"Comedy is extremely hard," Ma Zhiming says. "With xiangsheng you've got only two performers on stage trying with their dialogue to get everybody to laugh. I've seen many different kinds of laugher in audiences, such as belly laughs, chuckles and an occasional guffaw, each of which performers interpret in a distinctly different way."

In 1970, in the midst of the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) Ma Sanli and his family were sent to a village in the suburbs of Tianjin and did not return home until 1977.

For the family the forced move was all the more severe because both Ma Sanli and Ma Zhiming had no opportunity to perform xiangsheng. However, it was during those seven years that the father was able to tell his son a tremendous amount about his life as a xiangsheng performer, an invaluable learning experience for Ma Zhiming.

"He showed me the magic of xiangsheng, such as how to create a xiangsheng piece, how to draw inspiration from your daily life in performing xiangsheng, and how to improvise on stage. With certain words a master can get people to laugh, whereas a student performer using exactly the same words completely misses the mark."