

“Dashan,” the Canadian Comedian Who Achieved Stardom in China - gruseom
http://www.openculture.com/2013/01/meet_dashan_the_canadian_comedian_who_achieved_accidental_stardom_in_china.html

======
gruseom
The post also links to this brilliant analysis by Rowswell himself of his
character, how Westerners perceive him, and how he fits into Chinese culture:

[http://www.quora.com/Learning-Chinese-1/Why-do-so-many-
Chine...](http://www.quora.com/Learning-Chinese-1/Why-do-so-many-Chinese-
learners-seem-to-hate-Dashan-Mark-Rowswell/answer/Mark-Rowswell)

~~~
agscala
Brilliant is an understatement. I've never seen this level of self-awareness
before.

Also, I simply can't believe how I've never heard his stage name once, despite
how insanely popular he is in China.

~~~
gruseom
Those were my thoughts exactly. I actually wrote him to say that he should
expand that piece into a book. It would be unique.

------
pekk
He doesn't really address the "dancing monkey" issue at all - just dismisses
it.

His entire career IS founded on surprising Chinese people that a foreigner can
do this or that. The main goals expressed in this answer are to keep pushing
up the bar.

The success of this IS founded on negative, dismissive stereotypes about
foreigners as something like animals. This is why it is so funny when he talks
like a person in Chinese. Animals can't talk like people! Amazing!

Note that nothing like this is even vaguely possible in the US for a Chinese
person. It is just a person. Tons of ethnic Chinese have naturalized and been
fully American for generations. Most people are used to the idea of ethnic
Chinese being American, or a Chinese immigrant naturalizing. It is not
socially acceptable to talk about a Chinese person like a funny, ridiculous
animal.

I guess it is true that it is Western bias to think that Westerners are not
funny animals, but so what?

~~~
liulu
>>Animals can't talk like people! Amazing!

Whoa that's quite a ridiculous accusation of Chinese being racists, a gross
generalization too

I only remember Dashan's performance quite vaguely because I was really young
when he was still enjoying a lot of media exposure in China (naturally not
anymore nowadays), but my family were and perhaps still are quite fond of him
and I never feel there's negative side to it

I think his popularity in China could very well be attributed to the fact that
him being from the (then) economically much superior western countries and so
invested in the traditional Chinese culture at the same time. It brought a
sense of identification and pride to a lot of Chinese people. Remind you he
became famous in 1988, one of the most turbulent years in China's history, and
there was a huge debate on whether China should be westernized going on at the
same time

But "negative, dismissive stereotypes about foreigners as something like
animals"? That's so 1800s to Chinese

------
kyllo
The wording of the title is misleading because he wasn't a comedian in Canada.
I wouldn't really consider him a "Canadian comedian" so much as a "Chinese
comedian from Canada." The entirety of his career as an entertainer has been
in China, in the Mandarin language. His Mandarin is truly beyond native-
speaker level.

But yes, as a white guy in China it is kind of annoying to have to listen to
Chinese people bring up Dashan every time you open your mouth. In China, he is
the original token-Mandarin-speaking-white-guy character. And I get the
impression that he got there not just by studying Chinese really hard (way
before it was cool), but also by agreeing to do whatever he was asked to, and
never complaining about it.

See, as a non-Asian person in China, strangers will come up and ask to take
their photo with you constantly. They will even approach you on the street, at
school/work, or even while you're eating dinner in a restaurant, and
proposition you with all types of casting calls for bizarre modeling and
performance jobs where they _just need a white person, any white person._ Most
of us politely decline--because it's creepy--but he seems like the guy that
always said yes and hammed it up for the camera.

~~~
bashou
Where have you gone? I don't think here people treat foreigners as another
species.

~~~
kyllo
I lived in Chengdu, Sichuan from 2004-2005 as an exchange student. Have taken
4-5 trips to various parts of China since then. Foreigners are of course
becoming less of a novelty in China than they once were. It's definitely
getting better. But seeing a tall white man speaking fluent Mandarin still
commonly evokes Dashan comparisons. It isn't really offensive, it just gets
mildly annoying by the 1,000th time you hear it.

The random casting calls were much more offensive. Not sure if they still do
this--in the bigger cities like Shanghai and Beijing they probably don't have
to anymore--but when I was in China, the demand for white faces in marketing
media greatly outstripped the supply, so it was very common to be approached
and begged to participate in some type of photo shoot or stage act for perhaps
1,000 kuai. So, any white guy could feel like Dashan for a day if he were so
inclined.

------
seanmcdirmid
I've known about DaShan since .... 1998, when I saw my first CCTV CNY
performance. He is part of the reason I decided to study Chinese at Peking
University. Sure, he was always in character when I saw him perform, but I
thought it was just cool. Now I realize its not so cool to speak Chinese, but
its a useful skill anyways (especially since I'm working here).

I saw DaShan one day at a Starbucks in Beijing giving an English interview
sometime just before the '08 Olympics. My fanboy side was thinking about
asking for an autograph or something, but that would be too much. The guy is
really tall in real life, no wonder he was so popular here. (strange enough, I
saw Yao Ming once at a starbucks in the states, he is sort of hard to miss;
just goes to show that if you stay at Starbucks long enough you'll see more
than a few celeberties)

------
mahmud
That guy is _huge_ in China. He is on CCTV stations almost nightly. Has
multiple shows. Lectures extensively. He even speaks at very swanky government
events, and the big pep-rallies they had before the Olympics.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
That was true 10 years ago, but today? Really, when was the last time you saw
DaShan on CCTV? These days, the most favored foreigner is PSY, not DaShan.

~~~
mahmud
I left China Jan 2008. He was still big then.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Funny, the last time I saw him on the Wanhui (which I can hardly watch anymore
anyways) was about 2008. He's been in the background for a long time now,
though I'm sure he's still famous and does well.

------
interconnector
Great documentary about Dashan by the National Film Board of Canada
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UuubcfCXnU>

