Since 2012 Dashan has largely turned away from mainstream media to focus on solo performances in live venues, helping to introduce stand-up comedy to China.

[citation needed] He started learning Chinese in 1979 from a refugee that he worked alongside in a camera store on Bank Street.

The producers wanted a foreigner with fluent Mandarin, and selected Rowswell from a field of candidates partly because of his Chinese studies degree from the University of Toronto.

[3] Rowswell portrayed a sassy peasant with a no-nonsense wife during the skit,[3] which was called Ye gui (Chinese: 夜归).

Following Rowswell's first appearance as "Dashan", he began formal study of xiangsheng with his mentor, comedian Jiang Kun.

[4] In December 1989, Dashan became the first foreigner to be formally accepted into the strict xiangsheng hierarchy as a member of the "9th generation", a move that caused considerable controversy in Chinese performing arts circles at the time.

This program is China's most watched annual television event, with an estimated audience of 900 million to 1 billion viewers.

[7] Dashan made a fourth appearance on the CCTV New Year's Gala in 2011, in a skit introducing and performing with several foreign students studying Chinese at Confucius Institutes.

[8] With the move away from xiangsheng, throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s Dashan increasingly worked in a non-comedic role as a freelance host or presenter of many varied television programs and live events, especially those with an international focus and requiring a bilingual (English/Chinese) emcee.

In 2006 and 2007, Dashan performed the lead role in Red Star Over China (Chinese: 红星照耀中国), a stage play based on the life and work of the American reporter Edgar Snow.

[10] In many instances, Dashan has transcended the role of celebrity performer to become a cultural ambassador between China and the West, both in an informal as well as official capacity.

"[12] In recent years Dashan has largely turned away from television to focus on solo performances in live venues and on social media.

What’s wrong with that?”[21] Dashan's name and image can often be seen in commercial endorsements for various Chinese and international companies, including Canadian Ford automobiles starting in 2007[22] and 2008.

Since the late 1990s, Dashan has split his time between China and Canada, where his family has a farm near Newmarket, Ontario and a cottage near Algonquin Provincial Park.