Cantonese Humour on Show in Chinatown

Sio and Mahbubani answered questions from the audience

Two Cantonese-speaking stand-up comics came to Vancouver and I watched them perform this afternoon at the Chinatown Storytelling Centre and had a good laugh listening to their humour.

Vivek Mahbubani is South Asian and born and raised in Hong Kong. Several years ago he was an anomaly because he speaks fluent Cantonese, and not only that, he won in the Cantonese category for Hong Kong's funniest person in 2007, and then in English the following year.

His jokes are mainly inspired by his experiences and observations as a South Asian living in Hong Kong. He still gets a lot of shocked expressions from locals when he opens his mouth. In his routine he started off by saying he went to eat at a cha chaan teng, and because it was busy, he had to share a table with a young couple.

Watched the Cantonese version of the show

Mahbubani looked at the menu and said, "Waiter can you take my order?" in Cantonese, to which the young woman across from him pointed and exclaimed, "You can speak!"

Her boyfriend tried to shut her up. "If he can speak then he can understand what you're saying!"

Another time he got into the MTR carriage and saw there were three seats in a row that were empty. He sat in the middle one -- and adds no one sat next to him because of racism. Ouch! But probably true.

Then two girls who were friends entered the carriage chatting, and then sat on either side of him and continued talking to each other as if he wasn't there. 

Then one said, "Hey this guy has a beard and hasn't shaved."

It's then that Mahbubani says this is when he waits to find the right moment to reveal that he understands what they're saying.

So he waited and then pulled out his phone and said, "Wei?"

And then added, "Yes I'm going to buy a shaver today."

He also gives the usual Hong Kong observations of how everyone stands on the right of the escalator so that those who are in a hurry can walk up the on the left. But there's always someone who insists on standing on the left, holding up the person behind (usually him). Time is money, right?

The other comedian is Joanna Sio, who grew up in Hong Kong too, went to UBC and is married to a Czech husband with two kids.

Both comedians are from Hong Kong

She started off by saying the couple decided early on not to learn their spouse's native language because you never know if you're going to divorce soon. But since they moved to the Czech Republic a few years ago she has learned for a year or so.

But most of her routine was about her growing up in a 400 sq ft flat with eight people in the family. Sio talked about how her father had a terrible temper and would take it out on... a watermelon.

"He knew kungfu -- from watching TV -- and would use his hand like a knife to chop the watermelon in half. We would watch and not say a word," she recalled.

Then one time he was really angry and took out a watermelon and Sio said they watched as his hand went down on the watermelon, but it didn't chop in half like usual. His hand was sore and retreated into his bedroom for hours.

"I was the only person who knew why he couldn't chop the watermelon in half. That's because I had put it in the freezer earlier."

She also talked about how they bought live chicken at the market, but didn't kill it right away. They waited a day or two to see if it was healthy. It was her grandmother who did the dirty deed. She would cradle the chicken in her left arm tightly and then cover its eyes before she used the cleaver to chop its neck and let the blood drain so that they could use it later for other dishes.

After several years, her grandmother was too old to kill chickens, so the task fell to Sio's mother -- who had never done it before. So she grabbed the chicken in her left arm, held it tight and covered its eyes. But she couldn't bring herself to kill it. "She said, "Kids we're not eating chicken tonight."

But because she was holding the chicken so tightly, it had died.

Many people in the audience were second generation Chinese-Canadian and told the comedians they could understand most of what they said, which was heartening for them to hear. One asked how Mahbubani got into comedy and he said it was because of the show Seinfeld.

He said the show opens with Jerry Seinfeld on a stage telling jokes and Mahbubani wondered what that was and how he could do that. He got into it in 2007, but had to do a lot of odd jobs to keep his dream alive. Now he can pick and choose which gigs he'd like to do.

Someone asked about the differences between comedy in English and Chinese. Mahbubani says in Chinese because of the fear of losing face, he never singles out people in the audience. Instead he talks about "we" or "I" when telling stories.

Sio says if people don't get her jokes she takes it personally and will rewrite them to try to improve. She admitted that she has a fear of speaking in front of an audience which is why she went into improv and then stand-up to build confidence. When her routine goes well it makes her very happy and gives her more confidence to speak in front of people!