Curiosity spans generations, though the ways it expresses itself changes. Tonight I sat in a subway car, reading a Chinese book. Normally this is not something that would cause a scene, but seeing a foreigner reading in Chinese was unusual enough that the man next to me couldn’t hold back. He was older, perhaps in […]

On any given Saturday night, you can hear laughs coming from inside the Hot Cat Club in Fangjia Hutong, near the Lama Temple. Saturdays is the night for Chinese-language standup comedy, an American art form that is finding its way into China. While I sometimes hear stories about a bigger scene in Shanghai, the Beijing […]

My Xiangsheng master recently published a book and I’ve tried to read a little every day. Reading is fun for me, as it definitely gives a sense of achievement. A single page of Chinese text will often contain twice as much information as a page of English text, and so putting down a book after […]

As a comedian, the most important thing to do to work on your comedy is to perform. If the audience laughs, it was funny. If not, back to the drawing board. But knowing why someone laughs or doesn’t laugh is difficult. It’s even harder when you’re making jokes for someone from another culture. This is […]

It’s here! My Chinese language standup! Take a look!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSh2KdiNuzs (Youku version: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNTcyMzA1MDY0.html) The last few weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about stand-up comedy in China. It’s been a journey that’s led me to ask a lot of questions both of myself and my Chinese friends, but it’s yielded some fun times, some nervous moments, […]

It’s been a while since I updated the blog… but I’ve got some post topics being saved up just waiting for a break in my schedule to write! Meanwhile, I did want to share this new piece of writing I did for Sino-US.com. It hits all the things you want in a story, including waking […]

Comedy is a delicate concoction, and the comedians know that their audience plays a huge role in the success or failure of a piece. Indeed, in some ways, the audience is the only thing that matters in a performance. But if the audience is full of strangers one night and strangers the next, what’s the […]

People keeping track of what’s funny in China will often bring up the name of Guo Degang, one of the most popular comedians in the country right now. Guo is particularly interesting to me because he is a Xiangsheng artist, and is perhaps single-handedly responsible for keeping the art form firmly in the public eye. […]