Jia Ling

Jia Ling was born Jia Yuling (贾俞玲; Jiǎ Yùlíng) in 1982 in Yicheng County in northern Hubei province, the younger of two daughters from a poor family of four. In 1994, she studied acting for two years in Wuhan Art School. In 2000, she unsuccessfully applied for the acting major at the Central Academy of Drama (中央戏剧学院), and in 2001 applied again for Drama Performance and Cross Talk Performance at the same time. Although she received acceptance in both majors this time, Jia Ling could only enroll in cross talk performance, allegedly due to her mother Li Huanying's thick accent that confused the pronunciation of "drama" (戏剧; xìjù) with "comedy" (喜剧; xǐjù) when the Academy phoned to confirm her preference. Her mother later died in a traffic accident in late 2001, and her older sister Jia Dan quit college to help financially support Jia Ling's further education.

After graduation from the Academy, Jia Ling was unable to receive performance work because of her status as a female crosstalk performer, which was traditionally always a male profession, so she began to work everywhere, making a living by working as a part-time host, script creator, and temporary assistant to other artists, as well as living off the assistance of her sister. Her sister once found her a more stable job as a highway tollbooth worker, but she refused.