Pain Relievers

From left: YunChi Jong, Minwen Yang, Dii Fu, Feilin Yang, Yanki Kung, Xinhui Ma, Susan Zhang, Xiaowen Liang, Amber Liu, and Miaoqing Lu* at Caveat. Photo: Victor Llorente

One September afternoon in a dim theater on the Lower East Side, an industrial designer named Susan Zhang was making a joke about sex toys. The ones in China are too quiet, she said: “It’s as if your vibrator was telling you, ‘Be like me; be a quiet, good Chinese woman.’ �

The show’s name, “女�主�,� can be translated as “Women’s Ideas� or “Good Ideas,� and it has strong claims to both. As the only feminist-led, Chinese-language stand-up-comedy open mic in New York, it has become a coveted monthly treat for Chinese students and professionals. Each show is sold out within days, and there’s a waiting list for performers.

“It really surprised us,� said Feilin Yang, the 31-year-old co-founder of the show, which launched in March.

Yang came to New York as a student in 2017, just as the Me Too movement was gaining momentum in the U.S. She started performing stand-up last year as a way to process her trauma after being sexually assaulted. Around the same time, Xiaowen Liang, a feminist organizer, had become a target of Chinese internet trolls for speaking out on feminist issues. She binge-watched stand-up shows online as an antidote. When the two met at an event to support Me Too activist Xianzi in Central Park last year, it all clicked.

Subjects at the open mic range from bias against lesbians to Asian hate to the indignities of menopause. The performers, most of whom have no previous stand-up experience, said this is the only place they feel comfortable making such jokes because the audience members not only are supportive but also get Chinese humor.

In their home country, where many feminist ideas are taboo, the reception has been less welcoming. The show’s accounts on Chinese social-media platforms WeChat and Little Red Book were shut down by censors. “I promised friends in China to talk about something that is allowed to be shown there,� Zhang said during her performance before quipping about mandated mass COVID testing in China. She added ruefully, “Uh-oh, failed to hold my tongue.�

*Correction: This story has been updated to correctly spell Miaoqing Lu’s surname.