To his surprise, their performances were warmly welcomed, and they were soon invited to perform in other teahouses such as Mingliu and Qianxiangyi.

At first, their audiences were mostly senior people, but young people gradually took more seats. Today listening to xiangsheng has become chic for many young people in Tianjin. It is even hard for elderly people to go to Mingliu and Qianxiangyi, where young people often book all the tickets.

People queue up outside Tianqiao Le Teahouse in Beijing to get tickets of Guo Degang's performance. [China Daily]

Now Yanle is Tianjin's only teahouse where the comic talk shows are mainly frequented by senior audiences. After all, Yanle is located at Nanshi, an old area of Tianjin, which was once the centre of xiangsheng in the first half of the 20th century. Moreover, Yanle charges only eight yuan (US$1) for a show ticket plus a cup of tea, which is cheaper than the regular price of 10 yuan in other teahouses.

Yanle can only hold about 100 people, and after the rental of the venue, the performers have very little left for their income.

"We had thought of giving up Yanle several times, but we couldn't make the decision," said Yin. "Zhong You means 'friends of the audience,' and we should serve all kinds of audience, including senior people."

Zhong You offers a repertoire of mostly traditional works. In contrast, Haha Xiao, another group well-known in Tianjin, has come up with more new works to keep up with the times.

"Xiangsheng is a most up-to-date form of performance," said Ma Shuchun, director of Haha Xiao group. "We pay much attention to creating new works and injecting new elements into traditional works."

While the performers are writing new works, more people have come forward to offer ideas for original works on the Internet.

Ma and his partner Tong Youwei won the first prize at the first Internet Xiangsheng Competition of China in 2004 with a new work titled "The Olympic Dream." It was written by Lila, host of a BBS at the "Zhonghua Xiangsheng Net" (www.xiangsheng.org).

Tong and Ma have performed a number of works pasted on the Internet by amateur writers. Most of them are about contemporary life, such as "Western Food" and "Artificial Beauty." After Tong and Ma's amendments, some of these works were welcomed by the audience and became part of the group's standard repertory.

Offering new works is not the Internet's only contribution to xiangsheng. Ma said he had benefited more from the Internet.

"The Internet provides substantial information, which helps me greatly in researching and writing works," said Ma. "Sometimes I also paste my recordings on the Internet for netizens to comment on, so that I can keep improving."

Now Haha Xiao group gives 13 performances in teahouses every week, which tops all the folk talk show groups in Tianjin.

"Among theatres, teahouses and the TV, I like to perform in teahouses the most," said Ma. "The close distance between the performers and audience provides much room for interaction, and the performers can improvise sometimes according to the situation."

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