Xiangsheng and the Emergence of Guo Degang in Contemporary China 9789811581151, 9789811581168

Table of contents :
Acknowledgements
Notes
Contents
1 Xiangsheng in the People’s Republic of China, 1949–1976
What Is Xiangsheng?
Xiangsheng Prior to 1949
New Xiangsheng for a New State: Humour and Politics in China, 1949–1966
References
2 Xiangsheng 1976–2000
Xiangsheng in the Late 1970s
Xiangsheng in the 1980s
Xiangsheng in the 1990s
References
3 The Revival of Xiangsheng in the New Millennium
References
4 Guo Degang’s Counter-Official Xiangsheng Performance
Vulgarity in Guo Degang’s Xiangsheng Performance
Social Problem and Malaise Revealed in Guo Degang’s Xiangsheng
References
5 Deyun Club Holds Up Half the Sky of Xiangsheng Performance
References
6 Guo Degang as a Grassroots Culture Hero
References
7 Concluding Remarks
Index of Subjects and People
Index of Xiangsheng (Crosstalk) Skits

Citation preview

Xiangsheng and the Emergence of Guo Degang in Contemporary China Shenshen Cai · Emily Dunn

Xiangsheng and the Emergence of Guo Degang in Contemporary China

Shenshen Cai · Emily Dunn

Xiangsheng and the Emergence of Guo Degang in Contemporary China

Shenshen Cai Swinburne University of Technology Hawthorn, VIC, Australia

Emily Dunn Swinburne University of Technology Hawthorn, VIC, Australia

ISBN 978-981-15-8115-1 ISBN 978-981-15-8116-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-8116-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Marina Lohrbach_shutterstock.com This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the University of Hawai’i Press for permission to reprint portions of Shenshen Cai’s article, “A Culture Hero: Xiangsheng (Crosstalk) Performer Guo Degang”, which was originally published in Asian Theatre Journal, vol. 33, no. 1, pp. 82–103, 2016. The authors also thank the Nanzan Anthropological Institute, Nanzan University for permission to reprint portions of Shenshen Cai’s article, “Guo Degang A xiangsheng (Cross Talk) Performer Bridging the Gap Between Su (Vulgarity) and Ya (Elegance)”, which was originally published in Asian Ethnology, vol. 76, no. 2, pp. 343–365, 2017. The authors thank their families for their support. Both authors thank the reader of the book proposal.

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Notes

All translations of Chinese text are the authors’ except those otherwise attributed. The original Chinese text is provided only for old-style poems in Chapters 5 and 6. No two performances of xiangsheng are identical, as actors improvise and make minor or major changes to the script. We have therefore retained some links to performances that are no longer available. For ease of referencing, we reference many xiangsheng by their performers, even if these performers did not author the web pages on which the scripts for their performance are located.

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Contents

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Xiangsheng in the People’s Republic of China, 1949–1976

1

2

Xiangsheng 1976–2000

25

3

The Revival of Xiangsheng in the New Millennium

45

4

Guo Degang’s Counter-Official Xiangsheng Performance

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Deyun Club Holds Up Half the Sky of Xiangsheng Performance

87

5

6

Guo Degang as a Grassroots Culture Hero

109

7

Concluding Remarks

133

Index of Subjects and People

141

Index of Xiangsheng (Crosstalk) Skits

145

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CHAPTER 1

Xiangsheng in the People’s Republic of China, 1949–1976

In 2010, the Chinese government launched a crackdown on “three vulgarities” (san su) in entertainment. At a meeting of the Politburo, then-President Hu Jintao prescribed that cheap (disu), vulgar (yongsu) and tasteless (meisu) cultural products must be done away with as one component of deepening reforms in the cultural system (tizhi). This in turn, he said, would bring about the prosperity and development of the cultural sector; contribute to realising a “relatively well-off” (xiaokang ) society; have a bearing on the overall picture of socialism with Chinese characteristics; and ultimately, influence the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” (Zhonghua minzu de weida fuxing ) (Xinhua wang 2010). One of the campaign’s targets was Guo Degang: a xiangsheng performer with 68 million followers on Weibo (China’s answer to Twitter) who is widely credited with reviving the art in recent decades (Cai 2016). Xiangsheng —sometimes rendered in English as “crosstalk”—is a Chinese comedic form which evolved from previous folk arts (quyi) to become a stand-alone, identifiable genre by the latter part of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) (more precisely, in the mid-nineteenth century). Traditionally, it makes use of four main skills: shuo (speaking), xue (imitating voice and facial expression), dou (teasing; skilful banter) and chang (vocal ability) (Xue 1985: 6). “Speaking” refers to poetry, couplets, games, riddles, tongue-twisters, idioms and witty remarks. “Imitating” refers to mimicking dialects, local operas and other folk art © The Author(s) 2020 S. Cai and E. Dunn, Xiangsheng and the Emergence of Guo Degang in Contemporary China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-8116-8_1

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performances (for example, singing Peking Opera and other local operas such as Hebei bangzi and pingju, performing dagu, all of which require years of training). “Teasing” offers a critique of social problems and “singing” refers mainly to performing the taiping geci (songs recited to a rapid beat). Guo Degang is one of the few contemporary artists who have mastered both these heritage-laden skills—claiming to have mastered six hundred xiangsheng—and modern technologies and popular tastes. This book concerns xiangsheng in general, and Guo Degang in particular. Xiangsheng matters as a major form of oral performance and embodiment of popular culture; Perry Link assesses it as “probably the Chinese art most deeply soaked in the daily life of ordinary people” (2016: 218). Guo Degang matters as the art’s most famed contemporary performer, with enormous popular following in China and the Chinese diaspora. Some of the questions that drive our discussion include: What is xiangsheng, and what is its place in Chinese history? What are the characteristics of Guo Degang’s xiangsheng, and why did it offend the Chinese authorities? How have others received Guo’s creations? For much of its life xiangsheng was confined to the realm of oral culture enjoyed by the lower classes. As such, few of the pre-PRC (i.e. pre1949) scripts (duanzi) were recorded for posterity, instead being passed down orally from master to disciple. Nor have many of the more recent scripts been translated into English. The present study is therefore vital to illuminate scripts which have not previously been made available in English, and to redress the balance of scholarly histories, which have tended to focus on the types of humour favoured by the literati and the elites (Chey 2011: 6). Though xiangsheng was chiefly enlisted by the CCP government to mobilise the population and disseminate political propaganda during the early decades of socialist China, xiangsheng was also recruited to ridicule those unscrupulous and inhuman sociopolitical phenomena by the end of the Cultural Revolution, thus venting the frustrations of the common folk (Link 1984). A relatively large number of Chinese works on xiangsheng were published in the early 1980s, when it became possible to write on the arts more freely after the repressive years of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) (see, e.g., Tian 1981; Wang 1981). These works often provide scripts for popular skits of the late 1970s, and insights into the history and skills involved in xiangsheng, but their analysis follows the official line of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) at their time of publication. That is to say, they blame the Gang of Four for the excesses of the

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“ten years of turmoil”, thank the CCP for restoring artistic freedoms, and marvel at the pace of reforms instituted by the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Party Congress. Curiously, though it is a major folk art form, very little about xiangsheng has been written in English. One of the authors of this book, Shenshen Cai, has previously published on Guo Degang’s xiangsheng (Cai 2016, 2017), and her research forms the basis for Chapter 3 of the present work. David Moser, Perry Link and Marja Kaikkonen have also made major contributions to the study of modern xiangsheng, and their work informs this chapter especially. Link (1984: 111) wrote of what he saw as irrevocable changes to xiangsheng’s “mode of performance” in the early Maoist period, when it was used for propagandistic purposes—a development that Kaikkonen (1990) also focuses on. Subsequently, Link has drawn attention to the mood of optimism in xiangsheng circles in the early 1950s and argued that “party ideologues … were too suspicious and insecure” in seeking to control and crack down on the art (Link 2007: 229). More recently, Moser has noted the “meteoric rise” of Guo Degang (2018: 89ff) and concluded that xiangsheng is currently impacted by both globalisation and new forms of comedy and media (2018: 93). Our study explores all of these developments in due course. Other Anglophone studies of humour are helpful in providing an intellectual context for xiangsheng. In particular, Christopher Rea has drawn attention to the place of humour in recent Chinese history. As he points out, scholarship tends to focus on the tragedy and trauma of the Mao years: the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution the most notorious mass campaigns, resulting in tens of millions of deaths. Without downplaying the scale of human loss and devastation during the reign of Mao Zedong, Rea reminds us that it is instructive, too, to remember the comical; “Another way of regarding history … is as an accumulation of jokes” (2015: 3). In this vein, a recent volume edited by Ping Zhu, Zhuoyi Wang and Jason McGrath focuses on “Maoist Laughter” and points out that “the new socialist China … regarded laughter as one of its salient trademarks” (2019: 1). Laughter during the Maoist period “was not only ubiquitous but also bonded with political culture to an unprecedented degree” (Zhu et al. 2019: 3). In her contribution to that volume, Xiaoning Lu finds that xiangsheng movies in the mid-1950s, far from being “monotonous” propaganda, were “a site of negotiation and contestation” and that “laughter under Mao was innovative and experimental” (Lu 2019: 73–74). Such an understanding encourages us to

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explore afresh the relationship between artists and the state in both times gone by and the present day. Volumes edited by Jocelyn Chey and Jessica Milner Davis (2011, 2013, respectively) have also provided histories of humour in China stretching back to ancient times. Joseph C. Sample (2011) draws attention to the importance of Lin Yutang in the development of the modern term “humour” (youmo)—a neologism Lin introduced to the Chinese language in 1933. Lin Yutang was western-educated and highly proficient in English. However, the translation of “humour” was far from a simple importation of a foreign term: rather, Lin incorporated Chinese Confucian and Daoist notions “to invoke a cross-cultural notion of youmo”. The linguistic origins and uptake of the new term were thus a microcosm of cultural hybridisation in twentieth-century China (Qian 2011: 202–203). Where terms for “satire” (fengci) and “laughable” (huaji) had long existed in Chinese, for Lin, “humour” was something quite different: “good-tempered humour and laughter”; “sympathetic” where satire was “vicious” (Sample 2011: 171, 182–183). Lin located many examples of humour in China’s past but claimed that Chinese people did not understand humour and so tended to scorn it (Sample 2011: 176, 179). For Lin, this was important because humour was tied to the endeavour of making China modern. He quoted the English novelist George Meredith (1828–1909) thus: “One excellent test of the civilization of a country … I take to be the flourishing of the Comic idea and Comedy; and the test of true Comedy is that it shall awaken thoughtful laughter” (quoted in Sample 2011: 172). In this way, humour was bound up with the modernising project in early twentieth-century China. As Lin wrote, “when a culture develops to a certain extent, humorous literature will inevitably appear” (quoted in Sample 2011: 172). Humour has been “useful but also threatening” to the modern Chinese state (Milner Davis 2013: 12–13). On the one hand, humour has been intimately connected with the modern project and the Party has used it to further its political programmes (Milner Davis 2013: 3; Gao and Pugsley 2008: 455ff). On the other hand, “Humour has long given a voice to political protest, in China as elsewhere” (Chey 2011: 26). In this connection, after the end of the Cultural Revolution, provocative xiangsheng pieces emerged which were not just anti-Gang of Four but also mocked the very foundations of official rhetoric; further, some of the xiangsheng works produced from the middle of 1980s to the beginning of 1990s

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were critical of official bureaucratism and corruption, and were reasonably effective as anti-government satire (Kaikkonen 1990). More recently, e’gao spoofs and microblogs abound; in 2013, Ding judged that China was in the “golden age of high-quality political humour creation” (Ding 2013: 252). One contemporary example of light-hearted political play is netizens’ 2018 circulation of memes likening the appearance of Chinese President Xi Jinping to the cartoon character, Winnie the Pooh (ABC News 2018). Parodies sprung up all over the Internet. China’s leaders were not amused, and the memes were effectively removed from Chinese cyberspace (or “harmonized”). In this vein, Beam (2015) has written of the perils of mocking the CCP, and of “decades of comedic tradition reinforced by a homogeneous, largely state-run media”. Contrary to viewing popular culture as a sphere apart from politics, then, “… mainstream culture is where discursive or ideological struggles take place” (Zhong 2010: 162). In framing her study of television dramas, Zhong (2010: 2) adeptly argues that culture is a product in flux between the forces of state and market, but also that analysis needs to transcend such simple attributions and address the complexity of the social, cultural and historical forces bearing on mainstream Chinese culture. In this book, we aim to do precisely that. The remainder of this chapter will address the relationship of xiangsheng to the building of a new, socialist state, tracing the provenance and development of xiangsheng as a popular folk art and performance genre in China under Mao (1949–1976). Chapter 2 examines xiangsheng in the first decades of China’s “reform and opening up” (1978–2000), while Chapter 3 gives an account of the revival of xiangsheng in the new millennium. In Chapter 4, we examine Guo Degang’s xiangsheng performance, which bears a strong counter-official flavour. Chapter 5 studies the Deyun Club (deyunshe) which was founded by Guo Degang and his colleagues in 1995. Chapter 6 examines how Guo Degang acts as a grass-roots culture hero in the contemporary Chinese entertainment circle specifically and in the sociocultural context generally. Chapter 7 concludes the book and suggests avenues for further research.

What Is Xiangsheng? Xiangsheng is perhaps the most common form of Chinese comedy, having spread throughout the country from its initial base in the neighbouring cities of Beijing and Tianjin. An indigenous art form, it was traditionally performed by men, for men (Moser 2018: 78–79) (an exception

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was pornographic xiangsheng, which often featured female performers: see Link 2007: 211). However, recent times have seen female audiences enjoy the art, and a select number of female performers acclaimed (see, e.g., China.org.cn 2010). Xiang means “face”, and sheng “voice”; as an oral performing art xiangsheng relies heavily on both. It had humble beginnings as a type of street performance utilising set skits or routines (duanzi) that were developed by masters. Traditionally, as Perry Link notes, “The reason for listening was not to hear witty new commentary but to enjoy and to evaluate the skill with which the performers could render well-established pieces ….” (2016: 218), but there has been some change in this in recent decades, with greater emphasis on originality. Many of the jokes involve puns—for there are many homophones in Mandarin—and allusions, making xiangsheng a “language-conscious form” (Moser 2018: 79). Other jokes were usually at the expense of “misfits in society” (Link 2007: 211) such as country bumpkins or people with a disability. Xiangsheng are usually performed by a male duo in conversation with each other (duikou xiangsheng ). Less often, a single performer (dankou xiangsheng ) or several performers may take the stage (qunkou xiangsheng ). Hou and Liu (1983) identify three types of duikou xiangsheng, all involving one actor taking on the role of dougen, who narrates and cracks jokes or plays the fool (Link 2016 translates this as “joke cracker”). His partner is known as the penggen (“joke setter” in Link’s rendering or “straight-man” in Moser 2018: 78), and functions as an interlocutor in a chatty style of performance (Hou and Liu 1983: 17). In yitouchen (“lopsided”) xiangsheng, the weight of the dialogue falls to the dougen, with the penggen interjecting. A second type of duikou xiangsheng is zimugen, in which the share of the dialogue is more balanced between the dougen and penggen—Hou and Liu describe the performers as needing to fit together like a zip or press stud (1983: 21). Last, there is guankou xiangsheng which we here will dub “rapid-fire xiangsheng”, and which resembles classic Western comedy duos (Hou and Liu 1983: 24). Guankou xiangsheng often requires the reciting of a speech in one breath, which is termed “word-fountains” by Perry Link (2007: 214). There are many different pieces of guankou in hundreds of xiangsheng works, which usually take performers years of hard practice as they not only need to recite hundreds of guankou but also have to articulate them clearly at a fast pace.

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Xiangsheng routines traditionally opened with dianhua: a prologue to warm up the crowd and serve as a bridge between the previous and present acts. When xiangsheng was performed in the streets, the dianhua also served to attract a crowd, and were of flexible length and content according to the context of the performance. After the prologue came the opening (piao ba’er). Finally, the main body (zheng huo) was performed, comprising ru huo’er (just getting to the topic) and cuandi (end). At the conclusion of the performance, actors would traditionally solicit donations from the audience (Link 2007: 209). Now, of course, much has changed. Contemporary xiangsheng performances normally start with xiangua, which has a similar function to dianhua. However, present-day performers have departed from tradition and seem not to follow a strict sequence of xiangsheng components.

Xiangsheng Prior to 1949 Accounts of the origins of xiangsheng are varied. Chey (2011: 25) attributes it to the Ming Dynasty [r. 1368–1644], but some Chinese authors claim that it is rooted in far older traditions. Xiangsheng veteran Hou Baolin, for example, locates the dianhua’s antecedents in the Tang Dynasty [r. 618–907] sujiang of Buddhist sermons: teachers would first give an introduction to the day’s lessons and settle the audience down before imparting their insights (Hou and Liu 1983: 29). The satire that is characteristic of xiangsheng was present in ancient Chinese folk arts; dramatic and folk oral satirical literature combined to form Tang Dynasty huajixi—a comedic dialogue like xiangsheng popular in Shanghai, Hangzhou and Suzhou. From the Eastern Zhou Warring States period, oral traditions such as fables, stories, fairytales abounded (Hou and Liu 1983: 2–3). However, because these forms of oral literature were unrecognised by the upper social strata they were not recorded. Many sources more convincingly ascribe the origins of xiangsheng to the mid-nineteenth century, during the reign of China’s last dynasty, the Qing [r. 1644–1912]. Upon the death of the Xianfeng emperor in 1861 there was a ban on entertainment during the prescribed period of mourning. This led unemployed opera performers to develop new sources of livelihood in the back blocks of Beijing, thus birthing xiangsheng (Moser 2018: 78). This history also accounts for xiangsheng’s incorporation of other performance styles such as indigenous operas, dialects and taiping geci (songs recited to a rap-like meter). Xiangsheng additionally

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benefitted from the rise of the merchant class in cities during the late Qing: now, there was an audience and a demand for folk entertainment. Zhu Shaowen (stage name: Fear No Poverty [Qiong bu pa], 1829– 1903) was one of the earliest recorded performers of xiangsheng. “Characters” (Zi xiang ) was his signature work, and satirised the greed and corruption of officials: [A writes the character for ‘one’, 一 yi] A: The character for ‘one’ resembles a rolling pin. B: What sort of official is it? A: Inspector (xun’an). Isn’t a rolling pin used on a chopping board (an)? Rolling here, rolling there, rolling all over the place, inspecting (xun) the chopping board (an)! A: Why did he lose office? A: Because he was kind-hearted and obliging. You cannot be kindhearted and hold power; if you’re obliging (mian ruan) you can’t eat pulled noodles (mian)!

[B writes the character for ‘two,’ 二 er] A: What does the character ‘two’ look like? B: Like a pair of chopsticks. A: Your chopsticks are white? B: Yes, like ivory. A: Chopsticks are usually the same length; how come one of your chopsticks is long and the other short? B: I … I used it to grip a hot lump of coal! A: Ah? Gripping a lump of coal with ivory chopsticks? B: Otherwise how can it burn the next piece? A: What office have they held? B: Generalissmo of Clean Plates. A: Why did he lose his position? B: Because he had hollow legs! A: What? B: If he didn’t eat a lot, how could the plates be clean? (reproduced in Xue 1985: 50–51).

Rea (2015: 10) reminds us that “expressions of humour abounded in China’s public sphere” during the early twentieth century. Xiangsheng in particular boomed in the late Republican period. Where it had started

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out being performed on urban streets and in marketplaces for the urban working classes, it gradually shifted into teahouses and theatres (Moser 2018: 80). Radio provided further access to the art (Rea 2015: 7), as it spread beyond Beijing and Tianjin to other areas of northeastern China. Xiangsheng during this period was “vibrant, bawdy and often politically satirical …” (Rea 2015: 7). It had “a somewhat earthy, antiauthoritarian quality … a widely popular, and populist, art form … ” (Moser 2018: 81). Sadly, it is difficult to appreciate this because skits were not recorded. When traditional skits were finally published in the 1950s, it was not before they had been through a process of “sanitizing” to remove “pornographic” elements and add in politically correct slogans and viewpoints. For example, the duanzi “Selling Cloth” (Mai butou) originated in the early Republican period (c. 1912) but when it was finally “cleaned up” (zhengli) for publication by famous performer Hou Baolin, made reference to the “old society” (i.e. pre-1949) and capitalists’ “exploitation” (reprinted in Wu 1996: 232ff). Hou Baolin [1917–1993] was indeed one of the preeminent figures in xiangsheng from this time onwards. He learned xiangsheng in his late teens (i.e. early- mid-1930s) at the Beijing Drum Tower market, where there were many performing artists to be found, including storytellers, opera singers, and those who sang taiping geci. He recalled in 1982: I loved listening to xiangsheng. There were a few xiangsheng places at the Drum Tower … I always listened to their xiangsheng and wanted to perform them myself. Once when it was time for the performance to begin I saw that there was only one person there. I said “I’ll help you!” He said “okay, come on!” My first time speaking xiangsheng was “dramatic chat” (xiju zatan). At that time it wasn’t called xiju zatan but za xue. I think that I wasn’t too bad this first time; I performed the whole skit. But I didn’t take in much money. This was because firstly, it was the first program on the bill and there weren’t many people there; secondly, everyone knew me and knew that I sang opera, not xiangsheng, so they were reluctant to give money, as if it wasn’t worth it. The first time I sang taiping geci, the first time I spoke xiangsheng, both were at the Drum Tower market. (Hou 1982: 59)

In 1942, Mao Zedong’s Yanan Talks at the Forum on Literature and the Arts reappraised the relationship between work in the literary and artistic fields, and revolutionary work. Mao now posited a “cultural front”

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in the war against Japan. Xiangsheng performers were to join the “cultural army” “which is absolutely indispensable for uniting our own ranks and defeating the enemy”. From lower-class performers, folk artists were elevated to the position of vital agents of the revolution, as traditional folk arts were remade to serve the Party’s agenda of anti-imperialism and socialist revolution (Holm 1984). Xiangsheng was no exception. Based on its entertainment value and immense public appeal, xiangsheng was enlisted as a practical tool by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to spread socialist education and propaganda. Xiangsheng gained newfound status as an indigenous art form that was traditionally aligned with “the masses”, and so lent itself to supporting nationalist sentiment and sympathy with the proletariat. Xiangsheng performers were no longer referred to as artists, but as “literary and artistic workers” (wenxue yishu gongzuozhe), reflecting the Party’s intention to incorporate artists and writers into the working-class fold (Geng 2018: 2). Prefiguring Mao’s pronouncements, some writers such as Lao She [1899–1966] had already produced anti-Japanese xiangsheng. Lao She’s work included “Marco Polo Bridge” (Lugou qiao) (where the SinoJapanese conflict broke out)and “Mid-Autumn Mooncakes” (Zhongqiu yuebing ), written in 1938 from the new Guomindang (Nationalist Party) base of Chongqing. The relationship of mooncakes to the anti-Japanese war is illuminated as follows: A: As soon as I see mooncakes I get angry! So I want to eradicate them all! B: Why do you get angry as soon as you see a mooncake? A: When a mooncake is put on white paper, it looks like the Japanese flag. Finding the Japanese flag on our motherland’s territory, such great humiliation, don’t you get angry? B: Yes, I get angry! A: It’s not just you; the whole country gets mad. We must surely exterminate it! Remember to resist the Japanese even while eating and sleeping; we must chase the Japanese devils out of China! (excerpt reprinted in Yao 2013)

In 1951, Lao She recalled of this period: “I tried writing xiangsheng. But after much effort I produced just one passage, and a bad one at that. After that, I beat a retreat from it” (reproduced in Lao She 1982: 190). He was, however, to become one of the leading figures in xiangsheng in the early People’s Republic.

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New Xiangsheng for a New State: Humour and Politics in China, 1949–1966 By the late 1940s the imperative to combat Japan had faded, but writers and artists remained (largely) allied to the Communist Party’s shifting objectives. Writers and artists, like much of the population in the early 1950s, were optimistic about the prospects of China under communist rule (Link 2007: 208). Recognising the performing arts’ potential for political indoctrination—as Mao had since 1942—the Party-state became a “patron of humorists” (Rea 2015: 161). The government financed some troupes to co-opt them, and those troupes enjoyed better conditions than artists who remained in the private system. The Party also influenced amateur xiangsheng, harnessing it for propaganda purposes (Kaikkonen 1990: 77–78). Xiangsheng in particular lent itself to disseminating the new ideology because it used plain language and was not reliant upon literacy (Link 1984: 97). As Meng (2019: 16) identifies, in the early PRC xiangsheng was transformed from “low-class entertainment” (diji quwei) to “a people’s art” (renmin yishu). The fact that Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai both enjoyed xiangsheng added to its new legitimacy and appeal: Mao hosted twice-weekly performances at his abode in Zhongnanhai, notably preferring a traditional repertoire to more socially-engaged pieces (Moser 2018: 84). The alliance between the Chinese Communist Party and cultural institutions required certain adjustments. Many xiangsheng baofu (punchlines) had traditionally ridiculed the peasantry–—this had to change in the Mao era, as peasants were revered as one of the three revolutionary classes (of worker, peasant and soldier) (Moser 2018: 81). Moreover, there was serious doubt as to whether xiangsheng was capable of serving socialism and thus whether it would survive at all (Wang et al. 1995: 221). One of the first pieces to emerge in this environment was “Marriage and Superstition” (Hunyin yu mixin), penned by Hou Baolin in 1949 and performed with Guo Qiru in 1951: A: Performing xiangsheng now is very different to in the past! Now the programs we perform critique the old society and propagandize the new society. B: Right! Literary and artistic workers must “arouse people’s political consciousness, and encourage their enthusiasm for production”. A: There were too many feudal superstitions in the old society.

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B: We must unmask them. A: Weddings and funerals, for example. There were quite a few old customs …. B: What is superstitious about weddings? A: You’re thinking of new-style weddings: simple, tasteful, thrifty. A car takes the bride to the hall, the witness and celebrant give speeches; the new couple bows three times: once to the celebrant, once to the witness, and once to the guests. When the ceremony is over the newlyweds take a picture together. It’s all quite orderly. B: Not bad. A: There are also frugal versions: on the day of the wedding they hold a forum. The bride and groom report on the courting process, then they are declared to be married. When the ceremony is over, the bride and groom talk about their work plans for after the wedding. Everyone gives them some suggestions, then they sing together and eat some snacks. It’s economical and meaningful; much better! B: This has a lot of advantages for the newlyweds. A: Old-style weddings were a lot of trouble. The man had to use a sedan chair to fetch his wife, and the wife had to wear [padded] cotton irrespective of the season. Even if it was the hottest week of the year she had to wear [padded] cotton. All sealed up in the sedan chair, she had to have two bottles of “Ten Drops” medicine after she alighted! B: Why? A: Heatstroke!

This skit exemplifies the politicisation of cultural and personal life during the Maoist era. As the opening lines unabashedly acknowledge, xiangsheng was now used for propaganda: to imbue the public with the new socialist culture and critique the “old, feudal” culture. Long-standing customs and religious elements were depicted as “superstitious” and came under fierce attack. In their place came secularised and austere alternatives that were to prevail for several decades. Lao She returned to Beijing from the United States in late December 1949, eager to contribute to the Chinese nation-building enterprise. The People’s Daily newspaper reported that a contingent of xiangsheng figures soon called upon Lao She in his Beijing Hotel room. Within two months, he had revised several duanzi and became a leading figure in xiangsheng circles (Wang et al. 1995: 222–223). One of the revised duanzi was “Vitamins” (Weisheng su), which included the lines: “Now the whole country is Liberated; we are just missing Taiwan” (Lao She 1982: 306).

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In “Dr. Fake” (Jia boshi), the character recalls that he was sentenced to death under Chiang Kaishek and would have died were it not for the timely (Communist) Liberation of Beijing (Lao She 1982: 310). By including such lines as these, Lao She indicated his readiness to serve the new regime. Of course, Lao She was not alone in his promotion of xiangsheng at this time. It was eleven xiangsheng performers (including: Sun Yukui, Liu Dezhi, Hou Baolin, Hou Yichen, Gao Deliang, Luo Rongshou, Gao Fengshan, Tong Dafang, Quan Changbao, Chang Baoting and Yu Shide) who banded together and resolved to “reform” xiangsheng, They aimed to unite xiangsheng artists, hold literacy classes and provide education about current events, and raise their members’ cultural and political standards “in order to attain the goal of educating the masses through propaganda” (Wang et al. 1995: 223). With the support of the performers and the Beijing Municipal Quyi Guild (Beijingshi quyi gonghui), the Xiangsheng Reform Group (Xiangsheng gaijin xiaozu) was formally founded on 19 January 1950 in Qianmen, Beijing. Reflecting the political climate of the times, the Group “studied” (read: underwent indoctrination in) politics and current affairs for an hour every morning. They came to consider that “humiliating the poor and lightly regarding the labouring people is the biggest mistake. From now on we should shift the target of satire to imperialism, feudalism and bureaucratism, and serve the people better” (quoted in Wang et al. 1995: 224–225). As Xue was to evaluate in 1983, the Group consciously tied the fate of xiangsheng to the mission of the Party: “weren’t literature and the arts ‘screws and wheels’? These small screws turned in the party propaganda machine, giving it increased power and at the same time giving real value to the screw”. … it was a “weapon” with which to “unite the people, educate the people, attack the enemy and exterminate the enemy” (Xue 1983: 52). In other words, for the members of the Group, xiangsheng was no longer intended only to be uproarious; it was intended to have “educational value” (Kaikkonen 1990: 76). Communist Party cadres would listen to routines and note any undesirable content. The group modified many old xiangsheng pieces and removed any pornographic or risqué jokes, references to inappropriate class attitudes and other ideological flaws, so that the content reflected the opinions of the ruling authorities (Link 1984: 97; Xue 1985: 124). After reforming existing works, the Group turned its attention to writing new pieces of “political education”. New pieces were thus written

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against America’s involvement in the Korean war (“Such is America” Ruci meiguo, “Paper Tiger” Zhi laohu and “Christmas Offensive” Shengdanjie gongshi); on “Thought Reform” (Sixiang gaizao); on social reforms (“Marriage and Superstition” Hunyin yu mixin); on the new Transport Security Movement (“Travel at Night” Yexing ji); on the new Marriage Act (“Liu Qiao Raises Pigs” Liu Qiao yangzhu); and on Yiguandao (to assist in the campaign against “reactionary” secret societies [fandong huidaomen]). In “Travel at Night”, Hou Baolin and his performing partner Guo Qiru converse: Hou: The other day I was taking a walk on the road. You aren’t allowed to walk on the flat road; you have to walk on the footpath. Guo: You were walking on the road? Hou: Yes. Guo: When is that okay? Hou: What’s the problem? Guo: The road is for vehicles. Hou: Yeah, but I wasn’t stopping any vehicles. Guo: If you walk in amongst the cars, they’ll hit you. What’ll you do then? Hou: Oh, I’ve figured it out: motorists aren’t game to hit people. Guo: Drivers aren’t game to hit people, so you intentionally obstruct them? But what if they happened to hit you by accident—wouldn’t you be finished then? Hou: Oh, so you’re saying this for my own good? Guo: Darn right. Hou: Ai, even if you don’t let me walk on the footpath, shouldn’t you have a better attitude? Guo: What, the police had a bad attitude towards you? Hou: They just stood there yelling “Hey! Walk on the footpath! Walk on the footpath! Hey…” Don’t I have a name? Guo: Did they know who you were? Hou: How could I know who they were shouting at? Guo: They were shouting at you! Hou: Oh, so my surname is “Walker” and my name is “On Footpath”? Guo: What a name! Hou: Don’t you think that’s limiting? Otherwise how is it that now I don’t go out when I don’t have anything to do, and when I do have reason to go out I take a vehicle? You can’t expect my car to drive on the footpath too! Guo: Now you’re arguing just for the sake of it! (Hou and Guo)

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This xiangsheng was to publicise a relatively mundane cause. Others were written to support much larger campaigns. The campaign against “reactionary sects and secret societies” (fandong huidaomen) from 1949 onwards was fierce, as their members outnumbered those of the CCP and were perceived as a threat to the regime (Hung 2010; “Withdraw from the Sects Movement”, n.d.) In the xiangsheng piece Yiguandao, which was performed by Hou Baolin and his partner, the sect was depicted as superstitious and dangerous: A: I’m an atheist. B: Right. A: Ghosts, spirits … we don’t believe in any of that. B: They don’t exist. A: In the past some people spread these things about. B: Oh. A: Some people were superstitious, “relying on Buddha for food and clothing” (as the saying goes). Others engaged in shady counterrevolutionary business under the guise of religion. B: Would you look at that. A: In the past there was someone from Yiguandao. B: Oh, I know. A: A reactionary sect. B: A reactionary sect. A: They cheated housewives and old women. B: They were all harmed by them. A: One of our neighbours, Aunty Wang, believed in this Yiguandao. She was lead astray a while ago. After she joined, she went about everywhere luring people into the group (Xiangsheng wenben 2019).

The post-liberation new xiangsheng works were civilised and used to mobilise the population to follow the government policies. Other of the reformed works lampooned society’s remnants of feudalism or recalled the hardships of yesteryear. One example of this type of xiangsheng was “Yesterday” (Zuotian), written by Zhao Zhong, Chang Baohua and Zhong Yibing in 1959. It opens: A: In the old society there was a saying: “If you have it all, don’t have sickness; if you have nothing don’t be without money.” B: Right. A: These two things both happened to our family: we got sick and had no money.

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A: So what was your family’s life like? B: My mum and dad were both ill. A: I was still young. B: How old? A: Just this tall. B: Oh? A: In a pigtail [just a few years old]. B: In a pigtail? So how did you manage? A: Only when we pawned things could we eat. Later, there was nothing to pawn or sell. On top of that, my uncle came. B: Your uncle? A: My father’s elder brother. B: I know. A: He worked for a landlord as a farm labourer in the countryside. He could never eat his fill or dress warmly, was bullied and beaten, forcing him to come to Beijing and seek help from my Dad (Zhao et al. 1959).

In this way, xiangsheng showed forth the putative evils of the old society; in particular, the suffering of peasants under landlords. The narrative bears the impact of suku—a “compelling performance” in which people who had been oppressed prior to the 1949 revolution publicly called out their persecutors (Anagnost 1997: 17). This in turn was supposed to prove the legitimacy of the CCP government. Indeed, eulogistic xiangsheng works were another important development after the founding of the PRC (Xue 1985: 145–146). This was no easy feat, for there was an inherent tension between “a fundamentally satiric art” and the imperative to praise (Link 2007: 220). The tension raised questions about the very survival of xiangsheng. Nevertheless, performers such as Ma Ji [1934–2006], a disciple of Hou Baolin, wrote eulogistic dialogues, with works including “The Old Station Master” (Lao zhanzhang ) and “Little Guerilla Hero” (Youji xiaoyingxiong ). In rationalising his work, Ma Ji said that he was influenced by Chairman Mao’s 1942 Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art. Mao’s instructions to the performers were to praise the people, praise the army and praise the Party (Dang xiangsheng buzai fengci, zhiyou gegong songde 2009). However, this new laudatory form of xiangsheng failed due to its poor quality as correct revolutionary passion alone could not create a piece of art (Kaikkonen 1990: 143). As an example of this type of xiangsheng, one called “Socialism is good” (shehui zhuyi hao), ended as follows:

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B: Science will defeat superstition countless times. A: And socialist society has defeated feudal, superstitious society. B: This is a bit of a leap, jumping from your own questioning of life to political stance. A: In fact, I am here to praise the Communist Party. The preceding is all just setting the tone. Everyone is here for a good time; how could I come on with a poker face and sing seriously that without the Communist Party there would be no new China? B: Hm, in that case it wouldn’t be a photo in everyone’s hand; they’d be waving the Party’s flag in their left hand and national flag in the right hand. A: I won’t waffle on, I just want to say that Chairman Mao is dearer than one’s own parents, and socialism is better than anything (“Shehui zhuyi hao”).

Despite the sanitisation of xiangsheng during the early PRC, some Chinese authors consider it to have enjoyed “unprecedented prosperity” (kongqian fanrong ) (Wang et al. 1995: 237–238). Their rationale is that xiangsheng enjoyed increased scope of circulation. Where it had previously been performed only in cities, performers now went down to the army, factories, countryside and mines. The ideological shift away from sneering at rural dwellers meant that xiangsheng enjoyed an increased audience there. Finally, there was a rise in recreational (i.e. non-professional) xiangsheng artists during this period. On the first anniversary of the founding of the Group, Lao She reflected that they had eliminated jokes at the expense of one’s parents and wife and the labouring people. On the positive side, they had sanitised old skits and written new ones. Some had doubted whether xiangsheng could be reformed, but they had proven that “…the satire in xiangsheng, if used appropriately, is a sharp tool for propaganda” (Lao She 1982: 188). Accordingly, xiangsheng served the party line during the first two decades of socialist China, and those writers who did not follow the party line were punished. One example of this was He Chi. He joined the revolution in 1938 and did artistic work in the Shaan-Gan-Ning border region. After 1949 while joining in artistic circles in Tianjin, he penned some xiangsheng. These works chiefly focused on “internal irony” (neibu fengci), parodying officialdom and bureaucracy. For example, “Buying Monkeys” (Mai hou, 1953) told of an incompetent officer, Ma Daha, who ordered fifty monkeys instead of fifty boxes of “Monkey Brand” soap, thus sparking an absurd hunt for the animals. It ends:

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A: One day, I went to hang out at the park, and spotted Ma Daha in the distance. When he saw me he was shy. I hurried over to him and shook his hand. I said “Old Ma, never mind that you made me go to the northeast, Guangdong, Sichuan, roam half of China; I must thank you! B: Why is that? A: I said: “Lucky it was ‘monkey brand of soap’ this time. If it was ‘polar bear brand of face cream,’ I would have had to have gone to the Arctic! B: Then you would have travelled all over the world! (reprinted in Hou Baolin et al. 1981: 81)

This extract from He Chi’s “Hooked on Meetings” (Kaihui mi) similarly mocked bureaucracy and officialdom, and at once reflected and criticised the politicisation of minutiae: A: Comrades! In a primitive communist society, we would not perform plays, and of course nor would there be pingju opera; therefore, the washbasin issue that is presently facing the pingju opera troupe could not arise … B: Isn’t that rubbish? A: Humans’ material civilization is developing day by day and progressing each day; therefore, it gave rise to the art of opera. In order to perform opera one must wear makeup, and to wash it off, one needs a washbasin. B: Isn’t that drivel? A: Comrades, our pingju opera troupe’s washbasin is broken. Of course if broken it should be soldered, but it’s so broken it can’t be soldered back together. Therefore we have decided to buy two new washbasins. Of course these two new washbasins will also break sooner or later, but only after quite a long time, so we must buy them. However, there are both male comrades and female comrades in the opera troupe. The males usually prefer to use plain washbasins, and the females, for all sorts of reasons, want to use flowery washbasins. At the same time there are a small number of males who wish to use a flowery washbasin, and a small number of females who want to use a plain one. Therefore, we must unite our thinking (sixiang ), otherwise when we bring back plain washbasins, those male comrades will object. Therefore we must seek agreement amidst contradiction, and unity amidst opposition. In order to preserve the unity of our action, we must first win unity of thought, otherwise washbasins will cause our opera troupe to have internal divisions.

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B: But they [i.e. washbasins and internal divisions ] are completely unrelated! A: Therefore on this issue, I hope everyone will hold democratic discussion in the spirit of “say all you know and say it without reserve”, and “blame not the speaker but be warned by his words” (reprinted in Xue Baokun 1985: 137–138).

The anti-rightist campaign of 1957 ended such “lively experiments” in xiangsheng (Link 2016: 219). He Chi was branded a “rightist”, and his creations, such as the above, were judged to have gone too far in critiquing the uncaring and overly-bureaucratic members of the CCP (Kaikkonen 1990: 131; Link 2007: 226). In contrast, Lao She continued to write xiangsheng. “The Immortals Resign” (Shenxian cizhi, 1958) showed forth the inadequacy of folk religious customs—or “feudal superstition”, as they were now called—in the new socialist society. The Earth God (tudi ye) was bamboozled firstly by land reform and then the collectivisation of agriculture from 1956. Which land belonged to whom? If he couldn’t understand this, how could he carry on performing his role? He had no option but to resign. The dragon king of the eastern sea (dong hai long wang ) was starving because no one had made food offerings to him in many years. Even longwang nainai wanted to divorce him! Moreover, his position was made redundant by the CCP’s water conservancy projects. The mountain spirit (shan shen ye) also resigned, as his work was disturbed by the blasting of explosives to build train track through the mountains. Finally, Lao She (reprinted in Lao She 1982: 336–342) took a stab at another form of “superstition”: adulation of British and American experts. While writing such politically correct pieces as these, Lao She remained a passionate defender of satire. In 1963, in a speech given at a forum which was reprinted in Quyi magazine, he argued that although some older acts were “mistaken” in their choice of target, satire lay at the heart of xiangsheng. He complained that some skits that were politically correct still met with opposition, and he bemoaned a lack of sense of humour on the part of unnamed people. Eulogistic xiangsheng, he argued, could coexist side by side with satirical xiangsheng (Lao She 1982: 211–212). A few short years later, the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) again wrought havoc in the literary and artistic world. One example of the eulogistic xiangsheng of this period is Hou Baolin’s 1972 skit, “New Notes on Anaesthesia” (Mazui xinpian). At the time, anaesthesia by acupuncture

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was being promoted as a patriotic and thrifty alternative to Western-style anaesthesia, the latter with its side effects and ideological baggage. As the doctor in the skit says: This is our acting in accordance with Chairman Mao’s directive concerning “combining Chinese and Western medicine”. Taking acupuncture for pain relief and developing it into acupuncture anaesthesia, creating a unique Chinese method of anaesthesia, this is a new achievement in making the most of China’s medical heritage; it is a glorious example of uniting Chinese and Western medicine; and is also a substantial result of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (reprinted in Hou Baolin 1978: 5).

This type of artistic output was in accordance with the directive to follow “three prominences” (san tu chu) in artistic production, namely, “Among all characters, give prominence to the positive characters; among the positive characters, give prominence to the heroic characters; among the heroic characters, give prominence to the main heroic character” (Gu 2011: 284). During the Cultural Revolution, xiangsheng artists such as Hou Baolin and He Chi (once again, following his branding in the anti-rightist movement of 1957) were among the first to be persecuted, labelled as “blackline figures”, “reactionary artistic authorities” or “counterrevolutionaries”. He Chi was beaten so severely as to become handicapped. The fate of Lao She was similarly tragic, being found dead in a lake in 1966. Famed xiangsheng performer Liu Baorui died shortly after being “struggled” against in 1968 (Liu Baorui and Yin Wenshuo 1983: 3). Some xiangsheng associations were disbanded; for those which remained, “xiangsheng was reduced to a mere humorless vehicle for sloganeering and indoctrination” (Moser 2018: 84; see also Chey 2011: 25). Chen (2016) concurs that xiangsheng was “bordering on dead” when there came some very slight liberalisation in the artistic field. In the early 1970s, Premier Zhou Enlai criticised the “Gang of Four” for restricting the arts so heavily. The central broadcaster revived its arts team (quyi zu), with Chen at the helm. Chen felt that light-hearted xiangsheng was a good starting point to begin reviving the arts, and that writer and performer Ma Ji was well placed to contribute. The resulting skit “On Friendship” (Youyi song ) broke new ground with its African characters—it was about friendship between China and Tanzania. (Tanzania had voted first for China to be recognised by the United Nations, and China was

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financing a railway in Tanzania.) Chen provides insight into the heavy control of xiangsheng at the time. First, the Cultural Group (wenhua zu) examined the script and censored several sections, including the opening (“I haven’t seen you all for ages!”), which was taken as implicit criticism of the Cultural Revolution (formally, 1966–1969). Chen et al. acceded to the censors’ requests in order to ensure the survival of xiangsheng. Then the Military Control Group (junguan xiaozu) obstructed them from recording at the broadcaster’s studios, but then on Labour Day the News and Movie Studio filmed the act “On Friendship” as part of a documentary. Movie censorship fell under the purview of Yao Wenyuan, a member of the Gang of Four. Since he did not object to the inclusion of the xiangsheng it passed muster, and the documentary footage could be aired across the country. Chen could then use this as a basis to revisit his case with the Military Control Group; thus, in mid-1973 “On Friendship” was finally aired on the national broadcaster. It caused quite a sensation. Xiangsheng remained popular, as its resurgence during China’s “reform and opening up” was to attest.

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in Chinese Life and Letters: Classical and Traditional Approaches, ed. Jocelyn Chey and Jessica Milner Davis, 191–218. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Rea, Christopher G. 2015. The Age of Irreverence: A New History of Laughter in China. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. Sample, Joseph C. 2011. Contextualizing Lin Yutang’s Essay ‘On Humour’: Introduction and Translation. In Humour in Chinese Life and Letters: Classical and Traditional Approaches, ed. Jocelyn Chey and Jessica Milner Davis, 160–190. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Shehui zhuyi hao [Socialism Is Good]. Available: http://www.diudou.com/ juben/xiangsheng/135417.html. Retrieved 22 June 2020. Tian Weixian (ed.). 1981. Guangbo li de xiaosheng: Xiangsheng ji [Broadcasting Laughter: Collected xiangsheng]. Beijing: Baowentang shudian. Wang Jue, Wang Jingshou, and Teng Tianxiang. 1995. Zhongguo xiangsheng shi [A History of Chinese xiangsheng]. Beijing: Beijing Yanshan chubanshe. Wang Minglu. 1981. Jie da huan xi [Everybody Happy]. Beijing: Zhongguo quyi chubanshe. Withdraw from the Sects Movement (1951–1953). n.d. Available: https://chines eposters.net/themes/withdraw-from-the-sects.php. Retrieved 25 June 2020. Wu Wenke. 1996. Zhongguo xiangsheng jingcui [Selected Chinese xiangsheng]. Beijing: Tongxin chubanshe. Xiangsheng wenben yiguandao biaoyan [Xiangsheng Script for Yiguandao Performance]. 2019. Available: http://jb.7dou.net/xiangsheng/6595.html. Retrieved 22 June 2020. Xinhua Wang. 2010. Hu Jintao: Tuidong shehui zhuyi wenhua da fazhan da fanrong [Hu Jintao: Promote the Development and Prosperity of Socialist Culture]. Available: http://news.cntv.cn/china/20100723/103528. shtml. Retrieved 22 June 2020. Xue Baokun. 1983. Hou Baolin he tade xiangsheng yishu [Hou Baolin and His xiangsheng Art]. Ha’erbin: Heilongjiang renmin chubanshe. Xue Baokun. 1985. Zhongguo de xiangsheng [China’s xiangsheng]. Beijing: Renmin chubanshe. Zhensheng, Yao. 2013. Lao She yu kangzhan xiangsheng [Lao She and Wartime Anti-Japanese xiangsheng]. Quyi 1: 46–47. Zhao Zhong, Chang Baohua, and Zhong Yibing. 1959. Zuotian [Yesterday]. Available: https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%98%A8%E5%A4%A9/695 9960#3. Retrieved 22 June 2020. Xueping, Zhong. 2010. Mainstream Culture Refocused: Television Drama, Society, and the Production of Meaning in Reform-Era China. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Zhu, Ping, Zhuoyi Wang, and Jason McGrath (eds.). 2019. Maoist Laughter. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

CHAPTER 2

Xiangsheng 1976–2000

The Cultural Revolution ended in 1976 with the deaths of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, and the arrest of the Gang of Four—Yao Wenyuan, Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao and Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing. Xiangsheng re-emerged shortly thereafter, as part of the rehabilitation of the arts more broadly. Deng Xiaoping (1979) acknowledged to an audience of writers and artists the unjust persecution inflicted on many of their number during the Cultural Revolution and proclaimed that “We should encourage the unhampered development of different forms and styles in literature and art, as well as the free discussion of theories of literature and art among exponents of different views and schools of thought”. This freedom was only partial, however, as this quotation came just paragraphs after Deng maintained that during 1949–1966 the Party’s policies on literature and art were “in the main correct”, and that writers and artists should “endeavour to educate the people in socialist ideology and imbue them with the drive and spirit necessary to build national strength and prosperity…”. Nevertheless, the CCP’s acknowledgement that there had been excesses during the Cultural Revolution made room for artistic depiction of these, as long as they were attributed to the Gang of Four rather than the CCP per se. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, it was common for compilations of xiangsheng to open with a foreword blaming Lin Biao and the Gang of Four for the suppression of xiangsheng during the © The Author(s) 2020 S. Cai and E. Dunn, Xiangsheng and the Emergence of Guo Degang in Contemporary China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-8116-8_2

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Cultural Revolution; to note that xiangsheng “had its base in the broad masses”; and to rejoice that the current Party leadership had smashed the Gang of Four and reinstituted xiangsheng (see, e.g., Tian 1981: 1; Wang 1981: 1). These compilations were in many cases the first time that xiangsheng—both old and new—had been published; previously, the art was passed down orally.

Xiangsheng in the Late 1970s Xiangsheng was particularly “quick to reflect the freer cultural policies of the post-gang [of Four] leadership” (Barmé 1979: 128). Artists who had been persecuted during the Maoist years were rehabilitated; for example, He Chi, whose selected works were published in 1982. Satirical material, which had accumulated during the Cultural Revolution, and political humour, flourished among the people, making the post-1976 period a golden age for xiangsheng (Kaikkonen 1990: 101). Writers and artists vied for the honour of being the first to satirise a particular socialist factory or a Party secretary, giving xiangsheng pieces during this period an “unconformist” bent which was “particularly relieving and invigorating and therefore extra stimulating” (Kaikkonen 1990: 156). One of the earliest and most renowned of these performances was “Hat Factory” (Maozi gongchang ), written by Chang Baohua and Chang Guitian in November 1976, a mere two months after Mao’s death. The Changs were part of the quyi Team of the Politics Department in the navy and the skit was broadcast on the Central People’s Broadcasting Channel, indicating that it was judged to be politically acceptable. During the Cultural Revolution, targets of criticism and persecution were made to “wear hats” (dai maozi)—dunce’s caps that were often inscribed with the victim’s supposed crimes. The phrase “wear hats” thus came to refer to political labelling. “The Hat Factory” played on this, and poked fun at the Gang of Four. As Perry Link (1984: 85) has translated, it opens: A: Recently … B: Yeah? A: … the goods of a certain factory have not been able to sell. B: There actually exist factory goods that can’t be sold? A: Nobody wants them! B: What kind of product? A: Hats.

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B: I’ll take one! I don’t have a hat. A: But these hats are big … B: OK! An oversized hat makes you feel spiffy! A: But it’s heavy! B: Then it must be good and warm! A: You can’t stand wearing it B: What’s “standing it” got to do with wearing a hat? I can stand it A: Once it’s on you can’t get it off! B: What kind of hat is this? A: A counter-revolutionary hat. B: I can’t stand it! What factory sells this kind of hat? A: The hat factory established by the Gang of Four.

The script continued: B: That’s the business of the anti-party clique, Wang, Zhang, Jiang and Yao. A: right. “Shareholder” Wang assumes personal command, “military advisor” Zhang carefully designs, “Manager” Yao promotes it broadly, and “boss” Jiang peddles it everywhere.

In this skit, the burden of being classed as a “counter-revolutionary” is acknowledged, and the blame for erroneous labelling as such is laid squarely on the Gang of Four (Wang, Zhang, Jiang and Yao), who are said to be “anti-party”. Thus, the excesses of the Cultural Revolution are distanced from the present CCP leadership. The piece continues: A: She gives different people different hats. B: So, what about the large hats? A: “Traitor,” “spy,” “warlord,” “anti-party element,” “careerist,” “capitalist-roader”, “capitulationist”, “revisionism”, “tyrant”. B: Wow! And the medium-sized hats? A: “Black-line figure,” “un-revolutionary,” “black scholar,” “black hand,” “black accomplice,” “empiricism,” “democrat,” “the doctrine of the mean,” “chameleon”. B: Quite large enough. Is the small size any smaller? A: “Stumbling block,” “opportunist,” “yes-man,” “shoots of revisionism,” “rumour factory,” “gossiper,” “counter-current,” “evil tendencies,” “little reptile”. B: Also heavy enough! A: Which size do you think suits you?

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B: I can’t wear any of them. A: Take one at a reduced price! B: No! I don’t want one even if it’s reduced. A: If she wants you to have one, you have to. It doesn’t matter if it fits or not, you have to wear it. B: So who doesn’t have to wear one? A: Whomever curries favour, writes reports diligently, lies a lot, and sucks up. B: Oh, sucks up! (Chang and Chang 1976)

In the above excerpt, different sizes of hats bear different antirevolutionary charges that were given to high-level government officials and cadres, literary and art workers, and even common folk in factories and work units. The suffering of those “anti-revolutionaries” resonated with audiences who had experienced the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, and so the xiangsheng piece won acclaim and popularity. Further, the dialogue revealed how some people (such as sycophants and liars) avoided being persecuted and purged during various fanatical political movements. The “Hat Factory” continues: A: Even if they have more hats, they won’t fit on my head. B: If they want you to wear one, there’s no escape! A: I am an old cadre, having fought alongside Mao Zedong all over the place for decades. I have carried forth the revolutionary tradition. B: You are a “democratic revolutionist”; a capitalist-roader within the Party. A: Oh, so this is how the hats work: “I am a new cadre.” B: “A nascent bourgeoisie element”. A: “I am not a leader.” B: “A bad person infiltrating the masses”. A: Whoa! “You haven’t done any investigation or research …” B: “Attacking leaders”. A: You … B: Hurling abuse at a senior officer. B: I’m not speaking. A: Secretly plotting and scheming. B: I’m closing my eyes. A: Harboring resentment in your heart. B: (Gives up; tucks each hand in his opposite sleeve.) A: What weapon are you fishing around for? B: I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t! A: We’ll stick them all on you! B: This is all trumped up.

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A: This is how things were fabricated. In order to become queen, Boss Jiang [Qing] usurped party and state powers and dared to put such hats on our loved and respected Premier Zhou [Enlai] and other oldergeneration proletarian revolutionaries. [She] plotted to overthrow a whole lot of cadres who were in charge of the party, government and army at both central and regional level. B: Yes, as long as these older generations of revolutionaries were around, they [i.e. the Gang of Four] couldn’t realise their ambitions (Chang and Chang 1976).

The above dialogue satirises the unscrupulous behaviours of those political speculators during the Cultural Revolution, who tried to gain political capital and show their loyalty to the party by fabricating anti-revolutionary conduct on the part of others. The social and emotional impact of these labels was laid bare in other works of the period. Concurrent with the emergence of “scar literature” (shanghen wenxue), there was a trend in xiangsheng circles towards reflecting on the injuries of the Cultural Revolution. “The Divorce” (Lihun, published in 1979 and reprinted in Wang 1981: 26ff), tells the story of why a husband and wife dissolved their marriage: the man was labelled counter-revolutionary, wanted protect his wife and children from the adverse impact of this designation, and threatened to commit suicide if the wife did not accede. In political study sessions, the wife was told she must choose between her husband and Chairman Mao. This reflected the tragic reality that a leading cause of divorce in 1960s China was precisely the imperative to sever unwanted class ties (Qiao 2009: 51–52). Another famous xiangsheng skit from this period was Jiang Kun and Li Wenhua’s “Taking a photo” (Ruci zhaoxiang 1979). Jiang and Li were in the Talking and Singing Group (shuochangtuan) of the Central Broadcaster Arts Department. Jiang went on to become one of the most famous xiangsheng performers of his generation: he became something of a fixture in the Spring Festival Television Gala, and in 2017 was elected as Chair of the Chinese Artists’ Association (Zhongguo quyi jia xiehui) for a second time. “Taking a photo” opens with two people visiting a studio to get their photo taken. They see a sign: A: I’ll read it to you. “Anyone coming to my revolutionary photo studio; revolutionary comrades taking a revolutionary photo, when you enter this revolutionary door, making revolutionary inquiries, must first yell a revolutionary slogan. If the revolutionary masses do not

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yell revolutionary slogans, then the revolutionary personnel will adopt a firm revolutionary attitude and not give a revolutionary answer. Revolutionary regards.” B: Really “revolutionary”. It was like that at that time. When entering you had to say ‘Serve the people’. Comrade, I have a question A: ‘We must fight self-interest and repudiate revisionism!’ Go on! B: ‘Do away with capitalists and revive the proletariat!’ I want to take a photo. A: ‘Overcome selfishness and foster a public spirit,’ what size do you want? B: ‘There is no crime in being revolutionary’ … 3 inch. A: ‘It is right to rebel!’ Get the money. B: ‘Give prominence to politics’: How much? A: ‘Produce instant results’, $1.30. B: ‘Criticise reactionary authorities’: Here. A: ‘Oppose command by money!’ Here’s a ticket. B: ‘Wipe out all monsters and demons!’ Thanks. A: ‘Firmly struggle against instances of the word “private”.’ Don’t mention it. B: ‘Make revolution in the depths of your soul!’ Where do we take the photo? A: ‘Give everything to the people!’ Straight ahead! (reprinted in Tian 1981: 66–67).

The skit effectively made the point that during the Cultural Revolution, even something as simple as getting one’s photo taken was a process mired in inefficiency and ridiculous political sloganeering. Yet the dialogue shied away from criticising the Party directly, and thus was able to enjoy popular airing. In the same way, “Unorthodox tendencies” (Bu zheng zhi feng ), performed by Wang Minglu in February 1979, critiqued the culture of using networks of personal contacts to secure employment (or “taking the back door” zou houmen) inter alia, but presented this as a problem extrinsic to the CCP: A: What job do you do? B: I’m a xiangsheng performer. A: What, you’re a performer? B: That’s right. A: Who organized that for you? B: What do you mean, who organized it? I loved the arts from the time I was young, and then tested into the troupe. A: Come off it, who are you kidding? Tell the truth, what connections did you use?

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B: No connections. A: Become a performer without connections? Oh, I’ve got it: the guy who watches the door at the Art Bureau is your uncle. B: It’s your uncle! Why are you giving me an uncle? A: You can’t become a performer without connections (Wang 1981: 12).

Another of Wang’s 1979 skits, “Everybody happy” (Jie da huan xi), condemned the Gang of Four and eulogised the Party’s policies thus: A: The “Gang of Four” didn’t like satire (fengci). B: They were afraid of getting pricked.1 A: They said, performing xiangsheng is like spreading poison, and causes air pollution. B: We’ve become a public menace. A: Today you have won a second liberation. B: We should be thankful to the Party’s policies for bringing us springtime in the arts and literature (in Tian 1981: 268).

In this way, xiangsheng retained politicised and eulogistic elements, albeit not quite to the same extent as during the Cultural Revolution. Master Hou Baolin, recently retired from public performing, contrasted the “old” and “new” (pre- and post-1949) societies, and called for artists to strive for the Four Modernizations (Hou et al. 1981: 180). Another xiangsheng volume from the late 1970s compiled by the Literature and Arts Department of the Central People’s Radio described Taiwan as “a precious island of the motherland” (Tian 1981: 156) and referred to the recent Message to Compatriots in Taiwan from the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. Clearly, xiangsheng in the late 1970s—at least, that which was recorded—managed to balance the imperative to toe the newly adjusted Party line, while still being “cathartic” (Moser 2018: 85).

Xiangsheng in the 1980s Rapid economic growth in China during the 1980s was accompanied by new possibilities for leisure. As the problem of basic subsistence (wenbao) began to be addressed, and as citizens were freed from the demands that

1 There is a play on words here: the syllable ci in fengci can also refer to thorns. This line could also be translated as “They were afraid of being satirized”.

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political campaigns had wrought upon their labour and time, some citizens now had the resources to enjoy non-essential activities. An urban consumer culture emerged, bringing with it renewed opportunities for autonomy (Davis 2005). Cultural products, too, had a place in this environment, becoming “a matter of consumption and marketing” (Lu 1997: 112). Thus, xiangsheng shed both its original lower-class roots and post1950s status as a tool of Maoist indoctrination to become an object of desire, albeit one still imbued with pro-CCP ideology. The introduction of television, cassette tapes and video tapes into the homes of Chinese families was a particularly significant cultural development. James Lull (2013 [1991]: 59 ff) details the progression from televisions in public to private spaces, from rare luxury to staple of modern living. TV spread xiangsheng throughout the country to an unprecedented extent, whereas it had previously been based in Beijing and Tianjin (Wang et al. 1995: 274–275). From humble beginnings, xiangsheng now also attracted various social classes, ages and sexes (Link 1984: 84). Televised xiangsheng became popular as a form of light entertainment by the early 1990s (Wang et al. 1995: 157), such that Moser reported that xiangsheng was broadcast “every day” on Chinese radio, in television variety shows and on train journeys (Moser 1990: 47). Reflecting on 30 years of “reform and opening up”, xiangsheng performer Li Jindou credited the popularisation of television with the popularity of the art, and raising the status and living standards of xiangsheng performers (Yang 2008). While both a product and disseminator of popular culture, television has also served as a bridge between the party and the people (Lull 2013 [1991]: 78). In particular, from its inception in 1983, the annual CCTV Spring Festival Gala (chun wan) has become a staple of family life and the consumption of both popular and official culture. It has also become a stage for xiangsheng. In that first year, celebrated xiangsheng performers Jiang Kun and his master Ma Ji hosted the Gala, reflecting the high profile of the art form. During the evening, they performed a skit pertaining to family planning, as the government’s one-child policy was in full swing: A: There’s a poster on the main street; I don’t know whether you’ve seen it? B: Which one? A: It’s especially big. It shows a woman holding a small girl, with the caption underneath: “it’s good for mum to have just one”. B: I’ve seen it, it’s a poster promoting family planning. A: What does the caption mean?

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B: It’s our state’s policy: one child per husband and wife. A: Then how come it says “it’s good for mum to have just one”? B: What’s the problem with it? A: It’s good for mum to have just one, but how many is good for Grandma? B: What’s it got to do with Grandma? A: It’s good for mum to have just one, but Grandma can still have seven? B: Seriously? Who interprets it like that? A: Some people do (Jiang and Ma 1983).

Feng Gong, another student of Ma Ji and also a well-known actor, became a fixture of the Spring Festival Gala from the mid-1980s, appearing in 33 consecutive years over 1986–2018. In his debut, he shared the stage with Liu Wei and performed the duanzi “Speaking of tigers in the Year of the Tiger” (Hu nian shuo hu) (Feng and Liu). The New Year’s Gala is known for its political messaging (Zhao 1998), and the skit gave exhortations about continuing the work of “reform and opening up”, and eulogised the Chinese military: Liu: Today, in a China that is developing rapidly, we must have the drive of a tiger that sends its prey flying, pressing forward heroically with indomitable will, dauntless determination, and a spirit of constant selfimprovement … The word ‘tiger’ appears in lots of proverbs and idioms. Feng: Really? Liu: I’ll give an example. Feng: Go on. Liu: When describing the great state of industry and agriculture since the third plenum of the national Party congress … Feng: How do you put it? Liu: That is truly “dragons rising and tigers leaping” (that is, bustling activity) … Then it was Feng’s turn. Feng: Our resolve towards reform… Liu: Is like what? Feng: “Going deep into the mountains, knowing well there are tigers there” (that is, forging ahead). How’s that for a tiger? Liu: Speaking of our soldiers on the frontlines, each and every one of them is a hero with the gall of a tiger, attacking the enemy like a fierce tiger descending a mountain, so that the enemy turns

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pale at the mere mention of a tiger—there’s three tigers! (Feng and Liu)

Reflecting social and cultural transformations in China throughout the 1980s, new types of xiangsheng performers rose to prominence. A select number of “foreigner” (laowai) performers gained much popularity. The most famous of these was (and still is) Canadian Mark Rowswell, known affectionately in Chinese as “Dashan”. The name comes from the character Xu Dashan, which sprung to fame in the 1989 Spring Festival Gala skit (xiao pin) “Returning at night” (Ye gui). A student—even considering himself an “adopted son”—of Jiang Kun (Wong 1990), Rowswell’s quick wit and superb Mandarin won him the adulation of Chinese audiences. Also reflecting China’s increasing integration into the global community, there was international travel and artistic exchange for a small number of Chinese xiangsheng artists from the early 1980s (Wang et al. 1995: 295–298). Female xiangsheng artists became active and popular in Taiwan and Singapore in the early 1980s (Wang et al. 1995: 291). Later that decade, a new wave of female xiangsheng performers emerged in mainland China. Shan Lianli studied alongside Guo Degang and is the only female student of Hou Yaowen (son of xiangsheng legend Hou Baolin). In 1988, she became the first female xiangsheng performer to grace the Spring Festival Gala and became a household name with her performance (together with Wang Quan) of a variation on an old skit, “The Mediation”2 : Shan: Ai, I say, even among people of a similar age, so much depends on who says something, who to, and how. Wang: I have to listen to this. Shan: For example, a husband and wife are fighting and the two of us go to mediate. The man speaks to the man and the woman to the woman. Wang: Does it have to be this way? Shan: If you don’t believe me, speak to the man—you’ll be much more comfortable. Wang: In that case I’ll have a try. Shan: Go on.

2 “The Mediation” (Quan jia) was originally a dankou xiangsheng performed by Liu Baorui and recorded in Liu and Yin (1983: 424–426).

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Wang: “Aiya, how come the two of you are fighting again? Sis, heck— you’re even holding a rolling pin! Sis, my brother here is so goodnatured: when he’s wronged at home, he never says anything about it. Where else will you find someone this hen-pecked? Bro, cool it, go over to my place and watch some Donald Duck!” Yes, I’m comfortable speaking like that. Shan: If the woman goes across she has to speak to the other woman. Wang: So go on. Shan: “Yo, brother, why are you standing there with one bare foot? Sis aches for you. You do two night shifts, run five minutes late, and she goes up to the intersection looking for you 27 times! She won’t wait for you to cook! Sis, never mind him, let’s go play soccer!” Wang: Ok, ok, ok! Shan: Is it or is it not like that? Wang: Yes! Ai, what if we trade places? Shan: You mean if you go and speak to the woman, and I go and speak to the man? Wang: Is that different? Shan: In that case, the more we mediate the fiercer the fighting! Wang: No way. Shan: If you don’t believe me, start again. Wang: Okay. “Aiyo, fighting again! Sis, don’t be afraid, I’m here! (To the man) You prick, what are you yelling about? Are you taking advantage of sis’s good nature? I could tell you weren’t genuine on the day you were married. How has our sister wronged you? Take a look: all the parts of her face are where they’re meant to be! If you don’t think much of her, I tell you, I’ve fancied her for ages! Sis, never mind him, come for a stroll with me!” Shan: Is that proper? Wang: No, it’s outrageous. Ai, let me see, if the woman goes and talks to the man … Shan: Even worse! Wang: Yes. Shan: “Yo, yo, yo, this house is like dishes in a restaurant—always heated! Bro, never mind her, lest you get liver cancer!3 (To the woman) Humph, so you have a loud voice: you’re fierce, you’re a shrew! Look at your disgusting behaviour! Bro, never mind her, let’s go to my place and drink yoghurt!” 3 There is a popular association in Chinese medicine between anger and adverse liver health. The implication here is that the husband’s pent-up anger towards his wife may cause liver cancer.

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Wang: No! (Shan & Wang)

“The Mediation” was notable for its featuring of a female performer, and also its flirtation, however slight, which had been regarded as bourgeois during the puritanical Cultural Revolution. This skit thus reflected the re-emergence of romance in the public sphere, which had been taboo or at least heavily regulated during the previous decades. As Jiang Kun and Li Wenhua’s 1979 xiangsheng piece “Poetry, Song and Love” (Shi, ge yu aiqing ; reprinted in Wu 1996: 348ff) put it, the Gang of Four labelled even love songs from the 1950s as “pornographic” (“yellow” ). A character in that xiangsheng claimed that “In fact, our great Chinese race (Zhonghua minzu) has the purest, highest form of love”, and in a tongue-in-cheek manner pointed out that nothing less than ancient texts such as the Book of Poetry (Shijing ) wrote of romantic love. In this way, romance re-entered the stage in small steps. Indeed, the first decade after the Cultural Revolution witnessed a comparatively liberal political environment and writers and other workers enjoyed more freedom in their creations. Xiangsheng works produced from the middle of the 1980s reflected topical social issues and malaise such as marriage for money, inept bureaucracy, corruption and bribery. For example, the Beijing-based writer Liang Zuo created many popular xiangsheng works such as “Lift Accident” (Dianti qiyu), “Thief Company” (Xiaotou gongsi) and “Big News” (Teda xinwen). Some of these works were critical of official bureaucratism and corruption and were reasonably effective as anti-government satire. In the following excerpt of “Lift Accident” performed by Jiang Kun and his performing partner Tang Jiezhong in the 1988 Spring Festival Gala, instead of saving the people who are trapped in the broken lift, the leaders of a work unit draw a forced analogy between the accident and government policies: Jiang: I want to see who is shut in! Such an old lift, it’s not at all odd that it shut someone in —– it would be odd if it hadn’t shut someone in. Tang: But what to do about the fact that it’s shut someone in now? Jiang: Oh, that’s tricky! If you were shut in that would be a bad thing for you; but for the bigger picture, for our whole revolutionary enterprise … there’s no benefit either, is there? So, this is a kind of contradiction in the changeover period between old and new systems (tizhi), and new buildings and old lifts. If you’re shut in at present, you will be temporarily unaccustomed to your situation, right? Tang: It’s hard to bear! Jiang: But what if a rather long historical period had passed?

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Tang: Then … it would be even worse! Jiang: So, you must study harder, enrich yourself, go and walk amongst the masses … Tang: Can he walk out [if he’s trapped in a lift]?

… Jiang: Say if you’re stuck in here for quite a few days, would you be anxious or not? Tang: Yes! Jiang: Can anxiety alone solve the problem? Tang: No. Jiang: You can’t be shut in here forever? Tang: No way! Jiang: If you don’t go to work for a long time, can your unit (danwei) leader still approve your salary? Tang: No! Jiang: If everyone were shut in like you, could the “Four Modernizations“ be achieved? Tang: Nope. Jiang: “How about “national reunification”? Tang: Nope. Jiang: Could those missions identified by the 13th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party4 be … Tang: I said, you must understand, it’s not that people want to be shut in; it’s that they can’t get out! Jiang: It was from precisely this question that I started, from the scope within my power, to resolve your problem, ok? Tang: Great! Jiang: Let’s do it now, for efficiency! Here’s a letter requesting transfer of personnel from your unit. Come over with your contacts. It can be as if you’re working in the lift: during the day turn up for work and at night you’re on duty. If you want to sleep then have a nap; if you can’t sleep then help catch baddies or something. What do you guys think of my idea? Tang: It’s stupid! How can he catch baddies if he’s stuck in here? Jiang: So class enemies are walking around in broad daylight and you’re inside just watching? Tang: What else can I do?

4 This was held in late 1987.

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Jiang: So if the class enemy runs off, you won’t even chase him? Tang: Can I get out? Jiang: Can’t you use your legs to trip him up from inside? Tang: Can I stick my legs out? (Liang et al. 1988)

Similarly, “Thief Company”, performed by Feng Gong and Niu Qun in the 1990 Spring Festival Gala, satirised the inept bureaucracy in socialist work units and organisations: Niu: I’ve really had enough. Feeling vexed, having to be frugal, being on guard, furtive the whole day in order to steal a bit like this, living not at all at ease: I’ve really had enough, I regret becoming a thief. Feng: It’s good you’ve understood! Niu: It’s worse than highway robbery! With highway robbery if you’re caught you’re shot dead, meaning that you don’t have to live through hell. Feng: Hey, I say, as long as you have resolved to reform yourself, I will help you with all my might. Niu: You have a good heart, I’m moved. Feng: Right? Niu: But even if I wash my hands of it entirely, they still won’t let me off. Feng: You’ve joined a gang? Niu: Who’s joined a gang? Feng: Then …. Niu: I’ve joined something called the “Thief Company”. Feng: Thief Company? Niu: Its full name is Thief Financial Corporation. Feng: How many people in this company of yours? Niu: More than a hundred. Feng: More than a hundred thieves? Niu: They’re not all thieves. Only two of us are really holding on to work at the frontlines. Feng: Then what about the others? Niu: They’re all leading cadres. Feng: Your Thief Company also has leading cadres? Niu: Of course! The speed of a train depends on the locomotive leading it. When the cadres take the lead, thieves have get up and go. Without leaders, the thieves would not thieve well—they would either steal less, or be unable to get away with it (Liang et al. 1990).

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In Thief Company, Liang Zuo successfully enlisted political and official rhetoric to depict the operation of a fabricated overstaffed thief company, which foreground rampant bureaucratism and the inefficiency of socialist work units and government organisations. The fact that the skit was performed in the Spring Festival Gala indicated that such material was politically acceptable. However, this was not always to be the case.

Xiangsheng in the 1990s The Tiananmen Square massacre of June 4, 1989, was a turning point for xiangsheng, as for other artistic forms. Sheldon Lu (1997: 125) identifies changes in Chinese cultural theory and criticism post-Tiananmen, taking 1989 as a watershed in China’s cultural and intellectual history. Where art had been characterised by “the relentless, fearless, and direct critique of China’s past and present for the construction of a new historical subject— a Chinese modernity, art in post-New China [was] compromise, indirect intervention, parody, and pastiche”. In 1991, precisely these elements came under attack in a campaign to sweep away “gray culture”, where “gray” stood for “the doubtful, ironic, lackadaisical, and cynical elements of society” (Barmé 1999: 100). There was thus tighter ideological control and increased official sensitivity towards satire. This sensibility was one of several factors leading to the decline of xiangsheng in the 1990s (Moser 2018: 88–89ff). Writing in 1995, Wang Jue et al. (1995: 308) bemoaned the plight of xiangsheng since the 1980s. There was a widespread sense of it having entered a valley or a time of crisis. They attributed this partly to new problems that had arisen in the reform era, namely: 1. The impact of diversification in entertainment: audiences had diverse tastes and sought new forms of entertainment, which brought fierce competition to xiangsheng. The rise of comical skit (xiaopin) as a performing arts style, and the increase in other mediums for entertainment, together undermined the popularity of xiangsheng (Xiang 2008: 156; Gao 2003: 100); 2. The impact of media—specifically, television. 3. The impact of changes in the system (tizhi): while the management before the Cultural Revolution had surely been overly strict, there was now lax control which saw actors dispersed and fighting for their own survival. (One example that springs to mind here is that low reimbursement of writing xiangsheng pieces caused many talented writers such as Liang Zuo to quit the profession, while others became screenwriters for TV serials and sitcoms.) To this we might add that the

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development of xiangsheng was further hindered by many performers’ lack of traditional technique and their lack of sharp observation of real life which together made the art form appear to be outdated. Moser thus assesses much xiangsheng content from the 1990s as “irrelevant blather” (2018: 89). In the years around the turn of the millennium, the advent of the Chinese Internet “opened up new spaces for humor and satire” (Moser 2018: 89). Comedic practices such as the circulation of e’gao spoofs helped to create a sense of “connectivity” among internet users, even if they magnified rather than combatted existing societal trends (Yates and Hasmath 2017: 11, 13), or were otherwise subjected to the full strength of China’s censorship apparatus (Larmer 2011). Although netizens were still a small proportion of the population at the end of 1999, numbering just under 9 million (CNNIC 2012), the Internet was to become a key part of popular culture and a vehicle for comic and quyi performances. In the Spring Festival Television Gala of 1999, Feng Gong and his frequent artistic collaborator Niu Qun performed the xiangsheng “Look at those two dads” (Qiao zhe lia die)—a skit in which two fathers bemoaned their academically lacklustre sons. On the cusp of the new millennium, the performance reflected the times in which China found itself. First, it engaged with global figures and events. Niu said that he had named his son Newton in order to give him good prospects; Feng had named his Ostrovsky (likely after a Russian socialist realist writer whose work was made into a television series in China). What would he have named his child if it were a girl, asked Niu? “Lewinksy”, referencing the contemporaneous sex scandal involving US President Clinton. Second, as the name Newton suggested, the skit reflected the aspirations prevalent in Chinese society—to test well and climb the social strata. Finally, the skit rued that children nowadays did not know how to “eat bitterness” (chi ku), meaning to endure hardship. Whereas older generations had been through famine, natural disasters and wave upon wave of mass political campaigns, children today were cushioned and entitled “Little Emperors” (xiao huangdi), products of the one-child policy. In all, Chinese society underwent momentous transformations during the period 1976–2000, and these were reflected in the xiangsheng produced during those years. From fresh discussion of love to Taiwan and family planning, the skits remind us that the CCP has used satirical power “throughout its entire history” (Gao and Pugsley 2008: 455ff). Yet not all skits were wholly favourable to the CCP. Highlighting of bureaucracy and inefficiency, the practice of “taking the back door” and the still-raw

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injuries of the past: in touching on all of these topics, performers deftly assessed the limits of the Party’s tolerance. Their work now gives us snapshots of popular and official trends, and an understanding of the artistic environment in which Guo Degang was raised.

References Barmé, Geremie R. 1979. Flowers or More Weeds?—Culture in China since the Fall of the Gang of Four. The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 1: 125–133. Barmé, Geremie R. 1999. In the Red: On Contemporary Chinese Culture. New York: Columbia University Press. Chang Baohua, and Chang Guitian. 1976. Maozi gongchang [The Hat Factory]. Available: https://baike.baidu.com/item/帽子工厂. Retrieved 22 June 2020. CNNIC (China Internet Network Information Centre). 2012. The Internet Timeline of China 1986–2003. Available: http://cnnic.com.cn/IDR/hlw fzdsj/201306/t20130628_40563.htm. Retrieved 22 June 2020. Davis, Deborah. 2005. Urban Consumer Culture. The China Quarterly 183: 692–709. Deng Xiaoping. 1979. Speech Greeting the Fourth Congress of Chinese Writers and Artists. Available: https://dengxiaopingworks.wordpress.com/2013/ 02/25/speech-greeting-the-fourth-congress-of-chinese-writers-and-artists/. Retrieved 22 June 2020. Feng Gong, and Liu Wei. Xiangsheng hunian shuo hu [Speaking of Tigers in the Year of the Tiger]. Available: https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/128 295719.html. Retrieved 22 June 2020. Gao, Jia, and Peter C. Pugsley. 2008. Utilizing Satire in Post-Deng Chinese Politics: Zhao Benshan Xiaopin vs. the Falun Gong. China Information XX11 (3): 451–576. Gao Yuzong. 2003. Chuantong xiangsheng de huigui yu xiangsheng yishu de fazhan [The Return of Traditional Xiangsheng and the Development of the Xiangsheng Arts]. Wenyi Yanjiu [Literature and Arts Review] 2: 100–105. He Chi. 1982. He Chi xiangsheng chuangzuoji [Collection of He Chi’s xiangsheng Works]. Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe. Hou Baolin, and Liu Zufa. 1983. Hou Baolin tan xiangsheng [Hou Baolin on xiangsheng]. Ha’erbin: Heilongjiang renmin chubanshe. Hou Baolin, Xue Baokun, Wang Jingshou, and Li Wanpeng. 1981. Xiangsheng yishu lunji [Collected Essays on the Art of xiangsheng]. Ha’erbin: Heilongjiang renmin chubanshe. Jiang Kun, and Ma Ji. 1983. Cuo zoule zhe yi bu [Misstepped]. Available: http://www.xiaopin88.com/jiangkun/15272.html. Retrieved 22 June 2020.

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Kaikkonen, Marja. 1990. Laughable Propaganda: Modern Xiangsheng as Didactic Entertainment. Doctoral Dissertation. Stockholm, Sweden: Stockholm University Institute of Oriental Languages. Larmer, Brook. 2011. Where an Internet Joke Is Not Just a Joke. Available: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/magazine/the-dangerous-pol itics-of-internet-humor-in-china.html. Retrieved 22 June 2020. Liang Zuo, Jiang Kun, and Tang Jiezhong. 1988. Dianti qiyu [Lift Accident]. Available: https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/27781543.html. Retrieved 22 June 2020. Liang Zuo, Feng Gong, and Niu Qun. 1990. Xiaotou gongsi [Thief Company]. Available: https://baike.baidu.com/item/小偷公司/3036738. Retrieved 22 June 2020. Link, Perry. 1984. The Genie and the Lamp: Revolutionary Xiangsheng. In Popular Chinese Literature and Performing Arts in the People’s Republic of China, 1949–1979, ed. Bonnie S. McDougall, 83–111. Berkeley: University of California Press. Liu Baorui, and Yin Wenshuo. 1983. Liu Baorui biaoyan dankou xiangsheng xuan [A Selection of dankou xiangsheng Performed by Liu Baorui]. Beijing: Zhongguo quyi chubanshe. Lu, Sheldon Hsiao-peng. 1997. Art, Culture and Cultural Criticism in Post-New China. New Literary History 28 (1): 111–131. Lull, James. 2013 [1991].China Turned On: Television, Reform and Resistance. London: Routledge. Moser, David. 1990. Reflexivity in the Humor of Xiangsheng. Chinoperl Papers 15: 45–68. Moser, David. 2018. Keeping the Ci in Fengci: A Brief History of the Chinese Verbal Art of Xiangsheng. In Not Just a Laughing Matter: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Political Humor in China, ed. King-fai Tam and Sharon R. Wesoky, 77–95. Singapore: Springer. Qiao Tianbi. 2009. Coupling and Uncoupling Chinese Style. China Today 58 (9): 50–54. Ruci zhaoxiang [Taking a Photo]. 1979. Available: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=QPBVQvQU5Y0. Retrieved 22 June 2020. Shan Lianli, and Wang Quan. Quan jia [The Mediation]. 1988. Available: https://v.qq.com/x/page/p0024bsqfdi.html. Retrieved 22 June 2020. Teda xinwen [Big News]. 1988. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= bLPYKCXdXNc. Retrieved 22 June 2020. Tian Weixian (ed.). 1981. Guangbo li de xiaosheng: Xiangsheng ji [Broadcasting Laughter: Collected xiangsheng]. Beijing: Baowentang shudian. Wang Jue, Wang Jingshou, and Teng Tianxiang. 1995. Zhongguo xiangsheng shi [A History of Chinese xiangsheng]. Beijing: Beijing Yanshan chubanshe.

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Wang Minglu. 1981. Jie da huan xi [Everybody Happy]. Beijing: Zhongguo quyi chubanshe. Wong, Jan. (1990, October 11). Student Known as Big Mountain Gets Marriage Offers, Adulation After Becoming ‘Overnight Sensation’ in a TV Variety Show Skit. Globe & Mail [Toronto, Canada], p. A1. Available: https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A164426411/AONE?u=uni melb&sid=AONE&xid=71c4ec44. Retrieved 6 May 2020. Wu Wenke. 1996. Zhongguo xiangsheng jingcui [Selected Chinese xiangsheng]. Beijing: Tongxin chubanshe. Xiang, Shi. 2008. Lun Xiangsheng chuantong de jicheng yu fazhan [Commentary on the Inheritance and Development of the Traditions of Xiangsheng Performance]. Hunan Diyi Shifan Xuebao 8 (3): 155–157. Yang Yang. 2008. Xiangsheng xiaopin 30 nian zhuanchang huigu gaige kaifang yilai lishi [Special Retrospective on 30 Years of xiangsheng and xiaopin in the Reform Era]. Available: https://yule.sohu.com/20081202/n260976470. shtml. Retrieved 22 June 2002. Yates, Mathew, and Reza Hasmath. 2017. When a Joke Is More Than a Joke: Humor as a Form of Networked Practice in the Chinese Cyber Public Sphere. The Journal of Chinese Sociology 4 (17): 1–14. Zhao Bin. 1998. Popular Family Television and Party Ideology: The Spring Festival Eve Happy Gathering. Media, Culture and Society 20: 43–58.

CHAPTER 3

The Revival of Xiangsheng in the New Millennium

Guo Degang was born in Tianjin in 1973. Tianjin, a close neighbour of Beijing, has been a historical centre of Chinese folk art forms. According to Guo’s recount, when he was a child, he frequented a folk arts club near his father’s workplace, a police station. Chinese folk art forms, or “popular performing arts” (quyi) according to Perry Link (2007: 215), include ballad singing (min’ge), storytelling (pingshu), local opera (difangxiqu), clapper talks (kuaibaner) and xiangsheng. These arts were popular among Chinese commoners both before and after the revolution of 1949. During China’s dynasties, traditional folk art performances served as the main source of Chinese people’s entertainments and a focus of their leisure life, whether one belonged to the rich social strata or the lower social class. In China pre-1949, the upper social classes including nobles and monarchs held private theatricals (tanghui), which was an entertainment party with hired performers held at home on auspicious occasions. Normally during these celebratory occasions, Peking Opera (jingju) were performed by famous performers. In comparison, the people from the lower social echelon preferred or could only afford folk arts performances such as storytelling and cross-talk offered by street performers or in teahouses. Due to his frequent visits to the folk arts club as a child, Guo Degang was gradually and unconsciously influenced by what he constantly heard and saw and he was apprenticed to an experienced folk art performer at the age of seven, with a particular focus on learning storytelling. © The Author(s) 2020 S. Cai and E. Dunn, Xiangsheng and the Emergence of Guo Degang in Contemporary China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-8116-8_3

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According to the tradition of the Chinese folk art profession, one begins with study with a teacher, normally an old and experienced performer, usually at the teacher’s home. The relationship between the disciple and the master is as close as that between father and son. Therefore, the student waits on the teacher including cooking, cleaning and childminding for the teacher, while the teacher passes on knowledge and skills of the folk arts performances. This bond between the disciple and the master is different from the paid imparting of knowledge and skills when, for example, one learns piano or violin with a teacher, which is normally the case in contemporary China. In the traditional Chinese relationship between disciples and masters, which was practised in the circles such as folk arts and martial arts, instead of paying the teachers tuition fees, the students participated in the daily life of the teachers, and so their bond was more close and intimate. In the case of Guo Degang, he seemed to learn a lot from this traditional practice of knowledge and skill acquisition, which he enlisted in his Deyun Club (Deyunshe) and which will be detailed in Chapter 5 of this book. Guo Degang first studied storytelling with his teacher at the age of seven. Two years later, he changed his preference from storytelling to xiangsheng, and after years of practice, he became an expert in a broad range of folk art forms including xiangsheng, Peking Opera, local opera of north and northeast China (pingju), drum song (dagu), Hebei clapper (Hebei bangzi) and an old Chinese folk art similar to drum song (taiping geci) (Qian 2006: 51). Compared to older-generation xiangsheng masters such as the acclaimed Hou Baolin [1917–1993], the majority of younger-generation xiangsheng performers lack the skills and practice to vividly imitate other folk art forms and sing the taiping geci, which require years of strict and intensive training. In contrast to these younger-generation xiangsheng performers, the rich employment of the folk art forms in his xiangsheng works has become a distinct feature of Guo Degang’s performances. One of the reasons that xiangsheng lost its popularity among presentday Chinese audiences is that it came to lack traditional features such as the inclusion of other folk art forms in its works, which in our opinion differentiates it from other modern-day mass entertainment genres such as television skit and talk show. And it is exactly because of this that xiangsheng and other traditional Chinese folk art forms have become unknown to the majority of younger-generation Chinese audiences. As a result, as a representative form of traditional folk performing arts, and a part of the

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intangible cultural heritage of China, xiangsheng was in danger of being lost in the barrage of new entertainment mediums around the turn of the millennium (Liu 2010: 1). In this sense, the emergence of Guo Degang’s xiangsheng performance has helped to salvage the valuable cultural legacy of xiangsheng performance and indeed has been instrumental in rescuing traditional entertainment folk art genres. A good example of Guo Degang’s endeavour and talent can be found in “Lenin in 1918” (Liening zai 1918), as it exposes the sound basic skills of Guo’s training in folk art forms and his genius in vividly imitating different genres such as Beijing drum song (jingyun dagu), pingju and Hebei bangzi. For example, in “Lenin in 1918”, Guo Degang sings an excerpt from the famous Bai School Beijing drum song “Coordinating One Stratagem with Another” (lianhuanji). Guo Degang also cleverly inserts pingju ballads into the plots of a classic movie from the former Soviet Union, Lenin in 1918, and achieves a farcical effect. At the end of “Lenin in 1918” is the classic piece in which Guo imitates the dialogue between Lenin and his colleagues in the original film using the aria and melody of pingju: Guo: Lenin arrives on the scene: The October Revolution has just succeeded. Yu: Hup! [looks unhappy] Guo [singing pingju]: The exchequer is worried that grain stores have receded. I, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin …

Yu: What’s with this strange singing? Guo: I commanded Vasily to go get grain, but look at the time, and he’s still not back. What do you think is going on? [singing] Lenin rides to the Kremlin, calls Sverdlov 1 forth to take his orders. Yu: Oh! [confused] Guo: I commanded Vasily to go get grain, but look at the time, and he’s still not ba-aaa-aaa-ck.

1 Yakov Sverdlov (1885–1919) was a Bolshevik party administrator and chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, which was the highest legislative and administrative body of Russia.

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Sverdlov sings too. [Singing]: tell Comrade Lenin, don’t wor-ry… Of this I have asked Dzer-zhin-sky 2 Yu: Who are all these people? Guo: He also says Petersburg’s transport isn’t great /even if they could get grain there is no freight! Yu: Aiya! Guo: Vasily has always worked conscientiously, so relax. I, Vladimir Il-y-ich … Then Vasily, drawing on Hebei clapper song (bangzi): [Singing] Fighting one’s way out of the Winter Palace, St. Peters …[vibrato] burg… Yu: Aiya, even trilling! Guo: Drum roll: Vasily enters the stage I grabbed quite a few bags of grain, stepped on the gas, came straight baa-aaa-ack … Comrade Lenin, I brought the grain back for you! Yu: Oh! Guo: Comrade Lenin says: Great! Yu: Aiya! [confused] Guo: Vasily takes out a quilted jacket: Comrade Lenin, this was given to your venerable self as a token of respect from the people of Petersburg. Lenin comes and takes it, tells Vasily (singing): This fur-lined jacket is given to thee, as a sign of our brotherly class camaraderie -ee-ee. It will see you through battle, through wind and rai-ai-ain. This particular furlined ja-a-a-cket can be used as a sheet or a quilt, often washed and dried in the sun, often tugged and often pulled, often trodden and tram-pled … Yu: Hold it, hold it, is this from “Lenin in October”? Guo: No, it’s from “Selling Cloth.”3 Yu: Up yours!

(Guo “Liening zai 1918”) Rediscovering and rejuvenation of different folk art performing genres has not only popularised these folk arts with a younger generation but also made their survival and inheritance in present-day China possible and meaningful. Another distinguishing trait of Guo Degang’s xiangsheng performance is his broad enlistment of taiping geci in his works. Those loyal fans of

2 Dzerzhinsky was a Bolshevik revolutionary and official. 3 Selling Cloth (Mai butou) is a well-known xiangsheng piece which originated in the

early twentieth century but has also been performed by Guo Degang and Yu Qian. The script can be found in Wu (1996: 232ff).

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Guo’s xiangsheng performances usually sing together with Guo and other performers at the start and end of their performances an aria of taiping geci “Big Truth” (dashihua), which Guo creates and performs in almost all of his works: You say the heavens are dear but they’re not; the heavens have sun, moon and stars. Sunrise, sunset: the months pass, aging people quickly and taking so many of their number from this earth. You say the earth is dear, but it’s not either; everything the earth grows is precious as gold. Striving for fame and gain for so many years; yet behold graves new and old. If you must speak of being dear, the audience is dear; the audience and performers are joined heart to heart. I recall the old saying, “without gentlemen the artist will starve”. Yesterday I braved wind and snow to head north of the Great Wall; today I descended south of the Yangtze to peach and apricot blossoms in spring. I beg you all, do not take up wine, sex, avarice and temper; nor fall prey to wining, dining, whoring and gambling. If you have nothing to do take up Deyun Society, listening to a couple of xiangsheng skits will drive away your cares. I tip my hat to you all, may you grow wealthy and prosper. (“Da shi hua” n.d.)

There is another version of “Big Truth”: You say the heavens are dear but they’re not; the heavens have sun, moon and stars. The ancients cannot see today’s moon, yet the same bright moon once shone on them. You say the earth is dear, but it’s not either; everything the earth grows is precious as gold. Where are the generals and warhorses today? Who will the weeds and flowers wait for? You say people of the same occupation are dear, but sometimes they are not that close, jockeying for power, it’s disappointing. So many years spent scrambling for fame and gain, slaughtering each other up until the present day. If you must speak of being dear, the audience is dear; the audience and performers are joined heart to heart. I recall the old saying, “without gentlemen the artist will starve”.

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Yesterday I braved wind and snow to head north of the Great Wall; today I descended south of the Yangtze to peach and apricot blossoms in spring. I beg you all, do not take up wine, sex, avarice and temper; nor fall prey to wining, dining, whoring and gambling. If you have nothing to do take up Deyun Society, listening to a couple of xiangsheng skits will drive away your cares. I tip my hat to you all, may you grow wealthy and prosper. (“Da shi hua” n.d.)

“Big Truth” gives voice to Guo Degang’s outlook on life and his criticism of the competition within the xiangsheng circle of contemporary China, which reflects the reality of present-day China’s officialdom and career field at a micro-level. Therefore, “Big Truth” strikes a chord with many audiences as they live in the competitive, materialistic and impetuous Chinese society, which builds a bridge between its contemporary Chinese audience and traditional folk art performance. Also, Guo Degang makes it very clear that his success and the achievement of the Deyun Club are largely reliant on the support of the general audience rather than backing from relevant governmental organisations and the xiangsheng community. The wide adaptation of traditional xiangsheng pieces into his modernday xiangsheng performance constitutes another notable characteristic of Guo Degang’s xiangsheng creation. Some of Guo’s best works such as “The Great Bodyguard” (Dabaobiao) and “To be Master of Both the Pen and the Sword” (Wenwu shuangquan) are representatives of his revamping of traditional xiangsheng pieces. In addition to retrieving traditional xiangsheng works, Guo Degang has also resurrected the vulgar nature of traditional xiangsheng pieces. There is a tradition that the CCP enlisted popular performing art forms to mobilise the masses and facilitate its propaganda, before or after the liberation period. Particularly, since the founding of New China (the PRC) in 1949, xiangsheng works, together with other indigenous traditional folk arts forms, were enlisted as a practical tool by the CCP to spread socialist education and promote its propaganda (Mackerras 1981: 9; Kaikkonen 1990: 7; Holm 1991: 1; Link 2007: 215; Gerdes 2008: 138). This transformation of xiangsheng championed the merging of this grassroots form of entertainment with a political agenda. Xiangsheng became fully developed during the Qing Dynasty (1644– 1911) where it enjoyed great popularity, especially among the lower

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social strata such as labourers, peddlers, rickshaw pullers and menial workers in restaurants and public baths. Consequently, vulgar and pornographic comical elements (baofu) and risqué jokes run throughout traditional xiangsheng works. Therefore, the “de-vulgarising” of xiangsheng achieved by the Group in the early stage of socialist China removed rather than maintained the original essence of this folk art genre as a source of mass entertainment. In comparison, Guo Degang’s revamp of the prime values of traditional xiangsheng works returned to the intended purpose of this folk art performing form. Vulgarity is a distinct feature of Guo Degang’s xiangsheng style. Guo’s vulgarity is a mixture of his folklore roots with his commoner’s background which provides for him a grassroots cultural experience. Guo describes his characters accordingly: the majority of them are common folks; some are unfamiliar with social etiquette, and some even look like hooligans (“Guo Degang he Zhao Benshan” 2006). Guo Degang’s xiangsheng is not meant to educate, and he rejects any form of strict demarcation between refined taste or elegance and vulgarity and moral imperfection in his xiangsheng performance. Guo Degang has mentioned numerous times in his performances that TV stations banned his works. Those works that are banned by the TV stations dealt with the realities of modern life such as prostitution and materialism, which offend the party censors. However, those earthy and bawdy contents of Guo Degang’s xiangsheng works that have landed him in trouble precisely capture the essence of traditional xiangsheng works. The unpretentious and coarse (to some) elements in Guo Degang’s xiangsheng creations are found mainly in sexual innuendos that are implicit depictions of pornography and prostitution (Zhu 2006; “Guo Degang he Zhao Benshan” 2006). Guo’s down-to-earth and obscene taunts are identical to the material targeted by the post-liberation performers attempting to bring xiangsheng into line with CCP policy. In this regard, Guo Degang “de-moralises” and “de-ideologises” xiangsheng, restoring the original essence of xiangsheng performance. A traditional xiangsheng means of derision is improvised lines (xiangua). During a performance, a performer may change or simply add a few lines to the pieces according to the special occasion, public and time, which is to catch the public’s attention more effectively (Kaikkonen 1990: 243). Xiangua is widely adopted in Guo Degang’s performance, in which he playfully mocks a performing partner or other performers, and their wives, children and other family members. The teasing usually focuses on names, age, appearance or the subject’s abnormal or immoral behaviour.

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For instance, giving the performing partner’s father a different surname to the partner indicates the partner’s illegitimate identity; hinting at affairs concerning the partner’s wife puts the partner in an awkward situation. In numerous works, Guo Degang improvised on his performing partner, Yu Qian’s name: Guo: “This is the famous xiangsheng performer, Lu Bian.” Yu: “I must stop you here. Please say my name clearly. The way you pronounce it makes it sounds like an aphrodisiac.” Guo: “His surname is Yu, so his full name is Yu Bian.” Yu: “So it is getting smaller.” Guo: “It is a whale actually.”

In the above-improvised lines, Guo Degang replaces Yu Qian with Lu Bian, which literally means the penis of a donkey as bian by itself refers to the male organ of an animal in the Chinese language. Further, in Chinese medical traditions and culture, an animal’s penis can be used as an aphrodisiac to enhance a man’s sexuality. As Yu is Yu Qian’s surname, Guo Degang thus changes it to yubian, which refers to a male fish’s sexual organ. To publicly, however implicitly, mention sexual organs is still very much a taboo within the Chinese cultural and media spheres. However, in traditional xiangsheng works, those off-colour jokes are ubiquitous and most popular among the audiences. One classical and representative traditional xiangsheng piece entitled “The Birdie Won’t Chirp” (Qiaor bujiao), which is full of off-colour jokes, has been discussed by Perry Link in his article “The Crocodile Bird: Xiangsheng in the Early 1950s” (Link 2007). According to Link’s writing, these pornographic xiangsheng works were labelled as “hun (meat-eating) to distinguish them from the su (vegetarian pieces that steered clear of sex)” (Link 2007: 211). In Link’s discussion about “The Birdie won’t Chirp”, he comments that this classic hun piece “relies on a double entendre in which ‘birdie’ is code for ‘penis’” (Link 2007: 211). The plot of this piece is that one of the xiangsheng performers and the audience understand the double entendre but the other performing partner (a female xiangsheng performer) pretends not to comprehend, and wants to know what the birdie looks like. We use Link’s quote in his article here as it is classic in demonstrating the vulgar baofu of traditional xiangsheng pieces, which are “indirect, subtle, and sometimes indeed very funny” (Link 2007: 211):

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Female performer: “Got feathers?” Male performer: “Nope, he’s smooth and bare all the way to the tail, where there’s a bunch of hair.” Female performer: “You mean feathers, right?” Male performer: “No, hair.” Female performer: “Hair? That’s a new one!… What about the eyes? Pigeon eyes or phoenix eyes?” Male performer: “Mm… only one eye, up top.” (Link 2007: 211–212)

The xiangsheng master Hou Baolin and other older-generation xiangsheng performers also had sound basic training and familiarity with traditional xiangsheng works. However, due to the political imperatives of the time, they made breakthroughs in reforming old xiangsheng pieces into new works that served the party’s policy lines mainly through removing these vulgar baofu and off-colour jokes. During the first decades of socialist China, this makeover was popular among Chinese people due to government propaganda and the lack of other mass entertainment devices; however, it sacrificed the essence of traditional xiangsheng works that was carried on by generations of xiangsheng performers and was enjoyed by the Chinese audiences. Due to the CCP’s prudish tradition of stabilising and consolidating its rule, the new-generation xiangsheng performers since Hou Baolin and his peers kept to the principles of purification of xiangsheng works. Therefore, the younger audiences did not have a chance to encounter traditional xiangsheng works that were resplendent with off-colour jokes. In this sense, Guo Degang’s attempt to retrieve the lost essence of traditional xiangsheng pieces, which both restored xiangsheng to its original form as a folk art genre and the popularity it once enjoyed among the general audience as a mass recreational device, is meaningful and laudable. Rather than enlisting those off-colour jokes in traditional xiangsheng works, Guo Degang created new off-colour baofu that reflected the daily life and social reality of contemporary China in his xiangsheng pieces. For example, in “Study Hard” (Haohao xuexi), overt puns and sexual innuendos were used by employing Japanese Adult Video actors as baofu. In his xiangua of his performing partner’s year of birth, he says: Guo: “The year you were born had a bad famine, and both the granary and the well were empty.” Yu: “You mean ‘cangjingkong’” (Guo, “Haohao xuexi”).

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“Cangjingkong” is the Chinese pronunciation of the name of a famous Japanese pornographic video actress, Aoi Sora. Japanese names are normally written in Chinese characters, and coincidently, cang, jing, and kong not only respectively rhyme but also have the same meaning as the Chinese characters “granary”, “well” and “empty”. “Cangjingkong” is a huge phenomenon in present-day China, and a bona fide celebrity. Thus, Guo Degang’s clever adoption of the name of a Japanese pornographic video actor in his xiangsheng works not only retrieves the vulgar essence of traditional xiangsheng pieces but also comments on the vulgarisation of contemporary Chinese popular culture. However, Guo Degang’s reforms have upset the official party line that promotes and depends on a prudish institution to maintain its rule and legitimacy, as his focus on pornography and prostitution is considered vulgar by the official discourse. For this reason, Guo Degang’s performance has long been excluded by the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, even though his work is highly popular. Contrary to the members of the Group who shifted the social function of xiangsheng from entertainment to the political tool of “serving the party”, Guo Degang has completed the paradigm shift by turning its focus back to “serving the people” as a means of entertainment and social criticism. In summary, Guo Degang has resurrected the essence of xiangsheng, successfully commercialised it in a market economy, and simultaneously deconstructed the official discourse through grassroots means. Due to the gargantuan success of his xiangsheng performance and the huge popularity Guo Degang enjoyed among the Chinese audience, he has successfully made his name a popular xiangsheng brand (Fan 2006: 85; Qian 2006: 52; Xiang 2008: 157). Guo Degang founded his own xiangsheng club in 1996, originally called Beijing Xiangsheng Meeting (Beijing xiangsheng dahui), which in 2003 was renamed the Deyun Club (Deyunshe). When the Deyun Club was first founded, it only had a couple of xiangsheng performers including Guo Degang himself; however today, it has become one of the biggest civil folk art groups in present-day China, which “holds up half the sky” of xiangsheng performance. Without any economic input from the government, the development and success of the club is legendary and can be regarded as a milestone in the history of xiangsheng. Together with the influence made by the Deyun Club in contemporary China’s xiangsheng circle, Guo Degang’s popularity began to grow in earnest at the end of 2005 and has lasted to present.

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Here, it is worth mentioning that someone who appraises Guo’s talent highly is Kang Dapeng, a host at Radio Beijing (Beijing renmin guangbodiantai). During the summer of 2004, Kang Dapeng was the host of Happy Teahouse, a radio programme focusing on xiangsheng works. But according to Kang, there were not many new xiangsheng pieces back then and the audiences were fed up with them. Kang was very frank when he said that those xiangsheng actors who were affiliated with professional performing art troupes performed only a couple of works repetitively and went years between new works (Huan 2018). Then he started to visit various xiangsheng forums on the Internet and noted Guo’s name. When Kang first visited Guo Degang’s performance in the teahouse, there were as few as one or two dozen in the audience; however, Guo’s performances immediately impressed him. Kang recorded Guo’s live performance and played the recordings during Happy Teahouse, which made Guo Degang’s xiangsheng works reach a larger audience, who then formed his fan base later. Kang also invited Guo and other Deyun Club performers to be guests on his programme and aired Guo’s works more frequently in Happy Teahouse. Kang was a loyal support to Guo even when Guo was targeted by the government as a representative during the anti-vulgarity campaign and Kang himself was implicated. Guo has expressed on numerous occasions that he has been very grateful for the continuous support offered by Kang and Radio Beijing (Huan 2018). Guo Degang’s success was also influenced by the contribution of the China Xiangsheng Web, which was initiated by Jiang Kun in 1996 and formally founded in 1998 (The Web was later sold to the SMI Corporation due to poor management). During 2004, many of Guo Degang’s xiangsheng works were uploaded to the Internet with the help of the China Xiangsheng Web fans (Xiqingyuli 2019). Due the escalating popularity of Guo Degang and the Deyun Club, from October 2005 to March 2006, Guo was invited to appear, or was reported on, by almost all of China’s influential television shows, newspapers and magazines. However, Guo Degang’s achievements in xiangsheng have not only come from his rejuvenation of traditional xiangsheng pieces and his restoration of vulgar baofu and pornographic elements in his xiangsheng creations. Guo’s success also rests to a significant extent on his sharp social comments and satire that serves as a prism through which many social and cultural malaises of present-day China can be viewed. Satire is at the heart of xiangsheng works, and in recent times, audiences have wanted to “hear new satire more than to enjoy old favorites” (Link 2007:

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209). During the socialist revolutionary era, xiangsheng was exploited and forced into an embarrassing role of social and political praising, which not only made the xiangsheng writers’ work difficult but also voided xiangsheng’s function of social critique and satire. Purely eulogistic xiangsheng sometimes sounded like political preaching and moral admonition; on the other hand, those xiangsheng works that touched on the bureaucracy and irrationality of socialist rule had been made hard line by the CCP government, and their writers were implicated and purged (Link 2007). Up until the first decade of the new millennium, only those mainstream and eulogistic xiangsheng works were permitted on the official and influential media channels such as the annual China Central Television (CCTV) Spring Festival Gala. For example, at the 2009 CCTV Spring Festival Gala, Jiang Kun and his performing partner Dai Zhicheng staged “I Faint” (Wo you dian yun), which portrayed the positive changes brought about in Chinese society by the Opening Up policy; Feng Gong’s “Warm Winter” (Nuandong ) depicted the positive changes in a famous commercial street in Beijing; and two Taiwanese actors, Li Weijian and Wu Bin, performed “Happy and Warm Reunion” (Tuantuan yuanyuan), to promote the harmonious relationship between the Chinese people across the Taiwan Strait. Here is an excerpt from “I Faint”: Jiang Kun: 30 years ago, 30 years hence … so much has changed. Dai Zhicheng: You can talk about it here. Jiang Kun: I’ll have a chat to everybody. Dai Zhicheng: You can. Jiang Kun: Thirty years ago, cyclists were envious of motorists. Dai Zhicheng: At that time cars were scarce. Jiang Kun: 30 years on, motorists are envious of cyclists. Dai Zhicheng: Why? Jiang Kun: As soon as there’s a traffic jam, the cyclists move faster.

… Jiang Kun: Thirty years ago taking wedding photos… Dai Zhicheng: A must. Jiang Kun: Aiyo, if you had no clothes you had to borrow or rent some. Dai Zhicheng: It was like that back then. Jiang Kun: I wore a suit, how did I look? Dai Zhicheng: Quite handsome. Jiang Kun: That shirt underneath had no bottom or sleeves, it was just a small piece of fabric like this.

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Dai Zhicheng: Oh, it was a fake collar. Right, right, right. Jiang Kun: Now there are so many clothes: clothes for Spring, clothes for Summer; modern, classical… Dai Zhicheng: All sorts. Dai Zhicheng: You see, thirty years ago you would only get dumplings at New Year. Jiang Kun: Now dumplings are a frozen food and you can eat them whenever you want. Dai Zhicheng: Thirty years ago you had to order lots of meat dishes when you took someone out for a meal. Jiang Kun: Now if you order lots of meat dishes, you get complaints. Dai Zhicheng: Oh (Jiang and Dai 2009).

In one of his blog postings “Story of Spring” (Chuntian de gushi), China’s well-known post-1980s writer Han Han comments on those mainstream cultural products which cater to the official ideology and propaganda of the CCP regime. He writes: In fact, there should be many better xiangsheng and short sketch works in this country, however, the Spring Festival Gala, as the biggest stage, painfully selects the worst, which leads to the whole population’s misunderstanding of xiangsheng regarding its poor quality. Flattering, eulogizing government, nauseating lines and outdated work make the xiangsheng and short sketch market more and more depressing. (Cai 2015; Han 2010)

In order to clarify his position, Han Han compares the lyrics of the Uyghur song “Yakexi” (Excellent ) performed in 1999 to its 2009 version: In 1999, Yakexi was performed in the Spring Festival Gala, and the lyrics were as follows: Yili River is surging Irrigating the pasture and the grange Trees are in rows and the roads form a network Grapes are full on the frames and the fruits are fragrant What is Yakexi What is Yakexi Our hometown is Yakexi

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By the year 2009, the leaders preferred a “contrived” flavour, so that the lyrics were changed to: The farmers spend their whole life in the field And it is reasonable to pay tax Nowadays our agriculture tax was cancelled Sunshine pours into our hearts What is Yakexi What is Yakexi The Central Committee’s policy is Yakexi Is this progress or a retreat? From a male’s perspective, I think this is progress, as ten years ago, they were still wearing clothes, ten years later, they are completely naked. However, the Uyghur girls are really pretty and I hope that you will progress with the song/party policy. (Cai 2015; Han 2010)

In sharp contrast to these officially sanctioned contents, Guo Degang’s xiangsheng works revolve around sensitive and controversial social issues and problems and provide genuine social critique and satire for the audience to contemplate (Fan 2006: 87; Liu 2010: 75–76; Xiang 2008: 156; Yuan 2007: 164). These sensitive social topics, such as the brutal competition in the employment market; increasing unemployment; rampant piracy and intellectual property problems; social discrimination towards peasant workers; unspoken rules in the entertainment industry; mistresses of the wealthy; gang violence; prostitution and pornography, aroused growing discontent and indignation among Chinese people. On xiangsheng’s role in criticising the Cultural Revolution after the overthrow of the Gang of Four, Link (1984: 84) comments, “it is xiangsheng above everything else that people say, ‘vents one’s gall (jiehen)’”. To some extent, Link’s comment reveals why Guo Degang and his xiangsheng performances are so popular among the Chinese people, and why he is regarded as a culture hero. Guo Degang’s xiangsheng works allow people to let off steam, especially those Chinese who have long suffered from the rampant social injustice, official corruption and the escalating gap between the rich and the poor. For example, in “Fifty Years of Xiangsheng Performance” (Lun wushi nian xiangsheng zhi xianzhuang ), Guo Degang focuses on social paradox and injustice:

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People who have enormous knowledge may not produce books The knowledge in books may not be good Those leaders in work units may not be qualified Those dismissed (from work) may not be all bad Bookstores may not sell books Pharmacies may not sell drugs Nutritious drinks may not have nutrition People who go to public baths may not get a shower People who go to KTV may not go for the singing Xiangsheng stars may not know how to perform xiangsheng Singers may not know music People who love each other may not be husband and wife Husband and wife may not love each other (Guo, “Lun wushi nian”).

The remarks above appear casual, but they contain candid logic and reflect the reality of contemporary Chinese society. For example, the relationship between knowledge and power reflects the inequitable competition within academic circles; the qualified and dismissed leaders reveal the unspoken rules—the under-the-table deals and games in Chinese officialdom; the services provided by the public baths and KTV disclose the growth of prostitution and the sex industry; and legal and illegal partners hint at corrupt social morals. Instead of spreading and promoting the glorious achievements of the government, Guo Degang specifically ferrets out the malaise and injustice in Chinese society. Thus, Guo Degang’s xiangsheng works act as counter-rhetoric to the official propaganda which is to sing the praise of the CCP government. As the Group members inventively shifted the focus of the social function of xiangsheng from entertainment to “serving the party”, Guo has successfully completed the paradigmatic turn by swinging xiangsheng’s focus back to “serving the people”. One might ask whether the popularity of Guo Degang’s counterofficial/mainstream xiangsheng works indicate a political thawing in the mediasphere in general in today’s China. The answer might be negative according to Guo Degang’s encounters in the Anti-three Vulgarity campaign launched by the CCP government in 2010 (details about Guo’s encounters in the Anti-three Vulgarity campaign will be discussed in Chapter 6). However, what is clear is that at the turn of the new millennium, Guo Degang and his Deyun Club rescued xiangsheng as an art form and successfully reached audiences across a broad section of Chinese society. Unlike traditional xiangsheng pieces that were mostly performed at marketplaces for the poor people from the lower social strata, Guo

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Degang brought xiangsheng performance back to the theatre which is now frequented by white-collar office clerks, college students and celebrities. In contemporary China’s entertainment circle, Guo Degang has garnered many fans. In 2016, the Deyun Club held its 20th anniversary celebration at the Beijing Exhibition Centre. Many top stars including singers, actors, hosts, directors and comedians attended the celebration, which reflected Guo Degang’s status and the popularity he enjoys in contemporary China’s entertainment circles. For example, China’s famous rock singer and music producer Wang Feng; commercial directors Zhang Guoli, Wu Jing (director of the Wolf Warriors film series); Feng Xiaogang (the celebrated New Year film director); A-list actors Ning Jing and Song Dandan; influential TV hosts Meng Fei (host of dating reality show If you are the One); Chen Luyu (host of A Date with Luyu); and Gao Xiaosong; popular comedians Pan Changjiang and Shen Teng (“Zhong xing pengchang Deyun she” 2016). The support of Guo Degang and his Deyun Club offered by these big shots in present-day China’s entertainment circle seems to compensate for those hostilities he confronted within the xiangsheng circle. Further, in contrast to xiangsheng’s previous situation as local to northern cities such as Beijing and Tianjin (Link 2007: 210), Guo Degang and his Deyun Club have brought xiangsheng performances to many cities of southern China such as Shanghai, Nanjing and Chengdu, and even to many countries across the globe such as America, Germany, Japan and Australia. In the history of xiangsheng, these large-scale commercial performance sessions have never been achieved by any popular performing arts organisation, so Guo Degang and his Deyun Club made a breakthrough in the history of xiangsheng, which not only retrieved the popularity of xiangsheng across China but also spread this mass popular art genre to the rest of the world. Clearly from the above discussion, the reasons for Guo Degang’s success go further than his inherent talent and hard work, and his resurrection of traditional xiangsheng works and their inherent vulgar nature; the counter-official/mainstream contents of his xiangsheng works that integrate vulgar elements and social satire also contribute a lot to Guo’s legendary status in contemporary China’s xiangsheng circle. The following chapter will be focusing on Guo Degang’s counterofficial/mainstream xiangsheng creations.

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References Cai, Shenshen. 2015. Han Han and His Blog Entries: Voicing Concerns About His Country as a Public Intellectual. American Journal of Chinese Studies 22 (1): 35–57. Da shi hua [Big Truth]. n.d. Available: https://baike.baidu.com/item/大实话/ 10655305. Retrieved 23 June 2020. Fan Suhua. 2006. Toushi Guo Degang Xianxiang [Reflection on the Phenomenon of Guo Degang]. Touzi Beijing 3: 84–87. Guo Degang. Haohao xuexi [Study Hard]. Available https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=4wnCtNUWrl4. Retrieved 23 June 2020. Guo Degang he Zhao Benshan: cu yu su de quwei [Guo Degang vs ZhaoBenshan: The Interest of Coarseness and Vulgarity]. 2006. Available http:// culture.people.com.cn/GB/22226/34912/34914/4108608.html, February 15. Retrieved 23 June 2020. Guo Degang. Liening zai 1918 quanbu changci [Complete Lyrics to Guo Degang’s Lenin in 1918]. Available: https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/ 809472227877221012.html. Retrieved 23 June 2020. Guo Degang. Lun wushi nian xiangsheng zhi xianzhuang [Fifty Years of xiangsheng Performances]. Available https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= FsTUQWgrmnE. Retrieved 23 June 2020, time-stamp: 6:18–6:35. Gerdes, Ellen. 2008. Contemporary Yangge: The Moving History of a Chinese Folk Dance Form. Asian Theatre Journal 25 (1): 138–147. Han Han. 2010. Chuntian de gushi [Story of Spring], February 15. Formerly available http://blog.sina.com.cn/twocold. Retrieved 1 October 2015. Holm, David. 1991. Art and Ideology in Revolutionary China. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Huan Fou. 2018. Guo Degang qinkou chengren de enren Dapeng [Guo Degang Acknowledges Benefactor, Dapeng]. Available: https://kknews.cc/entertain ment/x39n4g9.html. Retrieved 17 June 2020. Jiang Kun and Dai Zhicheng. 2009. Wo you dian yun [I Am Faint]. Available: https://baike.baidu.com/item/我有点晕. Retrieved 17 June 2020. Kaikkonrn, Marja. 1990. Laughable Propaganda: Modern Xiangsheng as Didactic Entertainment. Doctoral Dissertation. Stockholm, Sweden: Stockholm University Institute of Oriental Languages. Link, Perry. 1984. The Genie and the Lamp: Revolutionary Xiangsheng. In Popular Chinese Literature and Performing Arts in the People’s Republic of China, 1949–1979, ed. Bonnie S. McDougall, 83–111. Berkeley: University of California Press. Link, Perry. 2007. The Crocodile Bird: Xiangsheng in the Early 1950s. In Dilemmas of Victory: The Early Years of the People’s Republic of China, ed. Jeremy Brown and Paul G. Pickowicz, 207–231. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Liu Yun. 2010. Qianxi Guo Degang de yuyan tese [A Brief Analysis of the Characteristics of Guo Degang’s Language]. Wenyi Pinglun [Art and Literature for the Masses] 3: 75–76. Mackerras, Colin. 1981. The Performing Arts in Contemporary China. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Qian Qiang. 2006. Fei zhuming Guo Degang [The Lesser-Known Side of Guo Degang]. Baixing [People] 1: 50–52. Wu Wenke. 1996. Zhongguo xiangsheng jingcui [Selected Chinese xiangsheng]. Beijing: Tongxin chubanshe. Xiqingyuli. 2019. Guo Degang maren quanshi [Complete History of Guo Degang Cursing People]. Available: https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/804 22200. Retrieved 17 June 2020. Xiang Shi. 2008. Lun Xiangsheng chuantong de jicheng yu fazhan [Commentary on the Inheritance and Development of the Traditions of xiangsheng Performance]. Hunan diyi shifan xuebao [Journal of Hunan First Normal College] 8 (3): 155–157. Yuan Xiujie. 2007. Guo Degang xiangsheng de yiyi yu queshi [The Significance and Loss of the Guo Degang Phenomenon]. Yishu Baijia [One Hundred Schools in Art] 95 (2): 163–165. Zhong xing pengchang Deyun she 20 zhounian qingdian [Stars Applaud 20 Years of Deyun Club]. 2016. Available: https://item.btime.com/37a74re12 hm9jurf6ivt2a86bld. Retrieved 23 June 2020. Zhu Meihong. 2006. Guo Degang, Cai Galiang yu ‘caogen wenhua’ de bingzheng [Guo Degang, Cai Galiang and the Symptoms of Grassroots Culture], March 27. Available: http://culture.people.com.cn/GB/22219/ 4239006.html. Retrieved 21 November 2012.

CHAPTER 4

Guo Degang’s Counter-Official Xiangsheng Performance

In the cultural domain of contemporary China, mainstream/main (zhuliu) narrative, be it literary creation, TV dramas, films and so on, embodies the cultural expressions of the orthodox ideology validated by the governing regime—the CCP. In his discussion of the post-socialist Chinese cultural reality and climate, Lu (1996: 159) argues that “mainstream culture, refers largely to official culture, Maoist culture, the culture of the Party”. Mainstream culture takes on the duty of upholding the rule of the Party and to spread revolutionary traditions and breed the “spiritual construction” of socialism (Meng 2003: 147; Xu 2010: 47). Mainstream narrative has become official narrative as well as a medium through which the Chinese people are ideologically controlled and politically manipulated. This mainstream, official and orthodox ideology may be understood as the “dominant and effective” discourse made up of “a central system of practices, meanings and values” (Williams 1980: 38) in socialist and post-socialist China. The validity and influence of this mainstream ideology, along with its unremitting implementation and operation, now goes without saying. In the history of socialist China, the social members’ concession and compromise to the orthodox ideology is essential and non-negotiable. Whoever transgresses the limits of the dominant discourse becomes a social pariah, banned by the ruling regime. For example, by the end of the 1980s there emerged the so-called mainstream film genre (Zhang 2010: 97–98), which was a newly coined © The Author(s) 2020 S. Cai and E. Dunn, Xiangsheng and the Emergence of Guo Degang in Contemporary China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-8116-8_4

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political phrase denoting one of the more nuanced arts and mass culture praxis that the CCP had adopted to promote its rule and policy (Wu and Xu 2005: 146). In order to consolidate its rule (particularly after the 1989 Tiananmen pro-democracy demonstrations) as well as assuaging the negative social changes and moral deprivation brought by the Opening Up policy, the CCP government tightened its rule over the artistic and cultural domains. Therefore, artists and cultural workers needed to bow to the official discourse in order to get their works past censorship, which in other words, were endorsed and welcomed by the CCP propaganda machine. Xiangsheng was no exception. Yet the themes of Guo Degang’s xiangsheng pieces are in sharp contrast to the subject matter of official or mainstream xiangsheng, which mainly eulogises the government and its policies, thus causing xiangsheng to lose its nature and function as satire. In this chapter, we will focus on these non-official/non-mainstream contents of Guo Degang’s xiangsheng performance. In one of his classic xiangsheng pieces, “I will Counter the Three Vulgarities” (Wo yao fan sansu) Guo Degang expressed his opinion on the function of xiangsheng as cultural work, which has long been mobilising and educating the audience in the socialist and post-socialist eras: Guo: I also write a little poetry from time to time. Yu: Oh, you’re a creative too? Guo: I like to make some short poems. Yu: Do you have any works? Guo: They’re not really complete. Yu: Read some for us Guo: Everyone can critique me. Yu: Let’s enjoy them. Guo: The sky in Xuanwu District1 is fine / the people in Tongzhou District like it. / They gaze at Fengtai and yell at the top of their voices: / I love you, Haidian! Thankyou. Yu: King of the Districts! Guo: Although this isn’t a long poem, it is of profound significance. Yu: How so? Guo: It reflects the close cooperation between Beijing people. Yu: I didn’t get that. Guo: The unity between different districts. Yu: I didn’t get that. 1 The places mentioned in these lines are all districts of Beijing.

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Guo: Ordinary people are working toward the Four Modernizations and the smooth running of the Sino-African Forum — that’s the significance. Yu: Where is this layer of meaning? Guo: I said it, so it’s there. If I think it’s there, it is. Yu: Oh, So that’s how it is. Guo: Remember, as performers we must serve the people (Guo, “Wo yao fan sansu”).

In the above excerpt, Guo makes ironic use of a typical mainstream xiangsheng work to draw a forced analogy between a low-standard modern poem and the polity and propaganda of the government. Guo’s aim in creating this xiangsheng piece is not only to mock the malfunction of xiangsheng under the artistic policy of the CCP government but also to ridicule the low artistic level of mainstream xiangsheng actors. Guo continues: Guo: Remember, what’s the use of xiangsheng? Yu: Tell us. Guo: It’s educational [the audience calls out “yi” in surprise]. Are they calling your name? Yu: Mine? They’re asking you not to go on. Guo: This is what I reckon: xiangsheng is educational. You’re not a performer! You are a teacher, a professor. Yu: I’m a professor? Guo: You always have been. Your job is to educate. You must pay attention to the quality of the program: what does this program of yours today teach people? This is your job; not to consider enjoyment. Yu: ah? Guo: To hell with the audience! Your job is to educate, whether they like it or not. Yu: Ah! Guo: What does losing an audience of one point something billion matter? Your position is firm (Guo, “Wo yao fan sansu”).

Here, Guo Degang points out a fundamental problem and dilemma encountered by xiangsheng performers, particularly since the founding of the PRC: they must shoulder the responsibility of education and propaganda. By making his point very clear, Guo asserts that those continuous instructions that were issued by the propaganda machine and were followed by generations of xiangsheng performers actually made a

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large proportion of the Chinese audience lose interest in this once-mostpopular performing arts genre. It is true that some xiangsheng works enjoyed huge popularity during the early socialist stage, following the end of the Cultural Revolution and even in the post-socialist new era due to particular and unique political and social backdrop and ideological regulations of each respective period. However, its popularity among the general audience waned enormously even before the new millennium started. Guo Degang was canny in realising that the only way to retrieve xiangsheng’s popularity was to make the audience laugh, which could be achieved through restoring the nature and essence of xiangsheng as a tool of social critique and mass entertainment. Though the government propaganda device maintains close surveillance on production in the cultural and artistic domains, the gradually maturing mechanism of the market economy provides some room and freedom for artists and performers to unleash their talents and skills, which sometimes toe the Party line. In the increasingly competitive cultural marketplace, profitability is sometimes the unique determining factor in whether a cultural and artistic work is produced. Fiske (1989, cited in Cui 2003: 72) points out that “[m]ass culture refers to the dominant forces producing cultural commodities in a capitalist system”. Cui (2003: 72) further argues that there exists “multifarious cultural phenomena” in contemporary China, as “totalitarian politics” parallel “a consumer economy”; therefore, this situation generates a cultural sphere in which ideological surveillance and market logic overlap in the production arena. According to Cui (2003: 73), in post-socialist China, a differentiating and integrating nature exists simultaneously in cultural production and reception. Relying on central force and institutional measures, the “state-run” cultural bureaucracies promote “mainstream productions”; yet, despite this, there is a “continual process of commercialization and consumption” underlining the cultural domain of contemporary China. The market enables cultural consumers to choose according to their individual interests; thus, to ensure their survival in the cultural landscape, producers and distributors must shift their attention to audiences, sales and profit margins. In a cultural sphere that is dominated by both “an ideologically controlled mass culture” and by “a market-driven popular culture” (Cui 2003: 73), arts workers struggle to find the middle ground where official discourse and audiences’ interest can both be satisfied and economic success ensured.

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Two examples of attempts to accommodate both ideology and consumerism that provide insight into this issue are the efforts to commercialise the red classics and to redefine nationalism (Cai 2014). In the case of Guo Degang, in both the early and current stages of his creation and performance of xiangsheng, we see a clear inclination to the demands and tastes of the general audience, and so he failed to carry out the duty of a mainstream actor. In Guo Degang’s xiangsheng “I am Called Guo Degang” (Wo jiao Guodegang ), he jokingly provides his understanding about the mainstream and non-mainstream xiangsheng performers: Guo: Mainstream and non-mainstream each have three different kinds of performers. The first-rate mainstream performers are artists. Yu: Ah. Guo: They wear a suit and tie, put on some lipstick and join in grand galas, they stand there all impassioned, and move the audience to piss. Yu: To piss? Guo: The standard is very high, you think this person is so amazing …This is the first type. The second type cannot get onto grand-scale galas, but make a lot of money. Yu: They’re rich. Guo: The second type of mainstream performer works jobs all over the place: three thousand here, ten thousand there. Some coal boss from Shanxi province’s daughter gets married, so the artists goes, stands on stage and flatters, “aiya, how good is this girl? 18 years old and she looks like my mother”. Yu: Are these good words? Guo: In any case he doesn’t speak well. But he makes money, gets 18,000 and goes home. Yu: Oh. Guo: The third grade is slightly inferior. The galas won’t have him, and nor will the moneypots. But he gets a salary from his work unit (danwei): two or three thousand per month, and if he has to have tonsils or haemorrhoids removed the state will still foot the bill. Yu: They handle it all. Guo: When there’s nothing else to do he simply sends greetings: that’s easy work. Yu: It is? Guo: Wherever he goes he takes to the stage for 12 minutes. He opens his mouth and sings a song first up. Yu: What does he sing?

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Guo: For example if today he’s in Tianjin: “Tianjin, oh Tianjin, my hometown”; then he tells twelve minutes of jokes and exits the stage. Tomorrow he’s in Sichuan province: “Chengdu a, Chengdu a, my hometown”. The next day Jiamusi: “Jiamusi, Jiamusi my hometown”. That’s three hundred yuan right there. Yu: Everywhere’s his hometown! (Guo, “Wo jiao Guo Degang”).

In the above excerpt, Guo Degang mocks the pretentious, hypocritical and mercenary nature of mainstream xiangsheng performers. Besides participating in large-scale celebration galas and eulogising the government, they also busy themselves with moonlighting and making extra income through pleasing provincial tycoons and the rural rich. However, their difference with xiangsheng actors of the civil performing arts troupes such as the Deyun Club is that they are normally affiliated with state or local government-run professional art troupes. Therefore, even if they perform the same work repetitively for several years and their performance does not achieve any acceptable artistic level they still receive a salary from their government-funded troupes. In the same xiangsheng piece, Guo Degang provides his assessment of the non-mainstream xiangsheng actors: Guo: Then there are three types of non-mainstream xiangsheng performers. The first type enhances the nation’s culture, promotes the art of xiangsheng, loves xiangsheng, and xiangsheng is their life, for example … Deyun Club. (Guo stops intentionally here and waits for the audience’s response; the audience yells “Deyun Club” at him) Also …(again, Guo stops intentionally and waits for the audience’s response; the audience again yells “Deyun Club” at him). Okay. Yu: Huh? What’s “okay”? Guo: I will do my best, there’s more coming, more coming. Yu: Just not now. Guo: The second type performs in small, ordinary theatres. Folk artists, retired actors, and hobbyists are all in together, relying on their skill to eat whether wind, sleet or snow. Some are good and some are not. But the situation is not that great: there are small theatres almost everywhere in the country, but 99 percent of them don’t make money. Some perform in hotpot restaurants. They’re the country’s top actors, standing there wearing suit and tie, while down below them people are dipping meat into hotpots, watching their hotpots as much as the performer. Yu: Ah.

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Guo: This is all true. I’ll stake my life on the fact that they are all first-rate performers. Yu: All of them. Guo: Some perform in teahouses, where you can listen to a whole evening of xiangsheng for just 20 yuan worth of tea. It’s all free, performed for nothing. Anyway it’s not easy … in all, when you rely on your own ability in order to eat, you’ll be okay if you’re good and in trouble if you’re not. Yu: Hm. Guo: The third type, the third type of non-mainstream performers are the most incredible (lihai). In the past the audience would start listening to xiangsheng, and if it didn’t vent their spleen (jiehen), they would start an uprising. Yu: Rebel? Guo: Just think, they have listened to xiangsheng for two years and think they can do it; get over 100 yuan for donning a Chinese-style gown and taking to the stage to perform xiangsheng. This artistic style is in the vein of the Chen Sheng Wu Guang peasant uprising,2 the battles of Liangshan,3 or the Wagang Stockade.4 Yu: Right, they’re a bunch of bandits (Guo, “Wo jiao Guo Degang”).

Guo’s comments on the non-mainstream xiangsheng performers are gentler and more positive than his comments on the mainstream actors. He confirms that these professional and amateur performers either love xiangsheng and the national culture of China or at least have sound performing skills and can earn a living through performing xiangsheng though this sometimes puts them in embarrassing situations. Also, the audience’s response to the first category of non-mainstream xiangsheng performers such as those actors of the Deyun Club proves the status and contribution of the club in contemporary China’s xiangsheng circles and in the heart of the general audience. In summary of his comparison of mainstream and non-mainstream xiangsheng performers, Guo Degang expresses his original intention, namely, the prosperity of the xiangsheng profession. However, he also exposes his xiangsheng peers’ hostility towards him:

2 The Chen Shen Wu Guang peasant uprisings (209 BCE) were against Qin rule. 3 Mount Liang, also translated as Liangshan Marsh, was the site where outlaws gathered

in the fourteenth-century novel Water Margin (Shuihu zhuan). 4 The Wagang Stockade was a rebellion in the late Sui Dynasty, from 611 to 618CE.

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Guo: But all in all, I hope this industry can be good. No fighting. In the past venerable men used to say “Whoever’s good, leads”. I affirm this. If you earn thousands that’s because of your ability; I admire you. If I get peanuts for a performance, that’s because I wasn’t effective (ling ), and I should step down. There’s no meaning to be had in pondering who is assassinating who. Our colleagues are always like this, always plotting to assassinate Guo Degang, but even if I die you still won’t be able to sell tickets. Yu: Ah, that’s a different kettle of fish. Guo: Yes, two different things. It’s not the case that if I die you will be able; they’re two different concepts. If I really died, it would be a blow to this industry. Yu: Oh (Guo, “Wo jiao Guo Degang”).

Guo’s attitude towards many performers, especially those who have influence and power in xiangsheng circles, deteriorated when he came to Beijing to make a living. Before he founded his own xiangsheng club in 1995, Guo Degang tried his best to join state and locally run arts troupes and become a professional xiangsheng performer. He also participated in xiangsheng competitions, where if one wins an award it could become the stepping-stone to being admitted into professional troupes or enjoying immediate nationwide popularity. However, though Guo Degang has talent and solid performing skills he did not win the award he deserved. Guo has mocked xiangsheng competitions in many of his xiangsheng works due to their lack of fairness and overt connections between candidates and the judges (“Dang nian Jia Ling he Guo Degang yiqi canjia xiangsheng dasai”). In “A Decade” (Shi nian), Guo Degang and Yu Qian converse: Guo: It was in that year, the year when the big sham xiangsheng competition was held. Yu: “Big sham xiangsheng competition”: you sound Japanese. Guo: I was rather pleased. Yu: Ah. Guo: If we could participate in the competition and win a prize, we would make it big-time. Yu: Isn’t that so. Guo: At that point I was terribly poor. Yu: No money.

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Guo: Poverty gave rise to change, change to success, success to escaping poverty, escaping poverty to going in a competition, going in a competition back to poverty, poverty to change, change to success, success to escaping poverty, escaping poverty to going in a competition, going in a competition back to poverty … Yu: So don’t go in the competition. If competition leads to poverty why would you do it? Guo: The Guo Degang and Yu Qian of a decade ago thought competing in a competition was amazing. Yu: It was a big thing. Guo: Time and time again, setback after setback, and after some expense, we finally succeeded in competing (Guo, “Shi nian”).

Though Guo was not awarded the prizes he deserved in the xiangsheng competitions, these experiences and setbacks prompted him to establish his own xiangsheng club and create his now-signature xiangsheng works. Guo and Yu continue their dialogue in “A Decade”: Guo: When I think of it, there’s nothing else to say; the two of us worked hard … all the way up to 2005, when the Beijing Deyun Club hit the big-time. Yu: It became famous. Guo: Me and my brother, Qian, were also somewhat in the spotlight. Yu: Life was much better. Guo: Ai, but from that time on our relationship with others in the industry wasn’t that great; only with others in our profession was there out-andout hostility. Yu: They really hated us. Guo: The mainstream xiangsheng world wasn’t perturbed by their own failures … Yu: Quite so. Guo: They were perturbed by the fact that they didn’t have an excuse for their failures. If you were a noble man of ambition, I would bow to you. If you were really stronger than I and beat me on the stage, in business and in our field, I, Guo Degang, would admit defeat. Yu: Of course. Guo: But you don’t possess this ability. Yu: Oh. Guo: In a fight with a lion a dog is bound to come off second-best. Sadly, they are a cross between a Pekingese and Pomeranian—small and impure mongrels. Yu: And ugly (Guo, “Shi nian”).

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Guo points out here that his own and the Deyun Club’s success attracted “envy-jealous-hate”—to borrow a catchphrase from present-day China—from mainstream xiangsheng circles, which deepened the antagonism between Guo and his mainstream xiangsheng peers. By comparing the mainstream xiangsheng actors with dogs and by ridiculing their performing skills, Guo Degang deployed his boldness and chivalry, which verifies the old Chinese saying “only the high-skilled one is full of guts”. In addition to mocking the performing capacity of the mainstream xiangsheng actors, Guo also pointed out their despicable and unscrupulous behaviour: Guo: After so many years, having experienced so many difficulties and hardships, three things have made a particularly deep impression on me. Yu: Go on. Guo: The first thing began in 2005, when our colleagues in the xiangsheng industry were listening to my programs every day. Yu: Oh. Guo: They dragged up some [of my] topics that could cause trouble. Yu: What for? Guo: They sent a copy to the relevant authorities on multiple occasions. I was mortified. Yu: Why? Guo: I worried their shoes would wear out, running over there all the time. Yu: What use would that be? Guo: If you take the departments in charge for a big deal … Yu: What’s wrong? Guo: No-one has told you that the Cultural Revolution is over. Yu: So don’t give us a hard time. Guo: The second thing was in 2006, some colleagues in the Beijing xiangsheng world planned a sit-in. Yu: Wow, a sit-in? Guo: They once planned a sit-in but sadly it never took shape. If it had come to fruition how much heartache would have been saved. Yu: That’s right, if it had taken shape we would have been popular much earlier (Guo Degang, “Shi nian“).

In this short dialogue, Guo juxtaposes the mainstream xiangsheng performers’ boycott of him with the irrational and crazy criticism and persecution of artists and cultural workers during the notorious Cultural

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Revolution, thus exposing the immorality and evil motives of the mainstream xiangsheng actors.

Vulgarity in Guo Degang’s Xiangsheng Performance A prominent feature which contributes much to the popularity of Guo Degang’s xiangsheng performance is its worldly focus on commoners’ daily life. This is embedded with many loutish baofu and dirty jokes, which have evoked criticism from mainstream art critics and the official media. Of particular concern to the critics are those vulgar baofu and rude jokes enlisted in Guo’s xiangsheng performance that concern ethics, pornography and prostitution. In many of his xiangsheng performances, Guo Degang teases the audience by promising to perform some works that are banned by the TV stations (usually because they contain apparent vulgar and pornographic baofu). These usually push the performance to its climax, which demonstrates the audience’s interest and eagerness to hear those unpermitted vulgar pieces. “You are kind” (Ni ben shanliang ) exemplifies Guo Degang’s use of puns and humorous vulgar insinuations: Guo: I have a nickname. Yu: Go on. Guo: Philanthropist (shan ren). Yu: Is that your name or your job? Guo: What do you mean? Yu: You still haven’t got it? Guo: I … Yu: Ah, you… Guo: Castrate people (shan ren) Yu: What does that mean? Guo: Aiya (pats chest, makes cutting action) Yu: I guessed right! Guo: What do you mean? Yu: What do you think? Guo: No, I, aiya, have a kind heart (xin shan). Yu: Just sliced, newly castrated (xin shan de). Guo: Aiya, let’s converse in Mandarin. Yu: What language do you think we’re speaking? Guo: I – am – newly – castrated (xin shan de).

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Yu: Right, so convalesce before you come out in public. Guo: There’s no way … Yu: That’s right, there’s no other way; if there was a way who would do the castrating? Guo: There’s no way to speak xiangsheng with this guy. Yu: Spell it out. Guo: I am a kind-hearted person. Yu: Oh, when you put it like that I can understand (Guo, “Ni ben shanliang”).

Here, shan / 剡 (meaning to castrate) is a clever substitute for shan / 善 (meaning kind), as their Chinese pronunciation is identical. To neuter a man was one of the harshest punishments in imperial China, and sometimes a poor household would castrate their male child and send them to the imperial palace to become a eunuch. In Chinese culture, to expose a man who is a eunuch or castrated, symbolises the family’s humiliation. This dialogue thus creates a farcical effect among the audience. Overt puns and innuendo are ubiquitous in Guo Degang’s works. In “Study Hard” (Haohao xuexi), Guo depicts a man’s experience in a nightclub: Guo: “I went into the nightclub and said to the waiter, ‘Give me two and they must be under eighteen.’” Yu: “You should not say such things so loudly.” Guo: “What do you think I am ordering? Girls? You are too lewd. I am ordering mixed fruit dishes. I want them to be no more than eighteen yuan.” Yu: “I thought you were ordering beer” (Guo, “Haohao xuexi”).

Here, Guo and his performing partner’s conversation tells a tale of the pornography and sex industry in contemporary China, which although prohibited by law, operates widely in KTVs, night clubs and public baths. In another work, “Beautiful Life” (Meili rensheng ), puns and witty remarks are employed to signify prostitution. Guo also makes good use of the Chinese language and words with similar meanings: Guo: “I have looked at your piaoke”. Yu: “Wait a moment, I think you mean boke?” Guo: “There are a lot of people dianni”. Yu: “I do not provide service. You should say dianji”. Guo: “What? dianni is dianji?” (Guo, “Meili rensheng”)

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This is a typical example of Guo’s use of language as he employs it humourously to focus on attitudes towards prostitution. Here, piaoke (meaning whoremonger) is a clever substitute for boke (meaning blog ), as their Chinese pronunciation rhymes. Dianni is a double entendre: first, it can be understood as a computer mouse “click”, as on a webpage or blog; second, in Chinese slang it means “hiring a prostitute”. And dianji means a mouse “click”, but also has an explicit connotation of “hiring a prostitute” as “ji” is also the pronunciation of “chicken”, which is used to describe a prostitute in the Chinese cultural context. Similar puns and humorous vulgar insinuations are found in “You Should Rock the Boat”, such as: “getting up before the chicken and going to bed later than the chicken/prostitute”, and “living in a second-hand house, driving a second-hand car and marrying a second-hand woman” (Guo, “Ni yao zheteng”). Consequently, Guo’s sarcastic and vulgar sketches not only earned him scorn from government censors but also the exaltation of millions of Chinese people. Guo’s vulgarisation of xiangsheng performance restored its intrinsic nature, catered to the aesthetic pursuit of the ordinary people and challenged the prudish tradition of the CCP government. In “Study Hard” (Haohao xuexi), Guo Degang and his performing partner Yu Qian converse: Guo: “Let’s do a role-play; we are two Japanese youths now. You are the girl and I am the boy”. Yu: “Do we have names?” Guo: “Your name is ‘cangjing maliya’”. Yu: “I have to complete two people’s workload”. Guo: “I am your boyfriend, and my name is ‘without an end’”. Yu: “Your physical condition is really good” (Guo, “Haohao xuexi”).

In this conversation, Guo Degang supposes himself and Yu Qian to be actors in Japanese Adult Videos. “Cangjing maliya” is a combination of names of “cangjingkong” and “xiaoze maliya” (Ozawa Maria), two very popular Japanese Adult Video actresses who are similarly well-known by the Chinese people. Yu Qian indicates in his words that in the performance of love-making scenes in the Adult Video he has to cope with two girls. Moreover, Yu Qian’s fake name “without an end” hints that the man he performs has a strong sexuality.

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In “I Will Counter the Three Vulgarities” (Wo yao fan san su), Guo and Yu converse: Guo: Baring arms and thighs, it’s too vulgar. Nowadays swimwear is no good either. Yu: What’s wrong with it? Guo: In the past swimwear was nice and dignified. Yu: Yes. Guo: With swimwear in the past, only when you spread the fabric apart could you see buttocks; now, only when you spread the buttocks apart can you see fabric. So vulgar. Yu: And there’s no-one who always wants to look at buttocks like you! Guo: How can they go out dressed like that? They’re not porn actors. They’re not Li Lizhen, Shu Qi, Fan Dao’ai, Gaoshu Maliya; nor Wu Tenglan … Yu: I don’t know whether you’re one of the Three Vulgarities or not; at any rate, you’ve seen a lot of those movies! Guo: So vulgar! Yu: Hey! You know all those people. Guo: I watch them critically. Yu: Is it possible to watch those movies critically? Guo: I want to see just how far they have fallen! And what does it matter if I stay up all night? I’m countering the Three Vulgarities! (Guo, “Wo yao fan sansu.”)

Those names mentioned in the above excerpt are all Chinese and Japanese female stars who have starred in pornographic films. Li Lizhen and Shu Qi are Hong Kong and Taiwan-based film stars who are famous for their alluring bodies and performance in X-rated movies; Fandao Ai (Matsue Ohkubo), Gaoshu Maliya (Takagi Maria) and Wuteng Lan (Mutou Ran) are top stars in the Japanese AV industry. In this dialogue, Guo Degang depicts a hypocritical person with a dirty mind who finds various reasons for his sordid conduct. This xiangsheng work further offers irony in relation to the excessive anti-vulgarity campaign in the xiangsheng world. In “A Decade” (Shi nian), Guo Degang further expresses his wrath and indignation towards some of his xiangsheng peers through the Counter-three Vulgarities Campaign: Guo: There’s another thing: the “Counter-Three Vulgarities” that everyone knows about. Yu: Everyone here knows.

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Guo: There’s nothing wrong with the “Counter-Three Vulgarities”: “cheap” (disu), “vulgar” (yongsu), and “tasteless” (meisu). Yu: They should be countered. Guo: The crux of the issue is that it’s a bunch of vulgar people doing the countering. Yu: So how can it be called “Counter-Three Vulgarities”? Guo: The best way to vilify an adversary is to attack their morals. Yu: Start with that. Guo: I was deeply moved at the big Counter-Three Vulgarities meeting, seeing many in our industry become so impassioned. I really wanted to beg one thing of them. Yu: What was that? Guo: Don’t sit there like a goody-two-shoes dobbing on the mafia. Yu: Ah, they have no experience. Guo: So many years have passed, yet many old sayings put it so right. Yu: You’re referring to … Guo: “Anger breeds a poet, solitude breeds a philosopher, excitement breeds a person who takes everything in their stride, and jealousy breeds a bastard.” Yu: Four kinds of people. Guo: Of these four kinds of people, we can accept the first three. The last type makes us feel ill at ease. Yu: Definitely not good. Guo: The xiangsheng world has taught me much over many years. In fact, there is much to love about our colleagues in Beijing. Yu: Some of them aren’t bad. Guo: After all, when the emperor is near at hand you eat and meet with capable men; curry favour with a few leaders; cheat a few entrepreneurs and do a bit of business along the way. Life isn’t too bad …

… Guo: They must solve two issues: the first is warding off starvation; the second is the matter of integrity. Yu: That’s true: shamelessness and hunger! Guo: He who can handle Heaven’s tribulations is a true man of steel; he who is not met with envy is mediocre. I may not be able to make everyone happy, but at least I have a clear conscience. Weathering the storms all these years, I am grateful to Teacher Yu Qian; your help has been fantastic. Yu: It’s nothing.

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Guo: The old saying put it well: you need friends to succeed, and enemies to succeed mightily. Yu: Too true (Guo, “Shi nian“).

In addition to deriding the vile and corrupt conduct of some of the xiangsheng performers, Guo Degang mocks their miserable situation and shameless temperament. Further, Guo seems to have successfully transformed his peers’ “envy-jealous-hate” into motivation for his endeavours, which has contributed to his accomplishments and status in xiangsheng circles. In “I Will Counter the Three Vulgarities” (Woyao fan sansu), Guo Degang weaves official discourse into his plots, which most likely aggravates the tension between him and the official rhetoric, and reveals his uncooperative and antagonistic attitude towards the criticism of the official performers and scholars. The “three vulgarities” refers to cheapness (disu), vulgarity (yongsu) and tastelessness (meisu), and Guo makes up an Association to Counter the Three Vulgarities (fansansu xiehui). In this work, “counter the three vulgarities” is a slogan intended to mirror the Three Anti, Five Anti, the Anti-Rightist Movement and the Cultural Revolution: all significant mass political campaigns under the reign of Mao Zedong. For example, in “I will Counter the Three Vulgarities”, the members of the Association of Counter the Three Vulgarities are described as “people with integrity, people who have given up vulgar tastes”, which were popular movement slogans in the CCP’s political discourse. Guo adds in “people who do not eat meals that human beings eat” to counterbalance the loftiness and idealism of the official ideological propaganda and to add an element of humour. Further, when imitating a character who has a wide waist, the performing partner asks what is wrong with his waist, and Guo replies: “It was wounded during the Counter the Three Vulgarities years”, which again juxtaposes the fictional Counter the Three Vulgarities campaign with other factual political movements. In this xiangsheng work, parallels between the Counter the Three Vulgarities campaign and historical political movements are also revealed when the members of the Association of Counter the Three Vulgarities go to a public bathhouse, where prostitutes are known to frequent, to complete their “mission” and to achieve “allocated quotas”. Here “allocated quota” is a stereotypical signifier of existing political movements in the history of socialist China as there were “allocated quotas” for rightists and counter-revolutionaries for

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each work unit. These innuendoes, hinting at the political movements of the previous decades under Chairman Mao’s reign, are cleverly woven into Guo Degang’s xiangsheng performance, and these features distance and differentiate him from official entertainment, helping to mould him as an unofficial xiangsheng master.

Social Problem and Malaise Revealed in Guo Degang’s Xiangsheng What distinguishes Guo Degang’s xiangsheng works from those of the mainstream/official xiangsheng performers is that many of his performances are directed towards “non-harmonious elements” in modern-day Chinese society and which are in apparent contrast to the rhetoric of the government propaganda machine. Guo Degang once mentioned in a performance: The old masters left a total of more than one thousand traditional xiangsheng skits (duanzi). Through the tireless efforts of us performers over these past years, around 400 of them remain. There are also another 300 that are forbidden, and another 100 that are in conflict with building a harmonious society. (Guo, “Shi nian”)

Many of Guo Degang’s works focus on the concerns of the Chinese commoners and topical social problems, such as the polarising trend among the Chinese social strata and the deteriorating situation regarding food security in present-day China. For instance, in “I Want Happiness” (Wo yao xingfu), Guo directs his attention to the wide and ever-increasing divide between the rich and the poor. This work mentions the life of a poor man who wants to get rich. In one skit, pretending to be rich, he goes into a high-class restaurant to have breakfast and says, “Give me a serve of the one-hundred yuan breakfast”. This is an enormous expense for a poor person but one that he believes a rich person would pay. However, the chasm between rich and poor is cleverly revealed when the waiter replies, “I am sorry, sir, but we don’t sell half-serves here”. In this way, Guo ridicules the deep inequalities between the Chinese nouveau riche and the ordinary people, which is, perhaps, one of the most significant obstacles for the government in building a harmonious society.

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In the same work, Guo Degang talks about an ordinary or insignificant character who wants to be successful. One day he dreams of becoming an astronaut. In order to overcome his acrophobia, he ascends to the top of a skyscraper. Watching him standing on the top of the building, many people call the police as they misunderstand his situation and think he is a migrant construction worker who wants to intimidate the contractor by threatening to commit suicide in order to get his wages. When the police come they shout at him, “Come down now, the contractor has promised to give you the money”. In present-day China, migrant workers are a socially disadvantaged group who do dirty and menial (and dishonourable) jobs for low wages and with poor and often unsafe conditions. In particular the migrant construction workers who do the most dangerous jobs are the ones most frequently cheated and exploited by the contractor. Here, Guo Degang mocks this topical social problem in his xiangsheng performance. In “I Want to Perform in the Spring Festival Gala” (Wo yao shang chunwan), Guo Degang mocks the deteriorating employment situation and the unspoken rules (qianguize) in the entertainment industry: A young man is waiting in line for a role in a show. In the role, the actor is directed to jump off a cliff. During a rehearsal, an accident occurs and the original actor falls off the cliff and dies. The young man thinks his turn is coming, but the director of the show tells him that the man who pushed the original actor off the cliff has become his substitute. (Guo, “Wo yao shang chunwan”)

Audiences are highly amused by this use of comedy to comment on the brutal competition in the Chinese employment market. Another skit in “I Want to Perform in the Spring Festival Gala” depicts the young man wanting to use unspoken rules to secure an acting opportunity by using the casting couch with the female director. However, when the director opens her bedroom door, the young man finds that the male producer is in her bed. The plot adroitly lampoons the unspoken rules—the dirty tricks that are fecund in the entertainment industry, as well as within Chinese society. In “One Fell Swoop” (Yi wang da jin), through Guo and Yu’s conversation, the corrupt ecology in the business field is revealed:

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Guo: In doing business, slow and steady, step by step. Yu: ai. Guo: I too once started a company. I went to borrow money, open a small business, lease a house and appoint a General Manager, a Director … Yu: It’s not that simple. Guo: It was difficult, including facilitating relationships (guanxi). Yu: Oh. Guo: Sometimes I ran up against a brick wall: for example, things would get stuck with a certain leader or a certain department. Yu: Oh. Guo: Sometimes we also thought, “how do we do this?” People say you’re too stubborn; in doing business the upper levels and lower levels have to be mediated well. Yu: You have to get through the roadblocks. Guo: In relation to inviting, invite a leader to come over. Have a chat. Everyone has something they like; see what he likes. Yu: Right, cater to their tastes. Guo: Like drinking booze or whatever, we find a way to facilitate the relationship. We invite the leader over, and soon find out that he likes to play mahjong. Yu: Likes gambling. Guo: This is okay, gambling, you play with him. Yu: Right. Guo: Find a way to lose money to him. Yu: It’s like giving him money. Guo: Ai, won’t giving him money fix things? Yu: Yes. Guo: Find a room, find a few people, go and play with him. Yu: Staff. Guo: The Vice-President goes, plays with him. After half an hour, he returns: success! Yu: Really? Guo: “I beat him by 17,000.” Yu: Wow, it failed. Guo: I was mad. “Piss of, brainless!” The Director, quick, go. Yu: Come on. Guo: Go, go. The Director says: “Relax, I’ll succeed”. The Director returns in a short while and is happier than the Vice-President was: “I won 21,000”. Yu: Even worse. Guo: Aiya, I wanted to kill myself. Then the Secretary went. Yu: Right.

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Guo: The Secretary went and returned after an hour and a half. This time it was okay, the leader lost everything to us including his underpants. Yu: Okay. Lost through gambling? Guo: I thought, “this business is done for” (Guo, “Yi wang da jin”).

In present-day China’s business world, connections and corrupt conduct are rampant and without them, one can achieve almost nothing. People think of various ways to please the leaders with whom they need to build connections. In the above dialogue, in order to please the leader, the businessman invites the leader to a mahjong session and plans to lose money to the leader. However, the deputy general manager, the director and the secretary’s consummate skills of playing mahjong, which makes the leader lose tens of thousands of yuan to them, create a farcical effect and relentlessly mocks the immoral reality in modern-day China’s business world. In “I Want to Have A Sex Scandal” (Wo yao nao feiwen), Guo Degang makes up a story in which a girl offers herself to the male director in order to get a role in his film. Right after they finish love making, the girl slaps the director and says, “You bastard, how come you didn’t let me know in advance that you are actually a cartoon director?” In the same piece, Guo Degang mocks the “mistress problem” in contemporary China. In China, it is believed by many that rich businessmen and government officials have mistresses. In one scene, Guo depicts a traffic jam on the road near a film academy. There are an unusual number of luxury vehicles here because all the entrepreneurs of Beijing city are gathered there to pick their mistresses up when they finish school (they are pretty, young female acting students). This plot mirrors the social reality of today’s China and pokes fun at a morally declining society. In “I Want to Have a Sex Scandal”, Guo converses with his performing partner Yu Qian: Guo: “Someone is plagiarizing my work. However, they act too quickly. They have finished plagiarizing even before I write the piece.” Yu: “What? In that case, it should be you who plagiarize their works” (Guo, “Wo yao nao feiwen”).

This comic conversation reflects the rampant piracy and intellectual property violations within the academic and cultural circles of contemporary Chinese society.

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In “Single Men and Women” (Danshen nannü), Guo Degang highlights the food safety concerns confronting ordinary Chinese people which is one of the hottest social topics in current China. One plot depicts a picnic shared by two young lovers, in which Guo converses with his performing partner Yu Qian: Guo: “I feed her some duck egg with Sudan Red (a kind of poison). She feeds me some pork with beta-adrenergic agonist. I feed her some potato smoked by brimstone. She feeds me some black fungus dyed by ink. I feed her some red wine with pigment. She feeds me some white wine with industrial alcohol.” Yu: “Do you want to get killed?” (Guo, “Danshen nannü”).

All the food mentioned in this work is toxic and has caused concern about food safety for the Chinese people. In this way, Guo constructs a counter-official rhetoric in his xiangsheng performance, which reveals those negative features of a so-called harmonious society. Guo calls himself an obscure xiangsheng performer and describes characters in his works as, for example, the “non-official scientist”, the “non-official professor” and the “non-official scholar”. In this way, he demarcates his work from those official xiangsheng performers who are capable only of singing the praises of the government. In “I am a Gangster” (Wo shi heishehui), Guo Degang forms a gang which is made up of laid-off workers and people with a disability: Guo: “I have many brothers,” says the gang leader, “and some are laid-off workers, and others are disabled people on crutches and in wheelchairs. One day we went into a work unit and shouted at staff working there that from now on you should pay monthly protection to us! They yelled back “get out!” What do you guess this place is? It is a police station.” Yu: ‘You are really lucky they only asked you to get out’ (Guo, “Wo shi heishehui”).

In this work, Guo reflects on the gang violence and crime within Chinese society. In addition, this work also lampoons the inadequate welfare payments that people with a disability and retrenched workers receive from the government. In summary, the topics, themes and contents of Guo Degang’s xiangsheng creations make him deserve the title of a non-mainstream/official xiangsheng master, which let off the steam of the Chinese common

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folks that were accumulated due to deteriorating morality and escalating corruption in contemporary China.

References Cai, Shenshen. 2014. An Unconventional Mainstream Film: The Founding of a Republic. Asian Cinema 25 (2): 183–203. Cui, Shuqin. 2003. Women Through the Lens: Gender and Nation in a Century of Chinese Cinema. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press. Dang nian Jia Ling he Guo Degang yiqi canjia xiangsheng dasai [The Year That Jia Ling and Guo Degang Competed Together in a xiangsheng Competition]. n.d. Available: https://www.q578.com/s-2-107350-0/. Retrieved 17 June 2020. Fiske, John. 1989. Understanding Popular Culture. Boston, MA: Unwin Hyman. Guo Degang. Danshen nannü [Single Men and Women]. Formerly available: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRsB90qNA3k, time-stamp: 24: 42–25: 02. Guo Degang. Haohao xuexi [Study Hard]. Formerly available: http://www.you tube.com/watch?v=O1jRb4Zi_hc, time-stamp: 4: 22–4: 35. Guo Degang. Meili rensheng [Beautiful Life]. Formerly available: https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=3qGoDEjNL0U, time-stamp: 2:40–3:46. Guo Degang. Ni ben shanliang [You Are Kind]. Available: https://baike.baidu. com/item/你本善良/19930664. Retrieved 17 June 2020. Guo Degang. Ni yao zheteng [You Should Rock the Boat]. Formerly available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRXQumNKp_o, time-stamp: 2:08–2:11. Guo Degang. Shi nian [A Decade]. Available: http://www.dingbo99.com/z/ 15532.html. Retrieved 17 June 2020. Guo Degang. Wo jiao Guo Degang [I Am Called Guo Degang]. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vwhOgWS7eQ, time-stamp: 30:00– 35:00. Retrieved 17 June 2020. Guo Degang. Wo shi heishehui [I Am a Gangster]. Formerly available: https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=bn_PzRX-hcU, time-stamp: 21:25–21:35. Guo Degang. Wo yao fan sansu [I Will Counter the Three Vulgarities]. Formerly available: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAUfJTb5q1I, timestamp: 3:22–5:52; 14:00–15:02. Guo Degang. Wo yao naofeiwen [I Want to Have a Sex Scandal]. Available: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXyIS3Vo5sI, time-stamp: 13:05–13:10. Retrieved 17 June 2020. Guo Degang. Wo yao shang chunwan [I Want to Perform in the Spring Festival Gala]. Formerly available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V7 XatUyrD8, time-stamp: 8:26–8:34.

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Guo Degang. Wo yao xingfu [I Want Happiness]. Formerly available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ix-PkF3KMeo&list=PLt-gfq_7my o6r34CkBXWqxWM21gTXnXsP&index=5, time-stamp: 9: 35–9: 46. Guo Degang. Yi wang da jin [One Fell Swoop]. Available: https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=VQhGxbQpir0&t=2596s, time-stamp: 15: 00–17:12. Retrieved 17 June 2020. Lu, Sheldon H. 1996. Postmodernity, Popular Culture, and the Intellectual: A Report on Post-Tiananmen China. Boundary 2, 23 (2): 139–169. Meng, Fanhua. 2003. Chuan mei yu wenhua lingdaoquan: dangdai Zhongguo de wenhua shengchan yu wenhua ren tong [Media and Cultural Leadership: Cultural Production and Cultural Identity in Contemporary China]. Jinan: Shandong Education Press. Williams, Raymond. 1980. Problems in Materialism and Culture: Selected Essays. London: Verso. Wu Xiaoli, and Shenmin Xu. (2005). Jiushi niandai zhongguo dianying lun [Chinese Cinema in the 1990s]. Beijing: Culture and Art Publishing House. Xu, Jianfeng. 2010. Zhuxuanlu dianying de yishu yu jishu ronghe [Synthesis Between Art and Technology in Main Melody Films]. Wenyi pinglun: Xueshu Ban 11: 47–48. Zhang Huiyu. 2010. Cong ‘jianguodaye’ yu ‘fengsheng’ kan liangzhong geming lishi xushi [Two Narratives on Revolutionary History as Seen in ‘Jianguo daye’ and ‘Fengsheng’]. Shehui xuejia chazuo 1: 97–104.

CHAPTER 5

Deyun Club Holds Up Half the Sky of Xiangsheng Performance

Together with his performing partners Zhang Wenshun and Li Jing, Guo Degang founded his own xiangsheng club in 1995, which in 1998 was named Beijing Xiangsheng Meeting (Beijing xiangsheng dahui), and was renamed the Deyun Club (Deyunshe) in 2003. There were several reasons which pushed Guo Degang to found his own xiangsheng club: first, Guo Degang needed to make living in Beijing however he was not admitted by any state-owned or local government-run professional folk arts troupes due to lack of connections and the exclusion by the Beijing xiangsheng circle. According to Link, “Master-disciple chains formed pai, which I will translate as ‘schools.’ Relations among the schools were competitive and sometimes bitterly adversarial” (Link 2007: 211). During the early years of his career, Guo Degang did not have much luck as he lacked connections within the xiangsheng circle in Beijing, the cultural centre of China, and this situation lasted until he met and became a disciple of Hou Yuewen and the Hou School in 2004 (Zhang 2009). Hou Yuewen is the son of the xiangsheng master Hou Baolin. Within the xiangsheng circle in Beijing, there is a deep-rooted belief that one’s master is crucial for career development, and intense connections exist among different xiangsheng performing groups and individuals. In this sense, Hou Yuewen’s recruitment of Guo Degang as his disciple, though Guo did not learn much from Hou regarding knowledge and skills of xiangsheng, lifted Guo’s status in

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the xiangsheng circle and opened more room for his development in the field. Second, Guo Degang has realised that xiangsheng could only retrieve its popularity among the general audience when it is performed in theatres, and Guo endeavours to provide genuine entertainment to the commoners with an affordable price. According to Guo, his purpose in establishing the Deyun Club was to bring xiangsheng fans back to the theatre (Xiang 2008: 156; Zhang 2006). The Deyun Club has had tremendous success and publicity, and Guo Degang has a huge fan base. Guo’s followers are comically known as gangsi, literally meaning “steel wire”. The word is a combination of fensi, the Chinese pronunciation of the English word “fans”, and a homophone of the last character of Guo’s first name, used as a nickname for his fans. Some of Guo’s fans, who really understand and appreciate xiangsheng, are attracted by the consummate performance of Guo Degang and his disciples; others purely seek fun as there is too much pressure put on the city dwellers from work and life. It is worth mentioning here that Guo Degang’s fans did not drop him even when he was reprimanded by the government for the vulgar contents of his works (which will be discussed in Chapter 6), while the majority of television stations and book stores avoided him during the heat of the Counter the Three Vulgarities campaign. In many cases, Guo’s fans from other provinces come to Beijing especially to watch his performance. Further, Guo Degang has a savvy understanding of social media culture and it permits every fan to feel an instant association with the celebrity they follow. Guo’s clever use of social media exemplifies a larger fashion among Chinese celebrities to use the internet to “talk back” to their audience, industry and government. In today’s China, celebrities’ blogs and microblogs have millions of followers which has turned social media into the most effective and wide-reaching means for celebrities to communicate with their fans. Some celebrities display talents which otherwise may go unnoticed in their on-screen roles. Others use social media to quell rumours regarding their private life. Social media, especially microblogging, has proved itself a functional and efficient venue for celebrities to keep in touch and to promote themselves among their existing or potential fans. Guo Degang updates his microblogging on one of China’s most popular commercial websites, Sina Web, on a regular basis to promote the performance of the Deyun Club and to keep in touch with his fans (Cai 2017).

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Due to the gargantuan success of Guo Degang and Deyun Club, there are more and more fans attending theatres to watch xiangsheng performance. In the middle of 1990s and early 2000s, the cheapest tickets of Deyun Club’s performance cost only 20 yuan per session, which, unlike most commercial performing arts shows, was quite affordable for ordinary audiences (“Xiangshengjie de caogen yingxiong—Guo Degang fangtan” 2005). Almost twenty years on, the cheapest ticket price of Deyun Club’s performance has not increased much as Guo insists that they should remain affordable for ordinary people because xiangsheng is a grassroots performing arts style that originated from the people and should serve their interests. The current ticket price range of Deyun Club’s performance are between 30 yuan to 280 yuan per person, and the average single ticket costs around 50 yuan, which is comparable to the price of a standard movie ticket in today’s China. The third reason as to why Guo wanted to found his own xiangsheng club was that he wanted to cultivate more xiangsheng and folk arts performing actors so these “outdated” traditional popular performing arts forms could be passed down from generation to generation. At the outset, the Deyun Club had only three performers, who were the three cofounders, but by 1998, there were a dozen performers and today the club boasts more than four hundred signed performers. The three co-founders of the club used to perform xiangsheng and other popular performing arts genres in the Beijing Flavour Tea House (Jingwei chaguan) and the Guangde Theatre during the early days of the club. Relatively few people frequented teahouses and theatres to watch folk arts performances in the middle of 1990s and early 2000s. In many of his performances, Guo Degang recalls the embarrassing situation of the Deyun Club in its early stage. Once, the performers outnumbered the audience as only one audience member showed up to the teahouse. In the middle of their performance, the audience’s cell phone rang so the actors had to suspend their performance until the man finished his phone call. Guo Degang also jokingly mentioned in his works that during the early days of the Deyun Club, when only a few people attended the performances, the actors jokingly warned them that they have to ask for leave if they wanted to go to the toilet during the performances, and that the security staff would lock the doors of the teahouses and theatres when the performances were in progress in case the audience wanted to leave before the performances finished. Some of these comical elements in Guo’s xiangsheng pieces are

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based on true events that reflect the humble circumstances of Deyun Club and its performers during its early days. Among those performers of the Deyun Club, Guo Degang especially feels grateful to Zhang Wenshun, an old generation Beijing-based xiangsheng actor, who appreciated Guo’s knowledge and skills about xiangsheng and assisted him to establish the Deyun Club. Together, Guo Degang and Zhang Wenshun performed many classic/signature xiangsheng pieces of the Deyun Club. Unfortunately, Zhang passed away in 2009 but his daughter is still assisting Guo Degang in running the Deyun Club. Apart from Zhang Wenshun, there were other xiangsheng actors who contributed to the founding and development of the Deyun Club including Li Jing, Li Wenshan, Xing Wenzhao, Gao Feng, Xu Deliang and Yu Qian. Some of these people have passed away, some have left Deyun Club for various reasons and some are still performing or supporting Guo Degang within the club. In order to train younger-generation xiangsheng performers so that the business of Deyun Club and the traditions of popular performing arts genres could be carried on, Guo Degang and some older and more experienced actors took in disciples. Some of Guo’s best students such as He Yunwei and Cao Yunjin have left Deyun Club; however, there are more and more disciples joining the club nowadays. Every year, the Deyun Club recruits students and hundreds of youths come for the selection interviews; normally only a few dozen of them will be admitted for an average of five years’ professional xiangsheng training. After the training period, only several of them will become professional performers. The Deyun Club currently has nine teams performing in several teahouses and theatres in four cities across China including Tianqiao Theatre, Sanlitun Theatre, Guangde Theatre and Sanqingyuan Teahouse, Zhangyiyuan Tea House and Huguang Guild Hall in Beijing; Laomendong Theatre in Nanjing; and Heilongjiang Deyun Club Theatre in Heilongjiang province. In 2013, the Deyun Club opened its first overseas branch in Melbourne, Australia, which aims to train Australian-born Chinese youths to perform xiangsheng and to spread traditional Chinese culture to the rest of the world. The Tianqiao Theatre is located at Tianqiao neighbourhood in the Chongwen district of Beijing. Xiangsheng in the 1940s was performed in open areas of market towns or in urban amusement quarters such as Tianqiao in Beijing (Link 2007: 210). The Tianqiao neighbourhood was originally a gathering place for labourers and poor street performers, however now, the neighbourhood represents

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the grassroots culture that has long been popular in Old Beijing, and which is embodied in the modern xiangsheng performances revived by Guo Degang and his peers. The Sanlitun Theatre is located in Sanlitun neighbourhood in the Chaoyang district of Beijing. Sanlitun is famous for its pubs and nightclub culture and is a gathering and entertainment centre of white-collar workers, middle-class professionals and foreigners who study, work and live in Beijing. Obviously, the Sanlitun Theatre provides windows through which the young nouveau riches and foreigners can glimpse traditional Chinese culture and folk arts performances, which are also the selling points of the Deyun Club. Besides old-style Chinese furniture and decorations, there are folk artisans making traditional handicrafts in the hallway of the theatre. During the performances, traditional xiangsheng dialogues and lyrics of drum songs can be understood through English subtitles projected on the huge LED screen on the stage. Deyun Club’s branches in Nanjing and Heilongjiang are also located in neighbourhoods with rich traditional Chinese-style buildings and cultural heritage. The Deyun Club performed xiangsheng and other popular performing arts genres including clappers and drum songs regularly at its branches. A typical performing session is comprised of opening brief aria, standup comedy, comic dialogue and group xiangsheng. There is a usual evening session from Tuesdays to Sundays at every branch that lasts for three to four hours, and on weekends, some branches arrange afternoon sessions on top of the regular evening sessions. There is a combination of traditional and new xiangsheng works that are created by Guo Degang and his peer performers in each show. One of the biggest contributions Guo Degang made to the continuity of xiangsheng and other folk art performing art genres is his excavation and collection of more than 600 traditional popular performing artworks that were bordering on extinction. It is of particular importance and relevance as xiangsheng, as a representative form of traditional performing arts and a part of the intangible cultural heritage of China, was in danger of being lost in the barrage of new entertainment mediums as the audience for traditional entertainment activities gradually diminished (Liu 2010: 1). In this sense, Guo has helped to salvage the valuable cultural legacy of xiangsheng performance and indeed has been instrumental in rescuing traditional entertainment art forms.

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In the new pieces, such as the “I” and the “You” Series (wo zi xilie, ni zi xilie),1 which are Guo Degang’s signature works and made him popular all over China, topical social issues are often covered, especially during Guo Degang and Yu Qian’s performance. During the Q&A session of his lecture at Columbia University (“Guo Degang Gelunbiya Daxue yanjiang”), Guo Degang confirmed that all his new xiangsheng works were written by himself, which not only proves his ability as an excellent xiangsheng creator but also demonstrates his effort in realising the social criticism function of xiangsheng and making it serve the commoners. The topics Guo foregrounds vary from performance to performance as there is so much improvisation. Unfortunately nowadays, Guo Degang and his performing partner Yu Qian only occasionally appear in the performance of the Deyun Club branches. Therefore, the members of the Deyun Club including famous xiangsheng actors affiliated to the club and Guo’s disciples shoulder the majority of the performing tasks. However, Guo and Yu appear in the large-scale commercial performance of the Deyun Club. Besides putting on regular performances in teahouses and theatres, the Deyun Club also puts on medium and large-scale commercial xiangsheng performances throughout the year not only in Beijing but also in other cities across China such as Shanghai, Tianjin, Chengdu and Nanjing. Further, Deyun Club tours in Western countries like Australia, Canada, America, Germany, Japan and Britain. Deyun Club’s most recent overseas commercial performances took place in Tokyo and Britain in 2018. In November 2018, Deyun Club put on its debut performance in the famous talk show theatre—the Apollo Theatre in Manchester. The income of the performers of Deyun Club mainly comes from live xiangsheng performances. Apart from live xiangsheng performances, Guo Degang has led the members of the Deyun Club to play in TV drama series such as the Legend of Dou Tianbao (“Doutianbao chuanqi,” 2010), in which Guo served as the playwright, director and lead male protagonist, and in The Legend of Crazy Monk (“Jigongzhuan zhi huofodengji,” 2016) in which Guo starred. Guo Degang and his performing partner Yu Qian and other performers of the Deyun Club have also starred in commercial films such as Our Happiness (“Woyaoxingfu,” 2015), and The Love of Three Smiles: Scholar and Beauty (“Sanxiao caizijiaren,” 2010), in which Guo acted as the co-director and lead protagonist. Due to the 1 The “I” and “You” series refer to series of xiangsheng whose titles begin with those personal pronouns. See the Index of Xiansheng under “wo” and “ni” for examples.

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popularity Guo Degang enjoyed among the audience, many local TV stations tailored variety show programmes hosted by Guo Degang and other famous TV presenters such as Meng Fei, the host of If You are the One (“Feichengwurao,” 2010–present). For example, Tianjin TV’s talk show programme There is a Show Tonight that was hosted by Guo Degang (“Jinyeyouxi,” 2010–2012), Jiangsu TV’s Fei De Will Watch that was cohosted by Guo Degang and Meng Fei (“Feichangliaode,” 2011–2014) and Good Show that was hosted by Guo Degang (“Guodexiu,” 2013). In 2011, Liaoning TV made a talk show programme Have Something to Say (“Youhua haohaoshuo,” 2011–2012) featuring Guo Degang, his son Guo Qilin and several of his disciples including Zhang Helun, Yan Hexiang, Yue Yunpeng, Zhu Yunfeng and Cao Heyang. Have Something to Say was the first “quality idol xiangsheng host group” in China. In 2015, Guo Degang and his disciple Zhu Yunfeng hosted Hubei TV’s talk show programme Gang is Coming (“Gangdao nishenbian,” 2015). In 2018, Guo Degang acted as the host in Shanghai-based Dragon TV’s variety show programme Xiangsheng (“Xiangsheng youxinren,” 2018). Xiangsheng records the emergence of young actors in the xiangsheng circle and displays young people’s exploration and innovation of xiangsheng as a traditional popular performing art form. This wide participation of Guo Degang and his disciples in variety show programmes organised by different local TV stations has extended the popularity and influence of Deyun Club among the general audience across China. Further, it has increased the income of the members of the club and turned some of them into idols in the entertainment circle. For example, Guo Degang’s elder son Guo Qilin, born in 1996, has become a famous xiangsheng performer and a youth idol. Guo Qilin did not receive any higher education and became a xiangsheng performer when he was still a teenager. Guo Qilin is the disciple of Guo Degang’s performing partner Yu Qian and has received sound training in performing traditional xiangsheng pieces, and he has also entered the entertainment industry in a broader sense and made quite a success. Apart from participating in talk show programmes and acting in films with his father, Guo Qilin also starred in hit TV shows such as Joy of Life (“Qingyunian,” 2019) and participated in Zhejiang TV’s signature reality show Running Man (“Benpaoba xiongdi,” 2017–present), which features the top stars in contemporary China’s entertainment sphere such as Angela Baby and Lu Han.

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Similar to Guo Qilin, one of Guo Degang’s disciples, Yue Yunpeng, achieved his star status in the entertainment industry relying on his popularity as a xiangsheng performer, comedy actor and hilarious host. Yue is in his thirties and was born into a peasant household in Henan province. As a school dropout, Yue came to Beijing when he was a teenager in order to make a living. In his first five years in Beijing, Yue worked as security guard and electric welder and when he was introduced to Guo Degang in 2004 he was working as a waiter in a Beijing-style noodle restaurant. Widely known to have once been a migrant worker, Yue Yunpeng earned a miserable salary and was a member of the lowest social class in Beijing. However, he was quite lucky to become a disciple of Guo Degang and joined the Deyun Club. While receiving basic xiangsheng training, Yue cleaned the performance venues of Deyun Club together with other disciples of Guo Degang. Also, these young disciples of Guo Degang helped to raise Guo’s pet dogs and did other housework for him (“Yue Yunpeng jiujing shi zenyang renshi Guo Degang de?” 2019). There is a tradition in Chinese society that the master and disciple relationship is like that between father and son. In old China, disciples in various professions lived with and did housework for the master’s family, and waited upon the master like a servant. Some of the disciples had to wash the master’s feet in order to learn craft and skills from them (Link 2007). In addition to carrying on the heritage of and restoring the popularity of xiangsheng among a contemporary Chinese audience, Guo Degang has revived those timeworn ethical and folk practices and rules of ancient China through the running of the Deyun Club. In today’s China, though the Confucian principles are still to some extent governing the moral and social behaviour of people, the hierarchical bonds and authoritative bindings of them seem to be withering in the familial sphere, career field and social interactions (for more discussion about the practice of the Confucian principles in contemporary Chinese society, see Cai 2015). Instead, unfilial and irreverent conduct in the domestic space, intense competition in the professional arena and unscrupulous behaviours are rampant in the sociocultural sphere of present-day China. However, Deyun Club under Guo Degang’s direction follows the conventional norm between masters and disciples, seniority rules and a nuanced family-run management, which is rarely seen in the popular performing art circle in contemporary China. This management style of Deyun Club values diligence, character and loyalty of the disciples. Yue Yunpeng is a beneficiary of this management style as he does not

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have much talent that is required for a professional xiangsheng performer even if he worked very hard to acquire knowledge and skills of xiangsheng performance. However, his persistence, loyalty and generous nature impressed Guo Degang therefore as one of his veteran disciples Guo helped develop him into a xiangsheng star. Guo Degang invited Yue Yunpeng to be his co-host in many talk show programmes that were tailored especially for Guo by local TV stations, such as Good Show and There is a Show Tonight, and to star in films that were directed by or starring him such as Our Happiness. In order to further elevate Yue’s popularity among the audience, Guo invited Yue to play the male lead character in his self-directed film The Face of My Gene (“Zuzong shijiudai,” 2018), in which all the co-actors were superstars in present-day China’s entertainment industry: the Taiwan-based actress and model Lin Chi-ling, and mainland martial arts star and director Wu Jing, top star and director Wang Baoqiang and famous TV host-actordirector Dong Chengpeng. The cast of The Face of My Gene guaranteed its box office return as a comedy film, and Yue Yunpeng’s starring role raised his status as a comedian in the film circle. Since gaining more popularity, Yue Yunpeng was invited by many reality show programmes released by local TV stations including Top Funny Comedian (“Huanle xijuren,” 2016), Comedy General Mobilization (“Xiju zongdongyuan,” 2016), which formed a supportive network for his xiangsheng and acting career. After years of experimentation and polishing, and with the instruction and help from Guo Degang, Yue Yunpeng has gradually formed his own unique performing style in the xiangsheng circle, which could be labelled as “cheap and cute” (jian meng ). In recent years, Yue Yunpeng has routinely performed The Song of the Fifth Ring Road (“Wuhuanzhige”) in his xiangsheng performances, the lyrics of which were written by Yue and was originally created for the film Jian Bing Man (“Jianbingxia,” 2015). This song could be seen as a classic representative of his signature “cheap and cute” performing style. The most famous lyrics of the song are: The fifth ring road You are one ring more than the fourth ring road The fifth ring road You are one ring less than the sixth ring road Eventually, you will make it to the seventh ring road What then?

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You will be two rings more than the fifth ring road (“Shishang zui zhenhan de wuhuanzhige yingwen langsong” 2016).

The ring road systems are the main traffic arteries of Beijing municipality and are familiar to the people of China. Whenever Yue Yunpeng sang this excerpt of the song in his xiangsheng performance, the audience sang along with him, which shows the popularity of his signature performing style. Yue Yunpeng became one of the “backbones” of the Deyun Club after several of Guo Degang’s performing partners and disciples (including Li Jing, Xu Deliang, He Yuewei and Cao Yunjin), who enjoyed seniority in the Deyun Club because they joined it during its early years, left. Yue Yunpeng created several new xiangsheng works which were welcomed by the audience. For example, “To Be a Rich Guy” (Zuoge youqianren): Yue: Oh, you’ve graduated from high school, and when you graduate from high school you join the workforce. Sun: Right. Yue: Become an animal in the Beijing Zoo. Sun: Right. Yue: This person you speak of is so daring and bold. Sun: Wait on, is becoming an animal credible? Looking after animals. Yue: Okay, supposing you are looking after animals then. Sun: What do you mean, “supposing”? Yue: Okay, you’re looking after animals. Sun: That’s right. … Yue: Supposing that’s right, you have money. You buy a nine-room apartment. You turn it over in your mind: with a nine-room house, you could take nine wives. Sun: That is a fine wish. Yue: As soon as you search on the Internet, you realise it’s no good. Sun: You idiot! You don’t need to search the web for that; can’t you just ask around? Yue: So what should I do? Sun: Find someone to ask. Yue: You’re stupid! Do you have to ask? Sun: Oh, right, I don’t need to ask. Yue: I asked around for ages, but it was not okay, he wanted to have a whole harem. Sun: A wish. Yue: A fine wish. Finally, I came up with an idea.

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Sun: What was that? Yue: Write “wife” on the [door of the] biggest room, “concubine” on the next seven rooms, and “prostitute” on the last room. What a fine wish! Sun: Huh. Yue: The first night, go into the first room to sleep with my wife. Sun: Huh, the first night. Yue: The second night, go into the concubine’s room with my wife to sleep. Sun: Ai, ai, no, the final room with “prostitute” was for a guest. Yue: Then who would play the role of the prostitute? Sun: Whoever called in could stay and role-play (Yue & Sun).

The above excerpts performed by Yue Yunpeng and Sun Yue touch upon sensitive topics and employ feudal and vulgar comical elements such as concubines and prostitutes. This gained them popularity among the general audience but was disliked and boycotted by the mainstream/official culture. Yue: Don’t talk rubbish; order! The waitress said, “Aiyo, sir, this is our menu, have a look; what would you like to order?” Sun: So order. Yue: “Fry the book”. Audience: “frying the book” means we want all the items on the entire menu. The waitress was shocked: Aiyo, sir, why not just commit suicide? Sun: If I died the restaurant wouldn’t survive. Yue: How could you order so much; can you handle it? I am wealthy, my Dad is boss of Western Beauty, and my mother is Big H. Sun: I’ll stop you right there. Yue: I’m rich. “Sir, if you can’t finish the food it will be wasted; how about you just order whatever?” “Ah ah, young lady, it’s not that I can’t order, it’s that I can’t read!” Sun: Now the “rich second generation” are all illiterate! Yue: Aiyo, if you can’t read, there are pictures here. Point to the picture and I’ll write down whichever one you point to, okay? Sun: Whichever. Yue: Miss, your dishes are cheap. Sun: How so? Yue: They are all three figures. Sun: Aiyo, over a hundred. Yue: Four figures at most. Sun: Over a thousand.

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Yue: Are there any expensive dishes? Sir, sir, at the back there are expensive dishes; there’s … Sun: I’m scared just to look at them, are there any? Yue: Yes. This is good, this is eight figures; I like this dish. Sun: This is also too expensive. Yue: Sir, we don’t have this dish. Why? On what grounds don’t we? Sir, this the number for our telephone orders! Sun: Huh! (Yue & Sun)

In this last excerpt from this xiangsheng piece, Yue alludes to one of China’s famous “rich second generation” (fu’erdai), son of the boss of China’s famous high-end restaurant chain South Beauty, who married a Taiwanese star nicknamed Big S. By replacing South Beauty with Western Beauty and Big S with Big H, Yue Yunpeng uses the intermarriage between rich men and beautiful female stars that is popular in presentday China as comical elements, which point to the superficiality of the society; he further depicts the “rich second generation” as illiterate, which furthers the negative image of they who enjoy an affluent life only because they have rich parents. This xiangsheng work mocks the topical and problematic social reality of contemporary China that is notorious for its “rich second generation”, “official second generation”, “military second generation” and “star second generation”. These terms refer to the children of the nouveau riche, officials, military and stars. Relying on their illustrious family backgrounds or rich social connections and resources, those “second generations” cohorts have been categorised and widely regarded as the antagonistic social class against the commoners. Through ordering an eight-digit dish, the “rich second generation” flaunt their wealth that is unimaginable for common folks. In this sense, Yue Yunpeng’s xiangsheng works carry on the tradition of sharp social critique that is quite common in his master Guo Degang’s xiangsheng creations, which to some extent vents the steam of those social underdogs of contemporary China. Besides Yue Yunpeng, Zhu Yunfeng is another top performer of Deyun Club. Born in 1991, Zhu Yunfeng was taken in by Guo Degang as a disciple at the age of thirteen. Zhu was nicknamed “sesame bun” by Guo as he had many freckles on his face when Guo first met him. Different from Yue Yunpeng’s “cheap and cute” performing style, “sesame bun” is famous for his exaggerating and bluffing acting style, though he seems mediocre at other basic skills of xiangsheng performance such as singing and imitating. In his xiangsheng work “Hype” (Chao zuo) which is performed by him and his performing partner Cao Heyang, “sesame

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bun” uses the “facial attractiveness”, which is a popular buzzword among younger generations of Chinese, as comical elements: Zhu: Audiences both here in person and watching television, welcome to this performance of Deyun Club’s biggest boy band. Where are your shouts and applause? How could these three members of the audience be so lukewarm? These three, look. Cao: What are you doing? Zhu: Performing. Cao: If you’re performing why are you getting all worked up—what’s it for? Zhu: When you perform, you have to stir people up, especially this audience. Cao: Wait a minute, we’re xiangsheng performers! Take a bow, and then solemnly start to speak. Zhu: What? Cao: Don’t worry about anything else for now, are we anything like a boy band? Zhu: How not ..? Cao: To my mind, a boy band should be really hot and especially spirited. This gang of young guys standing here, each and every one of us, do we pass? Audience: Yes! Cao: I don’t believe in myself, so you must be lying to us. Zhu: That’s just because you lack self-confidence. Cao: We’re not good-looking. Zhu: Who’s not good-looking? Pray tell, who is not good looking? Master. Cao: He’s good-looking. Zhu: If you had the cheek to say not good-looking, you wouldn’t get paid. Cao: Even better-looking than me, then! (Zhu and Cao 2019)

Another performing characteristic of “sesame bun” is his boldness and outspokenness on the stage. Since Guo Degang and Deyun Club were targeted by the government during the anti-three vulgarity campaign, it is said that all the performance contents of the club, no matter whether it is a large-scale commercial session or a little theatre one, have to be reported on and reviewed by the censorship, and there will be on-site supervision implemented by relevant local government departments (“Deyunshe shaobing yanchu zagua guanfang” 2019). During the Shenyang session organised especially for “sesame bun” and his performing partner Cao Heyang in 2019, “sesame bun” jokingly requested that Cao Heyang

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stick to the script. Cao replied: “there is no script available”, and then “sesame bun” bluntly responded: “there are people sent by the Ministry of Culture who are sitting below the stage, but you tell me there is no script? It would have been ok if you told me this a couple of years ago, but I am not fine with your answer now”. After hearing the forthright reaction of “sesame bun”, Cao Heyang was shocked and his face even changed colour, and he had to stop “sesame bun” from continuing to improvise comical elements involving the official organisations (“Deyunshe shaobing yanchu zagua guanfang” 2019). These bold words of “sesame bun” speak up for the Deyun Club as the target of the antithree vulgarity campaign and as a privately-owned folk art performing group barely surviving under the monitoring of the official/mainstream discourse. The members of the club under the lead of Guo Degang just want to make a living through performing xiangsheng, the popularity of which has been restored among the general audience through retrieving its vulgar essence and resurrecting its function of social criticism; however, the success achieved by the members of the club is currently besieged by the official/mainstream rhetoric as it is considered as challenging and potentially subversive according to the conservative tradition of CCP rule. In recent years, there is another famous actor, Zhang Yunlei, who has emerged from the stage of Deyun Club. Zhang is in his late twenties and started to receive popular performing arts training at the age of nine. As one of the cousins of Guo Degang’s wife Wang Hui, Zhang met Guo at the age of seven and became his disciple at the age of eleven. Zhang is regarded as the “dreamboat” of Deyun Club due to his handsome and delicate look, tall and slender figure, and natural and elegant temperament. Zhang is also labelled the “Chinese Adonis” (Guofengmei shaonian) as he is particularly good at singing taiping geci and other popular tunes that were widely circulated among the commoners of traditional China. Traditional Chinese music and popular tunes have been popularised among younger generations of Chinese music fans through the Chinese-style music trend that has long been an established music subgenre in the popular music circles of the Chinese language speaking world; however, it was the combination of Jay Chou’s music composition and Vincent Fang’s lyric writing that pushed the trend to an unprecedented peak (Cai 2018). Jay Chou (b. 1979) was born in Taiwan and is one of the most popular music composers and singers in the Chinese

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music world. His collaborations with Vincent Fang (b. 1969) are representative of the Chinese-style music, a genre which has become a cultural sensation across Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland China. Chinese-style music combines lyrics that contain quintessential elements of traditional poetry and ancient culture with both contemporary singing techniques and music composition (sometimes with components played on traditional Chinese musical instruments), generating a nostalgic sentiment that is subtle, elegant and occasionally quite melancholic. One of the categories of Vincent Fang’s Chinese-style lyric creation focuses on the traditional Chinese attitude towards love. The love subgenre of Fang’s lyrics employs a variety of traditional imagery and scenes to create an aesthetic perception which is rich in nostalgic flavour and refined taste. The grace of lyric of the Chinese-style music has parallels with the history of formation of the Song Dynasty ci verse. The origin of the Song ci verse stemmed from the popular lyrics sung by the commoners of the Song Dynasty. However, when scholars joined in creating lyrics, they refined the wordings and expressions of the popular songs and wrote lyrics as poetry which could both be sung as a song and read as a poem. The subtlety and gracefulness of these lyrics encapsulate the true essence of the Song ci poetry (Cai 2018). Zhang Yunlei has a particular expertise in singing these Chinesestyle songs, and his gentle voice that is combined with the traditional scenes and imagery of the ancient lyrics evokes artistic conceptions which are delicate and cultured. For example, the most frequently performed Chinese-style popular song in Zhang Yunlei’s xiangsheng works is Tell Me, for Whom is the Longing? (Ni shuo, xiangsi fuyushui), which is created by Qi Hao and Zhicuo and has a similar style to the co-produced songs by Jay Chou and Vincent Fang: 你说相思赋予谁 Tell me, for whom is the longing? 明月妆台纤纤指 Slender hands on the moonlit dresser 年华偶然谁弹碎 Silently time stole your beauty away 应是佳人春梦里 Fair lady, last night I dreamt of you 忆不起 双蛾眉 Time is so cruel, I can’t recall 翩跹霓裳烟波上

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We’d go boating as young lovers 几时共饮长江水 Now the river keeps us apart 而今夜语十年灯 After a decade of cold rainy nights 我犹在 顾念谁 I’m still here, longing for you 一番番青春未尽游丝逸 Sighing deeply over our long-lost youth 思悄悄木叶缤纷霜雪催 Like fallen leaves, hair turned grey 嗟呀呀昨日云髻青牡丹 Alas, your black hair seems from yesterday 独默默桃花又红人不归 In solitude, another spring without you 你说相思赋予谁 Tell me, for whom is the longing?2 (“Ni shuo xiangsi fuyushui” 2017)

The above lyric evokes response and appreciation from the audience who live in a highly modernised and fast-paced societal environment. The grief depicted in the scene of missing is conveyed by the ancient imagery. In the lyric of the song, the girl hints that she would wait for the male lover for the rest of her life, which elaborates a stubborn attitude and infatuation for love that was more popular among the ancient people and is gradually given up by contemporary Chinese who treat a romantic relationship like fast-food and adopt a materialistic and pragmatic outlook on it. Waiting is a typical and eternal theme in traditional and modern Chinese creative texts. For example, the boudoir-plaint poetry genre that was popular in ancient China, which reached its peak in the Tang Dynasty poem and Song Dynasty ci verse works. For ancient people, especially girls and women, there was an imperative to perform constancy of love. Thus, waiting for their lover or husband when they were away for study, serving the country as a government official or soldier, or purely for a promise she made to him, was a common artistic motif. This was partly due to the rules and restraints of the social system that regulated and disciplined females’ morality and behaviour. Even in a situation where their lover or husband had changed their affections, they would still wait for their change of mind and return. 2 Translation here is from an online fan, given in (“Ni shuo xiangsi fuyushui” 2017).

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Relying on the process of defamiliarisation during which the contemporary settings and imagery are replaced by old images and plots, Chinese-style lyric fashion creates a primordial artistic conception that is full of vivacity, elegance and graphic images. Through cosmic synchronisation in the lyric, which reconfigures the situation of modern love affection with ancient scenes, characters and notions, the Chinese-style music trend intelligently instils old-fashioned ideas of love into the popular lyrics which are consumed by contemporary music fans (Cai 2018). Through the combination of his charming looks, elegant temperament and performance of the Chinese-style genre of music in his xiangsheng works, Zhang Yunlei has successfully built up his fan base among the younger-generation audience. In his xiangsheng piece “Beautiful Youth” (Shanghao de fanghua), the dialogue between Zhang Yunlei and his performing partner Yang Jiulang demonstrates his target audience, who are mainly those post-1985s and post-1990s generations, take him more as a youth idol rather than a xiangsheng actor: Zhang (singing): Every night I remember … Yang: Don’t remember, don’t sing. Why do you sing this way today, why change tack? What about Tell Me, for Whom is the Longing or Visiting the Qingshui River? Zhang: The river froze over. Yang: The song you were singing just now is quite nice, Lupins, but isn’t it a bit old? It’s just about stale. Zhang: The reason I sang this song … Yang: Why? Zhang: Was to raise the general knowledge of us post-nineties and get everyone a bit sentimental. Yang: Get sentimental, okay… but you’re just a kid! This is what we call a kid pretending to be old, get it? Zhang: What’s wrong with me? Yang: You’re sounding so old. If we’re post- ‘85, it’s probably rational to say that we’re getting on a bit in years and can get a bit sentimental. But you’re post-90, young in years: how can you possibly be sentimental? Zhang: The post-90s have lots to be sentimental about. Yang: Like what? Zhang: Take going to school as an example. What were the school desks like? Yang: one per person Zhang: For the post-1990s it was two to a desk. Yang: Right. Zhang: One girl, one boy.

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Yang: They were called “deskmates”. Zhang: To this day, I cannot forget the girl who was my deskmate. She usually had words on the tip of her tongue; unforgettable to this day. Yang: What did she say? Zhang: “Sir, he’s cheating.” Yang: What sort of deskmate is that? I know you, you’re not good at relationships (Zhang and Yang 2019).

As a post-1990s performer, Zhang Yunlei shortens the distance between himself and his fans through recollecting those anecdotes during childhood and puberty of their generation in his xiangsheng works. He further cleverly finds a niche market for himself as the spokesperson of traditional Chinese popular performing arts, which not only boosts his public persona as “a Chinese Adonis”, but also successfully popularises Chinese-style music and traditional folk art genre among the younger generations. Visiting the Qingshui River (Tanqing shuihe) is another traditional popular tune widely spread across the Beijing region that Zhang routinely performs in his xiangsheng performance. Visiting the Qingshui River tells the love tragedy between a pair of young lovers which happened at the end of the Qing Dynasty. The only daughter of an old couple secretly falls in love with a young man in the same village. One day, their dating is discovered by the parents of the girl, and in feudal China, the secret love affair of the young lovers was believed by the parents to be immoral and shameful. Consequently, the girl’s parents forced their daughter to commit suicide and the girl drowned herself in the Qingshui River. The young man heard his lover was dead so he went to the Qingshui River to hold a memorial ceremony for her, and after that he jumps into the river and commits suicide for love as well. In order to memorise this love story, people later created the popular tune Visiting the Qingshui River. This popular tune was not only popular among the Beijing folks after the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty; it also circulated widely during the Cultural Revolution years among the Chinese commoners as a pornographic song given the tight moral control and surveillance of that era. Zhang Yunlei’s fans always sing along with him when he performs Visiting the Qingshui River, and the lyrics and melody of the song have become very familiar to Zhang’s fans, which shows Zhang’s impact on his fans and how a traditional popular tune could be re-popularised among younger generations of fans through a xiangsheng performer on the stage

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of Deyun Club. Apart from singing traditional popular tunes and taipinggeci in his xiangsheng performance, Zhang Yunlei cashes in on his popularity and has become a pop singer. Zhang’s 2019 single Yuzhen incorporates the lyric and aria of traditional and modern Peking Opera pieces and achieved success. Zhang Yunlei also uses his own unfortunate accident as comical elements in his own xiangsheng works. In “Who is the Champion Singer?” (Shui shi gewang ): Zhang: I am so happy to be standing on this stage again. Yang: I’m happy for you. Zhang: I am a xiangsheng performer from Deyun Club; my name is Zhang Yunlei. Thankyou! Yang: My name is Yang Jiulang. Zhang: In fact after the last episode aired I was very moved. Yang: Moved how? Zhang: So many people from the audience cared for me. Yang: What did they care about? Zhang: One: the state of my injuries and two: how was I recovering? Yang: How about you give us all a report. Zhang: Check in with everyone. Yang: Right. Zhang: It was in 2016. In August, when I was performing for a time in Nanjing, a minor accident occurred. Yang: What “minor accident”? Zhang: I fell more than ten metres from the drop-off overpass at Nanjing South Railway Station. Yang: How dangerous! Zhang: It was okay, my injuries weren’t terribly serious. Yang: Not serious. Zhang: It was just that my arm, pelvis and hip all sustained comminuted fractures. Yang: Right. Zhang: Leg: comminuted fracture. Foot: comminuted fracture. Yang: Audience, you see? Smashed to smithereens; the dregs of humanity!3 . Zhang: No, that’s not fair! Yang: I’m just saying you were really “fallen” (Zhang and Yang 2018).

3 This is a play on words; 渣 zha refers both to small fragments and dregs.

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The accident mentioned in the above dialogue between Zhang Yunlei and his performing partner Yang Jiulang became big news in entertainment circles in 2016, and Zhang’s fans showed their enormous concern for and unconditional support of Zhang during this difficult time for him. Those news reports revolving around this accident revealed Zhang is far more than a xiangsheng performer but a super idol in the heart of his fans, which further demonstrates that Deyun Club is not only an effective channel that trains and cultivates xiangsheng actors who carry on and popularise traditional performing art forms, but also it manufactures idols and stars for the entertainment industry. Another must-mention performer of Deyun Club is Tao Yang (Tao Yunsheng, b. 1997). Tao is Guo Degang’s god/honorary son (gan erzi) and also his disciple. Tao Yang started learning Peking Opera at the age of five at the children’s Peking Opera class run by the Dalian Peking Opera Troupe. After several months’ study, Tao participated in a Peking Opera competition of northeast China and was awarded the title of “excellent player”, and Tao Yang was labelled a “Peking Opera Prodigy”. During the following years, Tao Yang won many awards in Peking Opera competitions organised for children and teenager amateur Peking Opera performers, and performed in many large-scale galas and variety shows. In 2007, at the age of ten, Tao Yang held his first Peking Opera special performance in Tianjin; in the same year, Tao held his second Peking Opera special performance in the same province. In 2008, Tao made his debut performance at the CCTV Spring Festival Gala. At present, although a member of Deyun Club, Tao Yang still focuses his main energy in practising Peking Opera, and xiangsheng is his secondary expertise. Tao generally performs at Qilin Peking Opera Club, which was also founded by Guo Degang in 2016 and named after his son Guo Qilin. Guo has expressed numerous times that Qilin Peking Opera Club does not make money so based on our observation his main purposes in establishing the club are: first, due to his own interest and love of Peking Opera; second, in order to carry on the tradition of Peking Opera and introduce it to more people, particularly those of the younger generations; third, to support his godson Tao Yang’s development in the Peking Opera circle. Similar but more strict than in the xiangsheng circle, the Peking Opera circle is quite exclusive, therefore, even Tao Yang, who has extreme passion and talent in Peking Opera performance, found it difficult to become a disciple of a well-known Peking Opera master. Therefore, it is not easy for Tao to continue in developing his professional career in

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the Peking Opera circle. Guo Degang is also very enthusiastic about Peking Opera performance and he often performs some excerpts of Peking Opera works in his xiangsheng performance. Guo’s passion and dedication moved one of the Peking Opera masters Zhao Lintong who took him in as a disciple; thus, Guo became a successor of the Qi School in the Peking Opera circle. The other exponents of the Qi School hope Guo could carry forward the Qi School Peking Opera performance and tradition as he did for xiangsheng, and Guo had already made his contribution to the school in terms of providing a great platform for Tao Yang to practice and popularise the Qi School Peking Opera works at Qilin Peking Opera Club. It is foreseeable in the future that Deyun Club and Qilin Peking Opera Club will play greater roles in the development and continuity of xiangsheng, Peking Opera and other traditional popular performing art forms in contemporary China.

References Cai, Shenshen. 2015. Academia and Cultural Production: Yu Dan and Her Confucius from the Heart: Ancient Wisdom for Today’s World. Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies 15 (1): 89–108. Cai, Shenshen. 2017. Guo Degang: A Xiangsheng Performer Bridging the Gap Between Su (Vulgarity) and Ya (Elegance). Asian Ethnology 76 (2): 343–365. Cai, Shenshen. 2018. Vincent Fang’s Love Lyrics: A Poetic and Nostalgic Reconfiguration of Modern Concepts about Romantic Love. Forum for World Literature Studies 10 (1): 170–188. Deyunshe shaobing yanchu zagua guanfang [Deyun Club’s Sesame Bun’s Performance Unsettles Officials]. 2019. Available: http://www.cunman.com/new/ 9de172b272a54ee98a3a21e997150da2. Retrieved 17 June 2020. Guo Degang Gelunbiya Daxue yanjiang [Guo Degang Lectures at Columbia University]. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts330mJJI_A& list=RDTs330mJJI_A&start_radio=1#t=0. Retrieved 17 June 2020. Link, Perry. 2007. The Crocodile Bird: Xiangsheng in the Early 1950s. In Dilemmas of Victory: The Early Years of the People’s Republic of China, ed. Jeremy Brown and Paul G. Pickowicz, 207–231. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Liu Yun. 2010. Qianxi Guo Degang de yuyan tese [A Brief Analysis of the Characteristics of Guo Degang’s Language]. Wenyi Pinglun (Art and Literature for the Masses ) 3: 75–76. Ni shuo xiangsi fuyushui [Tell Me, for Whom Is the Longing?]. 2017. Available: https://www.jianshu.com/p/4345c5a4b6c0. Retrieved 27 June 2020.

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Shishang zui zhenhan de wuhuanzhige yingwen langsong [English Recitation of History-Shattering ‘Five Ring Road’ Song]. 2016. Available: https://www. lizhi.fm/1272386/2529198426620814342. Retrieved 27 June 2020. Xiang Shi. 2008. Lun xiangsheng chuantong de jicheng yu fazhan [Commentary on the Inheritance and Development of the Traditions of xiangsheng Performance]. Hunan diyi shifan xuebao 8 (3): 155–157. Xiangshengjie de caogen yingxiong—Guo Degang fangtan [Lifeweek’s Interview with Grassroots Xiangsheng Hero Guo Degang]. 2005. Lifeweek, December 25. Zhang He. 2006. Zhengyi zai jixu Guo Degang: xiangsheng shi wo de shengming [Continuing Debates, Guo Degang: Xiangsheng Is My Life], February 24. Formerly available: http://culture.people.com.cn/GB/27296/4138218. html. Retrieved 21 November 2012. Zhang Yuhong. 2009. Congyi ershinian Guo Degang: bu zhiwang bieren zhi zhiwang tingzhong [The Twenty-Year Career of Guo Degang: Total Dependence on the Audiences], July 27. Formerly available: http://culture.people. com.cn/GB/22219/9724063.html. Retrieved 21 November 2012. Yue Yunpeng and Sun Yue. 2018. To Be a Rich Guy [Zuoge youqianren]. Available: http://www.yuwenmi.com/taici/590705.html. Retrieved 17 June 2020. Yue Yunpeng jiujing zenyang renshi Guo Degang de? [Just How Did Yue Yunpeng Come to Know Guo Degang?]. 2019. Available: https://www.sohu. com/a/304813906_99951241. Retrieved 17 June 2020. Zhang Yunlei, and Yang Jiulang. 2018. Zhang Yunlei, Yang Jiulang ‘Shui shi gewang’ xiangsheng taici [Words to “Who Is the Champion Singer?” by Zhang Yunlei and Yang Jiulang]. Available: http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/ blog_61401ade0102xuki.html. Retrieved 17 June 2020. Zhang Yunlei, and Yang Jiulang. 2019. Zhang Yunlei, Yang Jiulang “Shanghao de fanghua” xiangsheng taici [Words to Xiangsheng “Beautiful Youth” by Zhang Yunlei and Yang Jiulang]. Available: http://www.ap160.com/a/sbty/ 456.html. Retrieved 17 June 2020. Zhu Yunfeng, and Cao Heyang. 2019. Xiao’ao jianghu shaobing Cao Heyang xiangsheng ‘chao zuo’ taici [Words to “Hype” by Sesame Bun and Cao Heyang 笑傲江湖烧饼曹鹤阳相声’炒作’台词]. Available: http://www. 6pingm.cc/taici/153222.html. Retrieved 17 June 2020.

CHAPTER 6

Guo Degang as a Grassroots Culture Hero

There are multifarious meanings in labelling Guo Degang as a grassroots xiangsheng master and cultural hero. First, Guo Degang’s grassroots background has been a barrier in his development in the xiangsheng circle. Though Guo is an outstanding xiangsheng performer, his lack of bonds with those famous xiangsheng actors delayed his success. In contemporary China, one’s family background and mentoring relationships play a great part in deciding one’s status in the xiangsheng community. For example, Hou Yuewen and Ma Zhiming are sons of xiangsheng masters Hou Baolin and Ma Sanli, respectively, and Jiang Kun and Feng Gong, two well-known contemporary xiangsheng actors, are disciples of Ma Ji, who is a disciple of Hou Baolin. Within the xiangsheng circle in Beijing, there is a deep-rooted belief that one’s master is crucial for career development, and intense connections exist among different xiangsheng performing groups and individuals. However, Guo Degang was not born into an illustrious xiangsheng family, and nor was he acquainted with any influential xiangsheng performers until he met Hou Yuewen. Therefore, before his success in 2005, Guo Degang was truly a grassroots figure somewhat on the outer of the xiangsheng circle of present-day China. Hou Yuewen is the youngest son of xiangsheng master Hou Baolin. Because of the unsurpassed reputation of his father in the xiangsheng circle, Hou Yuewen enjoyed great popularity and admiration among his fellow performers and audiences alike. According to Guo Degang, after Hou Yuewen performed a xiangsheng piece with him,

© The Author(s) 2020 S. Cai and E. Dunn, Xiangsheng and the Emergence of Guo Degang in Contemporary China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-8116-8_6

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Hou was very much impressed by his performance and expressed his willingness to take Guo Degang as his disciple. Therefore, although Guo Degang did not learn many performing skills from Hou Yuewen, their relationship as master and disciple lent Guo authenticity and status as a xiangsheng performer within Beijing’s xiangsheng community. In other words, Guo Degang’s success largely emerged from a grassroots background and he has achieved status in present-day China’s xiangsheng circle mainly through his own talent and hard work. In his xiangsheng work “A Decade” (Shi nian), Guo Degang and Yu Qian conversed: Guo: Thanks for everything that the Chinese xiangsheng community has done for us. Since we opened the Beijing Deyun Club, the mainstream xiangsheng world has been sleeping like a baby. Yu: What do you mean by that? Guo: Sleeping, sleeping, then waking up crying. Yu: Huh. Guo: It’s a disaster for these few people. Who should we thank? Thankyou to all our friends in the audience. Yu: Indeed. Guo: You are all our bread and butter; without your support we wouldn’t be here today. We disciples Guo Degang and Yu Qian salute those we rely on to make a living. Thank you all, thank you. This isn’t an exaggeration, it’s true. Yu: The truth. Guo: It’s not that I’m harbouring a grudge. Some people keep a record of wrongs, but when I look back over the last ten tumultuous years, I must be thankful for that period of time. In the beginning I was really at my wits’ end, stranded in Beijing all alone without a cent to my name—penniless with no-one to turn to. My relationships ran hot or cold; people were friendly or unfriendly depending on my success. If you are poor, not even your own flesh and blood will stand by you. If you’re rich, people will fight their way to be with you even if you’re living deep in the mountains; fair-weather friends who come to cadge food and wine are many. Not even a gallant generalissimo can endure the trinity of hunger, cold and poverty. Not even a hero can be heroic under those conditions, let alone a speaker of xiangsheng. Yu: Too true. Guo: But fortunately that has all passed; things are not bad at all now. Yu: Okay. Guo: We survived; the Deyun Club progeny are quite good; and the audience supports us. Yu: Yes.

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Guo: Our offspring are also both inheriting this craft; my son Guo Qilin is an apprentice of Master Yu here (Guo, “Shi nian”).

The above dialogue between Guo Degang and Yu Qian reveals the difficult situation of the Deyun Club during its early stage. Without support from the government and the xiangsheng circle, Guo Degang and his Deyun Club as grassroots folk artisan and folk arts troupe, respectively, went through many hardships before they become recognised and popular among the audience. The success of Guo and his xiangsheng club verifies the reality in contemporary China’s entertainment industry, in which the practitioners have to bow to the mainstream/official discourse, and simultaneously must turn out cultural and media products that are welcomed by the general audience. Based on our observation of the career field in present-day China, these experiences and encounters of Guo Degang and Deyun Club resemble the bewilderments and perplexities of many Chinese young people who do not have strong family background, affluent social connections and resources. In today’s China, when compared with their parents’ and grandparents’ generations, young people such as the post-1990s and post-2000s generations with grassroots background confront more hardships when climbing the career ladder. Second, Guo Degang’s grassroots label sets him in sharp contrast with those official/mainstream xiangsheng performers who are either the socalled xiangsheng experts/masters in the field or belong to official or professional arts troupes and organisations. As discussed in previous chapters, those so-called xiangsheng experts and masters enjoy the privilege to perform in mainstream and most popular media and culture platforms such as the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, and they also have enormous resources to moonlight or perform in film and TV works. Therefore, they are the rich group in the xiangsheng circle; similarly, those professional xiangsheng performers who are affiliated to state or local arts troupes receive a salary and subsidies from the government and so their income is also guaranteed. In contrast, xiangsheng performers like Guo Degang and his colleagues and disciples in the Deyun Club rely solely on their performance income to support themselves, though many of them also obtained opportunities to perform in film and TV programs after they become famous. Guo Degang once said in a performance: I don’t thank: 1. [CCP] Leaders 2. Experts or 3. Others in the xiangsheng industry. On not thanking leaders, I have never worked regularly.

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Even at festivals like Chinese New Year I never received the sort of care that would give me even enough oil and flour for mooncakes.1 I don’t thank the “experts” [here mimicking a southern accent ]: “Oh, you can’t speak xiangsheng like that!” You can’t even speak with agility and you’re trying to teach me! Third, I don’t thank others in the xiangsheng industry; without them, I would have made it big-time a decade earlier. (Guo, “Shi nian”)

Here, the lack of support for Guo Degang and his Deyun Club from the government, the xiangsheng experts/master and the peer performers highlight the achievements of Guo himself and his Deyun Club, which again foregrounds the difficulties and encounters that contemporary Chinese people have to endure if they emerge from a grassroots background, without many social resources, yet want to succeed. Guo Degang’s resentment towards his peer xiangsheng performers is partly because he was elbowed by those professional xiangsheng performers who were affiliated to state or local arts and cultural troupes or those so-called xiangsheng experts and masters when he came to Beijing for development in the xiangsheng circle at the beginning of the 1990s. Guo Degang has expressed in many interviews that he came to Beijing because he wanted to join professional arts troupes so he could continue performing xiangsheng and earn a salary to support himself. However, he did not get a chance despite his extremely sound performing skills and talent. According to Guo Degang, his failure in joining professional arts and cultural troupes in Beijing forced him to establish his own xiangsheng club that finally attracted huge acclaim and success. Apart from their exclusion of him, Guo Degang’s resentment towards those so-called professional xiangsheng experts and masters and those xiangsheng performers in state-owned arts and cultural troupes came from his lack of respect for their knowledge about and performing skills of xiangsheng. Within the overall political and cultural backdrop of socialist and post-socialist China, xiangsheng performers who gained popularity mainly relied on their compliance with official policy and propaganda, which did not require much knowledge about xiangsheng or sound performing skills. Therefore, unlike those older-generation xiangsheng actors, the contemporary xiangsheng superstars such as Jiang Kun and 1 It was customary for work units to give their staff members some small gifts out of solicitude during festive periods.

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Feng Gong actually are not excellent in xiangsheng performing skills, let alone their knowledge about and capacity for performing traditional xiangsheng pieces and other folk art genres such as Peking Opera, drum songs and taiping geci, which are also necessary parts of xiangsheng performance. As Guo Degang has commented in his blog entry “I am Called Guo Degang” (Wojiao guodegang ) on one contemporary xiangsheng actor Wang Yang, who became popular with the audience because of his imitation of xiangsheng master Ma Sanli’s performing style: His family sold soft drink. This kid rode around every day hauling a pedicab full of soft drink and beer. Whenever he saw me practicing, he would adopt a scornful expression. I was puzzled: if he liked xiangsheng, why didn’t he study and practice it? After many years, this child who didn’t study and didn’t practice became popular everywhere under heaven—his name is Wang Yang. (Guo, “Wo jiao Guo Degang”)

Guo Degang also cracked vulgar comical jokes about Wang Yang and his wife in his xiangsheng performance: Upon returning home Wang Yang found his wife in bed with another man, stripped to the waist. Wang Yang became agitated. What he hadn’t expected was that his wife was more agitated than himself, and together with the man, beat him up. She asked: didn’t he say he was returning tomorrow? Why didn’t he keep his word? When Guo Degang was heading to work early one morning he came across Wang Yang trying to immolate himself on an overpass. A bunch of people were standing by watching. He asked a traffic policeman what was going on, and the policeman told him: everyone likes Wang Yang. When they heard he was going to immolate himself they were afraid he hadn’t brought enough petrol, so they solicited donations, which had now reached more than 20 tonnes. (Xiqingyuli 2019)

Consequently, Wang Yang took issue with jokes that Guo made about himself and his wife in his xiangsheng pieces, and brought public attention to Guo’s “immoral” performances (Feng 2006; Yuan 2007: 163–165). Guo Degang’s despising of Wang Yang might also be because of Wang’s affirmative attitude towards the official manipulation of xiangsheng as a popular performing art genre. Wang Yang acted as the director of the language programs of the 2006 CCTV Spring Festival Gala, and Guo Degang did not perform on the gala despite the huge popularity

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Guo had gained among the general audience since 2005. Further, soon after the 2006 New Year celebration, Jiang Kun, the so-called xiangsheng master and a xiangsheng superstar held a “Anti-Three Vulgarity” meeting (fan sansu da hui) that spearheaded the attack against Guo Degang. Guo Degang’s “immoral” performances were criticised and condemned for going too far. Jiang Kun, the famed xiangsheng performer and once-chairman of the Association of China’s Quyi Performers, also proposed to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference that they pay attention to the emergent vulgar trend within the little theatre performance circle and other cultural activities. Without mentioning Guo Degang’s name, Jiang Kun implicitly criticised Guo’s xiangsheng performance as bawdy and immodest, which triggered a series of verbal skirmishes between the two. In his 2011 xiangsheng work The Legend of Chai Kung (Jigongzhuan), Guo Degang satirised Jiang Kun as a eunuch. Guo Degang depicts a scene in which Chai Kung, a reincarnated Buddha who lived during the Southern Song Dynasty, intends to cure emperor Gaozong and his son, in exchange for having an affair with mother of emperor Gaozong. Then he continues that a eunuch pointed at Chai Kung and shouted: “You have moral issues!” Then Chai Kung turned his head and replied: “Which eunuch said that?” As Guo Degang quoted these lines, audiences understood the allusion to Chai Kung, and that Guo was using it to criticise Jiang Kun (“Guo Degang yong duanzi fengci Jiang Kun shi taijian”). Public morality has always been tightly controlled by the CCP’s Department of Propaganda, and moral degradation and transgression are viewed as a dangerous threat to social stability and harmony. Guo Degang also mentions numerous times in his performances that the mainstream/official xiangsheng performers attended his performances and stealthily noted any improper or indecent contents of his works and reported them to the government propaganda department. In “One Should Have Taste” (Niyao gaoya), Guo Degang depicts a scene when a mainstream xiangsheng actor admonishes him to be elegant in his performance: Guo: Oh, I said, tell me. “Okay, remember: it must be refined.” Yu: Go on. Guo: “Ah, it can’t be vulgar, right? Refined at all costs; we don’t want vulgarity.” They went on for ages without actually speaking a full sentence. Yu: Oh, they just said that?

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Guo: “Ah, don’t be unhappy, ah, you don’t have to be silent, but we will soon silence you.” Yu: Really? Guo: “We will write anonymous letters, type up reports; we will know everything.” Yu: Ei-oh. Guo: “Ah, you may not understand us, ah, you’re only cursing me because you don’t understand me. Once you’ve understood me you’ll have to kill me.” Yu: Ei, he also knows this will attract hatred. Guo: “We must try and be tasteful, ah, strive for the future.” Yu: Huh. Guo: “Not even the Great Wall can be seen from the moon.” Yu: So what can you see? Guo: “A bunch of xiangsheng performers acting refined.” Yu: Being really over-the-top (Guo, “Ni yao gaoya”).

Perhaps due to these continuous efforts of these mainstream/official xiangsheng actors, and the so-called xiangsheng experts and masters such as Jiang Kun, after a couple of years of golden age of Guo’s career, he was targeted by the CCP as a dissenter of the Counter the Three Vulgarities campaign. The secular focus on the daily routines of the commoners and its rich employment of vulgar comical elements and dirty jokes of Guo Degang’s xiangsheng performance evoked criticism and conviction from mainstream art critics and the official media. Of particular concern to the critics were loutish comical elements and rude jokes enlisted in Guo’s xiangsheng performance that concern ethics, pornography and prostitution, which turn Guo into a signifier of vulgarity and a foul-mouthed and controversial figure. In July 2010, the then CCP Chairman Hu Jintao explicitly banished the Three Vulgarities from the cultural domain of contemporary China (Hu Jintao: tuidong shehuizhuyi wenhua dafazhan dafanrong 2010). In August, the CCP’s Propaganda Department launched a new cultural campaign, the Counter the Three Vulgarities campaign (this campaign had been used in Guo Degang’s performance as a fictional event), at which time Guo Degang and his xiangsheng productions were labelled as vulgar. The “Guo Degang incident” originated on 1 August 2010 when

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one of Guo’s disciples, Li Hebiao, hit a journalist from Beijing Television to stop him from taking photographs outside Guo’s home.2 Later that evening, Guo commented that “Sometimes, journalists are worse than prostitutes. Regarding the Beijing TV station, I just feel hopeless. It is a very dirty work unit, and that is why it has many troubles”. Guo also published a blog entry in which he praised Li Hebiao as a national hero and again derided the wounded journalist. According to reports, Guo Degang sensed that the media and the mainstream/official discourse were taking this incident as an opportunity to boycott him and his xiangsheng performances, so he chose to counter-attack (Peng 2010: 67). Guo believed that as a representative of the Three Vulgarities, the government was suspicious of whatever he did. He implied that the journalist outside his house had been sent to cause trouble. Guo Degang’s suspicion comes from the CCP regime’s established habit of making trouble for non-conformists to persecute them. On 4 August 2010, CCTV aired a programme on their News Studio segment criticising Guo Degang’s speech and behaviour. Although his name was not mentioned outright, the criticism below was clearly directed at him: Between the merits and trash of the profession, he chose the latter. Between healthy trends and unhealthy trends, he chose the latter, and between a public figure’s duty and personal antagonism, he habitually chose the latter. This public figure’s secular and vulgar behaviour is so ugly. (Peng 2010: 68)

Also, the Beijing Folk Arts Association published a Counter the Three Vulgarities proposal to collaborate with the central government’s appeal, expressing its determination to boycott “coarse, cheap and tasteless” arts, and requesting folk art performers pay more attention to cultivating moral qualities. The Association of Journalists in China became involved in the affair, also condemning Guo Degang’s speech and behaviour. From 4 August 2010, the impact of the incident escalated. As a result, two of Guo’s most trusted assistants, Li Jing (one of the co-founders of 2 In 2010, Guo was reported to have built an illegal small garden at the back of his house and journalists of Beijing Television were asked to investigate the matter. During their investigation, a journalist was hit by one of Guo’s disciples and this incident triggered a series of disputes between Guo, the television station and the Association of Journalists of China.

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Beijing Xiangsheng Meeting) and He Yunwei (one of Guo’s most highly achieving disciples), announced their withdrawal from Deyun Club, and many major Beijing bookstores were ordered to remove videos of Guo from their shelves. All programmes on local television stations in which Guo took part were replaced by alternatives. On 7 August, the Deyun Club announced that it would temporarily cease performing and conduct a rectification within the club (Peng 2010: 68). According to many people, Guo Degang was extremely unlucky because the incident occurred, coincidently, in the heat of the CCP’s Counter the Three Vulgarities campaign. However, from another perspective, it may be argued that it is because of the emergence of Guo Degang, and people like him as a grassroots cultural dissenter who dare to challenge the party line and bring attention to social malaises and shake the prudish sensibilities of the party censors, that the CCP campaign began in the first place. According to the reporting of the American-based Chinese language newspaper World Journal: The Beijing xiangsheng performer Guo Degang landed in the spotlight of the Chinese media, however this Guo Degang incident is not a small problem of the celebrities, but regarding the big and small “tuweizi” (stubborn fortress of the harmful forces) emerged in the social transformation of China, and the need to abolish these tuweizi is a new task facing China. (“Xin tuweizi” 2010)

During this Counter the Three Vulgarities campaign steered by the CCP government, Guo Degang underwent a transformation from a “culture hero” to a “public enemy”, demonstrating the immense power wielded by the CCP dictatorship over potential challengers and opponents. However, Guo Degang’s bold attempts to counter-attack and his chivalry towards the overwhelming and overruling official/mainstream condemnation demonstrates a bottom-up ethos from a grassroots cultural hero, which challenges the authority and dictatorship of the regime in the domains of culture and morality. However, under great pressure from the official media and public debate, Guo Degang made a formal apology to the Beijing Television Station and to the public via his blog on 15 December 2010. He used the word “puffed up” (pengzhang ) to describe his speech and behaviour. Clearly, he realises that no matter how “puffed up” he becomes, and no

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matter how much popularity he enjoys among the audiences, it is impossible for him to fight against the official discourse, the dominant cultural force and the regime. Beijing Television Station acknowledged Guo Degang’s apology but did not respond to it (“Guo Degang daoqian fansi wangyou renke, Beijing tai jujue huiying 2010”). The famous Chinese New Year Film director Feng Xiaogang wrote in his blog regarding the incident: The apology has been made, the evildoer has been arrested, so please stop tramping on the troublemaker. You have great power and force so you can strangle whoever you want, and I really don’t know who is the violent force? (Peng 2010: 68)

Feng Xiaogang’s words recognise that this apparently trivial matter in fact signifies the much deeper struggle between the newly emerging tuweizi— the non-conformist, critical grassroots cultural force—and the established political and cultural dictatorship of the official regime; and the struggle between China’s emergent entertainment and cultural industry and official propaganda and moral discipline. Contrary to many people’s expectations, Guo Degang and his performing partner Yu Qian were invited to perform their xiangsheng work at the 2013 CCTV Spring Festival Gala. However, the content of their work was very conservative which disappointed many of their fans. Did this indicate that the government propaganda machine offered to enlist Guo Degang? Was this an amnesty of the “rulers” to the “rebel”? Or does this indicate the compromise made by both sides? In response to the condemnation of the official propaganda machine that moral degradation and transgression in his xiangsheng works serve as dangerous threat to social stability and harmony, Guo Degang has pointed out in his performances that in the history of China, there was no government which was overthrown by xiangsheng works; the bawdy or vulgar content of his performance is not powerful and intimidating enough to shake the social stability of contemporary China. On the contrary, they bring about pleasure to the commoners, which is the great contribution Guo Degang made to the building of a socialist “harmonious society”. Although Guo’s sarcastic and vulgar sketches received scorn from government censors in 2010, they were also exalted by millions of Chinese people. Guo Degang’s vulgarisation of xiangsheng performance

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restored its intrinsic nature, catered to the aesthetic pursuit of the ordinary people, and challenged the prudish tradition of the CCP government. Further, through embodying and discussing the vulgar vs. the refined polar virtues in his routines, Guo created more interest in these issues with the Chinese public, and increased his standing as both a comic performer of a folk art, and an influential writer in the public domain. Because of his audience impact, Guo Degang became a target for a central government anti-vulgarity campaign. It seems that this campaign though has backfired because Guo was able to turn the tables by exalting su—a term which implies not just vulgar (a loaded term), but also simply “popular”/“populist”, which turns Guo into a revolutionary grassroots figure in the contemporary Chinese culture sphere. The Guo Degang cause verifies Geremie Barmé’s observation of the 1980s Chinese cultural scene that government prohibitions no longer marked the end of one’s career but, when appropriately conducted, could often add to the public profile of a provocative artist (1999: xviii). Rather than offering education and spreading government policy, Guo Degang’s performance brought xiangsheng down to earth and retrieved its inherent essence as serving the people. As a grassroots mass entertainment genre, xiangsheng’s most important function as a performing art form is to provide enjoyment and relaxation to the common folks. There exists an aesthetic tradition in the popular performing arts (quyi) performance, called yasugongshang, which means the performance must suit both refined and popular tastes. This tradition explains how the popular performing arts genres as a whole fascinate a diverse range of audience members—those who are enticed by the elegance of the lyrics of a drum song piece as well as those who are interested in the vulgarity of a xiangsheng or clapper talk piece. Therefore, the ya-su dichotomy is already implied within the totality of the genres as a whole and there is a mixture of ya and su genres in a singular popular performing arts performance. For example, in a traditional xiangsheng work, there are often mini performances of some of the other elegant genres such as drum song and taiping geci, embedded within it. Thus, juxtaposing ya and su is already part of the performing arts aesthetics, in particular to the xiangsheng performers. Guo Degang has compared ya and su in many of his xiangsheng performances. For example, in One Should have Taste:

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Guo: What is tasteful and what is vulgar? Yu: Yes? Guo: People have said it. Yu: Ah. Guo: Listening to a symphony is tasteful. Yu: Indeed. Guo: Watching xiangsheng is vulgar. Yu: Hey! Guo: Listening to stars lip-synch is tasteful. Yu: Oh. Guo: Watching creations on the Internet is vulgar. Yu: People draw this distinction? Guo: Looking at life drawing is tasteful. Yu: Ha. Guo: A couple telling pornographic jokes is vulgar. Yu: Hey! (Guo, “Ni yao gaoya” #2.)

In this short dialogue, Guo Degang juxtaposes symphony and xiangsheng, and life drawing and vulgar jokes. By doing so, he seems to illustrate that those widely regarded elegant arts forms could not be understood or appreciated by common folks; on the contrary, though some xiangsheng works are rich in vulgar comical elements, they cater to the demand and taste of the general audience. In the same xiangsheng work, Guo Degang riffed on a common man attending a symphony performance: Guo: Your old man was really thoughtful, and took me to a music concert. Ah, the violin… Yu: Okay. Guo: Sitting there, everyone around us was wearing suits and sitting there well-behaved. Their necks were washed so clean they were white. Yu: What were you doing looking at people’s necks? Guo: Sitting there all clean and tidy, the maestro on the stage, playing the violin. Your Dad was watching conscientiously. After an hour, your Dad stood up, and said “The bastard hasn’t sawed it through yet!” Yu: You thought he was a carpenter? Guo: Sir, let’s go Yu: Ai, don’t embarrass yourself. Guo: Otherwise people would start hitting us. Yu: Indeed (Guo, “Ni yao gaoya” #2).

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The embarrassing and ridiculous reaction of the old man to the violin performance in the above xiangsheng excerpt vividly depicts the distance between high art and common folks, which proves that xiangsheng performance needs to be down to earth in order to attract the grassroots audience that constitutes the majority of the population. Also, in “One Should have Taste”, Guo Degang converses with his performing partner Yu Qian: Guo: What is vulgar, what is tasteful. Yu: Distinguish between them. Guo: I reckon … Yu: Yeah? Guo: Good taste alone is insufficient to make up this world. Yu: Oh. Guo: The joys and sorrows of the “little people” are what makes true art. Yu: That’s true. Guo: Chairman Mao taught us … Yu: Hmm. Guo: Literature and art is to serve the broad masses. Yu: That’s right. Guo: Blind tastefulness, blind elevation, just indicates that you are deliberately turning your back on Chairman Mao’s theory of literature and art. Yu: Ooh, that’s a grand accusation! Guo: That’s how you have to manage those guys. Yu: Really? Oh, like that (Guo, “Ni yao gaoya” #2).

Indeed, Guo Degang’s xiangsheng performances focus on the anecdotes and life encounters of those small potatoes and provides lots of entertainment and happiness to the common folks, the grassroots social echelon of present-day China. In other words, his revamp of xiangsheng as a popular performing arts genre best illustrates its social and recreational utility and builds a viable bridge between this old folk entertainment form and the contemporary audience. Through bringing back xiangsheng’s grassroots nature and making it serve the grassroots social cohorts, Guo Degang completed a breakthrough in the history of xiangsheng. Apart from those grassroots common folk audiences who could not appreciate the high art, audiences who belong to contemporary China’s upper social echelons such as celebrities, college students, and white-collar office clerks were also attracted by Guo Degang’s performance. Alternately, Guo Degang’s

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xiangsheng works serve as an overlapping entertainment model that caters to the demand across China’s social classes. In 2015, Guo Degang was invited by the Columbia University Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CUCSSA) to give a lecture on xiangsheng at that institution (“Guo Degang Gelunbiya daxue yanjiang”), and he was also invited to deliver a similar lecture at MIT (“Guo Degang zoujin masheng ligong”). These lectures prove the popularity Guo Degang’s xiangsheng performance enjoyed among the intellectual and social elite cohorts, which to some extent verifies that Guo’s xiangsheng works achieved yasugongshang. Guo Degang has mentioned numerous times in xiangsheng performances and interviews that those vulgar comical elements of his xiangsheng works are used to revive xiangsheng’s function that is to bring happiness to the general audience; therefore, to conclude that Guo Degang is a vulgar person based on his xiangsheng performance would be superficial and a misunderstanding. Though Guo Degang did not receive any formal higher education, his literary talent and achievements in the xiangsheng field have made him a contemporary cultural hero who rose from a grassroots background. Compared to some xiangsheng experts and masters who neither have much knowledge about xiangsheng, nor do they have much cultural literacy and accomplishment, Guo Degang could certainly be regarded as a man of letters. Guo Degang started writing microblog posts from the end of 2010 for Sina Web, one of the biggest commercial online media portals in mainland China, and its microblogging section attracted numerous celebrity bloggers.3 In many of his microblog posts, Guo Degang demonstrates his talent as a writer with the refined taste of a traditional Chinese scholar. Guo is capable of writing traditional poetry with a half classical and half vernacular language style, which is identical to the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368) qu verse. In addition, his microblogs show his inclination for elegant taste that is reflected in imitating the leisure activities of the traditional Chinese scholars such as calligraphy, painting and reading. Therefore, the interest and aesthetic appetite of Guo Degang’s pastimes exposed in his microblog entries contrasts

3 While microblogging, Guo Degang also wrote frequent blog posts for Sina Web, Netease Web and Blog China Web from 2007 to 2012. However, he seemed to quit blogging when microblogging became the dominant online social networking platform that enjoys more popularity among the Chinese bloggers and is utilized by celebrities as a medium to update information and keep in touch with their fans.

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sharply with that in some of his xiangsheng works, which provides a completely different and alternate image of him. The sometimes antithetical and polarising characteristic of Guo Gegang’s artistic creations and his other pastimes and aesthetic proclivities reveals the oppositional dualism of Guo’s life, his worldviews and outlook on life, although it seems puzzling and at times absurd as he oscillates between engaging with the world by criticising the social evils of the present-day China, and being transcendental and living the idyllic life of a recluse. Microblogging, which is a mutation of blogging, is an indisputably important grassroots phenomenon (Jenkins 2006: 179); a new form of personal and subcultural manifestation which encompasses summarising and linking to other sites (Jenkins 2006: 151), and it has become a popular platform for social networking in present-day China. Not only is it popular among ordinary Chinese, but also it is widely utilised by celebrities as a medium to help them keep in touch with their fans. For example, some celebrities write regular microblog entries to inform the fans about selected parts of their private life. This may include events such as announcements of their engagement and marriage; their travels, photos and encounters with others which all may be used to promote their works. Some celebrity microbloggers use this medium to exhibit their talent in writing or to promote their views on certain topics. Guo Degang’s microblog functions in all the above-mentioned categories and reveals an utterly different side to the xiangsheng Guo Degang. There are two noticeable aspects in Guo Degang’s microblog writing that highlight his aesthetic penchant for ya, which is in sharp contrast to his su demonstrated in his xiangsheng works. One of them is his gift in writing traditional poetry, which appears quite often in his microblog posts, where he uses both vernacular and classical languages and shows an artistic conception of elegance and refined taste. The other is his obsession with a lifestyle that is enjoyed by traditional Chinese literati and scholar. Although it seems that the theatrical persona is obviously staged and the private persona is the real Guo, it may also be argued that the glimpses afforded to us via his blog postings are also just as staged as a counter to his risqué stage performances. Whatever psycho-philosophical position we take on what is the real Guo, there is no doubt that both available personas are talented and complementary. Although it is arguable that Guo’s microblog postings are not comparable in a creative sense to his performance output, they have attracted millions of fans for Guo on

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the virtual social networking platform. Many of Guo’s microblog postings, in particular those poems written in classical inflected verse, gained hundreds and thousands of retransmissions and likes, which gives his microblog posts lots of influence with his xiangsheng fans. Through extending his creative force into the online social network conduit such as microblog, Guo Degang has revived the tradition of popular performing arts which calls for yasugongshang. By including a considerable part of the ya elements into his xiangsheng performance, Guo risks losing some su fans in the highly competitive cultural marketsphere of present-day China. Conversely, if he only did performance advertising in his microblog posts, Guo would risk losing the opportunity to display his literary talents to his fans. Therefore, Guo’s clever construction and combination of the so-called public and private personas of himself complement rather than clash with each other. Through his blog posts, Guo Degang has become widely recognised as a talented writer.4 Guo’s unique talent rests on his gift of constructing traditional poetry utilising both classical and vernacular lexicons, a talent that may have been acquired from his years of reciting and studying of the traditional folk art texts and performances. Guo Degang endeavours to write in classically inflected verse and that situates his writing as ya or elegant. Compared to the Tang poems, the Song ci poetry and the Yuan qu verse, Guo Degang’s writing is more casual in both thematic topics and versification traditions. We observe that Guo Degang is trying to imitate Yuan qu verse in style, however, that does not mean that his writing is comparable with Yuan qu verse. The Yuan qu verse is read more like the popular literature of today, however, its combination of elegance and subtlety of poetry and classical Chinese along with popular and mundane expression and theme, forms a literary genre that is humorous, unaffected and forthright. Similar to the Tang poems and the Song ci poetry, the Yuan qu verse also follows fixed forms of versification conventions that have different combinations and choices of word numbers and lines, tonal patterns and rhyme schemes. However, the Yuan qu verse enjoys more freedom than other types of classical Chinese poetry composition in regard to abiding established pattern of versification rules. 4 Guo Degang claimed to be author of all of his xiangsheng works except those traditional pieces. Also, he is supposed to be the author of all of his “official” microblog posts as there is no evidence suggesting that an assistant or employee in the Deyun marketing team writes them for him.

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In the case of Guo Degang, his poetry writing is similar in genre to the Yuan qu verse but even more casual in setting word numbers, tonal pattern and rhyme schemes. However, it is still read, to certain extent, like traditional verse in terms of its use of words and phrases of classical language. In particular, when compared to the popular literature written in pure vernacular language nowadays, such as modern poems and novels, Guo Degang’s writing in classically inflected verse demonstrates the elegance and charm of classical Chinese language and verse. One of his microblog posts (7 February 2014) is an example: 大年初八, 德云社一队开箱! 雷轰天地, 风扫雾霾。帝里繁华巷满莺花添锦 路, 仙家静寂云穿虬树锁丹崖。 On this eighth day of the new lunar year, the Deyun Club premieres its new season! Rolls of thunder fill heaven and earth; Wind sweeps the smog away. In the capital, bursting blossoms adorn bustling alleyways. In the silent heavens, cloud wends its way through bending trees and envelops gorgeous cliffs.

In this microblog entry used to commemorate the opening performance of the Deyun Club in 2014, it is easy to discern the rhyme scheme and the lingering charm of the classically inflected verse. It shows Guo Degang’s capacity to handle classical Chinese language and artistic conception. For example, the classical phrases qiushu (bending tree) and danya (gorgeous cliff) are used by Guo in this small verse to describe the spectacular scenery of ancient China which is full of lingering charm and magnificence. In traditional Chinese poetry and verse, depiction of scenery was frequently used to connote the emotional and artistic conception haunting the poet, and is full of subtlety and elegance that leaves room for the reader to muse and imagine. Therefore, the scenery and artistic imagery of the traditional poetry are replicated by Guo in this verse. In addition, Guo’s choice of words like qiu (bending) and dan (gorgeous), which belong to the classical lexicon and are no longer used in vernacular Chinese, show his familiarity with classical language and verse. In another entry (3 November 2013), Guo Degang wrote:

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一声飞鸿叫, 撕破了碧天皱, 秋来才知愁时候。金井锁梧桐, 人比黄花瘦。疏 雨滴滴, 池荷添锈。几株衰柳, 欲解凄凉何能够。 The call of the flying goose tears through the blue folds of the sky. Only when autumn arrives do we realize the time. The phoenix tree is bound up in gold, and the people are more slender still than chrysanthemums. Rain drips; lotus rusts. Withered willows hope for an end to the chill.

Similarly in this verse, Guo Degang employs typical and popular scenery and imagery of traditional Chinese poetry such as feihong (flying goose), wutong (phoenix tree), huanghua (chrysanthemum) and shuailiu (withered willow), to depict the sorrowful connotation of autumn. Flying geese migrate from the north to the south of China at the beginning of autumn, therefore in traditional Chinese they represent the change of season; the phoenix tree has a classic implication of grief in traditional Chinese writing; a withered willow acts as a metaphor of farewell; and chrysanthemum symbolises the noble character of the ancient Chinese literati who are indifferent to fame and wealth. Through this verse, Guo Degang shows his knowledge of traditional Chinese literature and culture, and imitates the ancient poets to express sentiment and thought via observing and appreciating the natural scenery which is full of sophistication and delicacy. Guo expresses in this verse his identification with the noble character of the ancient man of letters through the connotation of the chrysanthemum. In the entry written on 27 January 2014, Guo Degang wrote: 朔风凛冽, 雾霭霾霾。颠狂衰草, 难分辨野店楼台。梅花片似剪裁, 凄凉尽在 墙儿外。冰天如玉砌, 银枝似粉埋。推锦被踏雪白, 开眼界少卖乖, 游遍江川 策蹇归来, 诗成酒后天地犹嫌窄。 The North wind is piercingly cold; fog makes haze. Ailing grass withers, and it is hard to make out any landmarks. Plum blossoms have been pruned, and the sadness is outside the wall. The icy sky is layered like jade; silver branches appear coated in powder. Emerging from embroidered quilt, I tread on the snow outside. I must look where I am going and show off less; I roamed mountains and rivers but came back lame. When poetry is done and wine drunk, even the world seems small and narrow.

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In this post, written in the midwinter of Beijing, Guo Degang first describes the beautiful scenery of the city after a strong wind and heavy snow. He then moves on to describe his thoughts and feelings, and reveals an image of himself as an unruly literati whose profligate and unrestrained nature is exaggerated when composing poems, while drinking alcohol after travelling across the country. Here, drinking alcohol, travel for pleasure and composing poems are distinguished life routines of the traditional Chinese literati with natural and unrestrained temperaments, such as Li Bai (Tang Dynasty poet) and Bai Juyi (Tang Dynasty poet), who are famous for their contempt of dignitaries, and for pursuing freedom and lofty ideals. Similarly in this verse, Guo Degang demonstrates an elegant and unruly personality which mirrors the traditional Chinese men of letters. In the post above, 蹇 pronounced jian in Chinese is a very rare word in classical Chinese language that means lame. Here, Guo’s employment of this particular character in his verse indicates not only his level of proficiency in classical Chinese but also his unruly spirit that mirrors that of ancient Chinese literati. Besides imitating the writing of traditional Chinese literati, Guo Degang’s microblog entries also reveal his other pastimes and hobbies which are also highly identifiable with the leisure activities of the traditional Chinese poet. When he does not perform, Guo Degang spends his time reading, practising traditional calligraphy, painting, writing poems and collecting antiques. He is also a collector of fan painting and calligraphy. In ancient China, fan painting and calligraphy were popular among scholars and literati, and a fan with one’s own painting and calligraphy was used as a gift to friends to symbolise friendship. Fans with drawings and calligraphy of famous people are highly desirable, and in one of his 28 January 2014 posts, Guo Degang attached a photo of a fan that he painted for his performing partner, Yu Qian, on that day. In his 16 November 2013 entry, Guo attached the photo of a fan that was offered to him by Yu Qian as a present. This fan is an antique as it was painted by the Peking Opera master Mei Laifang and was inscribed by the Kunqu Opera master Yu Zhenfei. In another post written on 5 October 2013, Guo showed photos of a recently purchased antique fan painted by another Peking Opera master, Zhou Xinfang. In one of his 22 November 2013 microblog posts, Guo Degang wrote:

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秋意甚浓。沏花茶, 烫黄酒。沐手焚香, 盘竹根润手串… The sense of autumn is strong. I brew jasmine tea and heat yellow rice wine. I light incense and wash hands, Wetting my bracelet of bamboo beads …

In his 9 January 2013 entry, Guo said: 闻香品茗习字听曲, 观窗外积雪, 闻室内虫鸣, 人生之快无过于此… There is no greater happiness in life than smelling flowers, sipping tea, practicing calligraphy, listening to folk music, gazing at the piles of snow outside, or hearing birdsong inside…

Drinking tea and alcohol, burning incense, observing flowers, rain or snow, listening to ancient music and appreciating bamboo carving were common pastimes of traditional Chinese literati, and showed their aesthetic sensitivity and cultured taste. For a star who is admired and supported by millions of fans and immerses himself long in an extremely colourful and materialistic world of entertainment, Guo Degang’s leisure pursuits, to certain degree, suggest a person with refined taste. In another entry posted on 26 May 2011, Guo wrote: 闷坐不如品茶, 品茶不如饮酒, 饮酒不如吃面, 吃面不如吃肉, 吃肉不如吃 鸟, 吃鸟不如养鸟, 养鸟不如放生, 放生不如观棋, 观棋不如弹琴, 弹琴不如 写字, 写字不如画画, 画画不如登山… Sipping tea is more enjoyable than sitting still, drinking wine is more enjoyable than sipping tea, eating noodles is more enjoyable than drinking wine, eating meat is more enjoyable than eating noodles, eating a bird is more enjoyable than eating meat, keeping a bird is more enjoyable than eating a bird, freeing a bird is more enjoyable than keeping a bird, watching a game of chess is more enjoyable than freeing a bird, playing music is more enjoyable than watching a game of chess, writing calligraphy is more enjoyable than playing music, drawing is more enjoyable than writing calligraphy, climbing a mountain is more enjoyable than drawing…

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In this entry, Guo uses pure vernacular language written in repeated sentence structure to explain his pursuit of the elegant enjoyments which are popular among traditional Chinese scholars. This post does not follow any versification rules of conventional poetry, however, through repeating the same syntax pattern in every sentence it becomes carefree, humorous, unpretentious and frank. In a relaxed atmosphere created by this simple way of expression, Guo Degang voices the happiness he obtains from the cultured recreational activities of the ancient intellectuals, such as playing chess and music, and practising calligraphy and painting. Guo Degang also tells of his love for bamboo in his 7 November 2013 post, with a group of photos of the bamboo handicrafts he has collected: 喜爱竹子。竹者重节, 节者为信。 I love bamboo. Bamboo is a traditional symbol of integrity, and that which has integrity is trustworthy.

Bamboo is frequently used in traditional Chinese poetry as a symbol of the exemplary conduct and noble character of a person and it is admired and appreciated by traditional Chinese literati. Guo Degang uses bamboo as a medium to reveal his viewpoint on the behaviour of a perfect gentleman. Guo Degang’s su embedded in his xiangsheng performance and his ya reflected by his microblog entries indicates that his outlook on life is ambiguous and wavers between engaging with the world through critiquing social problems and being transcendental and living like a hermit. In Guo Degang’s xiangsheng works, although many of them contain su elements, he courageously uses satire of topical social problems and injustices that are rampant across contemporary China, to reveal his cynicism. An example of his satire may be found in “I Want to Perform in the Spring Festival Gala” (Woyao shangchunwan), which depicts a young man wanting to use unspoken rules to get an acting opportunity by using the casting couch with the female director. However, when the director opens her bedroom door, the young man finds that the male producer is in her bed. The plot cleverly lampoons the dirty tricks that are rampant in the entertainment industry, as well as within Chinese society. In “I Want to Have a Sex Scandal” (Woyao naofeiwen), a girl offers herself to the male director in order to get a role in his film. Soon after they finish making love, the girl slaps the director

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and says, “You bastard, how come you didn’t let me know in advance that you are actually a cartoon director?” However, Guo Degang’s microblog entries show an utterly diverse temperament and worldview where he wants to stay away from mundaneness and social concerns, and to live a pleasant life. Guo’s relaxed and tranquil mood reflected in his microblog posts may be the result of his success after years of painful struggles in the xiangsheng circle. As he has revealed in many interviews, before he found fame and wealth, he could barely support himself in Beijing and was pushed aside by the Beijing xiangsheng circle until he became a disciple of Hou Yuewen and the Hou School.5 Even since his success, Guo Degang has been criticised and condemned by critics and official propaganda organs because of the vulgar elements of his performance, which have resulted in numerous verbal skirmishes and disputes between Guo and his antagonists. Media reports frequently distort the facts and smear Guo’s image, and it is a combination of all these experiences which contribute to Guo’s understanding of the fickleness of the world and the evolution of his outlook on life. In a post written on 16 June 2011, Guo said: … 看破人生梦一度, 也只好携琴揽酒观山望水纸扇长衫笑天涯! Seeing that life is but a dream, what can I do but don a long gown; take up a fan, zither, and wineglass; gaze into the distance, and chuckle to the ends of the earth!

Another entry composed on 27 April 2019 reads,

5 Hou Yuewen is the youngest son of the xiangsheng master Hou Baolin. Because of the unsurpassed reputation of his father in the industry, Hou Yuewen enjoyed great popularity and admiration among his fellow performers and audiences alike. Within the xiangsheng circle in Beijing, there is a deep-rooted belief that one’s master is crucial for career development, and intense connections exist among different xiangsheng performing groups and individuals. Therefore, although Guo Degang did not learn many performing skills from Hou Yuewen, their relationship as master and disciple lent Guo authenticity as a xiangsheng performer. Since then, he started receiving more opportunities to perform his art and display his talents.

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遇好晴天, 好山水, 好书, 好字画, 好花, 好酒, 好心情, 须受用领略, 方不虚 度… When you happen upon fine weather, scenery, books, painting and calligraphy, flowers, wine or good mood, savour the experience; do not let it pass in vain.

Also in his post written on 22 July 2013, 书房内荷莲绽放, 心情大悦。三千年读史, 不外功名利禄; 九万里悟道, 终归 诗酒田园。6 The lotus [flowers] in my study are in full bloom, bringing me great delight. For three thousand years, Chinese history has recorded only matters of position and wealth. Having travelled the world and attained enlightenment, I have come to favour the simple things in life.

In the above microblog posts, Guo depicts an idyllic life style of the traditional Chinese scholar, which is to read history and write poems, appreciate painting and calligraphy, play music, drink alcohol, observe flowers and natural scenery, and travel for pleasure. It seems that Guo had penetrated the mysteries of life that burden those chasing and experiencing fame and wealth and achievement, which is despised by him as he now prefers a pastoral life where he can pursue his refined hobbies and live like a traditional Chinese intellectual. However, Guo Degang is still unable to give up his xiangsheng performances, as it was he who revived xiangsheng, and he wishes to carry on this trend.

References Barmé, Geremie R. 1999. In the Red: On Contemporary Chinese Culture. New York: Columbia University Press. Feng Rui. 2006. Guo Degang zouhong: cong lian gang dao za gang [Guo Degang’s Rise: From Loving Gang to Smashing Gang]. March 10. Formerly available http://culture.people.com.cn/GB/40473/40476/ 4185532.html. Retrieved 21 November 2012. 6 The second sentence in this posting is not Guo Degang’s original creation; however, he intelligently borrowed it from the ancient Chinese literati to express his emotions and outlook on life.

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Guo Degang daoqian fansi wangyou renke, Beijing tai jujue huiying [Guo Degang’s Retrospective and the Netizens’ Acceptance, Beijing TV Station Refused to Respond]. 2010, December 17. Formerly available http://ent. qq.com/a/20101217/000104.html. Guo Degang Gelunbiya Daxue yanjiang [Guo Degang Lectures at Columbia University]. Available https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts330mJJI_A& list=RDTs330mJJI_A&start_radio=1#t=0. Retrieved 17 June 2020. Guo Degang. Microblog Entries at Sina Web. Available http://weibo.com/guo degang?from=myfollow_all. Retrieved 17 June 2020. Guo Degang. Ni yao gaoya [You Must be Refined]. Available https://baike. baidu.com/item/你要高雅. Retrieved 17 June 2020. Guo Degang. Ni yao gaoya #2 [You Must be Refined, version 2]. Available https://www.zhihu.com/question/24658891/answer/535027096. Retrieved 17 June 2020. Guo Degang. Shi nian [A Decade]. Available http://www.dingbo99.com/z/ 15532.html. Retrieved 17 June 2020. Guo Degang. Wo jiao Guo Degang [I am Called Guo Degang]. Available https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vwhOgWS7eQ. Retrieved 17 June 2020. Guo Degang yong duanzi fengci Jiang Kun shi taijian [Guo Degang Using Skit to Satirically Suggest Jiang Kun Is a Eunuch]. 2011. Available http://blog. sina.com.cn/s/blog_7931dddb0100yfxx.html. Retrieved 17 June 2020. Guo Degang zoujin masheng ligong [Guo Degang Visits MIT]. Available https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9UXVdzD_4s&t=456s. Retrieved 17 June 2020. Hu Jintao: tuidong shehuizhuyi wenhua dafazhan dafanrong [Hu Jintao: Promoting the Great Socialist Cultural Development and Prosperity]. 2010, July 23. Formerly available http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2010-07/ 23/c_12367399.htm. Jenkins, Henry. 2006. Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture. New York: New York University Press. Peng Fei. 2010. Guo Degang: cong xiangsheng dashi dao ‘sansu’ daibiao [Guo Degang: From Xiangsheng Master to Representative of the Three Vulgarities]. Jizhe Guancha (Reporters ): 66–68. Xin tuweizi. 2010. The New Stubborn Fortress of the Harmful Forces. World Journal, August 5. Xiqingyuli. 2019. Guo Degang maren quanshi [Complete History of Guo Degang Cursing People]. Available https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/804 22200. Retrieved 17 June 2020. Yuan Xiujie. 2007. Guo Degang xiangsheng de yiyi yu queshi [The Significance and Loss of the Guo Degang Phenomenon]. Yishu Baijia 95 (2): 163–165.

CHAPTER 7

Concluding Remarks

Xiangsheng, which has been one of the most popular folk art performance genres with the Chinese people, and became fully developed during the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912), was enlisted by the official propaganda machine as a tool for promoting political and social objectives after the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Xiangsheng was inherently a grassroots entertainment form. However, after the founding of the PRC in 1949, the transformation of xiangsheng was pioneered in the 1950s by the Small Group for the Improvement of xiangsheng, who championed the merging of this grassroots, people’s form of entertainment, with a political agenda. By the end of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), xiangsheng was employed to mock and deride the Gang of Four; however, it was not until the middle of the 1980s that xiangsheng performance started to disengage with its official role and to gradually resume its indigenous social function as genuine satire. However, xiangsheng began to lose its popularity at the turn of the 1990s. This downward trajectory changed from about 2005, and xiangsheng once again began to enthuse the public. The catalyst for this change in fortune has been attributed to Guo Degang and his Deyun Club. The general audience acclaim for Guo Degang’s xiangsheng performance turned him into a xiangsheng master and a grassroots cultural hero. By reviving the original recreational intent of the art form, Guo has achieved what his immediate forerunners and peers could not: uphold xiangsheng’s © The Author(s) 2020 S. Cai and E. Dunn, Xiangsheng and the Emergence of Guo Degang in Contemporary China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-8116-8_7

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role as amusing entertainment for the people. Just as the members of the Group shifted the social function of xiangsheng from entertainment to the political tool of “serving the party”, Guo Degang has completed the paradigm shift by turning its focus back to “serving the people” as a means of entertainment and social criticism. During this process, Guo has resurrected the essence of xiangsheng, successfully commercialised it in a market economy, and simultaneously deconstructed the official discourse through grassroots means. This project is the first book length research focusing on the most recent resurrection and development of xiangsheng in China led by Guo Degang and his Deyun Club. In Chapter 1, we first looked back at the trajectory of xiangsheng in the early eras of socialist China, when it went from being a grassroots entertainment genre to one of political utility. Together with other indigenous Chinese performing arts such as storytelling and drum songs, which enjoyed great popularity among the lower social strata, xiangsheng was enlisted as a practical tool by the CCP to spread socialist education and promote its propaganda in response to the altered conditions in the society after the founding of the PRC. Famous writer Lao She, veteran xiangsheng performer Hou Baolin and their peers enthusiastically participated and contributed to the “socialist transformation” of xiangsheng. Unlike the old xiangsheng pieces, the reformed xiangsheng works removed any vulgar and sexual innuendos, allusions to unfitting class attitudes and other political imperfections, so that the content was in line with the policies of the CCP. Under the general conformist umbrella, xiangsheng served the party line of socialist China, and those writers who did not follow the party line were persecuted or purged, such as the famous xiangsheng writer He Chi’s suffering during the 1957 Anti-Rightist Movement. It is known that Chinese artists and intellectuals were widely persecuted due to groundless and irrational accusations during the feverish political and social movements of Mao’s China, which laid the foundation for the “politically correct” tradition and reality in modern-day China’s entertainment industry and cultural sphere. In addition to the transformation of old xiangsheng works, eulogistic xiangsheng was another important development in xiangsheng production after the founding of the PRC. However, this new laudatory form of xiangsheng failed due to its poor quality, which turned xiangsheng’s ironic essence upside down. Eventually, after the end of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), xiangsheng’s popularity increased, particularly when it was used to satirise the Gang of Four. Sarcastic elements, which had grown

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within the unique Cultural Revolution political environment, and political humour that was familiarised by the common people, converged to make the post-1976 period a prosperous time for xiangsheng creations and performances. In Chapter 2, we moved on to the discussion of the post-socialist/postrevolutionary period, during which xiangsheng works produced since the middle of 1980s to the beginning of 1990s shed more light on the social changes of the Chinese society after the Opening Up reforms, especially focusing on topical social events and maladies such as marriage for money, inept bureaucracy, corruption and bribery. This counter-official rhetoric of xiangsheng works made a breakthrough in retrieving xiangsheng’s role as genuine satire and social critique. The more liberal cultural policy implemented during the post-socialist/post-revolutionary period provided an opportunity for xiangsheng to regain its ironic essence and popularity with the general audience. The political thaw that reached the cultural sphere during the pre-1989 period witnessed many good artistic works—including xiangsheng pieces—emerge in China’s cultural and media landscape. However, the 1989 Tiananmen democratic demonstrations witnessed another round of tightening and accelerated surveillance and censorship of cultural and artistic creations. From the middle of the 1990s through to the early 2000s, xiangsheng began on a downward path for a number of reasons, and tightening on monitoring and censorship in the cultural and artistic sphere was only one of them. Emergence of other mass entertainment forms, the low remuneration for xiangsheng writing, the lack of sound basic skills and sharp observation of social reality of xiangsheng performers, all made the art form appear to be outdated. Fortunately, since the beginning of the new millennium, the new master of xiangsheng performance Guo Degang retrieved the popularity of xiangsheng among the contemporary Chinese audiences. Chapter 3 moved on to discuss the resurrection of xiangsheng in the new millennium. Due to the gargantuan success of his xiangsheng performance and the huge popularity he enjoyed among the Chinese audience, Guo Degang has successfully made his name a popular xiangsheng brand. At the turn of the new millennium, Guo Degang rescued xiangsheng as a popular entertainment folk art form and successfully reached audiences across a broad section of Chinese society. Guo Degang’s contribution to saving and recovering xiangsheng was a breakthrough. Guo achieved this breakthrough through his mastering of the four basic skills of a xiangsheng performer, of a broad range

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of folk art forms and of traditional xiangsheng pieces. Contrary to the majority of younger-generation xiangsheng performers, the rich employment of folk art forms in his xiangsheng works became a distinct feature of Guo Degang’s performances. Another distinguishing trait of Guo Degang’s xiangsheng performance is his adaptation of old xiangsheng pieces, which over time had gradually become less popular, especially with the younger-generation audience. Another highlight of Guo Degang’s success, which is the counterofficial feature of his xiangsheng creations, became the focus of our discussion in Chapter 4. Unlike those mainstream and official xiangsheng performers who routinely spread the state propaganda rhetoric in their xiangsheng works, Guo Degang attempted to disengage xiangsheng from its political functions and obligations. Guo Degang’s xiangsheng works revolve around sensitive and controversial social issues and problems, and ferret out the malaise and injustice in Chinese society. In this sense, Guo’s xiangsheng works let off the steam of the Chinese common folks that had been accumulating during the past decades during which official corruption and social injustice became worse, and the gap between China’s nouveau rich and poor widened. Guo Degang’s conscientiousness and chivalry caused him to be regarded a grassroots culture hero. In other words, Guo won respect from his audiences and fans not only because of his consummate xiangsheng performance but also due to his courage and chivalry to speak truth to the regime and vent the frustrations of the commoners. In present-day China, many intellectuals have become “elite within the system”, meaning that they kowtow to the CCP’s authoritarian rule and dare not to challenge the official discourse; therefore, fewer and fewer true voices can be heard from the intellectual circle. Compared to the intellectuals of the May Fourth and Republican eras, contemporary Chinese intellectuals perform like they have been collectively castrated, to borrow a comical element frequently adopted in Guo Degang’s xiangsheng works. This collective silence of the intellectual circle can also be understood as a forced self-discipline imposed on contemporary Chinese intellectuals, which is not only a sorrow for Chinese intellectuals but also to the distress of the entire Chinese nation. Under this situation, the candour and chivalry of Guo Degang are especially impressive, meaningful and valuable. Vulgarity is another unique trait of Guo Degang’s xiangsheng performance. Guo’s xiangsheng is not meant to educate the masses, and he

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rejects any form of refined taste or elegance in his xiangsheng performance. His down-to-earth and obscene taunts are identical to the material targeted by the post-liberation performers attempting to bring xiangsheng into line with CCP policy. For Guo, the de-vulgarising of the art form by the Group at the early stage of socialist China destroyed its original essence as a source of entertainment. Guo Degang has mentioned numerous times in his performances that TV stations banned his works. Those works that were banned by the TV stations dealt with the realities of modern life such as prostitution and materialism, which offend the party censors. Public morality has always been tightly controlled by the CCP’s Department of Propaganda, and moral degradation and transgression are viewed as a dangerous threat to social stability and harmony. In other words, Guo’s xiangsheng works upset the official party line which promotes and depends on a prudish tradition to stabilise and consolidate its rule. Thus, Guo Degang’s “immoral” performances have been criticised and condemned by some xiangsheng performers and scholars for going too far. However, in response to the criticisms, Guo Degang has expressed in his performances that in the history of China, there was no government which was overthrown by xiangsheng works. Alternatively, the bawdy or vulgar content of his performance is not powerful and intimidating enough to shake the social stability of contemporary China. On the contrary, they bring about pleasure to the commoners, which is the great contribution Guo Degang made to the building of a socialist harmonious society. Guo Degang’s unprecedented success in reviving xiangsheng in contemporary China not only attracted criticism from mainstream media outlets and official discourse, but also attracted jealousy and even hatred from other xiangsheng performers; from another perspective this reveals the extreme competitiveness, exclusion and discrimination within present-day China’s entertainment sphere, which serves as an epitome of the entire workplace of today’s China. Apart from resuming xiangsheng’s ironic and vulgar nature and function of social critique, Guo Degang’s contribution to xiangsheng as a traditional pop performing art genre lies in his founding of the Deyun Club, which not only brings audience back to theatre but also trains new generations of xiangsheng performers that carry on and pass down the performance and tradition of this established performing folk art form. Chapter 5 traced the emergence and development of Deyun Club. It is not exaggerating to say that Deyun Club holds up half the sky of xiangsheng performance in present-day China. Since its establishment in 1995,

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Deyun Club has staged thousands of xiangsheng sessions and trained hundreds of professional xiangsheng performers. During its early days, Deyun Club only had a handful of performers including Guo himself, and there were even days where ends could not meet; however, Guo Degang and his performing peers’ hard work and persistent striving paid off. Deyun Club has not only survived in the extremely competitive cultural market of today’s China, but also developed into the most important and valuable platform and centre of xiangsheng performance and training, which laid the foundation for the development of xiangsheng in the coming decades. Through staging quality and regular performances, Deyun Club has successfully built up its fan base with millions of followers, including white-collar middle-class professionals, college students, private entrepreneurs and celebrities. This change of audience demographic of xiangsheng not only lifted the social and educational level of audiences, but also garnered more younger-generation fans for traditional and contemporary xiangsheng performances. Finally, Deyun Club has successfully built itself into a popular, profitable and unique brand in the entertainment sphere of modern-day China. In other words, Guo Degang and his Deyun Club saved a dying traditional popular folk art form and effectively commercialised it in an extremely competitive cultural market, which is certainly not an easy task even for government run professional art troupes, let alone a privately run xiangsheng club. Xiangsheng, as a popular entertainment folk art form based in the northern cities of China such as Beijing and Tianjin, normally could not be appreciated by people living in Southern provinces such as Shanghai and Sichuan, due to various reasons including the different dialects spoken by people across China and cultural divergences; however, Deyun Club changed this situation and opened branches in many cities in South China, and run large-scale commercial performances in southern cities such as Shanghai, Chengdu and Nanjing. Further, Deyun Club has toured across the globe to countries like America, Germany, Japan, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, not only serving the cultural demands of Chinese diasporas but also spreading traditional Chinese culture to the rest of the world. By staging large-scale commercial xiangsheng performances across the globe, particularly in Western developed countries, Guo Degang and Deyun Club achieved what traditional Chinese folk art performance has never achieved previously. Particularly, the establishment of the Melbourne branch of Deyun Club in 2013, which aims to train

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local diasporic Chinese to perform xiangsheng, builds a nuanced bond between diasporic Chinese and their ancestral country; further, it provides an example of the operation of China’s creative cultural industry in the Western world, which sets a model for other Chinese creative cultural practitioners. Besides carrying on xiangsheng performance and traditions, popularising folk art performances across China and spreading traditional Chinese culture beyond the Chinese border, Deyun Club has become a viable platform to turn out outstanding xiangsheng performers particularly and popular stars generally. Many well-known xiangsheng performers of Deyun Club emerged from a grassroots or even disadvantaged background such as Yue Yunpeng and Kong Yunlong (who were both waiters at a Beijing noodle restaurant before they joined Deyun Club); therefore, Deyun Club not only provides a platform for Yue and Kong to learn and perform xiangsheng and become professional and popular xiangsheng performers, but also it provides an opportunity for grassroots social classes to achieve success and become famous in present-day China. In China nowadays, those so-called second generations, including rich second generation, official second generation and even star second generation, monopolise the financial and social resources of China, making success for ordinary people increasingly difficult. However, Guo Degang and Deyun Club build up a platform on which commoners—even disadvantaged young people—could realise their star dreams, which secures limited equality within the entertainment industry particularly and within the entire society in general. However, no matter how popular Deyun Club and Guo Degang are among the general audience, their fate is firmly grasped in the hands of the CCP government. Chapter 6 discussed Guo’s non-conformity and chivalry as a grassroots culture hero. In August 2010, the CCP’s Propaganda Department launched a new cultural campaign, the Counter the Three Vulgarities campaign, at which time Guo Degang and his xiangsheng productions were labelled as vulgar. Though those vulgar comic elements and pornographic and sexual allusions employed by Guo Degang in his performances restored the essence of traditional xiangsheng pieces and entertained the general audience, they also challenged the party line and drew attention to social malaises and shook the prudish sensibilities of the party censors. This Guo Degang phenomenon is not a small problem restricted to celebrities, but involves the various detrimental elements and forces of unconformity that have emerged in the

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social transformation of China and which pose new challenge to the CCP government. During this “Counter the Vulgarities” campaign Guo Degang underwent a transformation from a culture hero to a public enemy, indicating the enormous power brandished by the CCP rule over potential pretenders and opponents. In this sense, the Guo Degang incident implicates the much deeper struggle between the newly emerging non-conformist, critical social discourse and the established political and cultural dictatorship of the official regime; and the struggle between China’s emergent entertainment and cultural industry and official propaganda and moral discipline. In summary, our book traces the trajectory and development of xiangsheng between the founding of PRC and the present, with a particular focus on Guo Degang and his Deyun Club, which are the tower of strength in contemporary China’s xiangsheng industry; combs the experiences and course of Guo Degang from a common xiangsheng performer to a xiangsheng master and a culture hero; maps out the distinct and unique features of Guo Degang’s xiangsheng performance; and discusses Guo’s contribution to carry on xiangsheng as an established popular folk art performing form and successfully commercialised this traditional folk art performance genre in an extremely competitive entertainment industry. As the first book length project focusing on Guo Degang and his xiangsheng performance, it has not been possible to cover every aspect of Guo’s success and contribution to xiangsheng in present-day China; however, it provides a stepping stone for other scholars who are interested in the research of xiangsheng to carry on the discussion. Further topics and themes that could be considered and explored might include: how Guo Degang and his Deyun Club might develop in the future bracing the monitoring of the government and the pressure from the market; the continuing struggle between China’s entertainment and cultural industry and official propaganda and moral discipline; the political function of traditional folk art forms that could be enlisted by China’s state propaganda machine at present and in the future when the CCP adopts a more controlling and high profile propaganda strategy both within China and on the international stage; and so on.

Index of Subjects and People

A Acupuncture, 19, 20 Anti-rightist campaign, 19

B Baofu, 11, 51–53, 55, 73 Blogs, 88

C CCTV Spring Festival Gala, 32, 54, 56, 106, 111, 113, 118 Censorship, 21, 40, 64, 99, 135 China Xiangsheng Web, 55 Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 2, 5, 10, 11, 15, 16, 19, 25, 27, 40, 50, 51, 53, 56, 57, 59, 63–65, 75, 78, 100, 114–117, 119, 134, 136, 137, 139, 140 Chou, Jay, 100, 101 Chun wan, 32 Cultural Revolution, 2–4, 19–21, 25–30, 36, 58, 66, 73, 78, 104, 133–135

D Dai Zhicheng, 56 Dashan, 34 Da shi hua (Big Truth), 49, 50 Deng Xiaoping, 25 Deyunshe (Deyun Club), 5, 46, 54, 87 Divorce, 19, 29

E E’gao, 5, 40

F Fang, Vincent, 101 Feng Gong, 33, 38, 40, 56, 109, 113 Feng Xiaogang, 60, 118 Four modernizations, 31, 37, 65

G Gang of Four, 2, 4, 20, 21, 25–27, 29, 31, 36, 58, 133, 134 Guo Degang, 1–3, 5, 34, 41, 45–48, 50–55, 58–60, 64–76, 78–80,

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020 S. Cai and E. Dunn, Xiangsheng and the Emergence of Guo Degang in Contemporary China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-8116-8

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INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND PEOPLE

82, 83, 87–96, 98–100, 106, 107, 109–131, 133–137, 139, 140 childhood, 45 Guo Qilin, 93, 94, 106 Guo Qiru, 11, 14

H Han Han, 57 Hebei clapper song (bangzi), 48 He Chi, 17–20, 134 Hou Baolin, 7, 9, 11, 13–16, 18–20, 34, 46, 53, 87, 109, 130, 134 Hou Yuewen, 87, 109, 110, 130 Hu Jintao, 1, 115 Humour, 2–5, 8, 11, 19, 26, 78, 135

Link, Perry, 2, 3, 6, 7, 11, 13, 16, 19, 26, 32, 45, 50, 52, 53, 55, 56, 58, 60, 87, 90, 94 Liu Baorui, 20, 34 Love, 36, 40, 59, 68, 69, 75, 77, 82, 101–104, 106, 129 M Mainstream culture, 5, 63 Ma Ji, 16, 20, 32, 33, 109 Mao Zedong, 3, 9, 11, 25, 28, 78 Microblogging, 88, 122, 123 Ming Dynasty, 7 Moser, David, 3, 5–7, 9, 11, 20, 31, 32, 39, 40 N Nationalism, 67

I Intellectuals, 3, 39, 58, 82, 122, 129, 131, 134, 136 Internet, 5, 40, 55, 88

J Jia Ling, 70 Jiang Kun, 29, 32, 34, 36, 55, 56, 109, 112, 114, 115 Journalists, 116

K Kaikkonen, Marja, 3, 5, 11, 13, 16, 19, 26, 50, 51 Kang Dapeng, 55

L Lao She, 10, 12, 13, 17, 19, 20, 134 Liang Zuo, 36, 39 Li Hebiao, 116

O One child policy, 32 P Peasants, 11, 16, 58, 69, 94 People’s Daily (newspaper), 12 Pingju, 2, 18, 46, 47 Popular religion, 15 Pornography, 51, 54, 58, 73, 74, 115 Propaganda, 2, 3, 10–13, 17, 50, 53, 57, 59, 64–66, 78, 79, 112, 114, 118, 130, 133, 134, 136, 140 Q Qing Dynasty, 1, 50, 104, 133 Quyi, 1, 19, 26, 40, 45, 119 R Romance, 36 Rowswell, Mark, 34

INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND PEOPLE

S Sexual innuendo, 51, 53, 134 Shan Lianli, 34 Social media, 88 Superstition, 11, 14, 19 T Taiping geci, 2, 7, 9, 46, 48, 49, 100, 113, 119 Tang Jiezhong, 36 Tang poetry, 102, 124 Tao Yang, 106, 107 Television, 5, 29, 32, 40, 46, 55, 88, 99, 116, 117 “Three prominences” (san tu chu), 20 “Three vulgarities” (san su), 1, 78, 88, 115, 116 Tiananmen Square, 39 W Wang Minglu, 30 Wang Yang, 113 Weibo, 1

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Women, 15, 102. See also Jia Ling; Shan Lianli X Xiangsheng gaijin xiaozu (Xiangsheng Reform Group), 13 Xiaopin, 39 Xi Jinping, 5 Y Yan’an, 16 Yiguandao, 14, 15 Yue Yunpeng, 93–98, 139 Yu Qian, 52, 70, 71, 75, 77, 82, 83, 90, 92, 93, 110, 111, 118, 121, 127 Z Zhang Wenshun, 87, 90 Zhang Yunlei, 100, 101, 103–106 Zhu Shaowen, 8 Zhu Yunfeng, 93, 98

Index of Xiangsheng (Crosstalk) Skits

B Bu zheng zhi feng (Unorthodox Tendencies), 30 C Chao zuo (Hype), 98 D Danshen nannü (Single Men and Women), 83 Dianti qiyu (Lift Accident), 36 H Haohao xuexi (Study Hard), 53, 74, 75 Hu nian shuo hu (Speaking of Tigers in the Year of the Tiger), 33 Hunyin yu mixin (Marriage and Superstition), 11, 14 J Jia boshi (Dr. Fake), 13

Jie da huan xi (Everybody Happy), 31

K Kaihui mi (Hooked on Meetings), 18

L Liening zai 1918 (Lenin in 1918), 47, 48 Lihun (The Divorce), 29 Lugou qiao (Marco Polo Bridge), 10 Lun wushi nian xiangsheng zhi xianzhuang (Fifty Years of Xiangsheng Performance), 58

M Maozi gongchang (Hat Factory), 26 Mazui xinpian (New Notes on Anaesthesia), 19 Mai butou (Selling Cloth), 9 Mai hou (Buying Monkeys), 17 Meili rensheng (Beautiful Life), 74

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020 S. Cai and E. Dunn, Xiangsheng and the Emergence of Guo Degang in Contemporary China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-8116-8

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INDEX OF XIANGSHENG (CROSSTALK) SKITS

N Ni ben shanliang (You are Kind), 73 Ni yao gaoya (One Should Have Taste), 115, 120, 121 Ni yao zheteng (You Should Rock the Boat), 75

Q Qiao zhe lia die (Look at Those Two Dads), 40 Quan jia (The Mediation), 34

R Ruci zhaoxiang (Taking a Photo), 29

W Weisheng su (Vitamins), 12 Wo jiao Guo Degang (I am Called Guo Degang), 68–70, 113 Wo shi heishehui (I am a Gangster), 83 Wo yao fan sansu (I will Counter the Three Vulgarities), 64, 65, 76 Wo yao nao feiwen (I Want to Have a Sex Scandal), 82 Wo yao shang chunwan (I Want to Perform in the Spring Festival Gala), 80 Wo yao xingfu (I Want Happiness), 79 Wo you dian yun (I Faint), 56 X Xiaotou gongsi (Thief Company), 36

S Shanghao de fanghua (Beautiful Youth), 103 Shehui zhuyi hao (Socialism is Good), 16, 17 Shenxian cizhi (The Immortals Resign), 19 Shi, ge yu aiqing (Poetry, Song and Love), 36 Shi nian (A Decade), 70–72, 76, 78, 79, 110, 112 Shui shi gewang (Who is the Champion Singer?), 105

T Teda xinwen (Big News), 36

Y Ye gui (Returning at Night), 34 Yexing ji (Travel at Night), 14 Yiguandao (Yiguandao), 15 Yi wang da jin (One Fell Swoop), 80, 82 Youyi song (On Friendship), 20 Z Zhongqiu yuebing (Mid-autumn Mooncakes), 10 Zi xiang (Characters), 8 Zuoge youqianren (To be a Rich Guy), 96 Zuotian (Yesterday), 15–16