Interpreting Humor

July 29, 2020

Before I write about Chinese humor, I want to point out the difference between Chinese and Western thinking. Europeans and Americans tend to have a linear-thinking pattern compared to most Chinese that start with the specific and move to the abstract creating thought metaphors.

While metaphors exist in English and Chinese, they are seen differently. For instance, the Academic Exchange Quarterly says the Chinese people consider themselves descendants of dragons. These metaphorical expressions always carry positive meanings and attitudes. Although dragons can be found in English literature, they are often described as evil monsters. If someone is referred to as a dragon in English, it is always associated with the derogatory connotation, meaning “a fierce person”.

The FluentU Mandarin Chinese Language and Culture Blog offers “5 things You Need to know about Chinese Humor.”

“Comedy is a tricky thing!” FluentU continues, “What is funny in English may not be funny in Chinese. In fact, a lot of things we find humorous in our culture can be downright offensive in Chinese culture. Don’t worry—it’s actually not that hard to get a grasp on comedy in Mandarin. It just takes a little studying on the subject of faux pas in Chinese interactions to understand what’s funny and what’s not.”

 


Chinese Humor from a Western point of View

 

Why is this important?

Because understanding what a culture finds funny is important when making friends from other cultures. Humor is a very precise thing among cultures. For instance, FluentU says that depressing irony is kind of hilarious in Chinese culture.  This form of comedy is often dark, sarcastic, and very ironic. This may be funny to some Westerners, but it may come off as too dark to most.

Lacking facial expressions is pretty funny to Chinese people, too. Western comedians are quite expressive, both in their faces and bodies. In China, a lack of facial expressions while delivering witty one-liners is considered much more entertaining.

If you want to learn more about what works and what to avoid when it comes to Chinese humor, I urge you to visit FluentU.com.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine, Crazy is Normal, Running with the Enemy, and The Redemption of Don Juan Casanova.

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It takes Great Effort to save what remains of China’s Great Wall

July 22, 2020

The Great Wall of China was built slowly over 1,800 years by more than one dynasty. Kid’s Connect.com says, “The construction of The Great wall started in the Spring and Autumn Period (BC 770 – 476) and went on until the Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1644 AD)… Its building involved some 20 states and dynasties.”

The reason the Great Wall was built in the first place was to protect Chinese civilization from the primitive northern nomadic tribes like the Mongolians, and Manchus. Other invaders were the Huns during the Qin (BC 221 – 206) and Han Dynasties (BC 206 – 220 AD), the Turks in the Sui Dynasty (581 – 618 AD), the Khitan in the Song Dynasty (960 – 1279 AD), and the Tatar, Oirat, and Jurchen during the Ming Dynasty.

“Unfortunately, most of the Great Wall sections built before the Ming Dynasty have almost disappeared,” China Highlights reports, and only a few sections of the Ming Dynasty wall are still in good condition. The following video shows how challenging and dangerous it is to save just one small section of what remains of The Great Wall.

“As the Great Wall was built on mountains or across deserts, it was quite hard for the Chinese people to protect every inch of it, especially those parts of the Great Wall that were built in rural areas.

“Also, the earlier Great Wall sections were made with earth, lime, and even branches, which didn’t make it solid enough to withstand the yearly rains, storms, earthquakes, and other natural disasters.”

The Guardian reported in 2004 that “Only one-third of China’s Great Wall still stands as tourists take their toll. Two-thirds of the Great Wall of China has been destroyed by sightseers, developers, and erosion, Beijing’s state-run media reported yesterday a warning that the world heritage site is crumbling out of existence.”

It wasn’t until 2006, that the CCP enacted regulations to protect what was left of the wall. The most popular rebuilt sections of the Great Wall are at Badaling (7.5 miles), Mutianyu (1.5 miles), and Juyongguan (located in a mountain pass) where tourists will find 1,700 steps to climb to reach the top of the mountain from the west wall.

UNESCO says, “In 220 B.C., under Qin Shi Huang (China’s first Emperor), sections of earlier fortifications were joined together to form a united defense system against invasions from the north. Construction continued up to the Ming dynasty when the Great Wall became the world’s largest military structure. Its historic and strategic importance is matched only by its architectural significance.”

If all of the sections of The Great Wall were rebuilt, they would run for more than 13,000 miles. – History Answers

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine, Crazy is Normal, Running with the Enemy, and The Redemption of Don Juan Casanova.

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The Little Known History of Racism in the United States against the Chinese

July 15, 2020

Thirty-six years before the 1921 Greenwood Massacre of African Americans in Oklahoma, there was a similar incident in Wyoming but the victims were Chinese.

“On September 2, 1885, 150 white miners in Rock Springs, Wyoming, brutally attack their Chinese coworkers, killing 28, wounding 15 others, and driving several hundred more out of town,” History.com reported.

“The Rock Springs massacre was symptomatic of the anti-Chinese feelings shared by many Americans at that time. The Chinese had been victims of prejudice and violence ever since they first began to come to the West in the mid-nineteenth century, fleeing famine and political upheaval (the Christian led Taiping Rebellion and the English and French led Opium Wars). Widely blamed for all sorts of social ills, the Chinese were also singled-out for attack by some national politicians who popularized strident slogans like ‘The Chinese Must Go.’”

The Rock Springs massacre wasn’t the only incident of racism against Chinese immigrants in the United States.

 

The Chinese Exclusion Act, a United States federal law signed by President Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882, ended all immigration of Chinese laborers.  The African American Policy Forum says, “The Chinese Exclusion Act was an immigration law passed in 1882 that prevented Chinese laborers from immigrating to the United States. The Chinese Exclusion Act was the first immigration law that excluded an entire ethnic group. It also excluded Chinese nationals from eligibility for United States citizenship.”

“During their first few decades in the United States,” The Library of Congress informs, “they (Chinese immigrants to the United States) endured an epidemic of violent racist attacks, a campaign of persecution and murder that today seems shocking. From Seattle to Los Angeles, from Wyoming to the small towns of California, immigrants from China were forced out of business, run out of town, beaten, tortured, lynched, and massacred, usually with little hope of help from the law. Racial hatred, an uncertain economy, and weak government in the new territories all contributed to this climate of terror and bloodshed. The perpetrators of these crimes, which included Americans from many segments of society, largely went unpunished.”

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine, Crazy is Normal, Running with the Enemy, and The Redemption of Don Juan Casanova.

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What came first, Paper for Printing or for the Toilet?

July 8, 2020

Since COVID-19 struck like a venomous cobra killing thousand daily, toilet paper has become a very popular item in the United States and from what I am learning, the world.

March through May, I didn’t see much Costco toilet paper at the store where I shop. That started to change in June, and on Wednesday, June 17, 2020, I saw more of Costco’s Kirkland brand toilet paper in one place than I have ever seen before.

The Costco I shop at added more storage at the back of the store for toilet paper on the heavy metal shelves the chain uses that soar 30 feet from the floor to the ceiling.  At the checkout stand, I asked the clerk if that mountain of toilet paper was enough to satisfy demand, and she said, those shelves had to be filled three times a day to keep up.

The pandemic is in its fourth month and demand for toilet paper doesn’t seem to be ending. What are shoppers doing with all the toilet paper they are buying, insulating their houses with it?

On the way home, I thought about the history of toilet paper. I already knew that China invented paper just like they did the printing press centuries before they both showed up in Europe, but what about TP.

History.com says, “Although paper originated in China in the second century B.C., the first recorded use of paper for cleansing is from the 6th century in medieval China, discovered in the texts of scholar Yen Chih-Thui. In 589 A.D, he wrote, ‘Paper on which there are quotations or commentaries from the Five Classics or the names of sages, I dare not use for toilet purposes.’

“By the early 14th century, the Chinese were manufacturing toilet paper at the rate of 10 million packages of 1,000 to 10,000 sheets annually. In 1393, thousands of perfumed paper sheets were also produced for the Hongwu Emperor’s imperial family.

“Paper became widely available in the 15th century, but in the Western world, modern commercially available toilet paper didn’t originate until 1857, when Joseph Gayetty of New York marketed a ‘Medicated Paper, for the Water-Closet,’ sold in packages of 500 sheets for 50 cents. Before his product hit the market, Americans improvised in clever ways (don’t ask).”

Why did it take more than five hundred years for toilet paper to reach Europe and the United States from China?

I wonder if China had a toilet paper shortage like we did in the U.S. after the Chinese learned about COVID-19, and first warned the world on December 31, 2019. I found one answer dated in February from the South China Morning Post reporting that in Hong Kong there was a fear driven rush to buy all the toilet paper one could drag home.  Guo Yukuan, a senior researcher with the China Society of Economic Reform, a state-backed think tank, said the panic buying was irrational. “This is purely driven by panic and stress,” Guo said. “China’s production capacity [for toilet paper] can supply not just Hong Kong but the whole world.”

Next time, before you flush, thank the Chinese for inventing toilet paper.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine, Crazy is Normal, Running with the Enemy, and The Redemption of Don Juan Casanova.

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China’s Heritage Sites Growing in Popularity

June 24, 2020

China has 55 World Heritage Sites, and I have been to four of the top ten: the Great Wall, Temple of Heaven, Forbidden City, and the Terracotta Warriors. I have also been to the Ming and Qing Dynasties Imperial Tombs, South China Karst region along the Li River near Guilin, the West Lake Cultural Landscape of Hangzhou, the Grand Canal, and possibly a few others I did not recognize when I was looking at the list while writing this post.

In 2012, CNN.com reported, “Tourism boom threatens China’s heritage sites. … Places that were previously very remote and didn’t see a lot of (Chinese) tourists are now seeing enormous numbers arriving because they have the money to travel,” says Neville Agnew, group director of the Getty Conservation Institute, which has worked in China since 1989. “It’s an interesting phenomenon because it’s in complete contrast to the experience in Egypt, where almost all the visitors are foreigners.”

World Atlas.com also reports, “China’s Forbidden City gets more visitors (15 million) than any other UNESCO World Heritage Site.” The Great Wall had ten million.

World Atlas also said, “Although the high number of tourists visiting these UNESCO World Heritage Sites translates to high revenue for the receiving country, the cost of maintaining these sites is also significantly high.”

In 1971, the United States was central to UNESCO’s mission, and the People‘s Republic of China was isolated from the world. China had no world heritage sites and showed no evidence of public religious activity. That all changed after U.S. President Richard Nixon visited China in 1971. The Berkeley Center said, “By the 1980s, China had been recognized with its first World Heritage site and a massive religious revival was underway.”

Tragically, “Nearly half a century later, the United States (with 23 UNESCO World Heritage Sites) has withdrawn from UNESCO (because of President Donald Trump who values nothing but his power, his fame or infamy, as long as he is getting attention from the media, and money even when he has to cheat people to get it), and China eagerly seeks a greater role in the organization, which has recognized China with the second-highest number of World Heritage sites in the world.”

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine, Crazy is Normal, Running with the Enemy, and The Redemption of Don Juan Casanova.

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My Splendid Concubine is now available to read through Kindle Unlimited.

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