Bowen Yang

Yang was born in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, to a family that had emigrated from China in 1986. His father, Ruilin, was raised in a rural part of the Inner Mongolia region of mainland China, growing up in a straw and mud hut. Ruilin's parents were illiterate, but he read books for hours by candlelight and eventually got into university. Yang's mother, from Shenyang, is a retired physician who was an obstetrician-gynecologist in China before working in diagnostics. The couple moved to Brisbane so Ruilin could earn his doctorate in mining explosives.

Yang has an older sister. The children spoke Mandarin in their home, and attended Chinese Sunday school. When Bowen was six months old, the family moved to Canada and eventually settled in Montreal, where Bowen first discovered Saturday Night Live (SNL). When he was nine, they moved again, to Aurora, Colorado. As a child, he was drawn to late-night comedians and hosts David Letterman and Conan O'Brien.

Yang's high school calculus teacher, Adrian Holguin, was also his coach for Smoky Hill High School's improvisational comedy group, Spontaneous Combustion. Yang got a near perfect score on the ACT (a 35) and a 2200 on his SAT, and graduated from high school in 2008. He was named homecoming king and also voted "Most Likely to Be a Cast Member on Saturday Night Live" in his high school's yearbook.

When he was seventeen, Yang's father found out his son was gay from an "open chat window" on the family's computer. His parents were not receptive to the news, stating that such things "did not happen in China". Yang's father cried often over the revelation and, being non-religious but wanting to "solve problems", arranged for him to attend eight sessions of gay conversion therapy. He agreed to attend the sessions to appease his parents, who said they would otherwise not allow him to move to New York to attend New York University, which his sister was already attending. He was immediately alarmed by the counselor's mix of religion and use of pseudo-scientific reasoning to explain away positive homosexual manifestations. In an interview for The New York Times, Maureen Dowd questioned why his parents, both scientists, did not see the disconnection. Bowen said, "It was a cultural thing for them, this cultural value around masculinity, around keeping the family line going, keeping certain things holy and sacred," he said "It was me wanting to meet them halfway but realizing it had to be pretty absolute. It was an either-or thing."

In 2008, Yang moved to New York City and joined his sister at NYU. His father assigned her to chaperone him during this period as Bowen tried "straightness on for size and fail[ed] miserably." He came to accept being gay, incorporating it into his comedy, and hoped his parents would learn to accept that aspect of him. They have since found a truce and enjoy a "great relationship." At NYU, he was in the improv group Dangerbox, and he occasionally performed with Stephanie Hsu, a member of the school's sketch comedy group.

Yang was inspired by Sandra Oh's character Cristina Yang on Grey's Anatomy for her neurotic and relentless pursuits, and aspired to be a doctor. He went to pre-med classes and graduated from NYU with a bachelor's degree in chemistry. After realizing he was actually inspired by Oh for her acting ability, he decided to pursue a career in comedy instead. At NYU, he met Matt Rogers, with whom he started Las Culturistas, a weekly comedy podcast where Yang "unapologetically expresses his personality, story and himself by sharing his experiences as a member of the LGBTQ community".