SOPAN DEB2026年3月19日Becoming a successful comedian in the United States typically means grinding through open-mic nights, taking expensive improv classes and creating content for TikTok to build an online following.在美国，要成为一名成功的喜剧演员通常意味着要经过多次开放麦的打磨，上昂贵的即兴表演课，并在TikTok上创作内容以积累粉丝。Jesse Appell skipped all that. When he arrived in China in 2012, he was a recent Brandeis graduate who didn’t speak the language. By the time he moved back to the United States a decade later, he had become a fixture of China’s burgeoning stand-up comedy scene. He now has more than a million followers on Douyin, China’s domestic version of TikTok, by bridging the gap between American-style standup and more traditional forms of Chinese performance.艾杰西(Jesse Appell)跳过了这些步骤。2012年他来到中国时，还是个刚从布兰戴斯大学毕业、完全不会中文的小伙子。等到十年后他搬回美国时，已是中国蓬勃发展的脱口秀界的名人。通过在美式脱口秀与中国传统表演形式之间架起桥梁，现在他在抖音上已是粉丝过百万的大V。He turned his fascination with Chinese culture into a decade-long comedy career there, a story he tells in a new memoir, “This Was Funnier in China: An American Comedian’s Cross-Cultural Journey.”他将自己对中国文化的痴迷变成了一段长达十年的喜剧表演生涯，并在新近出版的回忆录《这一切在中国更好笑：一位美国喜剧演员的跨文化之旅》(This Was Funnier in China: An American Comedian’s Cross-Cultural Journey)中讲述了这段经历。China was hardly a comedy vacuum; the country had long been obsessed with the slapstick hits of stars like Stephen Chow and with the rapid-fire banter of xiangsheng, a form of comedy that loosely translates to “cross talk.” But the gritty, observational world of Western-style stand-up was only just surfacing in urban clubs.中国并非没有喜剧传统；这个国家长期以来一直痴迷于周星驰等明星的无厘头喜剧，以及相声这种节奏飞快的对口表演形式。但那种更贴近现实、以日常观察为核心的西式单口喜剧，当时才刚刚开始在中国城市的俱乐部中兴起。艾杰西的回忆录于今年2月出版，讲述了他在中国脱口秀圈子里不可思议的崛起历程。 Simon & Schuster艾杰西曾向相声演员丁广泉拜师学艺。相声是中国的一种传统喜剧形式。 via Jesse AppellAsked why he went, Appell, 35, said in an interview that he was intrigued by “the challenge.” While Chinese social media and art have long been hotbeds of coded satire and wordplay, the raw, direct nature of the stand-up mic offered something different.当被问及为何去中国时，现年35岁的艾杰西在采访中表示，他当时是被“挑战”所吸引。尽管中国的社交媒体和艺术长期以来一直是隐晦的讽刺和文字游戏的温床，但单口喜剧那种原始、直接的表达方式提供了截然不同的体验。“You go to a comedy show in China and people need it,” he said. “This is not a place where you have a hundred methods of self-expression.”“在中国看喜剧演出，人们是带着需求去的，”他说。“那里并不是一个拥有上百种自我表达方式的地方。”Appell, a native of Newton, Mass., was drawn to comedy as a teenager, taking part in improv groups in high school. He first went to Beijing to study abroad when he was a junior at Brandeis, majoring in East Asian studies. To prepare, he followed an intensive Mandarin program, learning and memorizing 100 new characters every day. He also had to sign a language pledge saying he wouldn’t speak any English for six months, except to his parents.艾杰西出生于马萨诸塞州纽顿市，青少年时期就对喜剧产生了兴趣，高中时参加过即兴表演社团。大三时，作为布兰戴斯大学东亚研究专业的学生，他第一次去北京留学。为了准备，他参加了一个高强度的中文项目，每天学习、记忆100个新汉字。他还签署了一份语言承诺书，规定除了跟父母通话，六个月内不得说英语。While there, he met other international students and even took part in some bilingual improv groups. The seed was planted: He wanted to live and work in China.在中国期间，他结识了其他国际学生，甚至参与了一些双语即兴表演小组。那时，一颗种子已经埋下：他想在中国生活和工作。After graduating, Appell earned a Fulbright scholarship to research Chinese comedy.大学毕业后，艾杰西获得了富布赖特奖学金，专门研究中国喜剧。“When I got there, I realized I can do the things I like in the second country,” he said. “I don’t need to change the whole of who I am or what I like just because I was put into a new area. I love improv. I love comedy. I loved comedic writing. ‘Hey, they laugh over there too.’”“到了那里，我意识到可以在另一个国家做我喜欢的事情，”他说。“我不需要因为换了一个地方就改变整个自我或者我的喜好。我热爱即兴表演，热爱喜剧，热爱幽默写作。‘嘿，那儿的人也会笑。’”He found support through Ding Guangquan, a famed performer of xiangsheng. The style, popular since the 1850s, is believed to have originated during the Qing dynasty of the 1600s. It features two people performing a combination of scripted and improvised sketches onstage. Western stand-up comedy was not mainstream in China when Appell arrived there. His research would consist of apprenticing with Master Ding.他得到了著名相声表演艺术家丁广泉的提携扶持。相声这种形式自19世纪50年代开始流行，据信起源于17世纪的清朝。它通常由两人表演，结合了预设的剧本和现场即兴。艾杰西初到中国时，西式脱口秀在中国还不属于主流。他的研究就是向丁先生拜师学艺。This was an extraordinary challenge for someone whose Mandarin wasn’t quite fluent. Xiangsheng audiences have very “refined taste,” Appell said.对于一个中文尚不流利的人来说，这是极大的挑战。艾杰西说，相声观众的“口味非常挑剔”。“The funny thing about xiangsheng is at first it seems really easy because you just have to memorize your lines and go up onstage and do it,” said Nick Angiers, a friend of Appell’s and a fellow disciple of Master Ding. “And it’s only when you get to the intermediate part, when language isn’t really a problem anymore, that you realize just how layered it is.”“相声有趣的地方在于，起初它看起来很容易，因为你只需要背台词然后上台表演，”艾杰西的朋友、同为丁广泉弟子的安仁良(Nick Angiers)说。“只有当你达到中级水平、语言不再是问题时，你才会意识到它的层次有多丰富。”Xiangsheng gave Appell a base line for developing his Chinese comedic voice, just as stand-up was becoming more popular in the country. Appell said he performed live shows around 300 times a year and gradually built credibility in the Chinese comedy scene because there was a demand and few comedians to meet it.相声为艾杰西开发自己的中式喜剧风格奠定了基础，而此时脱口秀在中国流行起来。艾杰西说，他每年进行约300场现场演出，逐渐在中国喜剧界建立了声誉，因为市场有需求，而能胜任的喜剧演员相对稀少。“In China, once I had 20 to 30 minutes of Chinese stand-up, I was working on cruise ships. I was working on television shows. I was everywhere because — forget me being a white person — there just wasn’t anyone who had 45 minutes of stand-up,” he said.“在中国，一旦我有了20到30分钟的中文段子，我就去邮轮上演出，去上电视节目。我无处不在——先撇开我是个白人不说，当时确实没人能讲出45分钟的脱口秀，”他说。An early joke of Appell’s that become widely shared on social media involved Appell talking about his Boston roots: In Mandarin, he delivered a sendup of the Boston accent — “I pahk my cah in Hahvahd Yahd!” He did so, he said, to more clearly define himself to a Chinese audience.艾杰西早期的一个段子在社交媒体上流传甚广，涉及他的波士顿背景：他用普通话惟妙惟肖地模仿了波士顿口音——“I pahk my cah in Hahvahd Yahd!”（I park my car in Harvard Yard，意为“我把车停在了哈佛园”，是一个常用来体现波士顿口音特点的固定句式。——译注）。他说，这样做是为了让中国观众对他有更清晰的认知。“I kind of needed to shift their mentality away from ‘I’m a foreigner’ to ‘I’m an American from Boston,’” Appell said. “‘Hey, just like you guys have all your local things and you have your own local accents, we have that, too.’”“我需要把他们的心态从‘我是个外国人’转变为‘我是个来自波士顿的美国人’，”艾杰西说，“‘嘿，就像你们有各种地方特色和方言口音一样，我们也有。’”With the spread of social media, and as students and others returned to China from abroad, the Chinese comedy landscape was changing just as Appell was beginning his journey. At first, audiences were confused by Western-style stand-up..随着社交媒体的普及以及海外群体的回流，中国的喜剧版图正在发生变化。起初，观众对西式脱口秀感到困惑。“People had a good time but they didn’t really figure out the point of doing this,” said Tony Chou, a Beijing-based comic who has performed with Appell.“大家玩得开心，但并没搞懂做这件事的意义何在，”曾与艾杰西同台演出的北京喜剧演员周托尼(Tony Chou)说。Appell said he was part of the first ticketed stand-up show at a theater in Zhengzhou, a city of about 12 million in central China. In exploring the Chinese audience’s comedic sensibilities, he found topical common ground with American audiences. Dan Chen, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Richmond who has studied Chinese comedy, said that generational tension and workplace pressure were popular topics in Chinese stand-up. She also said that there had been a “generational shift” in the last decade in the type of comedy popular with younger Chinese consumers.艾杰西说，他参加了郑州——中国中部一座拥有1200万人口的城市——历史上第一场售票的剧院脱口秀。在摸索中国观众的幽默感时，他发现了一些与美国观众产生共鸣的话题。里士满大学政治学助理教授陈丹研究过中国喜剧，她表示代际矛盾和职场压力是中国脱口秀的热门话题。她还提到，过去十年中，受年轻人欢迎的喜剧类型发生了“代际转变”。“There is this need for really authentic, direct personal expression in public discourse. And a lot of stand-up comedians in China, they talk about issues that bother them,” Chen said.“公共舆论中存在着对真实、直接的个人表达的需求。中国的很多脱口秀演员谈论的正是那些困扰他们的问题，”陈丹说。As his stature grew, Appell served as a resource for other comedians looking to perform, such as Tom Xia, a Chinese-born comedian who grew up in the United States but moved back in 2014. Appell even started a comedy club in Beijing.随着地位的提升，艾杰西成了其他想在中国演出的艺人的领路人，比如汤姆·夏（音），他出生在中国，在美国长大，2014年回到中国。艾杰西甚至在北京开了一家喜剧俱乐部。“The more I talked to Jesse, the more insecure I felt as a Chinese American,” Xia said. “It was constantly making me reassess how Chinese I was. And when he started serving me tea in his apartment, that really was the final blow.”“和艾杰西聊得越多，作为华裔美国人的我就越没有安全感，”他说。“他不断地让我反思自己到底有多中国。他在家里给我倒茶的时候，我真是彻底服了。”Appell also had to navigate Chinese censors. To perform comedy in China, comedians have to submit their routines for government review. In 2023, a Chinese comedy studio was fined $2 million because Li Haoshi, a comedian there, mocked the military in a routine. Appell said there were two types of censorship: the audience’s and the government’s. For example, he said Chinese audiences, unlike American audiences, prefer that comedians not name specific politicians in their routines, regardless of whether the censors allow it.艾杰西还必须应对中国的审查制度。在中国表演，演员需要将段子提交政府审查。2023年，中国一家喜剧工作室被罚款1335万元，原因是一名艺人在演出中调侃了军队。艾杰西说存在两种审查：观众的和政府的。例如，他说中国观众不像美国观众，他们更倾向于演员不要在段子里点名具体的政治人物，无论审查是否允许。In January 2020, after performing on the Chinese version of “Last Comic Standing,” Appell flew back to the United States for what he thought would be a nine-day vacation. Instead, Covid hit. His Chinese visa was canceled. His comedy club was closed down.2020年1月，在参加完中国版的《搞笑之王》(Last Comic Standing)演出后，艾杰西飞回美国休假，本以为只有九天。结果，新冠疫情爆发。他的中国签证被取消，俱乐部也被迫关闭。During the pandemic, Appell’s following in China exploded. Stuck at home, people had more time to watch videos, and that meant more exposure to Appell’s stand-up and a sketch show he wrote and performed in.疫情期间，艾杰西在中国的粉丝量激增。人们被迫宅家，有更多时间看视频，这让他之前录制的脱口秀和情景短剧得到了更多曝光。But the life he had spent years building in China was gone within days. Instead, he chose to reinvent himself and moved to Los Angeles. He’s still a comedian, performing often for Chinese American audiences. But he has also started a Chinese tea business that has taken off faster than he expected. He spends four months of the year in China, still performing but also to source tea for his business. .然而，他扎根中国多年的生活却在几天内化为乌有。他选择在洛杉矶重新开始。他仍是一名喜剧演员，经常为华裔观众表演。同时，他还开始做中国茶叶生意，发展速度超乎预期。他一年中会有四个月待在中国，一边继续演出，一边采购茶叶。“Now, I have bits I do in Chinese back in America about how my job now is figuring out how to make white people laugh because they buy the tickets,” Appell said, adding, “I have to play the white audience like a minority comedian would, weirdly.”“现在我有些段子会用中文讲，说我的工作如何如何变成了琢磨怎么逗白人笑，因为买票的是白人，”艾杰西补充道，“很奇怪，我得像一个美国少数族裔艺人那样去拿白人观众做文章。”本文最初发表于2026年3月1日。Sopan Deb是《纽约时报》记者，报道突发新闻和文化新闻。翻译：纽约时报中文网点击查看本文英文版。获取更多RSS：https://feedx.net https://feedx.site