Dongbeihua: Northeastern Mandarin in Chinese Stand-upCEFR A2
4 Mar 2025
Adapted from Oiwan Lam, Global Voices • CC BY 3.0
Photo by nguyen quan, Unsplash
Social media and video platforms helped stand-up reach a much larger audience. After Xi Jinping became leader in 2013, censorship tightened and political satire largely disappeared from television and online.
Comedians began to use dialect humour and local cultural stories instead. Dongbeihua, or Northeastern Mandarin, is spoken in Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang and parts of Inner Mongolia. Many people can understand it because it sounds close to standard Mandarin, but some expressions seem odd and that creates jokes.
Stereotypes about Dongbei people helped the dialect spread nationwide, and new performers now mix local life with darker social themes in their comedy.
Difficult words
- censorship — official control of public information
- satire — funny writing that criticises politics
- dialect — regional form of a language with different wordsdialect humour
- performer — person who acts or entertains othersperformers
- stereotype — simple idea about a whole groupStereotypes
- platform — website or app for videos and contentplatforms
Tip: hover, focus or tap highlighted words in the article to see quick definitions while you read or listen.
Discussion questions
- Have you seen comedy that uses a local dialect or local stories?
- Why do you think social media helped stand-up reach more people?
- Do you think jokes about stereotypes can be harmful? Why or why not?
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