[ { "id": 214196, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 54, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "17\n\nSome Westerners and Hong Kong Chinese will tell you that Chinese humour on the circumscribed Mainland is not subtle. It is too ... and a great deal of it falls flat on the average European. Although 200 Cartoons from China (Xu, 1989) goes down quite well, in the series of four books Selected Jokes from Past Chinese Dynasties only about four per cent of the jokes appeal to the author's sense of humour. An exception is:\n\nA father and son were both fond of the bottle and one night they were both staggering back home. On entering the gate the father said: 'Strange! Why do you have three faces? You look neither like a ghost nor a man. I'll never leave my house to you.' The son replied, 'I don't want such a rickety, revolving house anyway' (1997; vol. 4, joke 86)! To give another example of the more simple humour on the Mainland. The sound 'wok', in Chinese, can mean either a Chinese round-bottom frying pan or 'trouble' or 'problem.' Thus a large trading company with a television 'dish' (wok) on the roof is known in Guangzhou as the ‘Trouble Company.' This more direct form of humour, common in Guangdong, contrasts with the complicated humour which requires a person to use his 'grey matter' more.\n\nFor instance Nury Vittachi, Hong Kong journalist, author and part-time comedian, writes that he believes what he calls 'personality humour' works best with Westerners. In such cases the comic goes into his role and recreates a conversation with his mother-in-law, the taxi driver, or whoever. This does not always work, says Nury, with Asians who prefer more direct, straightforward, 'Man goes into a bar' approach.\n\nBut Hong Kong, as opposed to China, is a relatively small place with western influences. As Harry Wong, the talk-show host and co-median of Metro Broadcasting said: 'In this city-state (Hong Kong) people are short of time. There is a ‘combat' situation and people have a better command of English. Western-style Rotary, Round Table clubs and the like, with their style of humour, are common. Put all this juxtaposition to Chinese humour, including films made in Hong Kong often consisting of vulgar, triad language, and obvious jokes with excessive action, and you have a peculiar mix' (Bolton, 1997; 300). Such exaggeration, found for instance in Chinese films, contrasts with much of the British humour which often relies on understatements. Some", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214199, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 57, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "(d) You cannot applaud with one hand.\n\n(e) One's house is best protected by a wasted garden outside and an ugly wife inside.\n\n(f) A one-foot kick (a jack-of-all-trades).\n\nFor many of these Chinese sayings (like [(a)], 'Melons and pears,' above), as Shakespeare so aptly wrote, 'Brevity is the soul of wit'.\n\nAlthough not always easy for foreigners to comprehend, Chinese humour is in some ways similar to western humour in that it includes satire, farce, punning and sudden juxtaposition. But there are of course differences. A one-liner that Nury Vittachi sometimes uses when he entertains a group of Westerners goes like this: 'If a man speaks in a forest where there is no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?' But when he switches audiences, for Asians he says it sometimes works better if you say, 'If a woman says something in a forest where there is no man to hear her, is she still wrong?' Vittachi was sometimes described by Hong Kong's last British Governor, Chris Patten, as ‘the funniest man in Hong Kong.'\n\nMuch of the difference would appear to be due to social conditioning. The author agrees with Vittachi that jokes based on word-play or societal conventions only work where the language or society allows them to work even if there are also deeper differences. Vittachi also says that he uses a lot of irony when Westerners are present but little, together with sarcasm or sardonic humour, when the audience is largely Asian. Westerners also, quite naturally if the language is English, guess punchlines much faster allowing them to be abandoned entirely in some cases.\n\nA sample opening of the comedy he uses is:\n\n\"Thanks for inviting me to this Women's group. It's not the most mis-directed I've received. Last week I got some junk mail from a sports shoe chain store. The letter began \"Dear Basketball Player ... (Westerners chuckle).... I'm 5 feet 4 inches tall (Asians chuckle).....\" This may be, because they are more familiar with the concept of stand-up comedy.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214208, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 66, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "29\n\nXiaoping.' The second said, 'I'm here because I opposed Deng Xiaoping.' The two turned to the third who piped up, 'I am Deng Xiaoping.' Deng was, of course, incarcerated for a spell during the Cultural Revolution.\n\nGenerations of Chinese have endured hard lives and they frequently surprise Westerners by laughing at things which are construed in the West as horrible and cruel (Bonavia, 1980:59). 'Blood and guts' at the cinema are examples, although a nervous giggle is perhaps a better description than an outright laugh. Use of this 'safety valve' not only rejuvenates the mind and body but also diffuses anger. Humour and laughter help relieve stress and tension and the immune functions which they bring into being can sometimes help one get out of a trying, embarrassing or difficult situation.\n\nYou will sometimes see a Chinese who has been jaywalking, and has had a close shave with a car, or someone who drops his camera, grinning, or even giving a mild laugh. This reaction provides an escape mechanism. A giggle can make the serious seem ‘unserious' and bring about counterproductive results. Vittachi, the Hong Kong comic, has pointed out to the author that it is by no means confined to Chinese. Other Asians, such as Vietnamese, use 'laughter' to express embarrassment. One not infrequently sees bafflement (or even anger) on the face of a Westerner who tells the Hanoi custom officer that his ticket has been stolen, only to see the officer break into a nervous giggle.\n\nIn fact, the practice is not even purely Asian. The author recalls during World War Two when even British conscripts learned to laugh at the 'horrific' in order to adjust to the situation. If you could go into battle singing the song, 'Hurrah for the Next Man to Die!' you were better able to shrug off death and less likely to go 'shell happy.' Humour acts as a kind of release and can be borne out of pain. Sigmund Freud wrote a dull paper entitled, 'Jokes and their relation to the unconscious,' in which he stated that humorous laughter was a kind of catharsis, a release of tension that returns the body and mind to a state of homeostasis or equilibrium after stress (Freud, 1960).\n\nThe fact that humour can be born out of pain gives rise to the saying: 'I have migraine at the moment and everything seems funny in a peculiar (mirthless) sort of way.'", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214213, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 71, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "34\n\ncomparatively recently it was unbecoming to make fun of the British Royal Family in public in Britain.\n\nVittachi, in his letter to the author, says that although stories which pour scorn on leaders are loved by Westerners, Asian audiences sometimes appear a little scared when he does this. As Lee Kuan Yew recounted, by and large an Asian leader is not expected to accept gibes to his face. In Lee's own words, regarding how his political party acted (and largely acts) when governing Singapore: We argued and thrashed out our differences in private. In public we never contradicted each other (Minchin, 1986:343). It can be added that an Asian leader is likely, nevertheless, to receive a few well-aimed jabs behind his back, although, really to enjoy a joke, many will argue there has to be a 'victim.'\n\nAlthough the pointed joke and the sardonic barb can bring a great deal of trouble (Matthews, 1983:368), Western comedians are fond of using sarcasm with contemptuous language that is intended, in the extreme, to mock, insult or convey scorn. But in Hong Kong (and even more so on the People's Republic Mainland), it is so easy to cross the line and show disrespect (so that the person loses face). The Hong Kong film star and comedian Michael Hui Kwoon-man, a Hong Kong Chinese University graduate, explained to the author that he heard a western comedian in the United States say during a performance: 'What me? I'm so fat and healthy how could I possibly have AIDS?' 'Only people like Michael Jackson, who is skinny and ugly, have AIDS.' The Michael Jackson club in America, consisting mainly of young people, really enjoyed the joke about their idol and roared with glee.\n\nLater, Michael Hui returned to Hong Kong and tried the same joke out at the Anita Mui Fan Club. It fell completely flat. Members sat there looking glum, according to Hui. To be fair however, not all Westerners, especially the more sedate and elderly, would consider this joke funny. Also, of course, the fact that Michael Hui was joking about Anita Mui, a woman, made a difference.\n\nConclusions\n\nAfter researching and preparing this paper it is still not possible to decide positively whether there really are cognitive differences between", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214222, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 80, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "43\n\nSources and acknowledgements\n\nA considerable amount of material in this paper has been drawn from the author's own experiences. Much of it he has heard with his own ears rather than just repeating what he has read or what others have told him. This information has been gleaned over a period of four-and-a-half decades living and working with Chinese in Hong Kong and while visiting cities and regions in the People's Republic of China and while visiting overseas Chinese communities.\n\nThe author is grateful to a number of Hong Kong comedians, including Reuben M., Brent Ambacher, Harry Wong and Michael Hui. He is also grateful to a number of Chinese friends, such as Howard Young, Legislative Councillor, Joseph Chow, civil engineer and businessman, who enjoy amusing their friends, both Chinese and Western, by telling jokes. Thanks are also due to Nury Vittachi, journalist, author and part-time comic.\n\nThe author also acknowledges help received from Dr Kristin Stapleton of the University of Kentucky, Carol A R Andrews of the British Museum, Josephine Khu and Dr Sandra Tsang of Hong Kong University, Dr Elizabeth Sinn of the Centre of Asian Studies, Hong Kong University, and Catherine Lau of the Hong Kong Fringe Club.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214227, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 85, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "48\n\nSpurr, Russell (1995), Excellency, the Governors of Hong Kong, FormAsia.\n\nStapleton, Kristin (1997), Interpreting Humour in History: Two Cases from Republican China, paper presented at 'Comparative and World History Seminar,' at John Hopkins University, USA, on 4 February 1997.\n\nSypher, Wylie (1956), Introduction and Appendix, Comedy, John Hopkins University Press.\n\nSyrett, Michel (1995, October 29), ‘Jest over the wall,' Agenda, South China Morning Post.\n\nTse, Sabrina (1997, November 14), 'What a laugh: being funny in Hong Kong,' Hong Kong Standard.\n\nVittachi, Nury (1995), The Hong Kong Joke Book, Chameleon/Hellman and Schoenberg.\n\n(1999, March, 27) letter to the author.\n\nWaters, Dan (1991), 21st Century Management; Keeping Ahead of the Japanese and Chinese, Prentice Hall/Simon and Schuster.\n\n(1995), Faces of Hong Kong an Old Hand's Reflections, Prentice Hall/Simon and Schuster.\n\nWelsford, Enid (1935), The Fool, His Social and Literary History, London.\n\nWu, Cynthia Hsin-feng, “If Triangles Were Circles...” A Study of Counterfactuals in Chinese and in English, Crane Publishing Co. Ltd., USA, undated but some time in 1990s.\n\nXu Jingxiang (1989) 200 Cartoons from China, China Today Press (China Reconstructs Press), Beijing.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 } ]