Standup comic Yumi Nagashima wants to challenge audiences until she is in her eighties, and assertive Vancouver girls helped her start out.
Having turned standup into a full-time job instead of something to dabble in between waitressing shifts and casting calls, Yumi Nagashima has a couple of small goals moving forward.
“I want to do standup comedy until I’m 88 years old, like Betty White,” the Tokyo-via-vancouver comedian says, on the line from her apartment in the West End. “I kind of want to go on Ellen, and I also want a 30-minute Netflix special. This year would be amazing, but maybe next year if this year doesn’t work out.”
This ambitiousness is not lost on those who are paid to notice such things. Not that long ago, Nagashima was contacted by the Simon Cowell– created ratings juggernaut America’s Got Talent to see if she was interested in submitting an audition tape. She thought better of it, partly because she was worried she’d have to censor herself, something she did plenty of in tradition-bound Japan.
“I thought, ‘Okay, it’s great that I can get a crazy amount of exposure,’ ” she says. “But I also felt like it would be something where I’d have to ask for permission to do what I do.”
Presumably, that means Nagashima understands mainstream America isn’t totally ready for an adorably accented, deceptively demure Japanese woman announcing “When I am sad, my clitoris gets cold. Like a little frozen edamame.”
More importantly, though, as her career takes off, Nagashima has fully embraced the idea that nobody (including the star-makers at America’s Got Talent) is going to tell her what to do.
“My natural instinct is to challenge people,” she says. “For example, I really care about gender roles and stereotypes of gender roles. Or stereotypes of Asian people—like Asian people can’t be funny, or they are always submissive. You might think that, but is that really the way that it is? I want to challenge that. There is so much freedom when you realize that you can offer a different perspective on things. It’s liberating.”
There are a number of ways to get a handle on how far Yumi Nagashima has come since she first accepted an offer to get on-stage at the Kino on Cambie.
Start with her Youtube channel, where the last three standup-routine videos she’s posted have done massive numbers, including over 420,000 views for January’s “Japanese Sweet Bite Technique”. (That’s where Nagashima gives a male audience member some valuable Japanese-flavoured tips on cunnilingus.)
February’s “What turns me on the most” (386,000 views) has her paying tribute to her boyfriend for charging through a crowd to get the last 60-inch Hitachi plasma TV for her at a Chinese New Year sale in Richmond.
Her successes haven’t just been online. Nagashima is now on the road for good chunks of the year, not just in Thunder Bay or Winnipeg, but in New York, Los Angeles, Australia, and Europe.
Last month saw the release of her debut album, My Name Is Yumi, on 604 Records, the record label founded by Nickelback’s Chad Kroeger and Vancouver entertainment lawyer about town Jonathan Simkin.
Nagashima’s grateful that, well into adulthood, she discovered something she now realizes was a calling.
“Some comedians are like, ‘I don’t really know if this is my thing or not, but I’m going to keep trying,’” she says. “For me, it’s been ‘I know this is my vocation—100 percent.’ ” NAGASHIMA DIDN’T arrive in Canada ready for the stage. In Japan, she was raised to think that lifetime goals had to include finding a husband and then having kids. Having bought into that, she married a Chinese Canadian who was working as an English teacher in Japan, and then moved to Vancouver with him when his visa ran out.
The West Coast appealed to her immediately, even if the complete lack of efficiency in things like public transit baffled her.
“It was an exciting shock that girls are stronger here,” Nagashima says. “They are really assertive and say whatever they want to say without asking permission. I felt really safe to express myself 100 percent.”
That sense of empowerment eventually led to her divorcing her husband—and committing to making a new life for herself.
During her initial years in Vancouver, Nagashima taught Japanese to English speakers. She also started taking acting classes. These helped her to land commercials as well as the kind of gigs one might expect to be offered an Asian woman who speaks English with an unmistakable Japanese accent.
“It’s so hard to get the roles, because they always have to be like Japanese scientist or Japanese-western waitress,” Nagashima says. “That’s where my accent makes sense.”
At the beginning of her acting career Nagashima was pressured by an agent to see a dialect coach to make her sound more westernized.
“I took a few lessons, but it really felt wrong,” she notes. “To me, the way I speak is exactly how it should sound when Japanese people try to speak English.”
Frustrated with how things were going with tryouts, Nagashima decided to take a stab at theatre, appearing in a friend’s play at the Havana Theatre on Commercial Drive in December 2015.
“I played ‘unhappy Japanese wife’— that was the role,” she relates with a laugh. “It was my first lead role and first comedy play. I had to say, ‘I’ve been married for three years. And it sucks!’ When I said that, the whole audience started laughing. I didn’t expect that, but I loved the way that when you are creating something, it’s very interactive. That’s when I thought, ‘Maybe this is my thing.’ ”
A COUPLE OF things stand out during Nagashima’s sets. First is her carefully measured delivery, which is laconic enough to make one wonder if she’s thinking in Japanese and then translating things into English in real time. (For the curious, she’s been in Canada long enough now that she thinks in English.)
Also part of her appeal is that she obviously doesn’t come from here, even though Vancouver is her home. That faux-outsider status casts her as someone whose feet are planted in two very different worlds.
On that note, My Name Is Yumi is wickedly insightful when Nagashima is training her cross hairs on English teachers living in Japan.
And the album is just as smart when she’s wondering why it’s okay for white folks in Vancouver to think every Japanese woman wants to go for sushi.
As she waits for Ellen and/or Netflix to call—which doesn’t seem that far-fetched, considering her likability and the way her Youtube stock has been rising—nagashima will be busy. She’ll be on the road for much of 2019. There’s also an album to promote.
But what Nagashima may be proudest of is the fact that she’s the one drawing up the rules of her life. She may have rewritten her future in Vancouver, but she hasn’t forgotten where she comes from.
“I am from Japan, and I’m proud that I’m from Japan,” she says. “What I’m doing is going up on-stage and just being me—not making any effort to change my accent or the way I speak. It’s me doing my jokes and showing my craft." g
from page 12 the ideal peak of ripeness we’re looking for, we’re really happy with how well it’s come out.”
The wine reminds me of a briny and buoyant Chardonnay out of Chablis. River rock, salty sea air, and lemon blossom make for charming aromatics, followed by lemon curd, guava, and green grapes that sail across the palate. A plate of chef Nico Schuermans’s seared albacore tuna with sautéed kale, broccolini, greens, and papadums, dressed with a miso and sesame emulsion, partnered up pretty darn well with it.
Their 2017 Blanc de Noir was mighty delicious, and at $30 a pop, it’s quite the steal for a traditional-method sparkling of this quality. After its second ferment in the bottle, the wine spent a bit more than a year on the lees, bringing that lovely fresh-baked-bread note to the nose; a host of Granny Smith apples, quince, and fresh limes make for a lively palate.
I was pleased and almost shocked when they pulled out their 2017 Pinot Noir Rosé ($25). With the rising popularity of ultrapale pink wines out of Provence during the past few years, there’s been a trend for wineries around the world to make their rosés lighter and lighter, with a good handful looking pretty much like white wine. Lightning Rock has gone in the opposite direction: with such a dark hue, it brings to mind candy apples and cherries. So fun! Granite and limestone soils lend a good mineral core, while Bing cherries, Italian plums, and Turkish delight are all quite generous on the palate. Looking at the wine, one may think it’s going to be sweet, but it’s not. I’m thinking salmon on the barbecue or creamy seafood pastas would be worthy companions.
Currently, the only other wine they have available is their 2017 Pinot Noir ($35). Wild and partially whole-cluster-fermented, the juice spent three weeks with the skins and then aged on lees in neutral oak for eight months before going to bottle, unfined and unfiltered. There’s plenty of charisma here, with gobs of blood orange, raspberries, cardamom, and a nice bit of marzipan on the finish.
With such small production, availability is quite limited. The best bet is to visit lightningrockwinery.com to nab a few bottles before they are gone. After giving them a whirl, I’m sure many will want to be at the front of the line when the 2018 vintage is released later this year. g