Ahead of the Chinese New Year, we are rejiggling the podcast's format slightly. Our guest this week is Jesse Appell, a native English speaker from Boston, USA who performs stand up comedy in Mandarin and whose career started in China. This reverses our usual format of interviewing non-native English speakers who perform English stand up.

Known as 艾杰西 in China, Jesse has performed on Chinese TV and apprenticed over 7 years under the late Chinese Xiang Sheng* Master 丁广泉 （Ding Guang-Quan）Having started as a Fullbright scholar researching Chinese humour and performance, Jesse has an astonishing command of the Chinese language and has in your host Kuan-wen's view picked up a lot of mannerisms of a typical Chinese speaker from Northern China.

Jesse shares his experience of performing in front of Chinese audiences. He explains how he has had to adapt to their expectations, when anything he covers risks being interpreted as "What an American has got to say about China"

The pandemic also unexpected forced Jesse to move back to the States, a situation that he described as "being an exile in my own country" and "no one else would believe except for the Chinese Immigrants"

A bonus episode recored in Mandarin will be released on Chinese New Year's Day 21 Jan.

*Xiang Sheng is a traditional performing art in Chinese comedy. See more on Xiang Sheng

---------------------------------

Follow Jesse on Instagram or his Youtube Channel. If you use the Chinese Weibo, you can find Jesse as @艾杰西

Jesse's tea business has a separate Instagram account

Follow your host Kuan-wen on Instagram and Twitter

----------------------------------

If you like the episode, please share it and leave a review.

For any comments or suggestions, please contact us on Instagram or email [email protected]

----------------------------------

Episode timeline

00:53 Intro

02:14 UK vs “Europe”? Or Rest of Europe?

03:32 Jesse’s impeccable accent (Beijingers like) when he speaks Mandarin

07:27 Back in USA, Jesse having to deal with Americans’ lack of knowledge in China (including Chinese Americans)

09:30 Forced to move back to USA by accident - exiled in his own country

11:33 Jesse’s assessment of different comedy crowds

14:43 What Jesse can and can’t say as an American performing in China

17:04 When an audience’s expectation of a comedian is not neutral

18:42 Chinese not used to meeting caucasians speaking fluent Chinese in real lives

21:55 Jesse’s tea business and coming to the Baltic states and to the UK ‘en route’

25:54 On differences between Asians and Asian Americans; on “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”, Margaret Cho, “Fresh off the Boat” and the Vietnamese character Dong in “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”

34:03 Audience not bothered by Jesse doing a thick Chinese accent

34:45 Different personalities when different languages are used?

38:52 Advocating doing comedy in a foreign language

---------------------------------

Podcast intro music by @Taigenkawabe