Modified On June 8, 2006
(Ya gotta love the internet! So, we’re reading a bizarre story about a Tibetan comedian (“Tibetan comedian works to preserve ethnic comedy”) on an English-language version of Xinhua, an obscure Chinese news agency, when we scroll down to the bottom of the story and see “Al-Qaida’s chief Zarqawi killed.” Of course, the Tibetan comedian story is so bizarre, that it sounds like a clever Onion-type hoax, so we’re skeptical that this Zarqawi story is the real deal. But we’re now confident that both stories are the real deal.)
Thupten looks perfectly composed as he pauses for a moment waiting for the audience to finish laughing before bouncing another tongue twister off his straight man, which again is interrupted by a roar of laughter.
For 60 years, the folk artist in the brown Tibetan gown has triggered laughter wherever he goes. Thupten’s comedy circuit has taken him to outlying Tibetan communities, China’s major metropolis and clubs in Europe and the United States.
He was among the first to adapt “Xiangsheng,” or crosstalk, a traditional form of Chinese standup comedy to the Tibetan language.
It gets better. Our favorite part:
Yet Thupten’s success story is full of trials and troubles as even the good old days lacked financial rewards. “In the heyday of Tibetan crosstalks in the 1980s, we were often invited to perform in the countryside. All the eight of us had to live in two small offices for the night and the food was meagre at best,” he said.
“We were poorly paid back then, and my wife insisted I quit the job and make a stable income as a farmer.” But the love of art and the laughter and applause from local herders kept him going.
Did you ever think you would eventually discover that you had something to talk about with a Tibetan monk? Read the whole thing. (And remember: “State-run Chinese television broadcasts killed Tibetan crosstalk.”)