When Robin Williams passed away, I was in China. I was surprised but glad to see that my Chinese friends were deeply moved and mourning his passing. My WeChat was full of remembrances and quotes from his films and shows. His death is a tragedy, but perhaps it shows us something about how China and America are coming together in mourning. Perhaps we’re not so different, after all, if his life brought so much happiness to us all.
I wrote a piece for the South China Morning Post where I discussed this a bit deeper. Check it out if you can?
I asked some of my Xiangsheng (Chinese stand-up comedy) comedian mentors to tell me what they thought; I’ll share one quote from my 70-year old teacher below that I felt was particularly poignant:
“Any time a comedian dies, something special about comedy that only he knew goes with him. You can’t write things like that down. You just have to know it. And when someone knows those things and you see them perform, you learn it yourself.”
Whether it’s Chaplin, (Xiangsheng master) Hou Baolin, or Williams, what we lose when a comedian dies doesn’t come back. You just have to hope someone else discovers it again.”