When I was a teenager living through Mao’s so called “Cultural Revolution”, life was not only depressing but also boring. Very boring. The adults were busy with themselves, everyone was trying to figure out how to survive each passing day…

I found jokes in the trashed books for self-entertaining. They were not just entertaining, they were inspiring. I think jokes are made by strong survivors to remind people that when things are bad, there are always something light and easy.

Here is one that I remember from back then.

A grandpa asks his grandson to go buy bamboo sticks (竹竿) at the local market. The grandson misunderstands and comes back with pig’s liver (猪肝 ). The annoyed grandpa asks the kid, “where are your ears?” The grandson picks up a pair of pig’s ears and shows them proudly to his grandpa, “look, I bought them with the change. They are buy one get one free!”

Carelessness also produces jokes. Sometimes in a bad or embarrassing way. Years ago I had a student who wrote a story in Chinese but did not proofread carefully before turning it in. It went like this.

“…I have been waiting for her for about an hour. I keep looking at my watch…” Watch in Chinese should be 表 or 手表. Instead, he wrote 婊子！I asked the student whether he knew what it actually meant. He said when he was typing, it gave him multiple options of characters under Pinyin. He just picked one randomly without thinking. I asked him why he added 子? He said since table is 桌子，house is房子, chair is椅子…, he thought adding 子 wouldn’t hurt.

I said “you are really a smart son of a bitch!”

2018-12-1