Gossip about Xiao Shenyang

Comedy is getting hotter and hotter in China, and one of the most incredible stars of the show is "Xiao Shenyang," an actor who likes to play the opposite side of the coin. Born in the barren northeast of China, the 29-year-old comedian has made a name for himself with his feminine attire (colorful bows on his head, women's shirts, sports bras) and crude gags. And his debut on the national Spring Festival Gala stage made him even hotter. Xiao Shenyang took part in last year's CCTV Spring Festival Gala, a program that is an annual holiday meal for the Chinese and has always held the highest ratings. Although sexual innuendo was removed from his humor at the gala, the young freshman still wore a skirt - a so-called "kilt". After he said a line that was considered feminine, another comedian, Zhao Benshan, called him a "fart" - a term of endearment for homosexuals. This caused the audience to burst into laughter. (Later, Xiao Shenyang's mentor, Zhao Benshan, China's most famous TV star, denied there had been any hint of homosexuality. "How do I know what words the gays use? It's not like I have any dealings with them." (He told Newsweek.) Xiao Shenyang was so popular with his 600 million viewers that his name became a google hit. Cheesy jokes and some sex-related topics - what the Chinese call "yellow content" - are moving out into the open, onto the stage, and into the realm of public discourse. But it's important to note that not all "yellow" content will be allowed to appear in public. In February of this year, 3,000 websites and 270 blogs in China were shut down for containing "pornographic and vulgar" content. However, when the source of vulgarity is more "healthy", the authorities are much more lenient. In fact, Xiao Shenyang is not only an avant-garde comedian, but also a gifted singer. And as a young man in his 20s, he has solid credentials. Personally, he is modest and polite, making it hard to imagine him telling dirty jokes on stage and downing several rounds of beer in a row, and even harder to imagine him wearing heavy makeup, women's clothes, and sequined hairbrushes and yelling, "I'm a man!" In an interview with Newsweek, Xiao Shenyang denied that his unusual performance contained a homophobic message: "It's just a form of acting that makes people laugh and is meant to be closer to life. I was performing about a little boy I knew in my old village. His parents wanted a daughter, so they dressed him up as a girl. It has nothing to do with homosexuality." Xiao Shenyang denied rumors that he is gay and that he already has a 5-year-old daughter. And his wife Shen Chunyang often performs with him. Since his rocket-like rise to stardom last year, Xiao Shenyang has begun working on a movie with famed director Zhang Yimou, played the lead role in a movie directed by Zhao Benshan, made an MTV, and traveled to Taiwan with other artists to perform a stand-up comedy show in early July, which sold out instantly. "He's good at performing as a sissy, but he can also perform as a masculine man," said Liu Shu'an, a 38-year-old English teacher who watched Xiao Shenyang's performance in Beijing earlier in the year. Another fan of Xiao Shenyang, Sun Xiaomin, 20, held up "Xiao Shenyang, we love you" from her front-row seat at that show. "He's a natural comedian with a good voice," she said, "and he doesn't need to make a show of it." The Little Shenyang phenomenon stems primarily from China's post-80s. But it's also a retro of sorts to a less conservative era. Westerners often mistakenly believe that Chinese society is very conservative in terms of sexuality. In fact, backstage performances and gay culture have been popular in China for centuries before the founding of New China. Xiao Shenyang's presentation of China's not-yet-reversed attitudes comes across as both edgy and old-fashioned. "For a misogynistic character to be able to perform on stage and still attract an audience of 600 million is indeed a breakthrough in China." Liang Long, lead singer of Secondhand Rose, commented. Secondhand Rose is very popular as an indie band, and its lead singer Liang Long, like Xiao Shenyang, often dresses as a woman on stage. Indeed, Xiao Shenyang's form of comedy - the so-called "two-people turn" or "two-people theater" - has deep traditional roots and patterns. Unlike Western one-man comedy, "two-people theater" is part man-woman bickering (usually a couple), part pop music singing, and part Jerry Lewis-style comedy with sleazy costumes and vulgar, exaggerated body movements (an enjoyable form of slapstick). (One delightful slapstick bridge looks like this: a male sketch artist tops a chair onstage and walks around blowing beer bottles with a chirping sound.) Dating back at least 300 years, this form of comedy originated in northeastern China, where touring, crude entertainers would tell dirty jokes and perform songs and dances to entertain peasants in the cold, fallow months of winter. (Little Shenyang was born in northern Liaoning, the capital of the province and the source of his stage name, which is Shen He.) The people of this part of the country are known as China's "Archie Bunkers," stubborn, sturdy, uncivilized, and stupid. Although Xiao Shenyang's neutrality has given him a more modern image, this local duo still adheres to this stereotype. At a recent performance, he wore a royal-looking silk robe and carried a pink Hello Kitty shoulder bag. His recent public performances, however, were up to Western standards. His gags are more in the vein of 1950s "I Love Lucy" than Kim Carrey or Andy Kaufman. At a show not long ago, he claimed to be able to "instantly recognize a man and a woman as two people." How do you recognize it? "If the woman hits a glass window and the man immediately rubs her wound, they are definitely not a couple. But if the man shouts, 'Are you blind?' they are definitely a couple. Indeed, bad taste is on the rise in China, but it still relies on innuendo, satire, and puns, which allow actors to deny that they are "vulgar"-a label given to them. "I don't know what is defined as 'vulgar,' but I do know that the audience likes my performances," Xiao Shenyang said. "Two-person turn used to have some pornographic content, but my teacher Zhao Benshan made improvements." Now it's "Green Duo-Ruan," a healthier version. Xiao Shenyang attributes much of his success to the support of Zhao Benshan. The entrepreneurial Zhao Benshan founded a school in northeastern China that trains actors using methods popular in the industry. This is despite the fact that adult jokes were the subject of comedy in the area before it was reformed. However, Zhao says he will "clean up" his two-man show "so that everyone can enjoy it". He also mentioned that some of the jokes may be more yellow in live performances than in TV shows. For example, during a public performance in Shenyang, a comedian poked fun at the usher by telling him that he had stomach problems while traveling with a Japanese acquaintance. "You know, the Japanese are so advanced, they don't even use cell phones anymore, they reach out their hands and make calls. The next day, the foreman shows up and then has a roll of paper hanging out of his ass. The Japanese said 'What's this?' The foreman replies 'We Chinese are quite advanced too. This is a fax machine'." Xiao Shenyang's popularity reflects a shift in Chinese society's tolerance of vulgar culture.