Born in Beijing, Helen Chu moved to California in the sixth grade and has lived, studied and worked there ever since. She graduated from UC Berkeley and worked in the technology industry for over twenty years before stepping away from her tech marketing job earlier this year to focus on performing stand-up comedy.

Helen’s story gets more interesting when we shift the spotlight to her 9-year-old son, Evan Ho, who is due to perform with his mother in a one-night comedy special in Beijing! We speak to Helen about the duo’s inspiration and their shared experience in performing stand-up together as mother and son.

JKI: What inspired the both of you to do comedy shows together?

Helen: For me, I had grown up watching xiangsheng (crosstalk) on CCTV in the ’80s and always wanted to be one of the comedians. But when I was a young girl in Beijing, I didn’t think it was a viable profession because it looked like it was only for men. Watching live stand-up shows in the US was a big step for me to get inspired. I did my first open mic seven years ago and never looked back.

For Evan, he grew up watching me perform comedy. The first comedy show he attended was actually in Paris two years ago, where I did a set at a comedy show in the basement of a Turkish restaurant. He always enjoyed telling jokes to his friends and has performed dance on stage before. It was a natural progression for him  to try to do stand-up on stage. He liked it after he went up the first time and has kept it going ever since.

JKI: Please tell us about the experience of doing comedy shows with your son.

Helen: It’s been incredible to have this bonding experience with Evan. Writing is very personal, and writing stand-up comedy with Evan helped me get to know him a lot as a child. We had deeper conversations and reflections about our journey as mother and son than we did before. Doing shows together allows us to spend quality time together and share our passion; so, in some ways, I see him as one of my best friends now. He gives me feedback on my jokes and I do that for him.

Evan and I both performed at Sketchfest Comedy Festival in San Francisco this year. I’ve performed at Cobb’s in San Francisco, The Comic Strip in NY, and Ice House in Los Angeles.

Together, we’ve performed in Paris, Lisbon, San Francisco, and will now be adding Beijing and Tokyo to our list this summer. The international comedy community has been very warm and welcoming to us, offering us generous stage time, and, in my hometown, Beijing, a dedicated show.

JKI: What can we expect in this upcoming show?

Helen: For Evan, he will talk a lot about his upbringing as an only child attending a bilingual elementary school in San Francisco, where he learns both English and Chinese. He shares his hobbies, challenges, and yearnings as a 10-year-old, along with his outlook on the future. I like to describe his comedy as authentic, witty and passionate!

For myself, I talk about my upbringing in Beijing and adjusting to US culture as a pre-teen, the journey of being a mom who wanted to maintain a career and a family life, [and]my travel stories going around the world as a comedian and as a Chinese American. Evan says my comedic style is interesting, funny and true to life.

Helen and Evan will also perform with other local mother-son comedy duos Charlene Ng & Asher and Summer Zhang & Luke. Grab your early bird tickets by scanning the QR code in the poster above!

Images: Courtesy of Helen Chu

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It’s not every day that a 10-year-old gets to put up his artwork at a public art exhibition, and it’s much rarer for said 10-year-old to be putting on said exhibition with his artist mother. At the end of 2023, that is just what young Sebastian and his mother, Augustina, accomplished with “Intersections,” which just wrapped up in Toowoomba, Australia, after exhibiting to the public from Dec 13-Jan 5. Jingkids International (JKI) talks to the mother and son pair to find out how they put the whole thing together.

JKI: Please tell us a little more about “Intersections.”

Augustina: This is a culmination of my doctoral studies at the University of Southern Queensland. I am investigating how children and their artist caregivers interact and collaborate. The show highlights work from a 17-week research study that I conducted a year ago. The study followed four participant pairs of child(ren) and caregiver as they created art individually, in tandem, and collaboratively. The exhibition includes artifacts from this project as well as additional work created by myself and my son. We also made an on-site sculptural installation together.

JKI: Wow! How was the process of working together to put together an exhibition?

Sebastian: The experience was hard because I had to work with someone else who had a different opinion from me. The positive part was that I liked being recognized and noticed. Working with my mom was okay; it gave me more than two hands, so I got things done faster and tried different concepts.

Augustina: The planning of the show was more rife with obstacles than the on-site execution. I found that working spontaneously on location provided more room for creative experimentation with few distractions. Sebastian was a true partner at every step, from creation of the visual and audio components to curation and installation of the show. We envision collaborating regularly in the future, exhibiting under the moniker of “DROZEMOON,” a singular identity rather than a joint show.

JKI: How did you start Sebastian on his artist journey? 

Augustina: We have created art together for many years. Our relationship as parent/child to artist/artist has developed through conscious commitment to mutual respect and creative recognition.

Sebastian: I have been making art for about four years. I started with clay but it took time. I am interested in sci-fi and environments. I have stopped doing clay and now I do assemblage.

JKI: How would you describe your art?

Sebastian: It looks unrealistic and old. The fate of whether the art does good for the world or not depends on the consumers’ choice and use.

JKI: What’s next for you, together and individually?

Sebastian: I am waiting for the next new thing to happen – the next big thing where I can show my artwork. In the future, I might be able to sell stuff as antiques and get some money.

Augustina: We plan to show again in the future. There are early discussions of an exhibition of DROZEMOON in India.

Sebastian is 10 years old and attends Tsinghua International School in Beijing. He is American and knows how to speak Chinese. He is interested in being a video game developer and sharing his vision of entertainment with the world.

American artist Augustina Droze (1981) investigates the interaction of humans and the natural world through colorful and rhythmic imagery. In swirling, dream-like paintings, her artwork invites the viewer to examine our relationship with the environment around us through paintings and large-scale public art.
Inspired by her life in China as an expat, Droze’s artwork integrates Eastern and Western imagery, incorporating cultural symbolism and ornamental elements of both. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums internationally in numerous shows, notably at the Castellani Art Museum (2014), Banaras Hindu University as Fulbright Senior Scholar India (2017), the Beijing US Embassy (2022), the Huzhou Art Museum, and the London Biennale (2023).

Images: Courtesy of Augustina Droze

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