Broad-shouldered and lanky, Chizi makes a dramatic impression. A few days before the show, he shaved his famous dreadlocks. But when he took the stage in an oversized white T-shirt, black pants and white and red Nike sneakers, the nervousness was still visible. He forgot a few lines. He stopped awkwardly several times. Later, on social media, he apologized for what he considered his poor performance. “I could do better,” he wrote. The audience didn’t seem to mind. People laughed and laughed and applauded.
He talked mostly about his childhood – teachers who humiliated him for disrupting classes, a mother who loved him and hit him, being an exception in a country that tolerated neither curiosity nor individuality. The material was personal, even tender at times. Political references were sprinkled throughout, but they were subtle.
Then, near the end of the series, he referred to Mr. Xi, China’s supreme leader, as indirectly “the husband of Peng Liyuan,” the folk singer who was once far more famous than her husband. Several women in front of me who were laughing and clapping suddenly stopped. Speaking unfavorably about Mr. Xi is the ultimate taboo in China. To reduce it to his domestic relationship at a public event was shocking.
After the show we sat down to chat. He chose his words carefully. When I relayed a friend’s criticism – similar to that of others online – that he seemed to have taken a shot at Xi Jinping, he laughed. “It’s not meant to satisfy you,” he said. The choice he made on stage was deliberate.
Free speech is a tool, he told me. The temptation is to use it just because you can. “It’s exhilarating,” he said. But that, he added, can be a trap, and chasing approval is a form of corruption in itself, as dangerous to comedy as censorship itself.
