Audiences wooed at open-mic nights

Running errands one afternoon, Han Yanni rushed onto a crowded subway train in Beijing, squeezing into a small space while trying not to spill her coffee.

Clinging firmly to a strap handle, she noticed a passenger near her watching a popular soap opera, which Han had been following at home every day.

As she rode the cramped train, Han suddenly remembered a joke told by standup comedian Yingning, who said that when she took the subway during the rush hour in Beijing, she looked over people's shoulders on different trains in order to watch a TV series. In 30 days of commuting, she viewed an entire series.

Han, 28, who works in the finance industry in the Chinese capital, is an avid fan of standup comedy, an art form that is becoming increasingly popular in China.

Unlike traditional forms of Chinese comedy such as cross-talk, which follows a storyline, standup lends itself more to self-expression, imparting the humor of everyday life to audiences.