摘要：Over a dozen individuals sat in a circle, their eyes bright with anticipation. “Let’s get comfortable first; let’s take turns intr
文 | 张怡文 李瑞荃
Over a dozen individuals sat in a circle, their eyes bright with anticipation. “Let’s get comfortable first; let’s take turns introducing ourselves,” said the woman in the center with an inviting smile. She is Brandy Spohn—the founder of Tough Cookie.
只见十几位参与者围坐成一圈，眼中闪烁着期待的光芒。“我们先放松一下，轮流做个自我介绍吧，”中央位置的女士带着亲切的微笑说道。她名叫布兰迪·斯庞，同时也是喜剧社群“球琦”（Tough Cookie）的创始人。
Tough Cookie, a comedy community based in Guangzhou, was founded in August 2024. It has since been holding diverse activities every Sunday. People from different countries, professions, and age groups gather here, with some even traveling long distances to attend. English, Chinese, Cantonese, and other languages converge in lively exchanges. Laughter and language build bridges between cultures.
球琦，是一个创建于2024年8月的广州喜剧社群，每周日都会举办多样化的活动。来自于不同国家、职业和年龄段的人们汇聚于此，有人甚至专程远道而来。英语、普通话、粤语等多种语言在此热烈交融，笑声和语言搭建起文化的桥梁。
As the founder, Brandy’s vision for Tough Cookie was to use language as a bridge to connect people, fostering cultural exchange and communication through innovative and fun comedy activities, while building a friendly community. Her efforts have not only enriched participants’ lives but also created a platform for cross-cultural understanding and friendship.
作为创始人，布兰迪希望通过趣味创新的喜剧活动搭建语言桥梁，促进文化交流，构建友善社群。她的努力不仅丰富了参与者的生活，更打造了一个跨文化理解与友谊的平台。
"Improv Sunday":
Communication and Understanding Beyond Language
“即兴周日”：跨越语言的交流与理解
This Sunday, as participants’ laughter filled the room, Brandy wove yet another thread into the tapestry of understanding—she had been building it one conversation, performance, and friendship at a time. After self-introductions and warm-up games，participants were divided into pairs, standing face-to-face to engage in a special interactive exercise. In every pair, one person would continuously change the gestures and the movement of his arms, while the other quickly mirrored his actions. What exactly are they doing? The activity is called mirroring, a classic improvisational technique that requires full-body focus, presence, and trust.
这个周日，当欢声笑语充满整个房间时，布兰迪又为理解之网编织了新的一线——她一直在通过每一次对话、表演和友谊构建这张网。在自我介绍和热身游戏后，参与者两两配对，面对面进行一项特殊互动练习。每一组中都会有一人不断变换手势和手臂动作，而另一人则需即时模仿。这就是是即兴表演中的经典技巧“镜像模仿"，需要全身心的专注、临场感和默契配合。
正在进行“镜像模仿”的两名参与者
（图片由受访者提供）
This event marks the first time her comedy label, Tough Cookie, has hosted an improvisation-based session called Improv Sunday. And this is also one of the cross-cultural practice Brandy conducted. “Improv is called improvisation, which is about creating in the moment—you don’t need a script, a plan, or preparation. You simply act on what comes to mind.” Brandy explained.
这是“球琦”首次举办名为“即兴周日”的即兴表演主题活动，也是布兰迪开展的跨文化实践之一。“即兴表演就是当下创作——不需要剧本、计划或准备，想到什么就表现什么，”布兰迪解释道。
For many, Tough Cookie’s Improv Sunday is more than a weekly event—it’s a cross-cultural playground where laughter, spontaneity, and connection break down language barriers. Julia Reinhart, a German teacher who has lived in Guangzhou for two years, recalls the first time she did the mirroring exercise: “I was paired with a Chinese student, and at first we both just giggled nervously. Then we started moving—big, sweeping arm gestures, sudden freezes, tiny finger twitches. I realized we didn’t need to speak the same language to understand each other. Brandy walked by and encouraged us to ‘get weird with it.’ That moment was magic. I felt seen, silly, and totally free.”
对许多人而言，“即兴周日”远不止是一个周常活动——更是一个用笑声、即兴和联结打破语言障碍的跨文化游乐场。在广州生活两年的德语教师尤莉亚·莱因哈特回忆首次尝试“镜像模仿”时说到：“我和一位中国学生配对，起初我们都紧张地傻笑。随后我们开始做动作——大幅摆臂、突然定格、细微的手指抽动。我意识到我们不需要共同语言就能相互理解。那一刻充满魔力，我感到被看见、可以犯傻、完全自由。”
“即兴周日”活动现场
（图片由受访者提供）
Among the many people touched by Brandy’s vision, one stands out in particular—her best friend and coworker of Tough Cookie, Fiona Yuan. Fiona is a native Chinese who has lived overseas for many years. Before meeting Brandy, she often felt adrift and questioned the meaning of life. Their encounter proved transformative: Brandy not only offered her support and guidance, but also invited her to work at Tough Cookie. Together, they began organizing Improv Sunday—now one of the Tough Cookie community’s most popular and iconic events.
在众多受布兰迪影响的人中，她的挚友兼同事袁菲娜尤为特别。这位曾旅居海外的中国姑娘坦言，在与布兰迪相遇前她常感迷茫，时常怀疑生活的意义。布兰迪不仅给予她支持和引导，更邀请她共同经营“球琦”。如今她们携手打造的“即兴周日”已成为社群最受欢迎的标志性活动。
“Before I met Brandy, I felt like I was just drifting through life. She saw potential in me that I couldn’t see myself. Working with her on Tough Cookie gave me a renewed sense of purpose and joy. Now, every Sunday, I get to witness people open up, laugh, and connect—and I know we’re creating something meaningful together.” Fiona shares. Their bond is the heart behind Tough Cookie: a testament to how friendship, creativity, and shared purpose can build something truly valuable.
“在遇见Brandy之前，我觉得自己一直在随波逐流地生活。她看到了我身上连我自己都没发现的潜力。和她一起经营‘球琦’，让我重新找回了生活的意义和快乐。现在，每个星期天，我都能看到人们在活动中逐渐敞开心扉、开怀大笑、彼此连接——我知道我们正在一起创造一件有意义的事情。”Fiona分享道。她们之间的情谊正是“球琦”的核心：一个关于友谊、创造力与共同使命如何凝聚成真正有价值事物的真实见证。
Language Learning:
Cross-Cultural Practice Under Multiple Identities
语言学习：多重身份下的跨文化实践
As an American who has lived in China for nearly 20 years, Brandy embodies multiple identities. Beyond her artistic endeavors, Brandy also possesses keen business insights. Early in her career in China, she quickly recognized the vast potential for English voiceover services and founded her own company, Lucky Pig, to capitalize on this burgeoning market. Since then, her voice has become a recognizable presence across various industries—from educational materials like textbooks and listening exams to animated series and video games.
作为在华生活20年的美国人，布兰迪拥有多重身份。除了在艺术领域的探索之外，布兰迪也展现出敏锐的商业洞察力。她在中国职业生涯的早期就迅速意识到英语配音服务的巨大潜力，并创办了自己的公司“幸运猪”，以把握这一快速发展的市场。从那以后，她的声音在多个行业中都变得耳熟能详——从教科书和听力考试等教育类材料，到动画剧集和电子游戏，布兰迪的声音无处不在。
Her business partner of Lucky Pig, Yitao Lyu, highlights Brandy's commitment not only to quality but also to cultural authenticity. Whenever they encounter scripts provided by clients that contain cultural misunderstandings or inaccuracies, Brandy and her team voluntarily refine these scripts, adapting them into more natural and authentic versions without additional charge. Abe emphasizes that for Brandy and their company, the mission extends beyond business profits—they aim to actively foster deeper cross-cultural communication and understanding between China and the United States.
她的“幸运猪”公司合伙人吕义滔特别指出，布兰迪始终坚持文化准确性。每当发现脚本存在文化误解，团队都会主动进行优化，将其调整为更自然地道的版本而不额外收费。对他们而言，促进中美间更深层的跨文化交流和理解的使命超过了商业利润
About five or six years ago, Brandy was offered the opportunity to record voiceovers for the Guangzhou Metro. Since then, her warm, elegant voice has accompanied countless passengers through their daily journeys—morning rush hours, leisurely afternoons, and quiet late nights. This experience has brought her closer to Guangzhou people, but what truly brought Guangzhou closer to her, is every taxi ride she takes in this beautiful metropolis.
大约五六年前，布兰迪开始为广州地铁录制播报。从那以后，她温暖优雅的声音陪伴无数乘客度过晨间繁忙、午后悠闲和深夜静谧。这段经历拉近了她与广州的距离，但真正让她融入这座城市的，是每一次在出租车上的对话。
录音棚里的Brandy
（图片由受访者提供）
Brandy loves practicing her Chinese with taxi drivers. Guangdong, as a vast province filled with migrant workers, makes these interactions particularly diverse and enriching. “Sometimes I don't wanna talk to them, because they always ask the same questions. Like, Where are you from? What do you do?” Brandy laughed. However, she quickly found a creative solution. Each time she's asked the familiar questions, she challenges herself to expand her answers, enriching her Chinese vocabulary along the way. “I'm from America. I'm from Georgia in the southern part of America. I'm from a city about an hour south of Atlanta...” This playful “expansion game” has significantly improved her fluency of Chinese, turning repetitive conversations into meaningful language practice.
布兰迪喜欢与司机们练习中文。广州作为外来人口大省，让这些交流尤其丰富多彩。“有时我不想聊天，因为他们总问同样的问题，”布兰迪笑道。但她很快找到创意解决方案——每次被问及熟悉问题时，就挑战自己尽可能扩展回答的内容，从而丰富中文词汇量。这个有趣的“扩展游戏”显著提升了她的中文流利度。
She also improves her vocabulary by asking guided questions to drivers. “Now I try to get into deeper conversations out of my level. Like, oh, tell me about that. And then let them just talk so I can pick up new vocabulary here and there. So I'd like guide the conversation to make them my teachers.”
她还通过引导性问题向司机学习新词汇。“现在我会尝试进行超出自己现有水平的深度对话，让他们成为我的老师。”
Beyond comedy and dubbing, Brandy is also passionate about music creation and frequently performs on live house stages. She works with the band, singing English songs, Chinese songs and even Cantonese songs. Currently, she is working on four music albums. Producing songs in a studio can be time-consuming and costly, but with the help of AI, she can effortlessly and quickly create hundreds of songs, turning ideas in her head into reality. “AI just really made it where I could finally get some of these dreams out of my head and into reality,” Brandy said.
除喜剧和配音外，布兰迪还热衷音乐创作，常在livehouse演出。她与乐队合作演绎中英文及粤语歌曲，目前正在制作四张专辑。借助AI技术，她能快速将脑海中的旋律变为现实。“AI终于让我梦想成真，”布兰迪说。
在舞台上弹唱的Brandy
（图片由受访者提供）
Interestingly, two of Brandy’s albums focus on learning Chinese and English. When asked why she created language-learning albums, Brandy shared that she learned much of her Chinese in KTVs. “Take it linguistically, if you’re trying to memorize a new word or phrase without rhythm, it’s difficult. Your brain loves rhythms. Your brain loves patterns. You can remember a song better than anything on your test.” Brandy hopes that by making these songs, the interesting melodies and rhythms can help Chinese people better learn English better and foreigners learn Chinese better. Unfortunately, making language learning songs in a truly systematic way is a complex undertaking, “If I make the songs, I also have to make the vocabulary test and the workbook and the things and like a whole curriculum around it. And that's more than one person can do in her spare time,” Brandy said regretfully. So she just post some of them on rednote, a popular Chinese social media and lifestyle platform often compared to a mix of Instagram and Pinterest, to see how the audience responds, maybe we'll be able to hear more of them in the future.
有趣的是，布兰迪的两张专辑都聚焦于语言学习——一张是学中文，一张是学英文。当被问到为什么会制作关于语言学习的专辑时，布兰迪分享了一个出人意料的经历：她的大部分中文其实是在KTV里学会的。“从语言学角度看，没有节奏地记忆新词很难。正式因为大脑喜欢节奏和模式，所以记歌词总比记考试内容容易。”她解释道。Brandy 希望通过创作这些歌曲，用有趣的旋律和节奏帮助中国人更好地学习英语，也让外国人更轻松地学习中文。然而，要真正系统地做语言学习歌曲却是一项非常复杂的工作。“如果我要做这些歌，我还得做词汇测试、练习册，还有一整套教学内容。这不是一个人靠业余时间就能完成的。”Brandy 有些遗憾地说道。因此，她现在只是把其中的一些作品发布在小红书上“试水”，也许未来我们能听到更多由她创作的语言学习歌曲。
Growing Roots Across Cultural Resonances
在跨文化共鸣中扎根成长
For Brandy, China isn’t just where she’s lived for almost two decades—it’s where she’s grown into herself, experiencing the dizzying pace of urban transformation firsthand. She often jokes about experiencing an identity crisis, playfully describing it as being “reborn.” “I always make the joke, I have a 19-year-old Chinese girl in my brain,” she says, bursting out laughing. Arriving in this vibrant oriental environment just as she reached adulthood, Brandy quickly found that everything she’d learned in America about being an adult seemed inadequate amidst a culture so vastly different. Ever since, she’s been growing and evolving alongside this young, dynamic city.
对布兰迪而言，中国不仅是生活近二十年的地方，更是见证她成长蜕变的第二故乡。她常开玩笑说自己经历了“重生”。她说：“我大脑里住着个19岁的中国女孩”。由于刚成年就来到这个充满活力的东方环境，她发现在美国学到的成人法则在这里远远不够。从此，她与这座年轻都市共同成长。
Brandy’s long years in Guangdong also has revealed surprising similarities between Cantonese culture and her childhood experiences in Georgia. “Actually, what was shocking was a lot of things were similar.” Both cultures cherish community comfort, share a deep passion for delicious food, and appreciate the value of slowing down to enjoy life’s moments. The culture maybe different, but at the end of day, people are just people.
在广东的漫长岁月还让她发现粤文化与家乡佐治亚州的惊人相似：都重视社区温情、热爱美食、懂得慢享生活。正如她所说：“文化或许不同，但归根结底，人就是人。”
Brandy also encountered other foreigners who have come to China for several years but still don’t know how to speak Chinese or keep certain stereotypes about Chinese people. Rather than maintaining stereotypes out of a misguided sense of superiority, Brandy believes everyone should reflect and empathize more deeply. “Drop your preconceived notions, experience some,” She says. While cultural differences can indeed lead to misunderstandings or even biases, not all such instances can be solely attributed to culture. Culture influences individuals, but it is ultimately up to each person to either perpetuate cultural norms or challenge traditional frameworks.
布兰迪也遇到过在华多年仍不会中文或对中国持有刻板印象的外国人。她认为与其保持优越感，不如放下成见亲身体验。用她的话来说：“请丢掉你先入为主得概念，试者去亲身体验。”在她看来，虽然文化差异确实可能造成误解甚至偏见，但并非所有问题都可归因于文化，而是最终取决于个人选择。
Understanding and embracing Chinese culture now has become an automatic part of her life. “If I didn't like this country, I wouldn't live here. If I didn't believe in some of the values it stood for, again, I wouldn't be here.” As she continues her journey exploring China, Brandy remains curious and open-hearted, embracing each day with genuine enthusiasm.
理解并接纳中国文化已成为她的生活本能。“如果不喜欢这个国家，我不会留在这里。”在探索中国的旅程中，她始终保持着好奇与热忱。
Brandy with a model of Canton Tower
在大湾区搭建文化之桥
When talking about internationalization, Brandy smiles warmly. “As someone from a small town in the U.S., I was surprised by how international China already was at the time.” Even back in 2006, Guangzhou was a bustling center of global trade, bringing people from all corners of the world into her everyday life. To thrive, she quickly learned to navigate interactions with diverse individuals and cultures. Now in 2025, Brandy has become a fierce advocate for meaningful cultural exchange that go deeper than superficial encounters. Through her multicultural events like comedy and improv, she actively creates welcoming spaces for people to connect genuinely, fostering friendships that span continents.
谈及国际化，布兰迪露出了热情的微笑：“作为来自美国小镇的人，我惊讶于中国当时的国际化程度。”早在2006年，广州已是繁华的全球贸易中心，为了更好地生存，她很快学会了如何和不同文化背景的人互动。2025年的今天，布兰迪已经成为了一名积极的文化交流倡导者，这种交流要比肤浅的接触更深入。通过她的多元文化活动，如喜剧和即兴表演，她积极地为人们创造真诚联系的欢迎空间，培养跨越大洲的友谊。
Today, as she continues organizing multicultural events and creating spaces for genuine connection, Brandy sees herself as part of a larger story unfolding in southern China. Guangzhou, thriving in the Greater Bay Area's inclusive environment, has attracted many foreigners like her who contribute to its vibrant international character. As Guangzhou continues to evolve as a global metropolis, Brandy's experience demonstrates how cultural bridges are built not just through major initiatives, but through countless small, sincere interactions.
今天，布兰迪依然在组织多元文化活动，致力于创造真实连接的空间。她将自己视为华南大地上正在展开的宏大叙事的一部分。在大湾区包容开放的氛围中，广州日益繁荣，吸引了许多像她一样的外国人，共同构筑了这座城市丰富多彩的国际面貌。随着广州发展为国际大都市，布兰迪的经历也正说明，文化桥梁不仅通过重大倡议搭建，更源于无数真诚的微小互动。
来源：辟谣特工队一点号1
