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Malaysian YouTuber Nigel Ng has defended the Asian accents he uses as Uncle Roger, denying that he is perpetuating stereotypes
In a video published yesterday, 8 February, Ng addressed American chef and award-winning cookbook author J Kenji López-Alt's comments, arguing that it was wrong for the chef to view the Uncle Roger persona as promoting Asian racism.
"Accent is not a stereotype. Accent is just how we talk and how we live. There's nothing wrong with having an accent.
"Sure, many people watch Uncle Roger's videos, and then they imitate Uncle Roger's way of speaking, and now they use 'haiyaa' and 'fuiyoh' in their daily life. That's amazing!
"Uncle Roger popularised Malaysian slang to the whole world. Fuiyoh!
"And when people imitate Uncle Roger like that, they are not making fun of me. It's all out of love," said the 34-year-old comedian.
Ng also said he is not embarrassed to be a Malaysian, pointing out that content creators from other ethnic backgrounds have long endearingly mimicked their parents' Arabic, Italian, or Hispanic accents as a form of comedy.
"Sorry, I don't sound white like you, Nephew Kenji, haiyaa," said Ng, later joking that if López-Alt ever visited Vietnam, he should watch out for everyone speaking with an accent.
He wrapped up the video by complimenting López-Alt's fried rice, saying he owned the chef's cookbook even before knowing the Boston-born chef disliked him, and expressed hope that López-Alt's opinion of him has since changed.
Watch Ng's video here:
The public dispute began in August 2021, when López-Alt wrote in the description of his YouTube fried rice recipe video about his aversion to Uncle Roger, the Asian persona Ng uses for comedy
In the description, he criticised Ng's influence for seemingly giving fans a "free pass" to imitate stereotypical Asian speech patterns and pronunciation, noting that those doing so were almost always non-Asians.
"It's ugly, it's yellowface, it's not funny, and it promotes anti-Asian racism at a time when Asians are already being heavily discriminated against. It is not welcome here," López-Alt wrote.
He then disabled the comments section on the video.
After Ng's video was uploaded yesterday, López-Alt responded by updating the description of the same video, which was published four years ago
The 46-year-old chef said he understood why Ng created the Uncle Roger persona and why audiences enjoy it, adding that he believed the comedian had "good intentions" and that he had never said he hated him.
However, he explained that his perspective comes from growing up Asian in the US, where he said the community has long faced racism.
He pointed to the rise in anti-Asian violence during the COVID-19 pandemic, saying his mother in New York was "afraid to walk outside" amid rampant reported attacks on elderly Asian women by young men.
López-Alt also said he has relatives who had been in internment camps, stressing that the experience of Asians raised in the US differs greatly from those who grew up in Asia.
"So, in that context, when I open up the comments to a video and see comments imitating your catchphrases or speech patterns, then see that the people doing it are virtually all non-Asian American men, it rubs me the wrong way. I hope you can understand that," he wrote.
López-Alt ended the statement by saying he would be open to collaborating with Ng, "under the condition that we talk through the nuances of this rather complicated issue, respect each other's experiences, then enjoy some delicious fried rice together".
