Bilingual Comedians, Comedy Clubs, and Community in China vs. America

On this week's audio-only Teatime with Jesse, we have Rachel from Crazy Laugh Comedy and Shawn from Chinese Comedy at Silicon Valley. Rachel, Shawn, and I sip on some pretty decent Moganshan green tea and talk about the differing comedy landscapes in China vs. America. We talk about getting started in comedy, how bad ChatGPT is at writing jokes, and how not ALL comedians have to be depressed. 0:30 Meet Rachel (Crazy Laugh Comedy) and Shawn (City Comedy) 0:47 Moganshan Green tea is decent 01:25 Seeing the growth of China’s comedy scene in the US 01:41 How to get started in comedy in America 3:27 Doing comedy online isn’t that fun 4:32 Standup provides a voice for you 5:10 You need a creative outlet 6:17 Be yourself, everyone else is taken 7:29 American vs. Chinese political infighting 8:58 No serious problems are easy to solve 9:19 Businessmen fail all the time 11:40 Finding a sense of community in New York 12:21 Finding community in Silicon Valley 13:00 Tech advertisements are pretty niche 14:08 Coming back to America after living in China for 10 years   16:00 Doing jokes as an American who was a foreigner in China 16:25 No one is looking for a white guy who speaks Chinese 18:00 Rachel quit her job 24:10 Comedy is expansive 26:00 Bilingual translators and bilingual comedy 26:32 Translating with ChatGPT 26:54 ChatGPT can’t tell jokes 27:40 You still need human taste 29:45 Putting together comedy shows in China 30:41 Using online content to drive offline growth 31:07 Using online exposure to attract attention to comedy clubs 31:35 How do comedians come together at comedy clubs 32:55 Comedians aren’t all depressed  33:08 You don’t have to suffer to be a comedian, but you might have to be anxious 35:48 LGBTQIA+ comedy in China 37:24 Being outside of the mainstream #foreignerinchina #bilingualcomedy #teatimewithjesse #jessesteahouse #chineselanguagelearning #mandarinlanguagelearning