Stand-up comedy: People are hardly getting the joke
Dragon TV. Since then, a comic style that at first seemed rather alien to the country has grown roots and now seems more like a part of the natural landscape.
As a result, television comedy shows such as Jin Xing Show and online comedy shows such as Roast have not only won over a legion of hard-bitten fans but have maintained high viewer ratings as well.
Shi, now wearing his “Serious” cap, says: “Although stand-up comedy was born in the West, I reckon that was by pure accident. For example, when it was decided to add taste to water, Westerners added grains while we added leaves. That’s why they prefer beer and we love tea. It’s like crosstalk and stand-up comedy. The form of humor is randomly picked.
“However, Chinese stand-up comedy is different to its Western counterpart. The humor really is different. Chinese love playing with words while Americans go for twists of logic. But personal style is still paramount. I am unlike anyone, be they American, Chinese or anyone else.”
As more and more Chinese take to stand-up comedy, either doing it or watching it, Shi is one of the fortunate few talented enough to be able to make a living from it. However, waiting in the wings are many others who, even if they cannot give up their day jobs yet, are good enough to put on performances that can leave audiences in stitches.
One of them is Xiao Wu, 27, one of the few women in Beijing’s expanding stand-up comedy circuit, who continues to practice comedy on the side. Much of the serious part of her life takes place in the office of finance at a university, where she works as an accountant, between 9 am and 5 pm.
Over the past three years she has done more than 100 public shows at venues including bars, pubs and colleges. These shows usually attract an audience of between 50 and 70 people, whom she regales with her take on university life and the life of a single person.
She puts on two shows a week, from each of which she will earn between 200 yuan and 300 yuan (about $38).
“Obviously you cannot live on that kind of money, so I cannot afford to quit my job,” she says. “Another reason is the pressure from my parents and peers. My parents have the highest expectations of me and want me to lead a stable, decent life.”
However, because she cannot give fulltime attention to her humor, she says, she is unable to refine her jokes to the extent that she would like, or even create new ones. This means that she only infrequently updates her content, and formulating and refining a really good joke can take months, she says.
But finding the time to come up with big jokes may be the least of Xiao’s problems. Chinese culture has long favored the collective and common effort to the individual and competition, which means that airing personal perspectives, particularly heartfelt ones, does not come naturally or easily. However, under the influence of the stand-up comedians, that may be slowly changing.
Xi Jiangyue, founder of the capital’s biggest stand-up comedy club, Beijing Talk Show Club, says: “While many do comedy on the side, the rapidly expanding audiences for it suggest that many see stand-up as an outlet for self-expression, in the same way that social media is.
“We Chinese were not in the habit of expressing ourselves much.
“We all have a desire to express ourselves, and I think comedy has become so popular in China because it gives voice to those who were once voiceless.”
Contact the writer at sashatsui@ruc.edu.cn