--- title: Putting the joking aside description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. canonical: https://time.com/branded-content/china-daily/putting-the-joking-aside/ article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2026-06-18T14:28:02.463Z article:modified_time: 2026-06-09T07:28:07.644Z article:section: Paid Content og:title: Putting the joking aside og:description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription.  _This content was paid for and prepared by China Daily, an official publication of the People's Republic of China. The TIME editorial and advertising departments were not involved in the creation of this content._ David Moser is a crosstalk performer, a TV star and a scholar on China. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY By ZHOU JIN If you time-traveled back to the 1999 Spring Festival Gala on CCTV, the national TV station of China, you would be able to watch the first xiangsheng, or crosstalk show, performed entirely by foreigners. Dressed in traditional Chinese costumes, they cracked jokes in fluent Mandarin, with a Beijing accent, and delivered blessings to the audience, which drew waves of laughter. Among the performers was David Moser, an American scholar on China. “You can’t imagine how nervous we were, as it was a live broadcast. But we knew we could not forget the lines because we had rehearsed so much,” Moser recalled. Moser said he felt very honored and happy to be able to participate in the country’s most-watched television event. The 53-year-old is now a scholar of the Chinese language and culture and associate professor at the International Culture Institute of Capital Normal University. For Moser, crosstalk is a good linguistic tool to learn Chinese as it is a comedic art form that combines language, history and local dialects. It is also a great source of Chinese humor, he said, emphasizing that humor is universal across cultures, and it is only the content and context that vary. Moser’s interest in China was aroused by the country’s writing system and the Chinese characters. As he learned to write Chinese and learned more about the country’s history, he gradually became interested in Chinese culture. He studied the language on his own in the 1980s while working on his Master’s in music at Indiana University. His early fascination with the Tao Te Ching and Confucianism spurred his curiosity about China’s philosophy and culture. “I thought it was so fascinating, not only the language but also the culture, mostly because it was all so different from my own culture and I was curious about this difference.” In 1986, Moser came to Beijing for the first time to help with the translation of a book at Peking University. “That was when I went from having just an interest in China to actually being actively involved in the country.” Great changes have taken place since then. When he arrived in China, living standards were low, but the country has made significant progress. He is also impressed by how, within two decades, Chinese people went from having little knowledge of the West to being well-versed in Western culture. The development of the internet was one factor behind this, while another reason was China imported lots of foreign stuff, including food, movies, books, he said. The enthusiasm about English can be seen from a popular TV program called Outlook English, which was produced by CCTV in the early 2000s. Aimed at teenagers and young adults, the educational TV show covered all aspects of life and integrated English learning into interesting programs, attracting an audience of millions. Moser was a host, judge and translator for the show for years. “This was a chance to use my skills and actually pass on my knowledge of the language to a very large number of people,” he said. But later, Moser realized that he was not going to be a TV star, and he received an offer to teach at Capital Normal University in 2007, marking his transfer to another role. A crosstalk performer, a TV star and a scholar on China, Moser has had various roles and calls himself a “zajia,” which refers to someone with diverse knowledge but no single specialization — something akin to the English phrase “a jack of all trades but a master of none.” Moser embraces the label. “For me, I am happy to be a zajia because I want to understand as much of China as possible and have an overall grasp of the Chinese culture, not just my original intention — only the language and the academic aspect.” Moser said he loves blending East and West into something new. And it is because of his different roles, he thinks he can act as a good bridge between cultures as he can interact with many kinds of people in many different ways and explain in simple terms aspects of China and the United States beyond books or movies. “We need more Americans with real, on-the-ground experience in China,” he stressed. “That’s my mission now — to encourage more young Americans to come, to learn the language, to interact with real people.” He believes that personal, face-to-face exchanges are more critical now than ever. “Even if just two people from each country get to know each other deeply, they can become a force for cooperation. 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