native Hawaiian leader and professor, spoke with confidence and authority while taking pride in her womanhood.

Motivated by her first experience, she dared travel a little bigger: to Vietnam, her mother’s country. While studying abroad there, she had a crush on a fellow student named Hai. Unfortunately, he never reciprocated her feelings because, as she learned from secretly reading his diary, she was “too hairy to be sexy.” Ouch! Instead of wallowing in self-pity, however, Wong remembered Trask’s talk — and decided to just not waste any more time on guys like Hai.

From confidence to inspiration to love, there are a million treasures on the road of travel. Dare to take it and see what you find!

The stand-up comedy industry is dominated by men, white men in particular. Plus, since comedy is full of irony, snark, and dark humor, a lot of sexism and misogyny hides behind the veneer of laughter. From being booed before she even began her set to being patronized by fellow comedians, Wong has witnessed no shortage of “-isms.” There’s no perfect recipe to deal with prejudice, Wong admits. Mean comments always hurt, and the best you can do is remember that other people’s opinions of you don’t matter. That said, she does have a strategy for rising above criticism of all kinds: Look at yourself beyond labels of race and gender, and focus on your contribution. For Wong, that means obsessing over the jokes she makes, not the comments she receives. Her value as a comedian comes from how good her sets are, not what clothes she wears, or what her…