One of China’s most high-profile traditional comedy performers is facing official investigation and the abrupt cancellation of multiple scheduled shows after altering the lyrics of a revered revolutionary song during a public performance, according to regional and international media reports. Guo Degang, the most influential figure in xiangsheng – a centuries-old Chinese form of conversational stand-up comedy credited with reviving mainstream public interest in the art among younger audiences – is under probe by cultural regulators in Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the controversial performance took place last month, local Chinese media confirmed.
The incident has triggered a wave of performance cancellations across the country. A scheduled August show in Xi’an, a major northwestern Chinese city, was pulled from the calendar, with ticketing platform Damai and the city’s performance venue both citing unspecified “venue issues” in public statements. The venue reclassified the show as “postponed” but declined to share a new rescheduled date, and Guo’s promotional team has offered full refunds for all ticket purchases, as well as reimbursement for pre-booked travel and accommodation costs linked to the performance. Multiple other August shows in cities across China have also been scrapped, local media reports indicate.
According to social media videos and local reporting, the controversy stems from an unauthorized lyric change to *Playing My Beloved Pipa*, a beloved revolutionary song tied to the 1956 film *Railway Guerrilla*, which chronicles the story of Communist-led resistance against Japanese occupation during World War II. During his Wuhan performance, Guo altered the original line “it is quiet along Weishan Lake” to “it is quiet in the Forbidden City” – the centuries-old former imperial palace in Beijing that now operates as a major public museum drawing more than 10 million annual visitors. The song is one of China’s most culturally significant revolutionary tracks: it was performed at the 1998 CCTV Spring Festival Gala, China’s most-watched annual television event, and was named in 2019 as one of the 100 recommended songs to mark the 70th founding anniversary of the People’s Republic of China by the Communist Party’s Publicity Department.
Shanghai-based state-affiliated outlet The Paper noted that while Guo’s full Wuhan performance received pre-approval from local cultural regulators, the last-minute lyric change did not. The alteration may run afoul of existing Chinese regulations governing commercial public performances, the outlet reported. As of Saturday, neither Guo Degang nor his promotional team had responded to emailed requests for comment from the Associated Press.
The investigation underscores the increasingly strict regulatory environment and content oversight governing China’s arts and entertainment sectors, where creators and performers must operate around vaguely defined, frequently shifting “red lines” for acceptable content. This is not the first high-profile incident of a Chinese comedian facing professional consequences for on-stage content. In 2023, rising stand-up comedian Li Haoshi, who performs under the stage name House, sparked massive national controversy after he used a Chinese military slogan to describe two of his pet dogs chasing a squirrel. Li’s management company Xiaoguo Culture Media was fined 14.7 million yuan (roughly $2.13 million) over the incident, and Li has not been permitted to perform in public venues on mainland China since.
Over the course of his decades-long career, Guo Degang has been widely credited with revitalizing xiangsheng, a traditional art form that was once largely regional and restricted to older audiences, by making it accessible and appealing to younger Chinese consumers. His performance troupe Deyunshe has become one of the most popular comedy brands in China, selling out shows across the country and building a massive global following on social media.