Latest / Arroe Collins Like It's Live / This Was Funnier In China The Authentic Journey With Comedian Jesse Appell
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: It's an amazing place to hang out. Aero dot net
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- 0:30Speaker 1: dot Net. Enjoy your exploration. Good morning, Jesse, how are
- 0:34Speaker 1: you doing today?
- 0:36Speaker 2: I'm doing great. How are you doing well?
- 0:37Speaker 1: I'm very excited to share a conversation with you because
- 0:39Speaker 1: you really do answer a lot of questions for me,
- 0:43Speaker 1: especially in the way of everybody used to say, well,
- 0:45Speaker 1: if in the country of the United States or any
- 0:48Speaker 1: other part of the world, when a joke is shared,
- 0:51Speaker 1: give it twenty five to thirty minutes, it'll be clear
- 0:53Speaker 1: across to the other, to the other ocean. And and
- 0:56Speaker 1: what I love about your book as you're going, yeah,
- 0:58Speaker 1: it'll get there, but you know what, it's not. It's
- 1:00Speaker 1: gonna be funnier in China, you know it's it's not
- 1:03Speaker 1: gonna prove the same exact way in every part of
- 1:05Speaker 1: the nation.
- 1:07Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely.
- 1:08Speaker 3: I mean, like it's it's kind of an interesting thing
- 1:11Speaker 3: to think about, Like, you know, just like the comedy
- 1:13Speaker 3: is going to be different in Boston versus you know whatever,
- 1:16Speaker 3: Charlotte versus New York. You know, you go to China,
- 1:19Speaker 3: it's a whole different thing. So the same joke, you know,
- 1:21Speaker 3: done in different ways. Sometimes it's hilarious. Sometimes people don't
- 1:25Speaker 3: even get it at all.
- 1:26Speaker 1: Well, it kind of upset me when I came down
- 1:28Speaker 1: from Montana into nineteen eighty five. We used to tell
- 1:32Speaker 1: North Dakota jokes up there. You can't tell them North
- 1:34Speaker 1: Dakotin joke down here in the South.
- 1:36Speaker 3: It must be just like burning in your soul, that right.
- 1:39Speaker 3: They're like they don't get it. They don't get it,
- 1:41Speaker 3: and that's their problem.
- 1:45Speaker 2: That's so funny. What is what are the what are
- 1:47Speaker 2: the South Dakota jokes? Oh?
- 1:49Speaker 1: My god, North Kodin jokes would be you know, it'd
- 1:51Speaker 1: be one of those how many North Kotin you know
- 1:53Speaker 1: does it take to do you know, to change a
- 1:54Speaker 1: light bulb? Or North Dakota is Northakodin net And the
- 1:57Speaker 1: funniest thing about it is when you sit down with
- 1:58Speaker 1: a North Dakotin. They're telling Montana jokes, and it's like
- 2:02Speaker 1: and it's that little region up there where we're bashing
- 2:05Speaker 1: the hell out of each other like radio people. We
- 2:08Speaker 1: smile about it and move on.
- 2:10Speaker 2: That's so funny. That's and that's the way it is
- 2:12Speaker 2: in China too.
- 2:13Speaker 3: They have like Honan people jokes, like the joke about
- 2:16Speaker 3: the people from Hunan provinces apparently they steal the sewer
- 2:20Speaker 3: greats and then melt them down for pig iron Like who, Like,
- 2:24Speaker 3: who knew?
- 2:25Speaker 2: I didn't know. I had to learn this.
- 2:27Speaker 3: I had to Like I had to go and do
- 2:29Speaker 3: a bunch of gigs in a club and they mentioned
- 2:30Speaker 3: about these like you know, this comedian would go on
- 2:33Speaker 3: and do fifteen minutes, and then the host would come
- 2:35Speaker 3: up and then say like you know, like yo, thanks
- 2:38Speaker 3: for Seldy for coming on the stage. Hey give us
- 2:41Speaker 3: back our sewer grat And then everybody would laugh and
- 2:43Speaker 3: then I'm like what.
- 2:44Speaker 1: Yeah, right, speaking of that culture, you actually write in
- 2:50Speaker 1: here that that comedy writers sleep in a heart shaped bed. Well,
- 2:54Speaker 1: now I I had a round bed in Montana, but
- 2:57Speaker 1: I didn't have a heart shaped bed. That would have
- 2:59Speaker 1: been difficult.
- 3:00Speaker 2: That was so fun.
- 3:01Speaker 3: So this portion of the book is really funny. I
- 3:03Speaker 3: was a writer on the Chinese version of Saturday Night Live.
- 3:07Speaker 3: Basically week we had a new celebrity guest and everything,
- 3:10Speaker 3: and you know, first table read, second table read, props, rehearsal,
- 3:14Speaker 3: blah blah blah, you know, cameras live. And the only
- 3:18Speaker 3: place that this that the comedy company could find for
- 3:22Speaker 3: all of the comedians to live together in close company
- 3:25Speaker 3: in Shanghai was in a love hotel.
- 3:28Speaker 2: And so there was.
- 3:31Speaker 3: So it was like we were like, I remember one
- 3:33Speaker 3: of the other comedians, we went to his room to
- 3:36Speaker 3: write together and he had this heart shaped bed and
- 3:39Speaker 3: purple lights, and I was like, dude, like you know,
- 3:41Speaker 3: one of them had like you know, they had like
- 3:43Speaker 3: basically a post that you could put like chains or
- 3:48Speaker 3: ropes or stuff like that. And I'm like, dude, you
- 3:50Speaker 3: just like live here, like sleep in this bed all
- 3:53Speaker 3: the time.
- 3:53Speaker 2: If you fall off. He was like, nah, it's fine,
- 3:56Speaker 2: Like my god, that place hilarious.
- 4:00Speaker 1: I'm so jealous of what your eyes have digested because
- 4:04Speaker 1: you have seen so much and you've i mean, you've
- 4:07Speaker 1: got enough content inside that imagination to last more than
- 4:10Speaker 1: one lifetime.
- 4:12Speaker 2: I hope, So I got it. You know, it's funny.
- 4:14Speaker 3: It's like the A lot of stuff is really funny
- 4:17Speaker 3: when it's there, and then you kind of tell the
- 4:19Speaker 3: story here and it's hard to get across. And then
- 4:21Speaker 3: sometimes stuff that didn't even see that funny in the moment,
- 4:24Speaker 3: you try to explain it here and people are.
- 4:26Speaker 2: Like, that's that's amazing, that's hilarious.
- 4:29Speaker 3: In the time when I was doing that show, and
- 4:32Speaker 3: you know, he had the heart shaped bed, you know,
- 4:35Speaker 3: my place also had some purple, funky mood lights, and like,
- 4:39Speaker 3: in hindsight, it's really really funny. In the moment, I
- 4:42Speaker 3: was like, you know, I just got to get to
- 4:43Speaker 3: my bed and I click the lights and you know,
- 4:46Speaker 3: I don't.
- 4:46Speaker 2: The lights don't go on.
- 4:47Speaker 3: It's all strobing, and I'm like, oh, I gotta be
- 4:50Speaker 3: up tomorrow.
- 4:51Speaker 2: Like you know it was, it wasn't funny in the moment.
- 4:53Speaker 2: Sometimes and then I go back, I'm like, that was wacky.
- 4:56Speaker 2: That was wacko.
- 4:57Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, But don't you enjoy it though, when and
- 5:00Speaker 1: when something does bomb and your mind instantly reacts. And
- 5:04Speaker 1: the reason why I bring that up is because I'll
- 5:05Speaker 1: take a pot shot at Tom Brady and if you're
- 5:09Speaker 1: not a football fan, you will never understand what I
- 5:12Speaker 1: just said. And man, I mean it's a total belly flop,
- 5:15Speaker 1: and I'm going to shit. I gotta get out of this,
- 5:17Speaker 1: you know, it gets yeah of it quickly.
- 5:19Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I mean that was one of the things
- 5:21Speaker 3: I think I always had to challenge myself to make
- 5:24Speaker 3: sure that I bombed something in the beginning.
- 5:27Speaker 2: Now, And I don't say that in an erga way.
- 5:29Speaker 3: I'm just saying in the beginning, I know bits, yeah,
- 5:32Speaker 3: and then once five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, you know,
- 5:36Speaker 3: because I was American everywhere I went, ironically, I had
- 5:40Speaker 3: a lot of jokes that just came with me and
- 5:43Speaker 3: my experience. And you know, I go on stage, I'm
- 5:46Speaker 3: the only American at all these shows.
- 5:48Speaker 2: You know, I have a lot of jokes I can do.
- 5:50Speaker 3: And so once I had fifteen minutes, I had the
- 5:52Speaker 3: option if I wanted to, of having a good show
- 5:55Speaker 3: that night. But if you just do the same jokes
- 5:58Speaker 3: over and over and over and over and over and
- 5:59Speaker 3: over over again, you know you're not growing. And so
- 6:02Speaker 3: even to this day, I really you know, it's not
- 6:06Speaker 3: a bad sign to bomb some jokes. It means that
- 6:08Speaker 3: you're actually trying to write new stuff and you're trying
- 6:10Speaker 3: to expand beyond what you know how to do. And
- 6:14Speaker 3: so that was that was something that my my my
- 6:17Speaker 3: comedy master who I apprenticed to, that we talk about
- 6:20Speaker 3: in the book. You know, he was always trying to
- 6:23Speaker 3: make me learn new routines and routines that you know,
- 6:27Speaker 3: I didn't know how to make funny, and so sometimes
- 6:29Speaker 3: we would have to really try to figure out, how
- 6:32Speaker 3: do I do this joke, how do I do this
- 6:34Speaker 3: in a way that that is going to be unique?
- 6:38Speaker 2: And it was. It was a hell of a journey.
- 6:40Speaker 1: I got to ask you, I am so glad that
- 6:42Speaker 1: you brought up your comedy master. And the reason why
- 6:44Speaker 1: I'm blessed with the opportunity to talk with a lot
- 6:46Speaker 1: of y A authors are just authors in general who
- 6:49Speaker 1: write these books that have comedy in it, and I
- 6:51Speaker 1: will ask them about crafting a joke and they have
- 6:54Speaker 1: no frickin idea what I'm talking about. And yet I'm
- 6:57Speaker 1: blessed with an opportunity to talk to people like yourself,
- 6:59Speaker 1: Jesse and you guys, Boss. But until that thing is
- 7:03Speaker 1: finally in tune, Yeah, I.
- 7:06Speaker 3: Think that like people get this impression like either you're
- 7:09Speaker 3: funnier or not, and if you tell a joke, it's
- 7:11Speaker 3: good or it's not. And if you're a writer, well,
- 7:14Speaker 3: the good news you get to rewrite and you get
- 7:16Speaker 3: to try stuff, and you get to try it out
- 7:18Speaker 3: and see if people laugh, and if they laugh, you
- 7:20Speaker 3: can see where they laugh. I think that the there
- 7:23Speaker 3: are definitely some people that are like funnier and more
- 7:26Speaker 3: skilled than others. Some people just go up and they
- 7:28Speaker 3: can just do it, but even for them to be
- 7:32Speaker 3: able to do it professionally, you need to learn how
- 7:35Speaker 3: to break down what's working and why why was that
- 7:38Speaker 3: joke funny? Was it the topic was really interesting? And
- 7:41Speaker 3: really you could go on that topic for five minutes
- 7:44Speaker 3: and anything you say is going to be funny? Was
- 7:46Speaker 3: it an observation? And you know, if you change two
- 7:50Speaker 3: or three words here, all of a sudden, the whole
- 7:52Speaker 3: joke doesn't work. And I always really liked, you know,
- 7:56Speaker 3: breaking it down and trying to say.
- 7:58Speaker 2: Like why did that work?
- 8:00Speaker 3: And and and if you're gonna perform for people who
- 8:04Speaker 3: are outside of your culture, whether that's for another country
- 8:08Speaker 3: or whether it's like, hey, you're the ya author and
- 8:10Speaker 3: now all of a sudden, you're you're talking to like,
- 8:12Speaker 3: you know, fancy novelist room or something like that. You
- 8:16Speaker 3: got to be able to put yourself in their shoes
- 8:18Speaker 3: and say, what would they think is funny? And that
- 8:23Speaker 3: skill is I think a really useful skill in life,
- 8:26Speaker 3: just to be able to put yourself in someone else's
- 8:29Speaker 3: shoes and see the world from their perspective. And then,
- 8:31Speaker 3: you know, try to use that for constructive purposes, or
- 8:35Speaker 3: if not constructive, at least fun you know, let's try
- 8:38Speaker 3: to make everybody laugh.
- 8:39Speaker 1: Please do not move. There's more with Jesse Appel coming
- 8:42Speaker 1: up next. Even the name of the book is funny.
- 8:46Speaker 1: This was funnier in China. We are back with comedian
- 8:50Speaker 1: Jesse Appel. Are Americans using too many words? Because when
- 8:54Speaker 1: you're up there and you're sharing things of you know
- 8:56Speaker 1: they're gonna make people laugh in China? Are you using
- 8:59Speaker 1: fewer words? Because I mean here in the stage, you
- 9:01Speaker 1: know what, we'll sit here and we'll create a word
- 9:03Speaker 1: and say, yeah, that's it, that's the way we're going.
- 9:05Speaker 1: That's the new word I'm leaning.
- 9:06Speaker 3: On, I think for for me, you know, because all
- 9:12Speaker 3: the comedy was in Mandarin, so if I'm up on stage.
- 9:16Speaker 2: You know, you don't go in shore and I'm up
- 9:21Speaker 2: on stage.
- 9:22Speaker 3: Sometimes I would find that I would look up a
- 9:24Speaker 3: word in the dictionary the day before, being like, Okay,
- 9:27Speaker 3: I want to do this work. I want to do
- 9:28Speaker 3: this joke about object permanence, and so I have to
- 9:32Speaker 3: look up in Chinese how do you say object? And
- 9:35Speaker 3: then I would go and do it on stage, and
- 9:37Speaker 3: almost always it would bomb. And because the reality was
- 9:42Speaker 3: at that time, like I lived in China for like
- 9:44Speaker 3: you know, by I've been in and out for fifteen years.
- 9:47Speaker 2: I lived there full time for nine years. Ten years.
- 9:49Speaker 3: If i'd been there nine years, and I don't know
- 9:51Speaker 3: how to say it, people don't say it that.
- 9:53Speaker 2: Way, you know.
- 9:55Speaker 3: And as a comedian, you know, you never want to
- 9:58Speaker 3: be like you know, it's very different, I think from
- 10:01Speaker 3: being an author. There are words that you can put
- 10:03Speaker 3: in a book and it sounds like the right word,
- 10:05Speaker 3: And there are words that you say that same word in,
- 10:08Speaker 3: you know, in a comedy bit and you sound like
- 10:10Speaker 3: you're writing a novel. And now all of a sudden
- 10:12Speaker 3: people are completely taken out of the comedy. And so
- 10:17Speaker 3: I found that if you could find a way to
- 10:19Speaker 3: say it with fewer words and simpler words that tends
- 10:22Speaker 3: to be funnier, and then leave the one special word
- 10:27Speaker 3: that really shines. If you can, if you can figure
- 10:30Speaker 3: out a way to balance these things, and then.
- 10:33Speaker 2: It works really well.
- 10:33Speaker 3: I had to figure out how to do that in Chinese,
- 10:36Speaker 3: which are the normal words, which are the unusual words.
- 10:40Speaker 2: The language is also tonal, so if you the word
- 10:43Speaker 2: with the wrong tone, you might be saying.
- 10:45Speaker 3: Something completely unexpected that you didn't expect, you know. The
- 10:49Speaker 3: the I had a bit on this where I, you know,
- 10:52Speaker 3: the word for panda is sing mal and the word
- 10:55Speaker 3: for chest hair is chill mal, and they're basically the
- 11:00Speaker 3: and so I, you know, would be calling up a
- 11:02Speaker 3: travel agent saying like, oh, I want to go to Chungdu.
- 11:05Speaker 2: I want to see the chest hair and she's like.
- 11:09Speaker 3: Like, you know, you're famous for your chest hair in
- 11:12Speaker 3: such problem, you know, where are they? And they're like
- 11:16Speaker 3: she's like, sir, we don't have that. I'm like, what
- 11:19Speaker 3: do you mean? No, what like they're somewhere, you know,
- 11:23Speaker 3: so but like, you know, the it's very easy to
- 11:28Speaker 3: mess up a joke like that, or even just to
- 11:30Speaker 3: put the accent on.
- 11:32Speaker 2: The wrong salable and now this isn't funny anymore.
- 11:36Speaker 3: So it was it was this weird tightro act of
- 11:40Speaker 3: it has to all feel natural. But at the same time,
- 11:44Speaker 3: you know, it's the second language. It's like you got
- 11:46Speaker 3: to figure out a way to make it work. And
- 11:48Speaker 3: and you know, different audiences have different takes on it.
- 11:51Speaker 1: Well, you are very clear with that when when it
- 11:54Speaker 1: comes to mastering that because one of the things that
- 11:56Speaker 1: you that you kind of share it as a teacher
- 11:58Speaker 1: as well as somebody who just wants to ed a
- 12:00Speaker 1: need a fan, and that is is that when you
- 12:02Speaker 1: hear it, you don't forget it. So therefore, as you're
- 12:05Speaker 1: up there performing, you you're locked in on what you're sharing, then,
- 12:08Speaker 1: aren't you.
- 12:10Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean you have to know what you're going
- 12:11Speaker 3: to be doing. I think you know. It was in
- 12:14Speaker 3: many ways a good exercise because I like grew up
- 12:18Speaker 3: as a comedian doing improv comedy, so I was used
- 12:20Speaker 3: to unscripted. You go up, you'd make it, just try
- 12:23Speaker 3: something out. Three minutes later, if it doesn't work, whoosh,
- 12:26Speaker 3: the scene is wiped. You know. But if I'm doing
- 12:29Speaker 3: traditional Chinese comedy and I'm up on stage with the
- 12:32Speaker 3: master comedian and there's a script. You know, you gotta
- 12:35Speaker 3: do it right, but you also can't freeze up. That
- 12:38Speaker 3: was the problem in the beginning is I would memorize
- 12:41Speaker 3: the script every word was.
- 12:43Speaker 2: Perfect, and that's not funny at all.
- 12:46Speaker 3: So it was this weird balance of you know, you
- 12:50Speaker 3: need to you know, it's a second language, it's a
- 12:53Speaker 3: new art form. It's like you know, it's it's a
- 12:55Speaker 3: completely different thing, and yet the audience needs to feel
- 12:59Speaker 3: like you're just up there, like you know, you're you're
- 13:02Speaker 3: up there and you're doing a show. And if you
- 13:05Speaker 3: can't get the audience comfortable, it doesn't matter how many
- 13:08Speaker 3: words you memorized, you know. So I think that the
- 13:12Speaker 3: finding a way to balance that and to be comfortable
- 13:15Speaker 3: knowing that, you know, hey, the jokes might not work today,
- 13:19Speaker 3: but I'm going to go up and try to have
- 13:22Speaker 3: fun and at the worst case scenario, I'm going to
- 13:24Speaker 3: have a good time up there.
- 13:25Speaker 1: So let me ask you this question, though, I mean,
- 13:27Speaker 1: when when you're up on that stage and it's a
- 13:29Speaker 1: new audience and basically you're in a completely different country,
- 13:32Speaker 1: do you do what I do, which is I have
- 13:34Speaker 1: to look for the dick the dork and the deer
- 13:36Speaker 1: out there in the audience, and they, in their own way,
- 13:39Speaker 1: will become a part of what I'm talking about. So
- 13:41Speaker 1: I have somebody to kind of lean on when I
- 13:43Speaker 1: need to go in a different direction.
- 13:46Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's a good that's a good technique.
- 13:48Speaker 3: I would I would adopt a thing of you know,
- 13:50Speaker 3: cause I did a lot of shows in the early
- 13:52Speaker 3: days of my career at like you know, company parties
- 13:55Speaker 3: and stuff like that, like people are talking and like
- 13:58Speaker 3: you know, you're in a ballroom and there's full lights
- 14:01Speaker 3: on and you know there or you know, like not
- 14:04Speaker 3: good stages for comedy, you know, I did. I did
- 14:07Speaker 3: a show once for a birthday party. I got called
- 14:09Speaker 3: in to do a birthday party, and they didn't tell
- 14:12Speaker 3: me that the birthday girl.
- 14:13Speaker 2: Was a seven year old.
- 14:15Speaker 3: And they they also didn't tell me that the birthday
- 14:18Speaker 3: party was just in the restaurant. They were just one
- 14:21Speaker 3: table in a restaurant. There was no stage, there was
- 14:24Speaker 3: no anything, There was no one else knew there was
- 14:26Speaker 3: a show going on, and so I just like came
- 14:29Speaker 3: into this restaurant and did ten minutes of comedy for
- 14:32Speaker 3: this seven year old. So like, you know, you gotta
- 14:35Speaker 3: look at the audience. You gotta see who's there. You
- 14:37Speaker 3: gotta you know, play with the people that are actually
- 14:40Speaker 3: in the room. And so I would adopt this. I
- 14:43Speaker 3: would adopt the chance to just have some eye contact
- 14:46Speaker 3: if if the if the show is chaos, look at
- 14:49Speaker 3: the audience, establish some eye contact, you know, play to
- 14:53Speaker 3: the people who are listening. And then, you know, ironically,
- 14:56Speaker 3: as you get better at comedy and you do bigger
- 14:58Speaker 3: and bigger stages, I think it gets these like, you know,
- 15:01Speaker 3: if you're in a theater and there's three hundred people
- 15:03Speaker 3: and there's lights and people that paid ticket money and
- 15:05Speaker 3: they're ready for the show, that's easier than doing a
- 15:08Speaker 3: bar with seven people and three of them are on
- 15:10Speaker 3: their phone. And so the good thing about the lower
- 15:14Speaker 3: levels of comedy as it trains you to be able
- 15:15Speaker 3: to do the bigger stuff.
- 15:17Speaker 1: Dude, you've got a merchandise diamond here on your hands.
- 15:21Speaker 1: And I would do this on a T shirt or
- 15:23Speaker 1: a hat and a heartbeat in the way that you
- 15:25Speaker 1: use LP Hartley's quote. The past is a foreign country.
- 15:28Speaker 1: They do things differently there. My god, that's everyday life,
- 15:31Speaker 1: and anybody anywhere in the world can say that's my life.
- 15:35Speaker 1: That is my life.
- 15:36Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's like I think nowadays in the States,
- 15:39Speaker 3: you know, coming back from living so many years abroad,
- 15:42Speaker 3: it's like, you know, America in some ways is almost
- 15:45Speaker 3: a foreign country to itself, Like we do things differently
- 15:48Speaker 3: now than we used to. And I actually, I don't
- 15:50Speaker 3: necessarily think that's a bad thing. I think that when
- 15:54Speaker 3: when you recognize that, you know, even your own country
- 15:58Speaker 3: can change and does change, you know, you live a
- 16:02Speaker 3: little bit closer to reality. And comedy comes from reality,
- 16:05Speaker 3: You've got. It comes from truth, and it comes from
- 16:07Speaker 3: people like you know, trying to explain this crazy world
- 16:10Speaker 3: around them. And you know, the past is a foreign country,
- 16:14Speaker 3: and you know it's so when you go to a
- 16:16Speaker 3: place like even like China, you're dealing not only with
- 16:19Speaker 3: modern China, but you're dealing with the past of China.
- 16:23Speaker 3: So like, you know, you know, I apprenticed to a
- 16:25Speaker 3: master Master Dingwong Chen. His master was a man named Hobalin,
- 16:29Speaker 3: who is like the Chinese. They called him the Chinese
- 16:31Speaker 3: Charlie Chaplin. He was the first He's comedy movie star.
- 16:36Speaker 3: And you know, Master Hose style is in Master Ding style.
- 16:41Speaker 3: Master Ding style is in is in me and now
- 16:44Speaker 3: I'm doing you know, radio interviews in English in America,
- 16:48Speaker 3: trying to bring some of that comedy style onto the.
- 16:51Speaker 2: Stage in my country.
- 16:53Speaker 3: So you know, these things kind of live on in
- 16:56Speaker 3: ways that you don't expect. And uh, but one thing
- 17:00Speaker 3: that is common is that everybody wants to laugh. And
- 17:03Speaker 3: so in every era, in every country, in every situation,
- 17:07Speaker 3: people generally would rather be laughing than fighting. And so
- 17:10Speaker 3: I think it's it's important to remember that.
- 17:12Speaker 1: I want every writer, I don't care if they're a
- 17:15Speaker 1: journal writer or writing for a newspaper or a website,
- 17:18Speaker 1: I want them to go into your chapter here, and
- 17:20Speaker 1: I'm gonna pronounce this wrong zing angshank because I mean you,
- 17:24Speaker 1: oh my god, you gave us the secret. Dude, you
- 17:27Speaker 1: sold your soul when you were sharing this that style.
- 17:30Speaker 1: I mean, that's amazing. I can't take my eye off
- 17:33Speaker 1: that chapter.
- 17:34Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it was a lot of fun.
- 17:36Speaker 3: Like this traditional comedy style has been passed down master
- 17:40Speaker 3: to student, master to student, mastered to student for eight generations.
- 17:43Speaker 2: Now it's a it's a two man bit.
- 17:46Speaker 3: So they go, you know, Joko straight Man, back and forth,
- 17:49Speaker 3: back and forth, back and forth, lots of puns, lots
- 17:52Speaker 3: of wordplay, lots of character in character acting. So a
- 17:56Speaker 3: lot of times, yeah, I know, you'll be like, hey,
- 17:59Speaker 3: like you know, you know those people who are like
- 18:01Speaker 3: trying to sell gym advertisements on the street, You be
- 18:04Speaker 3: the gym advertisement guy, and I'll be you know, like
- 18:06Speaker 3: what And now all of a sudden, the joker is
- 18:10Speaker 3: playing the straight man, and the straight man is playing
- 18:12Speaker 3: a guy selling like you know, putting leaflets out on
- 18:15Speaker 3: the street. And you know, it's very meta, and you know,
- 18:19Speaker 3: the audience is involved.
- 18:21Speaker 2: So it's it's a really fun comedy style.
- 18:24Speaker 3: And if you go to Beijing and you sit in
- 18:26Speaker 3: a cab, this is what the cab drivers are listening
- 18:29Speaker 3: to all day long. They just listened to this comedy.
- 18:32Speaker 3: And that's actually how I first heard of it. I
- 18:34Speaker 3: was in a cab and people were laughing and I
- 18:37Speaker 3: was asking, you know, I asked.
- 18:39Speaker 2: A driver, I'm like, what is this.
- 18:40Speaker 3: He's like, oh, this is Yamchung, this is this is
- 18:44Speaker 3: the comedy. And I was like, oh, it never occurred
- 18:46Speaker 3: to me. Of course, Chinese people have comedy. I hadn't
- 18:49Speaker 3: thought about it, but of course, you know, so it
- 18:51Speaker 3: was it was really fun to be able to learn it.
- 18:53Speaker 1: God, where can people go to find out more about
- 18:56Speaker 1: this book? And please tell me you're going to do
- 18:58Speaker 1: an American tour because I would love to come and
- 19:00Speaker 1: just watch you speak Chinese. I would pay money just
- 19:03Speaker 1: to watch you speak that.
- 19:05Speaker 2: That would be great.
- 19:06Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I wish there were one hundred thousand
- 19:09Speaker 3: people like you that.
- 19:10Speaker 2: Would be willing to pay if they don't understand the show.
- 19:13Speaker 3: But I do perform shows in Mandarin all over the country,
- 19:16Speaker 3: usually in Chinese communities. I do English shows. I'm gonna
- 19:19Speaker 3: be doing more tour shows hopefully in the future. I
- 19:22Speaker 3: just finished a tour on.
- 19:23Speaker 2: The East Coast.
- 19:25Speaker 3: But the show, but the shows are The book is
- 19:28Speaker 3: available online. Just search this was Funnier in China, or
- 19:31Speaker 3: go to your local bookstore and support them. I also
- 19:34Speaker 3: have an audiobook out that I read myself over three days,
- 19:38Speaker 3: so so go check out the audiobook.
- 19:40Speaker 1: Well, please come back to this show anytime in the future.
- 19:42Speaker 1: The door is always going to be open for you.
- 19:45Speaker 2: Thank you appreciate it.
- 19:46Speaker 1: Oh oh dude, if you're going to show me that leaf,
- 19:49Speaker 1: that means I'm gonna live it with you. I know
- 19:51Speaker 1: exactly what you just did there, and that you're right
- 19:53Speaker 1: from my heart to your hearts. Thank you so much, sir,
- 19:56Speaker 1: Thank you appreciate it.