User:Rmshaw/Xiangsheng

Xiangsheng in North America
In 1984, 19-year old Canadian comedian Mark Rowswell started learning Chinese at the University of Toronto. After graduating in 1988, he went on to study Xiangsheng at Peking University with a Chinese comedian and Xiangsheng master, Jiang Kun (姜昆). He started using the Chinese name 'Dashan' (大山), now a household name in China. Dashan has consistently improved his Chinese over thirty years, frequently appearing on national Chinese television. His career has consisted of a wide variety work, not just Xiangsheng, and in recent years he has gravitated more towards Western-style stand-up comedy in Chinese, with elements of Xiangsheng incorporated into the act.  Dashan has served informally as a cultural ambassador, using his work to help bridge cultural gaps between Canada and China.

In 2012, American comedian Jesse Appell, known as Ai Jiexi (艾杰西) in China, started on his journey with Xiangsheng. Originally from Boston, Massachusetts, Appell went to Brandeis University where he joined the Global China Connection (GCC) and regularly performed stand-up comedy. He went to China in September of 2012 to study Chinese at Tsinghua University as a Fulbright Scholar. There, he improved his Chinese and was awarded the Critical Language Enhancement Award (CLEA). As part of his Fulbright Scholarship, he studied Xiangsheng with a master of the craft, Ding Guangquan (丁广泉). Appell founded a comedy center, LaughBeijing, that hosted over 300 shows per year in Beijing from 2016 to 2020. Some of his work today also focuses on bringing the Western-style stand-up comedy to China. He sees himself as a cultural ambassador, combining his talents with the power of the Internet to help U.S.-China relations and bridge cultural gaps.