 How's it going everyone? So I'm gonna talk to you guys a little bit about my journey Doing applied improv in China So before I begin I just want to get a sense of where you guys are about your knowledge of China So we're gonna play a little bit of word association So who who has actually lived in China before who has actually lived in China, right? We've got a couple a couple of you in the house who has actually been to China traveled to China Alright a few more of you. Okay, so for the rest of you guys When I say China I'm gonna point in your general direction and you're gonna say the first word that comes to mind. Okay, so Just be real honest First word that comes to mind. So China Students China Train negotiations very good China Face products China See China Huawei China Restaurant and finally China Crowded yeah Yes, those are all those are all our preconceptions our ideas of China our perceptions of China And I want to share with you some learnings that I've had in my nine years So I'm based in Beijing in my nine years Living and teaching improv in China so The first learning and and this is this is very immediate The first learning that I had is that China's not a monolith All right, and and you guys if you ever visited China that will be very obvious. So China In in Western media, it's referred to as Beijing this Beijing that it's presented as this kind of top-down Totalitarian power and in many senses, you know, that's one that's one facet of China But China is also dazzlingly diverse It's a country of 1.4 billion people You know, if you've ever had Chinese food, you know, there's Sichuan food or Szechuan as we call it here There's Cantonese cuisine, but there's also Yunnan food from Southwest China Which is which is almost like Southeast Asian cuisine. It's it's so vibrant and so fresh. There's Xinjiang food From the Northwest, which is almost like Turkic cuisine So China is is this massive country with so many differences. It's a land of contrast and For and for me, I'm based in Beijing the capital. It's a city of 25 million people It's got a per capita GDP of about 20,000 US dollars per year. So that's about the equivalent of Portugal but when I traveled to For instance, a rural province like Gansu in in in the middle of China It's got a per capita GDP of four thousand dollars a year and that's the equivalent of Albania Right. So that gives you a sense of how of how different places within China are and and you know Sometimes, you know, I like to say, you know, when I go to Shanghai, I'll dress up And and when I'm in Beijing, I'll dress down. So that's superficially some differences But they're they're deeper differences, you know between the coastal regions of China Where foreign investment trade has has really flourished and the inland provinces Where where people are relatively poorer Last year I was in in Hunan province. So it has anyone had Hunan food before it's very spicy So I spent a week there. My stomach did not enjoy that But I was teaching I was teaching improv at a girl at adolescent girls camp And so this camp was trying to provide opportunities for for rural girls to to find ways to express themselves You know when they're hitting puberty. It's a time of immense changes. And so This this was a camp aimed at, you know, kind of filling the gaps That that were absent in the official school curriculum And so, you know when I arrived I had all these ideas What I was going to do with improv and and how is going to get them to express themselves but first, you know, language was an issue So, you know, if you guys know about the Chinese language, it's one of the last Pictographic languages out there. All right, so that means You know, you can't use an alphabet, right? It's not based on sounds Chinese is a script that is unified hundreds of different languages around the country It's it's as if French Spanish speakers Italians Portuguese could all write to one another But their language is very different. So so that's Chinese in a bubble And so I was in this rural area not really being able to communicate And so spending three days Our first day was real rough Day two we made some progress We got our bodies opening up and by day three You know, these girls made a play about their development about their growth as as young girls and And we've been interpretive dancing. There was a story about About having their period and about transitioning into adulthood and it was this beautiful moment but it was to me it It symbolized kind of the the the diversity that's found in China and and the challenges that are there that face people who you know Who who go to China and expect, you know, this monolith so so localization in China doesn't mean just You know adapting to to one thing. It means localizing across different regions So the second learning that I've had Teaching improv in China Is that the Chinese education system isn't all that it's cracked up to be and I remember in 2016 the the Pete does anyone know about the piece of scores the performance assessment for international students and so in 2016 Pisa released Rankings for for the top nations in science math and reading And sadly the US was not in the top 20 for any of those any of those rankings But students from Shanghai were consistently ranked at the top of the list and and that led to Kind of a national soul searching in our part for Americans But also this kind of elevated view of Chinese education and I remember seeing I remember seeing this British this BBC show that took Chinese teachers and and put them in the UK and You know kind of showing what they could do with with British students short story Not so well didn't didn't go so good But you know similarly in China there there is a there's a national soul searching About the the effects of the Chinese education system, right? It's over the over the last few decades. It's produced brilliant mathematicians engineers Scientists and in this style of education, it's it's rote learning, right? It's test-based exam based When you graduate high school you have to do something called the gauk how so imagine the SAT But basically this one test determining everything for the rest of your life. That's the gauk how it's a three-day exam Highly Pressurized I remember seeing one one image of students hooked up to an IV while while taking the test And so this is the environment that Chinese students are in in the education system there and so When I do improv with these kids you can imagine how how liberating it is how How much of a refuge it is from their everyday grind? And and I see parents eyes light up when when they're able to communicate with their kids for the first time in what seems like years You know that they're not just tied to their phones and and that I Think that is the impact that applied improv has had for me Doing doing this kind of stuff theater based education in China That's that's the kind of impact that I think improv can have for for millions of of students in China And you know if there's one thing about China, you know, it's that you have a lot of people and you have opportunities for everyone to make a big impact over there Number three, I would say my third learning In in my time in Doing implied improv in China is that Chinese people are very pragmatic. It's a very pragmatic culture and so You know when I'm communicating with with clients when I'm communicating with with parents and educators I make sure that I I present the value if any of you guys have been to Gary Hirsch's workshop You know meeting your clients needs right. That's very important in China. You got to present the value right up front Sometimes along with the price. So that's that's very important in China and I remember communicating with parents especially about their kids Improv education. There's always the emphasis on What what does this translate to? In real-world skills. Okay, so you've talked to me about communication about listening about teamwork Okay, what what? You know, what what can that what can I get them in terms of a higher Gaoka score or a higher? English score so so this is need to tie To tie what we're doing with applied improv To real-world results, which is a challenge Which is a challenge, but it's it's a very interesting one And you know many times I've had to turn parents down who are sending their kids with literally no English skills And saying hey, you know improv plus English, maybe they can they can learn a little bit But yeah, it doesn't it doesn't work if kids don't understand the language that they're being taught right so so pragmatism and Displaying value is very important And so I've actually had a longer had a longer talk about my learnings But right now I just feel like recent events Make me want to spend the rest of this time talking about something that's a little bit more personal for me So I'm I'm a first-generation immigrant my dad came to America in 1988 His father Was killed during the Cultural Revolution and so he came in pursuit of the American dream and You know in the last In the last nine years that I've been in Beijing doing improv and teaching improv I've been really proud of Passing on this truly American art form, you know in in in my native land and so I've been really I've been really hurt by What's been happening in our in our country recently this idea that Immigration is this thing that you know is is is negative has a negative impact on our society and I remember reading a book by Amartya Sen he's a he's a Nobel Prize-winning Indian political scientist And in his book identity and violence he talks about He talks about conflict between people as As the result of us boiling down our identities To these unitary labels, right? I'm Christian you're Muslim. I'm Chinese you're American, you know, I'm black you're white These these unitary labels have a way of becoming diametrical opposites But instead I think what improv has taught me personally is that we're all so capable of stepping into different roles of Connecting one with one another and It's what I find most beautiful about Doing improv about teaching improv is is this human connection I don't want to make this too political. I don't want you guys is to go out there and vote and and do all I'm not saying that I'm not I'm not trying to make this an overly political message I just wanted to kind of express my bit and you know, there's There's a term for for someone like me in Chinese. It's called huaqiao Means overseas Chinese or literally it means Chinese bridge Because a few hundred years ago, you know when when mass waves of Chinese immigrants were going to other countries You know, they were seen as bridges of Chinese culture You know people that connect different places And and I see my own role as as a bridge between China and the US But I think all of you are also bridges you know, all of you have multi-faceted identities, you know, you are so many different identities in in in one person and You know instead of focusing on diversity as as a differences between people What about celebrating the differences within us and really connect with one another that way, so Thank you all so very much