China w/ Des Bishop | You Be Trippin' with Ari Shaffir

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Amazing.

Thank you.

What are you putting it?

Is the energy thing?

No, New York.

I put a Baroca.

No,

it's funny because I meant it like that, but of course, you guys have so much history of it spiking each other that you took it a different way.

Relax, bro.

I don't know you that well.

No, no,

I meant your one.

Where you been and where you going?

this is our research

hey everybody welcome to you be trippin' it is a travel podcast my name is ari shafir as of the recording of this i've been to i don't know 36 ish countries um not that many compared to some of my guests every week we talk to a different person about a different place in the world.

And today's no difference.

The only podcast that has been featured in the bodies exhibit with Chinese dissidents that have been arrested and cut in half.

Today on the podcast, my friend Jez Bishop, one of the fucking guys I met not in America.

That's correct.

Our relationship begins where our story begins.

Okay, nice.

Nice.

China.

China.

What do they call it?

They call Africa the something.

I don't know what they call China.

It's like a frontier for people who have never been.

Like the early explorers were like, whoa.

Oh, yeah.

Well, it was the Silk Road, but I don't know.

I don't know.

The history of China is not my stroller.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Certainly not the ancient history of China.

This podcast has nothing to do with facts.

But we did meet.

In fact, the first time we ever recorded together also was in a park in Beijing.

Yeah.

But you came to do my little comedy club that I had while I was living in China, which we can get into.

You're the godfather of Chinese comedy.

Wrong?

No, I mean, some people, actually, there are some people that are giving me way too much credit when they talk about the history of Chinese stand-up.

Yeah.

But I just happened to be there at a time where it was kind of beginning.

You dipped your toes in it, so you saw that there was like this little nascent comedy scene.

I just happened to be there

doing my project, which was to learn Mandarin to do stand-up in Mandarin.

And that also just happened to be the time where Mandarin stand-up was beginning.

But that was a fluke.

Well, it's a wild story because you're like, you're American, but you grew up

seated from fucking terrible childhood.

You grew up in Ireland or part of of

14 I went to Ireland.

Yeah, I got flunked out of school drinking, you know, teenage angst.

Yeah.

But my mother had severe anxiety and it manifested itself in me ending up in Ireland.

Yeah.

So, you know, I went to boarding school and I went to college and Irene.

My comedy career began in Ireland.

Yeah.

Right.

So I've always been a I've always been like a abroad kind of guy.

Yeah, you're an Irish comic.

American who's doing Irish comic with a New York accent.

Yeah, yeah, right.

Not as much.

I've been back here quite a bit these days, but yeah, but what was cool to me was that you're so there's this pretty successful

You know Irish comic and then you're took on this this task of like I'm gonna go to China learn a crazy language.

Yes.

I mean, it's nothing like any other language.

Yes.

And then do stand-up in it, which is another anyone I've seen do stand-up in another French or whatever.

First of all, you can like you can read what you're writing or you can write it out.

These are symbols.

But also it's they just end up just translating

their jokes.

And some of it doesn't always work.

Like the vibe of humor in other places, even black culture to white culture in America is a different style of humor.

But you were doing bits about the Chinese alphabet.

I mean, you were deeply in there, like written for this.

Yeah, actually, one of the first jokes that I ever did, which is, I think, the joke that you're referring to about the differences in characters between the simplified Chinese and the traditional Chinese, actually was given to me by a teacher.

I think it was actually like a joke joke.

Really?

I tagged it.

So, like, okay, I'm going to give myself some grace because I was doing comedy in Mandarin.

And this was like, I was like only eight months of learning Mandarin.

I was doing this joke,

but I tagged it with

new stuff.

But the original joke was like, I mean, the joke is irrelevant.

Yeah.

But I did add my own tags.

I did make it my own.

But I have to tell you that it came from my teacher, and it was a joke joke.

Wow.

But that was early on, though.

So, so, but you didn't go to Shanghai or Beijing, which anybody else is.

No, I went to Beijing.

Right away.

Yeah, so because I know you're talking about the small city I was in, but

that was a one-month part of my initial one-year journey.

Interesting.

But I was based in Beijing.

I didn't go to Shanghai because Shanghai is not good for learning Mandarin.

That's a lot of English there.

Like a lot more.

It's a lot more of an international city.

Beijing is a very Chinese city.

Shanghai is a very international city, especially then.

Wow, yeah, that's where the banking is.

Yeah, and like it's more modern, it feels more like New York.

You were there, right?

Like there's there's parts of it, the kind of the Art Deco parts of it, where you're like, wow, this is like not a million miles from New York.

So anyway.

And Beijing really seems ancient in a different way.

Yeah, and it's much more Chinese.

And the foreigners that were there were all like diplomats and like journalists.

And they weren't as many.

And a lot of them were also motivated to learn Mandarin.

So you kind of, in Shanghai, you end up with the white people that are like, they don't want anything to do with Chinese culture.

They're just loving being in China and making money.

And then in Beijing, you get all people like me that are like obsessed with learning about the language and learning Chinese culture.

So Beijing was a good base.

But the small town you're talking about that I went to working in the restaurant was like,

because we were making a television series, one of the challenges.

Television series is about learning and doing it.

Yeah, I know we're like bouncing all over the place.

No, it's okay.

Just in case people are wondering what was my motivation.

So, you know, I was doing pretty well in Ireland as a comedian, and I had previously made a series about learning the Irish language to do stand-up in the Irish language.

So it didn't come out of nowhere to go and learn Mandarin.

After I finished that, I had a separate personal obsession with learning Mandarin, and I had some very close Chinese friends that had been living in Ireland.

They were like Chinese immigrants.

There were immigrants in Ireland from China.

There was like this wave of immigration from the northeast of China to Ireland because it was easy to get a visa.

And These people, who I was very close to, brought me to China originally in 2004.

And from that trip and my own obsession with kung fu movies and just all this.

And by the way, I'm from Flushing Queens.

Just to like, I had all these like Chinese triggers, right?

Because my neighbor became completely Chinese in my lifetime.

Whoa.

You know, every neighbor I had became Chinese

from the late 1970s to today, my entire neighborhood became Chinese, from none to everybody.

So

I had that.

I had my kung fu obsession, my friends in China.

And then once I visited, then it's just like I visited in 2004.

I'm sure you had the same experience when you went there.

It's like, this is not the West.

It's so, it's, it, it, it, it,

it's the word, not inhabits, um, the word foreign like no other place.

Yeah, you feel, wow, like not in Kansas anymore, total, that's the cliche, but like, I've been to a lot of places, even like Thailand, I've been there and it's fun, and you definitely feel like you're in Southeast Asia, but you, you feel like there's aspects of this that make sense, whereas China, you just get there and you're like, this is nothing, there's nothing the same.

Nothing.

Keep your arms through.

Yep.

Nothing the same.

Everything feels different.

And I'll tell you what else is really big, and I really felt this in 2004, was

sometimes you really are stuck.

You can't read the characters.

You're in a smaller city.

And like, if you can't find somebody in that train station that speaks Mandarin and can explain what the ticket means and what gate you need to go to, you are fucked.

I got one of those ones.

I was in watching World Cup in Wuxi right over the border from Hong Kong?

No, Shenzhen.

Shenzhen.

Okay, so we were there.

So back to no English and not Cantonese, Mandarin.

I didn't know any Cantonese anyway.

You really don't have to learn it from Hong Kong.

No, Cantonese is not important.

Yeah.

But so I'm back there.

Had a fun time at the World Cup.

It's like 4 a.m.

They weren't even in it, but it was like everybody was watching.

Everybody filled up.

Talked to some American chick.

A heavy makeout session.

Like really, you know, and then anyway, she had to leave.

I tried to take a cab back and I'm like, the Sheraton.

And I mean, I may as well have just gone, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba.

Yeah, nothing.

Torrential rain, find a cab.

He's like, I'm like, all right, I got to get out.

More torrential rain just.

You got to write it down.

You got to take the hotel.

You got to take the card.

That's like a classic.

I had it.

One of my early jokes living in China was like, I'm here to learn Chinese.

I'm here to learn Mandarin.

I'm not showing the fucking card.

That was my thing.

I'm not showing the card.

So the joke I'd always say was,

but the fucking character, the tones are so difficult.

I'd be like, Sujojie, and the taxi driver would be like, fucking, like, what?

And I'd be like, Sujujie.

What?

Sujo Jie.

And finally, like, fuck it.

All right, fine.

I give up, show the card.

And he goes, oh, Sujo Jie.

Like, what the fuck was I saying?

What was I fucking saying?

I saw a Shagai Comic talking about it.

He goes, I'm here on a seven-year tourist visa.

I owe it.

But he goes,

it's amazing how little people want to help you.

Where he goes, if I went to New York and I said, where's the Empire State Building?

they would tell me where the Empire State Building.

Here, there's like, I don't know what you're talking about.

But they really don't know.

Like, the thing is, the perception is that they don't want to help you, but they really don't fucking know.

Like, it really, because after a while, I started to understand it.

But early on, you don't because you're like, that's what I said.

I knew what I fucking said.

But when you get a better ear for the tones, and by the way, I am no master of the Chinese language, but when you get a better ear for the tones, you then hear how bad you used to sound.

Oh, wow.

To be honest, when I watch back this television series that I made and I hear my Chinese from those early days where I really thought that I was doing great, I'm like, holy shit, I was terrible.

Yeah, yeah.

But of course, they were all telling me I was doing great.

Okay, so you get there, you get to Beijing.

How old are you then?

So for the TV show or the original?

For the TV show, we'll keep it for that time.

When I go there to learn Mandarin.

Okay.

Because you've already been.

I went to visit in 2004.

Okay.

That was just like a holiday.

But I visited late.

Wait, did you fall in love with it?

I just, yeah, I was fascinated by the differences.

Now, don't get me wrong, I was also, I was visiting my friends from, my Chinese friends that had lived in Ireland and were back in China, and I was visiting them.

So I was staying in a suburb of Dalian in Liaoning province, like not a place where the foreigner, the Lao Wai, as we call ourselves,

not a place where they go.

So I was like deep in Chinese culture.

Wow.

And I was like obsessed.

That's where the obsession to learn the language came from.

Name some of the differences that you can remember, not all of them, but like.

God, I mean, just everything looked different, especially in 2004.

Everything looked different.

50% of it looked underdeveloped, but like heavily in use, which fascinated me.

So, you know, bustling.

Yeah, bustling, but also, like, you'd be like in the middle of town, and then you'd be like, we're going to this restaurant, and then like in what seems like a big city.

And next thing we're on a fucking dirt road, but this is like still part of the city.

Wow.

And like, you know, so everything was active.

I mean, it's even hard for me to remember now because I'm so used to China.

It's tough to remember always those first months, even like mushrooms.

It's like, I can't, it's hard to remember.

First impression.

For the first time.

But also just the amount of people.

The fucking hospitality was like insane.

Like, they're good.

Oh, in as in, like, the people that I was with were so obsessed with us feeling welcome and like overfeeding us.

Wow.

And just restaurant culture, to be honest, like that, because I was with them, they're Chinese, just like going to these restaurants and just getting spoiled with food.

It was insane.

You know, communal eating.

I got what's the communal eating?

You know, like the lazy Susans and the.

That's the thing there.

Yeah, and also, like, the way the Chinese eat is that they overorder because it's very bad to end up with

running out of food.

That's like you're a bad host.

That's so the opposite of Jewish children of Holocaust survivors, where like you, if anything's left on your plate, you're really attacking who we are.

Yeah, so in China,

if your plate is empty, they feel like they failed.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

Let's see.

Wow.

So

I was getting like pummeled food.

I got terrible food poisoning actually on my first trip.

But anyway, it was just, like, and the chaos, you know, like the driving.

I mean, you get the, I know plenty of people, I'm sure, on this podcast have talked about the driving, but, you know, I have a routine about it, but just like the way they drive like, like, like, like a flock of birds rather than like.

according to the lanes, they just kind of like flow at each other.

There was just like a chaos to it that I kind of like loved because it was like a functioning chaos.

But you're right.

It's got to be be functioning.

Like they know how to do it.

Yeah, it works.

Yeah.

Like it totally works.

Sometimes I think about like if you come to something with like fresh eyes, you don't even understand.

Like I heard some people shitting on the comedy store and they're like, well, you don't allow, how come Whitney only has three spots this month?

And it's like,

I'm guaranteed, it's because she only called in for three spots.

Oh, yeah.

People don't understand.

Yeah, it's like you don't understand the system you're commenting on.

Yes.

And so it's like, if you saw an American line, like, how do they know who's first?

Like, well, we queue up.

We just do that on our own.

You see four people, I'll be the fifth.

And then a slow.

just how, and you're like, oh, how is it?

It's that.

It's an organized chaos, but you just don't get it.

You don't get it at the beginning, man.

And, but I was just, I was just fascinated by all that.

And like, that's just like me trying to go back to those initial impressions.

Yeah.

Hi, everybody.

I'm going to break in really quick.

All right, bro.

Chill.

I'm going to break in quick to tell you a little bit about a guest, Dez Bishop.

He's got a new special right now called Mindfill Dez.

I met him in, well, we've covered it a little bit in

Beijing.

And we saw kids fucking

shitting in public in Beijing.

I went hard on India and Pakistan.

But, you know, China's up there making a name for himself.

He's got a new special right now, YouTube called Mindfill.

Jez is a great comic, and you guys will absolutely love it.

Anytime a high-level comedian puts out a special, it's going to be great.

Whether or not it's.

Jesus.

So check out Mindfill right now.

He's also appearing.

He's got a Dez Bishop podcast that you should check out.

And he's also, let's see, his dates

live.

Well, I don't see any.

Guys, put a scroll in here about all his dates.

For myself, I got nothing to promote.

I hope you guys had a good shroom fest.

There's still limited edition shroom fest shirts to be had.

There's probably like 40 left of them.

The ones we made for extra for the people who celebrated shroom fest last minute.

Go ahead and get yourself one.

Show with pride that you celebrated shroom fest.

I've always got these Ari Shafier.

Stay positive shirts.

A main message from my special America sweetheart.

I hope you guys took that to heart and stopped watching the news and just learn how to stay positive in general.

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That's it, everybody.

Yeah, get yourself a shirt.

Got Ubi Tripping shirts.

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You'll be tripping stickers, which I'd like for you guys to put up one, the clear one, in your passport, like I did.

It's look like a passport stamp.

And then it's also how to say hello in lots of different languages.

And then

that t-shirt, Rock It With Pride, wherever you're staying in a hostel or wherever in your travels if you're going on a travel definitely bring it you'd be tripping shirt it'd be crazy not to all right guys let's get back to the episode with Des Bishop I went back again in 2009 to actually to research the project which didn't happen but it finally happened in 2013 so when I went in 2013 I was going to make a television show for Irish TV one year to learn enough Mandarin to do stand-up and Mandarin after one year Living with a family.

I lived with a family for that entire year.

A Beijing family that allowed us to film in their house, but I I lived with them.

So you're getting the real virtue.

Full immersion.

And I did not watch any English language television except my one indulgence was the final season of Breaking Bad.

Because it was actually like...

Yeah, how are you going to miss that?

No, it's some Chinese, like I Chi or one of these like Chinese streaming sites.

had the official rights to it.

I wasn't like, I didn't even have to watch it illegally.

Oh, wow.

The day it came on, whatever, FX or AMC, whatever.

It came on Sunday night, and then on Monday morning, or whatever the time difference was, I was watching it on my fucking phone in China in English.

That was my only indulgence.

Damn.

Everything else was like Door the Explorer in Mandarin, fucking SpongeBob in Mandarin, early days, just like immersion like a kid.

I basically go, how does kids absorb language?

They don't learn.

They just absorb.

So I'm like, I'm going to absorb language.

Were you lost when you got there?

I mean, it's not like you can get by right away.

Yeah, I mean, early on, I was, you know, don't get me wrong, I had a handler and, you know, I had my friend.

You know,

I had people to help me, but there were a lot of times, like, I loved going to these shitty noodle shops.

And

there were a lot of times I would just point and fucking hope that it was a good choice.

Dude, I remember it wasn't Turner.

It was,

I don't think it was Curtain was Hong Kong, right?

Who helped Turner in Shanghai?

Curtain, Andy.

Andy Curtain.

No, wait.

Andy Curtin.

He was Shanghai?

Him and Curtin Turner were together.

So he gave me a

cell phone to use.

Actually,

this might be the Hong Kong guy who gave me a cell phone to use.

I don't know.

But I went out.

It had to be Andy.

And I was like, how do you say beef?

I'm just going to go.

They told me it was safe.

So I'm like, cool.

I'm good then.

No, no xenophobia.

I'm out.

Just how do you say beef?

So I can know how to order.

And I finally worked at the courage to go to one of those noodle shops or whatever.

I was like, is it Ryu?

Nero.

Nero.

Okay.

Yeah.

I knew something from like

and I was like, and the guy just looks at me like, and I was like, set it again.

And then he just points over his head to a menu and is like, well, here's the 30 Neros.

You can't just say beef, bro.

Like,

what are you talking about?

And I'm like, ah, shit.

So you point and hope.

And I pointed and hoped early on.

And like, this sounds dirty, but actually, it wasn't a dirty massage place.

But I used to go for massages like all the time, right around the corner from my apartment.

And I promise you, they were like, whatever, five bucks.

And like, I promise you, it's not a handjob massage.

Like, Like, I know people are automatically going to go, like, happy ending massage.

But I went to the same girl every time because

obviously, you know, within a month, I have the like, washroom meguare.

I am American, wash your Ireland.

I'm Irish, right?

I have, I had the basics, like, wash.

At that time, I was 37.

So I was like, what, was Sanchez cheeseuit?

I'm 37, right?

So you go into a massage place.

You have your five or six questions, but if you go to the same girl, you don't have them the next time.

And so we would just, like, through the massage, we would struggle to fucking communicate.

But

every time you go back, it's just like trying to learn.

Do you put yourself in hard language positions to force you to learn?

Well, I put myself in situations where like you have to try because at the end of the day, like the mind,

the mind is, you know, what's the word?

Like when

it's practical,

it wants to solve the problem.

It needs this.

Yeah.

So it will find a solution, you know?

And so

I love when you're trying to learn a new language, get by language, and you don't know the right word, but you can get enough other words to get you to that place.

Yes.

But the thing is that that's the key, man.

Like the key, because what you don't realize is that like you're just communicating.

Good language is obviously more satisfying, but you can still communicate.

Yeah, if you go, where is the area to urinate?

They know what you mean.

They can figure it out.

You know?

So anyway, I did.

any number of ridiculous things to try to get my language better.

Some for television and some just for myself.

Yeah.

But don't forget, I was heavily motivated, right?

I knew that my progress was going to be on television.

So I'm like, wow, that's the case get by.

Because what was cool about Beijing, I met a chick.

She was in the comedy scene.

Ah, fucking forget her name.

She's from New York.

Rich chick from New York.

And she's now a translator.

The blonde girl.

I forgot her name too, but it's a good time.

Damn.

We hung out a few times.

And she was so good.

She was good.

And she was kind of famous because she was so blonde.

I think we're talking about the same girl, but maybe I'm wrong.

And there was another one who was there for 12 years and couldn't speak any Mandarin.

But that's what happens.

You can get into that expat life.

Yeah.

It's such a waste.

You'd be like, in a year, you should get by.

And I became the guy I hated.

Did you go to college?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So in Ireland,

go terps.

When I was in Ireland in college, I hated the mature students, like the people that went back to college, like in their 30s and 40s, because they're so fucking motivated.

They're going to win.

Yeah, and they're always like raising their heads.

You're not invited to parties.

And I became that guy.

I was in my fucking mid to late 30s sitting in these.

So I was in Renmin University.

Like, I was in a major

Beijing university, but just for language learning, though.

I wasn't like a full student.

I hadn't gone back to college.

But a lot of the kids, the white kids in my class, were kids that were doing like a semester abroad.

So they're like 21, 20, 21-year-olds there to like, they're learning Mandarin, but like not like motivated like me at all.

And they would all hang out with each other.

They'd speak fucking English all day.

And yes, their Chinese got better, but not like mine.

And I became the fucking asshole I hated.

Because I would say to them, like, why are you going to waste your six months here?

This is, you're wasting your fucking time.

Like,

I can't believe I came to this guy because I hate, I was the most unmotivated student, and I hated the fucking mature students.

And I absolutely.

I knew a chick who went to, did a year abroad in Spain somewhere.

And the advice she got from her cousin was, don't live with the Americans.

Amen.

Live with the Spaniards.

And she

lap them in Spanish.

My friend's kid, actually, he's 16.

He's going to, he's doing like a high school half of a year in Spain, and I've been fucking drilling him.

But of course, he's 16.

He's not going to do it.

He's not going to do it.

He's soaking some.

I just, you know, you just hope.

But anyway, so

that was the entry point in

to right.

But the lucky thing was that I happened upon, because this was not part of our pitch.

I happened upon essentially the beginnings of

what they call like Western stand-up.

Talko, sio.

So when I first went there, like comedy is siju.

I actually forget the tones, but comedy is like siju.

But when you say that, people think of like a like a like a comedy play.

Yeah.

So they had alliterated talk show because the initial sort of version of Western stand-up that they saw was like Carson, Letterman, Fallon.

So they thought that comedy in America was talk show.

So they alliterated.

So that's why.

So stand-up in Mandarin is tokosio, which is an alliteration from talk show.

But what it actually means is what we do for a living.

Okay.

Tokosio.

If you said like siju or like live, you know, like

shanchang, siju, like they wouldn't know what you're talking about.

But tokosio is like if you put in tokosio, t-u-o, because you have, we're looking at the screen.

T-U-O.

K-O-U,

S-X-X-O.

Oh, it's there already.

So that's stand-up.

Tokos, yo.

Yeah.

And it's very, like, like, a lot of their style is like, they have a lot of, like, reality shows around stand-up, but it's gotten huge since I was there.

So it's like this, though, where they just play off each other?

Well, some of it, some of it that comes from the traditional side, but I think this is like a reality show where these guys are just like on stage.

Like this, this

you know, like I have no idea what this show is.

I wonder if this is COVID or not.

We're like,

getting on stage.

Video.

Anyway,

and it's actually quite funny because I remember making on the if you well, if you watch my show, I make fun of how silly it is that they have all these like images coming up on there, like toko sho and sound effects.

Sound effects.

Yeah, but actually, we copied them.

I know this guy.

This guy's on a fucking TV show.

That's not Joe Wong, right?

Anyway,

Joe Wong really helped me out.

But this is more modern.

Yeah, this is Toko.

So I've met this kid.

But he's just doing stand-up like you and I do.

Regular.

But it's just funny because I used to make fun of them for their content because they would subtitle, they would put in images, and I was like,

how fucking stupid is this?

We ended up doing that.

We ended up doing it.

We ended up doing it.

And at the time, I thought it was ridiculous.

But now guys are editing my videos.

And when I talk about fucking Mountain Dew, they're putting up a fucking Mountain Dew on this video.

Yeah, you got a little picture to add to it.

It's crazy.

That's happening.

They were ahead of us on that, even though they still are way attacker and they do a lot of sound effects.

It's happening in the music world, too, where it's like it's not enough to like early rap, you're just the rapper, someone else is the DJ playing the music, and now it's like they're doing it all themselves.

And now on top of that, they're doing these crazy video pieces behind them because they're doing these videos themselves.

Adding to the stage part.

Multimedia used to be like a subject.

Now it's just like a given.

Yeah.

You know,

do all the parts, do it all, man.

Yeah, I mean, even podcasts have to be video.

But anyway, without getting too distracted,

this has become quite popular, but heavily censored, right?

But tokoshio is now like

I can get, I've gotten an Uber's here in New York, right?

If I get a fucking Chinese guy, I'm over the movie.

You're going for it.

I am over the movie.

I love it.

But I now talk to fucking Uber drivers here about fucking Chinese tokoshoyang, right?

Like Chinese stand-ups.

And they're like, oh, I love that guy.

They know it now.

Oh, they know it.

So it's not that Laurel and Hardy.

So when I went there, that was what everybody, that's what I knew when I went there.

I met some of them, and that's what I was going to talk to them.

But what happened was, actually, in fairness, it was Turner and Andy.

Andy Curtin and Turner.

Turner lives here now.

They were the ones that initially introduced me to like expat stand-up, but they said to me that there's like these small kind of like Mandarin open mics.

And they were the one that put me wide to Beijing Talko Show, Julipu, which was Beijing Talk Show Club, which is Beijing stand-up club, right?

And that was literally like the only way to describe it was like a comedy co-op, like almost like

a fucking

cultural revolution commune of comedians that were one group and they were in this together doing shows.

And they were the beginning of, they were literally one of about five or six pockets around China of people that said we're gonna do Shanghai scene Beijing scene Shenzhen

in terms of the Mandarin though I'm saying like these little pockets because we had a few of the guys like bilingual guys bilingual guys like Storm Shu I'll do the American I'll do the not American but the English speaking but then I'll also same bits I can do over there I can do double the spots that these fucking whites can do yeah storm shoe was one that bilingual there was numerous there was numerous bilingual guys um

but anyway that was really the beginning of Chinese standards.

But I happened to be there.

Wow.

Filming it.

Wow.

So that was just luck.

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LinkedIn, your next great hire is here and did they look at you as like guide us here well the the so the funny like so obviously the first time i went i guess i was like five five five and a half months no i was i was actually six months learning mandarin

and i had gotten to know some of the guys from the english the dual guys like you're just talking about tony cho being my number one guy and uh he was like you should come we're having like they were having like

an open mic but really they were having like a workshop that would be the best way to describe this gig that I went to.

This was my first ever experience with like Chinese stand-up, which would be like the equivalent of a bar in deep bushwick with fucking kids that are just like having a clue what's going on, and everybody in the audience is a comedian.

Yeah, and it was that was the Beijing scene, but it's like they're all coming, but like they're gonna start it.

And anyone here who's not who's just to watch is like, hey, open mics are on Thursdays.

Come on out.

I'm like, maybe I'll try it.

So I go to this fucking thing.

There's like 15 people there.

And almost everybody's getting up, right?

And I can hard, I mean, I can get by on a bit of Mandarin, you know?

I toilet, you know, kind of shit.

And at the end, they go,

Bilar Shu.

They immediately called me fucking.

So B was my Chinese last name, right?

Because I took the BI off a bishop.

So I took the last name B, right?

But the B comes first in the Chinese name, right?

Immediately they call me Bilar Shu, which means B teacher, like teacher B.

Because it's like a term of respect because I'm like a veteran comedian because they're very into titles there.

They're respect-based, right?

That's the Confucian system is hierarchical.

And they're very big into Shao Shund.

They're very big into respecting

like order in terms of like

they told me that they were safe.

They were like, that's, I told her it really set me free to like go just be out by myself.

But they were like, the punishments for violent crime are crazy.

Yes.

No one's going to risk it.

And also, the level of embarrassment for your family is crazy.

And no one wants to do that to their daughter.

Nobody wants to lose face.

Yeah.

And a lot of that stuff is

really interesting because that's what they all struggle with when they do stand-up.

Oh, because you got to self-deprecate.

Yeah.

And I mean, I've got like my brain now is going like a mile a minute because I have a thousand things to say.

But anyway, let me just quick, let me finish this quick story.

So at the end of the show, they're like, Bilash, do you want to get up and do fucking a few minutes?

Yeah.

So I'm like, yeah, fuck it.

Because it's literally a workshop, right?

So I get up and I got a couple of ideas.

I got a funny idea about literally what I just told you.

My last name is B, but if you mispronounce it,

it means cunt.

Yeah.

Right?

But that's, that's true.

Okay.

So you say B, first tone, it means cunt, right?

So I got this built-in joke that I didn't even intend to, I didn't pick my name for that joke, but it ended up being a joke.

And I got a couple of other like little observations, right?

And they haven't a fucking clue what I'm saying because my pronunciation is so bad.

But at the end, they fucking like swarm me.

They're like,

You we will help you learn Chinese.

Like they speak in a manual, but they're like we will help you learn Chinese.

But you need to help us to do what you did because you are so energetic you have you are so good on the stage We because your natural stage presence is just

experience I've been doing it since I'm 21 years old.

I was 37, right?

So they were like please teach us teach us please teach us

But they were like but you

Don't actually there was interaction in the show.

So they were like

They literally were heckling me with what are you trying to say?

Like they were actually like interrupting me like what are you trying to say?

And then I would like say it, say it say it and they'd be like oh

you mean this right so it was like a workshop damn so anyway they just adopted me and suddenly i immediately became part of the beijing stand-up scene and it was fucking awesome and i actually started so i got in trouble straight away with the chinese system because beijing talks

is like a commune right you only do shows for beitu because they have this real like just chinese system of like you're not a stand-up community individual.

You're part of us.

We're a co-op.

We're together.

Oh, they're really the Borg.

Yeah, but like they don't know it's any different, but that's the way it was.

Like all the Shang Sheng, they were all troops.

So they were immediately like in the Beijing opera troop.

You know, like they're like a troop, you know, straight away.

Yeah, that was.

That's probably elevated them to have you in their troop.

Yeah, but here's the thing is, after every show, they would stand around in a circle and critique everybody's set.

I called it the P Ping Tua.

I called it the circle of criticism, but they have actually a name for it.

Yeah.

But that would happen to me.

I mean, that's helpful.

But it's so hard on you.

Yeah, and also, like, you know, the way comics get.

This is not going to be a subjective analysis of your performance.

But they also had a Laoban.

So they had Si Jong Yue, which is like this.

He was a great guy.

And in fairness, he really is one of the godfathers of Chinese.

Si Jong Yue.

Laoban means the boss.

That's not him.

No, no.

Si Jong Yeo is this guy.

And anyway, he really did put it together, but like you had to defer it to him, right?

So I made a very early mistake because in Renmin Dashri, I had become friendly with this Canadian Chinese guy who opened up a coffee shop in the university, but it was a Western-style coffee shop and it was awesome.

It was called Circles Cafe.

So I say, hey, man, how would you feel about, you won't find them.

How would you feel about doing like Mandarin stand-up in the coffee shop, right?

So we're in the fucking university, right?

It's a free show.

Like,

I got that shit packed out straight away.

So I'm like running shows.

I'm eight and a half months learning Mandarin.

In the bookstore no okay that comes later that already happened with the english but i started a mandarin show thereafter but my first mandarin show was in circles cafe and i started it uh and uh cjian yuet was pissed off because i told him it wasn't a betour show it was just like a stand-up show because i i wasn't trying to piss him off and but but i was just doing what we know having no idea that this is like a humongous slight to him So he showed up.

Why was it?

Because you didn't ask permission?

I didn't book him either.

So when he was there, and then they were like, when's CJ, you're going up?

I was like, no, no, I'll have him the next show.

And they were like, no, you got to have the fucking low bat.

Makes sense, though.

Yeah, they were like, no way.

So I put him on, but like, I was trying to do it like our way.

I'll book a show.

Yeah.

So I got in big trouble then because they were like, wow, that's like East Coast, West Coast.

You got to ask permission before

you got to honor the king.

And it was an issue.

It never, that never totally resolved.

Can you imagine if you're like, I'm just doing a show in New York and Louis Siko shows up?

He's like, what the fuck's this?

Why am I not on here?

Yes.

I mean, of course, if he wants to go on, you're going to let him on.

Yeah, it wasn't like that.

Why do you want to bother you?

I don't know.

It's a small show.

Yeah, and also,

I was trying to do it.

I wasn't trying to do like a workshop vibe.

I was like, these are the five comics I was hosting.

And these are the five comics that I fucking book.

You know?

That show,

that show is on YouTube, actually.

That was eight and a half months of learning Chinese.

I started that club, but then that kid got shut down by the university because

they said you can't have an unauthorized performance on the university.

Wow.

So wait, we got to talk about the freedoms of speech in comedy.

Perfect timing.

Comedy in there because it's like.

So every show I did except for opening up for Joe Wong.

So if your listeners want to do a quick Google, Joe Wang is a Chinese comedian from China that went to college in Texas,

actually got into comedy because he wanted to improve his English, coincidentally enough.

So started going to watch comedy in English.

But then had a very successful American

numerous times and killed on Letterman.

That's the more important thing.

If you watch his first Letterman set, it's fucking hilarious.

Really?

Oh, he's a killer in English.

But he's really Chinese.

I mean,

he's not like Baldwin.

I remember when he got back to there, they're like, wow, you were on David Letterman in America.

No, actually, do you know what was the biggest thing for them?

He roasted Joe Biden when he was vice president of the United States.

And to the Chinese people, to have a Chinese guy roasting the second in command, they can't comprehend.

They're like,

what a warrior.

That's beyond, right?

Because they have like anti-Western sentiment anyway.

So the fact that one of their own is ripping on the fucking, the second in command, the vice chair

of the United States.

So

the Letter and stuff, but the real thing that went viral is him roasting Joe Biden.

So he decides to go home because he's fucking huge.

He's become a huge viral star.

So he was back in China.

While I was there, he was establishing himself in china he actually ended up being a being a huge um

a huge help

oh sorry

he was a huge help why did i bring him up in the first place um

uh hold on oh the freedoms of speech oh yeah can you say anything you want why did you bring him up yeah i can't even remember but there was a reason why i brought him up uh but anyway um

So I can't remember.

Oh, sorry.

Now I know why I brought him up.

The only show that I ever did that was official, as in, it was applied to the sensor.

So you have to Shem P.

Shempe means like apply for.

Apply to be able to.

To do your show, which means you have to censor.

Any art form?

Any live performance.

So

any live performance, you have to apply to the sensor, right?

Which is a, which is a group, like a, I can't remember which boo, like Boo is always like the

department of, is always the B U those letters, that, that character.

Would they come in and go, okay, this is this, this?

You can't have this little piece, can't have this, and this.

Yeah, I'll tell you.

So, in ballet, too, they'll be like, take this part out.

I mean, I can't speak for the ballet.

Let me just give you my personal experience.

So, Joe, who's a great help to me,

when I was doing stand-up for 10 and a half months, when I was learning Mandarin for 10 and a half months, Joe had five humongous performances in Shanghai, sold out like 1,200-seater, which you got to understand, this is huge.

Like, stand-up's not a thing in China.

And this guy's going to do five nights, like, in a 1,200-seater in Shanghai for the Western New Year, for our New Year.

And so he says, Do you want to open for me?

Which is humongous because now I can use this as like a big moment in the series.

And this is like real, like proper fucking show and like suit.

But anyway, I had to apply the censor.

So the very joke that we're talking about, the character joke, which is very basic but funny to Chinese people, it's a combination.

It's a comparison between simplified Mandarin characters and traditional Mandarin characters, right?

And it's just

basically a picture joke.

But they said,

I wouldn't do it

because I was suggesting that your traditional characters were better than the simplified characters, and they still use the simplified characters in Taiwan.

So they were worried that you would be suggesting that the Taiwanese way is better than the.

Wow, they censored that to that level.

They censored that.

Not like the president sucks.

Nope.

Nope.

Now, there was a joke at the end of that.

So it's very hard to.

joke is this joke is very visual, but it was actually for the character for love, right?

Just for the comedy geeks out there, joke construction.

The character for love used to have, in the traditional Mandarin, in the middle of it, right?

Some characters are complex characters.

They have characters within characters.

So in the middle of the character was the character for heart.

Okay.

Right?

Shin.

But in the simplified Chinese, they got rid of the heart just to make it easier to write.

That's basically what simplified Chinese is.

It's a practicality.

So the joke is that the old way used to be better because it had the heart in it.

That's what real love is.

And then,

but the problem is that in modern China,

the real character for love, and then instead of the heart, you put in a dollar sign because everyone's obsessed with money.

And do you have an apartment?

So that's the Chinese joke, right?

So then

I started tagging, and one of them was the Chinese government character for love.

And then I had the four circles for the Audis because they love Audis.

So I put...

It doesn't seem offensive.

Well, that would be bad.

I knew that was getting censored.

You can't make fun of the government.

But you're not making fun of them.

They happen to love Audis.

I would never in a million years.

I don't even think I sent them the fucking Audi one.

I censored myself on the Audi one.

Wow.

But they didn't censor me on the Audi.

They didn't censor me on the people are getting married for love.

They censored me on, it seems to be suggesting that you're saying the Taiwanese way is better than the fucking Beijing way.

So that's how sensitive it is.

It's crazy, too, because comedy.

By the way, that wasn't the government.

Yeah.

That was the production company.

And as you know.

So they're like, I don't want to be.

I'm not sending this to these motherfuckers.

Right, because then they're going to come after me.

Yeah.

And it might be okay.

It's not worth my fight.

Everything else got cleared, but then I did an improv on the night.

I had a fucking.

But how do you improv with the censorship?

Because you have spies in the audience, right?

Well, I mean, you know,

like everything in China, it's like everything's really official, and then it isn't.

It's like classic.

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This is a real good story about Bronx and his dad Ryan, real United Airlines customers.

We were returning home and one of the flight attendants asked Bronx if he wanted to see the flight deck and meet Catherine Andrew.

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I grew up in an aviation family and seeing Bronx kind of reminded me of myself when I was that age.

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Allowing my son to see the flight deck will stick with us forever that's how good leads the way

they said the story of that was that one of the beijing um so so much coke in the beijing comedy scene really so much in the hutongs so much but one of them they said got caught with cocaine they said it's a white drug it's not a problem you didn't import so whatever so we're kicking you out stamping your passport never allowed to return went home steamed that stamp out, immediately went back to China, and they're like, oh, welcome to China.

Like, there's not even a computer system.

It's official and then not, like you're saying, totally not official.

Yeah, so my mother came over that time, you know.

My dad had died, so I was like, she brought Coke.

And she was coming for Christmas.

She went to Coke.

She was Coke over her ass

and her cane.

And so I took her to the marriage market.

They have marriage markets in China.

Yeah.

So in the parks in China, a lot of the parks in the big cities, Chinese parents and grandparents go and literally advertise their kids like a live.

Oh, wow.

I would have to think you mean like stuff to have at a wedding.

No, you mean the actual main expression.

Your mom was the only person in control of your Tinder or your hinge.

Okay.

So they have like this live fucking hinge where parents advertise their kids to other parents and like literally have meetings.

And I'd gone a couple of times.

We filmed, but in this situation, I had my mom.

So I was like, okay, so now I'm going back to the marriage park with my fucking mom.

So now we mean business.

My mother got swarmed.

Fucking swarmed, right?

And it was so funny.

Like, yo, I had people calling me for months afterwards because I was just like in the moments.

I was like giving these dads my number and they were like trying to fucking fob off their daughters on me.

Like I'm not even kidding.

Oh my God.

But anyway,

I made a joke about on stage, an improv joke about bringing my mother to the marriage.

I can't even remember the joke, but it fucking killed.

Like, I think it just killed that they were like, he knows about the marriage market.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, the way, like, you can get away with shit when you're the fish out of water.

So it was basically like the most basic observation, but it blew their fucking mind that I knew, you know, because I'm sitting up there with my shitty Chinese.

And then, right?

And so afterwards, they were like, oh, when did you think of the marriage market?

Because it wasn't in the thing.

But it was funny.

They didn't give me a hard time, but they were aware that it wasn't on the script.

Oh, wow.

Because it's like you're opening us up to like,

is that like, don't do that in the future?

They were just letting me know that they were.

But they also said that you could keep that in for the rest.

I did that every night.

And then, as a result,

I joked about needing a woman, and

a producer of a dating show saw me on that show and put me on a Chinese dating show, which became like our sort of like series stealing.

So, the whole journey was towards stand-up, but actually, going on the Chinese dating show was like...

Knocked you out of the park there.

Yeah, because you can't script that.

I'm going back and forth with fucking hosts.

But let me, before we move on, right, let me give you

an example of everything's official and then it isn't.

Okay.

So we had a guy, the organization for the foreigners was called CARFT.

I don't know what it stands for, but it's C-A-R-F-T-E.

They are the censor for the foreigners.

Applying for Mandarin stand-up shows, different organization.

But foreigners filming in China, CARFT.

And you get a CARFT guy.

You get a guy on you, right?

But the CARFT guy, I'm there for a year.

He trusted us.

After like six weeks, he realized these people are not trying to like

find suicides at Foxconn.

You know what I mean?

These guys aren't.

They're just learning.

All right.

They're not learning.

Yeah, and they're fun, and it's like, it's in good spirits.

The only thing he complained is like every once or twice we filmed like really shitty toilets.

And he was like, please don't film the toilet.

And like one day we filmed a shitty toilet and the next day the toilet was fucking immaculate.

That was one of my favorite things about it was when Turner took me to a bar across the river

in Shanghai from

the Pudong business district.

We're up at this rooftop bar, and he goes, look at that business, it's beautiful, just like New York, just the skyline.

And I was like, yeah, what?

He goes, so that wasn't here two years ago.

That's right.

And the government decided we want a business district.

There was no vote.

There was no having to go through things.

That's the great thing about that kind of totalitarian.

Like, cool, do it.

Yeah, do it.

Start now.

Yeah.

So we had this guy.

His name was Chen.

And he was cool.

Every now and then he would give us a hard time, but largely we were gifted with a pretty cool guy.

So this is how official and unofficial it is.

So he told me what I was, and it's all the, you know, the three T's, right?

Tiananmen, Taiwan, Tibet, right?

Don't talk about that.

Don't talk about them now.

All the stuff.

I knew not to do jokes about the government.

But he's coming to my fucking stand-up shows.

He's coming to these gigs that I'm putting on, right?

So one day I write a rap.

I write a fucking hip-hop rap about the Chinese news.

Because the joke in China is, because it's all propaganda, right?

And it's real propaganda.

People here talk about

what they show you yeah so the joke is Chinese news every night

the government is busy the the the everyday people are happy and the West is a mess right so and that is literally and then the weather right that's like the weather's real so that that and that is if you watch it you will be surprised it's always like you know the some kind of

committee meeting right then

factory workers in some third-tier city fucking

applauding a local government official that's opened something and then

car break-ins in

Portland.

Yeah, that would be the current one.

Yeah, right.

So,

you know, like, and then the weather.

So, anyway, I made a joke.

I took this, the, the, the news music has a very distinct sting, you know?

Yeah.

So, I made a beat out of it.

Okay.

I know over here that seems pretty tacky, but this is pretty fucking novel to Chinese people to fucking mix the fucking

Xin Wenli and Bo is there evening news to mix that into a beat.

And I made a rappy joke about, you know, this is what the news is every night, which is essentially a version of what we just said.

And I have on camera in our series, he probably never watched it, my fucking censor busting his ass laughing at a joke that I should not be telling.

And that's how unofficial and official it is.

Because he really didn't give a fuck.

But at the same time.

He's like, there's not allowed i get why it's funny yeah but it's not allowed but but he didn't even tell me though he was just like he didn't even care wow you know but at the same time like okay had he cared it would have been an issue but he just didn't you know my version of the freedoms was in beijing hanging out um walking around 3 15 a.m hot as shit i think it might have been june and um went to a bodega uh there's a guy in front with like no shirt on just like hot yeah it's like he can't sleep it's too hot to sleep so he's just there we bought beers And he's like, is this open?

Like, it's open because he wants to be open.

Yeah.

Because he's, you know, whatever.

You're eating fucking shells.

You're eating seeds.

And we're, we get these Heinekens, I think, drinking them on the street.

And he's like, are we allowed to drink on the street?

They're like, as long as you don't skull somebody with the bottle, why would they care?

And I'm like, oh, right.

I told my friend that.

He goes, can you get on Google?

I'm like, no, you cannot get on Google.

So it's like pros and cons of this different kind of thing.

And I have to tell you, man, I fell in love with the pros.

And what you just mentioned there was one of the things I always missed the most is just that Chinese summer nighttime sitting outside.

I don't drink, but like sitting with people who are drinking, having seeds, eating fucking lamb skewers.

Dude, the skewers.

I mean, it's like, I don't know what this is.

Give me one of each of those.

They're like 10 cents each.

Lamb skewers.

I mean, you can get them on, you can get them on Grand Street.

Just if you ever get it, but it was there, and it's just like point, like he'll tell me what kind of meat it is.

Delicious, delicious, disgusting, throw it away.

Tendon.

Yeah, something like that.

I don't know what that was.

Delicious, delicious.

Tendon.

I'm out 12 cents.

Fuck Tendon.

And then back to the other one.

Yeah, man.

And those nights were the fucking best, man.

Isn't it wild you're out in this completely foreign place, walk in with a friend or not, and you just like see a group of like students in a park.

And you're like, what are they doing?

The stuff that if it was here, you just would walk right by it.

Yeah, and the lack of organization of it is great, too, because like here, you know, the places that those areas are going to be.

Whereas like in China, it's just like it could be something else completely.

And then just like 40 fucking people pumping outside.

Because funny enough, we were there at the same time, that World Cup, that actual World Cup.

Oh, that's right.

Yeah.

So I had a lot of great nights with that World Cup, too.

People fucking eating young Rotoir, eating lamb skewers, watching football, and like just fucking seeds everywhere.

Shitty plastic seats.

You know, though, like, the plastic seats.

The shitty little places.

It's just for little kids.

It's either a bench or a little seat with a back.

It's almost better to have this bench.

They're for children.

They're for kindergartners.

Plastic seats.

They stack up.

Yeah.

I'm like, here you go.

Here's a table.

Yeah, and you're like, you got a table?

It's like, here comes a table.

Like, literally, like, fucking, suddenly there's another six plastic seats, and you're having the time of your life.

You're having the absolute time of your life.

You know what I mean?

Like, that, that, you're having a time of your life just having fun, drinking.

And it's real basic, man.

It's real basic.

I mean, the famous one is Ghost Street.

If you're looking for like an image, if you're trying to put up, put in Ghost Street, Beijing, and then, but that is like full belt, like

Beijing nightlife, like Ghost Street, Guijia.

Like, just like all those red lanterns are all restaurants, one after the other, and there's just thousands of people sitting outside every single one of those restaurants eating.

And you know what's really cool?

If you, if, if people are into like, uh, what is it, ASMR?

Yeah,

if you just stop, stop, stand still, all you will hear is the chewing of seeds on that street.

Because everyone that's waiting for their food, the first thing they do is they sit you down.

Here's one of them.

It's not quite the right.

They're kind of fancier.

They're fancier.

But that street is fancy.

To get the like you know, the pink seats is basically like anywhere, you know.

Right, like I always wish the guy on Grand Street, so there's a guy that does uh lamb skewers on Grand Street, and there's one on Flushing Main Street, too.

I always wish he would just bring fucking 20 pink seats and just let people just fucking sit

there.

But here's the thing about China, though, is like the skewers are on wooden sticks, and like all everything's just thrown on the ground, all gets cleaned up at the end of the night.

So, by the end of the night, the floor is just seeds and sticks, and it's like it's just chaos.

But that's that's you know, that's what that's what works for them.

Yeah, I can't find an image, but yeah, so all the other shows that I did, all the other stand-up shows were all unofficial.

And

the only time, other than the Renmin University time, that we got shut down, was we started a new show, but unfortunately it was right around the

anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre, which, of course, they called the June 4th incident.

The June 4th incident.

Yeah, whatever the.

I don't even know if I got the exact date, right?

But

they don't refer to the Tiananmen massacre as anything.

So anyway, you're not allowed to talk about it.

Yeah, I went through it.

I was amazed.

I was like, where's Tiananmen Square?

And they're like, it's out there.

I'm like, what?

I walked through it again.

I'm like, where is it?

And they're like, oh, there's no plaque.

There's no nothing.

Nothing.

It just didn't happen.

Oh, it didn't happen, man.

So around the time of the anniversary,

because it was 89, right?

So it was 2014.

So it was the 25th anniversary.

they were very paranoid, and we had a show that was like a touch too near.

So, that show got shut down by the censor.

That show was like, Where's your permit?

Because they just didn't want you doing it.

It was a tight time that time, there was a lot of paranoia, a lot of paranoia.

So, anything like Toko Sho, and and by the way, Tocos Yo is a lot more popular now, so the censorship is way more intense.

And finally, here it is, there they are, that's what we're talking about,

and they're everywhere, and they're just like stacking them up, like go ahead, sit down, and you just eat it.

And

those are quite high.

Some of them are even shorter than those.

Those are high, you're right.

But that's the vibe everywhere.

And it's so fun because it's like, let go of whatever, your fucking luxury ideas.

This is where everyone's eating.

It's fun.

You just like.

Yeah, and but it's not like very wealthy people are eating there, too.

That's the thing.

It's not even like this is a poor people place.

Right.

This is what, this is

how you eat.

Like

white kids are going to nightclubs.

Chinese people are sitting on shitty stools and fucking drinking beer and, you know, gambaying and eating fucking yang roachuar, eating lamb skewers.

Wow.

That's like, that's like one of the ways to have a good time

in China in the summer.

God, that takes me back.

And all that is like awesome, you know?

Like, you can't beat that.

Yeah.

So, so

let's, let's, let's talk about the chicks there.

How do you fuck?

How does an expat fuck in China?

Because I saw these little mini cities like Shanghai, 20 million.

Yeah.

But in terms of the whites, it's a city of 50,000.

Yeah.

And they don't go outside their city.

Yeah.

And by the time, you know, so this whole thing of like, oh, you're going to get laid all the time, like the white worship was pretty faded.

I'm sure you found that too, right?

Like, at the end of the day, China's pretty successful by then.

So the sense of like the white man is going to come and save you is well gone.

At the Emperor's Palace, I saw it because you have country folk coming to see the emperor's palace.

Yeah, so they want to take pictures of that.

And they're like, what the fuck?

Yeah.

Oh, why?

Can I touch you?

Yes.

Yeah.

You told my baby and take a picture of that.

To a certain degree, that would still happen.

But this sense of like, oh, meet a Lao Wai, meet a white guy, and like, you'll be good for life had shifted mainly because like a lot of fucking Chinese people are making money.

Chinese people are focused on Chinese people making money.

Right.

Right.

So the idea of a white guy has actually kind of become complicated because by then the Ba Ling Ho.

The Ba Ling Ho is the post-80s generation, which is the generation of the one-child policy, right?

So all those kids are called little emperors, little empresses, and they are

their parents are like obsessed with their development because they're only one fucking kid, right?

So, some of them are assholes because no one will tell them to shut up.

Yeah, there's that, right?

They're like Gen Z's.

And so, if you're looking for a comparison, no, I'm kidding.

But anyway,

you got 10 kids, you're like the one died.

They were talking about that generation being entitled.

All that stuff was going on, right?

But the other thing was that parents

kids don't.

What do you call it?

Little Prince prince syndrome they yeah little little

xiao huangza shao huangz is like little empress little emperor yeah so um so they they uh

a chinese girl like just say like a 30-year-old chinese girl that already she's under pressure to get married but she won't fucking meet a white guy because the parents gonna be like i don't want you fucking leaving you're the only thing i have so there was just a lot of like

a lot of like not as exciting as people thought for the white guy was there casual sex though well late it took me a long time to even get into that because I gotta be honest, man, I was so fucking focused that it was like down my list of priorities in the early days.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, there's priorities and then like I'm born.

Don't get me wrong, yeah, but it was.

In the early days of my time in China, I did not experience anything like a simplicity of casual sex in China.

You gotta remember something else.

I was 37 by the time I got to China, and like, you know, just I'm in fucking Renmin University.

Like, I wasn't you're not a club guy.

Yeah, and I also wasn't, like, just like going, like it just wasn't I don't know honestly the Chinese girls especially like

they just seem like I just wanted to like learn language from them I I wasn't thinking like let's get together I did eventually have a relationship China but in those early days when I was like just didn't know a lot of people not a lot there was elements of it but I didn't quite were there whores well there's there's of course there's whores I mean that like there's that you know and that's Asian culture it's like sort of unsaid they told me there were whores but no pimps pimps were illegal so that the mistreatment of the whores wasn't as bad yeah all I know is that when I was in the northeast of China with in the small city when I was working in the restaurant yeah Leo's buddies were obsessed with

getting me whores and I was like guys I don't need

whores

but they they like they really we got to get you one of these authentic whores oh they were like what city was it obsessed with it so that it's uh

he gong h e g a n g and it's actually like a coal mining town that's really struggling h-e-g what h-e-g-a-n-gilongjiang yeah it's right on the border of russia oh wow small chinese city in my joke i say a tiny chinese city of 1.3 million people but it actually it is 1.3 million people no it's actually only 850 000 but that's that's nashville seven years ago i i i it's hyperbole when i say 1.3 because it's a little funnier yeah i could change the city say jamasl which is like uh it is weird that the Suzhou was like $10 million.

Is it like Sleepy Town?

Second tier city.

Sleepy Town.

Hugong is like a third tier city.

And Hu Gong, because this is Dongbei, you know, the northeast of China, very industrial.

Industrial.

Big coal mining town, really struggling.

This is like

the fucking West Virginia.

Why is it struggling?

Because it's coal.

You know, they have pollution problems.

They're really pulling back on coal.

Did they get away from it?

Are they getting away from it?

So Hugong is really, really struggling as a town.

It wasn't struggling as much when I was there, but it's really on a hard time since I left.

Looks like any city?

It's been 11 years since I worked in that restaurant.

Oh, wow.

So it's changed a lot.

But it's also in Dongbei, so its winters are absolutely brutal.

It's kind of like Buffalo vibes, you know?

Really brutal winters, nice summers, but the winters are brutal.

It looks snowy.

I mean, it's that far up towards Russia.

It's literally on the border of Russia.

I went to the border like on a day trip.

So it's right there, you know.

And that was the joke.

And when you're in Dongbei, if you're a white guy in the northeast, they always say,

Are you Russian?

Okay.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, so then my joke in Chinese, another basic, don't judge me, my basic Mandarin joke.

But my joke was...

Don't judge your mandate.

I was like, no, of course I'm not Russian.

Can't you see that I'm smiling?

And they thought that was fucking hilarious.

They love that.

It is funny when you go to one of these other foreign, foreign countries, and they're like, where are you from?

You're like, yes.

And like,

Ireland.

And you're like, do I sound Irish?

And like, no, Australia.

I'm like, do I sound Australian?

And to them, it's like, yeah, I don't know, man.

It all sounds the same.

Yeah.

The other joke, not on stage, but the joke I would say is if a Chinese person said, oh,

where are you from?

I would always say, Hangwarren.

I'm Korean.

And then they'd be like, oh, you're not Korean.

But like, I know this stuff is so like.

It is fun to meet someone on humor, to meet up on another language.

Oh, man.

But the thing is that the Chinese, man, they have a fucking great sense of humor, but it just doesn't translate into English.

And like their sense of humor doesn't translate into English.

But once you get it, and like, oh, explain their sense of humor.

I can't fucking explain it.

So don't even ask because it's like impossible.

But when you figure it out like on some sort of subconscious level, you get it.

They're fucking funny, man.

Dude, I went to, when you hit somebody with a joke in their language, it's such a rewarding language moment.

I was in this coffee plantation tour in Ecuador somewhere, and Via Cabamba was the name of the

plantation, name of the coffee company.

And the guy was telling us, my dad started it.

He's like, you know,

and then the person I was with was like, how did you get the name Via Cabamba?

And he was like,

well, oh, no.

via coroma was it that it was in via cabamba he's like well via cabamba is a city and then aroma so via coroma and she's like oh and i was like and then in spanish they were like do you know that i was like sia zovio And then the guy died laughing.

It's obvious.

Yeah.

And the guy died laughing.

And I'm like, yes!

Yeah, man.

I mean,

I remember I was doing Stand Up in China long before I ever understood a joke of any of the other comics on stage.

Wow.

Like, I could make the audiences laugh and have not a fucking notion, especially the punchline.

Like, as my Chinese got better, man, I was like understanding everything, but I never got the punchline.

Wow.

Or you know what they call the punchline?

What?

Xiaodian, which directly translates as laughing point.

Very mathematical.

Very mathematical.

So.

I would never get the laughing point.

And sometimes that's because you don't get the reference.

They're talking about some fucking show from the 80s.

Yeah, that's how I am in England.

The joke will be like, it'll be like here, it'll be like some homeless guy will be like, kind of look like Biden.

You know what that means.

Yes.

But there, you'll be like, kind of look like some guy you've never heard of.

Yeah, yeah, some guy from an 80s fucking show.

What is that?

Yeah, which part of him?

But I remember the first time I got a couple of fucking jokes of the comics, I was fucking dying.

Like, it was, I was almost like not laughing.

I was like fucking cheering for myself that I got it.

Yeah.

But by the way, if you ever want to make, if you ever in a Chinese restaurant,

this always works.

So they call us Laoai, right?

You've probably heard me do this joke, maybe on stage.

I do this joke in English.

There is a derogatory word word.

Yeah, but that's Guailo.

It's a foreign word in every country.

Yeah, but

Guailo is negative.

That's Cantonese.

It means like white ghost, right?

Okay.

But Laoi literally just means foreigner.

I mean, it doesn't directly translate.

It's Farong and Taiwan.

It's Farong.

Farong's not negative, right?

It can be.

Yeah.

But it's like Jew.

It depends how you say.

La Wai is definitely not negative.

La Yai.

Yeah, it's evolved into not a big deal.

And like if you watch Everything Everywhere All At Once, that film,

they're calling us

a crazy movie.

I mean, a cry for a week after that.

They're calling us Lao Wai the whole time.

Okay.

So we are Lao Wai, right?

It doesn't mean white guy, but like

in Everything Everywhere All At Once, they're really calling Lao Wai white guys, right?

But so when you're in a Chinese restaurant, they're calling you a Lao Wai, right?

So if you can remember this, if you ever hear them call you a Lao Wai, say, hey, we're in America, you're the law why.

And they will fucking die.

Now, I can say it, I can say it in Mandarin, but like in English, it still works.

If you catch them calling, they won't be like, wow.

They won't be upset about it.

They'll just be like, well, maybe if you say it in English, they might be.

But

you've never been one to shy away from upset.

No, I'll go for it.

I'll go for it.

Well, a hard-fought laugh is a good laugh.

Yeah, but

I say, they say, what?

What woman's like, what?

I say, well, we're in America.

You're the Lawyer.

And they're like, oh my God, God, it's so funny.

But I always, the other thing that really makes Chinese people laugh, especially over here, like in a restaurant, is if I'm ordering a Mandarin and my wife will order like fucking chicken and broccoli, I'll always be like, fucking Lao Wai food in Chinese.

Fucking Lao Wai food.

And they think that's hilarious that I'm calling her a Lao Wai.

Because obviously to them, they're like, what?

And I like, I know these things are so basic, but like those are those little moments where you're like, yeah.

My brother does that to me when I visit him.

He lives in Europe and

they speak French or Swiss wherever he lives.

He's moved around.

But he's like, hey, they're going to ask you if you want to beg.

And they're like, okay.

And then we get to the front of the line.

And then they ask and I forget.

I'm like, what?

And he just goes in Swiss or in French.

He goes, stupid American.

And then die laughing.

That joke is universal, man.

It's clearly American.

And

you make the effort to learn the language.

You get to make that joke.

Me and Roddy Chang's other joke is at the cellar will speak Mandarin and then just deliberately say somebody's name in the middle of the fucking sentence, sentence having nothing to do with them and then they're like what are you saying let's talk about the bathrooms and and the and the shift in culture to get to that to all right well let's talk about the fact that squatty toilets are the way that we're supposed to shit has this come up yet on your back no it has not it has not it's the way that humans are meant to poop explain in my opinion yeah you will use not just because there is no toilet paper so you have to bring you know you have to bring your own toilet paper in china i did not know i found out

i did not know.

There's no warning for whites.

Listen, in Australia, I drove the Great Ocean Road.

It's just like PCH-type road.

Been on it many times.

From Melbourne to Adelaide, it's great.

It's amazing.

You can pull over, especially if we're going from Melbourne to Adelaide.

You're already on the side to pull over to look at those beautiful spots.

Every entryway, and this is three hours away from the airport, is, hey, we drive on the left side of the road here.

Yes.

To remind you of something you might, as a non-Australian, come in conflict with with your culture and way of life.

Yes.

No warning about the the toilet paper.

Yeah.

So obviously it took me a while to learn that too.

Yeah.

You got to have your own fucking toilet paper, right?

But

after a while, you realize that even the shittiest squatty potty is clean because you're not fucking touching it, man.

You're fucking squatting, you're dropping your shit, and then you have your toilet.

And you will use

like 10% of the toilet paper that you would use sitting on a normal stage.

Why?

Because it comes out so it just comes.

It's the way we're meant to shit, bro.

You know, my hip mobility was so much better.

How do you clean your colon?

You got to squat, baby.

It just opens up your ass.

It's also like.

Well, also, because we're not great, so we don't have the ankle mobility that they have.

That's why these old Chinese dudes are like standing at the side of the road smoking cigarettes with their heels to the floor.

Yeah, I can't get my heels to the Chinese bikini.

Yeah, the Beijing air conditioning.

Yeah, yeah.

Right?

Smoking, and they're in that position for like an hour.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No knees, no, like like no knee, no.

They got way better hip mobility,

great flexibility.

But anyway,

my hip mobility definitely improved from

sitting.

Yeah, especially when, so you know.

You got to get back or you'll shit into your pants.

Yeah, I just it you got to get your ass behind you would want your ass to be here.

But you widen your legs, too.

You widen your leg, but you don't take the pants off.

No, you leave them around your knees or whatever.

Bro, I really got into the squatty part because here's the thing about China.

They're big on public toilets.

So everywhere you go is public toilets.

And yes, they're disgusting, but they're always there.

So like you'll never have like a New York situation where you're like, oh my God, where the fuck am I going to go?

Describe it.

And it's got two little foot pads.

So the worst, the ones in like the third-tier cities are just like five holes in the ground with foot pads, sometimes not even.

Separators?

No separators.

No separators.

So you're shitting next to someone and watching them, looking them in the eye?

Yeah, but that's the whole thing is like they're comfortable with it.

Like my Chinese buddies were telling me like when they were kids, they'd be like, are we going to the bathroom?

And like five of them would just go shit together and just, like, talk while they're shitting.

So it never, they never learned that it's like Adam and Eve.

They didn't know to be, to cover up.

Yeah, they're just like, they just didn't know there was anything.

Those people, obviously,

societal norms have shifted quite a bit in China.

Like, even I'm sure since the last time I was there, I guarantee you, like, you wouldn't see half the amount of crappy torts that there used to be, right?

So they're advancing like everybody else.

But like,

I got comfortable with it.

Yeah.

We made a joke about it in the series about like

the only place you get privacy privacy in China is in your own head.

Like you'll always be around people.

Those are the personal spaces, too many people.

You can't have personal space.

Yeah.

So like shitting is not a private moment.

So when I got food poisoned in 2004, even in the fucking hospital, and I had bad diarrhea, like bad.

And they had me on a fucking drip.

So I'm on a fucking IV in a Chinese hospital, and I got to fucking do my business in the hospital.

But I had a fucking drip, right?

But I had to go up the stairs because the downstairs toilet was just like so disgusting.

I couldn't use it.

The upstairs toilet was was better.

So I couldn't carry up the thing.

There was no elevator.

So my buddy Leo, my Chinese buddy, carried my fucking IV and held my IV up while I squatted in the upstairs toilet standing next to me.

That's what I said to him.

I said, Leo, we are officially best friends now.

Wow.

And that was 2004.

But by the time I was there in 2013, 14, because I ended up living there for two years because I love China so much.

I stayed an extra year.

And I just like, didn't give a fuck.

Five holes in the ground.

I'll squat.

Somebody comes in.

It's because guys in there, they read the fucking paper, they smoke.

Like, I hate smoking in public places, but I loved people smoking in those toilets because it was a better smell than the fucking smell of those toilets.

But it's all the different people's toilet paper, too, in the trash cans.

Oh, everything is.

You're not supposed to have, I believe,

two different shits anywhere near each other.

Like, a bunch of your own shit is fine.

A bunch of my own shit is fine.

When one little piece of your shit comes near one little piece of my shit, it creates another level of disgusting.

Disgusting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And also 30 different shits.

And

those toilets are disgusting.

There's no way around it.

What's a nice squatty toilet?

It's clean.

But so they don't build an actual toilet.

They're just like...

No, they have toilets.

Renmin had toilets.

In my university, they had toilets as we know them.

Interesting.

But I ended up like, I preferred the squats, man.

I love a squatty party.

At the moment, no, I tore my ACL, blah, blah, blah.

But when I was in China, I grew to really love the squatty parties.

Did you ever see footprints on a regular toilet?

The seat?

Well, and that's a big joke about Chinese people going abroad.

No one tells them.

Yeah, and also they don't like sitting on toilet.

See, the funny thing is that we think squatty toilets are disgusting.

They think sitting on a toilet is disgusting.

It is disgusting.

That's not wrong.

To put your ass right where somewhere else, put it.

Not like in the region, but like on the thing.

And there was a big campaign like in Hong Kong and like more advanced cities.

There was a big campaign against Daluran, like people from the mainland and their fucking shitty habits.

Did you see one?

So the Chinese kids.

I know that you saw it because we were sitting in the park park and we saw the kids with no diapers with a fucking hole in their hands.

They were telling me about it, and I was like, didn't believe it.

He goes, oh, there's one right now.

It was so like, what?

Yeah.

So though, I was sitting in a Starbucks in Tiananmen Square, coincidentally enough, in Tianmen,

the bit behind Tiananmen Square.

There's like a cool little sort of old town there.

But there's a Starbucks in there.

Old town Tiananmen.

Yeah, yeah.

Starbucks in Old Town Tianmen.

And so I was sitting in the Starbucks with this Chinese comedian, and this fucking like two-year-old squats next to the table next to us and pisses on the thing, and his piss rolled under our table.

And so, that drives like the Hong Kong people and the other

Asian,

like tourism areas where there's a lot of Chinese tourists, those kind of things drive them fucking nuts.

So, the Chinese are kind of like the Americans of Asia.

Like, people love complaining about Chinese tourists.

There's a Hong Kong, so I've never experienced racism like I have from Hong Kong Chinese against mainland

Chinese.

And they don't even try to look both ways.

So the story I heard, and by the way, the podcast we did,

it's been shifted over.

All the travel podcasts from Skeptic Tank, I've shifted over to

Ubi Tripp and Patreon.

But it's still there.

You can get it.

The main ones will be taken down.

That was recorded, the two of us sitting in a parking lot.

Crazy.

There's audio.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was crazy.

But this is the thing they said.

The lady caught herself.

It was an interviewer.

It was an official thing.

It wasn't just like a comic talking shit.

She's shitting on fucking mainlander.

I was like, what?

She goes, all right, hold on, hold on.

I'm not, listen, I'm going too far because I'm very hateful.

But she's like,

I'm not saying every mainlander, it's derogatory mainlander.

I'm not saying every mainlander will shit in the hallway of a mall.

But if you see human shit in the hallway of a mall, it was a mainlander.

And again, some of these things become stereotypes, like easy targets.

But there was like an official Chinese government edict or like there was a publicity campaign about trying to get them to behave better abroad.

Describe the shorts.

The shorts?

The helmet's shorts.

Yeah, so like think of a onesie, right?

Think of a kid's onesie,

but there's essentially like an exit shoot for their ass in their cock or their vagina where they don't wear diapers.

They just like when the when the kid needs to go, they just literally like unleash the evacuation.

You would think take your pants down but they don't they have that all set up no it's and a lot of them don't even have like a like a button thing it's just like well what I saw it was like a skirt almost you know like a skirt shirt skirt shorts yeah yeah so it would just be real loose just real loose like this but but but here and then but this wouldn't be connected so when you squatted down it would it would separate allowing your anus free reign to the street to mess up so in there were like straight like like an opening yeah like crotch essentially like crotchless onesie for kids and it was just and after you told me, I noticed it everywhere.

Where some kids, like, looking back at his mom's mom's like,

I'm like, what?

And he's like, should I?

His innate nature is, this is wrong.

And she's like, go.

And then he's like, okay.

And he just pisses just on the street.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And like at those, like, the short stool places we were talking about, like, those guys would just walk to the side and just like unload.

You know,

10 feet away.

There was a looseness to

the toilet stuff.

Wow.

Wow.

So, can I make one point?

Yeah.

That's kind of a bit like.

Wait, you have it in your head?

Yeah.

Keep it in your head for a second.

I'll go to the bathroom.

Oh, go.

Keep it in your head.

It's ideal.

I came with it, so it's not going to.

Wait, hold on.

I'm going to tap you back in.

Do your seamless.

Right after you make.

Can I make one point?

Okay.

You just said, can I make one point, guys?

Here we go.

No, this is me kind of pushing an agenda here.

That's fine.

Wait, wait, wait, wait.

I didn't do it yet.

Oh, sorry.

I thought you did it.

No, yeah.

That's me.

That was the rehearsal?

Go on.

So I'm thinking,

you just said, can I make one point?

And now it's me going.

Yeah, sure.

Go ahead.

Well, now, I have to admit that this is me.

This is like a little bit of a soapbox moment for me.

Okay.

I am not saying that free speech isn't an issue in the United States.

Yeah.

But having lived through two years of Chinese comedy and then having watched what's happened to Chinese comedy since, which has gotten quite bad.

The squirrel joke.

Just things have gotten bad there, tough like for comics.

It's heavily, heavily sensitive.

You know about that stuff from like six, eight months ago, right?

What was that?

They compared the Chinese government to like a squirrel, and they're like, How dare you get fine a million dollars?

I saw that one, but this one is more serious.

I'm not going to name the guy, but there's a guy, a Chinese comedian.

I'm not sorry to name him.

There's this guy I know that he was really kind of starting out in the early days.

I didn't, I don't remember him actually, but he actually once said in an interview that I was one of the inspirations for him

realizing that you could make a living from stand-up comedy.

So

he became very famous in China after I left as one of those initial Toko Shou Yen, one of those initial stand-up comedians, and killed it.

Big career, big money.

Goes on a tour of America and decides, I'm a fucking tell the truth.

And when he when I say tell the truth, he does what would be considered very tepid critical humor about China.

Tepid.

Like, give me an American version of it.

Fucking,

you know, Biden and Trump aren't fucking.

Is this the best two people we have?

Okay.

Great.

Got the line.

Okay.

You know, like, what would be considered standard fare for any night of the week on any network television?

He does that here.

He does it on a Mandarin show, but it's a tour for expats.

around the United States.

And he,

somebody goes on Weibo and fucking...

What is that?

Sorry, the Chinese Twitter.

Okay.

Sorry, it goes on Chinese Twitter.

And I think it was like written.

I can't give you the full details.

All I know is that this guy

has never been back to China.

He's in hiding now because he was wiped from the internet.

And this is how wiped he was.

My friend, who was telling me this story, my Chinese friend, who was visiting here.

So WeChat is their main, like, you know,

WeChat's their WhatsApp.

They're WhatsApp, but they use it way more than that.

Yeah, it's like they're everything.

Imagine

imagine WhatsApp, Facebook,

Lymessage, all of it.

All of it, it's WeChat.

It's like everything happens on WeChat.

Yeah, they have a Facebook version of it.

Yeah, okay.

So

my buddy

goes to try to message him to be like, I heard about this.

He doesn't exist.

His contact, everything's gone.

He's been wiped.

His WeChat, his Wayboss,

everything, gone.

Not like they're like, well, we're going to suggest your videos let's

gone.

Doesn't exist.

Tiananmen Square.

Just gone.

But he's not gone, though.

He's in hiding.

And I am happy to be fact-checked.

I know that you're...

Is his Western profiles, those are all still there.

Well, I don't even know if he has them or whatever.

I haven't.

I'm actually finding it very hard to get information on him, but I know that he's in hiding.

Wow.

And he can't go back to China.

That's my understanding, unless they got him and he's back there.

I don't know, but all I'm saying is that it happens that fast.

And by the way, I have like, I've known numerous people that have had varying levels of like, like, when I was in China, the biggest, like,

the Bob Hope of China was this guy, Zhao Benshan.

This, like, just, if you watched him as a comedian, you would appreciate, even though it's, like, obviously, like, old school, like Abben and Costello type shit, you would appreciate the skill of this guy.

This guy's like red fox, fucking, like, old school, just like classic comic, but character comic, but amazing, like, amazing.

And

during my time in China, Xi Jinping had decided that like certain types of Chinese humor were like lowbrow, and this guy's career disappeared overnight.

Did he say anything wrong?

Like, we're just not gonna do that.

No, he wasn't doing sexuality.

His career is over.

Like, canceled, but like, canceled forever.

Like, obviously, we know now that cancellation is like an inconvenience.

Not in China.

Canceled, really, canceled, right?

And then

Bi Fujian.

So, so there's a guy

called Lao Bia.

So people call me Lao Bia in China, but it's kind of a joke because there is a famous Chinese comedian with the same last name that I picked.

And while I was in China, this guy was the most famous guy.

He's hosting, he's like Ryan Seacrest, a little bit older, but he's hosting the New Year's Gala in China, which is the most watched TV show in the world.

Like a billion people watch and watch

every year, the Chunwan,

the most famous, he hosted it, does a corporate, a corporate, and he sings some old joke about Mao, some old fucking joke song about Mao, Mao Zedong, who fucking is a nightmare historical figure, but they have decided that he's been resurrected, so he's 30% bad, 70% good, you know, right?

Yeah,

they have his picture everywhere.

And I'm like, didn't he kill it?

He was a disaster.

He's a terrible man.

30 million Chinese.

In every way, he was a bad leader.

He sings this dumb, jokey song.

He's over.

His career's been over since.

Yeah?

So, like, people really get what they like.

Like, the Disney chicks got it.

They're still touring.

They disappeared.

They're just not arena acts they're missed passive theater.

So here's my point about and I'm all for the free speech arguments, but when people talk about they because I hear people compare it to China.

You will never understand that.

Yeah, but here's the thing.

It's like we have free speech here because yes, it's inconvenient when certain corporations or certain aspects of the media decide you are no longer eligible.

That is fucked up.

I'm not defending that.

But what we have here is, so here we have a flowing river.

And if they decide to block the river, here the river can divert and find a new flow.

And actually, that new flow, as it turns out, is pretty fucking

cool.

You make a lot of money on that flow, right?

And that happened pretty much.

Yeah, my buddy said this about cancel culture.

He goes, We should all be thanking whoever started it.

Yeah, because actually there's a lot of money in the tributary that came.

But in China, they fucking damn that river.

And water just goes underground and disappears.

And disappears, or it just gets cleansed with fucking chlorine.

Like they detoxify it, and it stays that way forever.

It never is a river again.

So, like, you

just I appreciate the inconvenience and I am not saying that we don't have issues around free speech in the United States, but it's you when the people compare it, they have no idea.

You know, because we don't really have state censorship.

I was in a we have trends.

It's not state censorship.

It's

a touch of state, but it's generally corporate censorship.

And also, by the way.

And social censorship.

Corporate censorship, social censorship.

And we talked a lot about that in China, too, about the fact that a lot of it is self-censorship.

And that's the best.

Yeah, Yes,

we big brother ourselves.

But ours was also just like a period of time.

Like it's already passed.

You know what I mean?

It was like a moment in time where we had these power dynamic shifts, and actually

some of the power shifted to places where power, surprise, surprise got fucking abused because people always abuse power.

But actually, it all kind of military, the left wing.

Kind of levels off.

Everybody's like, oh, I got this power now.

I want it all my way.

And not like, well, I don't like this, but you can do it.

It kind of levels off.

But here's the reality.

I'm very open to arguments about free speech.

But what I will also say is that we have spaces to go to still speak whereas you do not

children open mic always and it's up that you had to go find another place but it's pretty cool that you could find it and you don't have that in china and that's real that's not exaggerated wow i remember being in uh montreal they were

protesting it turned into it might have turned into riots i don't know but protesting about the raise in tuition And I was talking to some of the students, like, how much are they trying to raise?

Like, 200 bucks a year.

I'm like, how much is it now?

Like, like $1,100.

They're trying to get up to $1,300.

And I was like, just laughed in their face.

American, yeah.

Yeah.

It's an American.

It's a white.

$20,000 a year is on the cheaper end.

Standard, yeah.

Yeah, like, I'm so sorry your tuition went.

I'd be like, it's a real thing.

It's like, right, same thing.

Not diminished or struggle.

It's wrong what they're doing to you.

Yes.

But it's hard for me to understand.

Yeah.

And again,

I'm not trying to say that.

But I also think, thank God, that things have moved on from that time where it did feel a bit, it did actually, in America, it did feel a bit oppressive.

And I always, I used to like to use the example of like the sort of small cultural revolution where everyone's like outing everybody else for like clout you know but then what's good for the goose is good for the gander then you get fucking you well it's nobody saw it one of my favorite things where somebody tries to out somebody and then they'll go to that person's old tweets and they'll be like and then i remember seeing some asian go wait am i getting canceled for for stuff that i claim this person did and it's like yeah dude you shouldn't have brought it up yes you should have brought it up because also they're not a monster they were just making a joke just the same way you were so i always I actually messaged Nimesh when he got in trouble for his fucking, you know, his Columbia thing.

And I messaged him.

I was like, oh, look, it's a mini cultural revolution.

But it's a joke because, in actual fact, those things were horrific, whereas ours are inconvenience.

What?

What did Nemesh?

Oh, Columbia University.

Columbia University.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Anyway, that's my soapbox moment.

Over.

Okay.

Drugs, booze.

I don't drink, and I don't do drugs, so I stopped drinking when I was

in 95 when I was 19.

So

that's not my area of expertise.

So you didn't really see it.

You weren't around it.

No.

Baiji was their thing, right?

Baijio, yeah.

And I'm sorry, that culture is very complicated.

Yeah.

Because they, so, as my friend said, you're much better to not drink at all than to try to drink a little.

Because once you start there, then you're in the game, which is like Gambay.

Because they're big into have a shot with me, basically.

They're big into.

They're a country of De Rosas.

Yeah, so, but when you get in these, there's a lot of social rules that I didn't even fully understand.

And as we said, they're big into hierarchy.

They're big into like saving phase.

Did you know that they have a

there's like a prime position at like a round table?

So say you're like a round table.

So if you're if you're eating for like 10 people, because they love doing the big dinners on the lazy Susan's, and they like private rooms.

Private rooms are considered very high-end in China.

That's like a flex.

Wow.

Right?

And food is everything in China, right?

So a lot of chinese culture is around food going out like the way irish go to the pub that chinese people go to eat so you get a fancy restaurant with a round table and the boss has to be at the table furthest from the door the most important guy and then the person to the left of the boss i think is like the guest of honor And that's like very important.

So like the guest of honor will always get will, so they do the lazy decision.

So they order like 20 dishes.

He sits first and sets the head.

Yeah, but the Laobam will always get the guest of honor to get like the first bit like that's like respect but then like when the fucking boss and by the way i'm i'm like paraphrasing on like an outside observers if there's any chinese people listening i'm open to correction but my quick understanding like so but then like if you if the bot if it's like a work event and like you're all the underlings yeah and the boss is like drinking like you gotta fucking then you're you gotta go with the boss right and also does the other way work where like if he's not drinking i'm not not, I can't get, I can't get.

I assume so, but I don't know because I never saw that.

But if the boss is drinking, then you got to go.

You got to go, Ganbe.

When the boss is like, because they're big in like, what a great excuse to come home.

What do they say?

They say,

ghribe, ghribe.

So gambe is just like, you know, like down in one.

Gambe means dry glass, right?

That's actually what gambe means.

Okay.

Dry gambe is a basil, is a glass, right?

Dry glass.

So gembe.

But, but, like, but they, they don't always say gambé.

They sometimes say hlibe.

Like,

you know,

basically like drink a glass with me.

Okay.

You know?

So how is it?

I want to say this at a Chinese place.

Gambei?

Well,

let me check the pronunciation myself.

I don't want to be like teaching you bad Chinese because I have to be honest,

I can get into some bad habits myself.

Yeah, okay.

When I was in Paris, I learned how.

May I please have.

Oh, it's actually Ganbei.

So Ganbei, it's two first tones.

Ganbei.

Oh, even.

No, no, no.

Okay.

Gambé.

I'll play it for you so you can

hear.

Gambay.

Ganbe.

Ganbei.

Ganbei.

Ganbe.

Ganbe.

Oh, yeah, they drop off the tone on the second one because it's two first tones together.

But anyway, Ganbei.

So, like, but the khlibei, like, you have to, like,

oh, oh, and so here's a hilarious Chinese little cultural thing.

I actually wanted to do a sketch about it once.

So

the Chinese people

have this thing about like being lower than you.

That's like a sign of respect.

Like, so

they try to drink lower than you.

So, like, like if you're drinking, they'll try to go like, they'll try to get

under.

So actually, sorry, it's for the cheers.

So when they cheers, they try to cheer lower as if they're saying, like, I respect you.

But like, you can get pretty fucking low sometimes.

It's like a battle for low.

So I wanted to do this.

I wanted to do a sketch where like you end up like in hell.

Yeah, you end up like in hell trying to get, but of course I didn't have the sketch.

Now the technology has improved.

I probably could have done it.

But at the time, I didn't have the know-how.

But just the desire to get lower quite funny yeah because they always do it because like people are equal so it's not a big deal who gets lower but they're always trying to get lower for the for the cheers for the actual clink they're trying to clink lower than your glass that's so funny so there's a lot of a lot of that strange societal

and paying the bill

humongous like the boss should pay the bill like a lot of it's disrespectful to pay on somebody yeah i like you i that was one of my jokes that i actually did in the show at joe wong was i i would do a joke about like people from the Northeast trying to pay a bill and it's like a fucking like full-on

a battle.

Yeah.

Northeast of China.

Yeah, that would be the joke in China because

it's like a stereotype.

They're like super friendly, you know?

So, but then my joke was, like, if I was in Beijing, I would say Shanghai.

If I was in Shanghai, I'd say Beijing.

So then I'd say, Shanghai people.

paying the bill and they'd be like so like you go to pay the bill and then the other guy goes well i like i will and then the shanghai guy's like okay you know and they think that's hilarious because like yeah they're fucking cheap.

They're fucking cheap, man.

They're fucking cheap.

We're the best.

They're the ones.

But actually, like, you know, it's like a,

I treat you like what should

I treat you is like a really big deal for them.

So much so that, like,

their word for splitting the bill is AA Gir.

I actually can't remember why it's AA Gir because it's actually two Western letters, AA and then Jer.

That means sharing the bill.

But to them, that's like foreign.

That's like, okay, it's tacky.

Splitting the bill, yeah.

Like somebody's getting the bill.

So funny, funny because I grew up with Jews

so when you go, but I live amongst normals in high society and in the biggest metropolis in America and like, you know, am I getting it?

No, it's it's no, it's it's uh when you go like I'll get this round like okay.

How much do we owe you for that?

I'm like, no, I got a round.

Yes, I just went and got it.

And they're like, all right, well, what's 750?

How much do we're like guys guys?

Stop.

Just get the next round.

But what if you order a more expensive beer?

By a dollar?

I don't know, man.

I'm not thinking about it.

Yeah.

It evens out in the wash.

It evens out, man.

And that's the way it works in China, too.

It evens out.

One of the things I love, love culturally was I was in Vietnam, and I think it might have been Korean eating style, but

it's nobody pours their own glass of beer.

That's good absolutely.

And so it's like, let me pour for everybody, not me.

Someone will pour for me.

I'm treating everyone else like a king, and we all should be treated like kings, even though then they ignore the part where like, but I'm a servant now.

Like, no, no, no, you're just honoring these other kings around you.

Yes.

And that is

thing, though, with that.

Yeah, that's like a respect, you know, like respecting, because

so part of Confucianism is

like how you treat guests, it's almost like spiritual.

So it's like intrinsic in their value system.

The way we have like Judeo-Christian values, they have Confucian values.

And those Confucian values really value treating guests and shao shun, like honoring the mother and father and honoring hierarchy, knowing your place.

So those are things that are like, you know, in us,

in them as a basic value.

And it's a slight, you'd notice how it affects their society because they look after old people a lot better than we do.

Because the way they, if they didn't look after old people to them, would be the way that,

I don't know what would be a good example.

Well, I've got an example.

So this guy, Rolf Potts, my buddy, so he speaks at a lot of schools,

travel writer.

And he goes, invariably, they're going to ask about dog as meat.

Right.

And he's like, they're like, have you ever eaten dog?

And he's like,

just to say yes is going to have them all scream.

He goes, listen, there's cultural differences.

And I know what you're looking at is eating dogs.

Yes.

They look at us equally with the way we treat our elderly.

Yeah.

Amen.

Amen.

We stuck them out by comparison.

They bring them home to live with them.

Yeah.

They're just part of the family.

And that's the way it is.

And they also live healthier.

I mean, that's why.

And they look at us like, you do what to them?

That's crazy.

And we're going to think twice about it.

Yes.

So

that's a perfect example.

But that is like, I do think that some of that comes from

Confucianism, like as just like a base

thing that's,

but that's really what

a lot of the Chinese people.

So here's another point I used to make about the Chinese comment.

People would always say, oh, but you can't say anything there, right?

And it's like, well, listen, they can't talk about the government, and that's what we think is like, you know, what's the word for,

you know, when you like confront power, what's the word for that in terms of like,

you know, that type of comedy?

Like, anyway, you know,

the vocab has just gone out of my head at the moment, but like, what's pretty groundbreaking for them is to just speak about their personal lives openly.

Because they always say the West is very Kaifan.

Like, Westerners are very open, right?

They always say that, right?

And for them to be open on stage, because all their comedy before was like wordplay, kind of like

not really them, not connected to them.

For somebody to go up and be like, I, you know, my parents, you know, just anything, like anything.

Old John Malani and New John Malani.

Where I was labeling about the Civil War, and now it's like, hey, I got a hell of a drug.

Yeah.

So for them to be personal is actually.

Revolutionary.

Revolutionary.

And that's what used to bug me about people being like, yeah, but they can't say anything there.

And it's like, yeah, but Lenny Bruce does shit that now is hack, hack but it was revolutionary yeah and it's also very short time period in this grand scheme of things lenny bruce was very recent yeah and and he broke ground for us but also just for society to be like why do we have these hang-ups and but he wasn't actually like it's actually doesn't seem that groundbreaking what he did now because he broke the ground for us right and what they're doing now doesn't seem that groundbreaking to westerners but it's pretty fucking groundbreaking to chinese people wow you know

and even to just challenge like parental relationships or they joke a lot about the, like, like the way they joke about the pressure of relationships and like very rigid structures.

Because over there, if you want to get married, the mother of the daughter will expect you to buy an apartment in Beijing before you propose.

It is unacceptable to propose in a middle-class Beijing family.

They will not be happy if you propose without having bought an apartment.

And at the time you were living with your parents?

You live with the parents and then you buy an apartment.

It's like, don't even think about it.

Right.

You have to show them where you're going to

You're thinking about it.

Oh, wow.

So in my second year in China, I had a full relationship with a Shren, Chinese girl, Chinese comedian.

I met her through Beijing.

And we got quite serious.

And in the end, I had to leave after my second year.

And I wanted her to emigrate.

And it just very complicated.

But I met her parents in Thailand because it was just, it was Chinese New Year and they wanted to go on holiday.

So I was like, hey, let's meet in Thailand.

I don't have to get a fucking Chinese visa, which is a pain in the ass.

And you guys, it's one of the only countries that Chinese people can can travel to visa-free, right?

So they can go, easy peasy, let's go to Thailand.

So I meet her parents for the first time in Thailand.

We sat, I met them, we sat down in some cafe in fucking Phuket.

And the second question she asked me was, when are you going to buy an apartment?

Wow.

That was her second question.

And I said, at that time,

did you part?

Like, how are you?

Right?

Okay.

And then, so at the time, and this is not a flex, this is what I said to her.

At the time, I had an apartment in London.

I had two houses in Dublin, and I had an apartment in New York.

And I'd said that to her in Mandarin, and she says, what's that got to do with me?

You need to have an apartment in Beijing.

That's actually what she said to me.

Like a fucking, like an agent.

Like fucking

like Tom Cruise.

What's that?

Yeah, it's also like,

great.

Yeah, I need a place here near my kid.

Yeah.

So, and then, you know,

yeah.

So in the end, she didn't, I couldn't get her to emigrate, actually.

So it broke up.

Eventually, we broke up.

We were alone distant for quite a while, but eventually broke up.

I mean, it was impossible.

It was a pity.

I mean, was there differences in dating a Chinese lady versus a Dublin or an American?

I don't know where to begin.

Like, you got to feed them.

What do you mean?

Like, literally, like, she would get annoyed because, so, as I said, Chinese always eat communally, right?

So, the food goes in the middle.

She would get annoyed that I didn't, like, take meat off the plate, off the middle plate, and put it onto her plate or even

or even put it in her mouth because like that to her is like cute like that's so one time we went out in a double date with a proper chinese like two couple and like professional chinese like chinese in their 30s doing well i haven't had a lot of this like double date experience and he's like real chinese real traditional so he's fucking feeding her and she's like see That's how you do it.

Fucking feed her.

And in my mind, I'm like, if I tried to feed a fucking Western woman, she'd smack me in the fucking head.

Yeah, imagine here.

Oh, I'm going to try that on my next date.

I'm going to try that.

Put that in your mouth.

Put it in your mouth.

Put it in your mouth.

It's like Dice would do something like that in his old character.

Yeah, there's a word.

So I have a routine in Chinese.

So this is 100% true story.

So

we ended up having a fucking huge fight over what?

I have no idea.

Right?

Over nothing.

Fucking huge fight.

And I wasn't giving an inch, right?

So I have a routine about how the reason why I got so good at Chinese is because I had to fucking you gotta if you're gonna fucking have a relationship, you gotta argue

So we're we're really going at it, right?

And she was like, I wouldn't give in, so she was like, Can you not hung wall?

So, hung is a very hard word.

Oh, no, oh, so it's a hard word to translate, but she's basically like, Can't you just fucking humor me, basically?

It's like a semi-decent, right?

So, I was like, Like, like, what?

So, she goes, I'm, I'm, this, I'm so wei-chu, quite wei-chu, which directly translates as like wronged, but like wronged doesn't really capture what it means for Chinese people to say, I'm fucking Wei Chu.

You know?

Oh.

But she's basically saying like, you've fucking wronged me.

Like there's an injustice happening in this argument.

Right?

I mean, they're white chicks.

That's it, it.

They're just white chicks.

So I had no idea what fucking Wei Chu meant, and we're fucking going at each other.

So I take out my phone.

To look up.

Now, this joke doesn't work in English, by the way, because I've already given away the punchline.

But I take take out my phone to look up what fucking Wei Chu means, and she storms out of the fucking apartment.

And I run after her, I'm like, what are you doing?

And she goes, I've fucking tried to talk to you, and you're fucking looking at your phone.

And I said, I don't know what Wei Chu means, right?

Which to Chinese people, that moment is hilarious because Wei Chu is such a big word for them.

But the fact that, like, I had to fucking look it up in the heat of battle, right?

So

this is not like a routine, but this is like a funny true story.

So I said, I don't know what Wui Chu means.

And she fucking walks away, gets in a fucking 200 kwai taxi, which, you know,

in American money, it's only like 10 bucks, but like in China, fucking expensive taxi.

She gets a taxi all the way to the outside of Beijing where she lives.

She leaves my apartment, goes, it's like a fucking hour to her fucking apartment.

I guess she cooled down.

I fucking called her.

I was like, please, can you come back?

She said, only if you come get me.

Okay?

And this is all like super Chinese.

So I get a fucking.

So this isn't her being erect.

This is standard behavior.

This is standard, man.

Wow.

Standard.

You can't tell that to another friend of yours, and he won't be like, What?

He'll be like, Yeah, you know.

No, he'd be like, You should have known what Wei Chu meant.

So, anyway, you fucked up.

So, I go all the way back to fucking her neighborhood in a fucking taxi.

I get her.

We go all the way back to my apartment, right?

And in the taxi back,

she goes,

When you said, I don't know what Weichu means, I wanted to laugh, but to laugh is to lose.

That's what she said to me.

That's how much of a fucking face.

Wow.

That's the battle that we were in.

God damn.

She was

to laugh is to lose.

You found it funny, though.

She didn't want to give in.

She was stand-up.

So was she, though.

She didn't want to give in.

So I told that story.

Not the laugh bit, but I told the Wei True translation joke on Chinese television and got a fucking huge laugh.

And by the way, I'd never met her parents, and her parents watched that live.

the first time they'd ever seen me perform and they thought that was fucking hilarious they watched that in Mandarin Mandarin stand-up and they thought that was really funny and it was clean enough that I could tell it on TV

anyway so I did have I did have a Chinese relationship and I had a couple of a couple of casual things but yeah but that was a real were they hung up about sex for like the casual things I thought that they were but actually they're just they don't talk about like another thing Chinese stand-up like very little sexual material, like, very little.

Will chicks fuck there, though?

So, what I discovered when I, really, what happened was I got better at Chinese, and then I started to understand it a bit more.

And to my surprise, a couple of times, I was like, oh, shit, we're having a one-night stand.

I didn't know this was a thing.

That's possible.

Yeah, and then it was, and it was like, and it's such an interesting Chinese one-night stand because it was just like, it happens, and then, like, we don't discuss, you know?

Because they're just not Kaifon.

They're not.

Sexist would never play there.

Where it's just them talking about their fucking.

Yeah, but I'm sure it's changed a lot now, too.

Like it changed.

Their society is really changing quite rapidly.

So I'm giving...

And I've even had

a lot of

criticisms about the pressure on Chinese kids in relationships from the parents.

And I put that bit up recently.

It's in English, but it's kind of like in 2014, it was a pretty good observation.

And I had a lot of people being like, that's a bit old.

And I was like, well, actually, it is.

China changes so fast that 10 years ago, this was relevant.

And I think it's actually changed a bit since then.

So I'd say they're even more open, but I I can't.

That's one area like I don't want to get to.

Yeah, you're just speaking about your experience, my experience then, and that was 2013-2014.

How'd you get around?

Buses, subways, trains, and stuff with all those normal planes, trains, the fucking Gautia, the fucking high-speed trains, man.

Best thing ever,

best thing ever.

Their transport now.

I mean, if you can if you can wipe out villages with a fucking swipe of a pen, it's pretty easy to create incredible infrastructure.

And that's what we're up against in terms of competing with China:

the government owns all the land.

There's no private ownership in China.

It's all you own your apartment, but your apartment is on leased land.

So if they decide they want to do something else with the land, you don't really have any rights.

Taking whatever offer they give you, if anything.

Yeah, yeah.

So they have a lot more control over society.

I remember telling me in one of them, they were like, oh, there's no homeless people on your subway platforms here.

They're like, yeah, well, it's like private, privately owned from the government.

So like, if there's a homeless guy, like, beat it.

Yeah, beat it.

There's not like, well, I have a right to beat it.

It's like, you don't.

Goodbye.

Yeah, but also like all those villages, like

the Sixth Ring Road in China, like, people complain about what the Cross Bronx did to the Bronx, but, like, all those roads in China, they were, they didn't just

destroy neighbors by ruining the fabric of the neighborhood.

They fucking just got rid of them.

Wow.

And you had no choice.

So it was quite brutal.

Their development is quite brutal.

But, I mean, we have simple.

The problem is, you look at, like, we're so much better, but like, what they did in Chavez Ravine to build Dodger Stadium, they're like, hey, you got to go.

Here's your price.

Like, what price?

I mean, they're like, well, you have a hut.

Like, but it's been my hut in this land for fucking 200 years.

Yes.

And there's a lot of that.

And they're like, I can't afford a new place with that.

Like, beat it.

We're building Dodger Stadium.

Yeah.

And I think a lot of times people kind of don't process that a lot of what we complain about in certain countries happened here not that long ago.

And luckily, we've moved on.

Yeah.

But they, they,

I mean, it's, it's a, it's a dictator's dictatorship, basically.

It's not communism.

I think I personally call it

state-run capitalism.

State.

That's a good way to put it.

I was trying to come up with a way to say it because they're the rich are rich, the poor are poor.

They They don't just give all their money in and get back.

They're like, no, you have less rights.

You have less rights in Beijing without a hukou.

So if you're a poor person from Fujian province that goes to Beijing to work to make money and you don't have a Beijing hukou, you are an immigrant.

You have no rights.

Your kids, if you bring your kids, they can't go to school, right?

They've created like immigrant schools for kids with no hukou.

Hukou is like essentially like an internal passport, right?

So if you don't have a fucking Beijing hukou, you're an immigrant, even though you're an internal migrant.

You are Chinese, but you might as well be an immigrant.

Like, I felt like I had more rights

on a one-year student visa than a migrant worker.

Wow.

So

it's

just difficult to do.

Ten episodes we could do about how fucking complicated it was.

All right, let's wrap this up.

Okay.

Do they dog there?

Is that a general thing?

I never had dog.

It's not a big thing.

There's only really one part of China where

they're into dogs somewhere in the south, and they have like a festival every year, and that usually drums up the Western media at that festival i believe the koreans are more into dog but i think so i i'm with you on one of those things it's just like that's just a cultural difference like i have no desire to eat dog but they're basically they raise dogs to be slaughtered right it's a different thing so we eat cow and people can't make and but then when they had that thing with like they were selling horse meat as beef and everyone's up in arms and and doug stanhope had a tweet he was like oh how dare you give us a more nutritious uh less cost more cost-effective meat yeah because you have more of an affinity with a horse than a fucking cow you know yeah as long as they're putting the leashes in the food.

Yeah, right?

As long as the dog tag doesn't fucking show up in the middle of the day.

Yeah, so I, you know,

I probably didn't eat dog.

What's in all here?

So

there's no cities here.

It's Tibet, bait.

Well, there's Lhasa, there's Tibet.

This is Xinjiang.

All the earnest.

Are there cities here?

Xinjiang that people just aren't mapped out?

Isn't there

a Gobi Desert?

Oh, really?

Yeah, that's the Gobi Desert.

Oh, okay.

I think, or it's also like some of the mountains.

So, and then, you know this is uh Xinjiang which is its own issues yeah

and again not not a fucking not an ex wow so this is fucking Chengdu so this is Sichuan so yeah they did just this Xinjiang is a huge part of China but culturally they're they're a lot more in common with fucking Kazakhstan and you know the Tajikistan here you're you're more Russian than you are Beijingish oh my god these people don't look that they don't look

yeah and their food is like Turkish food it's awesome, by the way.

Xinjiang's hi.

Xinjiang food,

the lamb skewers, by the way, is their food.

Oh, wow.

It's Muslim food.

They're Muslim.

Oh, wow.

They're Muslim.

That's why they're eating lamb.

I love how it's like Chinese food.

You're like, you got to narrow that down a lot.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Most of what we ate as kids was Cantonese food, but these days, let's face it, the Chinese food is way better than it used to be.

Shechem's way better.

Yeah, you can eat some fucking seriously good Chinese food here.

We'll do another episode sometime.

We'll do another episode, yeah.

But yeah, if you see these people from Xinjiang, they look like they're from Kazakhstan and their food is more like Turkish food.

It's all Silk Road shit.

This is something I ask everybody: what countries are on your mind to go to, if there's one, and also if you have any just general travel tips.

Well, I've never been to Africa, anywhere in Africa.

You want?

I need to go, but I need to see the northern African experience.

Because I actually tried to do learning Arabic, but I couldn't get that off the ground.

But I want to have that experience.

I want to have

some African experiences without being a classic fucking

poverty tourist hard safari hat.

And what was the second question?

Travel tips.

I mean, my travel tips is always like, don't just follow the guide.

Take a risk.

Don't take a risk with your life, but like try to just have an experience that is random.

Well, the risk then is, oh, this might not be

the thing to do today.

I might have wasted my day.

But that's the risk.

But that's part of the adventure.

You're already there.

That's what I think.

Because I've done trips where I've just like obsessed back in the rough guy days.

I felt like if it's not in the rough guy, then you shouldn't do it.

But then you gotta like.

That was just one guy's experience.

Just let it happen.

And obviously, don't follow strangers, but like

try to meet people, connect with people.

Like, I mean, one night I ended up in Belo Horizonche in Brazil.

And

we were on the way to somewhere else, and we had to spend the night.

And this random dude just wanted to talk to us.

And it really sounded like a situation where we could have got robbed.

But again, outside like a fucking candy store,

my girlfriend at the time and these people were drinking.

I was hanging out and we could hardly speak any English.

But you know what we bonded over?

Speaking about funny jokes, their English was terrible.

I couldn't speak Portuguese.

He said, Bill Clinton.

And then he made the blowjob sound with his hand and we fucking died laughing.

That's how long ago this was, by the way.

He goes, Bill Clinton, and does a blowjob thing.

And we all fucking laugh.

And that guy without any English took us out dancing to some like rough Brazilian dancing club.

So, just like take risks with people.

Yeah, generally, I see people like when they, when you tell them stories of you taking a risk, they're like, you could have been killed, something could have happened to you.

I'm like, but you're using it as an example of something that didn't happen

to prove of the danger.

You're telling me, I'm showing you something where it all ended up safely, and you're saying, see, it's dangerous.

That's your special night.

That night in Belarus, when I tell Brazilians I was in Bela Horizonte, they're like, why?

And you had a blast.

Fucking incredible night by accident.

So that's it.

Let the awesome accidents happen.

Obviously, don't be stupid, as we say, in the Irish accent.

But do not be afraid to take risks.

Wow.

But that's me, though.

Everyone has a different desire.

You don't know the amount of people that said to me, how could you like China?

To some people, China has been.

So you've been there?

Like, no, I've never been there.

No, they've been.

And they hated it.

They hated it.

Like the antithesis of what they would want on a trip.

Everyone has their own experience.

I met people in Burma when I went there, Myanmar, and it was four, six days in, and we're on the back of a truck and we're all talking.

It was this couple and they were like, how have you guys liked everything?

We're all kind of talking and they're like,

because their culture, the Buddhist culture there is to help people.

Yes.

It's like a big joy for them.

And they go, we've just only had people scam us and be mean and be worried.

And we're like, well, I found it.

She goes, hey, listen, I've already been over this with tons of other travelers.

I know that's not the normal experience, but we just got unlucky.

Everybody we met was trying to scam.

Of all the seven scammers in the whole country, we found six of them.

So it's like, all right, well, then that's your experience now.

Yeah.

But you had a blast in the world.

I got fucking ripped off in Soho in London because I got lured into one of these titty bars and then they scam you for fucking tons of money at the end because

you bought $1,000 worth of drinks for the dancer, you know?

So like, you get scammed anyway, man.

Yeah.

Yeah, what a fucking fun time.

Two years in China.

Yeah, it was, it was, I mean, it was life-changing for me.

I mean, I was working the first year.

The second year, I'm fucking speaking Mino.

I'm not leaving here.

What am I going to do with my fucking Mandarin?

So I spent another year doing Mandarin comedy.

But like, honestly, those, those are two of the best years of my life.

There were times where I'd be cycling in fucking Beijing because I cycled that where you can't drive.

Not allowed to drive as a foreigner.

You're not allowed to have a problem.

It was very bad then.

That was an issue.

But I'd be cycling around.

And every now and then, I would just be like, how the fuck did I end up here?

But it was such a fast.

Because by the way, when I was there, I was pretty well known in Ireland at that time.

Like, there was a time where I was like the top three comedians in Ireland.

And, like, I was like,

again, I don't mean this as a boast, but you have to understand.

And suddenly I'm just like cycling in China, like, living.

And I'm like, how the fuck did this happen?

And I loved it.

It was very, like, liberating.

Yeah.

But again, I'm aware of the privilege of that.

And people always say, how did you learn Chinese in here?

And it's like, if you were able to just throw your whole life into learning a language, I guarantee you you would, if you got paid to learn, you fucking learn.

What would you tell someone who's going to China?

Like, oh, this is something you should, you should, like, do or see or be.

Well, I literally would tell them, sit on those fucking pink chairs.

It's funny that you brought it up because I would say, like, that's what you have to do.

Mine would be bring a travel pack or toilet paper.

That's very practical.

My real advice to anyone going, like, just get someone home here now.

Bring like five of them.

Keep in your pocket.

But I'm telling them, make sure you go to Yunnan Province because actually, Yunnan Province, you can get both the Chinese culture plus like that almost like Southeast Asian

traveling experience.

Yunnan Province, down it's down here.

Kunming is there.

Oh, yeah, that's the overlap to the Yunnan Province.

Yeah, and down there is fucking awesome.

And they have a lot of Shaoshu Mingzu, the minority groups, there's a lot of them down there.

That's the Uyghurs.

No,

the Uyghurs are the Xinjiang people.

They're Muslims.

These people are like minority, like just loads of different tribes.

Wow.

And that

brings...

New culture.

Yeah, like I went down to fucking Luguhu and the fucking Tibetan, the Tibetan Plateau.

It's not in Tibet, but it's on the Tibetan Plateau, a lake at 2,400 2,400 meters above sea level.

It's like flat land.

And

ended up like just fucking eating goat on a spit with a bunch of fucking Chinese tourists

in 2004.

Yeah, in 2004.

And it was fucking awesome.

Yeah, there's like subcultures that are like, when I was in Paris, we were looking for late night food one day and started August, which means everybody clears out, so you can't find anything anymore.

And we couldn't find anything.

Everything's we're not going to fucking pizza.

And then even the normal like chain restaurants are like closing.

I'm like, fuck, we're not going to to be able to find anything.

The West African population in Paris is so big.

And we had some of the most delicious, spiciest, like I'm going like this, sweating like that.

West African food.

And there's this big contingency there.

And I think in the tent there in DC Mont or Sama, it's like, it's a subculture where you don't think of Parisian.

Yes.

But they've got some of the best West African food in the world.

It's the best feeling.

Yeah.

And you're like, oh.

Yeah, that would be a subculture of China that you're not thinking of Chinese.

And by the way, goat on a spit is fucking awesome.

Wow.

Just for the record.

Charge goat on a spit.

Wow.

Vegetarian.

Anyway, that's a flame.

We can go on and on.

Dez, you got a podcast, right?

I'll say something in the, I'll drop a fucking thing in the future.

Oh, yeah.

Well, the burner phone podcast, but the big thing I'd love to promote is my special on YouTube, which you graciously posted about called Des Bishop of All People.

Des Bishop of All People, yeah.

By the way, since we're at it, the series about my time in China is on YouTube, Breaking China.

Dez Bishop Breaking China.

Unfortunately, very recently, episode six got fucking muted.

What?

Why?

For censorship?

No, because of the dating show, actually.

The dating show.

I guess some of the Chinese...

Dead Bishop Breaking China.

Oh, wow.

It's a whole series.

But episode 6, unfortunately, is muted.

And my hair is dyed, I apologize.

What the fuck is that?

It's me with dyed.

That's dyed hair, baby.

So the funny thing about my dyed hair is I wanted to fucking get rid of it because I hated it.

You?

Yeah, I wanted to.

That's not the color of hair I had when I met you.

You just don't remember how I looked.

No.

Oh, no, actually, I was already, so I'd already shaved it because we finished filming.

My director didn't let me get rid of my dyed hair for the whole year because he was like, we'll probably move shit around.

I can't have you gray some episodes and not gray.

Wow.

So they had the specials.

They did all right.

345,000 views.

Yeah, you know, I would have liked a bit more, but I didn't, you know, I put it up and then I tore my ACL.

So my promotion got a little stunted by

my accident.

Was recorded the cellar?

That's crazy.

Yeah, I recorded it, and that's my crappy, like, canva picture.

I actually opened with a Chinese crowd work bit.

You guys, Chinese.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, I'm speaking Mandarin there.

My special opens in Mandarin, actually, coincidentally enough.

Wow.

But that's my usual.

Have you seen Warrior?

Oh, the Japanese thing.

Uh-huh.

I thought it was amazing.

Chinese, yeah.

Oh, what Chinese?

Chinese immigrants to San Francisco mixing with the Irish immigrants who are.

Oh, I need to read it to you.

Yeah, but they do this thing where it's like they're speaking Mandarin.

And then, and then it, like half a sentence just becomes English.

But they're still speaking Mandarin.

Yeah, so it's like you're going like, hey, so they're speaking in Mandarin now, but I want you to understand that.

Okay.

I need to watch that.

Yeah, it's pretty good.

No, I saw a Shogun, actually.

Shogun, is that good?

I loved it, but some people didn't.

I loved it.

Is it old, old or is it new?

No, it just came out.

FX.

Shogun.

That's what I got to see.

It's Japanese, but it's a warrior.

I think I looked up Warrior thinking it was Shogun, and I'm like, this is kind of lame.

I watch all the fucking like 50,000-episode Chinese things.

They're always the same, some Chinese feudal drama.

It's the same story every time, but I get sucked in

every time.

All right.

Well, Des Bishop, go watch a special.

Go see this fucking breaking China.

Yeah, it's a fun watch.

Everyone that actually doesn't have a lot of views, but like everybody that watches is like, fuck, this is good.

But I'm like, you know, it was a real TV show.

It's not like

it was made for television.

There is in your playlist.

Yeah, but unfortunately, it's fucking episode six is muted.

I don't know what to do because a big scene in it is the dating show.

But it's flagging now as like, I don't have the rights, which is correct.

Yeah, you got to re-edit it and take it out and put it back up.

Yeah, that's fine.

Yeah, whatever.

Not a big deal.

People can find it somewhere.

Thanks, Ari.

Great to be here.

God, it fucking took me back.

China fucking ruled.

Well, everybody, that's the episode.

Hope you had a good time.

That was fun.

Thank you, Des Bishop, for coming in.

Make sure to check out his special mindfill available right now on YouTube.

Check out his podcast, Des Bishop Podcast.

Today's episode has been produced by your mom's house network, the number one network for comedy on the internet.

And,

you know, just all around great guys.

It's produced, it's edited by Alan Caffey.

Chris Larson helped.

Niana Palette helped.

I know that's not how you say it.

And that's it, guys.

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That's it.

That's the episode.

Next week, the Trippy Award winner for best guest, best, most surprising, and best trip, Harlan Williams, the 2024 number one Trippy Award winner, comes, makes his triumphal return to talk about a magical trip to Africa.

Three different countries in Africa.

Whoa.

Sorry, that is

technical difficulties.

Listen, guys, I'm doing my best here.

I'm doing my best.

I'm not in a studio.

Yeah, I have help from your mom's house, but...

I'm not in a studio, so I'm just doing the best I can.

I'm DIY to the core.

Remember, the podcast started DIY and they went to quickly like

OIY?

Wait, no, do it.

Yourself do it.

Someone else do it?

Guys, there's something there.

Help me out in the comments of what I should call the opposite of DIY.

The point is, though, doing the best I can.

And this still has that independent feel that you rarely get from other podcasts that are in studios all the time and are really just kind of like

another version of selling out.

I'm Ari Shafir.

I'm the last person alive who's not sold out.

Literally, there's hundreds of comics who have not sold out.

Some of them are quite wealthy.

They just haven't gone against their morals in order to get that way.

I haven't gone against my morals, and it's

means I'm still an apartment renter.

They haven't gone against our morals, and they're fucking stockpiling millions.

It's crazy, it's crazy how I've lived kind of incorrectly for a long time, but I'm happy with it.

Until next week, everybody, with Holland Williams.

I'll see you then.

Bye.