Comic Relief

Young Chinese are especially connecting with the format, and Xiaoguo Culture’s shows are among the nation’s most popular. 　

“Tickets are so hard to get,” one person said outside the comedy brand’s club FunFactory in Shanghai on September 20. 　

Ticket prices range from 220-280 yuan (US$30-42). But they sell out fast, and scalpers soon triple the price.　

“I spent 800 yuan (US$119) on a scalped ticket. I just heard some tickets went for as high as 2,000 yuan (US$298),” a man in the audience told our reporter. 　

The spike in popularity comes on the heels of several successful online variety shows, including Tonight 80’s Talk Show, Roast and Rock & Roast. A few stand-up comedians have shot to stardom overnight with viral videos, while young people from all walks of life are now drawn to the profession. 　

Once a foreign import, stand-up has been adapted and blended to become a new and vibrant Chinese comedic art. 　

In March 2010, Chinese-American comedian Joe Wong performed at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, where he roasted US President Barack Obama and then vice president Joe Biden, now US president-elect. 　

Born in China in 1970, Wong received a doctorate in biochemistry from Rice University in Houston. The subtitled video of his 15-minute performance quickly went viral on Chinese social media. For many, it was their first glimpse of Western-style stand-up comedy. 　

“My inbox was flooded with emails. I was quite surprised by the incredible popularity of the video in China. As far as I knew, there was almost no stand-up comedy there at the time,” Wong told NewsChina. 　

Wong’s performance inspired China’s earliest stand-up comedians. Cheng Lu, now head writer with Xiaoguo Culture, was among them. 　

“Wong’s performance thrilled us. He let us know that American-style stand-up didn’t have to be overly dramatic or exaggerated. Just writing good jokes and standing there sharing them with the audience makes a good comedian,” Cheng told our reporter. 　

Over the next decade, comedy clubs sprang up in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. Early on, stand-ups struggled to find an audience. 　

“It was extremely difficult, Pi Qiu, a stand-up comedian in Shenzhen, told NewsChina. In 2013, he and other comics held open mic events at a local bar. More often than not, performers would outnumber the audience. 　

“Sometimes there were only four people, sometimes even less. At our toughest time, the bar owner threw us out,” Pi said. “He refused to let us use his place because he thought our performance wasn’t funny enough to bring in customers.”　

Joe Wong faced similar situations. An established stand-up comedian in the US, Wong returned to China in 2013 to explore the potential market. Since 2013, he has hosted Is It Real?, a variety show on State broadcaster China Central Television, and runs comedy venue Joe’s Club in Beijing, where he shares his knowledge and experience with aspiring young comedians.　

Wong said there were no regular venues in China in the early years. “Sometimes I performed in a courtyard and the neighbors were my audience,” Wong said. 　

China has traditional comedic styles similar to stand-up comedy. Originating in the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), xiangsheng, or “crosstalk,” typically features a team of two comedians in traditional costume bouncing back and forth between banter, jokes, puns and references to traditional Chinese culture and history. A form of xiangsheng, dankou or “monologue” is performed by a solo comedian who, much like a stand-up, cracks jokes or simply narrates funny stories. 　

Cheng Lu said this monologue style more resembles a spoken word performance, while stand-up comedy involves improvisation and self-expression and is much freer in form and content. Instead of traditional culture and history, stand-up comics mainly draw from their own life experiences. 　

“What matters most is whether they talk about their own life experiences in an entertaining way, and share their own unique opinions about the world,” Wong said. 　

Li Dan loved literature and had dreams of becoming an author. He also loved the American TV show Seinfeld. “My first encounter with stand-up comedy was in my childhood. One of my favorite cartoon characters would imitate Jerry Seinfeld doing stand-up,” Li told NewsChina. 

　

While in college, Li gained a following on Sina Weibo for posting jokes and stories. 　

In May 2012, Tonight 80’s Talk Show, China’s first stand-up centric show, aired on Dragon TV. Li was hired as a staff writer and soon became a regular performer. 　

“Li Dan is a genius. He thinks of jokes and puns super quickly. He can keep talking and talking without stopping, so the script gets done in a few minutes,” said Cheng, who worked on the show’s production crew. 　

In 2014, Li and three others founded Xiaoguo Culture. A small group of stand-up comedians and producers including Cheng Lu, Wang Jianguo and Chi Zi, joined the company. 　

“There was no stand-up industry in China when we started the company, so we attempted to create one,” Li told NewsChina. “Our company has lots of divisions that may sound quite weird and seem irrelevant to one another. That’s because we have to explore all the possibilities of this new industry. In other countries, such wide-ranging businesses aren’t done by a single company. But in China, there’s only one company. We have to rely on ourselves and try everything.”　

In 2015, a ripped, subtitled version of the Comedy Central Roast of Canadian pop star Justin Bieber circulated on the Chinese internet. Former roastees on the show included a pre-presidential Donald Trump during his days on reality TV show The Apprentice. Xiaoguo Culture saw huge potential. 　

Their show, Roast, premiered on leading online video and livestreaming platform Tencent Video in January 2017. 　

Like the Comedy Central version, a panel of comedians and celebs take turns pummelling the guest in the hot seat, who then gets a chance to return the favor. The rounds of roasting are cut with candid, more emotional stories of their life difficulties and career challenges. It was a welcome forum for non-comedian celebrities to show off their sense of humor while poking fun at themselves. 　

Li Dan was a producer, head writer and regular performer on the show. 　

Roast was a huge hit. According to statistics from entertainment industry research firm Endata, Roast had 100 million views in its premiere week and 1.4 billion views after its first season finale in March 2017. 　

In August 2017, Xiaoguo Culture’s follow-up Rock & Roast premiered on Tencent Video. However, instead of featuring professional comedians, Rock & Roast gave the spotlight to aspiring amateurs. 　

In weekly episodes, comedians performed 10-minute routines for a panel of celebrity judges. A live audience casts votes, and the leaders faced off in a final round for the title of “roast king.” 

Most comedians drew material from shared experiences. But perhaps more significantly, the show was an outlet to openly vent about social issues such as China’s poor work-life balance and overtime abuses, feelings of helplessness amid high living costs, anxiety and frustration over decreasing social mobility, and anger towards social inequalities and injustices. 　

The show gathered 1.2 billion views and stirred discussions on social media. 　

Kong Degang, a literary critic and lecturer at Nanjing Normal University, said that humor is not the only factor driving stand-up’s popularity in China. 　

“Emotional resonance takes priority,” Kong told NewsChina. “Chinese audiences’ longing for that resonance transcends their interest in the art itself. The comedy is secondary, while eliciting emotional resonance - usually negative emotions - from the general public is the principal concern of performers.” 　

“Accordingly, stand-up comedians carefully calculate their own images and opinions to relate to their audience and make them believe [the performer] is one of us, and speaks for us,” Kong said.　

“In the past, before our show we had to take several minutes to explain what on earth stand-up comedy is. There’s no need to do that now. As long as we update our routines, people buy tickets,” Pi Qiu told our reporter. 　

In 2018, Xiaoguo Culture opened FunFactory in Shanghai, where they stage regular shows and daily open mics. A year later, hundreds of comedians had performed there for more than 100,000 people. 　

Stand-up comedy brands proliferated after the second season of Rock & Roast in 2019. Pi told NewsChina that before 2019 there were about 10 in China, all based in major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. By 2020 there were around 50, with many in second- and third-tier cities. 　

In September 2019, the market developed enough to support regular comedy shows at large venues. 　

Joe Wong remembers his lively nights in Manhattan watching as hundreds of comedians hopped between bars and clubs for shows. 　

“China has the most comfortable environment for stand-up comedians. The generous - if not luxurious - income that comedians in China can earn is unimaginable for comics in the US. Lots of comedians with only one year of experience can easily earn 10,000 yuan (US$1,489) a month. Stand-ups in the US with four or five years of experience still can’t earn that much,” Wong told NewsChina. 　

“The potential for the comedy market in China is huge, but it can’t be rushed. Comedians need time to hone their skills and work out their acts,” Wong said. 　

“Nowadays, if you randomly ask someone on the street what stand-up comedy is, it’s very likely they’ll know. That would have been unthinkable five years ago. In that sense, I think my dream has come true,” Li Dan told NewsChina. 　

On Xiaoguo Culture’s app, people can not only buy tickets for FunFactory’s shows but also book slots at their open mics. 　

“I hope our shows give people the feeling of ‘hey, I can do that too’ so more people join us. And for sure, after they try it, they’ll realize it’s way harder than they thought,” Li Dan told NewsChina. 　

“I’ve always believed that everyone has a five-minute set in them. There has to be five minutes’ worth of funny stories in your life that you can share. But to become a pro, you need at least 100 five-minute sets,” Li told NewsChina.