One of the things which frustrate me in China is my inability to tell jokes. In the past I had believed that to be able to tell a joke properly, the most important thing is that both joke teller and listener are fluent in the language which is used to tell the joke. As such, I believed that once I reach a certain fluency of language I could start to tell jokes in China as well. I never expected to be able to tell them with the same flourish as when I am using my native language (Hebrew), but I figured I ought to at least be able to handle the simpler ones.

I was wrong. What I had underestimated is the extent to which jokes rely on cultural background. It’s not that the Chinese humor is vastly different from mine - in many ways I think it can be quite similar. The problem, as I came to realize it, was the way the vast majority of the jokes I know are rooted in myths/conceptions etc from our culture. A few examples off the top of my mind-

• Black men being “well endowed”
• Blonds being promiscuous and dull-witted
• Some ethnic group being tight-fisted with money
• Some ethnic group being stupid

I’ve even had one joke in which, only when I reached its end, I realized nobody in China will understand its punchline simply because policemen in China don’t wear blue uniforms… all this is of course in addition to all the jokes which are somehow based on puns or words games and are nearly impossible to translate. In some cases (in particular - ethnic groups) my guess is that in theory I should be able to find proper “replacements”, but at the moment I don’t know them - anyone care to enlighten me?