(no subject)

[kamomil]

I just wanted to talk about Dashan.

He was in the paper this week, he had been talking to people in china about the dangers of smoking.

The dude is from Ottawa, and learned Mandarin fluently enough to do comedy in China and almost everyone there knows who he is. I first saw him while flipping channels, I was like "who's that white dude speaking Chinese?" It was a comedy show and it was clear how fluent he was by the audience reaction. A couple days later I heard him on CBC Radio.

Dunno. Felt like sharing

Comments

[bloobert.livejournal.com]

Did you see him on a Chinese station? Was it subtitled? I'd be terribly curious what he was saying, and what they were all laughing at...

[kamomil.livejournal.com]

I was chilling in Starbucks during my longish lakeshore walk, and I read about him in both the toronto star and the globe n mail. Apparently people in China are misled to believe that smoking is not harmful, and I think Dashan (Mark Rowswell) was with some Canadian people spreading info in China.
For what it's worth, I have listened to some soundclips of him doing comedy, and you can't tell who's who. :) Like I would be able to tell, it's all Mandarin to me. ha ha ha

[kamomil.livejournal.com]

I misunderstood!!! Oh yes, I saw him on a Chinese program, before I ever worked where I do now, and I was just flipping channels and saw him. there were no subtitles, it was meant for a Chinese audience, so all I could do was just stare openmouthed.

The CBC Radio program, well it was putting 2 and 2 together, cause they talked about this guy who is fluent in Mandarin and does comedy in China, so it HAD to be him.

Every Chinese person I talk to at work knows who he is. No Canadian person does. The lady who heads some Mandarin shows interviewed him once.

[kamomil.livejournal.com]

Apparently in addition to being almost flawlessly fluent in Mandarin, he can do regional dialects. "Dashan" means "big mountain," suggesting I guess a rural dude, the equivalent of "Billy Bob" or something like that. So I think the comedy is kind of character based, as in "what a character!" I guess.

So it would be like a Chinese-speaking guy coming here, as an adult, learning English well enough to pass for a native speaker, and THEN doing an impression of Boomhower. Or at least Hank Hill. Or for that matter, someone from remote Newfoundland. Or Chretien.

[bloobert.livejournal.com]

That would be funny. I'm guessing fluent Mandarin-speaking caucasians are more of a rarity there than fluent English-speaking Asians are here, though maybe I'm wrong. Maybe his name is a reference to his height?

[kamomil.livejournal.com]

Well Cantonese & Mandarin are right off the bat harder to learn because they have different tones to distinguish words that might otherwise be homonyms. We use tone to make a question out of a statement, they use tone to distinguish one word from another LOL

Mandarin has rising & falling tones, I think Cantonese has 5 different tones that are just on a range between high and low, and probably rising & falling tones as well.

I guess he is tall, dunno though about the name.

I guess cause English is more of an international language, people expect to have to learn it sometime, I guess China didn't have all that many fluent western speakers of mandarin in their midst. My friend did mission work in bangladesh for 2 years, and became fluent in the language, now she works in some social capacity in toronto, and I think she surprises the "locals" with her ability to wear a sari and speak bangla. ha ha ha. Heck, I get disoriented watching my brother speak Mandarin to his GF.

[bloobert.livejournal.com]

Neat, I didn't know that intonation is used to differentiate words in Mandarin and Cantonese. I'll ask Jeff about it... he knows a little of one or the other I think...