6 Wednesday August 7, 2019
FOCUS
Beijing piloted an alternating-
temperatures scheme in trains
on its subways from Monday
to provide passengers with a
more people-oriented air con-
ditioning mode, reported the
Beijing News on Tuesday.
Before the trial, Beijing
subway’s operations company
applied an overall upgrade
to the air conditioners inside
carriages on lines 2 and 13
after the last train stopped on
Sunday. Detailed temperature
information was acquired and
daily maintenance records
have been logged to ensure
the safety of the trains. The
company also mounted a total
of 210 signs on the platforms
of the stations on Line 2 and
Line 13.
It does not feel much dif-
ferent to be in the highly-cool
train or lightly-cool train dur-
ing short ride. However, after
several stations, the diff erence
is palpable, the Beijing News
reported.
The capital has been setting
up diff erent temperature zones
on the same trains for subway
Line 6 since mid-June. Signs
reading “high cool” in dark
blue, and “light cool” in light
blue are posted on platforms to
direct passengers to the diff er-
ent temperature zones.
After fi eld experiments,
the temperature inside Line
6 trains was found to be 27
C during peak hours and 25
C during normal hours in
the lightly-cool carriage; The
temperature in the highly-cool
carriage was 24 C during peak
hours and 26 C during normal
hours, according to the Beijing
Youth Daily.
According to the Beijing
News, passengers are satisfi ed
with the management on sub-
way Line 6, and the trial will
be continued as a long-term
measure.
On July 12, Beijing subway
received a record high of 13.
million passengers, the Beijing
Evening News reported.
Global Times
Alternating temperatures on Beijing subway on track for success
Page Editor:
[email protected]
E
very Saturday night, a small,
80-seat theatre called “Xigua,”
or “Watermelon,” located in
Yongqing Fang, century-old alley-
ways in Guangzhou, South China’s
Guangdong Province, is packed to
the rafters.
Three or four stand-up comedians
walk on stage, one after another, and
delight the audience throughout a
1.5-hour show. This would have been
unthinkable just a few years ago.
“If you think what the performers
say is funny, laugh out loud; but if it
sucks, just heckle them with your ap-
plause,” said a comedian surnamed
Ji while warming up the audience at
the beginning of a show. Ji had barely
fi nished speaking when the whole
room burst into applause, cleverly
playing along with the joke.
Diffi cult start
In the metropolis, which has few
stand-up theaters, there are no more
than 20 shows a month, including
both Putonghua and Cantonese co-
medians, with ticket prices generally
less than 100 yuan ($14.50).
“When we fi rst started out, there
was one time when we had only two
people in the audience, but 10 come-
dians backstage,” Ji told the audience
during a break in the show.
Ticket sales were not enough to
support a single performer in a small
theater. “So most of us are part-time
performers,” said Pi Qiu, a comedian
and head of a stand-up comedy club
named “Douban” in Shenzhen.
Recently, he staged his stand-
up routines on the latest season of
“ROCK & ROAST,” one of the most
popular TV talk shows in China. “If I
were known to a wider TV audience,
maybe there would be more people
to watch our live shows,” he said.
Li Dan, a famous Chinese stand-
up comic and planner of the show,
admitted in the program that though
he is now well-known to the public
through stand-up, this art form is still
limited in China.
Stand-up comedy, which origi-
nated in Europe and North America,
is quite young in China, with “open
mic” shows fi rst appearing in pubs
in Beijing and Shanghai in 2009.
Audiences in Guangdong Province
embraced it much earlier as it was
fi rst introduced to neighboring Hong
Kong in 1990.
Dong Jiama, born in 1990 and
deeply infl uenced by Cantonese
stand-up comedy, read an online
article about a show in Guangdong
in 2014 and discovered that besides
entertainers, even ordinary people
could perform stand-up. Then, he be-
gan to perform onstage and founded
a stand-up club called “Banana” with
his friends in 2015.
Though their fi rst Guangzhou
audiences often posted numbers in
single digits, the industry gained
more attention after a number of TV
shows related to stand-up became
popular in China in 2017.
Since then, the number of their
audience has steadily grown and now
performances can attract 50 audience
members on average. Sometimes,
they will have people travel from
other cities just to catch their shows.
Their stages have moved from coff ee
shops and pubs to a small theatre.
The show must go on
One of the Banana club’s found-
ers, Fang Yu, previously worked for a
well-known technology company in
Shenzhen. His past work experience,
workplace relationships and overtime
work are all fodder for his jokes.
Such material based on reality
has become hugely popular among
young people in China. “All of our
jokes come from our own lives and
resonate with the audience. Only
when you come to the club and par-
ticipate in the interactions, can you
feel its true charm,” said Liang Xiwei,
a comedian at the club.
With more and more Chinese
people spending money on live
entertainment amid booming
development of the culture industry,
Dong and his friends are looking
for bigger performance venues. To
them, bigger audiences mean better
performances and less stress. Despite
this increasing popularity, Dong and
his friends still fi nd time to work on
new material and host regular “open
mic” nights.
In Dong’s eyes, there remains
considerable room for improvement
in the country’s stand-up industry.
“To attract bigger audiences, we
should localize our stand-up, which
came from the West, in its contents,
forms and even rhythms,” he said.
Originality is very important in
stand-up comedy, but the protection
of original work is not easy. Come-
dians must strike a diffi cult balance
between promoting their shows via
the internet and risking having their
jokes plagiarized.
“We welcome you to post pictures
from the show online but no audio-
visual recordings please,” Ji begged
the audience at the beginning of a
show at the end of July.
Stand-up caters more to young
people, mainly those between the
ages of 20 and 35, according to data
from Pi Qiu’s club.
Despite their struggles, even
scattered laughter from audiences
is enough to give the performers
confi dence to keep going. “After all,
making people laugh is what it’s all
about,” said Liang.
Xinhua
u Stand-up comedy struggles to
attract audiences to live shows
Comedians perform a stand-up comedy at
Xigua, a theatre in Guangzhou, South China’s
Guangdong Province. Photo: Courtesy of Xigua