A Slow Boat to China

Differences in humor between cultures is one of the most interesting aspects of human society. Anyone watching a Japanese game show will soon realize that some humor is socially and culturally unique, and that not all jokes translate between languages.

The same is true in Chinese; the following is a great example:

邓小平和毛主席散步
小平问：租西，四介桑最筒裤的是洒子四琴喽？
主席：桑阔！
小平：莫比择更筒裤的了？
主席深吸一口烟，凝视远方：田田桑阔！

Simply translated, the joke runs:

Deng Xiaoping and Chairman Mao went for a walk.
Xiaoping asked: Chairman Mao, what is the most painful thing in the world?
Chairman: Going to class!
Xiaoping: Isn’t there anything worse than that?
The Chaiman inhales deeply on his cigeratte, and stares into the distance: Going to class every day!

What’s so funny about this? Well, nothing, if you’re an English speaker from the U.S. But this joke will make most Chinese chuckle. First of all, it is written phonetically, and therefore doesn’t use correct characters as they would normally appear in the dialogue. Phonetic writing is rare in Chinese because in order to write phonetically, one must use characters with meanings other than those the writer desires. In this joke, if the dialogue had been written correctly, you would have seen:

邓小平和毛主席散步
小平问：主席，世界上最痛苦的是啥子事情？
主席：上课！
小平：没比这更痛苦的了？
主席深吸一口烟，凝视远方：天天上课！

The joke is written phonetically because this style emphasizes the very noticable (and different) accents of both Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. Deng, who was born in a rural town in Central China, was especially noted for his heavy Sichuan accent. In the joke, his pronunciation of “Chairman” is Zūxī, a play on the fact that he could not clearly pronounce the standard Mandarin Zhǔxí. Mao’s dialogues use nonstandard tones. The end result makes both Mao and Deng sound like simpletons.

I would imagine most of you that are reading this aren’t laughing, unlesss you already read Chinese and understand the strange accents of rural Mandarin speakers. I guess that’s the point; some humor really does require quite a bit of background and knowledge to be recognizable to the listener.

Here’s another, which was sent around in a spam cell-phone text message in 2005:

一女兵在小肚子上纹了毛主席像，一男兵临死前想看看毛主席。女兵把裤子脱了让他看，他说不对，这么大的胡子他是马克思！

A female soldier has the visage of Mao Zedong tatooed on her belly. One day, a male soldier was nearing death and asked to see Chairman Mao. To meet the dying man’s request, the female soldier took off her pants to let him see. He shook his head, and said: “No way! With a beard that big, that must be Karl Marx!

I’d imagine that this type of humor crosses language barriers a little easier, but even though the humor is crass, the political background of China sets the stage and gives the story it’s relevance and context.

And my favorite–anyone living in China over the last 10 years would appreciate:

抓住萨达姆怎么办?布什说渴死他,普京说饿死他,布莱尔说找几个小姐累死他,江**说讲三个代表烦死他.

What should we do with Saddam once we catch him? Bush says to drown him. Putin says to starve him, and Blair recommends finding several prostitutes to exert him to death. What about Jiang **? Jiang prefers talking about the “Three Represents” until Saddam is annoyed to death.

As most of you know, “Jiang**” refers to Jiang Zemin, and “The Three Represents” is given mostly meaningless lip service at almost every Chinese public event–especially when Jiang was the President. The creation of meaningless slogans and talking heads certainly isn’t limited to China, but the CCP has definitely taken empty propaganda to a whole new level.