His mother, a white British archaeologist, met his father, a Chinese-Malaysian civil engineer, when she volunteered in Malaysia.
They married and Wang grew up in East Malaysia with his two sisters, surrounded by family, food and humidity (which he hates), before his family moved to the United Kingdom when he was 16.
Wang, 31, insisted that his book was not a memoir but he wanted to bring to light the impact of being of mixed race.
He said he had experienced the pitfalls and delights of both cultures, and explored them in-depth in his book, which has themes covering his family, food, race, words, comedy, love and history, adding that being of mixed race “could complicate these facets of one’s life”.
Wang said he felt like he never truly fit in, either in Malaysia or in the UK, as having a mixed heritage was a “great way to feel foreign wherever you are”.
He said this dissonance could lead to feelings of isolation, adding that the face of every Eurasian he has ever seen “sings with loneliness”.
Having completed an engineering degree at Cambridge University, Wang said if he was not of mixed race, he would not have become a comedian.
Wang was initially drawn to stand-up comedy because it was about combating loneliness. As someone with social anxiety, comedy gave him the platform he needed to overcome it.
“There is this officialised format — you go up, it’s your turn to talk, to give a lesson. To have this structured scenario where I could say things and be listened to. It’s great. I know that sounds like an egotistical thing, but it’s more or less a social anxiety thing.
“If I’m with a group of people, I find it hard to say something because I always presume people don’t want to hear from me. But if you’re on stage in a stand-up gig context, there is a presumption that people are there because they want to hear from you. So I’ve always found that easier,” he told BBC.
Wang added that his book was very much a love letter to Malaysia’s culture and cuisine, adding that “Malaysians eat the way Brits drink”.
He said a key advantage of being mixed race was being introduced to different flavours and different possibilities for what food can be.
“A lot of times, people who grow up to be fussy eaters just weren’t introduced to different foods early on. So being introduced to this breadth of flavours and food is a definite advantage,” he said.
Despite the laughs, Wang hoped that his book, which describes Malaysia in stunning detail and is steeped in childhood nostalgia, would help people get a flavour of what it’s really like there.
“It is an often overlooked country. I also really hope people hear about a perspective that they don’t normally (talk about), which is from a mixed-race perspective.
“But it’s (the book) for non-mixed-race people, too, to be introduced to a different life experience that is becoming more and more common.”