He said he tried to defuse the situation, making a quick joke before quickly wrapping up.
As the performance was recorded, he was able to go back and check if what he thought he heard was correct.
Upon rewatching the footage, he said he and his friends were shocked by the remark.
“Afterwards, I watched the recording multiple times, and I’m like, ‘Did she actually say that?’ And I sent it to a couple of my friends as well and they’re like, ‘Did she just say that?’.”
He told the Herald the whole experience left him very uncomfortable.
“I’m an immigrant coming into this country. I came here in 2019. And the only time that I heard that being thrown out was pretty rare.
“This is from a complete stranger, where she only knew me for five minutes and she’s already throwing this out,” Nguyen said.
“That just means that it’s not only me that she’s having a hateful attitude towards. This is like ignorance in general.”
Nguyen had gone into the gig feeling optimistic.
“I reckon ‘it’s just going to be another gig’, because I’ve been doing this for like a year and a bit now.”
With only six minutes allocated to each comedian on the first night, Nguyen was soon standing up as the fourth comedian to perform his own set.
“I expect really casual, like just do some jokes, test out some new jokes to see if it works or not,” he said.
“If it’s not, then I’m just having fun, just times away from uni and also part-time work.”
He said the offending woman was out with work colleagues and probably had too much to drink.
“There were three comedians that came before me and she was pretty loud and rowdy,” he said.
“And she would just keep talking to the person next to her and interrupt the night.”
While he has been disappointed by the incident, he has not let it ruin his view of New Zealand.
“That is definitely not the standard that Kiwis set, from my five, six years that I’ve been here.”
