Sense of humour in China

OK. you asked for it.

What is the funniest joke that I have heard in China...

There once was a boy who was so sad, because his face looked like an onion

China is very attached to its ancient roots, and, as a result, certain cultural practices can be, at the very least, disorienting for foreigners and language learners. Chinese humor is excellent in illustrating this very point!

Many Westerners find Chinese humor rather difficult to understand. Some even speculate that the Chinese have no sense of humor at all. Well, contrary to popular belief, they do! And it’s actually quite similar to Western humor. What makes it hard for the non-Chinese is the fact that most Chinese jokes are full of cultural references that just can’t be translated effectively. And, as I’m sure we’ve all awkwardly learned through experience, having to explain a joke pretty much kills the entire thing.

The language itself causes problems too. In many languages, humor or sarcasm is expressed with the help of specific, generally understood intonations. As you can imagine, things get a lot more complicated when you’re dealing with a tonal language. There are tons of homonyms and homophones in Chinese, so a lot of Chinese humor is pun based.

This custom goes back to ancient China, where such word-play was used in stand-up shows called xiangsheng (相声 – xiàng sheng), or crosstalk, which involved two comedians engaging in an entertaining dialogue. In modern-day China, people still find puns extremely funny, which is great, because a pun is very likely to be your first successful joke in Chinese!

REGARDS my own experience as the TOP ECCCD Baby & Child Teacher in China- I can affirm that the CANADIAN sarcastic sense of humor is totally lost on the Chinese. They absolutely do not KNOW- nor do they understand the western cultural links we use everyday in our humor. And that is WHY there are no chinese companies in the west. They simply have no understanding of our culture......

Okay not sure if the humor will translate as I re-tell this story but I will try...

I am an English teacher in the far NORTH of China and I teach a rather large class in a public high school.  I was not given an official roll sheet so I had to create one.  I took a blank piece of paper, assigned a student the task and each person as they came into class had to sign the paper.

In the end I had 95 names (all in Chinese), so then I counted heads and I only had 88, I seemed to be missing 7 students.  I then picked a student and told him to read the names and as each name was called that student had to stand and remain standing so I could easily spot a missing student.

In the end I identified the 7 missing students by drawing a BOX around their name.  The next day I gave the attendance sheet to my boss who would then give it to the school.  She gasped when she saw it because there were BOXES around 7 names.  She asked who had done that?  I told her I did.  She then explained that in China writing a person's name in RED is a no-no, and so is putting their name in a box...both symbolize death.

I then calmly explained that the 7 missing students were "ghosts" as far as I was concerned and therefore technically it applied to them.... I found my response rather funny, she needed time to process it.

(BTW I still find it humorous...and so do most of the Western teachers I have told it to...but the Chinese seem to need some time to process it, and yet my high level language students also find it hilarious)

Oh, in the end she changed my boxes into circles and submitted the attendance sheet.