Richard Doran, loving life in the Beijing media spotlight
Richard Doran, a popular personality and occasional stand-up comedian on Chinese television and radio.
As a foreigner with a front row seat for the modernisation of China and its development as an economic superpower, Richard Doran has seen a lot in his two decades living in the Red Dragon.
Add in a varied and fulfilling media career, and the Irish television and radio host freely admits his time spent in the country has given him unexpected opportunities, despite the initial culture shock when he first arrived back in 1998.
On arrival, Doran immediately became involved with the large expat community in Beiling.
“I started as many people do, teaching English as a foreign language. Then I spent some time studying Chinese and Chinese history at university, and through that I got involved in a Chinese comedy club with students from all over the world.”
This led to regular appearances on Chinese television, where Doran would perform his comedy routine in Chinese, a so-called “Xiangsheng” or “crosstalk” performer. This, he admits, made him something of a novelty — an Irishman who could speak their language well enough to be funny — and meant he was often stopped and recognised when out and about.
“My role in those days was generally ‘the foreigner’,” he laughs. “But it offered me the opportunity to travel around China quite extensively.”
More media work followed, including long-term roles on Beijing Radio and China Radio International. Having studied media and broadcasting back in Dublin, it was right up his alley. “It took me moving to China via Australia to end up working on Chinese national television,” he laughs. “It looks like a career plan but it wasn’t.”
Doran admits it took some time to adjust to some of the more basic differences between China and Ireland. The food, for example.
“Even if you do enjoy Chinese food in Ireland, here the food is quite different such as the spices used and how it’s prepared. It definitely takes people a while to get used to the diet here.”
He also had to get used to the huge temperature variation between seasons.
“In Beijing, in summer it can often reach 40 degrees celsius, but in the winter it can reach minus 10. You can imagine the kind of wardrobe you need.”
Doran, however, has never donned the “Beijing bikini”. “That’s where elderly men fold up their shirts to expose their bellies in the extreme summer heat. I haven’t done that yet.”
But the biggest cultural difference, he says, is the sheer sensory overload that is part and parcel of living in China’s capital city.
“I am from Dublin, but no matter where you are from, it is hard to compare it to Beijing. The population is over 47 million and there are several cities in China where the population is over 10 million. The idea of alone time doesn’t exist, you can only imagine the sounds and noises from that sheer volume of people, and navigating public transport can be overwhelming.”
These are minor quibbles relative to living in an authoritarian state, however. The all-pervading government control that China is notorious for can be difficult to accept as an expat.
“China’s record on freedom of the press is well known,” Doran says. “It’s not so much Big Brother is watching you as that you are policing yourself. If you said something on social media that you may not even mean but could be seen as critical, there would be a backlash. Not just disparaging comments about the government but even the idea of mentioning Chinese leaders by name in a post — you might do that at home but it is such an alien concept here.”
And, practically speaking, this has implications for living and working — Doran is using a virtual private network (VPN) in order to facilitate our Zoom call.
“The ‘Great Firewall of China’ is real. Without a VPN, about 98% of the internet is blocked and it’s been that way since Google and all of its affiliates were blocked in China,” he explains. “If you are working for an international corporation or doing any sort of research, it makes your job next to impossible without a VPN.”
Their use is (obviously) strongly discouraged and it can even be dangerous to use or sell VPNs.
In recent years, Doran says Chinese policy is facing a backlash from its people, a reduction in nationalist sentiment that he believes stems at least partly from the extreme emphasis that is placed on achieving a university education.
“The ultimate goal is to be in university but then what? They don’t treat it as a stepping stone and that’s why China is facing some serious social pressure in terms of rising unemployment and a housing crisis. For the first time you are seeing more vocal opposition to the government policies that have been part of the Chinese identity for many years.”
These online grumbles grew much, much louder during what Doran says was the “complete mishandling and mismanagement” of exiting the Covid pandemic. The world watched agape in the early days of the mysterious virus as the province of Wuhan was shut down and huge hospitals sprang up as if by magic to treat the sick. Yet after years of harsh restrictions that persisted long after the rest of the world had returned to “normal”, the Chinese authorities suddenly did a U-turn.
“It was literally overnight, there were testing booths on the corner of every street then a reversal where the need to do a Covid test every 48 hours was removed, with no explanation,” recalls Doran, who spent most of the pandemic in China, a time he says was “incredibly stressful”. While every country had some level of restrictions and personal freedom being curtailed, he contrasts the transparency of their approach with that of China.
“No matter how much you fault the Irish or UK government’s handling of the pandemic, you could have people on television able to complain about lockdowns or the impact to their businesses,” he says. “The fact that those conversations could happen at all was very alien to someone like myself who was going through it in China because there the opposite was true.”
The Chinese policy of almost complete isolation for a country of over 1.4 billion people was initially supported by the public, Doran recalls.
“That will tell you about the Chinese mindset, where typically everyone follows suit and nobody questions why. But the last year of it was very difficult as that’s when the rest of the world was moving out of it and there were no more lockdowns and people were learning to live with it.
"Then suddenly it was over, and people almost got whiplash, going from this extended intense lockdown, with social distancing and constant testing, to everything is ok again. It will be a few years before we can look back and really process how bad it was.”
Doran is currently working as a translator for a digital education company and lives between Dublin and Beijing. Despite living in China for over a quarter of a century, ultimately, he sees himself settled at home.
“China is a paradox of itself,” he asserts. “It is an incredible place and it is worth a visit but the longer you are here the less you feel you belong to the place and the more you understand the reasons why you will never belong.
"I have had some great opportunities, I have met some really nice people and I have been able to travel, as well as provide for my family, but at the end of the day I just work here. At the moment, I have the best of both worlds but the bureaucracy is out of control — I can’t do it anymore. Long term I know it’s not for me, I will definitely settle back in Ireland.”
