Old-school comedy makes a comeback

Since the beginning, the jokes and materials used in dujiaoxi and huajixi have always been closely related to the daily lives of ordinary people. One of the best-known repertoires in huajixi was A House with 72 Tenants by the Shanghai People's Huajixi Company in 1958. The production revolves around the relationships of the various tenants of a crowded apartment building, including a boy who repairs shoes for a living, a washerwoman, a tailor and a traditional Chinese medicine doctor.

"The play encapsulates the aesthetics and principles of huajixi. It depicts the grassroots community of Shanghai, which is an open city that welcomes people from all parts of the country," says Wang Yueyang.

For decades, huajixi was so popular in Shanghai that there was even a saying in the early 1980s that goes: "one can trade an apartment with tickets to a huajixi show". According to Wang Rugang, this stems from an urban legend about a man who used his status as an employee of the famous Huajiju company to win the favor of the clerk who was processing his housing application. During that period, people weren't allowed to buy property－they were allocated a home by the municipal administration of housing instead.

The clerk, whose interest was piqued, then asked for a few tickets, which were delivered the next day. In exchange, the man was favorably granted a 15-square-meter apartment.