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author | nanfengchuang reporter xiao yao

a while ago, talk show actor xiao lu went to get a manicure and heard two young female shop assistants chatting. one of them said, "nails are a woman's second face." another said, "i recently heard another saying that except for the first face, women have a second face everywhere."

this statement comes from a joke xiaolu told on stage before. but she remained silent and was not recognized.

for stand-up comedians, their voices and texts may be remembered and recognized before the people themselves. occasionally, people recognize xiaolu in public places, but not many, "mainly because i am too vegetarian." xiaolu usually doesn't wear makeup and dresses casually. there were a few times when her voice was recognized first and then she responded, "this is xiaolu, the one who talks about talk shows."

in september, the talk show, which had been dormant for nearly a year, made a comeback. in the stand-up comedy competition show "king of comedy stand-up season", xiaolu wore a white wedding dress on stage, "wearing it to get married, and wearing it to curse others." she told two jokes about her wedding, in which she was "all over the place" but her australian husband "had no idea what was going on".

screenshots from "king of comedy stand-up season"

amidst the thunderous laughter, the deer also laughed. the wedding was this summer, but the relationship has lasted seven years so far, and she doesn't really mean to complain about the marriage. she told nan feng chuang.

i met xiaolu on a rainy day in early autumn in beijing. near noon, the originally agreed coffee shop started to get a little noisy. i originally wanted to switch to another restaurant, but when xiaolu arrived, he saw that i had already ordered a cup of coffee and felt that "it cannot be wasted", so he asked the clerk to bring two mats to the window sill facing the street outside the store. we sat down facing the wet fallen leaves and the few pedestrians on monday morning. two girls passed by us, slowed down and glanced in the direction of the deer, then walked away while jostling each other and laughing. they recognized the deer.

xiaolu was born in yunnan in 1991. before becoming a talk show actress, she worked as a law student for seven years. after graduation, xiaolu came to beijing and began to get involved in offline talk shows. it was not until "qi pa shu season 7" in 2020 that she became known to more people as a debate contestant.

xiaolu at the scene of qi pa shuo

talk show actors often mine material from personal experience. even the smallest bump in reality may spark sparks in comedy. xiaolu talks about makeup and age anxiety, the absurdity and shame during gynecological examinations, and modern people’s phobia of telephones... laughter is a softening of pain. xiaolu said: "not all negative emotions can be written into jokes, but jokes almost always come from negative emotions."

comedy is a very inclusive creation. real-life embarrassment, anger, and confusion can all be wrapped in a lightweight, humorous shell. good talk show actors are often good at making daily routines precise and unfamiliar, reaching a connection with the audience and forming a healthy confrontation with the world.

among the talk show actors we are familiar with, xiaolu is a relatively calm-looking being. but chatting with her, you can immediately feel the stable energy radiating from her body. whether it is the "relaxation" that is popular today, or the vitality that is blown away by the sun after being swept away by the big waves, the deer is funny, but more importantly, it can bring real happiness and thinking to people.

"comedy is tolerable tragedy"

on the way to meet xiaolu, i ran into her husband thomas - the protagonist of the two talk shows about weddings a while ago - in an alley after the rain. he was walking his dog in casual football uniforms. i recognized the black teddy, which appeared in xiaolu’s weibo post the day before.

three months ago, xiaolu held two weddings. one in beijing and one in my hometown of yunnan. she organized the entire wedding by herself, from trying on wedding dresses and shoes to preparing souvenirs and invitations... she had been busy for almost a year. as the wedding day approached, xiaolu suddenly discovered that most things were her own. done. at the wedding in my hometown of yunnan, chaos and cultural collision were brought to the table.

xiaolu’s australian mother-in-law was sitting with her family, but the yunnan fellow was busy packing the meals. xiaolu's father originally wanted her to perform a five-minute talk show at the wedding, "fortunately he didn't agree, otherwise the marriage wouldn't have been completed."

xiaolu stood on the stage and said sonorously, "my marriage can fail, but my wedding can't."

is that really the case? no, quite the opposite.

"although it sounds like i am expressing my displeasure, the bottom line is that we love each other, and we entered into marriage because of our love."

before the wedding, xiaolu and her husband had been in love for seven years. "if i want to get married, the only person i can marry is him."

deer's wedding

thomas is an "ordinary office worker" who can easily feel joy and happiness. he has limited understanding of the culture and customs of chinese society. during the preparation process, xiaolu felt that she had more worries and burdens. on the eve of the wedding, she collapsed. frustrated, she refused to communicate with thomas. when i woke up the next morning, i found that thomas had been sending messages all night. xiaolu replied, and the other person immediately replied, "this means he didn't sleep all night."

that morning, the two opened up again and chatted for a long time, and even cried together for an hour before putting on makeup. the night before, thomas had an argument with the groomsmen. the best men were also foreigners. “some were drunk, and some translated the wrong words... he (thomas) was like beating a wolf with a mace, and he was also exhausted.” ".

the deer knew, "he tried his best." no matter how hard my husband tries, he can only do so much. the wedding made her mentally and physically exhausted. a large part of the reason was that she had high demands and standards for herself. she was a person who was easily "tight".

in this love that lasted for more than seven years, xiaolu felt clear happiness. although he also felt clear emotions, they were necessary elements to constitute the authenticity of happiness. the “chaos” of a wedding is also part of it. she accepts it, faces it, and laughs at it, "but it's a safe feeling."

fawn and husband thomas

in fact, negative emotions are always the emotional basis of comedy creation. "i think some of the so-called tragic aspects of weddings are exactly the tragic aspects that comedy can tolerate." just like the movie of star master that xiaolu liked to watch when she was a child. when she grows up and watches it, she will cry and smile, "tears will fall down all of a sudden." this is the essence of comedy.

the wedding was held on children's day this year, "because i feel like we both entered the marriage like two little children." the attractive aspect of intimacy to xiaolu is: "you need to be an adult who overcomes obstacles outside, but when you get home, both of you will be your original self, ignorant and cute."

after the wedding, on june 6, xiaolu left his hometown of yunnan and got on a plane to shanghai. on the plane, she started writing the paragraph, which she polished and revised almost every day until it was finalized around june 20.

the hardest thing is the beginning, "always the beginning." how do you quickly get the audience to accept what you are saying when you go on stage? for 5 minutes on stage, xiaolu will usually write 15 minutes of text, then start chopping, and finally condense it from about 3,000 words to the required 1,000 words. details such as commas, periods, question marks, etc. are almost always subject to repeated revisions.

sometimes, the little deer didn't write a word all day long, walking the dog, reading a book, and meeting friends. but sometimes when inspiration comes, she can write from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. at an open mic (an informal offline small-scale talk show venue), often forgetting to eat in the middle.

xiaolu carefully polished the text while preparing in the background

in the eyes of good friend pan yue, xiaolu is the kind of person who "nothing can stop her from going to open mic". they often get together to drink afternoon tea and chat. maybe while they are chatting, xiaolu suddenly takes out his computer or mobile phone and starts recording or modifying jokes.

sometimes everyone has been out for a whole day, and everyone is already very tired. pan yue feels that it is like "i am exhausted tonight", but then he sees xiaolu starting to recite jokes silently. she also plans to go to the open mic that night.

"i was dumbfounded, because i clearly felt that she was extremely tired." what shocked pan yue even more was that xiaolu sometimes attended more than one event, and she would rush to the event. "no one is forcing her, there is no money to play on the mic, and no one has set 'kpis' for her. but she has to push herself, and then she runs around on an electric bike."

to this day, many talk shows are still performed in small venues in beijing’s alleys. xiaolu rented a house in the alley, and often rode an electric bike up and down the alley at night. sometimes there would be four or five scenes in a night. she would run whistling in the cold wind of winter nights, looking for those things. her laughter and applause.

"i'm afraid of being serious"

xiaolu is not the stereotype of a northerner who is good at shaking stalks. she was born in yunnan, the southwesternmost province of china. there is also an older brother at home. but the elder brother was a naughty kid and was not good at studying, so xiaolu "was trained as a trumpet."

although he does not consider himself to be an "academic master", xiaolu has indeed worked very hard in studying since he was a child. she was the kind of good girl who had no surprises. the earliest "rebellious period" she could recall was in college. when she was in her freshman and sophomore years, she felt that studying was boring, and on a whim, she wanted to quit her job and set up a stall selling sauce-flavored pancakes at the school gate. later, because all the "entrepreneurial partners" returned to study their main business, they gave up.

during his seven years as a law student, xiaolu's main life consisted of reading and taking exams. i immerse myself in papers and professional books every day and feel depressed. she wanted to have some fun, so she opened the american talk show "the ellen degeneres show" and opened the door to a new world.

what fascinates xiaolu is, "how can you make people laugh so much just by using words?" two people sit and have a conversation and can make each other laugh with just one sentence. she thinks this is a very powerful ability, and it will be very similar to " "tap acupuncture points", "a little bit, and the other person will laugh."

the very fact of "making people happy" can make the deer happy. for a long time, she worked hard to become a funnier person.

the first time i clearly felt the enthusiasm for a talk show was in 2014. just after i handed in the outline of my graduate thesis at school, xiaolu took the green train for more than 40 hours from chongqing to beijing and took a writing course. a lesson in jokes.

after graduation, xiaolu went straight to beijing, first found a job as a lawyer, and studied and practiced talk show in his spare time. at that time, there were relatively few talk shows in beijing. during the day, i worked in an office building. after get off work, i took the subway for an hour and a half, from the east sixth ring road to the second ring road, and went to a club to give a five-minute talk show.

fawn likes this contrasting life, it makes people feel rich. just like in the tv series "legal beauty" she watched as a child, several heroines wore suits and ties in court and law firms during the day, and worked as resident singers after get off work at night.

that drama was one of the only reasons why xiaolu chose to major in law. another direct reason was that she was blackmailed by an old lady on a bicycle in junior high school, which made xiaolu feel that she "knows the law."

although her profession is law, she is most afraid of boring and rigid working conditions and cannot stand "particularly serious scenes." in her early days at work, she would laugh in some serious meetings and notice someone in the group of people sitting upright playing with his thermos cup. in serious situations, xiaolu always involuntarily pays attention to the lighthearted and funny details, and his thoughts wander to unknown places first.

little deer who likes to be funny

however, seven years of law school is certainly beneficial to comedy writing. "the form of comedy may be casual, but the creation behind it must be meticulous." but on top of logic, achieving the comedy effect requires some "counter-logic".

the so-called "anti-logic", in xiaolu's words, is not only "reasonable and unexpected", but also absurd and ironic that can be understood from a realistic perspective. "this thing still sounds a bit possible, but it is completely beyond the realm of possibility." exceed your expectations."

"funny girl" emerges

in the talking talent show "qi pa shuo season 7" launched in 2020, xiaolu participated as a newcomer. when discussing the debate topic "should i seize the opportunity to become famous at a young age?" she mentioned herself: "as an underground talk show performer, i have gone from underground to online. i have only one small wish: to make the chinese people laugh."

before this sentence, xiaolu had actually been doing a talk show in beijing for seven years.

in 2017, xiaolu, together with "boss shi" shi jiefu, zhou qimo and liu yang, founded "single standing comedy" in beijing and began to run around and open mics to talk about stand-up comedy.

at that time, talk shows had not yet appeared on a large scale in the mainstream ecosystem. they only developed quietly in taverns and other places in big cities. they had simple stages and cramped auditoriums. when you stood on the stage, you were very close to the audience. you can smell the other person's breath with just a little possession.

at that time, xiaolu still had long hair, liked to wear suits, and held a microphone. he looked a little serious and too serious. looking back now, some of the jokes i made in those years were relatively superficial. for example, she once told a story about chinese medicine, to the effect of, "i said that chinese medicine saved my life because when i was a child, i fell into the river in front of our house and almost drowned. it was the old chinese medicine doctor next door who saved me. saved."

deer with long hair

"i felt so stupid about this, and i couldn't help but laugh because i felt stupid."

when skit actor pan yue met xiaolu in 2016, he thought that this seemingly "elite" woman "would never give up her job (talk show)."

later, xiaolu really gave up his legal work and devoted himself to comedy. pan yue and xiaolu gradually became good friends. pan yue gradually discovered that the "serious-looking" deer might not be the real deer. in the comedy, the deer was very "funny". they also performed "sketch" (a new form of comedy) together. "she (xiaolu) just let herself go completely. whatever is stupid, whatever is stupid, she will play whatever she wants."

in xiaolu, pan yue discovered for the first time that "funny things can be achieved through hard work." pan yue herself also acted in comedies, but before she believed more in chance and performance. sometimes xiaolu showed her a joke he had written. pan yue looked at it and said, "it's funny enough." pan yue really couldn't think of any room for modification, but xiaolu still had to change it, and then showed it to pan yue after he finished it. , "it can actually be changed, and the more it is changed, the funnier it becomes."

picture source: "up!" youth"

pan yue, who is three years younger than xiaolu, feels that xiaolu is strong and soft. in september 2021, pan yue, xiaolu and several friends failed in the annual comedy competition. "before the tears were dry," xiaolu shouted: "i will take you to dali!" pan yue felt that he still before i could get over the sadness, i had already arrived in dali.

xiaolu told pan yue, "you don't have to worry about money." but after returning home, pan yue wanted to give her money, but xiaolu insisted not to give her money.

in the first few years of talk shows, xiaolu felt that it was not easy for women in this market - "a funny woman" itself was not funny, and even a bit repulsive. when fawn is little, girls are not encouraged to be funny and laugh, but little boys are.

at an offline open mic many years ago, xiaolu smiled and asked the audience: "boys' humor is very sexy, right? it's easy to turn the audience into girlfriends. but a girl's humor may be the way to dissolve the sexiness." after watching my performance, i only had one thought: what a good girl, she was so blind!”

the good thing is that nowadays, xiaolu gradually feels that "funny" is being accepted by more groups - regardless of gender and age. sometimes, her little niece would happily come to tell her a joke, and then ask, "is it funny?" after the children read xiaolu's jokes, they would even memorize them and retell them to her.

"funny" has really become a cool thing.

"i'm afraid the audience will think i'm not trying to be funny."

however, nowadays, one of xiaolu's biggest worries is that he will appear serious in the eyes of the audience. she had a super short haircut with an anime feel, which made her look neat and lively. she no longer wears a suit on stage.

whether it is changeable or not sometimes does not entirely depend on oneself. xiaolu is keen. as a creator, she can always detect changes in the internal and external environment as quickly as possible. for example, in the past two years, she feels that "audiences have become more and more frightened." the jokes that the creators think are nothing may make the audience wary.

sometimes, when she tries jokes on a small group of viewers offline, she feels that they are "particularly nervous". that's not a good thing for comedy. the expression of many, many views requires actors to enter specific emotions and states, but that state can easily "scare" the audience.

"as long as you show a little anger, the audience may curl up in a ball, so the actors have to adjust to an extremely soft and extremely festive state." for xiaolu, this is a very painful thing.

xiaolu has rich expressions on stage and has a strong infectious energy.

gradually, she found that she did not dare to challenge the audience and often played the "safety card". "i couldn't bear to be on stage for a moment without the audience laughing."

"funny" comes first. xiaolu reminds himself all the time of his original intention when he decided to do comedy ten years ago, which is to bring happiness to people. "when there is a gap between your expressiveness and the comedy that the audience can accept, my job is to get the audience's laughter first. i can't sacrifice the comedy." the audience's trust is very important, xiaolu is worried the thing is, "they (the audience) don't believe that everything i say is meant to be funny."

nowadays, xiaolu often deletes the self-expression in the old jokes she originally wrote and changed them to suit online programs. then she looks back and finds sadly, “there are no original (laughing points) anymore. none. "there is no other way but to rewrite.

of course, this will be a process of compromise. "i can't stand on stage and just say something that i think makes sense." this can leave the fawn lacking a sense of “worthiness.”

the text shown in the program needs to be constantly deleted and overturned

“which topic is more likely to get bogged down like this?”

"everyone, as long as there is expression." xiaolu replied to me. after a while, she added, "for example, childbirth is also the main body of reproduction, but there is a huge difference in the contributions of men and women."

the completion of expression seems to rely more and more on consensus and empathy. in this regard, women's common life experience is a natural material library, rich, but also full of thorns, which may reveal seemingly inappropriate pain at any time. "you can only write (jokes) when you have a dilemma," xiaolu said. "at least at the level of perception of the objective world and the pain of your own experience." those things are needed for comedy itself.

for example, the section about appearance came from a time when my best friend accidentally complained to xiaolu that she had another wrinkle. "no orangutan will feel anxious because he has wrinkles, right?" the deer thought, "aging is a normal thing, but our education tells you that you have to be anxious about it. because you are young and when your appearance fades, it seems that as a woman, you are losing a huge amount of capital.”

but xiaolu feels that he is much better at thirty than he is at twenty. "i will definitely be better at forty than i am at thirty."

to a certain extent, "writing jokes" has also become a major push for xiaolu to experience life. for example, when it comes to getting married, she was originally someone who didn't care much about getting married, but then she thought, "it might as well go and experience it." whether she wants to get married or not is no longer an option that xiaolu has to worry about with the person in front of her. seven years of relationship has convinced her that if she wants to get married, it must be with this person. but marriage is not an event, a wedding is an event to be experienced. , then there will be "happening", and then there will be jokes.

another example is childbirth. xiaolu originally had no idea about having a baby, but the motivation to create has brought about a subtle change in his mentality. "if i want to have a baby, i won't have to worry about it. there will be too much." the pursuit of comedy forced her to explore and enjoy life.

the real comfort may be that after the laughter, there is still warmth left behind. xiao lu remembers that one time, two of her blind masseurs came to listen to her performance of "daughter red", a man and a woman, both young people in their twenties. after listening, they went back and told xiao lu, "i haven't done this in several years." i’m so happy.”

xiaolu's "daughter's red" special performance

finding solace in a tragic life is not about forcing a smile, but the real magic of comedy. just like in 2020, xiaolu held a special talk show tour "real girls". she wrote in a vlog produced at the same time: "i have not been happy in the past six months. i feel that in the face of the great human tragedy , comedy is so insignificant, not worth mentioning... comedy cannot help you turn the tide in a real disaster, but we can invite everyone to sit down, hand you a candy, and enjoy it together after everyone has overcome the difficulties. the rainbow in the world after the smoke clears.”

the pictures in the article are from the internet