The Wong Street Journal

The Wong Street Journal by comedian Kristina Wong illuminates the overwhelming issues of global poverty through the combination of self-skewering personal narrative and the theatric reimagining of dense economic theory. Wong parallels the journey of being a self-taught/self-absorbed hack economist, with the desire for self-importance as nurtured by third world tourism. She tackles serious socio-economic issues through jazzercise, explores economic theaters which inspire her own brand of 'Wongonomics,' NGOs (non-Governmental Organizations), 'Missionary Efforts,' and other modes of first world engagement with the developing world and how these structures risk both alleviating and sustaining poverty.

The Wong Street Journal is primarily a solo work backed with degenerate puppets and flashy TED-style PowerPoints, underscored by sobering images from her travels through the developing countries of Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. Using her trademark acerbic humor and personal commentary, this multi-layered stage introduces the character of 'Kristina Wong'. She's a well-meaning do-good Asian American activist and social justice martyr who vocalizes a brand of progressive politics that consistently contradict with her ability to carry them out especially when extracted from the comfort of social media and thrust into the non-Western world. The character of 'Kristina Wong' is emblematic of the problems of Western Aid in the third world, the cultural mistranslations and problems in 'presenting' third world poverty to the first world, and the theatrics involved in poverty reduction.

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