The Chinese Sense of Humor

By

C.T. Hsia

At

this iunctl.re of history, Cninese-speatcing populatbns are fractured in

different localities of the world and liting under diverse social and political systems.
However, observers still see a common caltural heitage among them-an essential
"Chinese-ness" of which, they say, the sense of humor is an important element.
This has been evid.ent whether you find yourself in Peking, Taipei or Hong Kong, or
on the road to
A.t;-"-e 4^.:

Singapore.

For

of Chinese humor, we present hrr",Lii Qi,"*not abidged form,

an essay written by hof. Hsia for a manual on China compiled in 1953 but hithertf
unpublished. We are delighted with this "find", not only because the piece was'
not widely read in its original form but also in the belief that what hof. Hsia had
to say obout this facet of the Chinese character a quarter of century ago remains
abundantly true today.
a'discussion

Huuon Is oNE of the commodities which have been bandied around by writers on
the Chinese character. Some of them have endeavored, quite in vain it seems, to
produce specious evidence of a particular brand of Chinese humor. Insofar as humol
denotes a particular way of sizing up and relishing a character, situation or event,
Chinese humor is different from American or British humor only to the extent tha;;
certain characters and situations, which are subjected to a humorous interpretatiol
in China, are not so subjected in Britain or the United States. Either the British antr
Americans seldom meet with these characters and situations or they regard thesr'
characters and situations in a different lieht. And with due allowance for differenl
social usages and customs, the characters and situations which humor feeds upon
are more universal than some sociologists seem to believe.
To begin with, we need to be reminded that laughter is often a form ol'
malicious self-assertion. In pre-historic times laughter was a sign of victory
physiologically it accompanied and aided in the relaxation of the nerves and muscles
after a tense struggle or fight. In time laughter became associated with the externai
sigrrs of injury in others-a broken nose, a black eye, or a maimed leg. The injurecl
party with his telltale signs of humiliation was a potential enemy of no particular
danger. This is ridicule; and it is still the typical form of laughter indulged in by
30

Chinese

Humor

31

of all nations. With the transference of the field of

combat from the

formof wit that
any
wit
emerged.
It
is
characteristicof
physical to the intellectual,
children

it

presupposes an opponent and an audience. The riddle, historically the oldest form

of wit, is primarily a contest of cognitive skills.

Another form of laughter has as its imaginary enemy not the inferior object of
ridicule but the powerful repressive forces of society. By ridiculilg these forces of
order and decency, one can let off steam and help preserve his mental health. Thus,
while half of the American jokes consist in ridicule at the expense of the inferior,
the other half are directed against the clergy, the bureaucracy, and the taboos
regulating the behavior of the sexes. It is a tribute to puritanism that jokes about
sex and human anatomy are so hugely enjoyed in this country.
Humor is the most civilized form of laughter because it treats its object of
ridicule with affection. When a chd tries to walk and stumbles, the smiling response
from its mother is a sign sf humel-ridicule tempered with love. The humorist,
therefore, finds constant amusement in the weaknesses and peccadilloes of his
friends and himself. Insofar as this is ridicule, the humorist holds himself superior,
though he entertains other aims than demolishing the enemy. The professional
humorist engages the audience's interest by chatting about himself, often in deliberately fictional terms, and about his equally fictitious friends whom the public
has learned to love.
THIS CLASSIFICATIoN of laughter can be used to gauge the degree of humane refinement in Chinese laughter. The Chinese are a noisy people supremely gifted
with the sense of the ridiculous; from this, many writers have drawn the conclusion
that the Chinese are an eminently humorous nation. This statement, however, can
only be accepted if one adulterates the content of humor to include any form of
childish laughter. Clearly it takes education to adopt the humorous attitude-to be
generous and to free oneself, for however short a duration, from the combative
instincts which impose seriousness and inhibit laughter. At the same time, to be
humorous is to be condescending. The number of Chinese who can adopt the
attitude of generous condescension cannot be large. Thus while the educated
Chinese in their intercourse with Westerners often strike the latter with their
abundance of humor, the Chinese masses, with little humane education, are at best
merely potential humorists because their laughter has not advanced into the stage
of humor. Their laughter often echoes that of the caveman who has just finished
thrashing his opponent. This can be observed in the daily social life of the Chinese
and in the type of jokes and stories which they enjoy.
Despite the fact that the Chinese have been very scrupulous in the exercise of
/i or propriety, they have lacked instruction in the essence of courtesy, that is, a
respect for privacy and idiosyncrasy. The Chinese still retain a childish delight in
taking notice of any physical and moral deviation from the norm; their fellow
creatures, so unfortunate as to be physically deformed and disabled, are usually
objects of ridicule. Thus the blind, the deaf, the hunchback, the bald, and the pockfaced are laughed at openly. This sense of ridicule is also directed against persons
who claim to possess special knowledge or power or who live an abnormal existence:
the doctor, the teacher, the magistrate, the monk. The Chinese simply cannot

JZ

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rl

RENDITIONS Spring 1978

believe that a monk can really abstain from sexual love or from eating the flesh of
animals. Hence'the numerous jokes about the amorous and meat-loving monk. In a
sense laughter is a social corrective in that it unconsciously follows the Confucian
mean in checking both excessive zeal and lax morals. It also upholds the proper
conduct for each person in his station so that the cuckold or henpecked husband
is always subjected to ridicule because he forfeits sympathy by his lack of

5ing

authority over his wife.

But the Chinese often go beyond the limits of corrective laughter to forms of
extreme childishness. Thus any person whose dialect and dress deviate from those
around him is an object of open curiosity. For many decades, the Westerner with
his prominent nose and hairy body was stared at by the Chinese villagers. It is
customary for the city dwellers to laugh at new arrivals from the country, simply
because the city dwellers, through no merit of their own, have leamed to turn on
and off the switches, and to get used to modern ways of living. In a city of sufficient
self-importance like Shanghai, any deviatidn from the norm is a call for ridicule.
Many comics earn a fiving there solely by their ability to imitate and burlesque the

ion, tl
holar

of Soochow, Wusih, Ningpo, Nanking, and Shantung.

This childish and often malicious inquisitiveness goes at times so far as to preclude any possibility of humor and to cause extreme discomfort to the victinr.
English public schools have been notorious for their bullies. But in Chinese schools,
almost every schoolboy is at one time or another the object of unwelcome attentiorr.
A student wearing a new gown to school will invariably receive impertinent jeering;
thus some girls who have trunkfuls of new dresses at home would resolutely refuse
to wear anything but blue cotton garments in order to avoid unwelcome publicity.
Rarely does a person having a new haircut escape being reminded of the fact or
being patted on the head by his fellow students. A student seen with a date in a
theater on Saturday will be an objectof animatedinterpst: he will oftenbe required
to conciliate his tormentors by treating them to candies or ice cream. If his date
happens to be his classmate, the furor created will reach even bigger proportions.
Many sensitive girls, therefore, refuse to have dates in high school simply because
they want to avoid this public exposure and the embarrassing consequences.
This public inhibition of the individual'd right to do what he pleases is really
the reverse of humor, which implies a more detached and tolerant view of other
people's activities. Thus one may say of the average Chinese that he retains the unconscious malice of the child. Like the child, when his laughter is not purelv
negativs-1he ridicule or disapproval of other people's physiogrromy, intelligence,
or behavior-hs fakss delight in any demonstration of cleverness, in the form o[
mechanical ingenuity, verbal wit, or in a well-manipulated situation in which one
person outsmarts another. Any Westem gadget, properly exploited, finds a ready
market in large Chinese cities, whatever its utility. Much of the ancient Chinest:
writing which passes for humor usually consists of records of clever sayings anci
stratagems, which give the weak an edge over the strong. The earliest "humorists"
whose lives are included in the Records of the Historian were court jesters who by
farfetched analogies steered their masters out of the path of folly. Because of the
Taoist distrust of brute force, the Chinese came to admire clevrness; many of the
comic folk heroes are not unlike Eulenspiegel in their resourcefulness in cheating tht:

19

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illrcla

h ttre

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rist
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Or

an

Chinese

Humor

33

stupid and putting one oYer on the smart. In popular fiction the beloved heroes are
always infinitely resourceful in military and diplomatic stratagems. The way Chu-ko
Liang obtains arrows from his enernies by launching into the river, during a foggy
night, boats manned by straw men drawing the fire of enemy archers, is not exactly
humor, but a kind of cleverness that is exhilarating to the Chiaese mind. The reader
shares with Chu-ko Liang a sense of triumph which is akin to laughter. Likewise, the
Chinese heroes in adventure fiction are not merely men of prowess whom ordinary
mortals could hope to imitate. An American boy tries to become a baseball player
or cowboy hero; a chiaese boy, or for that matter, a chinese aduh, by reading about
beings defying every law of mortal probability, turns away from combativeness to a
region of comic fantasy and pastoral justice. The most resourcefi:I of Chinese heroes,
the Monkey n The Journey to the llest,is in this sense a supreme comic creation.
THE LAUGHTER oF the Chinese mulsses is often childish and primitive; this is one
of the reasons for ascribing to the Chinese race its perpetual youth. But more
important than the lack of humane education in the inhibition of the Chinese sense
of humor is the serious business of living in an overpopulated land. This is especially
true since the impact of commercial and industrial civilization has thrown the people
off their balance, and the old division of labor no longer obtains. Most people, even
after high school, are not specifically qualified for any job; hence their only chance
of securing a position is through exploitation of their relatives. Humor no longer
rules where there is tension of any kind existing between a group of people. The arid
kind of ceremoniousness with which a person in an inferior position defers to his
superior, the kind of supercilious arrogance with which the latter treats the former,
and the kind of external courtesy and covert distrust and jealousy among persons of
similar rank aspiring for promotion are humor-eclipsing phenomena in a country
where there is not a rice-bowl for everybody. This observation holds more or less
true of every country, but this kind of tension is particularly noticeable in a city like
shanghai where the struggle for survival claims all one's waking faculties.
All this serious business of living, however, constitutes a source of '1rnconscious" humor to a good-tempered onlooker, foreign or chinese. Life in a
Chinese city where the new and old ways make for incongruous contests is a source
of infinite fun; modern and medieval vehicles crawl at the same pace during the
perpetual traffic jam, and people are alternately on guard and out of temper, using
both the most polite and the most vile of language=ln that sense China is a rich land
qiflTgl_!9f_pecause the people Laveadopl-gj-L4e turrnoro"s;ttita br fther
beca-use they can 6-6ieets of humorous contemplaiion. During the thirties, when
Lil Vutilt i"-"prrsiid"liuraor'-iii china, the nation suddenly became humorconscious. Writers found no difficulty in caricaturing and ridiculing the too obvious
national weaknesses and vices as embodied in typical characters like the warlord,
the government official, the C-onfucian gentl,qman, the pot-bellied merchant, the selfimportant retumed student, the petty clerk, the conscientious Leftist writer, and the
country bumpkin. Most of the writers, however, stopped at the sketch or essay and
did not creatE,a sustained. huglorous.vision.of modem Chines-9- U,fe,. The early humorous novels of Lao Sh and Chang T'ien-yi, read today, often seem merely facetious
and the element of contempt is too palpable behind the mechanical manipulation

!%

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34

RENDITIoNS SPring 1978

produce a Dickens, ftrr

of simple humors. It is a pity that republican china did not
than in ttie
observation
for
field
richer
a
novelist could have
I ;;';;-;;|i.

\o*oru-u of modern Chinese life.

t'-'-wi; *.-ctirr"', humorists, then? Anyone who is sufficiently

enlightened to
tlte
popular
superstition,
of
jargon,
the absurdity
see the hollowness of form and
is
scholar
the
temperament,
incongruity of fact and pretension. By education and
with
concerned
much
too
equipped io fiu that role, provided, of course' he is not
that all warlords and
personal gain or advancement. Lin Yutang inclines to think
'i*porturri
to criticisn
officials in China are humorists: this obsewation is subject
officiais
and
warlords
to the extent that humor must be disinterested. The chinese
their
with
along
forms,
are not disinterested: their pious compliance with hollow
as a
humor
of
product
ieuay prof"ssion of noble sentiments, is not so much a
thorough
Their
power and wealth.
camouflage to hide their more seedy dealings for
incidental'
merely
is
humor
their
cynical ,."tit* is such that

.T-tretr-ad'itio..nalChincsehumoristswe.rgusuallyretiredofficialsandscholar:s
of detachment and their
unsuccessful in the civil sersice examinations. Their attitude

of humor. A person conindependent incomes helped them to enjoy the luxury

hard to see the ludicrous in his
cerned with pressing p.obiems such as hunger finds it
of china's subtlest humorists'
surroundings. The p*t T'"o Yan-ming, who was one
his back for five bushels
bend
not
"would
said upon resigning a petty post that he
thus afford to take
could
and
of ,i.""; in fact he had already a nice little farm
sporadic until the
was
china
things philosophically. Evidence of literary humor in
required for the
writing
of
Ming dynasty when ihe scholars, disgusted with the type
relationship
intimate
civil service examinations, turned to the familiar essay. The
of the
discovery
the
that, until
between literary genre and creative expression is such
Folk
humoi:,
in china'
informal style, genial self-expressio, ** difficult to achieve
drama, jokes, and
and
novel
the
by
of
care
taken
was excellently
however,

anecdotes.

TheChinesescholar-humoristisinvariably'a-T491g!,..hedonist.Hehasnoneof
tatei paini to describe the minor
often a humorist merely in the
is
He
pleasures and disappointments in his own life.
toward the world's follies'
sense that he takes a philosophical, tolerant attitude
terms of seclusion and is
in
superstitions, and ambitions. He conceives happiness
pleasures
such as listening tc
primarily interested in nature and in direct sensuous
with water
prepared
tea
the wind among the bamboo leaves or sipping a good cup of
human
complex
the
that
from a pellucid spring. He acts on the Taoist conviction
by
stripping
only
comes
relationships are a tig tottrer and that enjoyment of life
not, however, take hin
does
reality
of
exploration
His
essentials.
life to its bare
greater writers'
to the realm of moral scruples and decisions, which challenges the
promoterc
modern
its
Because humor enjoys a high place in social intercourse,
hov''exceptions'
few
often claim for it an analogous importance in literature. with
the
ar
proceeds
on
He
ever, the professional humorist is always a minor writer.
which
formula
a literary
sumption that man is a lovable creature and concocts
snug as the world
mentally
as
is
world
His
flatters the reader's sense of superiority.
living rooms' and gleaming
of women,s magazines with its cute babies, cozy tJrat,
whereas satAe has long
refrigerators. It ; ;ilptomatiq o-f lhe,moder*-age-

Dickens,s extroverted interest in other people, ut

t.:t'

Chinese

Humor

\
\\
\

35

en:oy94*9*9!assical literary sta-tus. tLe-31]1--of humor was a comparatively recent

.ptenom"non. Satire is akin to the tragic view of life in seeing the bestial qualitiesin
.ri mrnieed chastisement and correction. Jonson, Molire, Pope, and Swift all
took a serious view of mankind and would not tolerate the smugness of the New
yorker, Punch, and their modern Chinese parallels. One explanation for the belated
development of literary humor in China was the.9onfucian emphasis on satire and
didacticilqr._The comic portions in the Chinese novels are always satirical rather than
humorous'

TO A oereCHED OBSERVER then, China is a land of rich unconscious humor.

The average Chinese enjoys various forms of ridicule and laughter which do not have
the digpity or charity of humor. Conscious Chinese humor fecds-upqArdioynCiasy,_Jomp, and hypocrisy. In situations where questions of honor and pride are involved,
/ th. Chin"se often have recourse to partially humorous solutions such as face-saving -!*and Ah Q'ism. Much has been written about different types of national humor; upon closer examination, however, they can be adequately accounted for by different
social conventions and usages. This is readily proved by the fact that slapstick
comedies manufactured in Hollywood have a ready market in every nation in the

a fuller
manners
are
Harold
Lloyd,
of
American
not
so
welcome.
Chaplin,
Charlie
knowledge
and Laurel and Hardy were once household names in China because their antics
speak a universal language and exploit the fundamental risible situation of a small
man caught in a situation too big for him. Humor also benefits from cultural
contact. The influence of American humor and slapstick comedies is perceptible in
Chinese magazines and movie-making today.
Though humor is universal, the observation that certain nations have more
sense of humor and others have less is still a true one. This is not so much a matter
of inherent racial disposition as of congglgg-s guidance of, character developrnent by
re,spo_n5ihle educators- and'.'politiciaas." Modern physio-psychology classifies man
according to three types: viscerotonic, somatotonic and cerebrotonic. In rough
translation into lay language, they stand for the "belly" type, the "muscles" type,
the "brains" type. The "belly" type, extroyert and convivial, is the promoter of
genial laughter; the "brains" type, while less inclined to conviviality, is not incapable
of wit or humor. It is the muscular person who is the potential enemy of society
because his chief interest in life consists in the exercise of power over his fellow
men. He is physiologically devoid of humor because he is incapable of admitting
personal weakness or inferiority. In the traditional Chinese social order the aggressive tendencies of the muscular type were held under check and the types held
up for imitation have always been the Confucian scholar, the Confucian gentlemansquire, the Buddhist or Taoist recluse. Pre-war Germany, on the other hand, was
relatively humorless. For nearly a hundred years it had been exploiting the aggressive
tendencies of the muscular person and promoting a philosophy which sanctioned
his behavior in the supposed interests of the nation or race. The German people of
the middle ages had a different philosophy and were quite a *.rry people.
The emergence of the muscular person into a position of dominance, too, ha.
been a distinctive feature of modern China. In the face of increasing national
wodd whereas sophisticated comedies whose appreciation requires

,
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RENDITIONS SPring 1978

j6

and gentleman has been

humiliations, the traditional ideal of the confucian scholar
substituted as the hero' Now
discredited and in tris place the national savior has been
person which at first
held up for admiration are the characteristics of the muscular
pliancy to discipiine. The
glance appeal so un-Chinese: efficiency, militarism, and
as the first requisite to
half-baked intellectuals, students, and politicians all find
character along the [nes
national reconstruction-the transformation of the chinese
They are ashamed of the age-long inefficienq', laziness'
**t"rity.
;i";ffi-i;;
kills
, -comrption,
t r..or of the scholar, which withers ideavn and

*o

irrrrionriut"

initiative.
The chinese on the main'
But the habit of humor cannot be easily outgrown.
cynical observationsat
and
remarks
land find momentary relief in exchanging witty

theexpenseofthedead-seriousCommunistcadres.Theweaponofhumorisfar
fromimmediatelylethal,butatleastitprovokesachuckleorsmileandfora
communist activrties in the
moment enables the victim of tyranny t view the
nature

of a terrible

farce'

li
'1
I
'11

li

A Sinsular Gift

.1

,l

lt,

even
The world over, it has been conceded that life is in general serious,
minority.
a
constitute
if not eamest. Even in Asia the laughing philosophers
reveals a sense
Naturally, only a minor proportion of chinese art and literature
part
of China's
no
that
held
be
reasonably
of .o-.iy. Nevertheless, li may

legacy

to civilization

is more unusual or precious than its singular gift of humor.

p.rsons acquainted with Chinese statuary are well aware' the Chinese'
,1,.
and of
"lt
unlike most peoples, actually created for themselves a god of humor
laughter.
W. WELLS

-HENRY
From Traditional Chinese Humor:
A StudY in Art and Literature,
Indiana UniversitY Press, 1971.