Dashan

Dashan's public xiangsheng performances decreased in the early 21st century.

Mark Henry Rowswell, CM (born May 23, 1965), better known by his Chinese stage name Dashan, is a Canadian comedian, xiangsheng performer, and television personality popular in China.

Rowswell was born in 1965 in Ottawa, Ontario, and attended Nepean High School.

He started learning Chinese in 1979 from a refugee that he worked alongside in a camera store on Bank Street.

After learning a few words, Roswell bought books and cassettes teaching the language.

Rowswell enrolled at the University of Toronto, initially to study philosophy, because his parents preferred that he study abroad in China if he wanted to learn Chinese.

However, Rowswell switched to formally studying Chinese early on as an undergraduate.

His original Chinese name, as given by his Canadian Chinese-language teacher, was Lu Shiwei based on his surname Rowswell.

Relatively unknown in the West, from the late 1980s through the early 2000s Dashan was one of the most famous Western personalities in China's media industry, where he occupied a unique position as a foreign national who had become a domestic celebrity, largely through his repeated appearances on China Central Television (CCTV) during that period.

Upon graduation from the University of Toronto with a Bachelor of Arts in Chinese studies in 1988, Rowswell was easily able to secure an exchange position with a full scholarship at Peking University to continue his Chinese studies.

Rowswell first appeared on Chinese television to co-host an international singing competition later in 1988.

The producers wanted a foreigner with fluent Mandarin, and selected Rowswell from a field of candidates partly because of his Chinese studies degree from the University of Toronto.

Afterwards, he was invited to perform a comedic skit on national television during the CCTV New Year's Gala, a variety program broadcast to an estimated audience of 550 million people by the state broadcaster.

Rowswell portrayed a sassy peasant with a no-nonsense wife during the skit, which was called Ye gui.

The name "Dashan" ("big mountain" in Chinese) was the name of his character in the skit, Xu Dashan.

The skit propelled him to national stardom overnight because of his fluent Chinese and delivery.

After the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, as many Westerners in China left as sanctions were applied, Dashan decided to stay in China and continue his career on state television.

In December 1989, Dashan became the first foreigner to be formally accepted into the strict xiangsheng hierarchy as a member of the "9th generation", a move that caused considerable controversy in Chinese performing arts circles at the time.

Xiangsheng is often called "the art of comedic language", and as such is regarded in China as a highly skilled form of performing art beyond the reach of most native speakers, much less a foreigner.

Through the 1990s, Dashan appeared frequently on national and regional television programs across China to perform xiangsheng and comedic skits, including several appearances on CCTV's annual television program celebrating the Chinese New Year, CCTV New Year's Gala, in 1998 and 1999.

This program is China's most watched annual television event, with an estimated audience of 900 million to 1 billion viewers.

Appearances on this and other programs gained Dashan wide recognition throughout China.

With the move away from xiangsheng, throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s Dashan increasingly worked in a non-comedic role as a freelance host or presenter of many varied television programs and live events, especially those with an international focus and requiring a bilingual (English/Chinese) emcee.

Dashan also hosted numerous educational programs.

Most notable of these include the ESL series Dashan and Friends and Dashan's Adventures and programs teaching Chinese as a foreign language for CCTV International, including Travel In Chinese.

Dashan has occasionally delved into dramatic acting, often to portray other famous foreigners in Chinese history.

In a 2005 interview with the Chongqing Evening News, Dashan stated that he seldom performs xiangsheng due to the increased requirements that performers stick to a stipulated topic as well as exceeding audience expectations since his televised debut.

In 2005, he played the lead role in a 24-part television series Palace Artist broadcast by China Central Television, as the 18th-century Italian Jesuit painter Giuseppe Castiglione.

In early 2009 Dashan made a return to the CCTV New Year's Gala to perform a xiangsheng skit in which he appeared together with Ma Dong, son of the famous xiangsheng master Ma Ji.

The skit received 2nd Prize in the audience choice awards announced at the end of the Chinese New Year holiday.

With this performance, Dashan became (at the time) the only foreign national to have appeared on the CCTV New Year's Gala a total of three times.

Dashan made a fourth appearance on the CCTV New Year's Gala in 2011, in a skit introducing and performing with several foreign students studying Chinese at Confucius Institutes.

The skit had no accompanied Chinese performers and was awarded second prize in the audience choice awards.

Since 2012 Dashan has largely turned away from mainstream media to focus on solo performances in live venues, helping to introduce stand-up comedy to China.

In a 2016 interview with The Globe and Mail, he called the decision "the original sin of Dashan", but also theorized that it defined him to his Chinese audience as a true friend in contrast to the fairweather friends who left.

Due to the abrupt nature of Dashan's rise to fame, he has been called an "accidental celebrity".

However, his subsequent longevity and continuing prominence in the Chinese media more than two decades later suggest something more substantial.

Many foreign nationals appear regularly on Chinese television, and foreigners fluent in the Chinese language are no longer a rarity.

Yet no other foreign national has come close to the level of recognition and popularity in China enjoyed by Dashan.

Following Rowswell's first appearance as "Dashan", he began formal study of xiangsheng with his mentor, comedian Jiang Kun.