BY QINGBING CHEN
*Editor’s note: The following story was a runner-up in our first ever annual NüStories personal essay contest. This year’s theme was Chinese identity – read more here.
While not gaining laughs could be an unfavorable jinx to most stand-up comedians whose careers feed on the audience’s laughs, the snubbed reaction to Shiyuan, a female comedian from Chengdu, China, could mean a victory.
“At the beginning, I did feel embarrassed that people don’t understand my jokes. But then, after talking with other female comedians who shared similar experiences, I thought I cannot just be defeated by this embarrassment,” said Shiyuan, whose name means 10 yuan (1.2 euros) in Chinese. She chose this stage name because one ticket to her comedy club’s open mic costs 10 yuan.
The humor of Chinese female comedians has experienced a bumpy journey since the introduction of this art form in 2016. A typical example is that after Yang Li, one of the most popular female performers in China, said that men are so ordinary, but so confident, in a stand-up comedy show in 2020, she faced intense cancel culture that continues even today.
The ripple effects of Yang’s controversy have also reached bottom-tier female comedians like Shiyuan, even though Shiyuan’s content barely involves men. Despite this, Shiyuan’s boldness and audacity to talk about menstruation on stage stirred quite a reaction, with some audience members mentioning her on social media and labeling her as a radical feminist. For this reason, she has shut down her social media accounts for years.
“Don’t people find it strange and ironic? When our vaginas are used to give birth, it’s considered great and noble. But when our vaginas are menstruating, it’s seen as obscene and dirty?” Shiyuan asked. “What’s this? Schrödinger’s pussy?”
While some female audiences once messaged their support for her, most of the time, the audience remained deadly silent, staring at her with cold and sharp disdain and loathing. According to Shiyuan, these audiences, both men and women, didn’t walk away, didn’t transfer their attention to phones, and didn’t laugh. They just locked their eyes upon her eyes so hard and tried to wrestle her down mentally by this intense eye contact.
“They cannot stand the fact that a girl can talk about these things so openly and loudly, especially a girl like me,” said Shiyuan, who has short hair and doesn’t present herself in a conventional “girly” way.
However, these intense gazes didn’t intimidate Shiyuan; instead, they became a war trophy for her. Silence is not embarrassment, but a result of her challenging their stereotypes with words and flexing her power as an “abnormal” girl.
“If they stare at me, I stare back. While some comedians don’t dare to look directly into the audience’s eyes, I deliberately observe their reactions, eye to eye,” said Shiyuan. “Sometimes, I say to myself, ‘Let’s see how choking today will be.’”
Shiyuan is not the only female comedian who grinds a female being’s uneasiness and confusion about this word into a humorous context. During last year’s two online stand-up comedy shows in China, lots of female comedians humorized their life dilemmas, such as period shame, being forced to get married, living in a family that prefers men, body shame, and so on.
As a result, the combination of producing humor and delivering views has drawn criticism, such as comments like “It’s not funny,” “Women always talk about the same topics,” and “They should go to TED, not stand-up comedy.”
“I don’t think women’s jokes are not funny. People don’t find them funny because they’ve never experienced what we’ve gone through. Once I told this joke in a set with a mostly female audience, they laughed so hard,” said Shiyuan. “So I believe the viewpoints should be kept in women’s jokes. If these audiences don’t understand, I will keep talking until they do.”
“I respect your attitude. You are so brave,” said Xiaolu, a famous Chinese female stand-up comedian, after Xiaolu listened to an opening delivered by Shiyuan after her own headliner show. “I could have done that years ago, but now I cannot.”
However, even though this mild-approach comedian still faced online attacks for joking about her wedding and her Australian husband on TV shows, some feminist audiences bombarded Xiaolu for trying to show off her husband, even though her jokes actually belittled his importance in the wedding preparation. Some commenters said, “If you don’t like him, you don’t need to get married. Your mockery only reveals how much you degrade yourself to love him.”
Later, in another broadcast with Lu Yu, a famous Chinese journalist, Xiaolu cried as she mentioned that she didn’t know how to present herself in public now and feared more online attacks.
“Honestly, I think sometimes female audiences are too harsh on female comedians. Women’s liberation doesn’t need to follow one single mode. We should let women choose to lead any kind of life they want. Xiaolu is a very good comedian and she talked about periods and gender inequality in her offline shows too. She shouldn’t bear the brunt of this battle between feminism and misogyny just because of a cut from a TV show,” said Huxiao, a veteran stand-up comedy enthusiast.
So how should female comedians do? Aggressive like Shiyuan, or mild like Xiaolu?
One challenges conservative people, and the other unsettles progressive unity. While either way has mines and could yield an unexpected exploration, they both prove that humor is not something to simply laugh off, but a power that can stir up a counterforce.
While comedians are the ones who release this power, sometimes they also cannot control it and don’t know what has happened. Even though Shiyuan seems willing to plunge herself into this fight, at the beginning, she was also shocked to discover that talking about menstruation could set off a bomb.
“It’s the 21st century, and people still can’t talk about periods?” said Shiyuan. “I guess I was also narrow-minded that I didn’t realize how big the world is. Even though I and the people around me can talk about sex, periods, and queerness very easily, a large group of people out there still can’t.”
But aren’t you really afraid of this hostility?
No, because only their deadly silence can prove that they are actually stepping into a battlefield I created. I enjoy this power on stage, putting I and them together. We are equal counterparts, looking each other in the eyes and trying to overthrow each other by our own worldviews. This is not a bad thing, but a thorny yet promising start.
Will you keep doing comedy in the future?
I don’t see any reason not to.
Photo: Shiyuan’s Comedy Club “The Noise” (Guozai Xiju) in Chengdu, China, taken by Qingbing Chen.
About the author
Qingbing Chen: I’m a journalist, comedian, writer, poet and someone who thrives on new experiences. I hold a BA in English from Sichuan International Studies University and a Master’s in Journalism from Renmin University of China. Currently, I’m pursuing a second Master’s in Anthropology at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium. I spent four years working as a journalist for Xinhua News Agency in Chongqing, where I covered stories mainly on urban upgrading, youth culture, disabled groups, coffee culture, and rural development. Throughout my career, I’ve written over 500 bilingual news pieces and developed a strong ability to craft features and profiles.
In addition to journalism, I am also a bilingual stand-up comedian, performing in both China and Belgium. I use humor as a tool to explore sensitive topics like gender and cultural identity, creating connections across cultures. Along the way, I’ve worked as a barista, waitress, tour guide, and teacher—each role offering new perspectives and a deeper understanding of different people and cultures. These diverse experiences have shaped my interests and broadened my worldview, and I’m always excited to see where my journey takes me next.