Many Chinese people come up to me and ask if I know the famous foreigner - Da Shan.
I don't, but I've seen him on TV.
Here's what he's about:
1.
China's most famous foreigner
By Michael Bristow
BBC News, Beijing
Mark Rowswell, or Dashan
Dashan is known to hundreds of millions of Chinese people
The most famous foreigner in China is a household name in his adopted country, recognised by almost everyone.
But the Canadian can walk down the street in his home city of Toronto without anyone giving him a second look.
Dashan - a name that means "big mountain" in Chinese - has managed to achieve something other stars would pay millions for.
He can turn his celebrity status on and off: one day he is feted by millions, the next he is an ordinary family man.
Forty-three year-old Mark Rowswell, to give Dashan his English name, has been China's most famous foreigner for 20 years.
His fame is built on his now legendary ability to speak Mandarin Chinese better than many Chinese people.
He started studying Chinese in Canada, but it was only when he came to Beijing to further his studies in 1988 that he came to prominence.
That year, he performed a comic skit on national television in front of an estimated audience of 550 million people.
"I was in the right place at the right time," said Dashan, on a break from filming a TV series, a 52-episode show teaching foreigners how to speak Chinese.
"You'd seen foreigners in entertainment before, but they usually played the bad guy getting their heads kicked in in a kung fu movie or an evil imperialist."
'Next-door neighbour'
Dashan built on his initial success, hosting television shows, acting, endorsing products and mastering "crosstalk".
Mark Rowswell, or Dashan, pictured on set with a colleague
Dashan has established a successful career in the entertainment industry
This is a form of Chinese stand-up comedy in which actors amaze audiences with their verbal dexterity.
Most Chinese people cannot master "crosstalk", let alone foreigners.
Since then, Mark Rowswell has successfully marketed his alter ego - Dashan, the inoffensive foreigner who looks like the guy next door.
"The image of Dashan is a collective thing that's built up over 20 years," he said, referring to himself in the third person.
"The image is not that of an idol. It's very much your next-door neighbour image. I don't live the life of a celebrity."
That life sees Dashan spend about half the year in Toronto with his Chinese wife and two children, and half the year working in Beijing.
He makes about six or seven trips to the Chinese capital every year. While in Beijing, he tries to cram in as much work as possible.
One of his more recent projects was acting in the Chinese adaptation of a French play called The Dinner Game.
Acceptability
But whatever he does, Mr Rowswell is keen to avoid being labelled as just another foreigner who speaks good Chinese.
"If people want to hire Dashan then we can talk about that, but if they're only looking for a foreigner who speaks Chinese, than I'm not interested," he explained.
There are now many foreigners in China who speak excellent Chinese, but somehow Dashan is the only one who has nationwide recognition.
In order to achieve that, Mark Rowswell appears to have emphasised Dashan's blandness, his acceptability to ordinary Chinese people.
"Some foreigners say I'm too soft, that there's no edge to Dashan," he said, citing his refusal to get drawn into political issues.
But he added: "The whole Western perception of China is so heavily politicised that it's important for some of us to say politics isn't everything."
Such diplomatic language is the reason why Dashan will probably remain popular in China for some time to come.
2. The Star
Always a foreigner in China, but not necessarily an outsider
TARA WALTON/TORONTO STAR
Mark Rowswell is a Canadian comedian who is China's best-known performer, with a massive television audience for his famous character, "Dashan."
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Jul 11, 2007 04:30 AM
A weekly feature that asks Canadian expatriates what it's like living abroad. Mark Rowswell is a Canadian comedian who is China's best-known performer, with a massive television audience for his famous character, "Dashan."
Q: Why on earth - and where on earth - did you go?
A: I'm currently in Shanghai, playing a lead role in a Chinese version of a French play, Le dîner de cons (The Dinner Game in English). My co-star and I both play French characters in a story set in Paris, although he is a Beijinger and I'm an anglo Canadian. It doesn't really matter, because we're all performing in Chinese.
This is just the latest project I've undertaken in a 20-year career as a freelance performer in China. Actually, I prefer the term "cultural ambassador" because it's so vague and the veneer of prestige it brings helps disguise the fact that you really don't have a job, just a series of interesting and often bizarre projects that somehow all fit together and form a career.
Q: What's your favourite thing to do, or your most satisfying moment?
A: I love performing on stage, as most actors do, because the audience is right there and the response is so honest and immediate. This play is particularly interesting, because I'm the only foreign actor, yet everyone seems to think we all blend in together. It's this kind of moment that is most satisfying for my alter-ego "Dashan" - the moments where you transcend nationality or ethnicity and are simply treated as yourself. Especially in China, where traditional concepts of "us" and "them" are so strong, it's a tremendous reward to see people having so much trouble deciding which category you belong in.
Q: Do you feel like an outsider, and how do you cope?
You always feel like a foreigner in China, but not necessarily an outsider. People have watched "Dashan" on their TV screens for so long that they accept "him" as part of the local scene here. Yes, Dashan is Caucasian; yes, Dashan is from Canada; but in some ways "he" belongs in China. To most TV viewers, Dashan is like a good friend or close neighbour; it just happens that he comes from the other side of the planet... I think the deciding factor, however, is whether or not you treat yourself as an outsider. Do you resign yourself to living the artificial life of an expat, or do you truly engage in the local environment and make it your home, if only on a temporary basis?
Q: Do you still see the world through Canadian eyes?
A: I'm not sure what "Canadian eyes" are. Sure, I've changed and grown as a person. There are parts of my personality that have been shaped by China, yet I'm still as Canadian as I've ever been. I think one of our greatest assets is the lack of a strong national identity. I have to go back four generations to find an ancestor who wasn't born in Canada, but I have no clearer idea of what it means to be a Canadian than anyone else. Any attempt to define some set of "shared values" that encompass all Canadians inevitably ends up including all of humanity.That's the great thing about Canada.
Q: What could keep you abroad forever?
A: Why do we assume that living and working abroad has to have a clear beginning and end? I maintain a permanent base in Beijing, yet I live in Toronto. From Toronto it takes less time for me to fly to China than it does to drive to visit family in the Maritimes. Sure, I always miss things about the place I left two weeks ago, whether it be in Canada or China, but I always know that I'll be back there again in another two weeks.
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