Raybon Kan

Raybon Kan (born 1966) is a New Zealand comedian and newspaper columnist.

Early life and family Kan's family moved to Wellington, New Zealand soon after his birth in Masterton. He began his education at St Mark's Church School. He showed an early flair for public performance which he continued at Wellington College and was School Council President and proxime accessit to dux. He attended Victoria University of Wellington's law school, and earned his LL B(Hons) and was admitted to the Bar. .

For a time, Kan was based in the United Kingdom, and in 2009 he performed his stand-up show 'Spermbank Millionaire' at the Edinburgh Fringe. The film he starred in, and co-wrote with Jason Stutter, Diagnosis: Death, was also released in 2009.

In 2012-13, Kan played a version of himself in two episodes of the TVNZ sitcom A Night at the Classic, a sitcom set in the world of a comedy club.

In 2016, Kan played the role of Dollars, the band manager, in the web series The Māori Side Steps for two seasons online. The comedy series promoted Te Reo Māori.

In 2016, Kan was a guest in the web series Flat 3 in an episode entitled "Fong Shui Advice & Insight - Raybon suffers from procrastination."

In 2017, Kan was a team captain in Three's NZ Family Feud Comedians vs Comedians episode.

Kan was interviewed in Funny As, the 2019 TVNZ One documentary series tracing the history of NZ comedy.

In 2020, Kan was interviewed on TVNZ One's Seven Sharp to promote his stand-up show Kan Touch This.

In 2021, Kan guested on TVNZ One's reboot of the charades game show Give Us a Clue. Kan had appeared many times in the original 1990s NZ series on TV3.

Kan wrote an episode of the TVNZ sitcom Wellington Paranormal in its 4th season, which aired originally in NZ in 2022. The episode, entitled 'The Coolening', concerns a haunted leather jacket which makes its wearer paranormally cool.

Kan acted in the Apple+ TV series Time Bandits which aired in 2024. In the third episode, Medieval , he played the first mate on board a 19th century Cantonese pirate ship. His dialogue was completely in Cantonese.

In 2025, Kan marked his 30th anniversary in stand-up comedy with his greatest hits show Raybonanza.

In August 2026, a joke of Kan's from 1996 went viral after an incident in NZ's Parliament in which NZ Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters told Lawrence Xu-Nan, a Chinese-NZ MP to "go back where you came from." Kan posted a video of his joke from 1996 responding to NZ First policy, which proved just as relevant in 2026 as in 1996.

In the same week, Kan revealed in a newspaper op-ed that Winston Peters had said the same thing to him privately in the 1990s.

Personal life

Kan continues to provide commentary on social issues in print media,

and is a guest speaker for events. He is of Chinese heritage and has commented on how racist attitudes affect people of Asian appearance in New Zealand.

In 2008, Kan was awarded a Bravo award by the New Zealand Skeptics for his column "I see dud people," wherein he stated "I don’t want to get in the way of entertainers earning a crust, but it’s scummy to pretend to communicate with the dead to take advantage of grieving relatives."

As a poker player, Kan came 11th in the 2013 ANZPT Auckland Main Event, bubbling on the final table and came 6th in the 2014 ANZPT Melbourne No Limit Hold 'em Deepstack Tournament.

Takapuna Grammar School in Auckland awards an annual prize for Best Comic Performance, called the Raybon Kan Trophy.