You Be Trippin' - China w/ Des Bishop | You Be Trippin' with Ari Shaffir

Episode Date: September 29, 2025

SPONSORS: -Go to https://Superpower.com to learn more and lock in the special $199 price while it lasts. Live up to your 100-Year potential. #superpowerpod Ari Shaffir welcomes comedian Des Bishop to You Be Trippin’ for a deep dive into his time in Beijing, China. Des shares what it was like being there for the very start of Chinese stand-up comedy, what real censorship looks like compared to America, the ins and outs of dating culture, and the hierarchy around food and social life. Oh, and if you plan to visit — don’t forget your own toilet paper. 再见! Follow Des Bishop: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Desbishopcomedy Stand-Up Special: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0Xc6Kh5xMs Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/desbishop You Be Trippin' Ep. 86 https://www.instagram.com/arishaffir https://www.instagram.com/youbetrippinpod https://arishaffir.com Chapters 00:00:00 - Intro 00:04:18 - Chinese Comedy 00:12:22 - Organized Chaos 00:18:49 - Point And Hope 00:32:19 - Respecting Order 00:46:39 - Everything Is Official... Kinda 00:53:06 - Night Life 00:59:43 - You Need Whores 01:06:53 - Pooping In China 01:07:12 - Squat Poopin 01:18:28 - Censorship In China 01:27:06 - Food Culture 01:36:03 - Groundbreaking Chinese Comedy 01:49:47 - Where To Next? 01:54:27 - Sit In The Chairs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Amazing. Thank you. No problem. What are you putting it? The energy thing? No, in your one. I put a baroka. It's funny because I meant it like that, but of course you guys have so much history

of it spiking each other that you took it a different way. Relax, bro, I don't know you that well. I wasn't gonna. No, no. I meant your one. you're going this is our east travel show yeah we're going to talk about travel today it's you be tripping yeah hey everybody welcome to you be tripping it is a travel podcast my name is arie shafir as of the recording of this i've been to i don't know 36ish countries um not that many compared to some of my

guests every week we talk to a different person about a different place in the world um today's no difference, the only podcast that has been featured in the bodies exhibit with Chinese dissidents that have been arrested and cut in half. Today on the podcast, my friend Jess Bishop, the one of the fucking guys I met not in America. That's correct. Our relationship begins where our story begins. Okay, nice. Nice. China. China. What do they call it? The fucking, they call Africa the something. I don't know what they call China. It's like a, it's like a frontier for people who have never been like the early explorers were like whoa oh yeah well it was the silk road but i don't know i don't the history of china is not my strong yeah yeah well certainly not the ancient history of china

this podcast has nothing to do with facts but we did we did meet in fact the first time we ever recorded together also was in a park in Beijing yeah but you came to do my my little comedy club that i had while i was living in china which we can get into you're the godfather of chinese comedy wrong no i mean some people actually there are some people that are giving me way too much credit when they talk about the history of Chinese stand-up. But I just happened to be there at a time where it was kind of beginning. You dipped your toes in it, so you saw that there was like this little nascent comedy scene. I just happened to be there doing my project, which was to learn Mandarin to do stand-up

in Mandarin, and that also just happened to be the time where Mandarin stand-up was beginning. But that was a fluke. Well, it's a wild story, because you're like, you're American, but you grew up seated from fucking terrible childhood you grew up in Ireland or part of your time. Yeah, 14, I went to Ireland.

Well, yeah, I got flunked out of school drinking, you know, teenage angst. Yeah. But my mother had severe anxiety and it manifested itself in me ending up in Ireland. Yeah. So, you know, I went to boarding school

and I went to college and I ended my comedy career began in Ireland. Yeah. Right? So I've always been a, I've always been like a broad kind of guy. Yeah, you're an Irish comic. American who's doing

Irish comic with a New York accent. Yeah, yeah, right. Not as much the, I've been back here quite a bit these days, but. Yeah, but what was cool to me was that you, so there's this pretty successful, you know, Irish comic. And then you took on this, this task of like, I'm going to go to China, learn a crazy language. Yes. I mean, it's nothing like any other language. Yes.

And then do stand up in it, which is another, anyone I've seen do stand up in another French or whatever. First of all, you can like, you can read what you're writing. or you can write it out. These are symbols. But also they just end up just translating their own jokes. The jokes. And some of it doesn't always work, like the vibe of humor in other places, even black culture to white culture in America's different style of humor.

So, but you were doing bits about the Chinese alphabet. I mean, you were deeply in there, like written for this. Yeah, actually, one of the first jokes that I ever did, which is, I think, the joke that you're referring to about the differences in characters, between the simplified Chinese and the traditional Chinese actually was given to me by a teacher. I think it was actually like a joke joke,

but I tagged it. So like, okay, I'm going to give myself some grace because I was doing comedy and Mandarin. And this was like, I was like only eight months of learning Mandarin. I was doing this joke, but I tagged it with... With all this stuff. With new stuff.

But the original joke was like, I mean, the joke is irrelevant. Yeah, yeah. But I did add my own tags. I did make it my own. But I have to tell you that it came from my teacher, and it was a joke, joke. Wow. But that was early on, though. So, so, but you didn't go to Shanghai or Beijing, which anybody would have done.

No, I went to Beijing. Right away. Yeah, so I, because I know you're talking about the small city I was in, but that was a, that was a one-month part of my initial one-year journey. Interesting. But I was based in Beijing. Okay. I didn't go to Shanghai because Shanghai's not good for learning Mandarin because that's a lot of English

there, like a lot more. It's a lot more of an international city. Beijing is a very Chinese city. Yeah. Shanghai is a very international city, especially then. Wow, yeah, that's where the banking is. Yeah, and like it's more, it feels more like New York. You were there, right?

You're like, there's parts of it, the kind of the art deco parts of it, where you're like, wow, this is like not a million miles from New York. So anyway. And Beijing really seems ancient in a different way. Yeah, and it's much more Chinese. And the foreigners that were there were all like diplomats and like journalists. And they weren't as many. And a lot of them were also motivated to learn men.

So you kind of, in Shanghai, you end up with the white people that are like, they don't want anything to do with Chinese culture. They're just loving being in China and making money. And then in Beijing, you get all the people like me that are like obsessed with learning about the language and learning Chinese culture. So Beijing was a good base. But the small town you're talking about that I went to working in the restaurant was like because we were making a television series.

Do you want television about learning and doing it? Yeah. I know we're like bouncing all over the place. No, it's okay. Just in case people are wondering, What was my motivation? So, you know, I was doing pretty well in Ireland as a comedian, and I had previously made a series about learning the Irish language to do stand-up in the Irish language.

Yeah. So it didn't come out of nowhere to go and learn Mandarin. After I finished that, I had a separate personal obsession with learning Mandarin, and I had some very close Chinese friends that had been living in Ireland. They were like Chinese immigrant. There were immigrants in Ireland from China. There was like this wave of immigration from the northeast of China to Ireland because it was easy to get a visa. and these people who was very close to

brought me to China originally in 2004 and from that trip and my own obsession with kung fu movies and just all this and by the way I'm from Flushing Queens just to like I had all these like Chinese triggers right because my neighbor became completely Chinese in my lifetime you know every neighbor I had became Chinese from the late 1970s to today my entire neighborhood became Chinese

from none to everybody so I had that I had my kung fu obsession, my friends in China, and then once I visited, then, it's just like I visited in 2004. I'm sure you had the same experience when you went there. It's like, this is not the West. It's so, it's, it, it's the word, not in habits. The word foreign, like no other place.

Yeah, you feel, wow, like not in Kansas anymore, total, that's the cliche, but like I've been to a lot of places, even like Thailand, I've been there, and it's fun, and you definitely feel like you're in Southeast Asia. but you you feel like there's aspects of this that makes sense whereas China you just get there and you're like this is nothing there's nothing the same yeah nothing the same everything feels different and I'll tell you what else is really big and I really felt this in 2004

was sometimes you really are stuck you can't read the characters you're in a smaller city and like if you can't find somebody in that train station that speaks Mandarin and can explain what the ticket means and what gate you need to go to, you are fucked. I got one of those ones. I was watching World Cup in, is Wushi right over the border from Hong Kong? No, Shenzhen. Shenzhen.

Okay, so we were there. So back to no English and not Cantonese, Mandarin. I didn't know any Cantonese anyway. You really don't have to learn it from Hong Kong. No, Cantonese is not important. Yeah. But, so I'm back there. I had a fun time at the World Cup.

It's like 4 a.m. They weren't even in it, but it was like everybody was watching. Everybody filled up. Talk to some American chick, a heavy makeout session. Like, really, like, you know, and then she, anyway, she had to leave. I tried to take a cab back, and I'm like, the Sheraton, and I mean, I may as well have just going, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, nothing.

Tarrantial rain, get, find a cab. He's like, I'm like, all right, I got to get out. More torrential rains. Got to write it down. You got to take the hotel. You got to take the car. That's like a classic. I had a, one of my early jokes living in China.

him was like, I'm here to learn Chinese. I'm here to learn Mandarin. I'm not showing the fucking card. That was my thing. I'm not showing the card. So the joke I'd always say was, Su Jiu Jia, but the fucking character, the tones are so difficult. I'd be like, Su Jodji, and the taxi driver would be like, fucking, like, what?

And I'm like, Su Jiu Jiao. And finally like, fuck it. All right, fine. I give up, show the card. And he goes, oh, Shu Jodzia. Like, what the fuck was I saying? What was I fucking saying, man? I saw a shangai comic talking about it.

He goes, I'm here on a seven-year tourist visa, you know, that I don't check. But he goes, it's amazing how little people want to help you where he goes, if I went to New York, and I said, where's the employer state building, it, like they would tell me where the empire state building. Here, there's like, I don't know what you're talking about.

But they really don't know. Like, the thing is, the perception is that they don't want to help you, but they really don't fucking know. Like, it really, because after a while, I started to understand it, but early on you don't because you're like, that's what I said. But when you get a better ear for the tones. And by the way,

I am no master of the Chinese language, but when you get a better ear for the tones, you then hear how bad you use the sound. Just to be honest, when I watch back this television series that I made and I hear my Chinese from those early days where I really thought that I was doing great, I'm like, holy shit,

I was terrible. Yeah, yeah. But of course, they were all telling me I was doing great. Okay, so you get there, you get to Beijing. How old are you then? So for the TV show or the original? For the TV show, we'll keep it for that time. When I go there to learn Mandarin.

Okay. because you had already been. I went to visit in 2004. Okay. That was just like a holiday. But I visited Leo. Did you fall in love with it? I just, yeah, I was fascinated by the differences.

Now, don't get me wrong. I was also, I was visiting my friends from my Chinese friends that had lived in Ireland and were back in China and I was visiting him. So I was staying in like a suburb of Dalian and Liaoning province. Like not a place where the foreigner, the Lawhi, as we call ourselves, not a place where they go. So I was like deep in Chinese culture. And I was, like, obsessed. That's where the obsession to learn the language came from me.

Named some of the differences that you can remember, not all of them, but like... God, I mean, just everything looked different, especially in 2004. Everything looked different. 50% of it looked underdeveloped, but, like, heavily in use, which fascinated me. Like bustling. Yeah, bustling, but also, like, you'd be, like, in the middle of town, and then you'd be, like, we're going to this restaurant, and then, like, in what seems like a big city. And next thing, we're on a fucking dirt road, but this is, like, still part of the city. and like you know so everything was active

I mean it's even hard for me to remember not because I'm so used to China it's tough to remember always those first even like mushrooms it's like I can't it's hard to recall the first time but also just the amount of people the fucking hospitality was like insane like they're good oh

as in like the people that I was with were so obsessed with us feeling welcome and like overfeeding us and just restaurant culture To be honest, like that, because I was with them, they're Chinese, just like going to these restaurants and just getting spoiled with food.

It was insane. You know, communal eating. I got terrible. You know, like the lazy Susan's and the... That's the thing there. Yeah, and also, like, the way the Chinese eat is that they over order, because it's very bad to end up with, like, running out of food.

That's like, you're a bad host. That's so the opposite of Jewish children of Holocaust survivors where, like, anything's left on your plate. you're really attacking who we are. Yeah, so in China, if there's, if your plate is empty, they feel like they failed. Oh my God.

Yeah. Let's see, wow. So I was getting, I was getting like palm over food. I got terrible food poisoning, actually, on my first trip. But anyway, it was just, like, and the chaos, you know, like the driving. I mean, you get the,

I know plenty of people I'm sure on this podcast I've talked about the driving, but, you know, I have a routine about it, but just like the weight they drive, like a flock of birds rather than like according to the lanes they just kind of like flowed each other there was just like a chaos to it that I kind of like loved because it was like a functioning chaos but right it's got to be functioning like they know how to do it yeah it works yeah like it totally works sometimes I think about like if you come to something with like fresh eyes

you don't even understand like I heard some people cheating on the comedy store and they're like well you don't allow how come Whitney only has three spots this month and it's like I'm garret it's because she only called in three spots. Oh, yeah, people don't understand. Yeah, it's like, you don't understand the system you're commenting on. Yes. And so it's like, if you saw an American line,

like, how do they know who's first? Like, well, we queue up. We just do that on our own. You see four people, I'll be the fifth. And then it's just that, and you're like, oh, how is it? It's that. It's an organized chaos, but you just don't get it.

You don't get it at the beginning, man. And but I was just, I was just fascinated by all that. And like, that's just like me trying to, like, go back to those initial impressions. Yeah. Hi, everybody. I'm going to break in really quick. All right, bro, chill. I'm going to break in a quick to tell you a little bit of a guest, Desbishop.

He's got a new special right now called Mind Phil. Des, I met him in, well, we covered it a little bit in Beijing. And we saw kids fucking shitting in public in Beijing. I went hard on India and Pakistan. But, you know, China's up there making a name for themselves. He's got a new special right now on YouTube called Mind Phil. Des is a great comic, and you guys will absolutely love it. anytime a high-level comedian puts out a special, it's going to be great.

Whether or not it's... Jesus. So check out Mind Phil right now. He's also appearing. He's got a Des Bishop podcast that you should check out. And he's also... Let's see his dates. Live.

Well, I don't see any. Guys put a scroll in here about all the dates. For myself, I got nothing to promote. I hope you guys had a good Shroom Fest. There's still limited edition Shroom Fest shirts to be. had. There's probably like 40 left of them, the ones we made for extra for the people who celebrated Shroomfest last minute. Go ahead and get yourself one. Show with pride that you celebrated Shroom Fest. I've always got these Ari Shafir. Stay positive shirts. The main message from my special

America sweetheart. I hope you guys took that to heart and stop watching the news and just learn how to stay positive in general. Click subscribe wherever you're watching and listening and subscribe to the Instagram account at U.B. TrippinPod or my own Instagram at Ari Shafir, where I put up clips of stand-up one clip from this show also on the ubi tripping pod um sometimes the guests have lots of pictures we'll just like put those all out so it's kind of a cool follow we don't bug you too much uh it's just extra good content um that's it everybody yeah get yourself a shirt got ubi tripping shirts got uh r a shiver jew vinals um limited edition riser graphs arsfeer catcher grinders The old cat shirt, which is just a sticker.

You'll be tripping stickers, which I'd like for you guys to put up, one, the clear one, in your passport, like I did. It's looked like a passport stamp. And then it's also just how to say hello in lots of different languages. And then a t-shirt, Rock it with a Pride, wherever you're staying in a hostel or wherever you're going to travel. If you're going to want to travel, definitely bring a UBi-Tripping shirt. That'd be crazy not to. All right, guys. Let's get back to the episode with Des Bishop.

I went back again in 2009 to actually to research the project, which didn't happen. happened, but it finally happened in 2013. So when I went in 2013, I was going to make a television show for Irish TV one year to learn enough mandarin to do stand-up and Mandarin after one year, living with a family. I lived with a family for that entire year, a Beijing family that allowed us to film in their house, but I lived with them. So you're getting the real version. Full immersion.

And I did not watch any English language television except my one indulgence was the final season of Breaking Bad. because it was actually like... Yeah, how are you going to miss that? No, with some Chinese, like, Aichi or one of these, like, Chinese streaming sites had the official rights to it. I wasn't like, I didn't even have to watch it illegally. Oh, wow.

The day, it came on whatever, FX or AMC, whatever. It came on Sunday night and then on Monday morning or whatever, the time difference was. I was watching it on my fucking phone in China in English. That was my only indulgence. Damn. Everything else was like door. the Explorer in Mandarin

fucking SpongeBob in Mandarin early days just like immersion like a kid I basically go how does kids absorb language they don't learn they just absorb yeah so I'm like I'm gonna absorb language well you lost when you got there I mean it's not like you can get by right away yeah I mean

early on I was you know but don't get me wrong I had a handler and you know my friend I like I had people to help me but there were a lot of times like I loved going to these like shitty noodle shops and there were a lot of times I would just point and fucking hope that it was a good choice. Did I remember it wasn't Turner, it was, I don't think it was,

Curtain was Hong Kong, right? Who helped Turner in Shanghai? Curtin, Andy. Andy Cretaine. No, wait. Andy Curtin. He was Shanghai? Him and Turner were together.

So he gave me a cell phone to use. Actually, this might be, this might be the Hong Kong guy, gave me a cell phone to use. I don't know. but I went out it had to be it had to be Andy and I was like how do you say beef I'm just gonna go they told me it was safe so I'm like cool I'm good that no no xenophobia I'm out just how do you say beef so I can like know how to order and I finally worked at the courage to go to one of those noodle shops whatever I was like Rio Nero okay yeah I knew

something from like Mero and I was like Nero and I was like said it again and then he just points over his head to a menu and it's like well here's the 30 Nero's you can't just say beef bro like what do you what are it? What are you talking about? And I'm like, ah, shit. So you're pointing hope. And I pointed and hoped early on. And, like, this sounds dirty, but actually, it wasn't a dirty massage place.

But I used to go for massages, like, all the time. Right around the corner from my apartment. And I promise you, they were, like, whatever, five bucks. And, like, I promise you, it's not a hand job massage. Like, I know people are automatically going to go, like, happy ending massage. But I went to the same girl every time because, obviously, you know, within a month, I have the, like, washroom makeup. I am America.

Wash at Ireland. I'm Irish, right? I had the basics, like, wash, at that time I was 37. So I was like, what was Sanchez, she's right?

I'm 37, right? So you go into a massage place, you have your five or six questions, but if you go to the same girl, you don't have them the next time. And so we would just, like, through the massage,

we would struggle to fucking communicate, but every time you go back, he's just like trying to learn more. Would you put yourself in hard, hard language positions that forced you to learn? Well, I put myself in situations

where, like, You have to try because at the end of the day, like the mind, the mind is, you know, what's the word? Like when it's, it's practical. It wants to solve the problem. It needs this. Yeah. So it will find a solution, you know?

And so. I love when you're trying to learn a language, get by language, and you don't know the right word, but you can get enough other words to get you to that place. Yes. And but the thing is that that's the key, man. Like the key, because what you don't realize is that like you, you're just communicating. Yeah. Good language is obviously more satisfying,

but you can still communicate. Yeah, if you go, where is the area to urinate? They know what you mean. They can figure it out, you know? So anyway, I did any number of ridiculous things to try to get my language better, some for television and some just for myself. Yeah.

But don't forget, I was heavily motivated, right? I knew that my progress was going to be on television. Wow, so I could just get by. Because what it was cool about Beijing, I met a chick she was in the comedy scene I fucking forget her name she's from New York

rich chick from New York and she's now a translator the blonde girl I forgot her name too but damn we hung out a few times and she was so good and she was good like

and she was kind of famous because she was so blonde I think we're talking about the same girl but maybe I'm wrong and there was another one who was like hit there for 12 years and couldn't speak any Mandarin but that's what happens

you can get into that expat life yeah it's such a waste and it's what a way you'd be like In a year, you should get by. And I became the guy I hated. Did you go to college? Yeah.

Yeah, so in Ireland. Go Terps. Yeah. Go Terps. When I was in Ireland in college, I hated the mature students, like the people that went back to college, like in their 30s and 40s because so fucking motivated. They're going to win. And yeah, and they're always like raising their hand.

They're not invited a party. And I became that guy. I was in my fucking mid to late 30s sitting in these. So I was in Renmin University. Like, I was in a major Beijing University, but just for language learning, though. Right. I wasn't like a full student. I hadn't gone back to college.

but a lot of the kids, the white kids in my class were kids that were doing like a semester abroad so they're like 21, 20, 21 year olds there to like, they're learning Mandarin

but like not like motivated like me at all and they would all hang out with each other they speak fucking English all day and yes they're Chinese got better but not like mine and I became the fucking asshole I hated because I would say to them like why are you going to waste your six months here

this is you're wasting your fucking time I can't believe I came in this guy because I hate I was the most unmotivated student. And I hated the fucking mature students. And I absolutely. I knew a chick who went to, did a year abroad in Spain somewhere. And the advice she got from her cousin was, don't live with the Americans.

Amen. Live with the Spaniards. Yes. She blap them in Spanish. I, my friend's kid, actually, he's 16. He's doing like a high school half of a year in Spain. And I've been fucking drilling him. But, of course, he's 16.

He's not going to do it. I'm going to do it. I just, you know, you just hope. But anyway, so that was the, that was the entry point in to, right, but the lucky thing was that I happened upon, because this was not part of our pitch, I happened upon essentially the beginnings of what we, what they call like Western stand-up. Toko-so. So when I first went there, like, comedy is si-ju.

I actually forget the tones but comedy is like Siju but when you say that people think of like a like a comedy play so they had alliterated talk show because the initial sort of

version of Western stand-up that they saw was like Carson Letterman Fallon so they thought that comedy in America was talk show so they eliterated talk

So that's why, so stand-up in Mandarin is talk-o-sio, which is an alliteration from talk-show, but what it actually means is what we do for a living. Okay. If you said like si-ju or like live, you know, like, um, Shang-chang-Siju, like they wouldn't know what you're talking about, but talko show is like if you put in talk-o-so, T-U-O, because you have, we're looking at the screen, T-U-O, K-O-U-U-U-S, X, X, oh, it's there already. So that's stand-up. Talk or show.

Yeah. And it's very like, like a lot of their style is like, they have a lot of like reality shows around, around stand-up. But it's gotten huge since I was there. So it's like this though, where they just play off each other? Well, some of it,

some of it that comes from the traditional side. But I think this is like a reality show where these guys are just like on state. Like this, this. Oh, yeah. You know, like I have no idea what this show is. I wonder if this is. is COVID or not.

It's probably like a friend of nine after getting on stage. Videos. Anyway, and it's actually quite funny because I remember making it on the, if you, well, if you watch my show, I make fun of how silly it is that they have all these like images coming up on their like talk or show and sound effects. Sound effects. Yeah, but actually, we copied them. I know this guy.

Is that Wong? Is that Wong? That's not Joe Wong, right? Anyway, Huang Shi, Joe Wong, it really helped me out. But this is more modern. Yeah, this is Tokosio. I've met this kid. But he's just doing stand-up like you and I do.

Regular. But it's just funny because I used to make fun of them for their content because they would subtitle, they would put in images. And I was like, how fucking stupid is this? We end up doing that. We ended up doing it. We ended up doing it. And at the time, I thought it was ridiculous.

But now guys are editing my videos. And when I talk about fucking Mountain Dew, they're putting up a fucking Mountain Dew on the screen. Yeah, you got a little picture to add to it. Yeah. They were ahead of us on that Even though they still are way tacking They do a lot of sound effects

It's happening in the music world too Where it's like it's not enough to like Early rap you're just the rapper Someone else is the DJ playing the music And now it's like they're doing it all themselves And now on top of that they're doing these crazy video pieces behind them Because they're doing these videos themselves Adding to the stage part

It's like multimedia used to be like a subject Now it's just like a given You know Do all the parts Do it all man I mean even podcasts have to be video But anyway We're not getting too distracted.

Yeah. This has become quite popular, but heavily censored, right? But Tokosho is now like, like, I can get, I've gotten an Uber's here in New York, right? If I got a fucking Chinese guy, I'm over the moon. You're going for it. I am over the moon. I love it. But I now talk to fucking Uber drivers here about fucking Chinese Toko Shio, yeah.

Like Chinese standups. And they're like, oh, I love that guy. They know it now. Oh, they know it. So it's not that Laurel Hardy back and forth anymore. So when I went. there, that was what everybody, that's what I knew when I went there, you know, and I met some of them, and that's what I was going to talk to them. But what happened was, actually, in fairness,

it was Turner and Andy, Andy Curtin and Turner, Turner lives here now. They were the ones that initially introduced me to like expat stand up, but they said to me that there's like these small kind of like Mandarin open mics. And they were the one that put me wide to Beijing Toko Shoe Chulapu, which was Beijing, talk show club, which is Beijing stand-up club, right? And that was literally like the only way to describe it was like a comedy co-op, like almost like like a fucking cultural revolution commune of comedians that were one group and they were in this together doing shows. And they were the beginning of, they were literally one of about five or six pockets around China of people that

said we're going to do Shanghai scene, Beijing scene Shenzhen in terms of the Mandarin though I'm saying like these little pockets

because we had a few of the guys like bilingual guys like Storm Shue I'll do the America I'll do the not America

but the English speaking but then also same bits I can do over there I can do double the spots that these fucking whites can do yeah Storm Shue was one that bilingual

there was numerous there was numerous bilingual guys but anyway that was really the beginning of Chinese stand up. But I happen to be there. Wow.

Filming it. So that was just luck. Hey guys, today's episode of Yuba Chippin is brought to you by superpower. You know, we've all been there. You get blood work done, you wait a week, and the doctor says, everything looks fine. Or maybe they tell you to drink more water, get some exercise. They always say it looks fine, but there's no breakdown. There's no, like, what specifically? Or they go like, you know, how much of this are you doing? How much sleep you're getting?

I'm like, oh, I try a little better. I'm like, what is it a little better? It's kind of like when you're drinking with your friend, Let's say you're drinking with Joe DeRosa, and he goes, let's do shots. And you're like, no, I don't want to do shots. What he really wants you to do is turn it up. He wants you to turn it up. And he needs to break it down better. He does shots.

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decoded. Your blueprint activated with Superpower. Now let's get back to the episode. And did they look at you as like guide us here. Well, so the funny, like, so obviously the first time I went, I guess I was like five, five and a half months. No, I was actually six months learning Mandarin. And I had gotten to know some of the guys from the English,

the dual guys, like you're just talking about, Tony Chobie and my number one guy. And he was like, you should come. We're having like, they were having like an open mic, but really they were having like a workshop. That would be the best way to describe this gig that I went to. this was my first ever experience with like Chinese stand-up

which would be like the equivalent of a bar in deep Bushwick with fucking kids that are just like having a clue what's going on and everybody in the audience is a comedian yeah and it was that

was the Beijing scene it was like they're all coming but like they're gonna start it and anyone here who's not who's just to watch it's like hey open mics are on Thursdays come on out and maybe I'll try it

so I go to this fucking thing is like 15 people there and almost everybody's getting up right I mean, I can get by on a bit of Mandarin, you know, eye toilet, you know, kind of shit. And at the end, they go, oh, B-Law shirt, they immediately called me, so Bia was my Chinese last name, right? Because I took the B-I off of Bishop. So I took the last name, B, right?

B comes first in the Chinese name, right? Immediately they call me B-la-Shrut, which means B teacher, like teacher B, because it's like a term of respect because I'm like a veteran comedian because they're very into titles there. They're respect-based, right? Big, that's the Confucian system is hierarchical and they're very big into Showshrun, they're very big into respecting, like, order

in terms of like, do you? That's what they told me that they were safe. They were like, I told me it really set me free to like go just be out by myself but they were like, the punishments for violent crime are crazy. Yes. No one's going to risk it.

And also, the level of embarrassment for your family is crazy and no one wants to do that to their dad. Nobody wants to lose face. Yeah. And a lot of that stuff is really interesting. because that's what they all struggle with when they do stand up. Oh, because you got a self-deprecate.

Yeah, and I mean, I got like a, my brain now is going like a mile a minute because I have a thousand things to say. But anyway, let me just quick, let me finish this quick start. So at the end of the show, they're like, B-Lasher, do you want to get up and do fucking a few minutes? Yeah. So I'm like, yeah, fuck it, like, because it's literally a workshop, right? So I get up and I got a couple of ideas. I got a funny idea about literally what I just told you.

My last name is B, but if you mispronounce it, it's fucking, it means. means cunt right but that's that's true okay so you say b first tone it means cunt right so i got this built-in joke that i didn't even intend to i didn't pick my name for that joke but it ended up being a joke and i got a couple of other like little observations right and they haven't a fucking clue what i'm saying because my pronunciation is so bad but at the end they fucking like swore me and they're like you we will help you learn chinese like they speak in a manner but they're like We will help you learn Chinese, but you need to help us to do what you did

because you are so energetic. You are so good on the stage. Because your natural stage presence is just where it was. I've experienced. I've been doing it since I'm 21 years old. I was 37, right? So they were like, please teach us, teach us, please teach us. Wow.

But they were like, but you don't actually, there was interaction in the show. So they were like, they literally were heckling me with, what are you trying to say? They were actually like interrupting me like, what are you trying to say? And then I would like, say it, say it, say it. And they'd be like, oh, you mean this?

Right? So it was like a workshop. Damn. So anyway, they just adopted me. And suddenly I immediately became part of the Beijing stand-up scene. And it was fucking awesome. And I actually started. So I got in trouble straight away with the Chinese system because Beijing

Toko Xiu-Libu is like a commune, right? You only do shows for Bejou. Because they have this real, like, just, Chinese system of like, you're not a stand-of-community individual. You're part of, you're a co-op, where we're together. Oh, they're really the Borg. Yeah, but like, they don't know it's any different, but that's the way it was. Like, all the Shang-sung, they were all troops. So they were immediately, like, in the Beijing Opera Troop. You know, like, they're like a troop, you know, straight away. Yeah, that's probably elevated them to have you in their troop. Yeah, but here's the

thing is, after every show, they would stand around in a circle and critique everybody's set. I called it the P. Ping Choir. I called it the circle of criticism, but. They have actually a name for it. Yeah. But that would happen. I mean, that's helpful. But it's so hard on you. Yeah.

And also, like, you know the way comics get. This is not going to be a subjective analysis of your performance. Yeah. But they also had a Laoban. So they had Cijon Uy, which is like this. He was a great guy. And like, in fairness, like, he really is one of the godfathers of Chinese comedy. Cijon Yueh.

Lauban means the boss, you know. That's not him. No, no. Cijon Yo is this guy. And anyway, he really did put it together. But, like, you had to defer to him, right? So I made a very early mistake because in Remindatria, I had become friendly with this Canadian Chinese guy

who opened up a coffee shop in the university. But it was a Western-style coffee shop, and it was awesome. It was called Circles Cafe. So I say, hey, man, how would you feel about... You won't find him. How would you feel about doing, like, Mandarin stand-up in the coffee shop, right? So we're in the fucking university, right? It's a free show.

Like, I got that shit packed out straight away. So I'm, like, running shows. I'm eight and a half months learning Mandarin. Is this the bookstore? No, that comes later. That already happened with the English. But I started a Mandarin show there after. But my first Mandarin show was in Circles Cafe.

And I started it. And Xi Jan Jette was fucking pissed off. Because I told him it wasn't a Beitou show. It was just like a stand-up show. Because I wasn't trying to piss him off. But I was just doing what we know, having no idea that this is like, a humongous slate to him so he showed up why was it because you didn't ask permission i didn't book him either so when he was there and then they were like when c jane you're going

up i was like no no i'll have him the next show and they were like no you got to have the fucking low bat makes sense though yeah they were like no way so i put him on but like i was trying to do it like our way i'll book a show yeah so i i got in big trouble then because they were like wow that's like east coast west go you got to ask permission before yeah and i i i you got to like honor the king And it was an issue It never that never totally resolved You imagine if you're like I'm just starting a show in New York

And Louis Siko shows up I was like what the fuck's this Why am I not on here? Yes I mean of course if he wants to go on You're gonna let him on Yeah you're like like why don't want to Bobby I don't know it's a small show

Yeah and also I I was trying to do like I wasn't trying to do like workshop vibe I was like these are the five comics I was hosting Yeah And these are the five comics that That I fucking book You know

That show the That show is on YouTube actually That was eight and a half months of learning Chinese I started that club But then that gig got shut down by the university Because they said You can't have an unauthorized performance on the university Wow so wait we got to talk about the freedoms of speech

In a perfect timing Comedy in there because it's like So every show I did except for opening up for Joe Wong So if your listeners want to do a quick Google Joe Wong is a Chinese comedian from China that went to college in Texas actually got into comedy because he wanted to improve his English

coincidentally enough so started going to watch comedy in English but then had a very successful American... He did Letterman? Yeah, numerous times and killed on Letterman. That's the more important thing if you watch his first Letterman set

it's fucking hilarious. Really? Oh, he's a killer in English but he's really Chinese. I mean, he's not like... I heard when he got back to there like, wow, you were on David Letterman in America like...

No, actually, you know what was the biggest thing? for them. He roasted Joe Biden when he was vice president of the United States and to the Chinese people to have a Chinese guy roasting the second in command, they can't comprehend. They're like, what a, what a warrior. That's beyond, right? Because they have like anti-Western sentiment anyway. So the fact that one of their own is ripping on the fucking, the second in command, the vice chair, you know, of the United States. So the letterman stuff, but the real thing that went viral is him roasting Joe Biden. So he decides to go home because he's, He's fucking huge.

He's become a huge viral star. So he was back in China. While I was there, he was establishing himself in China. He actually ended up being a huge help. Oh, sorry. He was a huge help. Why did I bring him up in the first place? Hold on.

Oh, the freedoms of speech. Oh, yeah. Can you say anything you want? Why did you bring him up? Yeah, I can't even remember. But there was a reason why I brought him up. But anyway, So I can't remember.

Oh, sorry. Now I know I bought him. The only show that I ever did that was official, as in it was applied to the sensor. So you have to Shempi. Shempit means like apply for... Apply to be able to... To do your show, which means you have to send this... Any art form?

Any live performance. So ballet. Any live performance, you have to apply to the sensor. Right, which is a group, like a... I can't remember which boo. Like, Boo, Boo is always like the... the department of is always the BU, those letters, that

character. Would they come in and go okay, this and this, this, you can't have this little piece, can't have this and this? Yeah, I'll tell you. So in ballet too, they'd be like, take this part out. I mean, I can't speak for the ballet. Let me just give you my personal experience. So Joe, who's a great help to me, when I was doing stand-up for 10 and a half months, when I was learning

a mandarin for 10 and a half months, Joe had five humongous performances in Shanghai, sold out like 1,200 cedar, which you got to understand, this is huge. Like, stand-up's not a thing in China. And this guy's going to do five nights, like in 1,200 seed are in Shanghai for the Western New Year, for our new year. And so he says, do you want to open for me? Which is humongous because now I can use this as like a big moment in the series.

And this is like real, like proper fucking show and like suit. But anyway, I had to apply to the censor. So the very joke that we're talking about, the character joke, which is very basic but funny to Chinese people, it's a combination. It's a comparison between simplified Mandarin characters and traditional Mandarin characters, right? and it's just a it's basically a picture joke but they said yeah you had a dry erase or whatever I couldn't do it because I was suggesting that their traditional characters were better than the simplified characters and they still use the simplified characters in Taiwan so they were they were worried that you would be suggesting that the Taiwanese way is better than the wow they censored that to that level they censored that not like

the president sucks nope no now there was a joke at the end of that so it's very hard this joke is this joke is very visual but it was actually for the character for love right just for the comedy geeks out there joke construction the character for love used to have in the traditional mandarin in the middle of it right some characters are complex characters they have characters within characters so in the middle of the character was the was the character for heart okay right but in the same simplified Chinese, they got rid of the heart just to make it easier to write. That's basically what simplified Chinese is. It's a practicality. So the joke is that the old way used to be better

because it had the heart in it. That's what real love is. And then the, but the problem is that in modern China, the real character for love, and then instead of the heart, you put in a dollar sign because everyone's obsessed with money and do you have an apartment. So that's the Chinese joke, right? Okay. So then I, I started tagging, and one of them was the Chinese government character for love, and then I had the four circles for the outies because they love outies. So I put...

It doesn't seem offensive. Well, that would be bad. I knew that was getting censored. You can't make fun of the government. But you're not making fun of it. They happen to love outies. I would never in a million, I don't even think I sent them the fucking Audi one. I censored myself on the Audi one.

But they didn't censor me on the Audi. they didn't censor me on the people are getting married for love they censored me on it seems to be suggesting that you're saying the Taiwanese way is better than the fucking Beijing way so that's how sensitive it is it's crazy too because by the way that wasn't the government yeah that was the production company and as you know so they're like I don't want to be I'm not sending this to these motherfuckers right because then they're going to come after me yeah like yeah it might be okay it's not with my fight everything else got cleared but then I did an improv on the night I had a fucking How do you improv with the censorship? Because you have spies in the audience, right? Well, I mean, you know, like everything in China, it's like everything's really official, and then it isn't. It's like classic. The new Bimo, V.I. Porter MasterCard is your ticket to more.

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They said the story of that was one of the Beijing, so much coke in the Beijing comedy scene. Really? So much. In the Houtongs, so much. But one of them, they said, got caught with cocaine.

They said it's a white drug. It's not a problem. you didn't import so whatever so we're kicking you out stamping your passport never allowed to return went home steamed that stamp out immediately went back to china and they're like oh welcome to china like there's not even a computer system it's official and then not like you're saying totally not official yeah so i my mother came over that time you know my dad had died so i was like she brought coke and she was coming for christmas she brought the coke yeah she had coke up her ass and her cane and So I took her to the marriage market.

They have marriage markets in China. Yeah. So in the parks in China, a lot of the parks into big cities, Chinese parents and grandparents go and literally advertise their kids, like a live... Oh, wow. I would think you mean like stuff to have at a wedding. No.

You mean the actual main ingredient. Imagine your mom was the only person in control of your Tinder or your hinge. Wow. So they have like this live fucking hinge where parents, advertise their kids to other parents and like literally have meetings and i'd gone a couple times we filmed but in this situation i had my mom so i was like okay so now i'm going back to the marriage park with my fucking mom so now we mean business my mother got swarmed fucking swarmed right and uh it was so funny like you know i had people calling me for months afterwards because i was just like

in the moments i was like giving these dads my number and they were like trying to fucking fob off their daughters on me like i'm not even kidding oh my god but anyway uh I made a joke about on stage an improv joke about bringing my mother to the marriage I can't even remember the joke but it fucking killed like I think it just killed that they were like he knows about the marriage market you know the way like you can get away with shit

when you're the fish out of water so it was basically like the most basic observation but it blew their fucking mind that I knew you know because I'm sitting up there at my shitty Chinese and then right and so afterwards they were like oh when did you think of the marriage market because it wasn't in the thing but it was funny they didn't give me a hard time but they were away

that it wasn't on the script. Wow. Because, like, you're opening us up to, like, is that like, don't do that in the future? They would just, they would just let me know that they were. But they also said that you could keep that in for the, I did that every night. And then, as a result, I joked about needing a woman,

and I, a producer of a dating show saw me on that show and put me on a Chinese dating show, which became like our, sort of like series stealing so the whole journey was towards stand-up but actually going on the Chinese dating show was like knocked you out of the park there yeah because you can't script that I'm going back and forth with fucking hosts but let me before we move on right let me give you a example of everything's official and then it isn't okay so we had a guy the organization for the foreigners was called carft I don't know what it stands for but it's C-A-R-F-T-E they are the

censor for the foreigners. Applying for Mandarin stand-up shows, different organization, but foreigners filming in China, carved, and you get a carved guy. You get a guy on you, right? But the carved guy, I'm there for a year. He trusted us. After like six weeks, he realized

these people are not trying to like find suicides at Foxcon. You know what I mean? Right, right. They're just learning. All right. They're not. And they're fun. And it's like it's in good spirits. The only thing he complained is like once a twice we filmed like really shitty toilets and he was like please don't film the toilet and like

one day we filmed the shitty toilet and the next day the toilet was fucking immaculate that was one of my favorite things about it was when turner took me to a bar across the river in shanghai from the food business district we're up at this rooftop bar and he goes look at that beautiful just like new york just the skyline and i was like yeah what he goes so that wasn't here two years ago that's right and the government decided we want a business and district there was no vote there was no having to go through think that's the great thing about that kind of totalitarian like cool do it yeah do it start now yeah so we had this guy his name was chin and uh he was cool every now and then he would give us a hard time but largely we were gifted

with a pretty cool guy so this is how official and unofficial it is so he told me what i was and it's all the you know the three tis right Tiananmen Taiwan Tibet right don't talk about that uh all the stuff I knew not to do jokes about the government. But he's coming to my fucking stand-up shows. He's coming to these gigs that I'm putting on, right? So one day I write a rap. I write a fucking hip-hop rap about the Chinese news. Because the joke in China is,

because it's all propaganda, right? And it's real propaganda. People here talk about first stage. Real what they show you. Yeah, so the joke is Chinese news every night. The government is busy. The everyday people are happy, and the West is a mess.

And that is litter, and then the weather, right? that's like the weather's real so that that and that is if you watch it you will be surprised it's always like you know some committee committee meeting right factory workers in some third tier city fucking applauding a local government official that's opened something and then car break-ins in in Portland yeah yeah that would be the current one yeah right so you know like and then the weather so anyway I made a joke

I took this, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the news music has a very distinct sting. You know? Yeah. So I made a beat out of it. Okay. And you got on, I know, over here, that seems pretty tacky, but this is pretty fucking novel to Chinese people to fucking mix, the fucking, uh, it was, Shin Wenli and Bo, is there, evening news, uh, to mix that into a beat.

And I made a rapy joke about, you know, this is what the news is every night, which is, essentially a version of what we just said. and I have on camera in our series he probably never watched it my fucking sensor busting his ass laughing at a joke that I should not be telling and that's how unofficial and official it is

because he really didn't give a fuck but at the same time he's like there's not a lot I get why it's funny but it's not allowed but he didn't even tell me though he was just like he didn't care you know but at the same time like okay had he cared it would have been an issue

but he just didn't you know My version of the freedoms was in Beijing, hanging out, walking around 3.15 a.m., hot as shit. I think it might have been June. And went to a bodega. There's a guy in front with, like, no shirt on, just like hot. Yeah. It's like, he can't sleep. It's too hot to sleep.

So he's just there. We bought beers. And he's like, is it open? Like, it's open because he wants to be open. Yeah. Because he's, you know, whatever. You're eating fucking shells. You're eating seeds.

And we get these tinnikins, I think. Drinking him on the street. And it's like, are we allowed to drink in the street? Like, as long as you don't see. skull somebody with the bottle, why would they care? And I'm like, oh, right. I told my friend that. He goes, can you get on Google?

I'm like, no, you can not get on Google. So it's like pros and cons of this different kind of freedom. And I have to tell you, man, I fell in love with the pros. And what you just mentioned there was one of the things I always missed the most. It's just that Chinese summer nighttime sitting outside. I don't drink, but like sitting with people who are drinking, having seeds, eating fucking lamb, skewers. Dude, the skewers. I don't know what this is.

Give me one of each Those they're like 10 cents each I mean you can get them You can get them on Grand Street Just if you ever looking for that thing And it was there and it's just like point Like he'll tell me what kind of meat it is Delicious delicious delicious disgusting throw it away

Tendin Yeah something like I don't know what that was Delicious delicious Tendin I'm out 12 cents Fuck Tendin And then back to the other ones Yeah man

And those nights were the fucking best man Isn't it while you're out in this completely foreign place You walk in with a friend or not And you're just like See a group of like Students in a part You're like, what are they doing?

Yeah. The stuff, if it was here, you just would walk right by it. Yeah, and the lack of organization of it is great too, because, like, here, you know the places that those areas are going to be. Whereas, like, in China, it's just like, it could be something else completely. And then just, like, 40 fucking people pumping outside. Because funny enough, we were there at the same time, that World Cup, that actual World Cup. Oh, that's right. Yeah.

So I had a lot of great nights with that World Cup, too. People fucking eating young rochoir, eating lamb skewers, watching football. and like just fucking seeds everywhere shitty plastic seats you know the plastic seats the shitty little plastic it's just for little kids it's either a bench or a little seat with a back it's almost better job as a bench

they're for children they're for kindergartners plastic seats they stack up yeah and like here you go here's all right shots you got a table it's like here comes a table like literally like fucking suddenly there's another six plastic seats and you're having the time of your life you're having the absolute time of your life you know what I mean like that that

You're having a time of your life, just having fun, drinking, doing whatever. And it's real basic, man. It's real basic. I mean, the famous one is Go Street. If you're looking for like an image. Yeah. If you're trying to put up, put in Go Street, Beijing. And then, but that is like full belt, like Beijing Nightlife, like, Go Street, Guilla.

Like, just like all those red lanterns are all restaurants, one after the other. And there's just thousands of people sitting outside every single one of those restaurants, eating. And do you know what's really cool? If people are into like, what is it, ASMR? Yeah. If you just stop, stop, stand still, all you will hear is the chewing of seeds on that street. Because everyone that's waiting for their food,

the first thing they do is they sit you down. Here's one of them. It's not quite the right pitches here. They're kind of fancier. Yeah, they're fancier. But that street is fancy to get the, like, you know, the pink seats is basically like anywhere, you know? Right.

Like I always wish the guy on Grand Street. So there's a guy that does lamb skewers on. Grand Street and there's one in Flushing Main Street too I always wish he would just bring fucking 20 pink seats and just let people just fucking sit down but here's the thing about China though it's like the skewers are on wooden sticks and like all everything's just thrown on the ground all gets cleaned up at the end of the night so by the end of the night the floor is just seeds and sticks and it's like it's just chaos but that's that's you know that's what that's what works for them yeah I can't find an image but so all the other shows that I did all the

other stand-up shows were all unofficial and the only time other than the renmin university time that we got shut down was we started a new show but unfortunately it was right around the the anniversary of the tianaman massacre which of course they called the june fourth incident the june fourth incident yeah whatever the i don't even know if i got the exact date right but they they don't they don't refer to the tianaman massacre as anything that you know so anyway you're not allowed to talk about it you're not yeah i went through it i was amazed i was like where's it's it's out there i'm like what i walked through it again i'm like where is it and they're like oh there's no plaque there's no nothing nothing it just didn't happen oh it didn't happen

so around the time of the anniversary um because it was 89 right so it was 2014 so it was the 25th anniversary uh they were very paranoid and we had a show that was like a touch too near so that show got shut down by the censor. That show was like, where's your permit? Because they just didn't want you doing it. It was a tight time that time. There was a lot of paranoia. A lot of paranoia.

So anything like Tokosio. And by the way, Tokosio is a lot more popular now. So the censorship is way more intense. And finally, here it is. There they are. That's what we're talking about. And they're everywhere. And they just like stack them up.

Like, go ahead, sit down. And you just eat on your lap. Those are quite high. Some of them are even shorter than that. Those are high. You're right. But that's the vibe. everywhere and it's so fun because it's like let go of whatever your fucking luxury ideas

this is where everyone's eating it's fine you just like yeah but it's not like very wealthy people are eating there too that's the thing it's not even like this is a poor people place right this is what this is how you eat like you white kids are going to nightclubs Chinese people are sitting on shitty stools and fucking drinking beer and you know gambeying and eating fucking young rochoir eating lamb skewers wow that's like that's like one of the ways to have a good time in China in the summer. God, that takes me back. And all that is like awesome, you know?

Like you can't beat that. Yeah. So, so let's talk about the chicks there. How do you fuck, how does an expat fuck in China? Because I saw these little mini cities like Shanghai, 20 million. Yeah. But in terms of the whites, it's a city of 50,000. Yeah.

And they don't. don't go outside their city. Yeah, and by the time, you know, so this whole thing of like, oh, you're going to get late all the time. Like, the white worship was pretty faded. I'm sure you found that too, right? Like, at the end of the day, China's pretty successful by then. So the sense of like the white man is going to come and save you,

it's well gone. At the emperor's palace, I saw it, because you have a country folk coming to see the emperor's palace. Yeah, they want to take pictures and stuff. And they're like, what the fuck? Yeah, yeah. Oh, why can I touch you? Yes.

Yeah. You told my baby and take a picture of that. Oh, yeah. So I got that to a certain degree that would still happen. But this sense of like, oh, meet a lawy, meet a white guy. And like, you'll be good for life. Yeah. Had shifted mainly because, like, a lot of fucking Chinese people are making money.

Chinese people are focused on Chinese people making money. Right. Right. So the idea of a white guy is actually kind of become complicated because by then the balding ho. The balding ho is the post-80s generation, which is the generation of the one-child policy, right? So all those kids are called little emperors, little empresses. and they are their parents

are like obsessed with their development because they're only one fucking kid right so suddenly they're assholes because no one will tell them to shut up yeah there's that right they're like Gen Z's and so if you're looking for a comparison no I'm kidding but anyway you got 10 kids you're like if one dies I'm fine

they were talking about that generation being entitled all that stuff was going on right but the other thing was that parents what do you call it little Prince syndrome They, yeah, little, little, little, Xia Huangza. Shao Huangs is like little empress. Little emperor, yeah.

So, um, so they, they, uh, a, I, I, a Chinese girl, like, just say like a 30-year-old Chinese girl that already she's on depression to get married, but she won't fucking meet a white guy because the parents are going to be like, I don't want you fucking leaving. You're the only thing I have. So there was just a lot of like, a lot of like not as exciting as people thought for the white guy in China. Was there casual sex though?

Well, it took me a long time to even get into it. I gotta be honest man I was so fucking focused that it was like down my list of priorities in the early days do you know what I mean like there's priorities

and then like I'm horny let me try to get so yeah but it was I in the early days of my time in China I did not experience anything like

a simplicity of casual sex in China you gotta remember something else I was 37 by the time I got to China and like you know just I'm in fucking

Renmin University like I wasn't you're not a club guy yeah and I also wasn't like just like going like it just wasn't I don't know honestly the Chinese girls especially like they just seen like I just wanted to like learn language from them I I wasn't thinking like let's get together I did eventually have a relationship but in those early days when I was like just didn't

know a lot of people not a lot there was elements of it but I didn't quite were there horrors well of course there's whores I mean there like there's that you know and that's Asian culture it's like sort of unsaid. They told me there were whores but no pimps. Pimps were illegal so that the mistreatment of the hores wasn't as bad. Yeah, all I know is that when I was in the northeast of China in the small city when I was working in the restaurant, Leo's buddies were obsessed with getting me whores.

And I was like, guys, I don't need horses. But they like, they really... We got to get you one of these authentic horses. Oh, they were like... What city was it? Obsessed with it. So it's Hegang, H-E-G-A-N-G, and it's actually like a coal mining town that's really struggling. H-E-G-A-N-G-G-H-E-Lang-G-E-Lang.

Yeah, it's right on the border of Russia. Oh, wow. Small Chinese city. In my joke, I say a tiny Chinese city of 1.3 million people, but it actually... It is 1.3 million people. No, it's actually only 850,000. That's Nashville seven years ago. It's hyperbole when I say 1.3, because it's a little funnier.

Yeah. I could change the city, say Jamestl, which is like... It is weird that the Sujo was like 10 million. Sujo, they're like sleepy town. Second-tier city. Sleepy town. You know, we're not saying high. Hulgong is like a third-tier city.

And Hulgong, because this is Dengbe, you know, the northeast of China, very industrial. Industrial. Big coal mining town really struggling. This is like the fucking West Virginia. Why is it struggling? Because it's coal. You know, they have pollution problem. They really pull them back on coal.

Did they get away from it? Yes. So Hulgang is really, really struggling as a town. Wow. It wasn't struggling as much when I was there, but it's really on hard time since I left. Looks like any city? It's been 11 years since I worked in that restaurant. Oh, wow.

So it's changed a lot. But it's also in Dengbe, so its winters are absolutely brutal. It's kind of like Buffalo vibes, you know? Really brutal winters. Nice summers, but the winters are brutal. It looks snowy. I mean, it's that far up towards Russia. It's literally on the border of Russia.

I went to the border, like, on a day trip. Wow. So it's right there, you know. And that was the joke. So when you're in Dengbe, if you're a white guy in the northeast, they always say are you Russian okay oh wow

yeah so then my joke in Chinese another basic don't judge me my basic Mandarin joke but my joke was no of course I'm not Russian can you see that I'm smiling and they thought that was fucking

they love that it is funny when you go to one of these foreign foreign countries and they're like where you're from you're like guess and like Ireland and you're like do I sound Irish

and like Australia I'm like do I sound Australian and to them it's like yeah I don't know man it's all sounds the same yeah the other joke Not on stage, but the joke I would say

is if a Chinese person say, oh, and you should not leave, where are you from? I would always say, Hongwar, I'm Korean. And then they're like, oh, you're not Korean. But like, I know this stuff is so like... It is fun to meet someone on humor, to meet up on a little language of humor. But the thing is that the Chinese, man,

they have fucking great sense of humor, but it just doesn't translate into English. Like, and like their sense of humor doesn't translate anything else, but once you get it, I'm like, oh, explain their sense of humor. I can't fucking explain it. So don't even ask. because it's like impossible.

But when you figure it out, like on some sort of subconscious level, you get it. They're fucking funny, man. Dude, when you hit somebody with a joke in their language, it's such a rewarding language moment. I was in this coffee plantation tour in Ecuador somewhere.

And Via Cabamba was the name of the plantation, the name of the coffee company. And the guy was telling us, my dad started it. It's like, you know, and the person I was with was like, how did you get the name Via Cabamba? and he was like, well, oh, no, Via Caroma, what is it? It was in Via Obama.

He's like, well, Via Obama was a city, and then Aroma, so via Corona. And she's like, oh, and I was like, and then in Spanish they were like, do you know that? I was like, see, it's obvious. And then the guy died laughing. It's obvious. Yeah, and the guy died laughing, and I'm like, yes, that's a real. Yeah, man. I mean, I remember, I was doing.

stand-up in China long before I ever understood a joke of any of the other comics on stage. Like, I could make audiences laugh and have not a fucking notion, especially the punchline. Like, as my Chinese got better, man, I was like, understanding everything, but I never got the punchline. Wow. You know what they call the punchline?

What? Shiaa, which directly translates as laughing point. Very mathematical. Very mathematical. So, I would never get the laughing point. And sometimes that's because you don't get the reference they're talking about some fucking show from the 80s yeah that's how i'm in england they'll make the joke will be like it'll be like here it'll be like some some homeless guy

be like kind of look like Biden you know what that means yes but there you're like kind of look like some guy you've never heard of yeah yeah some guy from an 80s fucking show what is that yeah which part of them i but i remember the first time like i got a couple of the fucking jokes of the comics i was fucking dying like like it was almost like not laughing i was like fucking, like, cheering for myself. Wow. That I got it, you know? But, by the way, if you ever want to make, if you're ever in a Chinese restaurant,

this always works, right? So, they call us La Wai, right? You've probably heard me do this joke, maybe on stage. I do this joke in English. There is a derogatory foreign word in every country. Yeah, but Guilu. Guilu is negative. That's Cantonese.

It means, like, white ghost, right? Okay. But La Wai literally just means foreigner. I mean, it doesn't directly translate. Ferang and Thai? It's Ferang. It's not negative, right? It can be.

Yeah. But it's like Jew. It depends how you use it. La Wae is definitely not negative. Okay. Malai. Yeah, it's evolved into like not a big deal. And like if you watch everything everywhere all at once, that film, they're calling us.

What a good movie? Crazy movie. I mean, I cry for a week after that. They're calling us La Waai the whole time. Okay. But we are La Waai, right? It doesn't mean white guy, but like in everything everywhere all at once, they're really calling a la Wao white guys, right? But so when you're in a Chinese restaurant,

they're calling you a La Wai, right? So if you can remember this, if you ever hear them call you a La Wai, say, hey, we're in America, you're the La Wai. And they will fucking die. Okay. Now, I can say it in Mandarin, but like in English, it still works.

If you catch them, call you a La Wai. And they won't be like, wow. They won't be upset about it. They'll just be like, that's funny. Maybe if you say in English, they might be. But you've never been at one to shy away from upset. No, I'll go for it. I'll go for it.

Well, a hard fought laugh is a good laugh. Yeah, but I say, they say, what, women's like, me, what, you're in America, you're the La Waai. I say, well, we're in America, you're the La Waai. And they're like, oh, my God, it's so funny. But I always, the other thing that really makes Chinese people live, especially over here, like in a restaurant, is if I'm ordering in Mandarin, and my wife will order, like, fucking chicken and broccoli,

I'll always be like, fucking La Wao food in Chinese, fucking La Wao food. And they think that's hilarious that I'm calling her a la Wao. Because obviously to them, they're like, what? I know these things are so basic, but like, those are those little moments where you're like, yeah. My brother does that to me when I visit him. He lives in Europe, and they speak French or Swiss wherever he lives. He's moved around, but he's like, hey, they're going to ask you if you want to beg. And I'm like, okay, and then we get to the front of the line, you know, and then they ask, and I forget.

And I'm like, what? And he just goes, in Swiss or in French, he goes, stupid American. And they die laughing. That joke is universal, man. He's clearly American. And you get, you make the effort to learn. You get to make that joke. Me and Ronnie Chang's other joke is at the cellar will speak Mandarin

and then like just deliberately say somebody's name in the middle of the fucking sentence. Having nothing to do with them and they're like, what are you saying? Let's talk about the bathrooms and the shift in culture to get to that. All right, well, let's talk about the fact that squatty toilets are the way that we're supposed to shit. Has this come up yet on your podcast? No, it does not. It has not. It's the way that humans are meant to poop.

In my opinion. Yeah. you will use not just because there is no toilet paper so you have to bring you know you have to bring your own toilet paper in China I did not know I found out I did not know there's no warning for whites that's like this is a major listen in Australia I drove the Great Ocean Road it's just like PCH type road been on it many times from Melbourne to Adelaide it's great it's amazing you can pull over it's first we're going from Melbourne to Adelaide you just you're already

in the side to pull over to look at the beautiful spots every entryway and this is three hours away from the airport is, hey, we drive in the left side of the road here. Yes. To remind you of something you might, as a non-Australian, come in conflict with with your culture and way of life. Yes. No warning about the toilet paper.

Yeah. So, obviously, it took me a while to learn that, too. Yeah. You got to have your own fucking toilet paper, right? But after a while, you realize that even the shittiest squatty potty is clean. Because you're not fucking touching it, man. You're fucking squatting. you're dropping your shit

and then you have your toilet and you will use like 10% of the toilet paper that you would use sitting on a normal toilet why because it comes out so easy it's the way we're meant to shit bro so you know

my hip mobility was so much how do you clean your colon you got a squat baby it just opens up your ass well also because we're not great so we don't have the ankle mobility that they have like that's why these old Chinese dudes

are like standing at the side of the road smoking cigarettes with their heels to the floor I can't yeah I can't can't get my heels. Yeah, the Beijing air conditioning. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, smoking. And they're in that position for like an hour.

Yeah, right. No need, no, like, no need, no need. No, they got way, they got way better hip mobility, great flexibility. But anyway, I, I, my hip mobility definitely improved from, from sitting, yeah, especially when, so you know, you got to get back or you'll shit into your pants. Yeah, I just, it, you got to get your ass behind. You would want your. Yeah, but you widen your legs, too.

You widen your leg. But you don't take the pants off. No, you leave them around your knees or whatever. Bro, I really got into the squatty pot. Because here's the thing about China. They're big on public toilets. So everywhere you go is public toilets. And yes, they're disgusting, but they're always there.

So, like, you'll never have, like, a New York situation. We're like, oh, my God, where the fuck? Describe. And it's got two little foot pads? So the worst, the ones in, like, the third tier cities are just, like, five holes in the ground. With foot pads, sometimes not even. Separators? No separators.

No separators. No separators. So you're shitting next to someone and watching them, looking them in the eye? Yeah, but that's the whole thing is like, they're comfortable with it. Like, my Chinese buddies were telling me, like, when they were kids,

they'd be like, are we going to the bathroom? And like, five of them would just go shit together and just like talk while they're shitting. So they never, they never learned that, it's like Adam and Eve. They didn't know to be to cover up.

Yeah, they're just like, they just didn't know as anything. Those people, obviously, societal norms have shifted quite a bit in China. Like, even I'm sure since the last time I was there, I guarantee you like, you wouldn't see half the amount of crappy torts that there used to be, right? So they're advancing like everybody else.

But like, I got comfortable with it. Yeah. We made a joke about it in the series about like the only place you get privacy in China is in your own head. Like you'll always be around people. Those are the personal spaces. There's too many people. You can't have personal space. Yeah.

So like shitting is not a private moment. So when I got food poison in 2004, even in the fucking hospital. And I had bad diarrhea. Like bad. And they had me on a fucking drip. So I'm on a fucking IV. in a Chinese hospital and I got to fucking do my business in the hospital

but I had a fucking drip right but I had to go up the stairs because the downstairs toilet was just like so disgusting I couldn't use it. The upstairs toilet was better so I couldn't carry up the thing there was no elevator so my buddy Leo my Chinese buddy carried my fucking IV and held my IV up

while I squatted in the upstairs toilet standing next to me that's what I said to him I said Leo we are officially best friends now and that was 2004 but by the time I was there in 2013 15, 14, because I end up living there for two years, because I love China so much. I stayed an extra year. And I just, like, didn't give a fuck.

Five holes in the ground, I'll squat, somebody comes in. Because guys in there, they read the fucking paper, they smoke. Like, I hate smoking in public places, but I loved people smoking in those toilets because it was a better smell than the fucking smell of those toilets. But it's all the different people's toilet paper too in the trash can. So you're not supposed to have, I believe, two different shits anywhere near each other. Like, you're a bunch of your own shit. shit, it's fine. A bunch of my own shit is fine. When one little piece of your shit comes near

one little piece of my shit, it creates another level of disgusting smell. Disgusting? Yeah. Yeah. And also, 30 different shits. And those toilets are disgusting. There's no way around. What's a nice, squatty toilet? It's clean. But so they don't build an actual toilet. They're just like, get ivory. Now, they have toilets. Like, Renmin had toilets. Like, in my university, I had like, toilets as we know them. Interesting. But I ended up like, I preferred the squats, man. I, I love a Squatty party. At the moment, no, I tore my ACL, blah, blah, blah, but when I was in China, I grew to really love the Squatty Party. Did you ever see footprints on a regular toilet? Well, and that's a big joke about Chinese people going abroad and like a shot.

No one tells them. Yeah, and also they don't like sitting on toilet. The funny thing is that we think Squatty toilets are disgusting. They think sitting on a toilet is disgusting. It is disgusting. Yeah. That's not wrong. To put your ass right where someone else put it. Not like in the region, but like on the thing. And there was a big campaign like in Hong Kong. and like more advanced cities. There was a big campaign against Dalurin, like people from the mainland and their fucking shitty habits.

Did you see one? So the Chinese kids, I know that you saw it because we were sitting in the park and we saw the kids with no diapers with a fucking hole in their head. You were telling me about it? And I was like, didn't believe it. It goes, oh, there's one right now.

It was so like, what? Yeah. So though I was sitting in a Starbucks in Tiananmen Square, coincidentally enough, in Tiananmen, the bit behind Tiananmen Square there's like a cool little sort of old town there but there's a Starbucks in Old Town Tiananman yeah yeah Starbucks in Old Town Tianmen and uh so I was sitting in the Starbucks with this Chinese comedian and this fucking like two year old squats in the on next to the table next to us

and pisses on the thing and his piss rolled under our table and so that that drives like the Hong Kong people and the other other Asian like tourism areas where there's a lot of Chinese tourists those kind of things drive them fucking nuts so the Chinese are kind of like the Americans of Asia like people love complaining about Chinese tourists there's a Hong Kong

so I've never experienced racism like I have from Hong Kong Chinese against mainland and they don't even try to like look both ways they so that's the story I heard and by the way the podcast we did it's been shifted over all those old all the travel podcasts from a skeptic tank

I've shifted over to the Patreon. Oh, right, okay, so they exist. So it's on Patreon now. You'll be tripping Patreon. But it's still there. You can get it. The main ones will be taken down. But that was recorded, the two of us sitting in a parking station.

Just audio. Yeah, yeah, it was crazy. But this was the thing they said. The lady caught herself. It was an interviewer. It was an official thing. It wasn't just like a comic talking shit. She's just shitting on fucking mainland.

I was like, oh, all, hold on. Hold on. I'm not, listen, I went too far because I'm very hateful. But she's like, I'm not saying every. mainlander, it's derogatory mainlander. I'm not saying every mainlander will shit in the hallway of a mall. But if you see human shit in the hallway

of a mall, it was a mainland. And again, some of these things become stereotypes, like easy targets. But there was like an official Chinese government like edict or like there was a publicity campaign about trying to get them to behave better abroad. Describe the shorts.

The shorts. The shorts. The kids shorts. Yeah. So like think of a onesie, right? Think of a kids onesie but there's essentially like an exit shoot for their ass and their cock or their vagina where they don't wear diapers they just like when the when the kid needs to go they just literally like unleash the evacuation you would think take your pants down but they don't they have that all they set up no it's and a lot of them don't even have like a like a button thing it's just like well what i saw it was like a scorch almost you know like a skirt shirt shirt shorts yeah yeah

so it would just be real loose just real loose like this but but but but but but but but But here and then, but this wouldn't be connected. So when you squat it down, it would separate allowing your anus free reign to the street. But some of them were like straight, like an opening. Yeah. Like crotch, essentially like crotchless onesie for kids. And it was just, and after you told me, I noticed it everywhere. Where are some kids like looking back to his mom's mom's like, go, go, go.

And he's like, I should I? He's innate nature is this is wrong. And she's like, go. And then he's like, okay. And he just pisses just on the street. yeah yeah and like at those like the short stool places we were talking about like those guys would just walk to the side and just like unload you know they did it was a 10 feet away there was a looseness to the to the to the toilet stuff wow wow so can I make one

point yeah that's kind of like a bit like wait do you have it in your head yeah keeping your head for a second I go go keep it in your head it's ideal it's I came with it so it's not gonna wait hold on I got tap you back in do you do your do your seamless Right after you make, can I say, can I make one point? Okay, you just said, can I make one point, guys, here we go. Now, this is, this is me kind of pushing an agenda here. That's fine. Wait, wait, wait, wait.

I didn't do it yet. Oh, sorry, I thought you did it. No, yeah, that's me, that was the rehearsal. Go right. So I'm thinking, you just said, can I make one point? And now it's me going, yeah, sure, go ahead. Well, now, I have to admit that this is me, this is like a little bit of a soapbox moment for me. Okay.

I am not saying that free speech isn't an issue in the United States but having lived through two years of Chinese comedy and then having watched what's happened to Chinese comedy since which has gotten quite bad. The squirrel joke. Just things have gotten bad there, tough like for comics. It's heavily heavily censored. You know about that stuff from like six, eight months ago, right?

What was that? They compared the Chinese government to like a squirrel and they're like, how dare you get to find a million dollars. I saw that one. But this one is more serious. I'm not going to name the guy, but there's a guy. It's responsible to name him. There's this guy I know that he was really kind of starting out in the early days.

I didn't, I don't remember him actually. But he actually once said in an interview that I was one of the inspirations for him. Realizing that you could make a living from stand-up comedy. Oh, interesting. Okay. So he became very famous in China after I left as one of those initial Tokos Xo Yan. They're one of those initial stand-up comedians and killed it. Big career, big money.

Goes on a tour of America and decides, I'm going to fucking tell the truth. And when I say tell the truth, he does what will be considered very tepid critical humor about China. Tepid. Like give me an American version of it. Fucking, you know, Biden and Trump aren't fucking,

is this the best two people we have? Okay. great like that level okay you know like what would be considered standard fair

for any night of the week on any network television and he does that here he does it on an a Mandarin show but it's a tour for expats around the United States

and he somebody goes on Weibo and fucking what is that sorry the Chinese Twitter okay sorry it goes on Chinese Twitter and I think it was like

written I actually I can't give you the full details all I know is that this guy has never been back to China he's in hiding now because he was wiped from the internet

and this is how wiped he was my friend who was telling me this story my Chinese friend who was visiting here so WeChat is their main like you know WeChat's their WhatsApp

but they use it way more than that Yeah it's like they're everything It's imagine All spite on Imagine WhatsApp Facebook My message all of it All of it

It's WeChat Like everything happens on Wii chat. Yeah, they have a Facebook version of it. Yeah, okay. So my buddy goes to try to message him to be like, I heard about this. He doesn't exist. His contact, everything's gone. He's been wiped.

His WeChat, his wayboard, everything. Gone. Not like they're like, whoa, we're going to suggest your videos. Letts and you. Gone. Doesn't exist. Tiananmen Square. Just gone.

But he's not gone, though. He's in hiding. and I am happy to be fact-checked. I know that... Is his Western, like, profiles? Those are all still there. Well, I don't even know if he has them or whatever. I don't, I, I haven't...

I'm actually finding it very hard to get information on him, but I know that he's in hiding. And I, you know... And he can't go back to China. That's my understanding unless they got him and he's back to... I don't know, but all I'm saying is that, like, it happens that fast. And by the way, I have, like,

I've known numerous people that have had varying levels of, like, Like, when I was in China, the biggest, like, the Bob Hope of China was this guy, Zhao Banchin, this, like, just, if you watched him as a comedian, you would appreciate, even though it's, like, obviously, like, old school, like, Abbott and Costel type shit, you would appreciate the skill of this guy. This guy's, like, red fox fucking, like, old school, just, like, classic comic, but character comic, but amazing, like, amazing. And during my time in China, Xi Jinping had decided that, like, certain types of Chinese humor were, like, lowbrow. and this guy career disappeared overnight. Dave's saying anything wrong. We're just not going to do that. No, he was done.

We're not doing sex jokes anymore. Like, canceled, but like cancel forever. Like obviously we know now that cancellation is like an inconvenience. Not in China. Cancel's really canceled, right? And then Bifu Jin, so there's a guy called Laobia. So people call me Laobia in China, but it's kind of a joke because there is a famous Chinese comedian with the same last name that I picked.

And while I was in China, this guy was. the most famous guy. He's hosting, he's like Ryan Seacrest. A little bit older, but he's hosting the New Year's Gala in China, which is the most watched TV show in the world. Like a billion people watch that shit. Every year, the Chun Wan, the most famous. He hosted it does a corporate, a corporate, and he sings some old joke about Mao, some old fucking joke song

about Mao. Mao Zedong, who fucking is a nightmare, historical figure, but they have decided that He's been resurrected, so he's 30% bad, 70% good, you know, right? Yeah, they have his picture everywhere. And I'm like, didn't he kill it? He was a disaster. He's a terrible leader. 30 million Chinese.

Yeah. In every way, he was a bad leader. He sings this dumb, jockey song. He's over. His career's been over since. Yeah? So, like, people really get what they did. Like, the Disney chicks got it.

They're still touring. They disappear. They're just not a arena, because they're missing, bass of theater. So here's my point about, and I'm all for the free speech arguments, but when people talk about, Because I hear people compare it to China. You will never understand that level. Yeah, but here's the thing. It's like, we have free speech here because, yes, it's inconvenient when certain corporations

or certain aspects of the media decide you are no longer eligible. That is fucked up. I'm not defending that. But what we have here is, so here we have a flowing river. And if they decide to block the river, here the river can divert and find a new flow. And actually, that new flow, as it turns out, it's pretty fucking, uh, cool. You make a lot of money on that. fly right and that happened pretty quick yeah my buddy said this about cancel culture goes we should

all be thanking whoever started yeah because actually there's a lot of money in the tributary that came but in china they fucking damn that river and water just goes underground and disappears or it just gets cleansed with fucking chlorine like they detoxify it and it stays that way forever it never is a river again so like you you just i appreciate the inconvenience and i am not saying that we don't have issues around free speech in the United States, but it's, when the people compare it, they have no idea, you know? Because we don't really have state censorship. I was in, we have trends. It's not state censorship. It's, it's, it's a touch of state, but it's, it's generally corporate censorship. And also, by the way, and social censorship. Corporate censorship,

social censorship. And we talked a lot about that in China, too, about the fact that a lot of it is self-censorship. And that's real. We, we, we big brother ourselves. But ours was also just like a period of time. Like, it's already passed. You know what I mean? It was like, it was like a moment in time where we had these power dynamic shifts and actually some of the power shifted to places where power, surprise, surprise, got fucking abused because people always abused power. But actually it all kind of... The military, the left wing. Everybody's like, oh, I got this power now. I want it all my way. And not like, well, I don't like this, but you can do it. It kind of levels off. But here's the reality is I'm very open to arguments about free speech. But what I will also say is that we have

spaces to go to still speak whereas you do not in China. You can still do an open mic always. And it's fucked up that you had to go find another place, but it's pretty cool that you could find it. And you don't have that in China. And that's real. That's not exaggerated. Wow. I remember being in Montreal,

there were protesting. I might have turned into riots, I don't know, but protesting about the raise in tuition. And I was talking to some of the students, like how much are they trying to raise? Like, 200 bucks a year. I'm like, how much is it now? Like, like 1,100. they're trying to get up to 1,300, and I was like, just laughed in their face.

American, yeah. Yeah, I'm like, 20 grand a year is on the cheaper end. Standard, yeah. Yeah, like, I'm so sorry your tuition. I'm like, it's a real thing. It's like, right, same thing. Not diminish your struggle. It's wrong what they're doing to you.

Yes. But it's hard for me to understand. Yeah. And again, I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to say that. But I also think, thank God, that, like, things have moved on from that time where it did feel a bit, it did actually, in America, it did feel a bit oppressive. And I always, I used to like to use the example. of like the sort of small cultural revolution

where everyone's like outing everybody else for like clout, you know? But then what's good for the goose is good for the gander, then you get fucking, you live by a sword, die by someone. It's one of my favorite things

when somebody tries to out somebody and then they'll go to that person's old tweets and then I remember seeing some agent like I go, wait, am I getting canceled for stuff that I claim this person did? It was like, yeah, dude. You shouldn't have brought it up. Yes.

You shouldn't have brought up because also they're not a monster. They were just making a joke, just the same way you were. So I always, I actually, I messes Nemesh when he got in trouble for his fucking, you know, his Columbia thing. And I mess him, I was like, oh, look, it's a mini culture of revolution. But it's a joke because in actual fact, those things were horrific, whereas ours are inconvenience.

What a Nemesh got in trouble for? Columbia University. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, that's my soapbox moment. Over. Okay. Drugs, booze. I don't drink. I don't do drugs, so I stopped drinking when I was 19 in 95 when I was 19. So that's not my, that's not my area of expertise. So you didn't really see it.

You weren't around it. No. Bajou is their thing, right? Bajou, yeah. Sorry, that culture is very complicated. Yeah. Because they, so as my friend said, you're much better to not drink at all

than to try to drink a little. Because once you start there, then you're in the game, which is like Gambay. Like, like, because they're big into like have a shot with me, basically. They're big into that. They're a country of Durosas.

Yeah. So, but when you get in these, there's a lot of social. rules that I didn't even fully understand. And as we said, they're big into hierarchy, they're big into like saving face. Do you know that, did you know that they have a

there's like a prime position at like a round table? So say you're like a At a round table. So if you're eating for like 10 people, because they love doing the big dinners on the lazy susans. And they like private rooms. Like private rooms are considered very high end in China. That's like a flex. Wow.

Right? And food is everything in China. Right? So a lot of Chinese culture is around food going out like the way irish go to the pub the chinese people go to eat so you get a fancy restaurant with a round table and the boss has to be at the table furthest from the door the most important guy and then the person to the left of the boss i think is like the guest of honor and that's like very important so like the guest of honor will always get will so they do the lazy so they order like 20 dishes so he sits first and sets the head yeah but the lauban will always get the guest of honor to get like the first bit like that's like respect but then like

the fucking boss and by the way i'm i'm like paraphrasing on like an outside observers if there's any chinese people listening we're i'm open to correction but my quick understanding like so but then like if if the if it's like a work event and like you're all the underlings yeah and the boss is like drinking like you got to fucking then you're you got to go with the boss right and and also does the other way to work where like if he's not drinking i'm i can't get i can't get i assume so but i don't know because i never saw that but if the boss is drinking then you got to go you got to go gambay when the boss is like because they're big and like hey what a great excuse to come home what do they say they say uh hribe hey like so gambay is just like you know like down in one gambay means dry glass

right that's actually what gambay means okay dry glass is a bag is a glass right so but but like but they they don't always say gambay they sometimes say hribe Like, you know, basically, like, drink a glass with me. Okay. You know? So. How is it? I want to say this at a Chinese place.

Gambay? Well, let me, let me, let me check the pronunciation myself. I don't want to be, like, teaching you bad Chinese, because I have to be honest. Like, I can, I can be, I can get into some bad habits myself. Yeah, okay. When I was in Paris, I learned, may I please have? Oh, it's actually Gambay. So Gambay, it's two first ones like Gambay.

Oh, even. No, no, no, no, okay. Gambet. I'll apply for you, so you can, you can hear the mic. Gambay Gambay Gambi Oh yeah

they drop off the tone on the second one because it's two first tones together but anyway Gambay so like but the Khlibe you have to like oh oh oh and so here's

a hilarious Chinese little cultural thing I actually wanted to do a sketch about it once so the Chinese people have this thing about like being lower than you that's like a sign of respect

like so they try to they try to drink lower than you. So like if you're drinking, they'll try to go like, they'll try to get like,

to show you respect. So actually, sorry, it was, it's for the cheers. So when they cheers, they try to, to cheer lower as if they're saying,

like, I respect you. But like, you can get pretty fucking low sometimes. It's like a battle for low. So I wanted to do this, I wanted to do a sketch where like you end up like in hell.

You end up like in hell trying to get, but of course I didn't have the, now the technology's improved. I probably could have done it. But at the time, I didn't have the know-how. But just, Just the desire to get lower is quite funny.

Yeah. Because they always do it. Because people are equal, so it's not a big deal. Who gets lower? But they're always trying to get lower for the cheers. For the actual clink. They're trying to clink lower than your glass. That's so funny.

So there's a lot of that strange society. I liked in. And paying the bill. Humongous. Like the boss should pay the bill. Like a lot of- So it's disrespectful to pay on somebody? Yeah.

Like you, that was one of my jokes that I actually did in the show at Joe Wong was I would do a joke about, like, people from the Northeast trying to pay a bill, and it's like a fucking, like, full-on... I got it. A battle. Yeah. Northeast of China.

Yeah, that would be the joking show, because it's like a stereotype. They're, like, super friendly, you know? So, but then my joke was, like, if I was in Beijing, I would say Shanghai. If I was in Shanghai, I'd say Beijing. So then I'd say, Shanghai people paying the bill,

and he'd be like, so, like, you go to pay the bill, and then the other guy goes, well, I, like, I will. And then the Shanghai guy's like, okay. You know, I think that's hilarious Because like, yeah, they're fucking cheap They're fucking cheap, man They're fucking cheap We're the best

They're the worst But actually like, you know It's like a I treat you like what you can call it Like I treat you It's a really big deal for them So much so that like Their word for splitting the bill is

A-A-Jur I actually can't remember why it's A-A-Jure Because it's actually two Western letters A-A and then Jure That means sharing the bill But to them that's like Foreign That's like okay

Tacky splitting the bill yeah like somebody's getting the bill so funny because i grew up with jews so when you go but i live amongst normals in high society and in the biggest metropolis in america and like you know am i getting it no it's it's no it's it's uh when you go like i'll get this round like okay how much do you for that i'm like no no i got around yes i just went and got it and they're like all right well it's 750 how much do i'm like guys guys stop just get the next round but what if you order a more expensive beer by a dollar i don't I don't know, man. I'm not thinking about it. Yeah. It evens out in the wash. It evens out, man. And that's the way it works in China too. It evens out. One of the things I love, love culturally, was I was in Vietnam. I think it might have been Korean eating style. But, but nobody pours their own glass of beer. They have ice. And so it's like, let me pour for everybody. Not me. Someone will pour for me. I'm treating everyone else like a king. And we all should be treated like kings. Even though, then they ignore the part we're like, but I'm a servant now. Like, no, no, no. You're just honoring these other kings around you.

Yes, and that is... I serve off the thing to everybody. Okay. Yeah, that's like respect, you know, like respecting. Because, so part of Confucianism is, like, how you treat guests almost like spiritual. So it's, it's like intrinsic in their value system. Yeah. The way we have, like, Judeo-Christian values, they have Confucian values.

And those Confucian values really value treating guests and Shao Scho-Shu, like honoring the mother and father and honoring hierarchy, knowing your place. So those are things that are like, you know, in us, in them as a basic value. And it's a slight, you'd notice how it affects their society because they look after old people a lot better than we do. Because the way they, if they didn't look after old people to them would be the way that, I don't know what would be a good example. Well, I've got an example.

So this guy, Rolf Potts, my buddy, so he speaks a lot of schools, travel writer. And he goes, invariably, they're going to ask about dog as meat. Right. And he's like, they're like, have you ever eaten dog? And he's like, just to say yes, he's going to have them all scream. He goes, listen, there's cultural differences. And I know what you're looking at is eating dogs. Yes.

They look at us equally with the way we treat our elderly. Yeah. Amen. Amen. We stuck them off at home. They bring them home to live with them out of their years. Yeah, it's part of the family. Like, it's just, and that's the way it is.

and they also live healthier I mean that's why and they look at us like you do what to them that's crazy and we don't want to think twice about it yes so that that's a perfect

that's a perfect example but that that is like I do think that some of that comes from the the Confucianism like as just like a base thing that's but that's really what

there's something you could tell so here was another point I used to make about the Chinese comic people would always say oh but you can't say anything there right and it's like well listen they can't talk about the government and that's what we think is like

you know what's the word for you know what when you like confront power what's the word for that in terms of like oh yeah you know that type of comedy like anyway you know the vocab has just gone out of my head at the moment but like what's pretty groundbreaking for them

is to just speak about their personal lives openly because they always say the West is very caifal like Westerners are very open right they always say that right and for them to be open on stage because all their comedy before was like wordplay kind of like

not really them not connected to them for somebody to go up and be like I you know my parents just anything like anything about their childhood old Jamalini and New Jamalini where I was like

about the Civil War and now it's like hey I got hell on the drugs yeah so for them to be personal is actually revolutionary revolutionary and that's what used to bug me about people being like, yeah, but they can't say anything there.

And it's like, yeah, but Lenny Bruce does shit that now is hack, but it was revolutionary. Yeah, and it's also very short time period in this grand scheme of things. Lenny Bruce was very recent. Yeah. And he broke ground for us, but also just for society to be like, why do we have these hangups? But he wasn't actually, like,

it actually doesn't seem that groundbreaking what he did now because he broke the ground for us, right? And what they're doing now doesn't seem that groundbreak to Westerners, but it's pretty fucking groundbraiding to Chinese people. Wow. To speak just... And even to just challenge

like parental relationships or they joke a lot about the... Like the way they joke about the pressure of relationships and like very rigid structures because over there, if you want to get married, the mother of the daughter will expect you to buy an apartment in Beijing before you propose.

It is unacceptable to propose in a middle class Beijing family they will not be happy if you propose without having bought an apartment. And at the time, time you were living with your parents? You live with the parents and then you buy an appointment. It's like, don't even think about it.

Right. You have to show them where you're going to start your life. Yeah, don't even think about it. When I, so I, in my second year in China, I had a full relationship with a Shren, Chinese girl, Chinese comedian. I met her through Beitoa and we got quite serious. And in the end, I had to leave after my second year. And I wanted her to emigrate and just very complicated.

But I met her parents in Thailand because it was just, it was Chinese New Year and they wanted to go on a holiday. So I was like, hey, let's meet in Thailand. I don't have to get a fucking Chinese visa, which is a pain in the ass. And you guys, it's one of the only countries that Chinese people can travel to visa free, right? So they can go, easy, peasy, let's go to Thailand. So I meet her parents for the first time in Thailand. We sat, I met them, we sat down in some cafe in fucking Phuket. And the second question she asked me was, when are you going to buy an apartment? Wow. That was her second question. And I said, at that time, was the first question. Did you part?

Like, how are you? Right? Okay. And then, so at the time, and this is not a flex, this is what I said to her. At the time, I had an apartment in London. I had two houses in Dublin, and I had an apartment in New York. And I said that to her in Mandarin, and she says, what's that got to do with me? You need to have an apartment in Beijing. That's actually what she said to me, like a fucking, like an agent, like fucking, like Tom Cruise.

What's that? Yeah, it sounds like, I, great. Yeah, I need a place here near my kid. Yeah, so, and then, you know, yeah. So in the end, she didn't, I couldn't get an emigrate, actually. So it broke up. Eventually we broke up. We were long-distance for quite a while, but eventually broke up.

I mean, it was impossible. It was a pity? I mean, was there a difference in dating a Chinese lady versus a, the Dubliner or an American? I don't know where to begin. Like, you got to feed them. What do you mean? Like, literally, like, she would get annoyed because, so as I said, Chinese always eat communally, right?

So the food goes in the middle. She would get annoyed that I didn't, like, take meat off the plate, off the middle plate and put it onto her plate or even... Like, you weren't even... Or even put it in your mouth. Because, like, that to her is, like, cute. Like, that's... So one time we went out and the double date with a proper Chinese, like, two couple...

And, like, professional Chinese... Like, Chinese in their 30s doing well. I haven't had a lot of this, like, double date experience. And he's, like, real Chinese, real tradition. so he's fucking feeding her and she's like see that's how you do it fucking feed her and in my mind i'm like if i tried to feed a fucking western woman she smacked me in the fucking head what you imagine here yeah i'm gonna try that on my next my next date i'm gonna try that put that in your mouth put your mouth yeah put in your mouth that's

like dice would do something like that in his old character yeah there's a word so i have a routine in in chinese so this is a hundred percent true story so um we we ended up having a fucking huge fight over what i have no idea right over nothing fucking huge fight and i wasn't giving an inch right okay so i have a routine about how the reason why i got so good at chinese is because i had to fucking you gotta you gotta you gotta you gotta you gotta fucking have a relationship you got to argue does your nose yeah so we're we're really going at it right and she was like i wouldn't give in so she was like can you not hung wall so hung is a very hard word oh no oh so it's a hard word to translate but she's basically like can't you just fucking humor me basically is like a

semi-decent, right? So I was like, like, what? So she goes, I'm so Wei Chu, right? Way-chu, which directly translates as like wronged, but like wronged doesn't really capture what it means for Chinese people to say, I'm fucking Wei Chu. You know? Oh. But she's basically saying, like, you've fucking wronged me.

Like, there's an injustice happening in this argument, right? I mean, they're white chicks. That's it. They're just white chicks. So I had no idea. what fucking Way 2 meant and we're fucking going out of each other so I take out my phone

to look up now this joke doesn't work in English by the way because I've already given away the punchline but I take out my phone to look up what fucking Way 2 means and she storms out of the fucking apartment and I run after her I'm like what are you doing and she goes I fucking trying to talk to you

and you're fucking looking at your phone and I said I don't know what Way 2 means which to Chinese people that moment is hilarious because Wei Chu is such a big word for them but the fact that like I had to fucking look it up in the heat of battle right so this is not like a routine but this is like a funny true story

so I said I don't know what what she means and she fucking walks away gets in a fucking 200 quiet taxi which you know in American money it's only like 10 bucks but like in China fucking expensive taxi she gets a taxi all the way to the other side of Beijing where she lives she leaves my apartment goes it's like a fucking hour to her fucking apartment

I guess she cooled down I fucking called her I was like please can you come back she's only if you come get me okay and this is all like super trainees so i get a so this isn't her being a wreck this is standard man wow standard you can't tell that to another friend of yours and he he won't be like what he'll be like yeah you know no he'd be like you should have known him away too man right so anyway you fuck so i go all the way back to fucking her neighborhood in a fucking taxi i get her we go all the way back to my apartment right and in the taxi back she goes when you said i don't know what wait you means i wanted to laugh but to laugh is to lose

that's what she said to me that's how much of a fucking face that's the battle that we were in god damn to laugh is to lose what you found it funny though what i'm a stand-up she did so was she though oh wow she want to give in so i told that story, not the laugh bit, but I told the Wei Chu translation joke on Chinese television and got a fucking huge laugh. And by the way, I'd never met her parents and her parents watched that live the first time they'd ever seen me perform and they thought that was fucking hilarious. They watched that in Mandarin, Mandarin stand-up. And they thought that was really funny. And it was clean enough that I could tell it on TV. Anyway, so I did have a Chinese

relationship and I had a couple of a couple of casual things but yeah but that was a real were they hung up about sex for like the casual things I thought that they were but actually they're just they don't talk about like another thing Chinese stand up like very little sexual material like very little will chicks fuck there though so what I discovered when I really what happened was I got better a Chinese and then I started to understand it a bit more and to my surprise a couple of times I was like oh shit we're having a one night's in I didn't know this was a thing possible right yeah and then it was and it was like and it's such an interesting Chinese one I think because it was just like it happens and then like we don't discuss you know because they're just not Kaifan they're not

sex in the city you'd never play there um whereas just them talking about they're fucking yeah but I'm sure it's changed a lot now too like it changed their society is really changing quite rapidly so I'm giving and I've even had your version of that's all we're trying to do I have criticisms I have criticisms about the pressure on Chinese kids in relationships from the parents and I put that bit up recently it's in English but it's kind of like in 2014 it was pretty good observation and I had a lot of people being like that's a bit old and I was like well actually it is like China changes so fast that 10 years ago this was relevant and I think it's actually changed a bit since then so I I'd say they're

even more open but I can't that's one area like I don't want to give a first speaking about your experience my experience then and that was 2013 2014 and but but how did you get around buses subway trains and stuff with all those normal planes trains they work they work well the fucking goutia the fucking high speed trains man best thing ever yeah best thing ever they're transport now. I mean, if you can wipe out villages with a fucking swipe of a pen, it's pretty easy to create incredible infrastructure. And that's what we're up against in terms of competing with China is just like the government owns all the land. There's no private ownership in China. It's all you own your apartment, but your apartment is on leased land. So if they decide they want to do something else with the land, you don't really have any rights. Taking whatever offer they give you, if anything. Yeah, yeah. So they have a lot more control over society. I remember telling me in one of them, they were like, Those are homeless people on your subway platforms here. They're like, yeah, well, it's like private, privately owned from the government.

So, like, if there's a homeless guy, like, beat it. Yeah, beat it. There's not like, well, I have a right to be. It's like, you don't, goodbye. Yeah, but also, like all those villages, like, like the sixth ring road in China. Like, people complain about what the cross Bronx did to the Bronx. But like, all those roads in China, they were, they didn't destroy neighbors by ruining the fabric of the neighborhood. They fucking just got rid of them.

Wow. And you had no choice. So it's quite brutal. Their, their development is, is quite brutal. I mean we have simple the problem is you look at like we're so much better but like what they did in shavas ravine to build Dodger Stadium they're like hey you got to go here's your price like what price I mean like well you have a hut like but it's been my hut in this land for fucking 200 years yes and there's a lot of that I can't afford a new place with that like beat it we're building Dodger Stadium yeah and I think a lot of times people kind of don't process that like a lot of what we complain about in certain countries happened here not that long ago and luckily we've moved on yeah But they, they, I mean, it's, it's a, it's a dictatorship, basically. It's not communism. I think I personally call it.

It's not communism, right? State, that's a good way. I was trying to come up with the way to say it because they're, the rich or rich, the poor or poor. They don't just give all their money in and get back. They're like, state run capitalism. You have less rights in Beijing without a hookah. So if you're a poor person from Fujian province that goes to Beijing to work to make money and you don't have a Beijing hooko, you are an immigrant.

You have no rights. Your kids, if you bring your kids. kids they can't go to school right they've created like immigrant schools for kids with no hooko hooko is like essentially like an internal passport right so if you don't have a fucking Beijing hookoh you're an immigrant even though you're an internal migrant you are Chinese but you might as well be an immigrant like I felt like I had more rights as a fucking on a one year student visa than a migrant worker so this it's it's just different cultures 10 episodes we could do about how fucking complicated it was.

All right, let's drop this up then. Okay. Do they eat dog there? Is that a general thing? I never had dog. It's not a big thing. There's only really one part of China where they're into dogs somewhere in the south

and they have like a festival every year and that usually drums up to Western media at that festival. I believe the Koreans are more into dog, but I'm with you on one of those things. It's just like that's just a cultural difference. Like I have no desire to eat dog. But they're basically, they raise dogs to be slaughtered.

Right, it's a different thing. So we eat cow and people can't make them. But then when they had that thing with like, they were selling, horse meat as beef and everyone's up in arms and Doug Stanhope had a tweet is like oh how dare you give us a more nutritious less cost more cost effective meat yeah because you have more of an affinity with a horse than a fucking cow you know yeah it's not like they're putting the leashes in the food yeah right as long as you don't see the dog tag doesn't fucking show up in your thing like

yeah so I you know I I probably didn't eat dog what's in all here so so that's that's Tibet bait well there's there's Lassa there's Tibet this is Xinjiang all Are there cities here that people just aren't mapped out? Isn't this like the Gobi Desert? Oh, really? Yeah, that's the Gobi Desert. Oh, okay.

I think, or, like, it's also like some of the mountains. So, and then, you know, this is Xinjiang, which is its own issues. Yeah. And again, not a fucking, not an expert. Wow, so this is fucking Chengdu,

so this is Sichuan. So, yeah, they did just, Xinjiang is a huge part of China. but culturally they're they're a lot more in common with fucking Kazakhstan and you know the Tajikistan you're here you're more Russian than you are Beijingish oh my god these people don't look that they don't look yeah and their food is like Turkish food it's awesome by the way Xinjiang Thai Xinjiang food the the lamb skewers by the way is their food it's Muslim food they're Muslim they're Muslim that's why they're eating lamb I love how it's like Chinese food you're like

you got to narrow that down a lot yeah Yeah, most of what we ate as kids was Cantonese food But these days, let's face it The Chinese food is way better than it used to be Shishuan's way better Yeah, you can eat some fucking seriously good Chinese food here We'll do another episode sometime We'll do another episode, yeah

But yeah, if you see these people from Xinjiang They look like they're from Kazakhstan And their food is like more like Turkish food That's all Silk Road shit This is something I ask everybody Is what countries are on your mind to go to If there's one And also like if you have any just general

travel tips well i've never been to africa anywhere in africa you want i need to go but i need to see like the northern african experience because i actually tried to do learning arabic but i couldn't get that off the ground but i want to have that experience i want to have like some some african experiences without being like a classic fucking poverty poverty tourist that hard safari hat and what was the second question travel tips i mean my travel tips is always like don't just follow the guide take a risk don't take a risk with your life but like try to just have an experience

that is random well the risk then is oh this might not be the thing to do today I might have wasted my day but that's the risk but that's part of the adventure yeah you're already there

that's what I think because I've done trips where I've just like obsessed back in the rough guy days I felt like if it's not in the rough guy then you shouldn't do it but then you gotta like just one guy's experience

just let it happen and obviously don't follow strangers but like try to meet people, connect with people. Like, I remember one night I ended up in Bello Horizonte in Brazil. And we were on the way to somewhere else. We had to spend the night. And this random dude just wanted to talk to us. And it really sounded like a situation where we could have got robbed.

But again, outside like a fucking candy store, my girlfriend at the time and these people were drinking, I was hanging out. And we could hardly speak any English. But we, you know what we bonded over? Speaking about funny jokes. bearing us was terrible. I couldn't speak Portuguese. He said, Bill Clinton, and then he made the blowjob sound with his hand, and we fucking died laughing. That's how long ago this was, by the way. He goes, Bill Clinton and does a blowjob thing, and we all fucking laugh. And that guy, without

any English, took us out dancing to some, like, rough Brazilian dancing club. So just, like, take risks with people. Yeah, generally I see people like, when you tell them stories of you taking a risk, they're like, you could have been killed, something could have happened to you. I'm like, but you're using as an example of something that didn't happen to prove of the danger. You're telling me, I'm showing you something where it all ended up safely

and you're saying, see, it's dangerous. And that's a special night. That night in Bella Hart, when I tell Brazilians I was in Belarizante, they're like, why? And you had a blast. Fucking incredible night, by accident. So that's it.

Let the awesome accidents happen. Obviously, don't be stupid, as we say, an Irish accent. But do not be afraid to take risks. Wow. but that's me though everyone everyone has like

a different desire you don't know the amount of people that said to me how could you like China to some people China has been there like no I've never least no they've been and they hated it like the antithesis of what they would want on a trip

everyone has their own experience I met people in in Burma when I went there Myanmar and it was four six days in and we're on the back of a truck and we're all talking and it was this couple And they were like, how have you guys liked everything? We're all kind of talking.

And they're like, because their culture, the Buddhist culture there is to help people. Yes. It's like a big joy for them. And they go, we've just only had people scam us and be mean and be weird. And we're like, well, I thought she goes, hey, listen, I've already been over. There's tons of other travelers. I know that's not the normal experience. But we just got unlucky.

Everybody we met was trying to scammer. Of all the seven scammers in the whole country, we found six of them. So it's like, all right, well, that's your experience. now yeah but you got a blast in china i got fucking ripped off in soho in london because i got lured into one of these titty bars and then they scam you for fucking tons of money at the end yeah can happen everywhere you bought one thousand dollars worth the drinks for the for the dancer you know so like you get scammed anyway man yeah yeah what a fucking fun time two years in china yeah it was it was life-changing for me i mean i was working the first year the second year

i'm fucking i'm not leaving here what am i going to do my fucking mandarin so i spent another year doing mandarin comedy but like honestly those those are two of the best years in my life. There were times where I'd be cycling in fucking Beijing, because I cycled everywhere. You can't drive. Not allowed to drive as a foreigner. You're not allowed to have a... It was very bad then. That was an issue. But I'd be cycling around. And every in that I would just be like, how the fuck did I end up here?

But it was such a fast... Because by the way, when I was there, I was pretty well known at that time. Like, there was a time where I was like the top three comedians in Ireland. And like, I was like... Who are you, Tommy? I don't mean this as a boast, but you have to understand. And suddenly I'm just like cycling in China. like living and I'm like how the fuck did this happen and I loved it it was very like liberating yeah but again I'm aware of the privilege of that and people always say how did you learn Chinese in the year it's like if you were able to just throw your whole life into learning a language

I guarantee you you would if you got paid to learn you fucking learn what would you tell someone who's going to China like this is something you should you should like do or see or be well I literally would tell them sit on those fucking pink chairs that it's funny that you brought it up because I would say like that's what you have to do mine would would be bring a travel pack of toilet paper. That's very practical advice. That's my real advice to anyone going, like just get someone home here now,

bring my five of them, keep in your pocket a lot of times. And I would tell them, make sure you go to Yunnan province, because actually Unan province, you can get both the Chinese culture plus like that, almost like Southeast Asian traveling experience.

Unan province is down here. Kunming is the, oh yeah, that's the overlap to Myanmar. Down there is fucking awesome. And they have a lot of Shao Shu Mingzu, the minority groups, there's a lot of, them down there. That's the Uyghurs?

No, the Uyghurs are the Xinjiang people. They're Muslims. These people are like minority, like just loads of different tribes. Wow. And that brings... New culture. Yeah, like I went down to fucking Luguru and the fucking Tibetan

Plateau. It's not in Tibet, but it's on the Tibetan plateau. A lake at 2400 meters above sea level is like flatland and ended up like just fucking eating goat on a spit with a bunch your fucking Chinese tourists. Wow.

In 2004. Yeah, in 2004. And it was fucking awesome. Yeah, there's like subcultures that are like when I was in Paris, we were looking for late night food one day and started August, which means everybody clears out so you can't find anything anymore. And we couldn't find anything. Everything's, we're not going to fucking pizza.

And then even the normal like chain restaurants are like closing out. I'm like, fuck, we're not going to be able to find anything. The West African population in Paris is so big. And we had some of the most delicious, spiciest, like I'm going. going like this, sweating like that, West African food. And there's this big contingency there and I think the tent there in D.C. Mon or something.

It's like, it's a subculture where you don't think of Parisian. Yes. But they've got some of the best West African food in the world. It's the best feeling. Yeah, and you're like, oh, yeah, that would be a subculture of China

that you're not thinking of Chinese. And by the way, goat on a spit is fucking awesome. Wow. Just for the record. Charged goat on a spit. Wow. Vegetarian. Anyway, we could go on and on.

Dez, you got a podcast, right? I'll say something in the, I'll drop a fucking thing. Oh, yeah. Well, it's a burn a phone podcast, but the big thing I'd love to promote is my special on YouTube, which you graciously posted about called Des Bishop of All People. Des Bishop of All People, yeah. And by the way, since we're at it, the series about my time in China is on YouTube, Breaking China.

Des Bishop Breaking China. Unfortunately, very recently, episode six got fucking muted. What? Why? For censorship? No, because of the dating show, actually. The dating show that I guess some of the Chinese. Desbishop breaking China

Oh wow It's a whole series But episode six on 14 is muted And my hair is dyed Who the fuck is that? That's me with died That's dyed hair baby So the funny thing about my dyed hair

Is I wanted to fucking get rid of it Because I hated it That's you? Wow That's not the color of hair I had when I met You just don't remember how I looked Oh no actually I was already So I'd already shaved it

Because we finished filming My director didn't let me get rid of my dyed hair for the whole year Because he was like We'll probably move shit around i can't have you gray some episodes and not gray wow so they're the specials they did all right yeah you know i would have liked a bit more but i didn't you know i tore i put it up and then i tore my ACL so my promotion got a little stunted by uh by my accident was recorded the seller

that's crazy yeah i recorded and that's my crappy like canva picture i actually opened with a chinese crowdwork bit are you guys chinese oh wow yeah that's i'm speaking mandarin there my special opens in mandarin actually coincidentally enough but that's my usual just like what you know have you seen warrior oh the Japanese thing uh huh

I thought it was amazing yeah oh what Chinese immigrants to San Francisco oh mixing with the Irish immigrants who run it yeah but they do this thing where it's like they're speaking Mandarin

and then and then it like half a sentence just becomes English but they're still speaking Mandarin yeah so it's like you're going like hey so they're speaking in Mandarin now but I want you to understand okay I need to watch that

yeah it's pretty good No, I saw a Shogun, actually. Shogun, is that good? I loved it. I loved it. The old old or is it new? No, it just came out. FX.

Shogun, that's what I got to see. It's Japanese, but it's fucking awesome. I think I looked up Warrior thinking it was Shogun, and I'm like, this is kind of lame. I watch all the fucking, like, 50,000 episode Chinese things. They're always the same, some Chinese feudal drama. It's the same story every time, but I get sucked in every time. All right, well, Des Bishop, go watch a special, go see this fucking breaking China. Yeah, it's a fun watch.

Everyone that actually, it doesn't have a lot of views, but everybody that watches is like, fuck, this is good. But I'm like, you know, it was a real TV show. It's not like, it was made for television. There is in your playlist. Yeah, but unfortunately, it's fucking episode six is muted. I don't know what to do because a big scene in it is the dating show.

But it's flagging now as like, I don't know, the rights, which is correct. Yeah, you got to re-added it and take it out and put it back up. Yeah, that's fine. It is really. Not a big deal. People can find it somewhere. Thanks, Ari. Yeah, great to be here.

God, it fucking took me back. China fucking ruled. Well, everybody, that's the episode. Hope you had a good time. That was fun. Thank you, Des Bishop, for coming in. Make sure to check out a special Mindfill. Available right now on YouTube.

Check out as a podcast, the Des Bishop Podcast. Today's episode has been produced by your mom's house network, the number one network for comedy on the internet. And, you know, just all around great guys. It's produced, it's edited by Alan Caffey. Chris Larson helped Niana Pelletta helped I know that's not how you said

And that's it I subscribe wherever you're watching Get one of these shirts Get a Shroomfest shirt Get some merch, help support the podcast Subscribe, subscribe, subscribe What are you doing right now? Hit subscribe.

That's it. That's the episode. Next week, a Trippie Award winner for Best Guest, best, most surprising and best trip, Harlan Williams, a 24 number one Trippy Award winner

comes and makes us a triumph for a turn to talk about a magical trip to Africa. Three different countries in Africa. Sorry, that is a technical difficulties. Listen, guys, I'm doing my best here. I'm doing my best. I'm not in a studio. Yeah, I have help from your mom's house, but I'm not in a studio, so I'm just doing the

best I can. I'm DIY to the core. Remember the podcast started DIY and they went to quickly like, ohIY? Wait, no. Do it. Your stuff. Do it. Someone else do it? Guys, there's something there. Help me out in the comments of what I should call the opposite of DIY. The point is, though, doing the best I can. And this still has that independent feel that you rarely get from other podcasts that are in studios all the time. And it really just kind of like, another version of selling out. I'm Ari Shafir. I'm the last person alive who's not sold out. Literally, there's hundreds of comics who have not sold out.

Some of them are quite wealthy. They just haven't gone against their morals in order to get that way. haven't gone against my morals, and it means I'm still a apartment renter. They haven't gone against our morals, and they're fucking stockpiling millions. It's crazy. It's crazy how I've looked kind of incorrectly for a long time. But I'm happy with it. Until next week, everybody, with Hollywood. I'll see you then. Bye.