Off the mark

All this is innocuous enough given that there are comedians who work at their craft and those who believe themselves to be Michael Jacksons and inadvertently make people laugh because they are so unconsciously off the mark. I, as a cultural commentator, did not come forward and publish my dislike of Pang's work until I found out his denial of his own roots. For me, no true artist would try to erase that trace of his or her identity. On the contrary, most would flaunt it and make the most of it. Zhang Yimou, also from Shaanxi province, sets most of his film stories in the hilly terrain familiar to him. Mo Yan, China's Nobel laureate in literature, has turned his hometown in Shandong province into more than a setting, but a state of mind.

From one perspective, Pang is a victim of geographical discrimination. Job seekers from poorer places often meet with cold eyes and unfair treatment. Many of them end up lying about their hometowns, which is quite sad because the notion of roots is intrinsic in China and strangers usually start conversations by telling each other where they hail from.

People move to wealthier cities and provinces for better lives. Places like Hong Kong and Taiwan offer extra enticement because of their pop culture offerings. Inevitably some from the hinterland would imitate accents from Hong Kong or Taiwan. While most do it in jest, there are some who derive such delusional superiority from it that they pretend like it's real. This has been a staple gag in many comedies.

Off-pitch as he is, Pang is acting as a kind of role model for those who dream of similar success. But covering up your identity only exacerbates the sense of inferiority because you are constantly in fear of being discovered and thus shamed.

There is nothing wrong with the desire to rise above one's humble origin. But in today's China, where thousands of villages are being converted for urban development, the pace of change is so dizzying that many are disoriented and caught in a limbo between urban and rural, both geographically and psychologically. The culture of poor imitation, not just the less affluent imitating the ways of those they want to become, has spawned not only knockoff products, but an urge to slough off one's past, the good qualities together with the squalor and poverty, and display a shiny new version, which often takes on a tawdry facade. Pang Mailang is just the latest - but most bumbling - example of that mentality.