Acknowledgments

Some people are master storytellers. They have command over a full complement of culturally defined tools to weave masterful narratives. They manipulate speech, silence, pacing, volume, and myriad other vocal qualities to keep an audience’s rapt attention, while the words themselves join to form meaningful tales that may comment on important situations. I, sadly, am not one of these people. My interest in humor and satire stems in no small part from the fact that I have never been that funny or a good storyteller. If brevity is the soul of wit, then my family and I are notably unwitty: we never fail to use twenty words where five will do. (For proof, see that last sentence.) The bon mot and other forms of banter, meanwhile, are almost entirely absent from my verbal arsenal. I was so bad at telling jokes in high school that my friends at one point considered delegating one member of the group to listen to the joke once before allowing me to tell the joke to the group, so as to make sure I would relate it properly. Even now, the only humor I can reliably muster is self-deprecating. This is all to say that if I have succeeded in portraying the traditions and performances examined in this book as humorous, it is probably in spite of my own capacities and because of those who have helped me along the way: audience members, performers, friends, reviewers anonymous and otherwise. Any remaining errors and infelicities are entirely my own.

Additionally, as a folklorist both by training and by habit, I take great interest in what people say, and how they say it. This book’s examination of satire across traditional forms, post-Mao Tibetan comedy, and emerging forms like hip-hop, developed naturally from these two broader interests in humor and verbal art. I use methodologies of participant observation, ethnographic interviewing, and textual criticism to diachronically analyze Tibetan comedic performance at various moments in the post-Mao reform era and tie them back into larger cultural trends. In the end, I recorded over one hundred hours of interviews, attended the tapings of four shows in which comedies were featured, collected a corpus of over ninety comedic scripts and recordings, and had countless unrecorded conversations with Tibetans from all walks of life and on a variety of topics, some of which led back to satire, comedy, hip-hop, and oral tradition. I learned some basic comedic arts from comedian-poet-actor-director Shidé Nyima, and performed with him for the 2015 New Year’s variety show on Qinghai Tibetan television. Through this performance, I became the fifth “student” in his artistic lineage. I am still only beginning to understand what this entails.

But these statistics fail to describe the debts accrued and friendships forged in Western China. Indeed, one does not complete over four nearly uninterrupted years of fieldwork, ten years of graduate school, or really any significant social endeavor without doing so. This book is no different, and the assistance of dozens of friends, colleagues, mentors, teachers, institutions, and funding bodies has been crucial. There is insufficient space to thank all those who have helped with their time, thoughts, advice, and fellowship. Moreover, out of concern for the privacy of my consultants, I cannot credit them fully here. If you graciously agreed to share with me your invaluable thoughts, opinions, and knowledge, I am eternally grateful, and the first thanks goes to all of you.

Beyond consultants from the “field,” I am incredibly thankful to Professor Mark A. Bender, who has, at varying points served as adviser, teacher, mentor, friend, gentle nudge in the ribs, and swift kick in the (insert synonym for donkey here). His careful reads of early drafts were essential to the dissertation on which this book is based. I also owe immense gratitude to other members on the committee: Professor Kirk Denton, who gave consistently excellent advice and meticulous edits both before and throughout the writing of the dissertation; Professor Dorothy Noyes, whose long conversations, frequent emails, and comments on a number of drafts were essential to my understanding of the social life of genre from a theoretical perspective, as well as the discussion of enregisterment and language in society; and Eric Mortensen, for his constant encouragement, invaluable expertise, and careful reading of my dissertation.

Beyond my official advisers and committee, I have benefitted deeply from the friends and informal mentors who have shaped me and my research. I am thankful to Levi Gibbs, Ben Gatling, and Mario De Grandis for lending their expertise to this project through time-consuming reads and insightful comments. I am also grateful to the many friends and acquaintances, both local and foreign, with whom I have had numerous informal conversations about Tibetan culture, Tibetological approaches to culture, life in Tibetan areas, comedy, and theory. These include (in no particular order) Tshe dbang rdo rje, ’Phags pa don grub, Snying bo rgyal, Tsering Samdrup, Nyi ma rgyal mtshan, Dkon mchog dge legs, Skal bzang tshe brtan, Shidé Nyima, Sman bla skyabs, ’Jams dbyangs blo gros, Sog phrug shes rab, Detsaje, Sde btsan, Chos dpal, Rig grol, Grogs po, ’Jam dbyangs blo gros, Mona Schrempf, Charlene Makley, Isabelle Henrion-Dourcy, Françoise Robin, Janet Upton, Christie Kilby, Dawn Collins, Andrew Grant, Keith Dede, John Huntington, and Ariana Maki, to name but a few.

I would also like to thank my formal and informal language teachers, whose instruction made possible everything that followed: Klu ’bum thar (formerly of Qinghai Nationalities University); Shes rab lha mo (of Qinghai Nationalities University); Nyi ma rgyal mtshan, who has been the best friend, teacher, and debate partner I have found; Tsering Samdrup; Tshe dbang rdo rje; and O rgyan tshe ring. I am further indebted to Shidé Nyima and his lineage of students. He has been teacher, mentor, and friend, while his students all have helped me better to understand some of the linguistic and artistic nuances of modern Tibetan culture. Amalia Rubin kindly read through an entire draft of an earlier iteration of the manuscript and gave useful suggestions on English translations. Tsering Samdrup kindly checked the Tibetan script and corresponding English translations.

I also thank colleagues and friends at the Smithsonian Institution’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, where I spent part of my time as a postdoctoral research fellow and preparing this manuscript, and colleagues at the University of Leeds, where the manuscript was completed. I am especially incredibly grateful for the support and comments of, and conversations with, Michael Mason, Robert Leopold, Amalia Cordova, Mary S. Linn, Suonan Wangjia, Frances Weightman, Sarah Dodd, David Pattinson, Przemyslaw Nornicki, Amalia Rubin, Thea Pitman, and others.

Portions of this book, meanwhile, have been presented as papers at annual meetings of the Association of Asian Studies, American Folklore Society, and American Anthropological Association, and at the International Association of Tibetan Studies meeting in 2015, as well as at invited talks at Columbia University, Cambridge University, and King’s College London. Comments and questions from those audiences have helped to develop this book into its present form. Series editor Stevan Harrell, University of Washington Press editors Caitlin Tyler-Richards and Lorri Hagman, copy editor Richard Isaac, and two peer reviewers meanwhile have played crucial roles in helping to shape the monograph.

Next, I must acknowledge with gratitude the financial support provided by the Institute of International Education’s Fulbright grant (during which I initially learned about the performances discussed in the dissertation), as well as FLAS and Fulbright-Hays DDRA grants from the US Department of Education. For their extensive logistical support, I thank Joanna Kukielka-Blaser from The Ohio State University’s Office of International Affairs, and various staff members at Qinghai Nationalities University for hosting me. I am grateful for a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (and COVID-enforced absence from China) gave me the time and headspace to re-write the monograph.

Lastly, I thank my families for their constant support throughout my graduate training and academic career. My parents have given me the support and freedom to continue studying something that is, quite frankly, a little unusual. I thank my brother, David, whose own (sometimes) uncompromising pursuit of his passion is a constant source of inspiration. As for my family in China, I am eternally grateful to Tsedar and A ma Tsering Yangstso, who took me in and have always treated me as their son. They may not have fully understood why I was doing what I was doing, nor why it took so long, but they were always welcoming and supportive. I thank Yangsi Yumtso Thurston for providing a source of joy, diversion, motivation, and wonder throughout this long process. But the last and most important thanks goes to my wife and best friend, Tashi Tsomo Thurston, without whose support, sacrifice, and encouragement this book would have been impossible.