What events did the United States experience in the process of realizing the American dream?

Huang struggled from a child in rural China to become a doctor of biology in the United States, and a typical American dream came true. However, this China immigrant doctor broke into a place of American talk show with his strong northeast accent English. This story was praised by Luo Yonghao as "the most insidious American dream story in history", which has given many people new inspiration in contemporary times.

Reporter/Writer Wang Yueyang/Liu Shengji

Thin black-rimmed glasses, thin face, a purple short-sleeved T-shirt with jeans, a little casual. When Huang An sat there quietly, it seemed that he was just a slightly dull science and engineering student. But when he spoke with a smile, the whole meeting was lit up by him. "Why are your teeth so white?" A Fudan University student asked in Huang's speech. Huang smiled even harder and made no secret of his big white teeth: "Yes, I washed my teeth, because if your teeth are not white during the performance, it will distract the audience."

In the early winter, Huang came to Shanghai to promote his autobiography, The Yellow of Cucumber, The West of Watermelon, and attended the first speech of a series of public welfare actions of "Life is Different" at Fudan University. At the beginning of the interactive session, the audience could not wait to raise their hands. The host Luo Xin said to Huang, "First of all, please ask Huang to answer the questions of netizens." "Do you think netizens are more important than the audience present?" The voice did not fall, and the audience was boiling.

Two turning points in life

Looking through Huang's autobiography, you will find it difficult to associate him with a master's degree from China Academy of Sciences and a doctor's degree in biochemistry from Rice University in Texas.

"When I was in elementary school, I stole my father's wine. After drinking, I was dizzy and stared at the school all day. " Huang didn't like the school atmosphere since he was a child, and he ignored the teacher's teaching. It is more common to be absent from class for a week in a row. Of the 300 students in the whole grade, only 180 can be mixed.

"The teacher told my father: Your son is stupid and slow. But my dad never said that about me. He always said to me,' You are actually very smart. If you work hard, you will catch up. "It wasn't until Huang went to college that his father told him. In fact, before the college entrance examination, the teacher had long predicted that Huang couldn't go to college. Huang's father secretly found him a job in Banshi Iron Mine behind his back. The specific task is to send coal into the pot with a shovel. "After listening to it, I thought, Wow, my dad's back door is quite hard!" Huang was quite calm when he said it, but the reporters at the scene couldn't "calm down" and couldn't help laughing.

In the second year of high school, Huang's life took a turning point. A caring teacher became his head teacher. "I was still absent from school at first, and then Teacher Yang asked me to' make a penalty'. I feel nothing at ordinary times, but this time I am facing Teacher Yang, who has been very kind to me. I feel guilty. " Huang wrote in the book. He began to work hard, attended more classes and his grades soared. "I used to play around, but since then, I want to be a science professor in the future." Huang is really a genius. One year later, he was admitted to Jilin University, and after graduation, he was admitted to Chinese Academy of Sciences with the first place. "At that time, many senior students specially touched my dormitory and wanted to see what this person who took the first place in the country looked like." Huang said with a smile.

In his sixth year in the United States, Huang's life ushered in a second turning point. A colleague took him to the American Crosstalk Hall to watch a talk show. He couldn't take his eyes off it at first sight. When he was in college, he often wrote some jokes. Huang signed up for a joke writing class and immediately decided to learn to write by himself. At that time, he worked as a laboratory researcher in a gene company in Cambridge during the day, and performed stand-up crosstalk in bars, nightclubs, clubs and university auditoriums at night, which was very hard.

The first performance was unsuccessful. The talk show circle in the United States has always been very cold to newcomers. Newcomers must "bring their own two viewers" to enter the stage. "I just pulled passers-by on the street and told them that there was a talk show, provided that I told the people inside that you came to Huang and finally pulled two." In 2002, Huang performed on stage for the first time, but his burden did not ring after he took the stage. People pay more attention to sports competitions on TV, which makes him "hurt". Later, an audience came up to him and said, "Your jokes may be interesting, but I can't understand what you are saying." Later, Huang realized that his jokes did not conform to the American cultural background. After constant running-in and trial lectures, he finally found the key to the success of the talk show.

20 10 Huang won the national comedy festival competition. That day, when the game was over, Huang braved the snowstorm and drove home, thinking about his journey all the way. "This is very interesting. I'm from China, thousands of miles away, and I won the National Crosstalk Competition in a city in central America. There are almost no Asians in this city. " Today, these photos marked with yellow names are displayed in a museum in this city.

An interest, a mission.

Mr. Huang feels that engaging in scientific research seems to be an escape from life. He doesn't have to think too much about the meaning of life and philosophical problems, just need to work hard in the laboratory. Although Huang realized his childhood dream in the United States and got a high-paying and stable job, he always felt empty in his heart. "When I was doing scientific research, my work unit and Harvard University had a cooperation project, which made me find that many people in China had served as professors at Harvard University. There is no shortage of China people in the American scientific community, and stand-up comedy lacks China people. " Huang vaguely seems to see a new sky.

In addition to his interest, Huang also wants to eliminate American prejudice against China people with a sense of humor. "Many Americans think that China people have no sense of humor, and I want to try to break their understanding. In college, I showed my American classmates some jokes I wrote. They think it's wonderful, but what's even more surprising is that China people are funny, too? ! "When the reporter asked if this sense of mission made him extremely powerful, Huang said with a smile that he dared not use such a big word as" mission ".

As the only Asian actor in The David Lekman Show, Huang also has a deep desire to let more Americans know the story of the first generation of China immigrants to the United States through his performance. "Many contributions of China immigrants' life experience in the United States have been ignored." Having said that, Huang had a hint of majesty in his always relaxed tone when interviewed by reporters. Most of his stand-up comedy involves immigrant life, which has never been a topic in the history of American talk shows.

"I used to drive a used car with a lot of stickers, and I couldn't tear it off. One of them reads: "If you can't speak English, go home!" " I didn't know what it meant until two years later. "Huang's classic joke made America stagger with laughter.

20 10, at the annual meeting of American journalists, as the hottest talk show artist of the year, Huang Xi boarded the podium and presented a stand-up crosstalk feast for the whole world. In less than an hour, he teased Biden, commented on the presidential election and talked about the interesting life of immigrants. Almost a minute later, the audience will burst into laughter. At this moment, this humble China glasses man has been included in the wonderful work of the world laughing forest. In Fudan's speech, Huang said: "As an Asian, standing on such a high platform, I feel very excited and proud to be able to cheer for China people's life experience in the United States for hundreds of years." The audience cried applause for a long time.

Unique style and proud smile.

In the United States, a successful talk show should meet three criteria: well-written jokes, good eloquence on the stage, unique style and unique skills. Huang's jokes reflect the life of immigrants in China, involving all aspects of daily life, and also involving some Americans' ridicule and satire on China immigrants. China is said to read several newspapers every day and collect materials about his Shanghai style online, but Huang said that he doesn't read newspapers so often, occasionally goes online and rarely writes jokes about news and things online, because such jokes won't last long.

The time spent on scientific research in America is not wasted. On the contrary, it was this experience that gave Huang a profound understanding of American culture and its core value system. Huang combined his own life experience and finally created China stand-up comedy, which was deeply loved by American audiences. "During that time, I want to take care of two careers. I am very busy. I often write jokes in my spare time and insist on it for at least 20 minutes every day. It was a difficult but happy time. " Since last summer, Huang has been doing stand-up comedy full-time. Now 465,438+0 years old, talked for nine years. Recalling the hard work of that year, Huang is still excited.

In terms of eloquence, Huang's "colored English" with a northeast accent is obviously not comparable to that of an artist with a pure American accent. Huang said that in the United States, talking about talk shows in his poor English means "attacking others with his own shortcomings." Huang said that his accent is difficult to change and self-confidence is the most important thing.

Indeed, Huang's accent did not detract from the performance. On the contrary, this is a blessing in disguise. Some people think that it is this exotic pronunciation that attracts American audiences, but Huang himself seems to disagree with this view. A college student asked Huang, "Does anyone laugh at your English pronunciation in America?" Huang smiled and replied, "Generally, only China people will laugh at my pronunciation."

Huang's stand-up comedy is also unique, because every joke is very short, and the audience won't laugh until a second or two after he finishes a sentence. This kind of "yellow style" contains ingenious logical thinking, which requires the audience to try a little to understand, and it is also one of the manifestations of the taste of yellow jokes.

Speaking of stand-up crosstalk, people always like to compare China's and Huang's. It is difficult to compare these three levels. Huang also expressed his high appreciation in his Weibo, and his style is closer to him. Zhou Libo, who has been influenced by Shanghai culture for decades, has profound thoughts on the psychology of Shanghainese and an accurate grasp of the tastes of southerners. Degang Guo, on the other hand, conquered the northern audience with its profound traditional cross talk and language charm.

Huang is neither a native American nor a unique innate condition of Shanghainese to create a "Shanghai style" to express American humor. He also became a monk at the age of 32, and since he was a child, he didn't have the crosstalk skills trained by Degang Guo from famous teachers. So, why is Huang popular? In addition to his own cultural accomplishment, it is his integration of Chinese and western cultures. His success is also the creation of the times. The choice of history.

It has also been pointed out that although Huang's cross talk is deeply loved by American audiences, this "American humor" can't poke the jokes of China audiences. In a previous speech in Beijing, some classic jokes performed by Huang were not so popular in the United States. At this point, Huang seems to have some "hard wounds"

Huang seldom creates some Chinese jokes, but only translates his English jokes into Chinese. "I will pay attention to changing or deleting something that is too American. If I do the same stand-up comedy in China, I will definitely take the cultural elements of China as the theme. " But Huang doesn't seem to have a long-term plan to develop talk shows in China.

In fact, it is understandable that Huang's jokes didn't catch the punch line of China audience. Due to the different cultural backgrounds and contexts between China and the United States, jokes permeated with folk proverbs and historical allusions will also choose the soil for their growth. In China, there are still differences between the north and the south, not to mention different countries.

Huang wrote in his book: Humor is the best way to face the imperfection of life. As Huang said, "culture and context will be different, but sense of humor has no national boundaries." Good jokes always bring people spiritual enjoyment and physical relaxation.

Try to live.

Besides talking about cross talk, Huang started writing plays at the end of last year and cooperated with other sitcom scriptwriters. Because of Huang's popularity and in-depth understanding of immigrant life, some organizers of sitcoms took the initiative to find Huang, hoping to hand over the living conditions of the first generation of immigrants in the plot to Huang for creation. In the future, Huang hopes to independently create a script that shows the history of the first generation of immigrants in the United States. "I hope to gradually play my own role in film and television dramas and dub the anime characters I created." At this point, your eyes lit up.

It takes different time to write a movie script and talk to Huang. "It is enough to write a paragraph for two hours every day, because it is more important to go to the club to practice after writing the paragraph. But writing takes several times as long. At the crucial time, I wrote 12 to 14 hours. "

In China, there is a tradition that disciples are taught by famous artists, but Huang has no plans in this respect. There is no such tradition in America. Although both in the United States and after returning home, some people offered to worship him as a teacher and declined Huang. "It's better to go to the Crosstalk Hall to practice by yourself." Huang was also influenced by some excellent crosstalk masters, but he never formally studied under the teacher, which made his stand-up crosstalk unique and irreplaceable.

"Learn by yourself and try to do everything that may be useful. You may take more detours than others, but what you explore will be more real and pure. One day, you will create your own style. " Huang said this when pointing out the future life of young people.

"Nietzsche has a saying: not knowing how to live is the best life." Huang repeated this sentence twice in his speech that day. Regarding how young people should choose the future development direction, Huang Xiru said: "It is normal for young people to be confused about the future. Don't be too nervous and disappointed because of temporary gains and losses. Only by constantly trying will you really understand what you want. " Huang changed the direction of life several times, and it was in constant attempts that he finally heard the voice in his heart. "The inner voice may be weak, but we must look for it carefully. Every attempt is a process of listening. For a profession, if you don't want to do it again after trying many times and failing, you may have auditory hallucinations this time. If you fail and don't want to give up, congratulations, you heard the voice. " Huang said:

Huang struggled from a child in rural China to become a doctor of biology in the United States, and a typical American dream came true. However, this China immigrant doctor broke into a place of American talk show with his strong northeast accent English. This story is praised by Luo Yonghao as "the most insidious American dream story in history", which has given many people new inspiration in contemporary times.