Is there comedy in China? I wouldn't know because when I visited Will in China last year, we were escorted like ducklings and had very little contact with Chinese people. I didn't try to be funny in China to test it because I wasn't doing stand up at the time and never even thought of cracking a joke because I didn't want to get arrested. Will, as many of you know, is working in China this year and often sends me interesting articles about Chinese culture and politics. He sent me an article this week that appeared in the Wall Street Journal last year, coincidentally at the time that I was traveling in China. It was fascinating and reinforced for me that it was good that I did not attempt any light patter with the Chinese hoi polloi; not because I would have been executed, but because the Chinese do not understand American humor. There is a Chinese scientist turned comic who has appeared on the Ellen DeGeneres show and on David Letterman to acclaimed reviews. When he performs in China, his humor goes over like a day old fart. Apparently, the Chinese don't go for self-depracation which is a mainstay of American humor. Irony is lost on them. Misdirection leads them in the wrong direction. The author of the article noted that the Chinese do not think it's funny to make fun of someone's misfortune, even though, as Will tells it, two Chinese subway riders had a major yuck making fun of his prominent nose in Chinese in his presence until he told them, to their horror, that he understood every word they were saying about his honker.
Anyway, there is a new trend in China among the younger set which is a tip of the hat to American humor while assuaging Chinese anxiety for not understanding it. The trick is to tell a joke and explain why it's funny after you tell it. I decided to play with this concept. I sometimes tell a joke that I suspect Bobby, my younger son, is a black man trapped inside a white man's body: he takes African studies, he's in an all-black dance troupe, he lives in Georgia and he calls me mama. I then quip, if he holds the mayo and starts using hot sauce, I'll know for sure. If I were telling that joke in China, I would have to explain that my son likes all things black and maybe I've been wrong all along thinking he's white. Then I would have to say that black people, stereotypically, don't use mayonnaise, but pour hot sauce on their food. This is an American comedian's nightmare. If you have to explain a joke to a sea of blank, staring faces, you've lost the audience and any explanation just makes matters worse.
These are troubled times in the United States. We owe the Chinese lots of money and their economy is soaring while ours is dwindling. That's not funny and neither are the Chinese.
