Chinese Whispers, pt. 2 – 大山 Dashan, the Canadian comedy superstar of China, and the Uncanny Valley

Mark Henry Rowswell grew up in Ontario and came to China age 23 in the late 1980s to study Chinese. For some reason, he was on TV only a few months after arriving and even performed a comedic skit on CCTV’s New Year’s Eve gala, broadcast to around 550 million people. His Chinese language skills are legendary, almost uncanny, and he is gleefully hated by students of Chinese.

He soon became an expert in a traditional Chinese form of comedy called “crosstalk”, which caused considerable controversy in the performing arts circles. Over the years, Dashan morphed into a completely strange, uncanny media personality literally everyone in China knows and loves. Being on TV in China means at least one billion people see you, and furthmore, your being is completely constructed. Dashan is more Chinese than anyone else in China – like a weird artificial life form.

There is a great documentary about him, which I recommend watching on this grey afternoon: