An Interview With Shanghai Based Comedian Han Q

Katie Coy, Managing Editor | Jan 24, 2023 5:57 pm | Add a comment | 200 reads

This next month is a busy time for comedy in the capital with plenty of exciting shows to choose from. To kick things off, Jan 27 will see a special New Year comedy show headlining Beijing based comedian Donnie Fan and Shanghai based comedian Han Q. It’s always great to have fresh comedy from other cites so ahead of the show, we had a talk with Han about his comedy journey.

How long have you been doing stand-up comedy for?
I’ve been a full-time comedian for two years now.

What made you decide to start doing comedy and how did you get started?
I was fascinated by Louis CK and Bill Burr when I was in College and then I got involved with the comedy group in my school. They had a regular open mic every week, and I went to most of them for four years.

What was it like doing stand up for the first time?
It was 2016, we didn't have a real audience because it was a college student open mic and people just brought their friends -- which I wound not recommend. Don't invite your friends to watch your open mics, matter of fact, don't invite your friends to comedy shows at all. If they love comedy shows they will do it for themselves. I try to forget most of it, but I do remember I was too nervous to finish my words, I got like maybe a couple chuckles for three minutes. Then I had to took a whole month off to recover from that, I did not feel good about it.

What have been your best and worst moments since doing comedy?
The best thing about it is when sometimes people watch my shows and remember my punchlines and quote it back to me, that has happened a lot and I do enjoy it, because it shows the audience was paying attention and they had a great time. The worst moment is going to be finishing a whole set and having no response, I'm not talking about getting no laughs, but rather that no one is paying attention. I will say most comedians do comedy for the attention, when we can't get it, it bums us out us the most.

What comedians would you say have influenced you most?
Louis CK and Bill Burr, both of them have shown me that have a funny joke can change people's opinion on things and make them start to rethink about certain culture. I remember I was watching Louis CK's “2017” special taping live, he showed me how to tackle social topics in the funniest way and so that no one will feel lectured to.

You were featured on Bill Burr, can you tell us a bit more about that?
I've been his podcast listener for years. On one podcast, he was looking for jokes from other countries about America. So, I sent mine in and honestly I didn't expect that he was going to see it. But I was really excited and apprevicatve when he read it to all his listeners. It shows how Bill Burr is still nice about new comedians and still appreciative of a good joke when he sees one.

Can you tell us a little bit more about your upcoming show on Jan 27 in Beijing?
New Year New Joke, Han Q is bringing Shanghai comedy to Beijing!

Will this be your first time performing in Beijing?
It's not my first time in Beijing. I was doing open mic in Beijing back in 2019. I do know that back then the Beijing crowd were way more drunk than the Shanghai crowd. I don't know about the audience nowadays, but I'm very excited to find it out!

Lastly, any words of advice for other budding comedians out there?
Keep writing new jokes, if a joke doesn't work, put it aside and write a new one. Then come back and rewrite those jokes six months later, or a year later. And keep trying new jokes at open mics, sometimes you will have moments where you don't have new jokes, just add a line to an old joke, or change your delivery, or even just do a face in between lines. Don't quit, we need more comedy in our life!