[Re-Release] Björn DAHLMAN

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Episode Re-Release

Björn DAHLMAN - Professional Clown, Clowns Without Borders

Original Date of Release: 18 Jul 2023.

This is a re-release of Season 02 Episode 17: The Swedish Clown (Björn DAHLMAN, Clowns Without Borders).

This is the full version, including content that was previously only available on the PREMIUM version of Mosaic of China.

Season 03 is supported by Shanghai Daily - the China news site; Rosetta Stone - the language learning company; naked Retreats - the luxury resorts company; SmartShanghai - the listings and classifieds app; and JustPod - the podcast production company.

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[Intro]

OF: Welcome to Mosaic of China, a podcast about people who are making their mark in China. I’m your host, Oscar Fuchs.

It’s been a few weeks since I released anything, so I thought I would check in with you to say hi. I’m still here in Shanghai. But for some reason I still haven’t got myself caught up on editing the remaining episodes of Season 03. I don’t quite know why that is, actually. You might be thinking it’s because it’s summer time here, and I’ve been preferring to spend my time frolicking outdoors, rather than cooped up behind my computer screen editing down podcast episodes. But that’s not it. For a start, summer in Shanghai is oppressively hot, and this year feels worse than usual. So you’d be an idiot to spend any extra time outdoors right now, except for strictly getting from A to B. And in any case, I’m the kind of person who likes staying indoors spending hours behind my computer screen, that’s half the reason I enjoy this project. And I have been doing that in fact, I’ve been keeping myself busy with work and with a bunch of personal projects. But I somehow haven’t made the time to sit down and edit any new episodes. I can’t explain it, that’s just how I’ve been feeling these past few weeks. Maybe it is the heat, it’s making it difficult to do anything except the bare minimum. Is that just me, or does anyone else feel the same way?

Anyway, while I’ve been in this frame of mind, I got a little note from someone the other day saying that he was finally back in Shanghai after being away for four years. And that person was the Swedish clown, Björn Dahlman. Meeting up with Björn again in person after all these years reminded me that - for all the frustrations that those of us in China have experienced - it hasn’t been easy for anyone around the world, least of all those who wanted to be in China but couldn’t step foot here until now. And since Björn gave me a nice boost of energy, I thought I would do the same for you by re-releasing his original full episode that we recorded almost 3 years ago. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you’re doing OK. I haven’t forgotten about you, so please ping me a message on WeChat or whatever social media platform you can find me on. But for now, I will leave you in the company of Björn.

[Part 1]

OF: What is your Coronavirus story?

BD: No, my story is, I can't go back to China. I mean, I've been based in Shanghai since 2014. But what I do is I work internationally. So sometimes I go to India or London, Sweden of course, to do tours. And I just happened to be on a tour going first to Sweden and then to India when this outbreak came. So I was supposed to be back in China in March 2020 after the tour, and I'm still not there. So it's so weird. It's like my life keeps happening in China. You know, I had to direct this thing I was planned to direct this summer online. So it's just weird.

OF: And where are you now in that case?

BD: I am in my hometown in Sweden. It's called Uppsala. It's the fourth biggest city of Sweden. In Sweden, we officially call this a big city, we have four big cities, Uppsala is one. It's a joke because the metro station in 静安 [Jìng'ān], where I usually take the metro has more travellers per day than we have citizens in this hometown. We have, like, 200,000. We're very close to Stockholm, so we have this inferiority complex going on. You can feel it when you do art, when you start companies, everybody talking about it like "You shouldn't think you're someone special. Oh, you from here, why didn't you make it in Stockholm if you're that good?” It's very interesting. It's a horrible city to do theatre in. And I guess that's why I want to do it.

OF: You're like the challenge.

BD: I think I do. Yeah.

OF: That’s really funny. And Sweden was interesting, because of the way it treated Coronavirus.

BD: Oh, yes.

OF: What was your experience of that in Sweden?

BD: Well, it's been tiring. Why do we do this? Why is there no law that we have to carry masks? Why are the school still open? So there's a huge and very, very tiring debate going on in the media, on social media. You can't meet anyone without this debate going on. And all of a sudden, everybody in Sweden is a pandemic professor expert.

OF: Well, I'm so glad that you have kept your sense of humour. But that's maybe exactly what Sweden and the world needs right now. And I think it's a good segue into what we'll be talking about today. So let me jump straight into the introduction. Thank you so much, Björn. You are a professional clown, is that right?

BD: Yes, that is right.

OF: And here is what our mutual friend Maple said about you.

[Start of Audio Clip]

Maple ZUO: His name is Björn, he’s from Sweden. I met him in comedy, he’s a very funny clown. And then later on, we worked together in a charity hospital. And we talked more, and I felt like he's very warm-hearted. And he's very professional.

[End of Audio Clip]

BD: Yeah.

OF: How did you and Maple first get to know each other? What's your story?

BD: Well, there was this new comedian at Kung Fu Komedy, and she was absolutely hilarious. And it also turned out she was a super nice person. Simple as that.

OF: And was Maple one of your sidekicks?

BD: No, she hasn't been a sidekick in a clown show yet. I am sure she would be amazing.

OF: So I am guessing what object you have brought today that in some way exemplifies your life here in China. But why don't you explain what do you have brought?

BD: Well, why don't we do this, I will put it on and you tell me what you see. You like this? So this is my red clown nose, the nose that I'm wearing when I'm doing shows. And as you can hear - I mean, there are breathing holes, but - it covers my nose. So the voice immediately goes a bit nasal. And then when you're in a schoolyard in China, there are 400 kids screaming, and you have to emphasise, make your voice stronger, what you do is to make it even more nasal. And then you end up here. And this is very interesting, because there's a voice technique called ‘twanging’. This is what babies do, because babies can screen “Mom, Mom Mom” for an hour without getting hurt. And we actually use the same technique. So this is my clown voice and it actually comes from the nose. And I will take it off now because I think we will scare listeners away. I just did a tour because in Sweden, kindergartens were kept open right? And we were allowed to do shows for about ten kids.

OF: Well, you mentioned that you are in Sweden. You are one of the people in this series that I am interviewing remotely, which is a shame, but I'm very grateful that we could still do this. Whereabouts in Sweden are you right now?

BD: I'm in my hometown. It's called Uppsala. It's the fourth biggest city of Sweden, I've come to consider it a very, very small town.

OF: It's a different life to what you normally would have been used to in Shanghai, I hope that you can come back as soon as possible. How long have you actually lived in Shanghai?

BD: So I've considered Shanghai my base since 2014, when I started studying Chinese at the Shanghai Theatre Academy. And then I've been, you know, student visas, business visas… I finally got my working visa, and now I couldn't even enter with it because of the pandemic. So I have to start the process all over. But yes, six years.

OF: But that's not where your China story started, right? You had a connection long before that, didn't you?

BD: Yes. So I guess it started with my hippie parents. So I grew up in a house where, you know, they would talk about Daoism, my mother started doing Tai Chi in the late 80s, and then my father started doing Tai Chi, and they were these kind of parents. I remember I was 14 years old, and I came home from school, and I just felt horrible. And I felt so stressed about everything. And my mother gave me this book that was called “The Tao of Pooh’, as in Winnie the Pooh. And that was my introduction to Daoism, which of course was linked to the Tai Chi they kept talking about. And something just clicked inside of me. And I was like “Wow, this is it”. From that point, I also picked up Tai Chi, 太极拳 [Tàijíquán]. So I became so interested in Chinese martial arts, watching Jackie Chan movies every day. I wanted to do Kung Fu, but my father said “That's too violent, you can't do it”. When I turned 16, I started high school, and that year they passed a law saying that you're allowed to study any language you want to, if there's an available teacher. So I talked to all of my friends and I made, like, 30 people fill in a blank saying “I want to study Chinese”. And none of my friends actually showed up for class, but because there were 30 people, the school had to find a teacher. And in 1999, I was 17 years old, I went to a language trip to Beijing. There were bikes everywhere, you didn't really see cars. Yeah, I just fell in love with it. Like many foreigners do who have ‘China dreams’, you project every silly little dream that you ever had about life, you project into China. But then, you know, I started doing more theatre, I stopped doing martial arts, I didn't have time. I kind of forgot the Chinese that I learned. Then in 2010, I was drawn into this international theatre project that toured Sweden, England, and Shanghai. So I came back to Shanghai. And again, I just fell in love with the city. Like day one, “I have to live in this city”. And it was so funny, at the same time as I got this job, I was at the gym, and I saw a guy in the sauna. And I had noticed him in the gym, because he was doing other exercises I’d never seen before, and he did it with an intensity that I'd never seen before. I was like “Who is this weirdo?” And I noticed he had a Chinese dragon tattoo, right? But this was like old style, on his chest. I was like “What?” And then I hear him saying to another guy in the sauna, “I just came back, I've been on a Chinese mountain for a year”. So I asked this guy in Chinese, “Was it the 少林 [Shàolín] mountain?" And he answered in Chinese, “No it was the 武当 [Wǔdāng] mountain.”

OF: Ah.

BD: And I was like “What?” You know, the 武当 [Wǔdāng] mountain from ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’, the film. I asked “Is this mountain for real?! I thought it was a legend.” He was like “Yeah, I’ve just been there”. So I started training with him, of course. He moved back to the 武当 [Wǔdāng] mountain - Jakob is his name - and when I was in Shanghai performing, I contacted him saying “Hey, I'm in China, can I come to 武当 [Wǔdāng] and just, you know, visit and take some pictures?” He said “No. If you come here, you have to practice”. So I went there for ten days. I practiced, I was literally laying on the schoolyard next to the temple, crying in pain. And I was like “This is it.” And I had just started my company back in Sweden, we had just started to receive funding, we were doing well. No, this is it. So I changed my life, and I was like “OK, I'm gonna do a 100-day basic course on this mountain.”

OF: Whoa. 100 days.

BD: …Of pain.

OF: Oh.

BD: Of painful Tai Chi practice.

OF: When I think of Tai Chi - 太极拳 [Tàijíquán] - it doesn't seem like it should be painful.

BD: There's also a very real fighting aspect of it, that people don't train nowadays. There are programmes for strengthening the muscle; there are hardening exercises; there are weapons; you have to do your push-ups, right; and then you use the soft training to balance it up. So you can train it with different approaches.

OF: Right. Well we have got to the part of the story where you are doing Tai Chi on a mountain.

BD: Yes.

OF: And I can't see how that is connected to you now working as a clown.

BD: Well, I wish I had a super smart answer. The answer is: no connection. I've always been interested in clowning. There was a company in Sweden - 123 Schtunk - they found a way to do clowning for grown-ups. So what they did was that, instead of making these slapstick kind of mistakes - like, you know, falling on your ass - they found a way to translate these kind of mistakes to psychological mistakes. So they started to do Shakespeare plays as clowns. And this totally blew my mind. I saw their version of Macbeth, it was a huge game changer for me, I was like “Wow”. So since that day, I was like “I have to be a clown”. And I had also heard about this organisation called ‘Clowns Without Borders’. They went to war zones playing clown shows for kids in refugee camps. And then nowadays they go to all kinds of underprivileged children ‘in crisis’, so to say. So I wrote to them, saying “Hey, I really want to work with you guys, I heard about you what you do, it’s amazing.” And they said “Well, we don't have a budget to create shows, you have to have your own routine already.” And I was like “Well I never did clowning, I never studied clowning.” But then in 2012, I worked with a guy, an Indian actor named Rupesh Tillu. So he was working with Clowns Without Borders. I directed him, we did a clown play about environmental refugees. We went on a tour to the USA with that play, the UNESCO Center for Peace invited us to play. And on the last day of that tour, he was supposed to go to school for deaf children to do the show. And he wakes me up in the morning, staring at me with big eyes, saying “Bee-yawn” - he couldn’t pronounce my name, Björn - “Bee-yawn, did you ever do clowning?” I was like “I did a one-hour workshop six years ago, why? He said "Get in the car! You're in the show!” I was like “How do I develop a clown character?” And he said “Find a costume”. So Rupesh gave me a crown, that he uses in another show. And he gave me the flippers that we did in this show about environmental refugees. And he looked at the crown, and he looked at the flippers, and he said “OK you're the Frog King, get in the car”. And in the car he said “OK, if the kids laugh, stay. And your goal is to stay for one minute.” And I entered the stage, and then I have no idea what happened. Ten minutes later, I see Rupesh waving, like “Get off the stage, it’s my turn.” And so the Frog King was born.

OF: That actually is your character now?

BD: Oh totally, I did more than 400 shows with the Frog King.

OF: Oh.

BD: Yeah.

OF: So there it was, the birth of the Frog King.

BD: That was the birth of the Frog King. And then Rupesh said “OK, now we have a clown show. Let's go to Clowns without Borders Sweden and say we want to make a Clowns without Borders tour to India.” And that was another life-changer. Because we played for children living on the streets; we went to orphanages for kids infected with HIV from birth; and we also went to the red light districts, where women who were trafficked as children are being locked into brothels, and their kids, they hide under their mothers’ beds when their mothers have customers. And we performed for these kids. And the way those kids laughed when we performed, I’d never heard anything like that.

OF: Wow.

BD: I’m not a religious person. But seeing those kids laugh, that's the only religion I need. I don't understand how there can still be happiness and hope and laughter in them. We kept doing this project year after year, we went back to these kids. In the second year, they were laughing as much. In the third year, they said “We want our mothers to see the show.” Because there were kids there who never in their entire life had seen their mothers laugh. They fell off their chairs laughing. Rupesh moved back to India, and he trained Indian actors in the art of clowning. Some of these kids wanted to learn this, so these kids now study clowning, and they did their own shows, which was amazing. And they've been touring Europe. Imagine, you grow up locked into a basement in a brothel, and then you tour Europe, doing clown versions of Indian folk tales. It's completely amazing. So of course, this gave me some new perspectives on what art can do, and what clowning can do. Then I came to Shanghai in 2014. I was at the Shanghai Theatre Academy to study Chinese. And at the school, there was this Swedish lady who was at that time doing a PhD in directing, her name is Maja-Stina Johansson Wang - Maja 老师 [Lǎoshī]. And she ran a company doing children's theatre - in the way that Sweden got world famous for back in the 80s - in Shanghai. And I was like “Oh, my god”. And she was gonna reopen a play, she asked me to direct the reopening, which I did. I said, “Let's do test shows. And since we’re anyway doing test shows, we might just as well give them for free. And since we're giving it away for free, why don't we find these underprivileged children here in Shanghai?” And we did, and it went so well, we had amazing workshops afterwards. And we were like “Whoa, this is it”. So in 2015, we created a Clowns Without Borders project, the first ever in China. We targeted children of migrant workers, and we started touring schools and kindergartens, with a new clown show that we made.

OF: So how did you get to know about where these schools for migrant children are? Like, I've never actually heard about that before.

BD: So there are charity organisations in China. There is one very big and quite famous one called Stepping Stones. That was one of the first one we came in contact with. And then there was this professor at the Shanghai Theatre Academy, who put us in contact with an organisation called 忧道 [Yōudào]. They are running kindergartens in the suburbs for these kids. They have been amazing, one of the reasons that this project is working and still running five years later is that this 忧道 [Yōudào] organisation has been amazing. And this is also one very important thing, we invite the government people, we want everybody to see what we're doing. We want everybody to notice. And nowadays, it is the Frog King going around, and I involve Chinese actors. I train them in my workshops, and then they go with me as my sidekicks. I let them learn the way I learned. I say “OK, get on the stage, stay for a minute, then I'll take over,” and then we just build and build around it.

OF: Wow. So which is your favourite? Do you like the big productions? Or do you like the very simple ‘Frog King with the flippers’ production?

BD: The thing with Frog King is that it's totally based on audience interaction. Nowadays I’m mostly touring with a Chinese actor named 边萧 [Biān Xiāo], I am the Frog King, he's the Toad Emperor. The whole concept is that the audience should feel that it's their show, they are the most important people in the world. So I keep eye contact with them all the time. And depending on their reaction, I change the show. If they think something is really funny, I do it again, and I develop that. And say that the kids really appreciate that we're angry with each other, then this is a show where we're constantly angry with each other. It's not fake, it is actually the audience's experience that is in the centre.

OF: In that case, do you see a difference between, let's say, when you're doing the Frog King in India, with that particular audience, versus a Chinese audience?

BD: When it comes to the children, not at all. Because children understand it. But the grown-ups? I mean, India has a very, very rich theatre tradition, a lot of variety, all that. In India, they kind of accept this with an open mind. But in China, you have this… Well, first you have this concept of 表演 [biǎoyǎn] right? Performance here is always, someone is showing a skill, and then it's up to the audience to judge it. So just this talking to the audience, you can see that grown-ups are like “What is going on here?” And then also, like, when we go to schools in China, the first thing they asked me is “What are you gonna teach the children?” And I say to these teachers “Nothing, I just want them to be happy". And they say “Why?” But then I do the show, and they come up afterwards, and they say “Oh, the kids were laughing!” I say “I know”. “No, but they were so happy!” I say “I know!” Everything, you know, has to serve a purpose. And when I say "No, I'm not interested in that”, that is a huge cultural barrier.

OF: Wow, well we've come across something interesting, which is the deeper philosophy behind the clowning. And have you just said what it is? Like, is it simply to make people laugh, and that's it? Or is there something more to it?

BD: Well, I'm the kind of person who likes to think there's always something more to it. OK, I'm gonna go pretentious, I'm going to, quote 道德经 [Dàodéjīng], this old Daoist text. You know, it goes on and on about how special and amazing and fantastic the 道 [dào] is. And it says “The most stupid people would just laugh at 道 [dào]. But then again, if you couldn’t laugh at 道 [dào], it wouldn't be 道 [dào]." And I think the complexity is in the simplicity, it's the same thing with clowning, yeah. I think the key word is ‘here’. And ‘now’. Because if we meet in laughter, then that is the only thing that exists right now. You can't feel angry when you're laughing; you can't feel sad at the very moment you're laughing. And as simple as it sounds, that is the key. And you can connect a whole life philosophy around that, I would say it's about dignity. My recent trip was to Nigeria, we were playing for former child soldiers, 20-year-old guys who, from the age of 9,10, were forced to be soldiers, and then they were liberated, put into prison. You don't want to know what these guys have been through, or what they have done to other people. But at that very moment - you look in their eyes, you make them laugh, and you share the joy - there is no history. There is only this sacred room, where we are who we are deep inside. Same thing, you know, now Sweden is welcoming a lot of refugees from Syria. I've been to Lesbos, I've been to this refugee camp. But the moment you share laughter with these kids… We would gather like 200 kids, just out in the fields playing for them. Kids were coming, they were carrying their younger brothers and sisters in their arms. And those parents who came there, I saw mothers starting to dance and sing in the show, because they got so happy to see their kids laugh again. And in that moment, there is no difference. We're only human. I mean, these experiences are the closest I ever came to religious experiences. And they were literally triggered by me falling on my ass. I mean, how beautiful can life get?

OF: Yeah. Well, we've talked about the aspects that are positive with clowning. I've got to mention the negative aspects, which are all the more prevalent these days, right? I mean, when you think about clowns these days, yes, you think about the classic clown. But then you also think about the evil clown, especially with, you know, Stephen King's ‘It’.

BD: So the guy playing the clown, Bill Skarsgård. He’s a Swedish actor.

OF: Oh god, of course!

BD: We had the same clown teacher.

OF: Really?

BD: We had the same clown teacher in the Theatre Academy. I do what that teacher said, he does something else, he's making all the money…

OF: Damn it, where did your life go wrong? Come on, Björn.

BD: Yes!

OF: I mean, you know where I'm going with this.

BD: Yeah.

OF: It’s the archetypal image of the clown being something scary, especially for adults. So where does that come from? And what's your reaction to it?

BD: Well, I think there are many angles to that. I think one is this - now I forgot that the word - but there's this psychological phenomenon which says that the more human something gets, the more we identify, up to a certain point where it's almost human, but not. And then it's just scary.

OF: I know it, it's called ‘uncanny valley’.

BD: Uncanny valley, I should remember that word. So that's one thing. And then there's also this aspect of… because the clown is the trickster, right? It’s the trickster archetype. And the trickster represents chaos. The human need to control chaos, it’s… I mean, you can find it in any mythology. It's very deep, our need to control chaos. And the clown represents chaos. And then there's also this… I mean, characters who have the power to draw children to them are always scary. And should be scary. We should always be careful with people who the children want to run to, right? For obvious reasons. So these are the theoretical, psychological explanations, I think. But then there are so many clowns, they haven't studied the technique. They just wear some s**t, handing out balloons at some events. And kids are so smart, they know this is bulls**t.

OF: Right.

BD: And then you have this person with weird makeup, a fake smile - I think the fake smile is a big part of it - they run up to the kids, doing weird stuff. And many times it's a very weird situation where the parents are pushing the kids, like “Go and hug the clown!” And the clown goes “Waah”. The kid just wants to die.

OF: Yes.

BD: So you cross the border, you cross the border where the kids don't feel safe anymore. I mean, there's a technique. I teach this in my workshops, whenever you enter a kid's personal space, you must ask permission. You look the kid in the eye, you read the body language, “Does this kid want me to take one step closer, or not?” So again, it's about respect. It's the kids - or the person's - experience. Not my need to be funny.

OF: How interesting. If you're not careful, you can lapse into the same mistakes yourself, right?

BD: Totally. And I do. I mean, I told you, I did more than 400 shows. In every single show, there are moments where they're just not laughing. And then you learn, after a while you learn - it’s like stand-up - OK, you move on, you do something else. Maybe you have a couple of safeguards in your back pocket that will always work. But it's all about listening.

OF: Yes. And then let's go back to China. If you talk about the traditions of clowning, is there any equivalent at all in Chinese history?

BD: Well, yes, and no. I mean, the Beijing opera has the clown tradition. They had the 小丑 [xiǎochǒu] - the ‘Little Ugly’, literally - which has the white face. And I know people explained to me that there is the ‘Warrior Clown’, which is doing all the acrobatics and stuff; and something called the ‘Culture Clown’ - 文丑 [Wénchǒu] - I haven't really seen it, and I haven't really understood it, but it's more like word-based jokes. Please correct me if I'm wrong. But it's believed to be a bad character. It's a character doing wrong, doing bad things, making a mess. And this is very difficult, because when I'm in China, and I say, ”Oh, I'm a 小丑 [xiǎochǒu]”, the association is not ‘a funny guy who makes kids laugh’, the association is ‘a villain’. So we're struggling with this, all of us who are working with this. We’re like "Should we come up with a new name? Should we call it ‘mine artist’”? Because people love Charlie Chaplin. And yeah, it’s… we're working on it. Then there's this other very interesting parallel, I also started teaching clowning in China. And it's been amazing because I really want to teach the philosophy of it. And the philosophy is basically, 'celebrate your mistake’. In China - because the culture is very strong that you can't lose your face, you can't make a mistake - I had Chinese students, grown-up people, starting to cry in my workshop, really saying “It's the first time in my life that I'm allowed to make a mistake”. And this is where clowning becomes really difficult, and - you know, we talked about the scary clowns - it’s not about acting stupid, it's about daring to let people perceive you as stupid.

OF: Yes.

BD: Which means you have to be as stupid as you actually are. You know, sometimes it hurts you. For real. And then you want to put on a mask that is not the red nose, but this other kind of mask, to protect yourself. But that's when you become the scary clown. That's when you feel it's fake, and something weird is going on. Every joke I do on stage is a mistake I did for real in some show. I panic, but then the art is to share that true panic with the audience, and let them laugh. And it removes the shame. The shame washes away. And you’re able to say to yourself “I'm OK”. But this is very interesting, because when I do Kung Fu, you know, my teacher hits me if I make a mistake. It's so interesting, because Kung Fu of course, it's a violent thing. It's a martial art, which means that if I make a mistake, I might get killed, which means you have to create this culture of right and wrong. Clowning is the exact opposite.

OF: Interesting. Well, I mean, I have been in the camp of not really understanding or enjoying clowns in the past. But you've really explained it to me, you know, the way that you use the art of clowning to almost battle the dehumanising, the isolating nature of modern society. I can definitely see where clowning plays a part in that.

BD: I think so, yeah. Because the concept of presence is so rare these days. It's so important to cherish these moments when we're in the same room, laughing at the same time. And I tell you, standing on a stage or in a schoolyard, seeing 400 kids at the same moment just burst into laughter, it's something else.

OF: Yeah.

BD: It takes you to another world. For a few seconds, you are in a world where what you did not believe was possible, is actually possible. And then you're in a land that is magic for real. And when you're in that land, you can change things.

OF: Yes. Well, thank you so much Björn, I really appreciate that. And I hope that I can see one of your shows when you finally are allowed back into China.

BD: I will invite you.

OF: Let’s move on to Part 2.

BD: Yes!

[Part 2]

OF: Right, well, let's move on to the questions then, my ten questions.

BD: Yes.

OF: OK, Question Number 1, what is your favourite China-related fact?

BD: The fact that you can walk in a park, and you can meet old men and women who actually have amazing Kung Fu skills. I have this 70-something-year-old teacher in Shanghai, he was teaching me spear fighting, this long three-metre spear. And he showed me and a bunch of other 30-something guys, “OK, so this is how you hold the spear in one hand”. And four of us, we couldn't lift the spear, it was too heavy. And this teacher, without an effort, just takes it up with one hand, holds the very edge of it, and balances it perfectly. And you see these things happening all the time. And it's like “Yes, ‘Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon’ fairytale China is still alive.”

OF: Absolutely.

BD: They know s**t.

OF: Yeah.

BD: They know s**t.

OF: Do you have a favourite word or phrase in Chinese?

BD: 太好了 [Tài hǎole], ’too good’. 太 [Tài] is the same word as in Tai Chi, meaning ‘too much’. It refers to this whole Daoist theory of 阴 [yīn] and 阳 [yáng], when something becomes too much of one thing, it turns into its opposite. So 太 [tài] would be the black dot in the white field of the 阴 [yīn] and 阳 [yáng] symbol. And you see these things all the time. I very much like this expression. It has this aspect of very every-day speaking, but there's also this very, very deep philosophical meaning of it. Like, you feel the depth.

OF: What is your favourite destination within China?

BD: My heart will always be on 武当 [Wǔdāng] mountain. But what I heard is that they did what they did in 少林 [Shàolín] mountain. They banned all the schools on the mountains, and they built a village below, which is… Ah.

OF: OK, well, this is a funny question. So the question I normally ask next is, ‘If you left China, what would you miss the most, and what would you miss the least?’ But what was the reality of the situation? What have you missed the most, and what haven’t you?

BD: Well it’s so funny because I don't feel that I left China. I am totally still in China. Well, I miss my friends. I miss the people.

OF: Yeah. And what about the things that you didn't miss? Like, what would you miss the least?

BD: Oh, the silence of Sweden, I love it. I am very sensitive to sound. Cars honking, drilling, people screaming, crowded restaurants, you know. That's the one thing. I feel it in my body, there’s a higher level of tension when all this noise is going on.

OF: Yeah, I was asking you to find a quiet place in your part of the world…

BD: And I was like “Yeah, well, what room should I pick?”

OF: Yeah, and I'm sure that any noise in the background we heard in this recording would have come from outside of my window, not yours. Is there anything that still surprises you about life in China?

BD: Every day. So I do Kung Fu in People's Park. And I just remember going to the public bathroom there, and they'd put in a face scanner, you have to scan your face to get your toilet paper. I understand the logic of it, because I hear people just take the toilet paper and they bring it back home to save money.

OF: Oh.

BD: But it's just… it's so bizarre. It's so many steps that’s like "Could this have been done in another way?” No, they put in face scanners for toilet paper. Does this machine calculate how much paper I need? Does it see my chubby Western face? And it gives me a lot. Like, every country has their way of craziness.

OF: Yeah. You've reached my level of humour now, talking about toilets, so…

BD: Yeah, that's good. That’s where I feel comfortable as well.

OF: Where is your favourite place to go out, to eat or drink or just hang out?

BD: Well, I love going to new restaurants. And every time I find a small little restaurant that becomes my favourite… Every time I go out from Shanghai and I come back, that restaurant has closed down.

OF: Yeah. Can you think of one particular one?

BD: I had a period when I was totally into 新疆 [Xīnjiāng] food, and there was this one small little 新疆 [Xīnjiāng] restaurant. Or when there was this other one, it was called Seahorse Sushi, that had grilled eel sushi. Oh, it was amazing. And they made their homemade spicy mayo sauce. It was, I think, 2017 or 2018 it disappeared, I don't remember.

OF: Wow. What is the best or worst purchase you have made in China?

BD: If you want to buy magic tricks in Sweden… Like, I have this wand that is so tiny, you can hide it in your hand, and then it becomes two metres. If you want to buy it in Sweden, you have to pay like 800RMB. And you buy it in China for like 50RMB. And I didn't know any magic when i started doing the magic show, so I bought things that go with the character, like “What can I do?” Now I try to make a flower go big, I say “Go big, BAM”, and the wand goes big. And I look at the flower, getting angry with the flower. The kid goes bananas, screaming “Look at the wand! Look at the wand!” I say “Yeah, the wand is big, whatever, the flower is…Oh my god, the wand is big!” I could never do that in Sweden, because it would cost me 30,000RMB, which I very much don't have. But this show happened in China because I could buy it. I had two suitcases full of magic gadgets that I was just playing around with.

OF: Yeah. What is your favourite WeChat sticker?

BD: It's a pink dragon hugging a girl, and there’s a story to it. In 2015, I met this Chinese girl on what was then called ‘China Love Cupid’, I think. This was before the Tinder era. She didn't speak English at all, so it was this total cliché of trying to communicate, trying to figure out "Are we dating, or what?” She was talking about marriage on, I think, the fourth date. You know, all the clichés were there. But she looked like that little girl in the sticker, and when I talked to her I felt like a big pink fluffy dragon. So to me, that series of dragon and little girl stickers became our little story. So it's a sticker attached to memories, more than anything else.

OF: Beautiful. Thank you.

BD: Yeah, it was beautiful.

OF: How long did it last in the end?

BD: I don't know if it even started. We're still in touch, though, as friends. It's no drama. Just, I wish I could speak Chinese.

OF: Well, it's chicken and egg, you know. Once you have a Chinese girlfriend, that's when the language comes to you, right?

BD: Yeah, and you know that's what the Chinese teacher said at the school. “OK, step number one, find girlfriend. Step number two, here's your textbook.”

OF: What is your go-to song to sing at KTV?

BD: The title song of ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ of course. So I wanted to become an actor, because I saw Michael Jackson on TV. And I wanted to become Michael Jackson. And too late I realised that if you want to be a singer, you need to hit tones, which I was never really interested in. So I became an actor, that was as close as I could get. But that also means when I was in high school I wanted to be in all these musicals that they put on in that high school. And since I couldn't sing, I always got to play the drunk guy. Because then I can drunk-sing. So I was Dolittle in ‘My Fair Lady’, and I got great parts. I think that's when I started to do comedy. I really love to do the Crouching Tiger song in Chinese, because it's so beautiful. And me trying to hit tones, it's just… it's a mess.

OF: What’s it called, does it have a name in Chinese?

BD: 为了爱 [Wèile ài], ‘Because of Love’, or ‘For the Sake of Love’.

OF: Brilliant. OK, I don't actually know that, I’m gonna have to find that out, how does it go?

BD: Oh, I hate you. It’s a girl singing, and yeah… I'm having fun, the audience is like “Ah, bloody hell.”

OF: Have you ever thought about incorporating it into a show, in that case?

BD: Oh that's brilliant. That is so… No, I think Frog King will have to sing this…

OF: And finally, what other China-related media or sources of information do you rely on?

BD: I try to listen to friends from different places. Like I have my Chinese friends who rely on what they hear from their friends; and I have my Chinese friends who really try to dig into things; and I have my American friends; my English friends; my Australian friends; my Swedish friends. So I try to hear all the stories, and try to not fall into conspiracies, but then also try to be critical.

OF: Yes. I think that's a good way to do it, although you're getting everything second-hand if you do it just that way, right?

BD: That's probably very true. But then again, I mean, in a way it's second-hand in the newspaper as well. But I must say, I’m not that interested in understanding it every day, but rather put this in a 20-year perspective.

OF: Well that answer alone tells me you're turning Chinese, because these guys think in centuries.

BD: Yeah! Well like, it's relaxing in one way.

OF: Yeah.

BD: I mean of course, for example when there are Swedish elections coming up, I do research. But it actually totally drains my energy.

OF: Oh, totally.

BD: But on one level, if you live in a society that is based on evidence-based science, you have certain obligations to play by those rules, whatever you think. It's an act of respect. You have to be informed to a certain extent, because that is your obligation as a citizen.

OF: Yeah.

BD: And then it's up to me when I want to dig deeper.

OF: Well on that note, thank you so much Björn.

BD: Thank you.

OF: We've talked about Tai Chi, we’ve talked about toads, thank you so much.

BD: Thank you, this was a true pleasure.