Polyglot kings of the improv ring

Du Qin at the Beijing Improv Workshop[Photos By Wang Zhuangfei / China Daily]

"It's not only cool, but the Chinese words are a lot more expressive sometimes," Elken says. "I don't believe in fate, but I do believe in yuanfen, coincidences that change your life for the better."

Just as the serendipitous beauty of yuanfen is that it just happens, the same can be said of Beijing improv. The performer need not make every single line bilingual, and can switch languages whenever he or she pleases, which adds to the spontaneity. The language mix often depends on the makeup of your audience, Elken says.

"And if you know there are three French people in the audience, you are obviously going to have to make a crack about France."

Bilingual perfection is by no means a prerequisite to being a success, she says.

"Sometimes I have no idea what a Chinese word means but I have to build on that. That's all part of bilingual improv. It's a risk you have to take."

Schwab says: "Sometimes you just have to pretend you understand. You have to act like an expert. But sometimes you can also ask 'What does that mean'? You ask and you can learn something on stage and the audience is watching you learning, too."

Dong Fen, from Yunnan province, says: "At first I was very unsure of myself because my English is not that good. But then you find insane misunderstandings can make the show all the funnier."

But just as jazz, which some could regard as the epitome of artistic spontaneity and improvisation, is constrained by certain musical practicalities and rules, improv comedy also has a few guiding principles.

One of them, those who were interviewed for this story say, is the principle of "Yes, and", which means you must accept whatever idea your partners on the stage come up with and go with it.

"Generally, non-Chinese are better at interacting with strangers and getting along with them very quickly," says Zhi Xuxin, a member of Beijing Improv Bilingual Group and a former TV anchor in Urumqi, the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. "They also have all kinds of odd and interesting ideas."

Once in a workshop, she says, the scenario was set as a dating show, with a foreigner playing a door, rather than a man, as a dating candidate.

"I was there just gaping, unable to understand any of this, and couldn't see how we could go with the idea. But the non-Chinese there seemed to have no reservations whatsoever."

Schwab says trust between those on stage is crucial when you set a storyline because "if I go with the idea, I don't know where it is going to lead me to".

Chinese performers are more likely to summarily reject any ideas that those they are working with suggest, he says.

"In the US we worry about people carrying guns," says Schwab, from Virginia. "We don't worry as much as people in China do about being tricked by others."

Theater and drama in China lack the encouragement they receive in the US, he says. "As a result, people have to relearn how to express themselves and open up and not worry about losing face."