Des Bishop hosts a stand-up comedy show at right here club at Beijing's Wudaokou on February 26 (WEI YAO)

Life in a first-tier Chinese city can be stressful, and in Beijing there is a growing market for one of the most powerful antidotes to a bad mood: laughter.

Each Wednesday night, in a dimly lit dive bar called Hot Cat Club, hidden inside a hutong neighborhood south of the Lama Temple, around 20 amateur stand-up comedians are given five minutes each to get on stage at an open mic to entertain an audience of around 80 people. A crew of around a dozen seasoned comedians practice their routines before going on to perform at paid weekend gigs held at more spacious locales.

The host, a 26-year-old American named David Fertitta, introduces new comics and performs some of his own material between sets. After warming up the crowd he called to the stage a first-time comedian, who paced back and forth on stage, occasionally peeking into his notebook to recall jokes that were, to him, hilarious – at the time. He trudged through a rite of passage known in stand-up parlance as "bombing," or failing to connect with the audience, the attention of which a comic must command and please or risk being ignored – or worse yet, openly ridiculed.

After the newcomer stepped off the raised platform and out of the spotlight, Fertitta introduces one of Beijing's most promising stand-up comedians, 28-year-old Gus Tate, a native of Kentucky, the U.S. He has a mostly "clean" set, which is free of the more crude content other comics often use to shock their listeners into hysterics. Tate instead charms the audience with anecdotes, clever observations, and lessons from his interactions with China.

Having performed stand-up regularly in English for the past year, Tate said he'd like to try performing in Chinese. "The language barrier makes certain things funny that wouldn't necessarily by funny in your native language," he said, adding that the spectacle of a foreigner on stage, in a way, primes a Chinese audience to laugh.

Tate believes his sense of humor is shared not just with his fellow expats but with diverse crowds of both Chinese and foreigners. "I want to believe that things I think are funny are just funny," he said.

Stand-up comedy first became popular in the U.S. following the appearances of comedians on late night television talk shows such as Johnny Carson's, and has seen a resurgence in recent years as the Internet allows performers to reach wider audiences through video streaming sites like YouTube and social networking like Twitter.

In a similar fashion, the Internet has created opportunities for comedians in China to find outlets for creative expressions beyond the standard television format, which involve producers and outside pressure throughout the script-writing process. Jesse Appell, an American who has spent time in China researching comedic forms and appeared on state-run China Central Television (CCTV) as a cross-talk performer, said stand-up has been getting bigger and bigger as more people are willing to devote larger budgets to create content designed to be put on the Internet. "At this point," he said, "TV and the Internet are almost interchangeable."

Joe Wong, a Chinese comedian who performed at the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner, helped bring exposure to the art of stand-up in China after his performance found a global audience in 2010.

Another internationally recognized comedian has spent the past year living in China and filming his experiences for an upcoming documentary. Des Bishop, who was raised in New York, moved to Ireland as a teenager to attend boarding school and went on to entertain audiences with his observations of life in the country, taking on issues such as poverty and alcoholism.

Bishop, 38, was in the process of moving into a new apartment north of Beijing's Second Ring Road when he spoke with Beijing Review. After living with a host family for one year, his Mandarin skills have improved to a point where he has now met his goal of performing stand-up comedy routines in Chinese. At a recent event held at The Bookworm, a bookshop, library, bar, restaurant and events space in downtown Beijing -- where he performed in a live show featuring China's most famous foreigner, Canadian cross-talk performer Mark Henry Rowswell (better known as Da Shan in his Chinese name) -- the audience was as receptive to the humor as any despite being a relatively new phenomenon, Bishop said.

At a show he headlined in December, Bishop's commentary on life in China was on point, describing the often chaotic patterns of traffic in the country as being ruled not so much by law than by a mix of suggestion and instincts, which flow together in a kind of Tao state of fluid movement. His act also plays with the Chinese script, illustrating the bewilderment of trying to tackle an utterly alien language.

Bishop's stage presence and energy come across whether he is performing in Mandarin or English, displaying both showmanship and scholarship while delivering a perceptive view of contemporary Chinese life. And as his language skills improved, he discovered that his understanding of and interaction with society grew. "Once you learn Chinese, it opens up a whole new world," said Bishop.

In working with and offering guidance to a group of emerging Chinese comedians, such as CCTV reporter and part-time comic Tony Chou, Bishop said the stand-up form of entertainment is quickly reaching domestic audiences. "These guys are pretty pioneering," he said. "It's incredible that they have – on their own – brought a brand new culture to China."

In 2008, Bishop produced a television series called In the Name of Fada documenting his attempt to learn the Irish language and explore social issues in Ireland. The experience was so successful that in 2013, he chose to translate the formula into Chinese. Through his first year collaborating with a group of promising stand-up acts in Beijing, Bishop feels optimistic enough to continue living and working in China after the series premieres or Irish television in the spring.

Bishop said China's emerging middle class is eager to find new forms of entertainment, and stand-up comedy offers an affordable alternative to the rock concerts and traditional performance arts that run upwards of 500 yuan ($80) per ticket. And while cross-talk remains more relevant to modern Chinese cultural life than some give it credit for, stand-up comedy is the more fast-growing genre.

And in a city where the pressures of cutthroat competition can make life seem a little too serious at times, there are bound to be more in search of a laugh.