The light of the fireflies in the wasteland. For China's earliest stand-up comedians, that 15-minute talk show became the light source that later led them into the temple of art. It was March 2010, and Huang Xi performed at the White House Press Conference, and the video went viral. In China, on the other side of the ocean, all the shows with talk shows in their names at that time had nothing to do with this comedy form called stand-up comedy in English.
That sensational performance also changed Huang Xi's career trajectory. With a Ph.D. in biochemistry, he decided to give up his American research job to become a full-time stand-up comedian. In 2013, he made another big decision — to return to China, become the host of CCTV's weekly program "Is It Real?" and founded a club called Laughter Fang.
After 11 years of white house performance, Huang Xi appeared as a contestant in the variety show "Talk Show Conference 4" produced by Xiaoguo Culture. If I hadn't brought talk shows to China, there wouldn't have been a talk show conference, and I wouldn't have had the opportunity to participate in the audition today. He teased himself in the passage.
In the years since his return to China, the landscape of talk shows has changed dramatically from scratch. There are more and more talk show artists on the stage, and there are more and more spotlights. Talk show enthusiasts Cheng Lu and Liang Haiyuan, who once lined up in Shenzhen Book City to wait for Huang Xi's autobiography to sign for sale, have now become the chief screenwriter and heavy card division of Xiaoguo. Zhou Qimo, who came to prominence in another talk show competition in which Huang Xi served as a mentor four years ago, is now regarded as an OG (veteran player) and an industry ceiling. Not to mention Li, who was still in college the year Huang Xi na joked about the vice president of the United States, and now as a first-line comedy star and the founder of Laughing Fruit, he sits on the laughing couch of the "Talk Show Conference" and plays a similar role as a judge.
After returning to China, Huang Xi still toured the country every year, and his acting career was never interrupted, but in the public domain, his discussion tended to be flat. His distance from Weibo hot searches, media headlines, and the most fashionable youth culture has become far away. Some people will describe him as the apex of his debut, which is a cruel description and true. But this sentence ignores one detail, Huang Xi debuted in 2002. In the seven or eight years before the White House performance, he did not have popularity, and it was his love that kept him going.
How does a pioneer face the hilarity of others in the field he has pioneered and his own blandness? How to deal with possible loss? The following is Huang Xi's answer.
Wen | Xie Mengyao
Editor| Huai Yang Photography | Yin Xiyuan (unless specially noted)
1
Going to a talk show convention was a bit of a tough decision, and there were friends who didn't want me to go and they were worried that I was being consumed. Some of my fans told me that she hadn't slept all night and felt how she could be on that kind of show and affect my status. Everyone's perception is different.
I think it's nice to go and have some communication with the new actors. At the beginning, I didn't go with the mentality of a game, I went up to talk about a paragraph, as a surprise player, I was surprised and surprised, and I was happy, and I withdrew after talking. Li Shi asked me to go over there (the promotion area), which I didn't know at first.
I haven't been exposed on variety shows for a while, so that paragraph probably talks about some things before and after returning to China. But to be honest, my personality is relatively low-key, and that period is more Versailles, which is not the same as I usually am. But there is no way, the current variety shows are all played like this. Are you saying that's the one I want to look like the most? In many ways I want to present, only 5 minutes, probably to talk about it, after all, it is not my personal session.
Huang Xi participated in the "Talk Show Conference" image source "Talk Show Conference"
It is true that Li Tian gave me a contribution, that was before 2015, and it was not used at that time, which is also true. You say who can know that Li Tian can fire, can fire like today. Among Wang Zijian's three writers at that time, he was not the first, and it was Lai Bao at that time. Some of the contestants, like Rock, used to come out of my training class.
Chinese talk shows are exploding too fast. The eight-year and ten-year tempering period abroad is likely to be eight months in China. Like I said on the show, what the road below will look like, there must be highs and lows. The fact that you become famous quickly does not mean that you have a lot of goods in your stomach. Because stand-up comedians don't go away like little fresh meat in a year and a half, you have to keep creating. Even if I can't appear on variety shows anymore, I don't care at all, I can still do touring.
I'm not too interested in going to various reality shows. I may also be outdated, you said you sneezed on a variety show, everyone remembers you, this is not a work. Come to think of it, what was passed on? Many people hate Zhou Libo, I think at least Zhou Libo has his own works there, how many works can reach that height?
When I first returned to China, many people imitated my style, and now you go to the club to see, young people are basically men imitating Li Tian, and women imitating Yang Kasa, which is particularly obvious. They may not realize it themselves. Because the creative style of laughing fruit culture may be more influential, but it will change over time, this thing is not set in stone. I haven't seen anything, you said the pool is good, Cam is good, there is nothing fresh, everyone has done it before. Different styles have always been there, depending on how you want to get it at the beginning.
When the first three seasons of Talk Show Convention were on the air, I watched some bits and pieces. Before some people speculated, saying where Huang Xi went, how hot it was in those days, and now no one cares. I was so angry that I said nonsense, you just asked Where Huang Xi went, and no one cared. I don't like being stirred up in such a sound.
2
I started talking about talk shows in 2002. Living in Boston at the time, at least half of America's big talk show names came out there, dane Cook, Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, Bill Burr were all Bostonians. There are hundreds of people, and there are only two Chinese. Except for me, there was a Taiwanese guy who did it for two years and then didn't do it.
At that time in that circle, the one-liner type of paragraph was a bit fashionable, to have content, after a slight pause, you have to give everyone a little time to think about it before you can laugh. I'm talking about this shortness as well. Initially on stage, my nervousness was real, and then it became a style. Anthony Jeselnik, who is now more popular, is also talking about one-liner. But he was too monotonous and the only topic was death. If you compare him to the one-liners that caught fire in the 1980s and 1990s, you can't catch up. Steven Wright's brain holes, you really have to turn half a day.
By 2005, Dane Cook was so hot that he was talking about a New Year's Eve talk show on the football field. He belongs to the roaring type and has a particularly high energy. People told me you had to change your style, and now you're not hot.
I don't want to change my style. Because I have always known myself, I am a person with strong convictions, and I believe that what is good is good. They said you look at this guy on TV, I said what's that, they think you're old. Whether it's on TV or talking in a broken basement, I have standards for good or bad, and I don't have a standard for who fires. I think Dane Cook's paragraph space hole is gone. After two hours of talking, after you listen to it, there are two paragraphs in total, and the rest are all screaming and calling. Even if I listen to rock and roll, I don't just want to be lively, whoever beats the drums and I listen to who, how can you have to have a melody. Talk shows are even more so, relying on content. The waiters at the Starbucks I often go to are Dane Cook's high school classmates, and after a year or two, they can't stand it.
Ellen DeGeneres, the host of the Allen Show, has said that there are two fooling things in the talk show, one is particularly fast, and the other is particularly loud. As long as you say anything particularly mediocre very quickly, the audience will definitely applaud you, which is the same as you flipping your head on stage, no different.
It may be related to my science and engineering background, which is more rigorous. I like one-liner, it's the most concise, almost no use word, can be seen to be written by people with quick thinking and high IQ. In fact, it is difficult to write, because of the shortness, the subject matter consumption is also very large. There was an one-liner-style actor who went to Vegas to perform, carrying a large box full of his strips, handwritten on paper. Woody Allen, too, had any ideas for writing napkins inside the stuffer pocket and putting it in the drawer when he got home.
Many people imitate this, imitate that, and after a while, they feel that it is not interesting, and they do not work hard. Today's fire, tomorrow's fire, feng shui takes turns. When you fire, who can fire, no one knows. You have to stick to your style. You look at the passages on the vibrato, my God, you want to beat people, and the audience likes it. But I believe that a logical passage will have vitality.
For me, the most difficult one was the first four years. Once I went to audition, and the other person told me that you have a few funny passages, but people will not be interested in a story that Chinese. I was particularly desperate, I could change the paragraph again, but the skin could not be changed. After a few days, the discomfort has passed, and then continue to find the topic, continue to talk, or because I like this thing.
In 2009, I was on the Letterman show, which had four or five million viewers. After a week of playing, I made a grammatical error. I just thought, oh my God, they're going to cut off my whole show. But no one really cares about that grammatical error. On the day of the broadcast, the talk show club I often went to had a party, ran to the upstairs bar and turned all the TV to the Letterman show, and everyone cheered while watching it. But I had a small family and didn't go with them.
Many American stand-up comedians aspire to a life with a large number of fans and something cool to do, but I have a special love for talk shows, and the ideal situation at that time was to continue to talk about my talk shows and not affect my personal life. I think I'm a pretty ordinary person, and sometimes the camera reporter across from me makes his hair hippie-like, and I think this guy seems to be more interesting than me.
Huang Xi and Ellen DeGeneres image source network
3
The White House invited me after watching the Letterman show. Half a year before that annual meeting, I was invited. Usually, I don't talk much about the passages that are related to politics, so I have to write them now and write them for half a month. When I go to a place to talk for 45 minutes, I will put the White House paragraph in the middle of the 20 minutes to try it, see which effect is good, go back and change it, and practice it repeatedly.
I'm going to tell jokes in front of the president. If you think about Obama, there is nothing wrong with his personal life, and he is very inspirational, and it is not easy to ridicule him. Unlike Trump tearing his face at everything, the next three abuses are all coming, Bush Jr. is stupid, Clinton is, especially easy to talk about. It was hard to write, because Obama did not attend that dinner, and many paragraphs gave up. My agent was very careful, sent my paragraph (script) to the official first, it is estimated that they did not read it, just said that the duration is within 15 minutes, and nothing else.
The annual meeting was held in a particularly large venue on the edge of the White House. When I ate at the podium, there were two tables on the stage, and the president sat at the other table. Eating in front of more than 2,000 spectators was particularly tense. After eating, I went up to speak, there was no rehearsal, no teleprompter.
It was a little different from what I expected, and I didn't expect the reaction to be so slow. Usually, my first paragraph can make everyone laugh, and on that occasion, it is not until the fourth and fifth minutes (the audience) that I begin to have enthusiasm. After the performance, the audience stood up, and I felt oh, the performance was done. I think the audience reaction to that show was in the top three of the performances at the annual White House Press Conference.
When it was over, I couldn't walk at all, there were so many people, all dragging me to take pictures. My agent told me that you just have to put your head down and walk. He said you talk to Biden a few words, and I bowed my head and went back to talk to Biden. Biden giggled and was happy that day. I teased a congressman, and he was not happy, and saw that I ignored it and walked over.
I was stupid. There was a CBS evening news host in the audience, who asked me to go to the interview the next day, and I said no, I have to go to work tomorrow, and the interview was not done.
In fact, since the Letterman show came out, audiences around the United States and Australia have often emailed me. But after the White House performance, one thing I didn't expect was that so many people in China emailed me. There was also an international student working in a bar in Europe, and my performance was on the TV, and the white men turned around and gave him a thumbs up.
Years later, some domestic actors told me that they wanted to do talk shows because they watched your White House performance. I had never thought of such a thing before, nor did I dare to say that I was the founder of a Chinese talk show, but if some actors could say that they were influenced by me, it would mean a lot to me.
Little by little, I got used to the taste of fame. For example, if you go to San Francisco and find a club to go in, they will definitely ask me to do the finale. I performed in a theater with more than 3,000 people in Chicago, which was the largest I've ever performed. After shaking a burden, the people on the first floor may laugh for a while, and the people on the second floor may laugh for a while, the pace is slower, saving the paragraph. The magazine approached me for a shoot, and the subject was that the talk show actors were also sexy, and I was still posing there with a particularly sexy pose, imitating Britney's position of licking ice cream.
In October 2010, I left my job to become a full-time stand-up comedian.
Huang Xi talks about talk shows at the White House
4
At that time, I imagined the future of doing a sitcom written and starring me. But it was in Hollywood that I really felt how openly racial discrimination against Asians was. The other person said in front of me that we can't have a family drama starring Asians. My white agent felt ashamed and said sorry, that's not the case in America. I was angry, I saw it with my own eyes.
It's a good time to make a TV series. It's only now that I realize that Asian things can only be written by Asians. At that time, we did not know, we found an Italian writer, especially painful, changed a few writers, and finally got the script almost done, and then returned to ABC, it has decided to want "First Arrived" (this sitcom based on the memoirs of the same name by Chinese-American chef Huang Yiming, which later filmed for 6 seasons). This is also discrimination against Asians, and if there is a program for Asians, there can be no second, which is unbelievable.
In 2013, I decided to come to Beijing to develop. Before, I gave lectures in domestic schools and performed in companies, which was still very popular. I think there is a lot of room for talk show development. Another opportunity is to be invited to host the CCTV program "Is It True". It's a weekly show, and I can't run on both sides anymore, it's hard to juggle.
At the beginning of my return to China, talk shows were indeed too new, and I was often asked in interviews, what is the difference between talk shows and cross talk? There's no way, you can only popularize it little by little. At that time, there was only one club in Beijing, and it was only performed once a week or even a month. I remember after the show, a few stand-up comedians were next to a trash can in Fangjia Hutong and asked me how American shows were done. I often talk in the courtyard, and after the lecture, the old lady asked, should our grandson go abroad? Just ask that kind of question.
At the beginning, "Is It True" was also very hard, there were too few open wheat, and I basically had to go to a school or company before each issue to try it out. Once, he ran to Changping to try a lecture, and after speaking, he ate some food in a small restaurant next to him, diarrhea and diarrhea for five days, and almost the program was not recorded.
Most of the TV shows were gone in a year or two, and I just did this show, thinking that it might be almost the same to record four episodes, but I didn't expect to do it for eight years. It's not a 100% talk show, a lot of people scold, it's not like a talk show, it's not the same style as you talked about before. The show asks you not to have coherent passages. Many people watch TV is halfway through the station, if your paragraph is consistent with the front, he can't find a laugh point and change the station again, so it is a particularly short paragraph, callback This technique must not have. There was a period of good ratings, and then everyone stopped watching TV, and some people said, don't do it, but I want to continue to do it.
I've always wanted to do a talk show or sitcom that I approve of, but none of it went particularly well. To make a long story short, this person said to make it together and there was no shadow; that person wanted to invest, and as a result, he invested in a blockchain. Frustration can be great. Which team you work with, which platform you work with, what capital support, there are too many factors.
If there is anything particularly regrettable, in 2017, iQIYI held a national talk show competition, I participated as a judge, Zhou Qimo won the championship, Xu Storm was the runner-up, and dug out a lot of seedlings. Players do not have to sign a contract with iQIYI, all labels can be on. The next year iQiyi didn't want to do it. Looking back now, that game could have been a good brand if it had persisted. In fact, the first season of "Talk Show Conference" was not so hot, and it was only in the third season that it really broke out.
In 2019, I was on Stephen Colbert's evening show again. It was the English performance I was most satisfied with so far, but there were no stars in it, and the attention was not so high in China. Most people know me, they are watching the hilarity, they think I am ridiculing the president, he is not running to this art.
From the apex to the flattening, there must have been a change in my mindset. Huang Xi, you have not been on any variety shows, you are not as good as who is hot. I live at such an old age, sometimes needless to say, the other person's eyes can see everything, especially obvious. I have also seen with my own eyes that now there are some small fresh meats, maybe a thunderous drama of three women and four women, that comes out of the small face to throw, the cow's, look ridiculous. Looking at the way some forty- and fifty-year-old hosts treat small fresh meat with great respect, I think my God, live this virtue.
My wife and I rarely talk about show business, and if you want to have a good attitude, these things really can't be too concerned. Who can always be at the top? No one can do that. I have a certain confusion in my heart, but it is not so strong, after all, I was 40 years old when I was on fire, relatively late, relatively open-minded, I still follow my own path.
5
There are times of regret in making any decision. But in the long run, I have no regrets about my life decision. Sometimes I ask myself why I got a Ph.D. and then I don't use it. I used to be very interested in neurobiology, and the things there were endless mysteries and enjoyment. That's not a waste of time, every stage has meaning to every stage.
For stand-up comedy, the reward of my past scientific training is to face failure correctly. In research, finding new discoveries means that the vast majority of your experiments fail. Without this failure, you can't find something new, without this failure, Zhang San LiSi has already made it, still waiting for you? It's the same with talk shows, you write ten paragraphs, maybe nine can't. I have this mentality.
Over the years since I returned to China, most of my life has been peaceful. Family is indeed a buffer place. At least at the critical juncture of my son's upbringing, I was there, which was a good thing. Until now, I've tried to keep working for an hour a day — it's getting harder and harder, of course, and I have to turn off my phone (to meditate). I often write my son into paragraphs, he is not happy, and then it is okay. It was only this year that he began to understand what I was saying in the White House. Before he didn't quite understand, he felt Dad, how do you look so serious? One of the things that makes me anxious is that I am particularly afraid that my son will one day look down on his father. I hope that he can find what he likes, and he can live well, in fact, if he thinks about me, I can't control how he looks at me.
It's hard for me to define my position in the talk show space, probably some of the people who did it in China in the early days, who have been doing it, and I'm proud to be able to do that. I don't feel like I'm in a trough, I'm far from a trough. Some things weren't done yet, and I told myself that it wasn't time to give up.
Now a lot of newcomers want to join the talk show industry. If you're coming for art, be prepared for the long term. If an art can be popular in half a year and a year, it is not art. Sink your heart and dig more about your true feelings.
Talk shows are marathons, and the person who runs first is certainly not the one who does the first after the gunshot. You have to relax, the time that belongs to you will come, but when it will come, no one can say. You can only really like this art, and you have to admit it, you have to really feel that I am the life of doing this, poor, rich, good and bad, I am doing this. Only then can you do it.
I remember how it all started. For the vast majority of Asians in the United States, there's a bamboo ceiling in the company that you can never go up. I took the only patent in our company, but I saw that these white kids had just graduated from college and had risen to me. I'm disappointed in my job, and talk shows are a highlight of my life, and there are things that can be dissolved.
One day in the middle of the night, I suddenly wanted to write a paragraph, and when I got up, I was afraid of waking up my family, so I drove for more than 20 minutes in the snow to sit in a café and write for half an hour, an hour. I didn't write anything, at least I was putting in the effort, I was doing what I was supposed to do.
The first time I was touched by a talk show was when I participated in a competition held by a small club. I thought that as long as I could go up, I would be able to talk about the five minutes I practiced. I didn't expect to win. There are no bonuses, the prizes are coupons for restaurants.
It feels so good that you can express your thoughts and others laugh along on your thought channel.
Courtesy of respondents
(Qian Zhang also contributed to this article)