Raybon Kan

Raybon Kan (born c.1966) is a Masterton, New Zealand-born Chinese comedian and newspaper columnist.

Early life and family

Kan's family moved to Wellington, New Zealand soon after his birth, where he began his education at St Mark's Church School (where he was Dux in 1979 and showed an early flair for public performance) and continued through to Wellington College where he was proxime accessit to dux. He attended Victoria University of Wellington's law school, for what he called 'inexplicable reasons', and earned his LL B(Hons). During his university days, he captained the Victoria team to second place in the World Universities Debating Championships, losing the final to the University of Oxford.

His family's Chinese surname is not, in fact, Kan. This came from a clerical error when one of Kan's ancestors emigrated to New Zealand and one of his given names was recorded as his surname.

Career

He first came to prominence writing television reviews for "The Dominion" newspaper in Wellington and was soon performing stand-up comedy on stage and on television. His television work included regular appearances on sketch shows, though it has been reported that live comedy is his passion.

To that end, he has been named Best Comedian by "Metro" and "North and South" magazines on repeated occasions in New Zealand. He has performed at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, the Montreal Comedy Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe. According to his [http://www.raybonkan.com web site] , he has also performed in Calgary, Toronto, Vancouver, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Sydney. He was nominated for the Billy T Award in 1997.

His movie reviews have seen him present a segment on TV3's "Nightline" nightly news programme. His other network television appearances have been on "Skitz" and "Inside New Zealand", and was profiled in that country's edition of "60 Minutes."

He authored "Five Days in Las Vegas" in the early 1990s, about his travels to the United States during which he appeared on "Wheel of Fortune". Another travel-based title, "America on Five Bullets a Day", was published in 1998. The latest compendium of his work, "An Asian at My Table", was published in 2004.

He now lives in Auckland, New Zealand and writes a regular column for the "Sunday Star-Times" newspaper.

His humour can be described as self-deprecating.

He has two film roles in "Tongan Ninja" (directed by Jason Stutter) and "Spooked" (directed by Geoff Murphy).

In November 2004, he became the TV commercial spokesman for the Freedom Air airline in New Zealand.

External links

* [http://www.raybonkan.com/ Raybon Kan - official site]
*imdb name|id=0437011|name=Raybon Kan