Did you hear the one about the Shanghai cabbie and Beijing cabbie?
STAND-UP Pakistani comedian Suhail Nasir, who jokes in Chinese, says Zhou Libo is great for learning Chinese but adds that his own style is more universal and like Jerry Seinfeld.
Yao Minji gets a laugh. Telecoms engineer Suhail Nasir sets an ambitious goal: All the local aunties will recognize his name, not for his full-time engineering job, but for his hobby as a stand-up comedian, in Chinese. "When all the Shanghai aunties know my name, well, that's a stamp of fame," the 36-year-old from Islamabad, Pakistan, jokes. In the past four or five months, Nasir has attracted more than 9,000 followers to his weibo account and online video clips of his shows have got thousands of clicks.
He performs monthly in Chinese at the comedy club Lauphilos and delivers humorous speeches in English on Wednesday nights at the Shanghai Leadership Toastmasters Club. His most popular clip shows his routine "Shanghai Taxi Driver vs Beijing Taxi Driver," in which he parodies the two stereotypical cabbies. He's got the Shanghai hacks down pat, asking all kinds of personal questions of passengers, such as how much they earn, whether they have bought or rented an apartment, how much it cost, whether they're married, whether they have a local girlfriend/boyfriend, how they learned Chinese, and so on. "Shanghai taxi drivers have very distinct characteristics and they really ask a lot of questions.
They probably know me inside out by now," Nasir tells Shanghai Daily. In the clip, he also recalls how he was excited before his first trip to Beijing, about the chance to hear "the real Mandarin," and ended up not understanding the heavily accented taxi driver at all. "In general, the laughing points for Chinese audience are not so different from others. Some topics are universally loved, like relationships, cultural differences and success. Some topics are particularly welcomed by local audiences, like housing prices or the stock market. And Chinese audience really do love impers! onations . I get a lot of laughter when I do imitations," he explains. Apart from the taxi drivers, Nasir has also gotten lots of applause by imitating restaurant waiters, local expatriates and the street hawkers who sell fake goods to foreigners, among many others. Nasir arrived in Shanghai to work in 2005, but he never studied Chinese seriously or continuously before last summer.
Like many expatriates, he picked up common words here and there from his Chinese friends, but says, "my Chinese level was really elementary." He travels frequently for his job, to 25 countries so far, and he has always enjoyed public speaking. Thus, Nasir started giving humorous talks and impersonations on cultural differences and foreigners' strange experiences in China - in English. Public speaker "The audiences were mixed, foreigners and Chinese who can understand quite a bit of English," he recalls. "But I want to reach out to the lao bai xing (ordinary Chinese people), who usually don't understand much English." Instead of going to classes or private tutors, Nasir taught himself from online resources, radio shows, TV programs and comedy performances. "Everyone says Chinese is so difficult. It is very hard. But my experience also shows that it is possible to do it," he says. In the past seven to eight months, Nasir has learned 700 characters, and his next goal is 1,200. It is not a lot considering the huge vocabulary, but with 700 characters, he has mastered many funny local buzzwords that generate a lot of laughs, and his excellent pronunciation is a plus.
Though he is an experienced public speaker, Nasir says he was surprisingly nervous when he delivered his first monologue in Chinese, two months after he started learning. "It was an experiment for me to test whether it would be possible for me to continue in this direction, to do stand-up in Chinese," he recalls. The monologue included the now famous Shanghai-Beijing taxi drivers, a huge success, which motivated him! to carr y on. "The local radio programs and comedy shows are really helpful. I really like Zhou Libo (a famous local comedian) and watch him to learn Chinese," he explains. Zhou is a best-selling stand-up comedian in Shanghai, who names his own style Hai Pai Qing Kou, or Shanghai-style Clean Talk, because he doesn't do dirty jokes like so many other comedians. He also speaks only Shanghainese. Nasir calls his own show Wai Pai Qing Kou, a play on the words, with wai meaning foreign. And he doesn't do dirty jokes either. Nasir's weibo picture is Photoshopped - his expressive face appears atop Zhou's body clad in a suit and his signature big bow tie. "It was just a joke, but people liked it, so I did not change it," he says.
His Chinese name is Su Hai, from his first name Suhail. Fans and friends sometimes call him Su Libo. "Zhou Libo's shows are great for learning Chinese, but my comic influences are more universal, mainly from Russell Peters and Jerry Seinfeld," he says. "My goal is to go beyond the point where Chinese audiences love me simply because I'm a laowai (foreign) comedian performing in Chinese," he concludes. Suhail Nasir Nationality: Pakistan Profession: Telecommunication engineer Age: 36 Q&A Self-description: Flexible, adaptive. Favorite place in Shanghai: Jing'an Temple, because it is beautiful and clean. Strangest sight: None. Nothing is strange to me. Motto for life: Enjoy and let others enjoy. Worst experience: None. How to improve Shanghai: Keep it clean. Advice for new comers: Start learning Chinese early on, even just very few words at a time.
You should believe that you can do it.
Yao Minji gets a laugh. Telecoms engineer Suhail Nasir sets an ambitious goal: All the local aunties will recognize his name, not for his full-time engineering job, but for his hobby as a stand-up comedian, in Chinese. "When all the Shanghai aunties know my name, well, that's a stamp of fame," the 36-year-old from Islamabad, Pakistan, jokes. In the past four or five months, Nasir has attracted more than 9,000 followers to his weibo account and online video clips of his shows have got thousands of clicks.
He performs monthly in Chinese at the comedy club Lauphilos and delivers humorous speeches in English on Wednesday nights at the Shanghai Leadership Toastmasters Club. His most popular clip shows his routine "Shanghai Taxi Driver vs Beijing Taxi Driver," in which he parodies the two stereotypical cabbies. He's got the Shanghai hacks down pat, asking all kinds of personal questions of passengers, such as how much they earn, whether they have bought or rented an apartment, how much it cost, whether they're married, whether they have a local girlfriend/boyfriend, how they learned Chinese, and so on. "Shanghai taxi drivers have very distinct characteristics and they really ask a lot of questions.
They probably know me inside out by now," Nasir tells Shanghai Daily. In the clip, he also recalls how he was excited before his first trip to Beijing, about the chance to hear "the real Mandarin," and ended up not understanding the heavily accented taxi driver at all. "In general, the laughing points for Chinese audience are not so different from others. Some topics are universally loved, like relationships, cultural differences and success. Some topics are particularly welcomed by local audiences, like housing prices or the stock market. And Chinese audience really do love impers! onations . I get a lot of laughter when I do imitations," he explains. Apart from the taxi drivers, Nasir has also gotten lots of applause by imitating restaurant waiters, local expatriates and the street hawkers who sell fake goods to foreigners, among many others. Nasir arrived in Shanghai to work in 2005, but he never studied Chinese seriously or continuously before last summer.
Like many expatriates, he picked up common words here and there from his Chinese friends, but says, "my Chinese level was really elementary." He travels frequently for his job, to 25 countries so far, and he has always enjoyed public speaking. Thus, Nasir started giving humorous talks and impersonations on cultural differences and foreigners' strange experiences in China - in English. Public speaker "The audiences were mixed, foreigners and Chinese who can understand quite a bit of English," he recalls. "But I want to reach out to the lao bai xing (ordinary Chinese people), who usually don't understand much English." Instead of going to classes or private tutors, Nasir taught himself from online resources, radio shows, TV programs and comedy performances. "Everyone says Chinese is so difficult. It is very hard. But my experience also shows that it is possible to do it," he says. In the past seven to eight months, Nasir has learned 700 characters, and his next goal is 1,200. It is not a lot considering the huge vocabulary, but with 700 characters, he has mastered many funny local buzzwords that generate a lot of laughs, and his excellent pronunciation is a plus.
Though he is an experienced public speaker, Nasir says he was surprisingly nervous when he delivered his first monologue in Chinese, two months after he started learning. "It was an experiment for me to test whether it would be possible for me to continue in this direction, to do stand-up in Chinese," he recalls. The monologue included the now famous Shanghai-Beijing taxi drivers, a huge success, which motivated him! to carr y on. "The local radio programs and comedy shows are really helpful. I really like Zhou Libo (a famous local comedian) and watch him to learn Chinese," he explains. Zhou is a best-selling stand-up comedian in Shanghai, who names his own style Hai Pai Qing Kou, or Shanghai-style Clean Talk, because he doesn't do dirty jokes like so many other comedians. He also speaks only Shanghainese. Nasir calls his own show Wai Pai Qing Kou, a play on the words, with wai meaning foreign. And he doesn't do dirty jokes either. Nasir's weibo picture is Photoshopped - his expressive face appears atop Zhou's body clad in a suit and his signature big bow tie. "It was just a joke, but people liked it, so I did not change it," he says.
His Chinese name is Su Hai, from his first name Suhail. Fans and friends sometimes call him Su Libo. "Zhou Libo's shows are great for learning Chinese, but my comic influences are more universal, mainly from Russell Peters and Jerry Seinfeld," he says. "My goal is to go beyond the point where Chinese audiences love me simply because I'm a laowai (foreign) comedian performing in Chinese," he concludes. Suhail Nasir Nationality: Pakistan Profession: Telecommunication engineer Age: 36 Q&A Self-description: Flexible, adaptive. Favorite place in Shanghai: Jing'an Temple, because it is beautiful and clean. Strangest sight: None. Nothing is strange to me. Motto for life: Enjoy and let others enjoy. Worst experience: None. How to improve Shanghai: Keep it clean. Advice for new comers: Start learning Chinese early on, even just very few words at a time.
You should believe that you can do it.
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