Humor with Chinese Characteristics

I really enjoy the company of those who have a natural sense of humor. After being in China for about two months now, I am finding Chinese netizens and my Chinese classmates' ubiquitous humor to be a very unique blend of irony and self-deprecation contextualized to mock and poke fun at the larger society and its system of governance. Westerners may be quick to judge that Chinese citizens are brainwashed by party rhetoric and CCTV. But nay -- I'm finding Chinese citizens to be extremely sharp, sly, and humorous in expressing their opinions on their country and their future.

A few weeks ago, I went to a play called 貌似疯狂 (rough translation "perhaps crazy"). The basic story is about the people living in a psychiatric ward. There are folks who want to go into the ward to escape debts. One patient is a former government official who went crazy over his obsession over promotion, another is a former real-estate developer who became crazy after the boom of real-estate contracts. There is a mad poet whose words and ruminations on life and his society didn't seem so outlandish... A conclusion I took away from the play is that the patients living in the ward are the only ones living without pretense compared to the "normal" people outside. Here is a sampling of the play's humor which I find to be similar to my classmates' "humorous" laments on society:

• Praises of China the strong and rising country are followed by comments such as "Our mother land is strong and does not need any help, and does not need more people. I can't find jobs." (强大的祖国不缺人，都不需要人）.
• If inner beauty is so important then why are we seeing the growth of beauty salons everywhere? (心灵美重要那美容院院生意咋那么好？）
• The society is sick, and you must have been infected. （社会病了，那你被传染了).
• Only the mad is honest, all the people outside are living in pretense. (只有疯子才是诚实的，外面的人都在装。）
• Let us engage in gift-giving, not bribing. (行礼不行贿）
• The normality outside is all faked, real normality can only be found here (psychiatric ward). (外面的正常是装出来的，只有这里才是正常的)
• Corrupt official says: I drink the people's and I eat the country's. （贪官说：我和的是人民的，吃的是国家的)
• We are so poor that we only have money left. （我们穷得只剩下钱了)
• On directing the audience to the proper exist: "If you want to get rich, go through the front door, if you want some romance, go through the side door, and if you to become a government official, go through the back door." （要发财的走前面，念人走侧门，要当官的走后门)

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Over many dinner conversations, my Chinese friends sometimes casually throw in popular Party slogans and propaganda, but only to twist their meanings or switch out one or two words so as to describe the rampant materialism and corruption around them. I was a bit taken aback by their candor.

Moreover, poking fun at the Party's "red history" and slogans seemed to have become a hobby and lucrative business as well. My friends brought me to a very popular store in Chengdu which sells interesting "red" souvenirs such as Mao's quotes, buttons, cups, and other trinkets. However, these gimmicks come with a twist. The original slogans are perverted into humorous phrases that reflect Chinese society today. For example, one famous slogan by Mao which originally states "study diligently, advance daily" now reads "study diligently, sleep daily." （好好学习，天天向上 --> 好好学习，天天睡觉). It's incredible to see the large crowds, mostly people in their 20s, that flock to this store to purchase fun inversions and tokens of what were once the most solemn directives and guidelines of Chinese people's lives. It's now hip to make fun of Party rhetoric.

Note: the picture is taken inside the store which also sells Maoist era ceramic cups used by almost all Chinese to drink water and tea. Except that now they are covered with "perverted" Propaganda.

Chinese humor, gotta love it.