Dashan
Mark Henry Rowswell, CM, known by his Chinese stage name Dashan, is a Canadian performer and television personality who gained prominence in China. He became known in the late 1980s through regular appearances on China Central Television, particularly in the traditional comedic art form xiangsheng. Although less publicly visible in Canada, he developed a significant presence in Chinese media as a non-Chinese national working in domestic programming. Since 2012, he has shifted his focus toward solo performances in live venues and has contributed to the development of the stand-up comedy scene in China.
Biography
Education
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, Rowswell 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. 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.
Early television appearances
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" 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 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.
Xiangsheng
Following Rowswell's first appearance as "Dashan", he began formal study of xiangsheng with his mentor, comedian Jiang Kun. 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.1990–2012
''CCTV New Year's Gala''
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.Dashan's public xiangsheng performances decreased in the early 21st century. 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 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 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.
Television host
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 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.
Dramatic acting
Dashan has occasionally delved into dramatic acting, often to portray other famous foreigners in Chinese history. 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 2006 and 2007, Dashan performed the lead role in Red Star Over China, a stage play based on the life and work of the American reporter Edgar Snow. In 2007 and 2008 he starred in a Chinese stage adaptation of the French comedy Le Dîner de Cons, which toured across China and for which he was awarded the prestigious White Magnolia Award for best supporting actor.Beijing Olympics
Dashan served as team attaché to the Canadian Olympic Committee for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.Cultural ambassador
In many instances, Dashan has transcended the role of celebrity performer to become a cultural ambassador between China and the West, both in an informal as well as official capacity.Dashan served as Commissioner General for Canada at the Shanghai 2010 World Expo.
During his official visit to China in February 2012, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced: "For many years Mark Rowswell has used his extraordinary talents to build bridges of understanding between Canada and China. I am pleased to name this highly recognized and respected individual as Canada's Goodwill Ambassador to China."
Current work
In recent years Dashan has largely turned away from television to focus on solo performances in live venues and on social media.Dashan Live
Since 2012 Dashan has been "on a mission to introduce stand-up comedy to China", performing in small clubs and at universities across China. In June 2014 he announced his plan to develop a travelling show, the Burned Out, Washed Up, Never Say Farewell tour.This later became known as his solo comedy special Dashan Live, which he has toured throughout China and to Chinese communities abroad.
In 2015, Dashan performed at the Flushing Comedy Club, a temporary Chinese comedy club in Flushing, Queens set up in a teahouse by Des Bishop. The club alternated all-Mandarin and all-English comedy nights; Dashan performed during the first all-Mandarin night.
In May 2016, after local officials in Suzhou shut down one of his shows, he considered leaving China for good. In 2017 Dashan was the only Mandarin performer at the 2017 Melbourne International Comedy Festival, the third-largest international comedy festival in the world.
Dashan considers his stand-up as a mix of Western stand-up and Chinese xiangsheng. In 2022, he launched another show titled Dashan’s Comedy Friends, a nearly two-hour program featuring a variety of Chinese-language comedic performances. Dashan’s Comedy Friends has been performed in Toronto, Canada; at the Silicomedy show in Silicon Valley, USA; and in a special performance in Vancouver, Canada. Local performers have also been invited to join him on stage and collaborate in the creation of the show.
Narration
Dashan's distinctive voice has been featured in many Mandarin language narration and spoken word performances, including the children's story Guess How Much I Love You as performed by Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia, Peter and the Wolf as performed by the New York Philharmonic in Shanghai, an original Mandarin version of The Carnival of the Animals, performed with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and modern Chinese poetry for the popular WeChat channel "The Poem For You".On June 29, 2011, the National Gallery of Canada launched an audio tour that was recorded by Dashan. The tour features Dashan speaking in Mandarin about the gallery's Canadian art collection.
In 2024, Dashan returned to China to participate in the adaptation of Stephen King's The Shawshank Redemption directed by Zhang Guoli, playing the role of "Red", the narrator of the story. When asked about the play’s sensitive themes, he said, "Sure, it’s about a corrupt system that makes you think you’re trapped and you’ll never get out. But really, it’s mostly about hope. What’s wrong with that?"