When laughter is no laughing matter
A comedian reflects on how his craft is faring in China, and he is not amused
Xi Jiangyue has one of the hardest jobs of the evening. As show host he has to break the ice with what may be a demanding audience, lulling them into the right mood for the comedians who will appear later. After the pleasantries come the inevitable gags.
“I went to this barber once. He said to me, ‘Giving you a trim is exhausting work. It’s like mowing grass in the desert. I run all over the place, but anywhere I look I can’t find a single patch of growth. I’m having a hell of a hard job.’”
As the laughter dies down, a shallow smile settles on bald Xi’s face, and from the front row you can almost hear his eyes, shouting out that he really is not enjoying this.
“I don’t want to do stand-up comedy myself and I don’t want to try other forms of comedy,” Xi, a wellknown comedian and founder of Beijing Talk Show Club, the biggest stand-up comedy club in Beijing, says later.
“For me comedy has become a bore, which is why I now only host shows.
“A lot of money has poured into stand-up comedy in the past few years, and now comedians don’t think the way they used to. In fact, the best performers seem to have disappeared.”
Xi sees 2013 as a watershed year, one in which comedians dazzled the Chinese performing world with their brand-new content and completely different style.
Like these new arrivals, Xi saw bright lights on the horizon. After graduating from a university in Gansu province he started businesses in the wholesaling, decorating and logistics industries.
One after another, his companies went bankrupt, and he eventually decided to do something completely different. Since his days as a high school student he had been an admirer of stand-up comedy, and in 2010 he traveled to Beijing aiming to pour his enthusiasm into a new enterprise.
He and a partner founded the club, which would eventually have 48 screenwriters and 60 performers and organize more than 4,000 gigs, sometimes as many as five a week, over seven years.
“I’ll engage all kinds of comics, polite or rude, decent or obscene, as long as they can make people laugh,” Xi says. “One of the club’s principles is originality. Comics aren’t allowed to lift stuff from the internet.”
However, from a commercial perspective coming up with new material can be problematic, he says.
“There are some people in an audience who don’t like new jokes because there’s little resonance, and they just don’t work. At times we comedians have become a bunch of oddballs rabbiting on about inconsequential guff that nobody really cares about.”
As if Xi thinks you have not cottoned on to the fact that he is disillusioned, he then gripes about how Chinese stand-up comedy has become distorted in the way it has grown because money has become more important than performances and many of those in the industry have become greedy.
“The industry really has not come of age. I have not seen one Chinese performer who has hit the mark.”
Chinese stand-up comedians lag their foreign competitors by at least 10 years, he says.
“Our performers are tied up making money rather than honing their craft, let alone creating new jokes.”
Xi also attributes the poverty of Chinese stand-up comedy to culture, saying that in a country in which the collective spirit prevails, it is difficult for a one-person show to prosper.
He cites the roast, a form of standup comedy, as an example.
“The roast, as a forum for critiquing and poking fun at people, does not sit well in China because our culture is that of the gentleman rather than the critic.”
Then, as if to convince you that he really is not having fun, Xi says:
“Stand-up comedy in China is meaningless. It’s just something to help people relax.”
Xi’s often somber view of his industry contrasts sharply with the bouncy optimism of one of his rivals, the highly successful comedian Shi Laoban, with whom he often crosses paths as they sell their wares.
“I’m really upbeat,” Shi says. “I reckon this business will soon be turning a good profit.”