And speaking of newcomers, we've had quite a few of them recently at our English language open mics. But we've also had more and more local Chinese comedians coming to perform stand up comedy in English. Take a look!

The stand-up comedy scene in China is very young. Comedy Club China - the first official English language stand-up comedy club in Beijing started up in 2011.

Although it's mostly expats, tonight, there are a few Chinese comedians performing in their second language.

LEE CHINESE COMEDIAN "A one syllable name Lee. And I tell people I'm still learning English and that's how many syllables I can handle. So deal with it."

Daniel Dan does stand up comedy in both Chinese and English.

"So he said how old are you? And I said however old you want me to be."

"How do you write your jokes? Are you thinking in English or Chinese when you write them?"

DANIEL DAN CHINESE COMEDIAN "Actually my friend, a very good Chinese comedian always tell me that it's such a new thing, stand up comedy in Chinese, actually even Chinese stand-up comedians think in English first. Yeah a lot of them have to think of all the logic, all the punchlines in English then try to smooth that out into Chinese. For me because I do Chinese comedy, but it's still the same. Like almost all my jokes come in English first. So you have to find a way, the wording is very important, the rhythm is completely different. And like the speed is also very different. And people find different things funny."

"So when you write jokes are you thinking in Chinese or English?"

EVANGELINE Z CHINESE COMEDIAN "Yeah I would say the initial reaction would be in English, but now I am trying very hard to do it bilingually so that I don't have to translate it, which that don't work usually if you translate it."

Nick Barber, a.k.a Long Hu, who calls himself the "comedian in heels", hails from Britain and works during the day as a kindergarten teacher at a place called Muffy's. No, that's not a joke, although he often jokes about it.

"I teach some really brutal kids in my school."

He says that the Beijing stand-up comedy scene is special.

"I mean you just make one off-colored joke about Alla ackbar in the middle of a comedy club and."

NICK BARBER BRITISH COMEDIAN "It's a very supportive comedy set, we're always very excited when we get new people sign up, and we get new people giving it a go. We're excited when we have female comedians coming in and giving it a try, which is great because it gives a new level or a new angle to comedy, um, instead of just several white people saying the same jokes again and again."

Like Ferttita, I also started doing stand-up comedy in Beijing a few years ago. And tonight, I'm grateful for some stage time, which is usually 4-5 minutes.

"I'm a parent you guys, just had a baby a few months ago. Yeah. Can you, can you tell? So I don't look American anymore?"

Considering how big the city of Beijing is, the English stand-up comedy scene is quite small.

Does Fertitta think it will ever get to something that resembles the comedy scenes of New York or Los Angeles?

DAVID FERTITTA AMERICAN COMEDIAN "I would say for English language, no way. Chinese? It's there. It's there right now. It's like the premiere place to do Chinese language stand up. But English, there's just not enough expats to do it. And if you do it in the States or in England or even in Chinese you gotta be going up 5 times a night. There's definitely a glass ceiling here."

Only time can tell, but for now, it seems that the English stand-up comedy scene gives both locals and foreigners a fun and creative community - where laughter is the universal language. Jennifer Hsiung, CGTN.