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Q: Sense of humour?
I personally believe that most countries tend to have a gap in sense of humour (even if this is mainly based on stereotypes), but what about the Chinese sense of humour? Do you ever have issues with your partner or with close friends when you just have such a wide gap in your sense of humour?
The one type of humour that is totally lost on the Chinese is irony. Don't even bother going there.
British humour is also a no-no. They simply cannot get it. Office banter will go down badly no matter how mild it is. Even the merest hint of something that is meant as a joke is taken seriously e.g. did they pay you to take that jacket from the shop? That could almost end up in tears.
Zany stuff is the Chinese forte. They are into slapstick stuff and Mr Bean type acting. Pulling faces also tickles the Chinese wick. As does putting on the opposite sex clothing items as a joke. In fact anything that westerners would consider silly.
Mateusz:
Actually, Chaplin seems to be popular in China... or at least I see Charlie Chaplin on shirts here.
xinyuren:
Kaiwen, actually, you're very wrong on the irony. Chinese know irony quite well. If you happen to read comments by Chinese netizens on their news sites, it's literally loaded with irony. In fact, irony is a basic type of humor. I don't know why you think Chinese don't get it.
Irony always flies under the radar, but I found self-deprecating humor (pretending to misunderstand something trivial) is well received. I enjoy Chinese sarcasm, they can be very good at it.
I found people here being mystified by silly tripping ie. I talk with a German friend, building upon each other non-sense to make up some larger non-sense world.
Chinese specialty humor is the play on words. Their language provides easy fodder for wordplay due to it's limited amount of words and the variety of ways to say them. It's something they use quite often in every day speaking but very difficult for foreigners who aren't fluent in Mandarin to catch on to. It's one of the few things I appreciate about Chinese. I can't understand it, but I like the idea when it is explained to me. Sometimes its quite witty.
Me and the wife both have an appreciation of the ridiculous, most times we argue it's simply dissolved by taking our insults into the realms of the absurd, be it "Walk up your mother's shit~maker, you rice guzzling tart" or "Go f*** a grape, needle dick English piss monkey" we usually end up clearing the air pretty quickly through the exchange of daft insults. I think she's unique in a way, just the way she dances, no sense of self awareness, just joyful and foolish, erratic shuffling, like she has a cockroach in her drawers. She may quite possibly be mentally retarded. Without doubt an absolute requisite for a successful marriage. Who the f*** would do it otherwise?
It really depends. Wordplay goes over well, as long as they can get the joke, and cultural context.
Self deprecation and teasing seem to be pretty well received.
They do seem to get irony. It might not be as huge as in the West, but it's not something that flies over their heads as much as it's made out to be. Example: When I was talking about the prevalence of smoking in China, particularly how people smoke everywhere, I pointed out that Chinese men smoke even in gym locker rooms. The students got a chuckle at the irony (and absurdity) of lighting up a cigarette after doing exercise.
what is popular humour in China? singling people out for being different, even if it's something passive they can't change. bullying those who are weak is a great laugh here. does laughing at people for being poor count as Chinese opera? pointing at someone and blurting out rude stuff surprisingly makes your TARGET the butt of ridicule, not you. and you become the life of the party. some deep Chinese humour: "this rice tastes like it's already been eaten (i.e. excrement)" - that's all the subtlety you need to have everyone at the table in tears. i think Chinese people are so preoccupied with shame and face saving, that it has programmed them to enjoy outbursts of teasing and embarassment at others' expense. they gain face by comparison, and run little risk of making enemies as they laugh. i guess this form of humour is lost on me.
I can have my students laugh - which is a bonus with a group who don't really want to be there 'studying' English. It's also been language-based, which is good (ie, they understand).
I've noticed that my some of my colleagues don't get humour, which I suspect is because they don't think we have a sense of humour! The mountains out of molehills is often lost on them... but that seems to only mostly apply to those who have never been out of the country.
What I think is really fucked up is the Funniest Home Videos that gets shown on the buses... a couple of times, those videos have shown some seriously damaging accidents - the other day, a skater who came off and slammed head-first into a wall at top speed... and this was considered 'funny'...!!!! And, it's not just videos - a few weeks ago, I was on a bus, and was hit (or similar)... it hurt! Woman on the bus next to me thought it was funny - till I told her it hurt (and gave her a look that said it wasn't amusing!!!)
I thought funniest home videos was hilarious, until I was about 10. Chinese people can watch someone falling down at a wedding ceremony a hundred times and still laugh.
