The annual Tibetan New Year's Eve TV gala, to be aired on Tuesday, will be an "east-meets-west" event with an appearance by a Mandarin-speaking Canadian who is much better known in China than at home.

Mark Rowswell will be a guest and master of ceremonies of the show, pre-recorded Friday for broadcast on Tibet's regional television next Tuesday, which is the eve of the traditional Tibetan New Year.

In the filmed segment, dubbed in Tibetan dialect as well as Mandarin Chinese, the comedian extends New Year's greetings to at least 2 million viewers in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region. He also introduces himself in Tibetan dialect, which he learned a bit of during his first visit to the plateau this week.

The comedian said he feels at home in the plateau region. "You see mountains and picture-perfect scenery everywhere."

His Chinese name, Dashan, means "huge mountains".

Roswell, 43, came to China in 1988. After he became fluent in Chinese, he learned "crosstalk," a traditional Chinese form of comic dialogue, from top comedian Jiang Kun.

Jiang also appears in the show in a comic dialogue with a Tibetan actor.

The gala is Tibet's equivalent of China Central Television's annual show, presented on the eve of the traditional Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival.

The four-hour show will be available to 87 percent of the 2.88 million population of Tibet. The broadcast will include nearly 800 performers from Beijing and the Tibetan communities in Tibet, Sichuan, Yunnan and Gansu.

(Xinhua News Agency February 21, 2009)