Happy who like Ulysses have made a long journey.
His name is Patrick, and he is already happy at the idea of the long journey he is going to make.
He is preparing to drive 20,000 km in Smart to reach China and perform his show there.
He is Patrick Veisselier, 48, who filled the Olympia under his name in 2007, alias Patrick the Chinese when he plays in Mandarin.
After a first show in 2014 in this language which is not his - and which he does not speak -, he will present his new opus in China.
“My second show in Chinese has been ready since April 2020, I had to play it on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower, then in Las Vegas (United States), fate decided otherwise, he explains.
I have had these two dates in China for a long time, I wanted to maintain them.
“Okay, but from there to go by car?
And in Smart what's more… Sounds like a joke.
It was in the beginning.
It all started with a joke launched between friends, while he wondered about air links with China in the midst of a pandemic.
By car?
Chick.
"The Smart is the one that suits me the least, for me, it's a vehicle close to the body," laughs the well-built comedian.
But the idea is gaining ground.
“You had to get past the stage where everyone generally does not care about you.
Then, I felt the benevolence among the friends who were ready to sponsor me.
"Like his friend Jean Roch, the night king of Saint-Tropez, then others, used to" sticking stickers on rally cars ".
Its budget of just over 30,000 euros is complete.
"In Kabul, I will have to translate the result into Mandarin"
That Thursday, we meet the man of Lyon origin at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, a few steps from the Smart Como dealership which provides him with a new car to cross the world.
Departure scheduled for April 30 from Paris, direction Guiyang, in central China.
He is due to play there on June 17, then a second time on the 19 in Chengdu.
Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia then Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey, but also Iran and Afghanistan, it has ten countries to go through, as many PCR tests to do.
And to present.
“It's not always easy to find where,” he points out.
In Kabul
(Editor's note: capital of Afghanistan)
, for example, I will have to have the result translated into Mandarin, there is only one certified translator, and I found her after several hours on the phone.
Once the Chinese border has been crossed, he will have another 4000 km to cover on roads listed in Mandarin.
Let him not speak, then.
But then why this language?
“A friend of Chinese origin told me something that struck me, that France was a very small country but that there were 20,000 comedians, whereas in China there are a billion and no comedians, he laughs.
There was a niche to be taken, no competition.
"
“In China, they are a billion and no comedians.
There was a niche to take, no competition ”, jokes Patrick Le Chinois./LP/Olivier Lejeune
Originally, again a joke… “I started and it fascinated me.
“After a first show in 2014, performed for tourists and the Chinese community in France, he lays a second one, which a French friend and his Chinese wife have translated for him.
They are the ones he will find in Guiyang.
Entitled "Waiting for Beyoncé", Patrick plays a French host who has come to present a show case by the singer who, of course, does not come.
A show that he learned sentence by sentence, in phonetics.
“I assimilate one minute a day, I have 317 sentences on a USB key that I listen to, repeat over and over again…” he breathes.
To be able to play it in China, he had to "have it validated by censorship", he explains again, without stopping any longer on the principle of having his text approved.
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“It would have been a problem for me if I had been forced to modify it, which is not the case,” he says.
I am not a committed comedian, I speak of everyday life.
Afterwards, I am neither a politician nor anything, I took this country with its culture, he adds.
I had exchanges with Chinese people who have a lot of a priori on ours, for my part I also had a lot before discovering the country, I have less.
China has its pros and cons.
Here.
"
800 km per day, six days a week
On his journey, he will never be more than 400 km from a Smart dealership, he says.
Reassuring in case of breakage.
He is "zero" in mechanics, he will benefit from a day of training for vehicle first aid ...
To swallow 20,000 km in a big month, Patrick plans to drive 800 km a day, six days a week.
At a hotel or at a homestay, he does not yet know where he will sleep, but he already has a few determined stopovers: Turin (Italy), Ljubljana (Slovenia), Sofia (Bulgaria) but also Ankara (Turkey) , he will present in Alliance Française centers a sort of comic lecture on his adventure.
"Meeting people, knowing that I am expected somewhere, it will break the monotony of the trip," he slips.
Other appointments could still be added.
And his relatives, what do they think?
“My wife wonders why I don't simply do theater!
Of course she is worried, but she knows that despite the appearance, I am well organized.
How else does he imagine the return?
" By plane.
"