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'Eat or don't eat!'
John Moloney, the British comedian, found that playing to a Chinese (partly westernised) audience in Hong Kong required less of a cultural leap than when he took his act to Beijing (Syrett, 1995:4). The itinerant comedian, in fact, soon learns to steer clear of anything remotely embarrassing or linguistically complicated and to resort to the 'language of action.' This is universal and capable of bringing about smiles and even belly laughs.
While all people, no matter the culture, are said to cry at similar incidents, people in London, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Beijing, or wherever, may not always laugh at the same jokes. In the same way, people in the West and people in China may not always see insults in the same light. For example, Jimmy Lai, the owner of Apple Daily, in the run-up to the 1997 Handover in Hong Kong, called a senior China official a 'turtle's egg,' meaning more or less 'unnatural birth.' Although not too unpleasant, it caused a furore. Yet, as an American Old-China Hand commented to the author, 'Who would get worked up over name-calling like that?'
The last British Governor, Chris Patten, took it as a joke when he was described in catch-phrases by the Beijing Government as 'a serpent' and being 'disgraced in history for a millennium.' In fact, Patten quoted with relish his sobriquet of 'Whore of the East.' Most Britons also saw such 'insults' in much the same light as Patten, and as being faintly despicable, with the rhetoric unworthy of 5,000 years of continuous civilisation (Waters, 1995:168).
In the same way that Chinese and Westerners may see insults differently, so they often see humour differently. A Hong Kong Chinese, of Shanghainese stock, said to the author, 'I'll tell you a typical English joke which the average Chinese cannot really appreciate.
'A publican and a customer were talking in a bar (E) when in came another man. He walked up the wall, walked upside down across the ceiling, and then down the wall the other side. He ordered a pint of beer, which he promptly quaffed. He then walked up the wall, across the ceiling, down the wall the other side, and out of the pub door. "That's
24
'Eat or don't eat!'
John Moloney the British comedian found that playing to a Chi- nese (partly westernised) audience in Hong Kong required less of a cultural leap than when he took his act to Beijing (Syrett, 1995:4). The itinerant comedian, in fact, soon learns to steer clear of anything re- motely embarrassing or linguistically complicated and to resort to the 'language of action.' This is universal and capable of bringing about smiles and even belly laughs.
While all people, no matter the culture, are said to cry at similar incidents, people in London, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Beijing or whereever, may not always laugh at the same jokes. In the same way people in the West and people in China may not always see insults in the same light. For example Jimmy Lai the owner of Apple Daily, in the run up to the 1997 Handover in Hong Kong, called a senior China official a 'turtle's egg,' meaning more or less 'unnatural birth.' Although not too unpleasant, it caused a furore. Yet, as an American Old-China Hand commented to the author, 'Who would get worked up over name- calling like that?'
The last British Governor, Chris Patten, took it as a joke when he was described in catch-phrases by the Beijing Government as ‘a ser- pent' and being 'disgraced in history for a millennium.' In fact Patten quoted with relish his sobriquet of 'Whore of the East.' Most Britons also saw such ‘insults' in much the same light as Patten, and as being faintly dispicable, with the rhetoric unworthy of 5,000 years of con- tinuous civilisation (Waters, 1995;168).
In the same way that Chinese and Westerners may see insults differently, so they often see humour differently. A Hong Kong Chinese, of Shanghainese stock, said to the author, 'I'll tell you a typical En- glish joke which the average Chinese cannot really appreciate.
‘A publican and a customer were talking in a bar (E) when in came another man. He walked up the wall, walked upside down across the ceiling and then down the wall the other side. He ordered a pint of beer which he promptly quaffed. He then walked up the wall, across the ceiling, down the wall the other side and out of the pub door. "That's
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