The Nanfang / Blog

In praise of… Da Shan

Posted: 03/19/2014 11:35 am

To most people, Benjamin Franklin’s remark that the only two certainties in life were death and taxes holds true today. But to any foreigner who has attempted to learn Chinese, there is a third certainty – the spectre of Da Shan. Being reminded that the Canadian comedian and television celebrity, whose real name is Mark Rowswell, is out there and speaks better Chinese than us is as much a fact of life for foreigners in China as squat toilets and “hello” catcalls.

Like anything repetitious, this can be annoying. A comment on the Peking Duck blog in 2006 tried to explain to a Chinese netizen what it’s like: “Imagine every time — YES, EVERY TIME — you met an American, they said to you: ‘You look like Bruce Lee! Do you know Bruce Lee! Bruce Lee speaks great English! Bruce Lee is very famous! I like Bruce Lee! Do you know Bruce Lee?’” Da Shan himself even presented some theories as to why he is hated.

Da Shan smiling for the camera, image courtesy of Google

But it is easy to take for granted the difference that Da Shan’s unique career has made to China’s perception of foreigners. Since his emergence in the late 1980s, Da Shan has shattered the deeply held belief both within and without China that – as the missionary William Milne put it two centuries ago – learning Chinese is “a work for men with bodies of brass, lungs of steel, heads of oak, hands of springsteel, hearts of apostles, memories of angels, and lives of Methuselah.”

A pioneering career

Da Shan became an instant celebrity in 1988 when his fluent Chinese delivery at the CCTV New Year’s Gala was broadcast to 550 million people. He has been a star ever since. Jesse Appell, comedian, former Fulbright scholar and founder of Laugh Beijing, explained to The Nanfang some of the significance of this: “People who grew up with the idea that at least one foreigner speaks Chinese were more open to the idea that others can learn as well, and that has allowed non-native speakers to engage with China in so many new ways.”

In our age of fleeting, pointless fame falling on the most unremarkable people, one does not remain a national celebrity for over 25 years without having something interesting to offer. Da Shan doesn’t just speak the language well, he is an accomplished comedian, a rare example of an artist who has flourished in a second language.

Appell, whose website has the assertion “When we laugh together, we learn about each other” shared his admiration for Da Shan as a comedian. “Humor generally functions the same here as it does in other places, with surprise, wit, funny logic, and self-deprecation creating humorous outcomes. Da Shan has been effective at doing those things in whatever role he plays, whether it is as a host, or as a judge on a show,” Appell said.

Musician publisher, and former Reuters journalist Graham Earnshaw agrees. “He plays a difficult role – foreigner in the maw of China’s state media – with skill and without sacrificing his integrity. I can think of no one else who has managed it,” Earnshaw told The Nanfang.

His comedy also can’t just be dismissed as imitation. Xiangsheng, the type of comedy that Da Shan is primarily known for, is not simply a form of stand-up comedy as we know it in the West. It has a group of skills and pieces that one must know in order to be a legitimate Xiangsheng performer, Jesse Appell explained. Like any Xiangsheng artist, Da Shan’s role was to adapt traditional pieces and give them his own flavour. So contrary to popular belief, Da Shan is no more of a “performing monkey” than most other entertainers on Chinese television.

That smile

One of the biggest criticisms of Da Shan is his fixed smile, which some less generous netizens have described as a “shit-eating grin.” This is symptomatic of the much-maligned lack of edginess to his act. But why should he be edgy? Being a successful populist is just as difficult as being a successful underground artist.

If he were a journalist, his failure to stick it to the powers that be might be an issue. But he’s not a journalist, he’s an entertainer. And anybody who is good at selling themselves knows that it’s difficult (maybe even impossible) to resist a smiling idiot.

The reason Louis C.K is (probably) the most acclaimed stand-up comedian in the English-speaking world today is because he shows that he understands the innate absurdity of his role. Unlike other giants such as George Carlin or Bill Hicks, Louis C.K doesn’t set himself up as the smartest guy in the room and this makes his act stronger.

Although Da Shan’s comedy is necessarily cut from a very different cloth, Da Shan shares this refreshing lack of self-seriousness. Despite once having been described by author Matt Schiavenza as “self-important”, this tweet shows that Da Shan has few delusions:

A valuable legacy

Despite not being the Laowai with the most interesting China story (that would probably be Sidney Rittenberg), or being history’s most impressive foreign Chinese learner (that would have to be Matteo Ricci), Da Shan has inarguably done more good than harm.

He has done immeasurably more for developing understanding between China and the great country of Guowai (foreign land) than pseudo-politically engaged celebrities like Sharon Stone and Bjork who have made the news with controversial remarks about China that were largely forgotten within a few weeks. As Da Shan himself argued on Quora, he works within accepted cultural norms, which he understood through living in and adapting to the country.

So next time you have a conversation in Chinese that is about topics other than your foreignness, remember that Da Shan played a small part in making this possible. Having said all this, if you ever catch yourself saying: “I suppose I do look a bit like Da Shan,” it probably is time to leave.

Haohao

Jesse Appell of Gangnam parody “Laowai Style” talks to The Nanfang about comedy

Posted: 07/2/2013 1:00 pm

Last year, Fulbright scholar Jesse Appell became an online sensation in China when his music video “Laowai Style” went viral. Since then, he has continued to develop his art and entertain more Chinese people, and China hands, with his talent.

Recently, after seeing an impressive stand-up act he gave at the Bookworm in Beijing, The Nanfang asked him to take time to chat. He kindly agreed.

Like the conversation itself, this write-up may meander at times because it’s difficult to stay on topic when you talk with somebody who has so many interesting things to say.

We started off discussing how stand-up comedy, as we know it in the West, is very different to the Chinese tradition of xiangsheng, which is usually translated as “crosstalk.”

One difference is in the audience-performer dynamic. In crosstalk, Appell said, the audience dynamic is more similar to a play, where the audience is expecting to be engaged but does not actively engage themselves. In stand-up comedy, the comedian’s persona is more often than not an everyman, lessening the distance between performer and audience. For this reason, direct bridge-building between performer and audience is a lot more common in Western stand-up comedy. Many young Chinese comedians who are attracted to the Western way of doing things enjoy this more direct engagement.

We then discussed how simply talking about how he’s a laowai has become central to his act. “There are two things to say about this,” he said. “Number 1, I wish it wasn’t the case. Number 2, we have no choice.”

Unlike in America, if a person who doesn’t look Chinese speaks the language and shows knowledge of the culture, people can’t get past the fact that they want to know why, Appell opined. The result is that people are curious about how and where that person learned these things, and that curiosity colors and overwhelms the reaction to laugh. “You have to get this out of the way at the start of the show, you have to acknowledge the fact that you’re a Laowai speaking Chinese,” he said.

However, unlike the CCTV comedy “Laowai Laile” he avoids jokes that revolve around the limitations of his Chinese or his understanding of China.

“Ultimately, my hope is to show through comedy that foreigners can and do understand China, so telling stories about how I misspoke one time or found myself in an awkward situation because of lack of knowledge about Chinese culture doesn’t help with that,” Appell said.

Despite his unwillingness to pander, Appell takes pride in the inoffensiveness of “Laowai Style” in the eyes of the Chinese viewer. There are many things that foreigners can’t be joke about in China, including making offensive implications about their host country and its government. And so creating comedy that engages people has been a challenge. Yet continutes to think of comedy as a force that transcends cultures.

Appell added that the reason many foreigners will speak the language well but never blend in in China is due to lack of understanding of the culture and how body-language works, he said.

We hope that Jesse can continue to learn enough to enlighten us and make us laugh for many years to come.

Haohao
AROUND THE WEB
Keep in Touch

What's happening this week in Shenzhen, Dongguan and Guangzhou? Sign up to be notified when we launch the This Week @ Nanfang newsletter.

sign up for our newsletter

Nanfang TV