Becoming a clown-scholar变成一个小丑学者

Last week I went out to dinner with a group of Chinese friends, some of whom I was meeting for the first time. In between amazing mouthfuls of hot pot, they asked me what it was like to appear on TV shows in China. I tried to explain that while filming shows was a lot of fun, there was still a big issue that made every shoot a little uncomfortable.

“It seems to me that foreigners on television can be either a clown or a scholar,” I told my friends. “China has foreigner clowns, and China has foreigner scholars. But there are no foreign clown scholars.”

In recent months, getting a chance to go on television has given me an option to create an image for myself, and my project, to share with audiences. Unwittingly and without much forethought, I’ve decided to try and be myself onstage. I love making people laugh, being silly, and running with jokes onstage. But my own identity is also closely tied to considering comedy and culture on a deep level. The bifurcation of foreigners into two exclusive roles with entirely different social connotations has lead to conflict both onstage and backstage.

Onstage, this conflict emerges in simple ways. Hosts will praise my singing and dancing even though, from any objective standpoint, it is mediocre at best. This is because by getting onstage at all I already succeed by the standards set for the clown role, and so regardless of the skill of my performance I have entertained the audience. Their praise shoehorns me into the role of a clown.

Backstage, the conflict is more complicated. There seems to be a mental disconnect; a denial that such a role—the clown scholar—is possible. Even when handed perfect opportunities to allow me to play this role for which I am so suited, I am bombarded with requests to change content and play either one role or the other.

For instance, last week I attended a talk show where my Xiangsheng master, Ding Shifu, was the guest of honor. A dozen of his students, representing his life’s work over the last two decades, came to the studio to be onstage or support him from the audience. During this process, a producer for the show slunk nearby, eavesdropping on our conversation, and eventually came and asked one of the students if she would be willing to help film a special part of the show: a side video backstage showing Ding Shifu teaching his students.

It was apparent, however, that this student had been selected for two qualities: she had the lowest language level (1) of any white (2) student Ding Shifu had brought. Perhaps intuiting this, she refused to film the extra segment. The reporter wheedled her for two minutes before I stepped in. “What are you looking to do? Perhaps myself or Satoshi (my Japanese performance partner) could help.”

“It’s like this…” the producer said. “We need a… foreign student… someone who won’t give a… brilliant performance… so we can show Ding Shifu teaching his students basic Chinese.”

“Well, you aren’t likely to find someone like that amongst Ding Shifu’s students,” I said, bristling that my guess about her motives was correct. “We all spent many hours practicing to reach the level of fluency we’re at. I’d be happy to help you film Ding Laoshi teaching us higher level content.” The heads of my fellow players nodded all around.

“That’s no good,” the producer whined. “It won’t be… clear enough that he is teaching you.”

Given a golden chance to show someone being funny AND scholarly, learning a craft that was interesting and challenging, the producer’s mindset was so firmly entrenched in the separation of clowns and scholars that to mix them would yield, in her words, an “unclear” result.

It angered me to be asked so openly to put on a dunce cap and literally slur my words. It frustrated me that the roundabout way the producer thought to pitch her side-segment was still, in my mind, clearly insulting to our effort and our art.

But despite this, I remain convinced that this misappropriation of the talent and energies of the foreign actors in my troupe, and of foreigners in China as a whole, represents a huge opportunity. Americans can do more than teach English; actors can do more than play roles such as “foreign policeman.” China loves seeing foreigners on TV, because they love learning about the world outside China.

This producer won’t give me the go-ahead to be a clown-scholar, but I think that the result that she fears, what she called “un-clarity,” other Chinese will call “discovery,” and the sky is the limit for what Chinese can discover about the lands outside of China if they will listen to what the people of the world have to share.上周，我和一群中国朋友一起出去吃饭，其中一些人我是第一次见到。在满口吃着火锅的间隙，他们问我出现在中国的电视节目上是一种什么样的感觉。我试图解释说录制节目时有很多乐趣，但仍有一个很大的问题会使得录制的每一瞬间都感觉有点不舒服。

我告诉我的朋友们，“在我看来，出现在电视上的外国人要么是小丑，要么是学者”。中国有外国小丑，有外国学者，但是没有外国小丑学者。

近几个月来，得到一个上电视的机会给了我一个选择来为我自己和我的节目创造一个形象，以此来和观众们分享。不知不觉地且没有太多的深谋远虑，我决定尝试在舞台上做自己。我喜欢逗人们笑，表现得很傻，而且在舞台上笑话连篇。但我自己的身份又和在深层次上考虑喜剧和文化紧紧联系在一起。这种把外国人分成两种带有完全不同社会内涵的互斥角色的分叉导致了台上和台后的冲突。

在舞台上，这种冲突以简单的方式出现。主持人会赞扬我的歌声和舞蹈，尽管从客观的角度来看，它是非常平庸的。这是因为在舞台上我已经胜任了为丑角而设的标准，所以不论我的表演技艺如何我都已经娱乐了观众。他们的赞美鞋拔我变成一个小丑的角色。

在后台，冲突则更为复杂。似乎有这样一种精神分离，即小丑学者的角色是不可能的。即使有绝佳的机会来让我表演非常适合我的角色，我都还是极力要求变更内容，以便来表演一个或另外一个角色。

例如，上周我参加了一个脱口秀节目，我的相声老师丁师傅是嘉宾。他的十多个学生也都来到了演播室，出现在台上或在观众席中支持他。他们代表了丁师傅过去二十年的人生工作。在这个过程中，节目制片人偷偷地靠近我们且偷听了我们的谈话，并最终走过来，问其中的一个学生是否愿意帮忙录制节目的一个特殊部分，即一个反映丁师傅如何在台后教授学生的视频。

然而，很明显，这个学生因两种品质而被选定：她是丁师傅所带白人（1）学生中语言程度最低（2）的。也许是因为直觉，她拒绝拍摄这一额外片段。在我插足之前，记者大概哄骗了她两分钟之久。“你想做什么？也许我或者Satoshi（我的日本表演搭档）能够帮忙。”

制片人说：“是这样，我们需要一个表现比较一般的外国学生，这样我们可以展现丁师傅教他的学生们基础中文的场景。”

我说：“好吧，不过你在丁师傅的学生中是不大可能找到那样的人的，”我愤怒地表示我对她动机的猜测是正确的。“我们都花了很多时间练习来达到我们现在所处的流利程度。我很乐意帮助你来拍摄丁老师教授我们更高层次的内容。”我周围的同伴们都点了点头。

制片人发牢骚道：“那样可不好。很明显他正在教授你们。”

既然有这么好的一个机会去展现某人的风趣和博学，展现其如何学习一样有趣且具有挑战性的技艺，所以制片人已认定将小丑和学者的角色分离，按她的话说，把他们融合在一起会产生一种模糊的效果。

如此公开地被质问抠罪并模糊我的字面意思使我感到非常生气。更让我沮丧的是制片人那种拐弯抹角想要标榜她节目的方式。在我看来，很明显这是在侮辱我们的努力和艺术。

但尽管这样，我仍然深信这种对外国人的才能和活力的盗用，不管是从我的团队中还是从整个在华外国人群体中，都代表着一种巨大的机会。美国人不仅仅只能教英语，那些外国演员也可以做比扮演“外国警察”更多的事情。中国人喜欢外国人出现在电视上，因为他们乐于学习中国之外的东西。

这个制片人不会给我成为小丑学者的先机，但是我认为她所害怕的结果，即她所说的“含糊不清”，会被其他中国人视为“发现”。如果中国人愿意聆听世界人民的分享，那么天空才是他们探究中国以外土地的限制。