Driven by the basic necessity of survival, he began to tell stories on the side of the roads, offering up satires of the maladies of his day, called liaodi xiangsheng (" roving monologues "). He also gave himself a stage name which to this day sounds cool: Qiong Bupa (" Not Afraid of Poverty").
相聲的祖師爺，據說是清同治、光緒年間的落第秀才朱紹文，他為生活所迫，就往路邊一站，開講起來，諷喻時弊發發牢騷，稱之為「撂地相聲」。