The Last Word

Sunday, November 12, 2006
By BILL LANKHOF

He's admired by more people in the world than any other Canadian. Yet, in Canada, most of his countrymen have never heard of him. Mark Rowswell wouldn't have it any other way.

Rowswell was named the Canadian Olympic team's attaché this week for the Beijing Games. And, if the first question that comes to mind is: Mark who? It doesn't surprise Rowswell in the slightest.

Learned Phrases

Now 41, Rowswell was born in Ottawa, learned Chinese phrases from co-workers at a Toronto camera shop, decided to study Chinese at the University of Toronto and "the next thing to do seemed to be to go to China," he says. "Six months of immersion, I figured, and then home to start a career. I was in Beijing two months and ended up on TV and it took on a life of its own. It's not as if this career was planned."

That was 18 years ago. Today he's bigger in China than noodles. He has become the Milton Berle of Chinese TV. He appears on nationally broadcast variety shows and hosts educational programs. But, mostly, he is known as Dashan, which translated means Big Mountain. Images of Dashan are everywhere from buses to billboards. Bicyclists wave. Officials of state-run TV estimate that he is known by 80% of Chinese - more than one billion people. Not bad for a kid who calls North Toronto home.

Since Rowswell captured the admiration of the Chinese as the quick-witted foreigner doing amusing skits in Mandarin in 1988 he has evolved from visitor to beloved public figure and cultural ambassador. Which makes him the perfect choice as the point man for Canada's Olympic team.

Chris Rudge, CEO of the Canadian Olympic Committee, spent the past week with Rowswell in China. "We had dinner and walking down a street here with him is like walking down Yonge St. with Wayne Gretzky on one side and Shania Twain the other. Parents wave, kids point. He's loved by the Chinese. He represents Canadian qualities of success while retaining humility. Canadians deserve to get to know him."

This week Rowswell and Rudge have been scouring Beijing to find a place to turn into Canada House during the Olympics. "It's exciting ... a volunteer position but," Rowswell says, "a once-in-a- lifetime chance to do something special."

He personifies the meaning of "special." When Rowswell's teachers at Peking University volunteered him for a 1988 variety TV show, he created Dashan -- a country bumpkin character. It caught on and he got his break when he hooked up with Jiang Kun, a master in xiangsheng, the centuries-old Chinese performance art known as crosstalk. "It's not so much a comedian in the western sense where you tell jokes. It's a traditional form of Chinese comedy -- a bit like Abbott and Costello but not slapstick. It's erudite, play on words, puns, tricks with the language, tongue twisters."

Part of his act's attraction for the Chinese audience is that the goofy foreigner, all blonde and six-foot-one, always ends up understanding better the glories of the country's culture than the Chinese master who's supposed to be teaching him.

Canadian officials contacted him 18 months ago. Rowswell admits he was surprised.

Rudge recalled his first trip to Beijing. "I get in a cab. The driver spoke English and asked where I was from. I told him and he said: 'Oh, Dashan, Canada!' When I got home I Googled him. I found it intriguing that a guy could move here and be so successful. I e-mailed him."

It turned out Rowswell and Rudge lived three blocks apart in Thornhill. They met at the corner coffee shop. It didn't take Rudge and Co. long to figure out he was their key to a people and country shrouded in mystery. "My job is to help on the cultural side, open doors, show them how to do business in China, how to get around. For them it's not just training the athletes -- they're asking me how do we manage effectively in this environment."

Freaked Out

He has a seminar planned next week in Collingwood with Canadian officials and athletes. One of the things he's impressed on the COC is the benefit of sending athletes to China at least once before the Games "so that when they get here they're not completely freaked out." Most people, he says, have preconceived ideas of China -- most of them, wrong.

"I may have the answers," Rowswell laughs, "but I've been here so long I've forgotten what a lot of the questions are."