DaShan 大山 Re-emerges

[abcdefg]

Saw an article in today's New York Times about a production of "Shawshank Redemption" in Beijing last month that had been a big hit. All the actors were westerners speaking Mandarin. Da Shan was the lead (the character Red, played by Morgan Freeman in the movie.) 

 

The NYT article is behind a paywall, but I think one of these other English-language reports should work: 

• https://www.economist.com/china/2024/02/01/watching-the-shawshank-redemption-on-stage-in-china 
• https://variety.com/2024/theater/news/the-shawshank-redemption-stage-adaptation-china-1235865940/ 

 

I had been wondering what had become of the famous Da Shan. It seems he has been living in Canada, but returned to China for the production. I've watched hours and hours of his xiangsheng ("crosstalk") comedy routines 相声, many of them being shown on that small screen at the front of a long-distance bus, above the windshield, chuckling along with other captive-audience bus riders. 

 

 

[cncorrect]

A report from China:　https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1788676907496761368&wfr=spider&for=pc

[abcdefg]

That's even better! Thank you @cncorrect! I have forgotten whether or not you are in Beijing. If so, did you have a chance to attend the performance?

 

>>"It brings together 11 actors from 8 countries: Canada, the United States, France, Australia, Italy, Russia, Argentina, and Finland. .."

(Excerpt from the Baidu article)

[cncorrect]

I'm not in Beijing. It takes 2.5 hours to get there by train from my home. Going there to watch the play would be a bit expensive. Besides, I didn't even know the play was happening.

 

But we love Dashan. He was very famous in China in the 1990s. I remember my high school classmates all thought our Chinese teacher looked like Dashan, even though he was Chinese. They even nicknamed him Dashan. My whole family was surprised that Dashan could speak Chinese so well and knew so much about Chinese culture."

[abcdefg]

I understand. He had a cult following for a while. Seemed like he was on the TV every time I turned it on in the early 2000's.

[anonymoose]

On 2/20/2024 at 12:58 PM, abcdefg said:

Seemed like he was on the TV every time I turned it on in the early 2000's.

 

Not to mention adverts everywhere for electronic bilingual dictionaries. Most of my students had them in the mid 2000s. With the advent of smartphones, they have completely disappeared. Brings back memories.

 

[abcdefg]

True! Those ads do bring back memories. I bought one of those dictionaries at the big Xinhua Book Store 新华书店 on Renmin Road 人们东路 in Kunming, back during that time, convinced it would change my life! They were selling like hot cakes in a special "promotional booth" staffed by someone who had received specific training 培训 in their operation and merits, instead of by an ordinary store sales clerk 售货员。 

[Tomsima]

Not even joking, how amazing would it be if Pleco, Hanping or Wenlin came out with a modern device like that! Imagine having a smartphone device that was just a dedicated dictionary and nothing else...on that thought, I might just go out and buy a cheap secondhand device, load it up with Pleco and nothing else, disable the lock screen, no internet, no sim, just a dedicated Chinese dictionary

[Jan Finster]

Would be great if they could record it and make it available to a wider audience.

 

A shame DaShan has become so quiet. I always wondered why he did not become a Youtuber and have his own podcast with interviews, etc. 

[carlo]

DaShan does have a Youtube channel. I guess the only people who know who he is on Youtube though are former residents of China

 

eg this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXPn1Ehsx2s

[sanchuan]

On 2/20/2024 at 11:36 PM, Tomsima said:

I might just go out and buy a cheap secondhand device

May I suggest an android e-ink tablet for those purposes.

[mikelove]

On 2/20/2024 at 5:36 PM, Tomsima said:

Imagine having a smartphone device that was just a dedicated dictionary and nothing else...

I actually had a couple of discussions with OEMs about that prospect back in 2005 or so - the financials didn't really work,  at the volumes achievable for a Chinese dictionary app for foreigners we'd have to charge more than what you'd pay for a general-purpose Windows CE handheld and a copy of Pleco.

 

On 2/21/2024 at 10:41 AM, sanchuan said:

May I suggest an android e-ink tablet for those purposes.

I know a lot of people enjoy these, but they're not a particularly good / optimized device for Pleco if your main goal is to buy something for that - it seems to be reasonably usable according to most of the people who've written us about them, but the interface is a bit awkward and the slow screen updates make some features a challenge and of course you lose out on stuff like tone coloring with a monochrome screen.

 

My suggestion would actually be a cheap iOS device - the second-generation iPhone SE costs like US$140 used, runs the latest version of iOS and is compatible with Pleco 4.0 (and should be OK performance-wise as long as you're not installing a ton of add-on dictionaries), and the 5th-gen iPad mini is like $250. For used Android I'd generally focus on getting the newest Android version possible since it'll be supported for longer, but buying from a big well-known OEM also helps.

[laoyumi]

Dashan used to be a super star in China.  He recorded lots of English teaching programs and his Chinese is even better than many Chinese. He is mazing!

[sanchuan]

On 2/22/2024 at 1:17 AM, mikelove said:

the slow screen updates make some features a challenge and of course you lose out on stuff like tone coloring with a monochrome screen.

Completely. You lose out on OCR functions too, I think! But I should say that, for my basic usecase at least, Pleco behaves very well on them.

 

Even outside of Pleco though, they're mighty serviceable if all you need is a pdf/ebook/txt/web reader & any old integrated dictionary for the odd lookup (plus the ability to share notes to other apps, databases or clouds).

 

If anything, I feel like the slower UI experience would be a good answer to Tomsima's call for a "dedicated dictionary [...] and nothing else [...] no internet, no sim", since there's no sim slot and turning the WiFi on is considerably less tempting there than it would be on a phone.

[Tomsima]

@mikelove thats very interesting to hear. This thread got me curious, so I pulled out an old rasberry pi, flashed it with android and now have a dedicated pleco-pi, great fun!

[becky82]

Petition to change the title to: 大山再起.  The pun is right there begging to be used.

[abcdefg]

Haha! Becky, it is a very good pun! I understand, after having Baidu-ed it. 

 

For others who are only semi-literate, like myself, here's the link: https://baike.baidu.com/item/东山再起/1489271